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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"


"Though of a strongly nervous temperament myself, and sensitive,
my health is good. I am not aware of any tendency to physical
disease. In early manhood, however, owing, I believe, to the
great emotional tension under which I lived, my nervous system
was a good deal shattered and exhausted. Mentally and morally my
nature is pretty well balanced, and I have never had any serious
perturbations in these departments.
"At the age of 8 or 9, and long before distinct sexual feelings
declared themselves, I felt a friendly attraction toward my own
sex, and this developed after the age of puberty into a
passionate sense of love, which, however, never found any
expression for itself till I was fully 20 years of age. I was a
day-boarder at school and heard little of school-talk on sex
subjects, was very reserved and modest besides; no elder person
or parent ever spoke to me on such matters; and the passion for
my own sex developed gradually, utterly uninfluenced from the
outside. I never even, during all this period, and till a good
deal later, learned the practice of masturbation.


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