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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"


"How far the rather frequent masturbation between the ages of 10
and 13 may have had to do with weakly health I do not know, but
when I was 12 I was taken by my mother to a famous doctor. He
made no inquiries of a sexual nature, but he advised that I
should be sent away from London. He had a sentimental horror of
violent games, etc., for boys, and put aside various suggested
public schools. Finally I was sent to a private school at the
seaside.
"The private school was clean and wholesome. The plunge into the
sexual cocytus of the great public school that followed was
effectually sudden. In my day ---- was a perfect stew of
uncleanness. There was plenty of incontinence, not much cruelty,
no end of dirty conversation, and a great deal of genuine
affection, even to heroism, shown among the boys in their
relations to one another. All these things were treated by
masters and boys alike as more or less unholy, with the result
that they were either sought after or flung aside, according to
the sexual or emotional instinct of each.


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