At one time, for the
period of a year I should say, I tried to overcome the desire for
masturbation by gradual stages, on the principle of the
drunkard's cure by which he took every day less tipple by the
insertion of one pebble more in his bottle. I marked on my
calendar the erotic dreams and the nights on which I masturbated,
and sought gradually to extend the intervening periods. Six
weeks, however, was the longest time for which I was able to
abstain."
A few years later the writer of this communication formed an
intimate relationship (in which he did not make the first
advances) with a youth, some years younger than himself and of
lower social class, whose development he was able to assist. "But
for my part," he remarks, "I owe him as much as I gave him, for
his love lighted up the gold of affection that was in me and
consumed the dross. It was from him that I first learned that
there was no such thing as a hard-and-fast line between the
physical and the spiritual in friendship." This relationship
lasted for some years, when the young man married; its effects
are described as very beneficial to both parties; all the sexual
troubles vanished, together with the desire to masturbate.
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