Another feminine resemblance is that at the age of half-a-century, I show not the least tendency to baldness.
Several of my college associates coddled and babied me. They would throw an arm around me and cry: "Child!" They would hold me on their laps. With the three ultra-virile with whom I became most intimate and confidential, I would often in private throw myself into their arms and pillow my head on their bosoms, while they would exclaim: "Lovesick boy!" They never betrayed my strange conduct to others or appeared less friendly. Only one of the three made greater advances than I myself—the only one belonging to the tremendously virile class. What chiefly kept me from even hinting at extremes was fear of expulsion in case it should become generally known. But I was also strongly influenced by the dictates of society and the teaching of the Bible—as I then erroneously understood the latter.[1]
"You still possess the real childlike naivete," students have remarked. "And you possess childlike features to harmonize with your decidedly childlike manner of going about things. You are certainly The Boy Who Never Grew to Be a Man."
- ↑ One of my three confidants achieved the highest success in life of any student in college with me;—one of the highest political offices in the United States. Down to forty, I confided my homosexual adventures, although after we graduated, our personal relations were never closer than shaking hands. Within two years of his honorable name's appearing in absolutely every newspaper of the Union, he permitted me to receive mail addressed to one of my aliases (used only by those who knew I was an androgyne) in his care. At the time I did not realize the favor I was asking—the risk to his reputation that he unselfishly took. Ungrounded scandals sometimes arise when a full-fledged man does favors for an androgyne.
