extreme temperance in the indulgence of the sexual propensities except during my Bowery period described in my Autobiography of an Androgyne and Riddle of the Underworld. Extreme temperance in indulgence of any fleshly appetite is, for all humanity, the sole means of salvation from the shipwreck of earthly life. Overindulgence of any appetite defeats its own end.
Thus while nearly all other girl-boys are doomed to be forgotten by mankind a few years after their bodies return "dust to dust," I myself am—I feel—destined to live in the memory of savants primarily because of my extensive self-restraint, and secondarily because of my excelling the other girl-boys in innate brain-power.
It was F'ank who initiated me, at two, in the mysteries which gullible parents think children do not learn before puberty. But down to twelve, I considered all species of sex relations as the monopoly of naughty children. All adults had of course outgrown such depths of nastiness.
Down to my present age of close to half-a-century, F'ank has been the hero in half my many sexual dreams. After I reached seven, we ceased to be confidential. I therefore never confessed to him that his influence prior to my seventh year almost wrecked my adult life—probably consigning me to an irresponsible, intensive fairie career—and a thousand times made me wish, because a slave to fellatio, that I were dead. For I firmly believe that girl-boys, if not repeatedly
denial of six-sevenths of one's strong fleshly desires. That is what it was with me. Professional fairies commonly indulge more than ten times as often per year as I did. But as a result, they go early to the grave.
