For instance, I cannot, even now, read the more erotic of
Boccaccio's stories without a good deal of sexual excitement and
restlessness, which can be relieved only by vigorous exercise or
masturbation.
The first ten years of my life were passed on a farm, most of the
time without playmates or companions of my own age.
As far back as I can remember I indulged in elaborate day-dreams
in which I figured as the chief character along with a few others
who were chiefly creatures of my imagination, but at times
borrowed from reality. These others were always boys until I
learned the proper function of the sexual organs, when girls
usurped the whole stage in numbers beyond the limits of a Turkish
harem. Even at school my day-dreams were scarcely interrupted,
for my shyness and timidity made me very unpopular among my
schoolmates, who tormented me after the fashion of small boys or
neglected me, as the spirit moved them. To make matters worse, I
was brought up under the "sheltered life system," kept carefully
away from the "bad boys," which category included nearly all the
youngsters of the community, and deluged with moral homilies and
tirades on things religious until I was thoroughly convinced that
goodness and discomfort, the right and the unpleasant, were
strictly synonymous; and I was kept through much of the time
facing the prospect of an early death, to be followed by the good
old orthodox hell or the equal miseries of its gorgeous
alternative.
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