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Having completed my internship at St. Marylebone Infirmary, where my duties comprised primarily castrating working-class onanists and occasionally a sodomite, I joined the practise of Dr. Sir Roderick Hopkins.I soon discovered that Sir Roderick is a madman who is attempting to eradicate the vice of sodomy by nullifying every sodomite who enters his surgery. He had hired me to perform the phallectomies (also known, incorrectly as penectomies) for which, to put the matter bluntly, he lacked sufficient skill. I hate performing phallectomies and, in the treatment of sodomy, this is a totally unnecessary mutilation. Castration is quite sufficient to dissuade the sodomite from further such activity. He disclosed inadvertently that his rage against sodomy resulted from his having been forcibly sodomised by a more senior student in public school.[what Americans call a private school] I shouted at him "My God, man. Who the hell hasn't been buggered in public school ? " "Precisely my point, sir. The vice is endemic and IT MUST BE STAMPED OUT !" After a year spent in assisting this monomaniac in mutilating boys and young men, I could bear it no longer. The "straw which broke the camel's back " was the butchery of a 13-year old boy. I grant that the boy was a nasty brat who had buggered eight younger boys in a six-month period. However, castration would have been sufficient. Nullifying him destroyed his will to live and, as soon as he could walk, he leaped to his death from the Tower Bridge. That very day, I received a letter from St. Petersburg, Russia from one Dr.. Boris Vassilievitch Bulgarin who had heard very favourable reports of me from Heidelberg University and St. Marylebone Infirmary to which he had written seeking a young surgeon to buy into and ultimately take over his practise. The said practise was limited to disorders of the generative organs of males of the nobility. Dr. Bulgarin explained that he had been diagnosed with macular degeneration of the retina and that his failing vision was making it extremely difficult for him to perform delicate surgery.I foresaw two difficulties in accepting his offer. I did not speak Russian and and I should be forced to endure Russian winters, the same kind of winter which destroyed 89% of Napoleon's army. Dr. Bulgarin had written me in German, in which I am fluent, having attended Heidelberg University (and I have a sabre scar on my right cheek which attests to that fact.) In a postscript to his letter, Dr. Bulgarin assured me that all well-educated Russians speak German and many speak French, though English is not common.I would almost surely not need an interpreter to communicate with my patients . I would, of course, be much better fed and clothed than Napoleon's wretched soldiers. I wrote Dr. Bulgarin immediately accepting his offer and when he had acknowledged receipt of my letter and expressing his pleasure at my acceptance, I confronted Sir Roderick and told him in no uncertain terms, what I thought of him. He blustered that I would certainly never receive a letter of reference from him. I assured him that I would never work for anyone who would accept a reference from him.I accused him of murdering the boy he had forced me to assist him in mutilating and told him to his face that I regarded him as a dangerous lunatic. I heard later that, after Sir Roderick resumed performing his own phallectomies, patients began dying under the knife and his practise dwindled greatly. Some grieving father should have slain him. After a long tedious journey by railroad, river boat, coach, and, ultimately troika, I arrived in St. Petersburg in early June. It is a beautiful city and the weather could not have been more pleasant . Dr. Bulgarin was a kindly old man of nearly 70, still vigorous, but hampered by his failing eyesight.He took me into his home and treated me as his own son. In fact, I think that I took the place of his son, Igor, who had chosen to go into law rather than medicine, practising in Moskva. Igor rarely had time to visit his parents in St. Petersburg. Yekaterina Bulgarina, the Dr.'s wife, was a stout, hearty, motherly woman who immediately informed me that I didn't eat enough and that she intended to put some meat on my bones. Truth to tell, St. Marylebone had run me ragged and working for Sir Roderick had made me rather dyspeptic.Dr. Boris assured me that she was right. I would need some insulation on my frame to endure the Russian winters. After dinner, Dr. Boris (as he preferred to be called) and I retired to the library for vodka and cigars and he asked me about my experience with Dr. Sir Roderick Hopkins. I told him the unvarnished truth, that Hopkins is a madman, and waited to hear what his opinion of sodomy as a medical problem and how it should be treated might be. Dr. Boris sighed and said "Realize that my opinion is not that of the majority. The excessively 'judicial' attitude, carried to insane lengths by Dr. Hopkins and others is commoner than my view. Sodomy is a social and religious problem. Its importance as a medical problem is exaggerated. If I may ask, what is yiour religion ?" I said "I am nominally a High Church Episcopalian. However, I have studied comparitive religion and have come to the conclusion that Christianity has no monopoly on truth. For example, I find much merit in Buddhism." "Then I think that my views on Judaism and Christianity will not offend you" replied Dr. Boris. "Judaism is probably the most self-serving religion in history, serving mainly to lend divine sanction and corroboration to Jewish pretensions and mythology. Christianity, having started as an heretical sect of Judaism, has inherited and accepted uncritically, the entire corpus of Judaic dogma. Logically, Christians cannot be anti-Semitic because their religion except for parts of the Gospels is itself Semitic.Of course, Christians are anti-Semitic, and yet they accept the entirety of the Old Testament which is but a farrago of Jewish myth. The Jews hated sexual activity between members of the same sex, and it does present serious social difficulties. However, custom and law have never been binding enough for the Jews. To give authority to their customs and laws, they always had to involve Jehovah. So, to support their hatred of sexual activity between members of the same sex, they had to invent a myth to illustrate how offensive and infuriating such behaviour was to their irascible deity, Jehovah. Hence, Sodom and Gomorrah. None of the great powers in the ancient world ever heard of these cities. They are never mentioned, nor is the horrible story of their destruction. Christianity, of course, has taken over this myth wholesale along with the rest of the Pentateuch. And so, Christianity is as intolerant of such behaviour as the Jews are. The myth of Onan is even worse. Only an idiot or a monk could imagine that Onan masturbated. He withdrew from his sister-in-law's vagina to avoid impregnating her and so, his seed fell onto the ground. Onan's sin was disobeying a direct order from his commanding officer, Jehovah. The Jews may not have misunderstood this story, but the Christians certainly did. As I see it, there is no necessary connection between morality and religion. Churchmen like to act as moral arbiters; it gives them power over the faithful. The Greek philosophers showed that a sensible man can arrive at a valid code of conduct without reference to his God or the gods. Judaism and Christianity both regard morality as divinely ordained. There may be natural moral laws, and like the rest of creation, in that sense, they may be considered divinely ordained, but moral principles can be discovered or derived by reason. They need not be revealed by a deity. You have doubtless noticed that I have referred only to Judaism and Christianity and have ignored Islam. Islam, despite its pose of rabid anti-Semitism, is nothing but soured warmed-over Judaism. It exaggerates the intolerance of Judaism and invents a few more mythical illustrations to bolster its positions. It meddles in people's sexual activity just as Judaism and Christianity do. I say that it ias not necessary to involve religion in the moral , legal, and social issues involved with men's sexual activities. From a purely medical point of view, sodomy and masturbation are hardly any worse than scrtaching and finger-nail biting. Dr. Hopkins had a very bad experience because he was RAPED. The outrage and shock are the same as those a girl or woman experiences when she is raped. It is the violation of being used involuntarily for another's pleasure that harms the victim more than any physical pain. In this respect, sodomitic rape is no worse than the rape of a woman. Voluntary sexual activity between persons of the same sex (and nearly the same age) is harmless if they are not taught to reach with disgust, shame, and outrage. Well, I have gone on at great length. How do you feel about these issues ?" "I think your view represent good sense, Dr. Boris. I shan't say 'common sense' for, heaven knows it isn't common. I think that we see things much alike and I am looking forward to working with you." Most of Dr. Boris' patients were young noblemen and many of their problems resulted from the extreme inbreeding of the Russian nobility. I learned that satyriasis, rare in England, for example, is a very common complaint and is associated with priapism and spermatorrhoea , forming what I came to call the SPS syndrome. In many of these young men, satyriasis takes the form of bouts of sexual mania: insatiable lust which results in a spell of feverish, violent, one might well say rabid sexual activity. Though most of these yoiung men confine their activity to females, some of them are sodomites and will attack any man or boy who catches their eye. Some of the sodomites have been slain in self-defense by men whom they have attempted to rape, or by the fathers of boys they have attacked. One evening a few days after my arrival, Dr. Boris and I were summoned to treal a victim of satyriasis. He was referred to only as "Master V,M.", but it soon became apparent that he was of a very powerful and wealthy family of extremely high rank. A coach from which all insignia had been removed was sent for us and the curtains were drawn and tightly closed. We were accompanied by a man in a black domino covering the livery of a noble family.There was no way to conceal (short of blindfolding us) the fact that the home to which we were brought is a palace. We were led to a bedroom in which a handsome young of very aristocratic mien was spread-eagled on a large 4-posted bed. His wrists and ankles were tied to the posts with silken straps. He was naked and his large membrum virile was rigidly erect, purple and covered with prominent veins bulging as if about to burst. Semen was oozing and dribbling from the meatus."Master V.M." was thrashing about as much as his bonds permitted and begging for Mlle Fifi to be sent to him. One of the servants said "Her jaw is tired, Your Hi............ah, that is, Master She will come as soon as she has rested." " I NEED HER NOW !" shouted the young man in a tormented tone of voice.A tall opulently-dressed man wearing a black silken mask ordered a servant "Bring her." A few moments later, a strikingly beautiful young woman in the dress of an upstairs maid entered the room. She was evidently startled to see Dr. Boris and me, but the man who had ordered her brought motioned her to the bed. Mlle Fifi took "Master V.M."s engorged member into her mouth and began to suck it. Soon, the young man was bouncing up and down on the mattress, Suddenly, he have vent to a great shout of ecstasy . Semen spouted out of Mlle Fifi's mouth even though she was obviously swallowing as fast as possible. After several minutes, "Master V.M." relaxed and lapsed into unconsciousness or sleep. As all of the previous speech had been in Russian, Dr. Boris had been quietly translating for me. Now he introduced me to the nobleman who gave the orders and explained that I spoke only "Nemetz" The nobleman then adressed both of us in German." Well, Dr., what must be done? "It will be necessary to castrate him. There is a very delicate operation which I would try, but my eyesight is such that, even in daylight, I could not perform it and I have not yet taught it to my assistant." "I presume that you agree with me, Doctor, that whatever is tio be done must be done immediately." "Yes. Gospodin, but the light is bad even for a simple castration." "I can have more candles brought." "Dr. Peers, can you perform a bilateral orchidectomy by candle-light ?" "Yes" "Then we shall proceed." The operation was routine. I had performed literally scores of them. I suspect that I could have done it in total darkness if necessary. As I opened the scrotum and tied and cut the cords, I wondered what the delicate operation might be which Dr. Boris had mentioned but which he could not perform owing to his eye-sight. Within minutes, the young man's priapic erection and spermatorrhoea subsided. He fell into adeep natural sleep. When he awoke, he would probably be apalled by the way in which he had been cured. He would never need Mlle Fifi's services again. To be continued |