Chapter XI

I think it shows that my real interest was not in the matters sexual of which I have written, in that I really had a glorious time during my years in college. I did my studying conscientiously and had high marks. I entered into all of the college activities with enthusiasm—excepting one. I would never join any sorority. I received urgent invitations, but for some reason I did not care to affiliate with a group of women. I have adhered to that determination all through life. I was eligible to many of the national organizations for women, but they did not appeal to me. How glad I have often been when I have read of the absurd fights going on in many of these societies. I have affiliated with men’s organizations, when women were eligible, and have enjoyed working with men in business. I have been treated as “man to man” and have met them in that spirit.

Before the end of my last year, Flo went to her home in the East, as she was expecting the arrival of a baby. They had lost a baby girl and were so happy in the new expectation. I was left “in charge” of the Professor.

I used to look about me and wonder. There we were, all in what would be termed “the highest class of society,” respected and loved by all. Yet think of the things which were going on! I believe that similar affairs were in vogue among others of our set, but others were as secret as we, and as everyone is, for that is one subject that is never discussed with a third party. These things will go on until there is some drastic re-arrangements of the sex regime.

People are now daring to talk about birth control, and important provisions are being made for the execution of such methods. This is most encouraging and is a great step, but to my mind it is not really solving an important problem. It is rather like a medicine to allay pain which does not get at the root of the evil and exterminate the cause of that pain. There is no suffering comparable to unsatisfied sex desire, nor any condition which brings about such dire results. Scientists will some day come to the point of searching for a way to meet this disease and will then have made for the human race a real advance, morally, physically, and mentally.

Up to this time, I felt that I was the only girl who had the sex desire for woman, rather than the accepted one for men. I thought perhaps the awful experiences that I had endured at the hands of men were in a way responsible for that impulse. I now believe that urge to be just as normal for some as is the contrary for others. The pride of the male has had much to do with keeping this phase of nature under the ban as undesirable. The time is coming when man’s love for man and woman’s love for woman will be studied and understood as it never has been in the past. Books touching on this subject will not be censored. Women will be too anxious to co-operate with their daughters in the understanding of matters which have baffled them all their lives and led them into untold complications, matrimonial and otherwise.

When I returned home after having made what was considered a very satisfactory showing in college, the question came “What next?”

Art would have been my choice, and the opportunity opened if I were to go to be with my sister in Boston and there get the best of instruction. But I knew what that would mean. I simply shuddered at the thought of again going through any of those experiences. At home I felt so free and safe, as our home had been moved where all former relations were severed. My parents urged me to stay with them for a year at least, so I accepted a call to teach in a little New England school, near my home.

I may or may not have mentioned that I was born under the zodiacal sign of Gemini, the twins, and had thereby, according to astrologers, a dual nature. At this time the feminine side of my nature was asserting itself strongly. I felt a very real desire for children. Being in this school perhaps encouraged this feeling, or perhaps the phase through which I was passing made my efforts there a great success. It became the “show school” of the town.

I was now twenty years old, and of course knew that I must be married, if I were to fulfill my desire for a family. Much as I hated the thought of the processes which I would have to endure in order to attain my goal, I did that year yield to the advances of a man twelve years my senior. His family were lifelong friends of my parents and, as there would be a possibility of my remaining near them, the match was looked upon with favor. Not so, however, with my sisters, who had known of much more advantageous alliances, both from a financial as well as from a social point of view, which were available. I had had quite a taste of high society and, in a way, it did not seem to appeal to me. However, as I felt that I could never love any man, and as I had to marry one in order to have the desired children, it might as well be one who would perhaps prove a clean and good father.

With the close of my college career had ended the chapter of Flo and the Professor. Their baby boy had arrived, and her attention was wholly centered about him. As our lives fell far apart, the flame just naturally flickered out, though we always remained friends. We came together now and then, but there was no resumption of our former relations, as our minds were otherwise occupied.

My marriage was the next event in the drama in which I was playing. I went through the preparations and the ceremony with the conventional enthusiasm. The honeymoon, as such, was a nightmare. I did my duty as a virtuous young girl, and I am sure I convinced my husband of my chastity. So began the unfortunate life of deceit, in order to cover up the nightmare of my own life, which I felt to be utterly wrong and worthy to be despised. The usual disgust accompanied each recurrence of relations which I became more and more convinced had been invented solely for men’s convenience and pleasure.

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I soon found that friend husband was not anxious to assume the responsibilities of fatherhood. Much to my horror, he took great care lest any accidents should happen. Things went on in this way for some time, when we had a serious talk on marriage. I did not exactly say, “What do you suppose I married for?” but I did argue that the consummation of the ideal marriage should be the coming of children. I reminded him that unless children were forthcoming his pleasures and mine (supposing it were a pleasure) could be bought and sold on the open mart.

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However, the unexpected and longed-for happened, and I became pregnant. I believe that for the first time in my life, I felt secure and normal. My husband began to worry about the coming expenses, as he really had no need to, for he had a good salary and we lived at his father’s home. However, this worried me.

There was a teaching vacancy in the next town, but under the supervision of the school board in control of the little district school in which I taught the year before. I was asked to fill this vacancy for a few weeks, and accepted. My bad feelings came early in the morning, and I was quite fit the rest of the day. I was glad to be earning the money, as was my husband.

I was obliged to get up about six o’clock in the morning, in January, before it was light, and be driven in an open sleigh about three miles to the railroad station, suffering with intense nausea all the way. I had had no breakfast. A trip of twenty minutes on the cars was about the last straw, but I lived through that and, after quite a long walk to the hotel, I was ready for a light breakfast. The walk to the school then found me quite ready for the duties of the day. I had charge of the primary department, and loved the work. I had a cold lunch at school, and again the walk and the train and sleigh ride brought me home after dark, with the thermometer often away down below zero. All this for eleven dollars a week, which was considered good pay at that time.

I was happy in doing even so little to meet the coming expenses and so relieve the worries of my spouse. It afforded a wonderful opportunity for working off my surplus energy and such a good excuse for begging off from sexual intercourse, which did less than interest me now that the only reason for tolerance was no longer effective. I continued teaching until the close of the year in June, and really felt that I had paid for the coming event.

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In the large family of my husband’s parents there was a young girl cousin and her widowed mother. The girl was three years younger than I. She was attractive and very musical. She often played to me and this would seem to soothe me, yet it always stirred me deeply. We will call this girl Gladys. She, as well as the whole family, was devoted to me. In fact, I was quite spoiled by them all. Gladys was small and had always been a pet of the whole family. She would always prefer to cuddle in some one’s lap rather than sit in a chair. One day, after playing for me, she came and snuggled down in my lap in a great “comfy” chair. She was a very kissable youngster. Beautiful, reddish hair which curled in the most fascinating little tight ringlets all about her face and neck. Her skin, so soft and pink, was a great temptation. I felt the impulse to caress her, and did. We were both thrilled, but all that this was for me was the thrill I got from her throbbing pulse, in her ecstasy. Here was an outlet in a way, at least, for that terrible suppressed emotion which was so new to me, and which was never satisfied by relations with my husband.

My marriage was to me another means to an end. I was at last, to all appearances, normal, and I was going to have a baby. I had never had any idea of responsibilities to the unborn. I simply visualized the babe in my arms as mine, and this represented the fulfillment of my desire.

Gladys became madly in love with me, and the seeming obsession was laughed at by all the family, who always treated it as a huge joke. There had never come into the lives of these simple country people, whose contact with life has been very limited, anything resembling such an affection. They were quite incapable of comprehending many of life’s great problems.

The large rambling house was on a lovely spot on a large farm, with the Connecticut River flowing through it, and a little lake near the house. In the summer, it was opened to boarders from the cities. My husband had changed the location of his business, and it was thought best for me to stay at home for the summer, he being away through the week, and coming home for Sundays.

When I was no longer able to take an active part in the work of the farm, which I never slighted as long as I was able, I went to my mother’s home for a few months to await coming events. I was happy mentally, but physically always hungry for that something which was lacking, and of which I knew nothing from personal experience. I could but imagine it from the emotions which I had observed in others. I must be wrong some way, for I was not like the others. Yet why that unendurable urge?

Gladys spent much time with me during those last months. She had little use for the city visitors and she had her music to consider first, which was much more important, to her mind. Then, she wanted to be with me. I could hardly wait for the coming of that baby. I thought that all of the physical symptoms which I was enduring would then vanish. At times I would go nearly mad, when the strain of that longing for sexual relief could not be relieved. How well I understood in after years why our insane asylums were full of women who were there because of this very reason: sexual passion ungratified.

One night when Gladys stayed with me, she had her desired relief and we both made strenuous efforts to bring about the same result for me. But to no avail. I was simply mad with desire, and writhed and threw myself about in my agony. In the morning, labor pains began. The nurse and doctor were brought in and I was in ecstasy in the belief that things were really under way. I did every little thing which the nurse, the doctor, and my mother advised, to help things along, never flinching at the terrible pains which recurred every five minutes, with great regularity.

I sang and joked and fairly shouted with joy as each agonizing period came. My husband arrived about six o’clock, scared to death. I had to keep him cheered up, as there seemed to have been very little progress made during the day. Night came and went, with the same program. Pains even more and more severe, but nothing happened. My strength kept up wonderfully, so they said. I was very tired and did get a few winks of sleep between pains which still came at five minute intervals. Sunday night and still no baby. By Monday morning my vitality was about exhausted, and another old country doctor was called in for consultation, which was held with my poor mother sitting in—she who had been through that ordeal nine times with no complications.

I afterwards learned that they wished to take the child in segments, but as there was still life in the little body, my mother would not consent to that. I was given chloroform and went blessedly to sleep, while the child was taken with instruments.

I knew when I came out of the anesthetic that I had no baby. I feebly asked that the body be brought to me. This wish was granted, and time will never erase the bliss I felt while that little body was lying close to mine during that short minute. They took it away with the promise that I could have it again when I had rested—a promise they did not fulfill.

Some will say, “It was all her own fault. She had been wickedly breaking the laws of nature.” That may be. Others may know that the laws of nature and the force of sexual desire, ignored by preceding generations bound by the tradition of secrecy, were left to wreak their overwhelming power on the unsuspecting and ignorant children of my day—as they are still doing today.

With the memory of those precious moments still fresh within me, would it be supposed that I would thus reveal all these innermost secrets of my life, were it not with the thought that by so doing I might be able to help some to an understanding of what our young people are facing in the way of sexual problems today?

My life was in the balance for days, but the return to health came in due time. The usual stereotyped condolences were poured in my ears and I was told by the long-faced, pious females that “it was God’s will.” The result was that I not only hated that kind of a God, but I felt for a time that I hated everyone, while it was really myself that I hated. When they said, as I have since heard many say under similar circumstances, that “it was better than if the baby had lived,” I wanted to scream. Usually, that statement would come from an old maid or from the mother of many children, who was so occupied with the live children in her arms and squealing all about her, that she gave little thought to the little unborn one who was such a vital part of her very life for those few wonderful months.

While I was some of the time consumed with that fearful unsatisfied desire during the months prior to my confinement, I had many hours of pure delight with that little lively being inside of me, as it grew and waxed strong. At night I would sing or pat it to sleep with the same tenderness as a mother with her baby in her arms.

Had I been as wise at that time as I was in after years, how different things would have been. Yet I have always felt glad that, in my ignorance, I had no children, for I did not know of the responsibilities of the parent to the unborn. This is where I want to reach mothers and prospective mothers—reach them with real facts and not with theories which make so little impression.

In discussing some of my conclusions with a woman of my own age, who is well known in both social and literary circles, she held up her hands in holy horror and said, “Oh! do not take away from the youth of today the beautiful glamor of love!” She has a daughter who, at a very early age, eloped with their chauffeur. Later she confessed to me, although she had been married three times (No. 1 had died, No. 2 was divorced, and with No. 3 she had not lived since her children were very small) she had never been able to live without a man since she was seventeen years old! Yet she wished to keep “the glamor of love” intact for the youth of today!

I smile, yes, and lament with the youth of today, in wondering what “glamor” is left for them with the forebears they have had. Do we think we are fooling these wise children of today?