According to this book, boys who practiced the destructive vice were recognizable under a cursory examination. Their eyes were dull and lifeless, the lids discolored and swollen. Their faces were sallow, and even their self- conscious and nervous demeanor was sufficient to betray their guilty secret. All unfortunate boys addicted to this vicious habit were doomed. Insanity, consumption, premature old age were all lurking close at their elbows. A rapid calculation as I rushed to a mirror told me that I had been at it for four years or more, and it was indeed with a sigh of relief that I scrutinized the reflection which gazed back into my anxious eyes. No signs of senile decay were visible. My complexion was clear and rosy, my eyes bright and limpid. And I certainly was not undersized, for my physique was such that I was generally taken to be at least two years older than I really was. A prolonged examination dissipated my fright, but I had received a shock, and thereafter I indulged in masturbation only on special occasions. As the book said nothing about anything disagreeable happening to boys who fucked little girls, I assumed that no evil consequences need be anticipated from this direction.

At fourteen, I was associating with boys several years older than myself, some of whom had had experiences with adult females, some even with prostitutes. In the light of their revelations, my own little adventures seemed insipid and infantile. I learned of mysterious houses where one could go and have his choice from among a number of luscious females on display in the nude. There was a certain section of the city allotted to their special occupancy, whole blocks of buildings devoted to the traffic of commercialized sexual pleasures.

Grown women! It must feel much nicer to do it with an adult woman than with an immature, inexperienced little girl! The thought grew, obsessed me, set my fancy on fire. And still I dared not think of trying to enter one of these palaces of delight, for though I knew where they were located, boys under eighteen were not supposed to be admitted. I could pass for sixteen easy enough, but hardly eighteen.