74 CASE HISTORIES 



He attributed his failing vitality to overwork, but one thing 

 restored his self-confidence and made him feel equal to anything. 

 Like Columbus, who discovered a new world, he also had the 

 courage to do the impossible in that he succeeded in committing 

 fellatio on himself. After that his spirits revived and he found 

 he could do things in his work that he had previously thought 

 impossible. (With every evidence of sincerity he insisted this 

 incident was true.) 



About a year before the present commitment he found a 

 boarding place in the home of a poor widow with several children. 

 She was "as homely as sin," but was a devoted mother to her 

 children, and that aroused his sympathies. He felt like helping 

 and protecting her as he should have done but did not do for 

 his own mother when she was in identical circumstances. His 

 interest in her began to arouse comment, and he hotly resented 

 suspicions that he had sexual relations with her. Finally, how- 

 ever, his feelings toward her became erotic and he tried hard to 

 seduce her. She refused even marriage because her children 

 didn't like him, but she allowed him to caress and handle her. 

 After many futile attempts he succeeding in making her erotic, 

 and she hugged him and sniffed in her emotion. He realized 

 she would not now resist him, and just at this moment of success 

 he found himself absolutely impotent. "It was an awful blow. 

 It showed up my weakness. I just went out of my head and 

 raved. 



" Afterwards I tried to reason out why I couldn't get an 

 erection and I remembered how she had sniffed in her excitement. 

 I decided that was what had sucked my strength. Then a 

 neighbor came in to see me and urged me to go to a hospital. 

 I recalled that his wife was sickly and so was a young man who 

 boarded with them, and then I suddenly saw through it all, that 

 he had been sniffing their strength away." In righteous indigna- 

 tion he beat the man up, and then felt so strong and elated 

 in his victory that he got an erection. This was an opportunity 

 to prove his masculinity to the widow and he attempted inter- 

 course whether she would or no, but she was not in the mood this 

 time. The police were called in, and he was taken to a psycho- 

 pathic hospital. 



