"Leo S." was a subject of the study "Sex Variants" by Dr. George Henry from 1936 to 1941. The subjects identities were secret even to Dr. Henry, we know this because another subject is mention in which the individual was hesitant to show his body because his identity may be discovered from his tattoos. Therefore, although many of the subjects may have given their real given name, we cannot assume that Leo was his real name, or that his surname really began with "S".
The following are transcript portions of his case study. The "Examination of Semen" and "X-ray Examination", which are purely medical and observatory, have been omitted here.
General Impression
Leo is a tall, lanky young man who appears somewhat younger than his twenty-six years. His cheeks are sunken and his deep-set eyes have circles beneath them. His hair is straight, dark, and rumpled. He dyes his moustache because he thinks it is not as dark as the hair on his head. His skin is pale and somewhat pasty. His hands are thin and his fingers long and tapering. His bones are of light weight and his muscular development is average in the lower extremities but otherwise poor. Above the hips he is distinctly angular and below the hips there are the usual masculine curves. He is somewhat knock-kneed.
Although Leo is eager to cooperate in this study he is so insecure that he gives the impression of being hunted. He is obviously tense, uneasy and jumpy, particularly since a recent encounter with the police. As the interview proceeds he becomes more relaxed.
At a party where the guests range from five to sixty years of age he spends the evening playing with young children. He quickly becomes the favorite of middle-aged women and most of his associates are older men. He is too insecure to be able to mingle freely with his contemporaries.
One of Leo's outstanding characteristics in his preference for negroes. This is pursued in the face of ostracism as a student at a Southern university and at the cost of other social penalties. He has found young negro boys most satisfying emotionally and physically and he continues to satisfy his desires with them. His first lovers happened to be among white men who were old and who to others were physically unattractive, whereas his negro lovers have been young, strong, and physically attractive.
Family Background
My father's father was of English descent but born in the mountains of Tennessee. He was six feet four and of the same general build as I am. I think he was a cousin of Lincoln's assassin [John Wilkes Booth]. He and my father loved geography and that has been my favorite subject. Although he was successful as a farmer in the Middle West and accumulated a great deal of money he was not interested in the education of his children.
His first wife, my grandmother, was a Pennsylvania Dutch Quaker. She was devoutly religious and very circumspect. She was rotund and so short that she could walk under his arm.
Uncle John was the oldest of their six children. He was a physician, quite an expansive person and quite successful. He was twice married and by his first wife he had one son and two daughters. The son got into a lot of scrapes and was disinherited. One of the daughters is rather scholarly, quite intelligent but miserly. She is married and has a child. The other also is married and has a child but is quite unconventional. She is a writer in Hollywood and quite masochistic, beaten by her husband and another man. If her husband didn't beat her she would leave him. She was kicked out of the university for using dope and while teaching school had an abortion. She was the first woman in town to be seen smoking. Although accused of being a Lesbian she was madly in love with a sadist who used to beat her. I was living with her at the time that she and her husband broke up. She is definitely neurotic.
Uncle John's second wife never got along with any of her relatives. There were lots of family fights over inheritance. Uncle John died when I was a child but I remember that he used to give me candy.
Uncle Lewis had a large lumber mill and he is probably the most successful peson in his community. He has a son who is president of a bank.
Aunt Louise is a bit masculine. When she was sixteen her mother died and the whole family broke up. She took care of my father. She married a man who had a child but her husband died shortly after their marriage. She had an exceptionally good memory until two years ago. She is probably a little senile now.
Aunt Gloria is quite feminine, a beauty and rather self-reliant. She tells my father what to do. She is married and has one child.
Aunt Susan died before I was born. She was married and had a son and a daughter. The son is a good-looking boy, quite artistic and intelligent. The daughter is very dull and leads a conventional married life.
My father worked his way through college and became a physician. He was a college football athlete. An injury to his eye prevented him from doing much surgery. He has been successful in general practice in a country town in the Southwest. He has been president of a bank, a state senator, and a major in the National Guard, the most important person in his town. He follows the machine and is not a political leader and is cautious in his dealings. Before my mother died I think he had an affair with her niece. I was ten years old then. He might have had an affair with one or two other people. When I was seventeen he married a person rather dull mentally. She was ten or fifteen years younger than he was and was not much interested in children. He is nervous and bites his finger nails so much that he never has to file them.
My mother's father was of English descent, a pioneer farmer, tall and slender. He crossed the plains in the 'forties and with great courage made a home and a farm on a barren mountain side. I don't know much about his wife except that she was of French-Irish descent, an old colonial family, and she bore him seven children.
Uncle Frank was the oldest. I think he had a ranch that failed. He never did much of anything and was quite unsuccessful financially. Nevertheless he was one of my favorite uncles. He was very good natured but didn't have much ambition. He may have been promiscuous. In any case he had several children only two of whom survived. One is the cousin Marie with whom my father had an affair. The other is a very nervous old maid who loves nothing better than gossip. I used to see her occasionally because they lived near us. Both of these daughters paint.
Aunt Eloise had two sons and a daughter. She was extremely nervous and fidgety. If her children were out late she would be frantic. You would almost think she was an old maid. She was dying all the time and she finally did have cancer.
Uncle James died when I was a child. He had sawmills all over the country and he was always getting broke. All of his four children married and had children of their own. His oldest son used to roam around a good deal. All of them went back to the mountains.
Aunt Estelle died a slow death of cancer. She was very feminine and had three daughters. I don't think her husband was faithful to her.
Uncle Joseph was disowned by his family. I think he was in jail in Mexico. Maybe he is dead now. The family haven't heard from him in years. He got into a good many scrapes like Uncle John's son. He married a girl who was an outcast from a good family because she was a drunkard.
Aunt Helen married and moved away into an entirely different circle. She was rather delicate and feminine. She used to paint and her paintings were rather good.
My mother died of cancer of the stomach when I was ten. She was slender and very good looking and quite feminine. Before marriage she was a school teacher. She was rather strict in her religion and a very active leader of the W.C.T.U. She also as active in political campaigns. She was the most successful in her family and my father was the most successful in his family.
Before Mother died I knew there was some trouble between her and my father but I didn't know what it was. My mother felt superior to him socially. She could be very sarcastic and he wasn't able to rebel. He would come into the bedroom to pray and he wanted me to pray with him. I didn't want to go with him and I wouldn't consider taking sides but my sympathies were with my mother.
Later on I found out that before Mother died he had had an affair with my cousin Marie. My father wanted to marry this girl but Aunt Gloria said he couldn't.
Several years before this my father had an affair with a feeble-minded girl. Also a man wanted to kill him over the prohibition question but my father had a better aim and shot him. They were lifelong enemies. This happened before I was born. The man and his wife were great friends of my mother.
I have two sisters, Sylvia is ten years older, married and has one child. She is not too intelligent but managed to get through school. She is quite feminine and was one of the best-looking blonds on the campus. Before she graduated she eloped but my father made her come back and finish. At times she had very drunken parties. I was never allowed to know anything about this. She still gets drunk but will never drink when I'm around. It's her ambition to be a housewife and have a very nice home. Her husband is a physician and he is very jealous of her. She's afraid to be unfaithful to him.
She has always sucked her thumb and the last I heard her husband was putting some medicine on her fingers to make her stop. When she was in high school and I was five years old she had a nervous breakdown. For years she worried that she would have cancer and she has just had one breast removed because of cancer. She's extremely fastidious. She used to dust the bed springs.
Sylvia took charge of me after my mother died. She would never let me go out and play. She made me take baths twice a day. She would always see that I had a clean handkerchief. The children used to call her Winnie Winkle, a nagging person featured in the comic sheets. She saw no reason why I should go out to play so I stayed in and helped with the housework. I had no thought of rebelling.
Berth is seven years older than I. She is my favorite sister. She rehearsed in musical comedy until she learned that to make progress she had to be a prostitute. For a while she was in Hollywood and tried to write but her writings haven't any great merit. She was a virgin until a ridiculously old age - twenty-five - and even after she had been in several shows. Then she went to Paris to live with a man. She has had affairs with several men and she also had an apartment with a Lesbian. I lived with her for a while.
Recently she was married. She has quite a masochistic tendency. She dares her husband to beat her and really invites him to. I don't know if he actually does beat her. She and her husband are quite religious. They sit and meditate for about an hour a day. She's very nervous. I think she's hyperthyroid.
Personal History
My parents wanted a son and my sisters a brother very much. A couple of years before I was born Bertha ran away from home to babyland to get a baby brother.
Although my mother began to have operations for cancer of the stomach soon after I was born she was not an invalid and my birth was normal. I was a little slow in learning to walk and I wet the bed occasionally until high school. This was not known to anyone. I would get up and change the sheets myself.
I used to get frightened at night. I remember sleeping alone in one large bedroom and pulling the cover over my head. I was afraid of bears. I walked in my sleep occasionally and would go to the bathroom or walk around several rooms. I talked in my sleep. I don't do those things any more.
Most of the time I slept alone. I remember sleeping with my parents and my sisters. I wanted to sleep with my parents because I was frightened. Later on, after my mother died and I was in high school I liked to sleep with my father because he used to talk about geography and history. We had little guessing games until we fell asleep.
My parents were affectionate and Mother was demonstrative. I was very much attached to her. I had a mother complex. She was ill after I was three. She died a lingering death.
My sisters used to fight over which one of them I liked the best. Everyone else in the family was so much older that I was spoiled. I was an untidy child and made mud pies but I was always very good and quiet.
In a general way I got along very well but my sisters didn't get along very well. Often they had fights with Mother. Bertha and Mother clashed like everything. Bertha was often punished. They used to beat her. It's strange that she is the one that has a masochistic streak.
I was never punished physically. I would be sent to bed without the evening meal and sometimes I was locked in the bathroom. I preferred to play with little girls and with dolls. Mother thought I played with girls too much. I probably wished I was a girl. I used to masquerade as a girl whenever I got a chance. I would put on Bertha's clothes. That was all right with the family. Now I have a desire to camp in women's clothes and I did a few times.
In school I got along all right. I liked school. I was the teacher's pet. In class I stood out. I got up and recited quicker than the other students. I was best at geography and arithmatic. I had trouble with spelling. The first grade teacher lived with us. She was a funny woman, a nervous old maid type. She had a moustache.
Sometimes I was called a sissy because I liked to play games with girls. I never had a real fight with a boy. I refused to play baseball. I didn't like it. I don't know why. I much preferred games that required less skill. I had no manual dexterity. Bertha could take a watch apart but I couldn't. I loved games with imagination. I would build tree houses and go swimming. I loved to explore a river, going up and down the rapids. I would spend all day swimming and exploring. I loved to go into the woods and build a lean-to. The girls who were tomboys would come and play with us.
I always wanted to be different. I had a feeling that life was all a dream, that the best part of my life was coming later, a feeling that I was living in a dream and would wake up. I thought I would be much happier when I got older and I was. I wanted to get out of that town, that dull place. I studied the atlas by the hour and I had all kinds of imaginary maps. I drew imaginary cities. I never wanted anybody to see these things. I still have a great passion for maps.
I was very much interested in animals. Bertha and I like cats and my stepmother and Sylvia dislike them. They are afraid of them. At on time I had as many as twenty cats. During the last three years I have liked the smell of the fur of cats. I remember having an animal cemetery. I was the chief mourner. Bertha and I would bury the dead animals and put sticks up over their graves. Sex between animals always seemed revolting. I didn't realize then that sex between humans existed.
I also had a pet goat and a sheep and a pet chicken. During the war and when I was about six my mother decided that we had to economize and that I should make my sacrifice. They killed my pet chicken. I cried and left the table. I couldn't eat it.
In early childhood I had to learn to like practically everything I ate. Gravy and meat and white bread was about all I ate until I was seven. I was always troubled with constipation and was always taking some sort of pills. One of the last things I learned to eat was preserved ginger. I just kept at things until I liked them. Now I have no particular aversions.
In spite of this my health was good until I was six and then I was treated for ear trouble. I had several operations and my sinuses, a radical antrum, and one or two years later a mastoid. The bones in my middle ear were decaying and at times there was a good deal of discharge. I still have trouble with it. I was treated by all the ear specialists on the West Coast. I was definitely underweight and a nervous child. I used to bite my nails and for a while I stuttered.
I was quite religious, a Methodist. The last public revival they had was when I was eight and I went to the altar and gave my life to Jesus. Mother was against all card playing and we were not allowed to play card in the house. After my mother died the two older sisters of my father became a part of the household and for some time their quiet Quaker influence was uppermost. Mother didn't mind leaving me because she knew I would lead a good life but she was afraid for her daughters. She didn't want to leave them. I continued with my religious beliefs until I was fourteen. Then I became atheistic.
I remember asking Mother where babies came from. She said I should wait until I studied algebra and then I would find out the missing quantity. Bertha, even when she was in her first year of college, though that babies came from sitting in a boy's lap. Father never believed in discussing anything before the children. We didn't know sex existed until it happened with ourselves.
It's hard for me to talk about this but before my mother died I was at a mountain resort and I remember peeping through the toilet hole to see a man in the next compartment. I knew him and he attracted me. He was about twenty. I don't know what I wanted to see. Maybe it was his rectum or his buttocks.
At the age of eleven I began masturbation. I was with a couple of neighbor boys. An older boy had reached puberty. I didn't have an orgasm. We masturbated individually.
The following year the youngest boy in the group tried to have sexual relations with a calf. He was the only one interested. The older boy and myself were not.
It was this year that a company in the National Guard was being organized. My father was in it and they used our barn. I don't remember much curiosity about sex until about that time. There was no display but I remember talking about sex.
At thirteen I recall one of my playmates taught me to have sex relations by rectum but it was not successful. It was both active and passive but not completed because it was painful. The same boy tried to get me to rape a neighbor girl, a tomboy of the same age. She would come into the barn and play with us. I didn't want to and the other boy wouldn't do it. It didn't interest me in the least.
The next year I remember going into the attic with two or three neighbor boys: One was the doctor and the other was the patient. They soon became sexual and we tried sodomy and also mutual masturbation by rubbing against each other. Some of the boys didn't like these games but it didn't make any great difference to me.
Not long after this I tried sodomy on one of these boys back in the bushes. Father had been out and as he came in the driveway his lights shone on us. When I came in the house he said he guessed that boy wasn't a good boy to play with. I walked out of the room indignant, particularly because he guessed the wrong boy. I was embarrassed and didn't want him to know what it was. He never forced any issue. We never talked about anything like that.
I had no sex instruction until I was fourteen when a man in the National Guard though that Sylvia was treating me too much as a sissy and he invited me to come with him so we could live like men. He explained to me the difference between the male and the female. I remember that he said something about testicles but I didn't know what they were.
I remember going down on a boy when I was seventeen. This boy was the same age. He asked me to and I did. It was not completed and I didn't have an orgasm. I got pleasure out of mutual masturbation with him. He lived too far away to play very often. He was a little more sissy than I. These other boys I played with were not considered sissies.
That year I entered a state university and there joined a social fraternity of freshman. I was pledged because my brother-in-law was there and because they thought I would make Phi Beta Kappa. This was after I had received an appointment for West Point and had failed in the physical examination.
The boys slept in double beds. I liked to sleep with football players. Only one or two of them were interested. in the middle of the night we would have some affair, rubbing against each other or mutual masturbation. Once or twice we had sex by rectum but it wasn't very successful.
In the same year I developed an attachment for a girl. I remember kissing her frequently and I seemed to get pleasure. I was frightened that I was going to have an affair with her. It lasted a few months.
I let the boys think all kinds of things, that I had affairs with girls. As a part of an initiation they took me to a whore house and I couldn't get an erection. The woman did all kinds of things. She went down on me and everything. I made her promise not to tell the other boys.
In school I liked all my teachers but I had no great attachment for any of them until the last year of high school. It was more mental. She didn't believe in running around with high school students. I just went around without knowing what it was all about.
Physical Examination
Comment
Resume
- Family:
- Childhood:
- Adolescence:
- Adult Life:
- Impression:
