I was 13 years old, a handsome and promising child from a good family, a famiily that would be called upper middle class in the current vernacular. My father was the vice-president of a mid sized bank. My mother over saw the household and we lived in a section of London that was not unfashionable. Although I would not say that we were rich, we had servants and lacked for nothing. Mine was a very happy childhood up to my 12th year.

Just on the cusp of puberty I had discovered mastrubation rather by accident just as so many other boys had discovered it before me and I soon realized that it was quite addictive. Often I would awake in the small hours of the morning to find that my little dick was hard and demanding attention. I would try to resist but the more I fought it the more powerful the urge would become until, at last, I would succumb and surrender myself to its wicked and impure delights. After achieving satisfaction I would roll over and softly sob into my pillow with shame.

My shame may be difficult for someone living in 1970 California to understand. Today a healthy sex life is considered essential to overall happiness. But not so in the days of my youth. This was long before the sexual how to books and Playboy magazine. Long before X rated movies and racy novels. In those days any sexual activity that was not directly related to reproduction was considered a vile and wretched act, a practice that had lead many a young man to ruin and many a young lady to grief. I suppose there was some reason for this. Before the advent of antibiotics sexually transmitted disease was a major killer. Syphilis was a slow and agonizing death and it put millions into an early grave.

It was understandable that I thought mastrabation was a beastly activity. From my friends I had learned that others had struggled with the same weakness that held me captive. It was something boys whispered about well outside of adult earshot. Most frightning of all was word that boys who were habitual masturbators where sometimes treated for their malady. This was where our childish knowledge became nebulas. The older boys were all in agreement that the treatment involved some form of surgery to the genitals. But from there things grew a bit murky. There were different interpretations of exactly what this surgery entailed. One group of boys insisted that this treatment was simple gelding as was performed by any village veterinarian or farmer on horses and farm animals. The thought of being gelded just like a pig or a goat struck me as demeaning in the extreme.

But other chaps maintained that the surgery in question was not castration at all but involved the removal of the arrant lad's penis. This seemed even worse than having your balls cut off. How would you pee?

When I fist strated to masrabate my organisms were dry. But not long after my 13th birthday I started to ejaculate. This proved to be a problem as our servent Betty discovered the semem stains on my bedclothes and she promptly reported her discovery to my parents. I was punished. By father used a rattan cane on my naked bottom. It hurt like the dickens and I'm sure the entire hosehold, servents and all, heard my sobs and my shrieks of pain. They all knew why I was being thrashed. They all knew I mastrobated. Curiously I felt no resentment towards Betty or to my parents. I knew that self pollution had a hold on me and I would not be able to stop with will power alone. I needed help and I thought that the canings would help but they did not. I was put on a steady diet of Kellogg's corn flakes and graham cracker, two food developed to curb mastrubation. But I could not help myself. Betty continued discover the shameful evidence.

Eventually my mother took me to a doctor who specialized in boys like me, boys with my problem. He was a kindly man who seemed genuinely concerned for my well being. "James," he said, "your mother tells me that you partake in the solitary vice. Is this true?" I hung my head and admitted it was.

"I also understand that you have two younger brothers," the doctor continued. "What sort of example do you think you are setting for them?"

"Not a very good one," I had to admit.

"How would you feel if your younger brothers started to behave as you do?" he asked and I didn't answer. I was too ashamed.

"James you have it with in you to be a good boy and a source of pride to your family," the doctor said, "But if left unchecked your self abuse will soon lead to the permanent destruction of your mental and physical health."

"But," I protested, "if it was so unhealthy surely I would have felt the effects by now and I have not. I feel stronger than ever."

"Young man you are on a slippery slope, a very slippery slope indeed," The doctor answered. "You are standing at the edge of a precipice and without help you will soon fall in. You will find yourself in a very dark place. The insane asylum at Bedlam is full of poor wretches who were once just as you are now. They were driven mad by self abuse and have become imbecils, nothing but shells of their former selves, of no use to themselves or anyone else. And they are the lucky ones."

"How could they be lucky?" I asked.

"James your sexual desire is out of control. You are only a boy now and have but a boy's body. Soon you will be a man, and even in a weakened state, you may posses the strength to overpower members of the fairer sex, or to overpower small children of either gender. Imagine the risks that would present to society."

Did the doctor really believe his own rhetoric? The sad truth is he did. But what was even sadder was that I believed it as well. I believed that if I was unable to stop my masturbation I would soon be sent to Bedlam as an idiot, or to the gallows as a rapist. Take your pick.

"My boy there is an operation that will keep you from destroying your mind and your body. I've already discussed this treatment with your mother. In fact, she is pushing for it. But I am loath to use it as there are risks."

"What risks?" I asked.

"One boy out of every five operated on is lost as a result of blood loss, shock or infection," the doctor answered. "Four out of five boys are saved, but one unlucky lad in five is laid to rest the churchyard."

It was a dire warning, but I was unable to stop my deadly habit. I well remember the ride to the doctor's office just one week later. It was a bleak November's day and the constant drizzle left the cobblestones wet and slick. The smell of burning coal was heavy in the air. It was only my mother and I in the carriage. We did not talk. I did not know what the treatment was really, but I did know that there was one chance in five that I would be cold and still by nightfall.

My mother knew the odds as well. She had seen me into the world and now she might be seeing me out. She was being brave but it was more than that. She was stoic. My fate was to be placed in the hands of God and she was preparing herself for the worst. She was emotionally divesting herself from me. If I survived the operation she would consider me reborn and welcome me back into her life with open arms and more love than ever. But for now I was largely dead to her even though I still breathed and was sitting just across from her.

I looked out the carriage window at the gray city and reflected that this might well be my last view of the world. I regretted that it was such a gloomy day and took the foul weather as an ill omen. Then I caught sight of a very large and ruffled looking raven perched on a fence post. The ancient fowl was midnight black, just the sort of bird that must have inspired the classic poem by Edgar Allan Poe. He caught my gaze and returned it with cold knowing eyes. The old bird seemed to look deep within my soul and I knew then that I would be the one in five who was not going to make it. It was more than a premonition, it was a certainty. Without doubt this was my day to die, November 15th, 1898. I did a quick calculation in my mind. I had lived 13 years, one month, three weeks and two days, and now I was going to die. I knew it and my mother knew it as well.

It would have been easy for me to escape. I could have bolted from the carriage and, like a flash, disappeared into the gloom of the city. I could have joined the legions of London's homeless street urchins. But what purpose would that serve? I would not be able to stop my nasty habit and in the end I would lose my mind and become an abomination. It was better to die now, as a child and with some degree of dignity, and to gain entrance to heaven rather then die latter as a monstrosity and be sent to everlasting hell.

I don't remember much after that. I don't remember what my mother said to me as she left me at the doctor's office. I don't remember if she kissed me goodbye. I don't remember if she told me to be a good boy and to do whatever the doctor told me to do. I don't remember if I cried.

I have a dim and shadowy memory of the doctor's two young assistants stripping me naked and that I offered no resistance. I remember that I was not at all embarrassed by my nudity. Why be bashful when death was only moments away. I had come naked into the world and naked I would return to the earth. My only hope was that my death would not be too painful. I realize now that I was catatonic. Ready to enter the next world I was in a mental state where nothing really mattered. As the young people of today say, I was out of it. I wish I had been able to remain in that state of mind.

At first I was only dimly aware that I was standing before a table that supported a strange device, and that the doctor's helpers were guiding my cock into the contraption. Then I awake to the nightmare reality. They were placing my dick into a penile guillotine. I fought back with every atom of my strength but it was futile. I was a boy only just entering my teenage years. They were men and far too strong for me. Straps were placed across my back side that held me fast. I could not back out or away. I could not get my dick out of the infernal machine. But for all my horror my young dick was hard enough to cut glass. I shot my load as the blade severed my boyish dick from my body.

Needless to say I lived. If not who would be writing these words? The first few months after my penectomy were the most joyous of my life. Having come so close to death everything seemed sweeter, even in the dead of winter the world seemed to burst full of beauty. A single snowflake held wonders. In the spring, when the grass turned green and the birds returned, I wept with joy. I had not expected to see the new season. I had expected to be buried.

I was tormented by a sexual longing that I could no longer satisfy, but that seemed a small price to pay. I no longer feared for my sanity. It was as if with the loss of my penis a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt that I had been set free from the tyranny that was sexual ability.

Did I hate my parents or the doctor for having me penectomized? Not at all. I believed that the penectomy had saved my life. More than anything I wanted to help other young boys the way I had been helped. I became a doctor and before the operations fell out of favor I personally penectomized or castrated 563 boys ages nine to fifteen. I hepled reluctant parents come to the conclusion that haveing their sons penectomized or gelded was the best thing they could do for their boys. Often times I used a guillotine similar to the one used on me.

I was as careful and as compassionate as possible. But even so I lost twenty-six boys. I will never forget that number and even now I can still recall the face of each boy lost. Whenever I lost a boy I cried for him. Not in front of the parents for that would have been unseemly. I cried in private and consoled myself with the knowledge that although a boy was dead many others were saved. I thought I was serving the greater good. I saved more than five hundred lads from the ravages of mastubation. The loss of twenty-six was tragic but unavoidable, or so I thought.

As the years passed I slowly and reluctantly came to the conclusion that mastrubation was harmless. It did not drive boys mad or transform them into rapists as was once believed. I now have to live with the knowledge of what I have done. Twenty-six boys were lost at my hands and more than five hundred others were needlessly penectomized or castrated. Can there be any redemption for one such as I? No there can not. What I have done is unforgivable. I am lost and haunted by the thought that on November 15th I might have entered heaven.

Editor's Note: There is much more in Dr. Sturges journal. If there is an interest I might post more in the future.