Drug Abuse

EXCERPTS FROM AND SUMMARIES OF R5's HISTORY AND SESSIONS

History Male, 21 years' old, single, student.

When I was four years' old I would get an erection and feel a strange excitement whenever I looked at photographs of half-naked men who had extremely welldeveloped muscles.

Between the ages of seven and thirteen I played girls' games with little girls. I avoided boys' games. I never played 'cops and robbers' or 'cowboys'. I loathed quarrels and fisticuffs with other little boys. I ignored the world of boys. I liked to comb the hair of my little girlfriends' dolls.   During that period I met G.   She immediately became the companion of my games and holidays. We played at theatre and I usually took female parts. I was sure that I would marry her when we grew up, but I wasn't sexually attracted to her in the least.

Also during this period, a picture of a Red Indian in a story book made a deep impression on me. I drew a wound on this man's chest with a red pencil. I was certain that he didn't suffer because he was very strong. The thought that he didn't suffer made me feel a strange excitement.

Towards the end of this period, I identified with a female singer. I lost no opportunity to imitate the way she sang and danced. To me she was a goddess; I adored her but she didn't excite me sexually.

I was a good pupil. I had some good friends. Nobody criticized me at school. Altogether, I was very happy with the atmosphere there.

When I turned thirteen, I changed school. Disaster. The atmosphere there was torture. Because I ignored the world of boys I became a scapegoat. I felt clumsy and stupid. Gymnastics and sport terrified me. I had but one friend with whom I shared the same intellectual interests. All the others looked upon me with scorn.

At the age of 131 dared to open a sports magazine for the first time. Its pages were full of Mr. Universe photographs. I trembled with emotion and a strange excitement which this time was clearly sexual; I had an erection. A few days later I saw a Negro on television displaying his strong muscles. I was alone. I had an erection. That evening I discovered masturbation.

Gradually I overcame my embarrassment and started buying bodytraining magazines whose photographs of super-athletes gave me my most pleasurable moments. I began to follow men I saw in the street who impressed me, but I would never dare address them. During that period I started to feel ashamed of my homosexual tendencies. Other boys, who made me realize that I was not like them, made me feel this. One day, for no reason apparent to me, a classmate hurled the word 'faggot' at me. After that I felt that my every movement drew mocking looks from men.

The shame and fear which those around me made me feel did not prevent me from identifying with another female singer who became my new idol and the model I frequently tried to imitate, while dressed as a woman.

The emotional-intellectual interpretation R5 gave during the Sessions to this behaviour: "By imitating another person, I took on their personality. The whole process helped me eliminate my own insignificant personality and all my unsolved problems. When I played the part of the female singer I had the distinct impression and firm conviction that everybody around me loved and admired me. In other words, this was a situation which was diametrically opposite to the situation I faced in everyday life where people gave me mocking looks and rejected me. I felt (and still feel) the need to be admired because only thus do I not feel like a piece of rubbish, a nothing."

From my mid-teens, I began to feel that masturbation was not fulfilling enough. I began to feel the need for sexual relations but I was not optimistic about finding a sexual partner. I started projecting manly looks onto some of my classmates. Perhaps they realized it and they hate me because I was a homosexual.

When I turned 19, I enrolled in a foreign university. My first months there were very unpleasant. I felt completely disoriented. My fellow students were withdrawn and cold. Much loneliness. I decided to write to a homosexual club. The next day I was visited by a blatantly homosexual man. He told me that he wanted to get acquainted with a young man. He complimented me on my good looks and asked me if I liked him. Though he hadn't impressed me, I agreed to meet him the following evening.

We did meet and after dinner he accompanied me to my apartment. I felt ill at ease and was silent. He lay down on the bed and suggested I lie beside him, which I did. He started kissing me on the mouth and hugging me. I felt nothing in particular, or rather I did feel an unpleasant sensation when his tongue touched my lips. He asked me if I loved him. I realized that I had to do something. I decided to become more passionate. I entwined my legs with his and embraced him. I felt very aroused and came very close to ejaculating, but finally I did not.

The next evening we met at his place. As we were sitting on the couch he started to kiss me. He asked me if I wanted to make love. I said "yes". He asked me if I knew exactly what was in store for me. I panicked. I lost all desire for sex. And yet, we went to bed. Disaster. I had no erection. I was a lifeless body. He was aroused. He kissed me everywhere. He felated me. He told me I was very handsome. He penetrated me. I didn't feel much pain. I told myself that I had gone too far and that it was useless to continue this relationship which I had known from the beginning didn't interest me. I told him I felt inhibited and that I wanted us to stop making love.

It did me good to speak with him. At last I was speaking about my problems to someone who listened and answered. I saw him for a third time. I told him that I had decided to see a psychiatrist. He advised me to waste no time beginning therapy because if I continued my homosexual activity I would never be able to stop it.   I asked him what precautions I should take as a homosexual. He told me that I should have my blood tested for syphilis every three months. Instantly I felt that I had already caught syphilis because I felt acute itchiness in my anus.

During that period various obsessional ideas developed which greatly tormented me. Finally, I decided to stop my studies and go to Cairo for autopsychognosia sessions.

Sessions 1 - 4 The main characteristic of the first four Sessions is that R5 does not allow them to evolve. He realizes that the cause of his resistance is his unconscious effort to avoid reliving traumatic experiences. Gradually he succeeds in diminishing his resistance.

Session 5 I feel that the dimensions of my body have diminished amazingly. I'm closed up in a dark, narrow place. My body, arms and legs are curled up. An unpleasant sensation of heat. I'm sweating. My arms are going numb. The muscles in my left thigh are contracting. My breathing is becoming heavy, laboured and spasmodic. I feel as if I'm being strangled. I feel something powerful pressing on me, pushing me out. I try to resist this power by contracting my body. A desperate, futile struggle. I feel I am being pulled upwards; I'm suffocating. I'm being annihilated in the most horrible way. This is death. (R5 considers the above experience to be the rejection of expulsion-birth.)

Session 7 R5 describes his sexual activity, something which he did not have the courage to do before this Session.

I isolate myself in a room. Stereotyped fantasies. On the scene appears a very heavily built man with extremely well-developed muscles. He is the typical Mr. Universe or Superman. He is my protector. His main characteristics: all-powerful, terribly violent, brutish, no trace of intellect. An essential feature of the fantasy:   this allpowerful man displays his strength to me by performing extraordinary feats; for instance, he lifts cars with his bare hands, he neutralizes hordes of enemies who want to ill-treat me. Frequently, I fantasize him torturing in the most horrible way someone whom he finally strangles, squeezing the victim's chest and neck with his arms. When the fantasy begins I start masturbating. The more violent my protector becomes towards his victim or the more remarkable feats he performs with his powerful muscles, the more excited I become. I reach orgasm the moment the victim is about to die.

Since I was 19, this sexual activity has alternated with homosexual activity which is characterized by my inability to reach orgasm. That is, despite my strong sexual arousal, just as orgasm is approaching I am overcome by terror which instantly neutralizes erection and all sexual desire. I assume the foetal position, my breathing becomes spasmodic, I moan, and feel just as I feel in the Sessions when I relive the womb rejection (see Session 5).

Session 11 I'm in another sphere of existence. Everything is transparent. I'm floating. Very relaxed. A sleepiness sleep. Wonderfully relaxed. Everything is like a weightless cloud. My limbs and my torso are extended and relaxed. I'm floating. I am in a wave, in the curve of a wave. I'm a soft mass. No defences. I feel wonderful. Where am I? I don't exactly know where I am. I am beyond this world. I feel very free. I'm flying over the ocean like a bird. I feel I have wings. I open my arms like a bird in flight; I laugh. I am somewhere totally different to usual. I feel I am a part of a cluster of luminous rays, in the shape of a tunnel. Blissful state.

Lethargic state. Void. I'm a flexible mass. I could remain like this for hours, floating between two sleeps. State of oblivion. Forgetting yourself, your passions, life's sufferings. Just opening your eyes is painful. I see the damn light, the damn lamp, the damn room, damn reality, the damn world. It's much better with your eyes closed. State of drowsiness. I have no desire to talk ...

... Again I feel I'm in water. I'm swimming. I am submerged in the deepest sleep but it is a sleep in which I retain full consciousness of my existence. How terrible you feel when you open your eyes! It's just like when I wake up in the morning curled up in the foetal position, the rejecting foetal position; all my bodily functions are out of order. I close my eyes. It's fantastic to feel that here there is only you and the whole world is over there. People are damn egoists. They care only for their own happiness and pleasure.   They close their eyes to the next person's suffering.   How wonderful to be far away from the world. I want to be far away from filthy reality. (R5 considers the subjective state described above to be the revival of his intra-uterine acceptance.)

... Once more I'm in a state of bliss. Now an unpleasant sensation of heat and so on (as described in Session 5), I feel my heavenly bliss is in danger of ending. I struggle desperately not to get out. Unbearable pain. Death ...

The trauma caused by the rejecting womb predetermines the nature of my sexual activity. Orgasm with a real and not imaginary partner, instead of leading me directly to the accepting womb, reactivates the process of the rejecting womb-mother woman. This process is truly unbearable. It leads to a horrible, tortured death. I refuse to live through this kind of death and I irrevocably decide to do away with women forever. The heterosexual act annihilates my being. It is death.

I feel that just as the process of the rejecting womb marks the end of intrauterine life, so orgasm marks the end of the sexual act. For me, the following formula holds true:

The sexual act with a partner could lead me to bliss → Accepting womb (intra-uterine life)

The sexual act terminates in orgasm - death - unbearable situation  → Intra-uterine life terminates with womb rejection - death - unbearable situation.

The need to return to the womb obliges me, since I have done away with women, to turn to men; but male partners also unconsciously symbolize the rejecting womb. Thus, the only way for me to revive the accepting womb is to isolate myself, go into my fantasies (see Session 7) and masturbate. The all-powerful man of my fantasies has the same power as the all-powerful womb-mother. However, whereas the womb tortures me, the all-powerful man protects me and tortures someone else in my place, someone who finally suffers what the womb has in store for me - the torture of suffocation. So, since someone else almost dies instead of me, I can have an orgasm, I can return to the womb.

This violent, criminal fantasy gives rise to a feeling of guilt-persecution combined with obsessional acts and ideas which contain strong sadistic and masochistic elements.

I become terror-stricken at the thought that I leave traces of my identity around. Sperm on my clothes. A woman's pregnancy from my sperm. The thought of procreation instantly makes me feel that the foetus is first of all unwanted, that it has been conceived by mistake and is something that must be eliminated. I feel as if I am the one who is going to be pregnant with the frightful foetus. Since my sexual activity doesn't lead to catastrophic pregnancy, it leads to disease which results in death through decomposition.

I have always been afraid of illness.   Every time I fell ill I would exaggerate my illness out of a desire for self-destruction (masochistic element).   I am pessimistic about my health and this has an adverse effect on my everyday activity. At the same time, I feel the need to be loved and admired. I say I am ugly in order to be reassured to the contrary, as that will make me feel accepted.

Session 14 I have made a peace pact with myself:

Article 1:   Refuse to have sexual contact with any woman.

Article 2:   Refuse to submit to any person or environmental condition that tries to impose its authority on me.

Article 3:   Do the opposite of what I am told, ordered or expected to do.

My policy towards all authority - resisting and not submitting to it - makes me feel different. Though I am weak, I become strong. By being homosexual I am different to what they want me to be, therefore I am strong ...

There is a striking contrast between the blissful feeling of the accepting womb and the feeling that I'm a nothing which arises when the womb rejects me. The womb rejects me because I have no worth.

Session 17 The penis attracts and disgusts me simultaneously. The penis is often a feature of my fantasies. I put gigantic genitals on Mr. Universe photographs. In my homosexual activity I prefer not to see my partner's penis. I ask him to undress under the bedcovers. A man with an erection is repulsive to me. An erect penis reminds me of the time I saw my father naked in the bathroom. I look for images radically different to those I retain of my father. I repress and forget anything which reactivates revolting memories of my father, anything which symbolizes the sexual act, because only in this way can I function and make love as long as I can't avoid seeing my partner's penis which repulses me.

If a woman's legs are close together, the vulva does not disgust or shock me particularly. But if the legs are wide apart, the sight of the labia is repugnant to me.

How they differ:

VULVA	PENIS	MALE ANUS
It is slimy. It is invisible →unknown → dangerous. When you enter it you are in direct contact with the womb→ danger of a child being born→ catastrophe.	It is visible → something  known. It is not dangerous because it does not give give birth to babies.	It is invisible but not dangerous because it does not give birth to babies.

The negative aspects of the womb: terror of my being reproduced. The female genitals are disgusting. The terror and disgust rob me of all desire for intercourse with a woman.

When I am in bed with a man, the first thing I feel is the need to sleep - total escape. At the same time, I feel fine, as if I'm in the accepting womb. I feel protected in my partner's arms; I want to sleep and not to bother about the sexual act, even if I have an erection. This is because I refuse to be active. I want to be passive. I want to abandon myself to my partner's desires. I envy women because they can pretend to be excited and to have orgasm. If I don't have an erection, I can't pretend to have one. It's a terrible thing that I cannot reach orgasm in my homosexual activity. I feel stupid in front of my partner. I believe that he will think me a paltry sexual partner. If I didn't have a penis, I could easily pretend to feel pleasure and so I would deceive my partner-adversary. I place great importance upon my partner's opinion and feelings. We must reach orgasm together. I feel that my partner gets upset when I don't reach orgasm ...

My sexual partner symbolizes someone very important ... Who? Someone to whom I must give pleasure. I forget my own pleasure for the sake of his; everything for him. If he doesn't reach orgasm I feel sad. It does not matter that I don't have an orgasm. I'm happy when I give someone pleasure; it's as if I'm feeling it. I play an entirely passive role, almost like a married woman who must satisfy her husband. It's like a duty. And so I seek intercourse without wanting it.

My passiveness and my lack of desire for intercourse symbolizes denial of my sex ... I remember that when I made love with D, I curled up like a foetus the moment I felt orgasm approaching. It was an endeavour to protect my genitals and avoid ejaculating.

I come back to my subject: Who does the sexual partner I must satisfy symbolize, and what does the simultaneous endeavour to protect my genitals symbolize? ... My mother? ... In the womb I am passive, my mother all-powerful. She does whatever she likes with my body, she makes me suffer ... I don't exactly understand what's going on between my mother and me but I find it even more difficult to understand the nature of my relationship with my father ... (with hostility) I have no intention of satisfying my father or of arousing sexual desire in him ... But why does my father's phallus shock me? A man's penis is not'very beautiful'; it reminds me of my father's penis.

My father's personality repulses me ... I imagine my father making love with my mother and reproducing me with his penis, symbol of my suffering ... I don't want to identify with my father or give him sexual gratification. On the contrary, I want to take revenge on him. But why? He pushed me towards women. He showed them to me as sex objects when the very idea of sexual contact with a woman terrified me. My father had an inordinate heterosexual bias which made him associate everything with women. He was unfaithful to my mother. Each time he pointed a woman out to me, it was as if he was trying to show me someone other than my mother; it was as if he was being unfaithful to my mother ... I reject anything that reminds me of my father ... and yet my various sexual partners symbolize him. I get revenge on him with my homosexual activity yet simultaneously I find him again in the men I go with.

... I associate my partner with my mother. In my partner's presence my personality is obliterated, just as it is with my mother; to her I deny my own pleasure. With any other woman it's even worse. I have to prove to her that I'm a marvellous lover, the perfect lover, and that's impossible. I can't even get an erection for that woman who devours male genital organs, that crocodile-woman who lies in wait for her prey, to gulp it down ...

My partner is the one who has the active role. Why do I associate him with my mother? He throws me back into the womb as if I'm a caterpillar, a half-dead zombie in front of my mother, and she denies me my existence, my dominance, which would enable me to be active. Is my mother's role an active one? My mother's dominance is linked to the fact that I must satisfy someone who symbolizes my mother, and her authority is asserted by the fact that she makes me do something for her pleasure at the expense of mine ...

Women symbolize dominance and castration. My sexual partners are not dominating women, but they have the active role and contact with them makes me feel sexual arousal which alternates with frigidity because to be penetrated is painful. Rubbing against a man when we are face to face excites me. When I am in the passive position with the man behind me I feel excited, I like being penetrated, but I feel pain and I'm not relaxed; I feel tense and that, finally, makes me feel rejected ...

In a heterosexual fantasy I play the part of the woman and feel extremely excited. The thought of going to bed with an exclusively heterosexual man excites me because then, in the fantasy, I am truly the woman ... Does this woman symbolize my mother? I don't think so because I am sensual whereas my mother is cold ...

... At the moment I feel muscular contractions in my whole body ... I curl up ... The contractions make me take the foetal position ... My breathing becomes loud and spasmodic ... I cry helplessly ... I tried to resist in every way I could but I got nowhere. A foreign will imposed itself on me. A vain, futile struggle, ludicrous revenge. Everything I do is ludicrous and futile. Now I'm laughing and my laughter reminds me of 'B'; I identify with him. I often identify with others because I don't have a personality of my own. I have an identity problem (laughter). I need to find a personality in art, in homosexuality, where everyone has the same religion and where everyone feels more secure ...

... In intellectual matters I try to share my partner's opinion. I don't contradict him because I want to be on good terms with him ...

You cannot have clear ideas about something unless you have experienced it and know what you're talking about. However, from the psychological point of view, I reject erroneous interpretations. I analyse people as I analyse myself.

Whenever I make someone's acquaintance, I feel the need to express everything immediately, to say in just a few seconds, if such a thing were possible, that I am a homosexual, that I'm undergoing autopsychognosia, that I have been living in Egypt and so forth. I feel the need to display extraordinary knowledge and attributes, to tell of sensational experiences I have had which will give some worth to my insignificant being. I want to impress, to charm within the space of ten minutes by saying who I am, what I can do, what I have experienced. After this exhibition, I become despondent. I want others to admire me because I feel worthless before the womb-dominator ...

I wonder if I project my worthlessness when I compare myself to others? I don't think so. Comparison consoles me rather. The others are worse than I am - as a rule homosexual circles are degenerate and sordid. On two different occasions I went home with fellows who looked like criminals. I regretted it. Both were coarse. I realized that what I need is a lot of tenderness and affection.

One day I bought a black leather jacket. I thought that by wearing it I could act the man. Every time I look at myself in the black leather jacket I realize that I look like a baby and that irritates me. I want to be a man. I've moved about in almost all homosexual circles, I've tried everything, but I haven't met anyone worth having a close relationship with. Furthermore, I'm afraid of being a disappointment because I can't reach orgasm and I'm also afraid that my partner will disappoint me. I'm sick and tired of always taking the wrong path. Playing roles that aren't your own is no help whatsoever. I move in orbits which are diametrically opposed: sadism and pacifism.   In the former I feel pleasure when I see the pain of someone who is being tortured; in the latter I seek human warmth and tenderness ...

The image of the ideal man, now after 16 Sessions, is not a fixed one; but the basic element of the ideal image that I had when I was four years' old remains unchanged; the 'protective man' who will protect me on his own initiative because I can never be the one to make the first move. Thus it's impossible for me to approach a woman because I can never take the initiative and women expect men to make the first move. And if I happen to come across a woman who takes the first step, then terror grips me. At parties I have no difficulty approaching a girl and flirting with her but I feel no sexual excitement. I'm afraid that if we end up alone in bed, she'll have a soft penis in her hands. The anxiety of being impotent haunts me constantly ...

Fantasy: I'm making love with G. (G is the girl he has known since childhood; they grew up together like brother and sister.) In the beginning everything goes well, but soon I feel my penis growing smaller in her vagina. My penis slips out, ridiculous, looking like a caterpillar ...

When I am with a man I don't reach orgasm but at least I have an erection. During the homosexual act I feel tense, I analyse everything, I fantasize, I feel anxious. I feel the need to justify myself.   I tell my partner:   "You know, I have strange reactions. You excite me sexually and at the same time I feel frigid. In the end I can't ejaculate and I panic."

I dream of my passiveness being satisfied by a partner who is sensitive, affectionate, refined. Yet when I masturbate when I am by myself, tenderness doesn't enter into it: the brutal element alone dominates my fantasies (see Session 7).

Fantasy during the homosexual act:

ME	MAN
passive	active
woman	very manly
victim submissive to the man	exhibitionist-brute-executioner

Penetration of the anus is a bestial act with no feeling.

Fantasy during masturbation:

I ← am protected by ← Spectator.	EXECUTIONER → tortures	VICTIM →
I approve of the victim's suffering and derive pleasure from it.	Emotionless. He displays his strength and inhumanity.	Always a worthless man who has been denied the right to exist.

The executioner is the base of this edifice and he unites my ego with the victim. Although I am the same person as the victim, I have nothing to do with him; that is, I separate the ego which feels pleasure from the ego whose right to exist is denied. In this fantasy I achieve a kind of catharsis-liberation as immediately after my ejaculation-pleasure the executioner ceases to be an executioner, because I no longer need him: inhumanity kills inhuman vengeance ...

I'm afraid of venereal disease. It's an ideal excuse for me not to have sex as sex makes me an easy target for attack. When I am afraid that I'll be attacked, darkness overwhelms me, I don't want to live, I want to escape, I want to die in an endless sleep,

I want to forget everything, I want to repress everything; I am nothing. I have no complexes about my homosexuality. It doesn't constitute a moral problem for me; on the contrary, I feel proud that through my homosexuality I can get revenge on my father. I'd be happy if I could reach orgasm through my homosexual activity. Unfortunately, though I don't, and so my so-called revenge is non-existent. But the most important thing is that I don't know how to get revenge. When I start a fight I soon become exhausted, I become castrated, I very quickly let myself be dominated by the other person. When I was small, I would hit back when someone hit me because I wanted to stop him from continuing ...

My obsessional acts and ideas exhaust me mentally. The worst obsessional idea is my fear of transmitting venereal disease to a sexual partner. When I had a fungus infection I felt the need to confess it to each of the partners I had at the time.   I felt terribly guilty at the thought that I could probably ruin my partner with the venereal disease I'd transmit to him. If my partner transmitted V.D. to me, it wouldn't be so terrible because I'm used to being half dead ...

I often feel my voice is ridiculous, especially when I am speaking to the doctor. Before telling him something specific, I feel that it is extremely interesting; but the moment I say it, it loses the value I thought it had. I think that even the atom bomb itself would be reduced to a grain of sand. That is because the doctor castrates me like my mother and father who paid no attention when I told them of the adventures I had on my various trips ... When I get angry I feel like an insignificant little woman. Sometimes I become irritated and I shout and desperately try to get something I want, and as soon as I feel that I'm going to win I immediately lay down my arms and agree to do whatever is asked of me. I subsequently submit completely and hold my tongue; this way I feel I am atoning for my irritability and shouting ...

I dream that I am making love with G. At first it is beautiful, warm, my erect penis penetrates deeply into her vagina. But shortly before I reach orgasm, my erection is no more and my penis comes out of the vagina impotent, looking like a caterpillar. That is the reason why I have no desire or intention of making love with a woman. I know in advance that as soon as I approach orgasm my penis will make me look ridiculous. How embarrassing. How depressing. Knowing in advance what the end will be, I neither want to begin nor even get excited. The penis coming out of the woman's vagina soft is something terribly depressing ...

What does the partner symbolize? To begin with, I reject my father's authority over me. I refuse to let my sexual partner reactivate the memory of my father but I see my father in everything that my partner has as a man. The way I am aggressive towards my father in everyday life shows me that I can neutralize him; for instance I ignore his existence, his teachings and exhortations for me to have heterosexual activity. Yet I feel that trying to neutralize him in this way is ridiculous and that causes me permanent emotional conflict. If this mask of aggressiveness is taken away from me I will have nothing. I'm a mixture of absolute passiveness and explosive energy. I have a lot of energy in me which I passionately expend on dancing and singing. If my passion for singing and dancing and my need for revenge are taken away from me, I'll be left with nothing ... My thirst for revenge gives me some worth which covers up the feeling that I am a nothing. But I have no stamina, my strength is frail. I often regret what I have done ...

At the moment I feel I'm floating face down, not in the foetal position which means rejection by the womb. I'm trying to avoid being ousted by the womb. I can see horrible, monstrous creatures which threaten and terrify me with their ugliness. Everything around me is grey and frozen. I can see haunted castles. I see a dim sun that barely gives out heat. There are ants all around me. I see people with their legs apart, huge mouths dripping blood. I start to cry. I'm reliving my birth ... My breathing becomes rapid and loud ... I'm sobbing with despair ... I'm groaning with anger and my cries express all the strength with which I'm trying to hang on and not go out of the womb ... I feel I'm being strangled ... Finally I feel myself being expelled and I'm overcome by spasmodic coughing ...

I wonder why I exist? All sorts of things degrade me: my persecution complexes, my obsessional ideas. My obsessional acts are performed in a way that debases me, that lowers me to the level of an idiot.   My obsessions hound me constantly and lead me to self-negation, to self-destruction by a power which isn't mine but which is inside me, a power that belittles me, that points out my incapacity to me, that reduces me to tatters, that shows me I'm nothing. This power within me functions like another consciousness which makes me see everything around me with gloom, which robs me of all energy, which makes me passive. I don't want to live because I don't know how to live. I search desperately for something to fill in the blank spaces.

The exhibition of my limp penis is a form of belittlement because it points out my impotence; it's as if I'm showing my mother that I'm a nothing. For the past two years I have been drawing away from my mother and I feel sad that she suffers because I'm far away from her. I always tried to do what would please her. I would have been prepared to become a little baby, the consequence of which would have been submission to her domination. When she came to Cairo for a few days, her presence oppressed me. She criticized whatever I did, just like before; even the fact that I smoke now and then. I can see her: hard, withdrawn, sometimes nasty, implacable. Tears roll down from my eyes. I want her tenderness and she gives it to me beneath the unbearable burden of her castrating domination. If I go back to her, I'll go back to what I was; her satellite ...

At the moment I feel that my father is soft, tender and passive in comparison to the dominant figure of my mother. My father is hypersensitive, a trifle would make him cry. I feel him as being very vulnerable. He has great abilities which he inhibits ...

Why do I feel the need to say that I'm a homosexual? Maybe I'm not a homosexual? To belittle myself perhaps? No, on the contrary, I'm proud of it. I have no moral problems. I'm not ashamed. I feel proud that I'm not like everybody else. Homosexuality gives me worth.

I can see the following image: my mother and father are making love. My mother looks gigantic and she's penetrating my microscopic father. My mother is the active one here.

From the physical point of view my homosexual activity still has its problems. I have a soft penis even with a male sexual partner because at the moment of ejaculation my sexual partner 'becomes' the womb, a symbolism which makes me want to cry, which makes me suffer, which makes me suffocate, which takes me close to death. So I avoid ejaculating and instead I have fantasies of a passive nature which give me pleasure.

Can I get rid of my fantasies? For the time being I am altering them, trying to make them less inhuman. In my fantasies I prefer to have someone else tortured rather than myself. This fantasy excites me and that's why my old fantasies have continued till now, even though I no longer accept them ...

In love I demand exclusiveness. I am totally dependent on my sexual partner just as I was totally dependent on my mother ... My love affair with B did me harm. I must build on what has remained. I'm tired of always being deceived. I need security and clear ideas about my life and about love. For the moment my ideas keep changing every day.

R5's conclusions after Session 17: For me, the mother-woman is the big mouth which devours-castrates male genital organs. I want a mother-proctector who will not be a mother-castrator. The woman who devours the male genitals arouses the fear that my penis will be soft, not erect.   When I think of the possibility of my having a relationship with a woman, the image of the soft penis comes immediately to mind. How depressing. The woman wants to destroy my sexual capability and so she demolishes me. My penis must be soft. My penis must be incapable of procreating.

Session 19 Once again I'm certain that the doctor has cheated me. He gave me an injection of distilled water instead of LSD. He wants to see the reactions I'll have as a result of auto-suggestion. He's trying to deceive me. Everyone tries to deceive me ...

I'm certain in the sexual act that something isn't right. I feel that certain conditions are necessary for it to evolve satisfactorily; for instance, I have to remove my belt beforehand or else it'll go wrong. Just one small detail is enough to spoil everything. I want everything to be perfect and yet everything is imperfect. I want everything to be in impeccable order and yet everything is in confusion ...

Waking up in the morning is torture. I have no desire to get out of bed. I feel that this resistance symbolizes my resistance to leaving the womb. My mouth is dry. There is a taste of death in my mouth. I feel horrified when I see old people: they look like death. My head feels heavy. I don't want to speak. I'm resisting. The same in everyday life: resistance to everything. Nothing in life is worth anything. Everything leads to a nothing. Failure in everything. The Session will fail. What use is any effort I make? Intellectually, I come to the conclusion that I'm no worse than a lot of other people, but that doesn't help me because emotionally I feel I'm worth nothing.

The doctor subjects me to Sessions out of charity. I often wonder what the purpose of the Sessions is, as long as I'm worthless. As if I don't want to know the cause of my suffering. I'm sure everyone is deceiving me. The doctor is deceiving me.

Since he gave me an injection of water instead of LSD, why should I ejaculate? (Here R5 immediately corrects his slip of the tongue and says:) Why should I gesticulate when I speak? I don't want to be deceived and above all I don't want to play their game. I'm the victim of a preposterous farce.

When I gesticulate I make myself look ridiculous. I give satisfaction to those who make fun of me. They expect something of me. I feel exhausted. I want to destroy everything around me. This is the night of the night within the night.   My mouth is dry. I have no desire to talk. I feel extremely tired. I feel nothing. I'd like to howl but there is nothing. I am nothing within nothing. I'm saying nothing. The tape recorder is recording nothing. I'm not something essential in life. I think that the doctor is smiling ironically. I'm not an interesting type of person because I'm a nothing. What use is the Session? I know nothing. It's awful. You're expecting something. You and the tape recorder are expecting to see me being tortured, to hear me groaning. Stop that tape recorder. It's a pit full of lies. It wants bloody crimes, it want violence, it wants sex, it wants violence and blood. It's waiting to hear me being tortured. No, I'm not going to satisfy such a vile desire. Does what I'm saying interest you? Well then, I'll say nothing. I am nothing so that I won't be what you want me to be.

(Pointing to the speaker on the tape recorder) I'm not going to put my thing in that machine: it'll cut it to pieces. It's a diabolical machine. It gets into your thing (penis) and there's nothing left. The diabolical machine is lying in wait for my thing.

Take that machine away from me. (The doctor removes the tape recorder.) I'm safer that way. The diabolical machine has the taste of death. (R5 sees the speaker as a round opening with teeth; he feels these are dangerous female genital organs.) ...

It annoys me to know that something is expected of me. I feel I must be active and productive. I feel that everything must be done perfectly. When I wake up in the morning panic grips me at the thought that I've lost time. Loss of time symbolizes something which is not perfect. Every morning they want me to suffer. Every second makes demands on me: do this, do that ... My whole body has to obey the order. My mind too. It's awful because neither my mind nor my body can obey. Every second I have to do something to prove that I'm worth something and that is impossible. I want to feel calm and yet I'm caught in the grip of obsessional acts and ideas. I'm expected to be perfect and I feel that I can never live up to what is expected of me ...

Session 20 ... I can see spiders. Hideous and horrible monsters. I can't stand it any more. I can't stand it any more (repeated many times) ... This body isn't mine. I don't like this body. I don't like the everyday sensation of this body.   It's badly proportioned. It's always my father's body. It's ugly. My body resembles a woman's body: narrow shoulders, broad pelvis, slightly rounded belly. When I am dressed, I can charm people with my face and well-groomed attire. Naked, I'm afraid of being rejected. I need to be wanted not only by men but also by women ...

... I'm fed up with everything, everything, everything! Every day I relive the sensation of being strangled. When I think of sex with a woman as being the expression of an effort to return to a state of 'normality' and peace, I feel the need to cry like a baby. What a horrible, what a sordid life! It's your fault (speaking to himself), you should have returned to your mother, to your womb, to woman, because that is really the only true way. I weep for my sordid life and my suffering but I cannot return to the true road: it passes through unbearable pain. I don't want to find myself back in a state of oppression where I'm dominated completely. I don't want to feel that I'm losing my body. Homosexuality is less pain ... When I reach orgasm through fantasizing and masturbating, I cry. It is the moment in which I lose all control over my body ...

R5's description of his first heterosexual experience I had expressed all my sensuality in an oriental dance, my body close to the body of a woman I was dancing with, when I suddenly felt that dancing was perhaps the only way I could function sensually with a woman. At the same time, I felt protected because I was dressed and sure of myself because I like dancing. At the end of the evening the woman I had been dancing with approached me and told me that she wanted to see me again. Because I am a weak person, I never say no to anyone and I cannot tell someone: "I don't want to see you again," Furthermore, I cannot lie and so I gave her my phone number. Because I wanted - but at the same time I didn't want - to see her again, I invited her to a party I was giving, thinking that I could easily avoid her by mingling her in with the other guests. Before the party I had masturbated with my usual fantasies to avoid any possible sexual desire for her.

The party has begun. It is late and she still hasn't come. I'm a little disappointed because I like being found attractive and I really want to be attractive even to this female admirer because I feel that she truly does admire me. She arrives late. I play it cool. I don't pay her particular attention and I talk with everybody. Yet I feel her eyes on me. She holds the microphone for me as I sing and I truly lose all my inhibitions singing. We dance and talk. She quickly confesses her sexual life to me. She had had a relationship with a homosexual who had never had another woman. She explains her love for him: she had become disappointed with the behaviour of many men and so she appreciated the finesse, the tenderness and sensitivity of homosexuals. I listen to her carefully and feel that she understands me. She tells me her thoughts on me: I have not yet decided whether to be homosexual or heterosexual and am still searching for my true nature.

I confirm that and confess my tremendous problem: I never know what I want. I cannot want and I cannot not want. I can't say no and I can't say yes. As far as my partners are concerned, I never know if I really want a sexual relationship with them or not. At bottom I do feel the desire for it but I never want it because I always feel afraid. I look at her and reflect that she isn't very pretty but she seems to understand my problem; she is sweet, she has had experience with homosexuals and she seems to want me. Then why not go to bed with her? I'm prepared to do the maddest thing I've ever done in my life. If I don't do it today, I'll never do it. I must take advantage of this opportunity, look upon it as an experience, even a test that, for better or worse, I must go through. I tell her what I want and also that I've never been to bed with a woman. She seems astonished. She confesses that this makes it difficult for her but in spite of that she wants me. Her face reflects fear, sadness and doubt.   Both of us, in fact, are afraid. She confides to me her permanent fear of becoming pregnant because she doesn't always take the pill. That throws me off balance but she assures me that she is prepared to take the risk. This possibility brings me face to face with one of my worst phobias - that of pregnancy and childbirth - and so I tell her that she can easily refuse and I confide in her my own great fear on this matter. But then, everything terrifies me, so I close my eyes and she is ready to spend the night with me.

First I kiss her, though without much pleasure. Her mouth is small and fine and I'm not used to that. Then she undresses and I caress and kiss her. How different this is to being with a man. I'm used to large male hands and now I'm holding small hands. When I lie on top of her I'm afraid I may hurt her because she feels fragile to me and that inhibits me, it makes me falter all the more. At first I don't want to take off my underpants. I don't feel at all aroused and it would be like admitting that I am impotent. She puts my finger in her vagina. It is a terrible sensation which really revolts me but I say nothing. It is slimy, warm and moist and it reactivates all my phobias. It is like a jellyfish and while I had never previously touched female genitals, it is as if I had known this feeling of revulsion before ... The vagina secretes a fluid like sperm, with the same smell and that amazes me. I don't like the consistency of these fluids nor this smell. I really feel no arousal at all. This is total castration ...

We speak about X and that pleases me. I'm speaking about men and that excites me. Sometimes I find myself in a passive position, as if I'm expecting her to behave like a man. She begins to masturbate me and I feel aroused. I'm suffering, I feel pain in the genitals as if they are bleeding and I start to cry.   The more I suffer, the more she masturbates me and the more I want to cry. I control myself a little but this must be terrible for her. The pain comes from excitation: it is just like the way I feel when I'm about to ejaculate with a man. I tell her to go on masturbating me because, even though I'm suffering, at least I feel something and that's better than nothing.

I take her in my arms, I hold her, I squeeze her, I lift her. We are sitting facing each other in each other's arms but I have no desire to kiss her, I don't feel like it. I feel very active and dominant at this stage. She wants me to penetrate her but I can't conceive of it without a real erection and I don't do it.   She puts her finger into my anus and that surprises me but I like it well enough. Then we fall asleep. At first I feel like a small baby curled up like a foetus and in need of protection. I'd like a man to be squeezing me in his arms at this moment. Her presence cannot satisfy me. She keeps reaching for me and I don't want to any more.

In the morning I'm glad when she leaves because I don't want her body any more. She was a very nice girl. I couldn't have asked for more understanding for my first time. I don't want to begin again in the immediate future but I didn't feel terribly traumatized because she was gentle and refined. The thought of pregnancy and childbirth could have made me feel very afraid; although I did not ejaculate, it seems to me that if I had given one drop of my sperm, it would have been like giving a drop of my blood.

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