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| Melvyn Douglas, actor |
Nondental Affliction |
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It didn't take long for me to become captivated by one of Tacoma's most fair. But, youngster that I still was, an image of my mother with an accusing look in her eye appeared before me. According to her Victorian precepts, nice girls neither thought nor talked about sex; indeed, nice girls indulged in sex only when they got married and wanted babies. And then reluctantly. Mother had too often confided her own sexual difficulties to me during my youth. "Melvyn," she would cry, hugging me to her ample bosom, "do you realize I could have your father arrested for some of the things he wants to do with me?" At my tender years, I could not understand what Mother was talking about — though I wanted to, oh my, how I wanted to.
As a result, at seventeen I felt the deepest shame every time my body "betrayed" me (as I thought of it then) and an erection occurred in the presence of my beloved. This dire confusion was resolved in extraordinary circumstances. When inadequate army dentistry forced a visit to a civilian specialist, the doctor's female assistant took an interest in me, deducing after a first, a second, a third long wait that I was both troubled and inexperienced. On the occasion of a fourth visit, she suggested she might be able to provide certain remedies for my nondental afflictions — and I discovered the kind of woman D.H. Lawrence had called "voracious." (Tacoma, Wash., 1919)
from See You at the Movies: The Autobiography of Melvyn Douglas with Tom Arthur (Lanham, © 1986)
© 2000 Nerve.com, Inc.
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