Flagellation as a Typical Illustration of Algolagnia--Causes of Connection
between Sexual Emotion and Whipping--Physical Causes--Psychic Causes
probably more Important--The Varied Emotional Associations of
Whipping--Its Wide Prevalence.
The whole problem of love and pain, in its complementary sadistic and
masochistic aspects, is presented to us in connection with the pleasure
sometimes experienced in whipping, or in being whipped, or in witnessing
or thinking about scenes of whipping. The association of sexual emotion
with bloodshed is so extreme a perversion, it so swiftly sinks to phases
that are obviously cruel, repulsive, and monstrous in an extreme degree,
that it is necessarily rare, and those who are afflicted by it are often
more or less imbecile. With whipping it is otherwise. Whipping has always
been a recognized religious penance; it is still regarded as a beneficial
and harmless method of chastisement; there is nothing necessarily cruel,
repulsive, or monstrous in the idea or the reality of whipping, and it is
perfectly easy and natural for an interest in the subject to arise in an
innocent and even normal child, and thus to furnish a germ around which,
temporarily at all events, sexual ideas may crystallize. For these reasons
the connection between love and pain may be more clearly brought out in
connection with whipping than with blood.
There is, by no means, any necessary connection between flagellation and
the sexual emotions. If there were, this form of penance would not have
been so long approved or at all events tolerated by the Church.[107]
As a matter of fact, indeed, it was not always approved or even tolerated.
Pope Adrian IV in the eighth century forbade priests to beat their
penitents, and at the time of the epidemic of flagellation in the
thirteenth century, which was highly approved by many holy men, the abuses
were yet so frequent that Clement VI issued a bull against these
processions. All such papal prohibitions remained without effect. The
association of religious flagellation with perverted sexual motives is
shown by its condemnation in later ages by the Inquisition, which was
accustomed to prosecute the priests who, in prescribing flagellation as a
penance, exerted it personally, or caused it to be inflicted on the
stripped penitent in his presence, or made a woman penitent discipline
him, such offences being regarded as forms of "solicitation."[108] There
seems even to be some reason to suppose that the religious flagellation
mania which was so prevalent in the later Middle Ages, when processions of
penitents, male and female, eagerly flogged themselves and each other, may
have had something to do with the discovery of erotic flagellation,[109]
which, at all events in Europe, seems scarcely to have been known before
the sixteenth century. It must, in any case, have assisted to create a
predisposition. The introduction of flagellation as a definitely
recognized sexual stimulant is by Eulenburg, in his interesting book,
_Sadismus und Masochismus_, attributed to the Arabian physicians. It would
appear to have been by the advice of an Arabian physician that the Duchess
Leonora Gonzaga, of Mantua, was whipped by her mother to aid her in
responding more warmly to her husband's embraces and to conceive.
Whatever the precise origin of sexual flagellation in Europe, there can be
no doubt that it soon became extremely common, and so it remains at the
present day. Those who possess a special knowledge of such matters declare
that sexual flagellation is the most frequent of all sexual perversions
in England.[110] This belief is, I know, shared by many people both inside
and outside England. However this may be, the tendency is certainly
common. I doubt if it is any or at all less common in Germany, judging by
the large number of books on the subject of flagellation which have been
published in German. In a catalogue of "interesting books" on this and
allied subjects issued by a German publisher and bookseller, I find that,
of fifty-five volumes, as many as seventeen or eighteen, all in German,
deal solely with the question of flagellation, while many of the other
books appear to deal in part with the same subject.[111] It is, no doubt,
true that the large part which the rod has played in the past history of
our civilization justifies a considerable amount of scientific interest in
the subject of flagellation, but it is clear that the interest in these
books is by no means always scientific, but very frequently sexual.
It is remarkable that, while the sexual associations of whipping,
whether in slight or in marked degrees, are so frequent in modern
times, they appear to be by no means easy to trace in ancient
times. "Flagellation," I find it stated by a modern editor of the
_Priapeia_, "so extensively practised in England as a provocation
to venery, is almost entirely unnoticed by the Latin erotic
writers, although, in the _Satyricon_ of Petronius (ch.
cxxxviii), Encolpius, in describing the steps taken by OEnothea
to undo the temporary impotence to which he was subjected, says:
'Next she mixed nasturtium-juice with southern wood, and, having
bathed my foreparts, she took a bunch of green nettles, and
gently whipped my belly all over below the navel.'" It appears
also that many ancient courtesans dedicated to Venus as ex-votos
a whip, a bridle, or a spur as tokens of their skill in riding
their lovers. The whip was sometimes used in antiquity, but if it
aroused sexual emotions they seem to have passed unregarded. "We
naturally know nothing," Eulenburg remarks (_Sadismus und
Masochismus_, p. 72), "of the feelings of the priestess of
Artemis at the flagellation of Spartan youths; or what emotions
inspired the priestess of the Syrian goddess under similar
circumstances; or what the Roman Pontifex Maximus felt when he
castigated the exposed body of a negligent vestal (as described
by Plutarch) behind a curtain, and the 'plagosus Orbilius' only
practised on children."
It was at the Renaissance that cases of abnormal sexual pleasure
in flagellation began to be recorded. The earliest distinct
reference to a masochistic flagellant seems to have been made by
Pico della Mirandola, toward the end of the fifteenth century, in
his _Disputationes Adversus Astrologiam Divinatricem_, bk. iii,
ch. xxvii. Coelius Rhodiginus in 1516, again, narrated the case
of a man he knew who liked to be severely whipped, and found this
a stimulant to coitus. Otto Brunfels, in his _Onomasticon_
(1534), art. "Coitus," refers to another case of a man who could
not have intercourse with his wife until he had been whipped.
Then, a century later, in 1643, Meibomius wrote _De Usu Flagrorum
in re Venerea_, the earliest treatise on this subject, narrating
various cases. Numerous old cases of pleasure in flagellation and
urtication were brought together by Schurig in 1720 in his
_Spermatologia_, pp. 253-258.
The earliest definitely described medical case of sadistic
pleasure in the sight of active whipping which I have myself come
across belongs to the year 1672, and occurs in a letter in which
Nesterus seeks the opinion of Garmann. He knows intimately, he
states, a very learned man--whose name, for the honor he bears
him, he refrains from mentioning--who, whenever in a school or
elsewhere he sees a boy unbreeched and birched, and hears him
crying out, at once emits semen copiously without any erection,
but with great mental commotion. The same accident frequently
happens to him during sleep, accompanied by dreams of whipping.
Nesterus proceeds to mention that this "_laudatus vir_" was also
extremely sensitive to the odor of strawberries and other fruits,
which produced nausea. He was evidently a neurotic subject.
(L.C.F. Garmanni et Aliorum Virorum Clarissimorum, _Epistolarum
Centuria_, Rostochi et Lipsiæ, 1714.)
In England we find that toward the end of the sixteenth century
one of Marlowe's epigrams deals with a certain Francus who before
intercourse with his mistress "sends for rods and strips himself
stark naked," and by the middle of the seventeenth century the
existence of an association between flagellation and sexual
pleasure seems to have been popularly recognized. In 1661, in a
vulgar "tragicomedy" entitled _The Presbyterian Lash_, we find:
"I warrant he thought that the tickling of the wench's buttocks
with the rod would provoke her to lechery." That whipping was
well known as a sexual stimulant in England in the eighteenth
century is sufficiently indicated by the fact that in one of
Hogarth's series representing the "Harlot's Progress" a birch rod
hangs over the bed. The prevalence of sexual flagellation in
England at the end of that century and the beginning of the
nineteenth is discussed by Dühren (Iwan Bloch) in his
_Geschlechtsleben in England_ (1901-3), especially vol. ii, ch.
vi.
While, however, the evidence regarding sexual flagellation is
rare, until recent times whipping as a punishment was extremely
common. It is even possible that its very prevalence, and the
consequent familiarity with which it was regarded, were
unfavorable to the development of any mysterious emotional state
likely to act on the sexual sphere, except in markedly neurotic
subjects. Thus, the corporal chastisement of wives by husbands
was common and permitted. Not only was this so to a proverbial
extent in eastern Europe, but also in the extreme west and among
a people whose women enjoyed much freedom and honor. Cymric law
allowed a husband to chastise his wife for angry speaking, such
as calling him a cur; for giving away property she was not
entitled to give away; or for being found in hiding with another
man. For the first two offenses she had the option of paying him
three kine. When she accepted the chastisement she was to receive
"three strokes with a rod of the length of her husband's forearm
and the thickness of his long finger, and that wheresoever he
might will, excepting on the head"; so that she was to suffer
pain only, and not injury. (R.B. Holt, "Marriage Laws and Customs
of the Cymri," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
August-November, 1898, p. 162.)
"The Cymric law," writes a correspondent, "seems to have survived
in popular belief in the Eastern and Middle States of the United
States. In police-courts in New York, for example, it has been
unsuccessfully pleaded that a man is entitled to beat his wife
with a stick no thicker than his thumb. In Pennsylvania actual
acquittals have been rendered."
Among all classes children were severely whipped by their parents
and others in authority over them. It may be recalled that in the
twelfth century when Abelard became tutor to Heloise, then about
18 years of age, her uncle authorized him to beat her, if
negligent in her studies. Even in the sixteenth century Jeanne
d'Albert, who became the mother of Henry IV of France, at the
age of 13½ was married to the Duke of Cleves, and to overcome her
resistance to this union the Queen, her mother, had her whipped
to such an extent that she thought she would die of it. The whip
on this occasion was, however, only partially successful, for the
Duke never succeeded in consummating the marriage, which was, in
consequence, annulled. (Cabanès brings together numerous facts
regarding the prevalence of flagellation as a chastisement in
ancient France in the interesting chapter on "La Flagellation a
la Cour et à la Ville" in his _Indiscretions de l'Histoire_,
1903.)
As to the prevalence of whipping in England evidence is furnished
by Andrews, in the chapter on "Whipping and Whipping Posts," in
his book on ancient punishments. It existed from the earliest
times and was administered for a great variety of offenses, to
men and women alike, for vagrancy, for theft, to the fathers and
mothers of illegitimate children, for drunkenness, for insanity,
even sometimes for small-pox. At one time both sexes were whipped
naked, but from Queen Elizabeth's time only from the waist
upward. In 1791 the whipping of female vagrants ceased by law.
(W. Andrews, _Bygone Punishments_, 1899.)
It must, however, be remarked that law always lags far behind
social feeling and custom, and flagellation as a common
punishment had fallen into disuse or become very perfunctory long
before any change was made in the law, though it is not
absolutely extinct, even by law, today. There is even an ignorant
and retrograde tendency to revive it. Thus, even in severe
Commonwealth days, the alleged whipping with rods of a
servant-girl by her master, though with no serious physical
injury, produced a great public outcry, as we see by the case of
the Rev. Zachary Crofton, a distinguished London clergyman, who
was prosecuted in 1657 on the charge of whipping his
servant-girl, Mary Cadman, because she lay in bed late in the
morning and stole sugar. This incident led to several pamphlets.
In _The Presbyterian, Lash or Noctroff's Maid Whipt_ (1661), a
satire on Crofton, we read: "It is not only contrary to Gospel
but good manners to take up a wench's petticoats, smock and all";
and in the doggerel ballad of "Bo-Peep," which was also written
on the same subject, it is said that Crofton should have left his
wife to chastise the maid. Crofton published two pamphlets, one
under his own name and one under that of Alethes Noctroff (1657),
in which he elaborately dealt with the charge as both false and
frivolous. In one passage he offers a qualified defense of such
an act: "I cannot but bewail the exceeding rudeness of our times
to suffer such foolery to be prosecuted as of some high and
notorious crime. Suppose it were (as it is not) true, may not
some eminent congregational brother be found guilty of the same
act? Is it not much short of drinking an health naked on a
signpost? May it not be as theologically defended as the
husband's correction of his wife?" This passage, and the whole
episode, show that feeling in regard to this matter was at that
time in a state of transition.
Flagellation as a penance, whether inflicted by the penitent
himself or by another person, was also extremely common in
medieval and later days. According to Walsingham ("Master of the
Rolls' Collection," vol. i, p. 275), in England, in the middle of
the fourteenth century, penitents, sometimes men of noble birth,
would severely flagellate themselves, even to the shedding of
blood, weeping or singing as they did so; they used cords with
knots containing nails.
At a later time the custom of religious flagellation was more
especially preserved in Spain. The Countess d'Aulnoy, who visited
Spain in 1685, has described the flagellations practised in
public at Madrid. After giving an account of the dress worn by
these flagellants, which corresponds to that worn in Spain in
Holy Week at the present time by the members of the _Cofradias_,
the face concealed by the high sugar-loaf head-covering, she
continues: "They attach ribbons to their scourges, and usually
their mistresses honor them with their favors. In gaining public
admiration they must not gesticulate with the arm, but only move
the wrist and hand; the blows must be given without haste, and
the blood must not spoil the costume. They make terrible wounds
on their shoulders, from which the blood flows in streams; they
march through the streets with measured steps; they pass before
the windows of their mistresses, where they flagellate themselves
with marvelous patience. The lady gazes at this fine sight
through the blinds of her room, and by a sign she encourages him
to flog himself, and lets him understand how much she likes this
sort of gallantry. When they meet a good-looking woman they
strike themselves in such a way that the blood goes on to her;
this is a great honor, and the grateful lady thanks them.... All
this is true to the letter."
The Countess proceeds to describe other and more genuine
penitents, often of high birth, who may be seen in the street
naked above the waist, and with naked feet on the rough and sharp
pavement; some had swords passed through the skin of their body
and arms, others heavy crosses that weighed them down. She
remarks that she was told by the Papal Nuncio that he had
forbidden confessors to impose such penances, and that they were
due to the devotion of the penitents themselves. (_Relation du
Voyage d'Espagne_, 1692, vol. ii, pp. 158-164.)
The practice of public self-flagellation in church during Lent
existed in Spain and Portugal up to the early years of the
nineteenth century. Descriptions of it will often be met with in
old volumes of travel. Thus, I find a traveler through Spain in
1786 describing how, at Barcelona, he was present when, in Lent,
at a Miserere in the Convent Church of San Felipe Neri on Friday
evening the doors were shut, the lights put out, and in perfect
darkness all bared their backs and applied the discipline,
singing while they scourged themselves, ever louder and harsher
and with ever greater vehemence until in twenty minutes' time the
whole ended in a deep groan. It is mentioned that at Malaga,
after such a scene, the whole church was in the morning sprinkled
with blood. (Joseph Townsend, _A Journey through Spain in 1786_,
vol. i, p. 122; vol. iii, p. 15.)
Even to our own day religious self-flagellation is practised by
Spaniards in the Azores, in the darkened churches during Lent,
and the walls are often spotted and smeared with blood at this
time. (O.H. Howarth, "The Survival of Corporal Punishment,"
_Journal Anthropological Institute_, Feb., 1889.) In remote
districts of Spain (as near Haro in Rioja) there are also
brotherhoods who will flagellate themselves on Good Friday, but
not within the church. (Dario de Regoyos, _España Negra_, 1899,
p. 72.)
When we glance over the history of flagellation and realize that, though
whipping as a punishment has been very widespread and common, there have
been periods and lands showing no clear knowledge of any sexual
association of whipping, it becomes clear that whipping is not necessarily
an algolagnic manifestation. It seems evident that there must be special
circumstances, and perhaps a congenital predisposition, to bring out
definitely the relationship of flagellation to the sexual impulse. Thus,
Löwenfeld considers that only about 1 per cent, of people can be sexually
excited by flagellation of the buttocks,[112] and Näcke also is decidedly
of opinion that there can be no sexual pleasure in flagellation without
predisposition, which is rare.[113] On these grounds many are of opinion
that physical chastisement, provided it is moderate, seldom applied, and
only to children who are quite healthy and vigorous, need not be
absolutely prohibited.[114] But, however rare and abnormal a sexual
response to actual flagellation may be in adults, we shall see that the
general sexual association of whipping in the minds of children, and
frequently of their elders, is by; no means rare and scarcely abnormal.
What is the cause of the connection between sexual emotion and whipping? A
very simple physical cause has been believed by some to account fully for
the phenomena. It is known that strong stimulation of the gluteal region
may, especially under predisposing conditions, produce or heighten sexual
excitement, by virtue of the fact that both regions are supplied by
branches of the same nerve.
There is another reason why whipping should exert a sexual influence. As
Féré especially has pointed out, in moderate amount it has a tonic effect,
and as such has a general beneficial result in stimulating the whole body.
This fact was, indeed, recognized by the classic physicians, and Galen
regarded flagellation as a tonic.[115] Thus, not only must it be said that
whipping, when applied to the gluteal region, has a direct influence in
stimulating the sexual organs, but its general tonic influence must
naturally extend to the sexual system.
It is possible that we must take into account here a biological
factor, such as we have found involved in other forms of sadism
and masochism. In this connection a lady writes to me: "With
regard to the theory which connects the desire for whipping with
the way in which animals make love, where blows or pressure on
the hindquarters are almost a necessary preliminary to pleasure,
have you ever noticed the way in which stags behave? Their does
seem as timid as the males are excitable, and the blows inflicted
on them by the horns of their mates to reduce them to submission
must be, I should think, an exact equivalent to being beaten with
a stick."
It is remarkable that in some cases the whip would even appear to
have a psychic influence in producing sexual excitement in
animals accustomed to its application as a stimulant to action.
Thus, Professor Cornevin, of Lyons, describes the case of a
Hungarian stallion, otherwise quite potent, in whom erection
could only be produced in the presence of a mare in heat when a
whip was cracked near him, and occasionally applied gently to his
legs. (Cornevin, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, January,
1896.)
Here, undoubtedly, we have a definite anatomical and physiological
relationship which often serves as a starting-point for the turning of the
sexual feelings in this direction, and will sometimes support the
perversion when it has otherwise arisen. But this relationship, even if we
regard it as a fairly frequent channel by which sexual emotion is aroused,
will not suffice to account for most, or even many, of the cases in which
whipping exerts a sexual fascination. In many, if not most, cases it is
found that the idea of whipping asserts its sexual significance quite
apart from any personal experience, even in persons who have never been
whipped;[116] not seldom also in persons who have been whipped and who
feel nothing but repugnance for the actual performance, attractive as it
may be in imagination.
It is evident that we have to seek the explanation of this phenomenon
largely in psychic causes. Whipping, whether inflicted or suffered, tends
to arouse, vaguely but massively, the very fundamental and primitive
emotions of anger and fear, which, as we have seen, have always been
associated with courtship, and it tends to arouse them at an age when the
sexual emotions have not become clearly defined, and under circumstances
which are likely to introduce sexual associations. From their earliest
years children have been trained to fear whipping, even when not actually
submitted to it, and an unjust punishment of this kind, whether inflicted
on themselves or others, frequently arouses intense anger, nervous
excitement, or terror in the sensitive minds of children.[117] Moreover,
as has been pointed out to me by a lady who herself in early life was
affected by the sexual associations of whipping, a child only sees the
naked body of elder children when uncovered for whipping, and its sexual
charm may in part be due to this cause. We further have to remark that the
spectacle of suffering itself is, to some extent and under some
circumstances, a stimulant of sexual emotion. It is evident that a number
of factors contribute to surround whipping at a very early age with
powerful emotional associations, and that these associations are of such a
character that in predisposed subjects they are very easily led into a
sexual channel.[118] Various lines of evidence support this conclusion.
Thus, from several reliable quarters I learn that the sight of a boy being
caned at school may produce sexual excitement in the boys who look on. The
association of sexual emotion with whipping is, again, very liable to show
itself in schoolmasters, and many cases have been recorded in which the
flogging of boys, under the stress of this impulse, has been carried to
extreme lengths. An early and eminent example is furnished by Udall, the
humanist, at one time headmaster of Eton, who was noted for his habit of
inflicting frequent corporal punishment for little or no cause, and who
confessed to sexual practices with the boys under his care.[119]
Sanitchenko has called attention to the case of a Russian functionary, a
school inspector, who every day had some fifty pupils flogged in his
presence, as evidence of a morbid pleasure in such scenes. Even when no
sexual element can be distinctly traced, scenes of whipping sometimes
exert a singular fascination on some persons of sensitive emotional
temperament. A friend, a clergyman, who has read many novels tells me that
he has been struck by the frequency with which novelists describe such
scenes with much luxury of detail; his list includes novels by well-known
religious writers of both sexes. In some of these cases there is reason to
believe that the writers felt this sexual association of whipping.
It is natural that an interest in whipping should be developed very early
in childhood, and, indeed, it enters very frequently into the games of
young children, and constitutes a much relished element of such games,
more especially among girls. I know of many cases in which young girls
between 6 and 12 years of age took great pleasure in games in which the
chief point consisted in unfastening each other's drawers and smacking
each other, and some of these girls, when they grew older, realized that
there was an element of sexual enjoyment in their games. It has indeed, it
seems, always been a child's game, and even an amusement of older persons,
to play at smacking each other's nates. In _The Presbyter's Lash_ in 1661
a young woman is represented as stating that she had done this as a child,
and in ancient France it was a privileged custom on Innocents' Day
(December 28th) to smack all the young people found lying late in bed; it
was a custom which, as Clement Marot bears witness, was attractive to
lovers.
If we turn to the histories I have brought together in Appendix B
we find various references to whipping more or less clearly
connected with the rudimentary sexual feelings of childhood.
I am acquainted with numerous cases in which the idea of
whipping, or the impulse to whip or be whipped, distinctly
exists, though usually, when persisting to adult life, only in a
rudimentary form. History I in the Appendix B presents a
well-marked instance. I may quote the remarks in another case of
a lady regarding her early feelings: "As a child the idea of
being whipped excited me, but only in connection with a person I
loved, and, moreover, one who had the right to correct me. On one
occasion I was beaten with the back of a brush, and the pain was
sufficient to overcome any excitement; so that, ever after, this
particular form of whipping left me unaffected, though the
excitement still remained connected with forms of which I had no
experience."
Another lady states that when a little girl of 4 or 5 the
servants used to smack her nates with a soft brush to amuse
themselves (undoubtedly, as she now believes, this gave them a
kind of sexual pleasure); it did not hurt her, but she disliked
it. Her father used to whip her severely on the nates at this age
and onward to the age of 13, but this never gave her any
pleasure. When, however, she was about 9 she began in waking
dreams to imagine that she was whipping somebody, and would
finish by imagining that she was herself being whipped. She would
make up stories of which the climax was a whipping, and felt at
the same time a pleasurable burning sensation in her sexual
parts; she used to prolong the preliminaries of the story to
heighten the climax; she felt more pleasure in the idea of being
whipped than of whipping, although she never experienced any
pleasure from an actual whipping. These day-dreams were most
vivid when she was at school, between the ages of 11 and 14. They
began to fade with the growth of affection for real persons. But
in dreams, even in adult life, she occasionally experienced
sexual excitement accompanied by images of smacking.
Another correspondent, this time a man, writes: "I experienced
the connection between sexual excitement and whipping long before
I knew what sexuality meant or had any notion regarding the
functions of the sexual organs. What I now know to be distinct
sexual feeling used to occur whenever the idea of whipping arose
or the mention of whipping was made in a way to arrest my
attention. I well remember the strange, mysterious fascination it
had, even apart from any actual physical excitement. I have been
told by many men and a few women that it was the same with them.
Even now the feeling exists sometimes, especially when reading
about whipping."
The following confession, which I find recorded by a German
manufacturer's wife, corresponds with those I have obtained in
England: "When about 5 years old I was playing with a little girl
friend in the park. Our governesses sat on a bench talking. For
some reason--perhaps because we had wandered away too far and
failed to hear a call to return--my friend aroused the anger of
the governess in charge of her. That young lady, therefore, took
her aside, raised her dress, and vigorously smacked her with the
flat hand. I looked on fascinated, and possessed by an
inexplicable feeling to which I naïvely gave myself up. The
impression was so deep that the scene and the persons concerned
are still clearly present to my mind, and I can even recall the
little details of my companion's underclothing." When sexual
associations are permanently brought into play through such an
early incident it is possible that a special predisposition
exists. (_Gesellschaft und Geschlecht_, Bd. ii, ht. 4, p. 120.)
It would certainly seem that we must look upon this association as coming
well within the normal range of emotional life in childhood, although
after puberty, when the sexual feelings become clearly defined, the
attraction of whipping normally tends to be left behind as a piece of
childishness, only surviving in the background of consciousness, if at
all, to furnish a vaguely sexual emotional tone to the subject of
whipping, but not affecting conduct, sometimes only emerging in erotic
dreams.
This, however, is not invariably the case in persons who are organically
abnormal. In such cases, and especially, it would seem, in highly
sensitive and emotional children, the impress left by the fact or the
image of whipping may be so strong that it affects not only definitely,
but permanently, the whole subsequent course of development of the sexual
impulse. Régis has recorded a case which well illustrates the
circumstances and hereditary conditions under which the idea of whipping
may take such firm root in the sexual emotional nature of a child as to
persist into adult life; at the same time the case shows how a sexual
perversion may, in an intelligent person, take on an intellectual
character, and it also indicates a rational method of treatment.
Jules P., aged 22, of good heredity on father's side, but bad on
that of mother, who is highly hysterical, while his grandmother
was very impulsive and sometimes pursued other women with a
knife. He has one brother and one sister, who are somewhat morbid
and original. He is himself healthy, intelligent, good looking,
and agreeable, though with slightly morbid peculiarities. At the
age of 4 or 5 he suddenly opened a door and saw his sister, then
a girl of 14 or 15, kneeling, with her clothes raised and her
head on her governess's lap, at the moment of being whipped for
some offense. This trivial incident left a profound impression on
his mind, and he recalls every detail of it, especially the sight
of his sister's buttocks,--round, white, and enormous as they
seemed to his childish eyes,--and that momentary vision gave a
permanent direction to the whole of his sexual life. Always after
that he desired to touch and pat his sister's gluteal regions. He
shared her bed, and, though only a child, acquired great skill in
attaining his ends without attracting her attention, lifting her
night-gown when she slept and gently caressing the buttocks, also
contriving to turn her over on to her stomach and then make a
pillow of her hips. This went on until the age of 7, when he
began to play with two little girls of the neighborhood, the
eldest of whom was 10; he liked to take the part of the father
and whip them. The older girl was big for her age, and he would
separate her drawers and smack her with much voluptuous emotion;
so that he frequently sought opportunities to repeat the
experience, to which the girl willingly lent herself, and they
were constantly together in dark corners, the girl herself
opening her drawers to enable him to caress her thighs and
buttocks with his hand until he became conscious of an erection.
Sometimes he would gently use a whip. On one occasion she asked
him if he would not now like to see her in front, but he
declined.
One day, when 8 or 9 years old, being with a boy companion, he
came upon a picture of a monk being flagellated, and thereupon
persuaded his companion to let himself be whipped; the boy
enjoyed the experience, which was therefore often repeated. Jules
P. himself, however, never took the slightest pleasure in playing
the passive part. These practices were continued even after the
friend became a conscript, when, however, they became very rare.
Only once or twice has he ever done anything of this kind to
girls who were strangers to him. Nor has he ever masturbated or
had any desire for sexual intercourse. He contents himself with
the pleasure of being occasionally able to witness scenes of
whipping in public places--parks and gardens--or of catching
glimpses of the thighs and buttocks of young girls or, if
possible, women.
His principal enjoyment is in imagination. From the first he has
loved to invent stories in which whippings were the climax, and
at 13 such stories produced the first spontaneous emission. Thus,
he imagines, for instance, a young girl from the country who
comes up to Paris by train; on the way a lady is attracted by
her, takes an interest in her, brings her home to dinner, and at
last can no longer resist the temptation to take the girl in her
arms and whip her amorously. He writes out these scenes and
illustrates them with drawings, many of which Régis reproduces.
He has even written comedies in which whipping plays a prominent
part. He has, moreover, searched public libraries for references
to flagellation, inserted queries in the _Intermédiare des
Chercheurs et des Curieux_, and thus obtained a complete
bibliography of flagellation which is of considerable value.
Régis is acquainted with these _Archives de la Fessée_, and
states that they are carried on with great method and care. He is
especially interested in the whipping of women by women. He
considers that the pleasure of whippings should always be shared
by the person whipped, and he is somewhat concerned to find that
he has an increasing inclination to imagine an element of cruelty
in the whipping. Emissions are somewhat frequent. According to
the latest information, he is much better; he has entered into
sexual relationship with a woman who is much in love with him,
and to whom he has confided his peculiarities. With her aid and
suggestions he has been able to have intercourse with her, at the
moment of coitus whipping her with a harmless India-rubber tube.
(E. Régis, "Un Cas de Perversion Sexuelle, a forme Sadique,"
_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelles_, July, 1899.)
In a case also occurring in a highly educated man (narrated by
Marandon de Montyel) a doctor of laws, brilliantly intellectual
and belonging to a family in which there had been some insanity,
when at school at the age of 11, saw for the first time a
schoolfellow whipped on the nates, and experienced a new pleasure
and emotion. He was never himself whipped at school, but would
invent games with his sisters and playfellows in which whipping
formed an essential part. At the age of 13 he teased a young
woman, a cook, until she seized him and whipped him. He put his
arms around her and experienced his first voluptuous spasm of
sex. The love of flagellation temporarily died out, however, and
gave place to masturbation and later to a normal attraction to
women. But at the age of 32 the old ideas were aroused anew by a
story his mistress told him. He suffered from various obsessions
and finally committed suicide. (Marandon de Montyel, "Obsessions
et Vie Sexuelle," _Archives de Neurologie_, Oct., 1904.)
In a case that has been reported to me, somewhat similar ideas
played a part. The subject is a tall, well-developed man, aged
28, delicate in childhood, but now normal in health and physical
condition, though not fond of athletics. His mental ability is
much above the average, especially in scientific directions; he
was brought up in narrow and strict religious views, but at an
early age developed agnostic views of his own.
From the age of 6, and perhaps earlier, he practised masturbation
almost every night. This was a habit which he carried on in all
innocence. It was as invariable a preliminary, he states, to
going to sleep as was lying down, and at this period he would
have felt no hesitation in telling all about it had the question
been asked. At the age of 12 or 13 he recognized the habit as
abnormal, and fear of ridicule then caused him to keep silence
and to avoid observation. In carrying it out he would lie on his
stomach with the penis directed downward, and not up, and the
thumb resting on the region above the root of the penis. There
was desire for micturition after the act, and when that was
satisfied sound sleep followed. When he realized that the habit
was abnormal he began to make efforts to discontinue it, and
these efforts have been continued up to the present. The chief
obstacle has been the difficulty of sleep without carrying out
the practice. Emissions first began to occur at the age of 13 and
at first caused some alarm. During the six following years
indulgence was irregular, sometimes occurring every other night
and sometimes with a week's intermission. Then at the age of 19
the habit was broken for a year, during which nocturnal emissions
took place during sleep about every three weeks. Since this,
shorter periods of non-indulgence have occurred, these periods
always coinciding with unusual mental or physical strain, as of
examinations. He has some degree of attraction for women; this is
strongest during cessation from masturbation and tends to
disappear when the habit is resumed. He has never had sexual
intercourse because he prefers his own method of gratification
and feels great abhorrence for professional prostitutes; he could
not afford to marry. Any indecency or immorality, except (he
observes) his own variety, disgusts him.
At the earliest period no mental images accompanied the act of
masturbation. At about the age of 8, however, sexual excitement
began to be constantly associated with ideas of being whipped. At
or soon after this age only the fear of disgrace prevented him
from committing serious childish offenses likely to be punished
by a good whipping. Parents and masters, however, seem to have
used corporal punishment very sparingly.
At first this desire was for whipping in general, without
reference to the operator. Soon after the age of 10, however, he
began to wish that certain boy friends should be the operators.
At about the same time definite desire arose for closer contact
with these friends and later for definite indecent acts which,
however, the subject failed to specify; he probably meant mutual
masturbation. These desires were under control, and the fear of
ridicule seems to have been the chief restraining cause. At about
the age of 15 he began to realize that such acts might be
considered morally bad and wrong, and this led to reticence and
careful concealment. Up to the age of 20 there were four definite
attachments to persons of his own sex. There was a tendency,
sometimes, to regard women as possible whippers, and this became
stronger at 22, the images of the two sexes then mingling in his
thoughts of flagellation. Latterly the mental accompaniments of
masturbation have been less personal, lapsing into the mental
picture of being whipped by an unknown and vague somebody. When
definite it has always been a man, and preferably of the type of
a schoolmaster. His desire has been for punishment by whips,
canes, or birches, especially upon the buttocks. He has always
shrunk from the thought of the production of blood or bruises. He
wishes, in mental contemplation, for a punishment sufficiently
severe to make him anxious to stop it, and yet not able to stop
it. He also takes pleasure in the idea of being tied up so as to
be unable to move.
He has at times indulged in self-whipping, of no great severity.
In the preceding case we see a tendency to erotic
self-flagellation which in a minor degree is not uncommon.
Occasionally it becomes highly developed. Max Marcuse has
presented such a case in elaborate detail (_Zeitschrift für die
Gesamte Neurologie_, 1912, ht. 3, fully summarized in
_Sexual-Probleme_, Nov., 1912, pp. 815-820). This is the case of
a Catholic priest of highly neurotic heredity, who spontaneously
began to whip himself at the age of 12, this self-flagellation
being continued and accompanied by masturbation after the age of
15. Other associated perversions were Narcissism and nates
fetichism, as well as homosexual phantasies. He experienced a
certain pleasure (with erection, not ejaculation) in punishing
his boy pupils. It is not uncommon for all forms of erotic
flagellation to be associated with a homosexual element. I have
elsewhere brought forward a case of this kind (the case of A.F.,
vol. ii of these _Studies_).
Significant is Rousseau's account of the origin of his own
masochistic pleasure in whipping at the age of 8: "Mademoiselle
Lambercier showed toward me a mother's affection and also a
mother's authority, which she sometimes carried so far as to
inflict on us the usual punishment of children when we had
deserved it. For a long time she was content with the threat, and
that threat of a chastisement which for me was quite new seemed
very terrible; but after it had been executed I found the
experience less terrible than the expectation had been; and,
strangely enough, this punishment increased my affection for her
who had inflicted it. It needed all my affection and all my
natural gentleness to prevent me from seeking a renewal of the
same treatment by deserving it, for I had found in the pain and
even in the shame of it an element of sensuality which left more
desire than fear of receiving the experience again from the same
hand. It is true that, as in all this a precocious sexual element
was doubtless mixed, the same chastisement if inflicted by her
brother would not have seemed so pleasant." He goes on to say
that the punishment was inflicted a second time, but that that
time was the last, Mademoiselle Lambercier having apparently
noted the effects it produced, and, henceforth, instead of
sleeping in her room, he was placed in another room and treated
by her as a big boy. "Who would have believed," he adds, "that
this childish punishment, received at the age of 8 from the hand
of a young woman of 30, would have determined my tastes, my
desires, my passions, for the rest of my life?" He remarks that
this strange taste drove him almost to madness, but maintained
the purity of his morals, and the joys of love existed for him
chiefly in imagination. (J.J. Rousseau, _Les Confessions_, partie
i, livre i.) It will be seen how all the favoring conditions of
fear, shame, and precocious sexuality were here present in an
extremely sensitive child destined to become the greatest
emotional force of his century, and receptive to influences which
would have had no permanent effect on any ordinary child. (When,
as occasionally happens, the first sexual feelings are
experienced under the stimulation of whipping in normal children,
no permanent perversion necessarily follows; Moll mentions that
he knows such cases, _Zeitschrift für Pädagogie, Psychiatrie, und
Pathologie_, 1901.) It may be added that it is, perhaps, not
fanciful to see a certain inevitableness in the fact that on
Rousseau's highly sensitive and receptive temperament it was a
masochistic germ that fell and fructified, while on Régis's
subject, with his more impulsive ancestral antecedents, a
sadistic germ found favorable soil.
It may be noted that in Régis's sadistic case the little girl who
was the boy's playmate found scarcely less pleasure in the
passive part of whipping than he found in the active. There is
ample evidence to show that this is very often the case, and that
the attractiveness of the idea of being whipped often even arises
spontaneously in children. Lombroso (_La Donna Delinquente_, p.
404) refers to a girl of 7 who had voluptuous pleasure in being
whipped, and Hammer (_Monatschrift für Harnkrankheiten_, 1906, p.
398) speaks of a young girl who similarly experienced pleasure in
punishment by whipping. Krafft-Ebing records the case of a girl
of between 6 and 8 years of age, never at that time having been
whipped or seen anyone else whipped, who spontaneously
acquired--how she did not know--the desire to be castigated in
this manner. It gave her very great pleasure to imagine a woman
friend doing this to her. She never desired to be whipped by a
man, though there was no trace of inversion, and she never
masturbated until the age of 24, when a marriage engagement was
broken off. At the age of 10 this longing passed away before it
was ever actually realized. (Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia
Sexualis_, eighth edition, p. 136.)
In the case of another young woman described by
Krafft-Ebing--where there was neurasthenia with other minor
morbid conditions in the family, but the girl herself appears to
have been sound--the desire to be whipped existed from a very
early age. She traced it to the fact that when she was 5 years
old a friend of her father's playfully placed her across his
knees and pretended to whip her. Since then she has always longed
to be caned, but to her great regret the wish has never been
realized. She longs to be the slave of a man whom she loves:
"Lying in fancy before him, he puts one foot on my neck while I
kiss the other. I revel in the idea of being whipped by him and
imagine different scenes in which he beats me. I take the blows
as so many tokens of love; he is at first extremely kind and
tender, but then in the excess of his love he beats me. I fancy
that to beat me for love's sake gives him the highest pleasure."
Sometimes she imagines that she is his slave, but not his female
slave, for every woman may be her husband's slave. She is of
proud and independent nature in all other matters, and to imagine
herself a man who consents to be a slave gives her a more
satisfying sense of humiliation. She does not understand that
these manifestations are of a sexual nature. (Krafft-Ebing,
_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth edition, p.
189.)
Sometimes a woman desires to take the active part in whipping.
Thus Marandon de Montyel records the case of a girl of 19,
hereditarily neuropathic (her father was alcoholic), but very
intelligent and good-hearted, who had never been whipped or seen
anyone whipped. At this age, however, she happened to visit a
married friend who was just about to punish her boy of 9 by
whipping him with a wet towel. The girl spectator was much
interested, and though the boy screamed and struggled she
experienced a new sensation she could not define. "At every
stroke," she said, "a strange shiver went through all my body
from my brain to my heels." She would like to have whipped him
herself and felt sorry when it was over. She could not forget the
scene and would dream of herself whipping a boy. At last the
desire became irresistible and she persuaded a boy of 12, whom
she was very fond of, and who was much attached to her, to let
her whip him on the naked nates. She did this so ferociously that
he at last fainted. She was overcome by grief and remorse.
(Marandon de Montyel, _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_,
Jan., 1906, p. 30.)
Although masochism in a pronounced degree may be said to be rare
in women, the love of active flagellation, and sadistic impulses
generally are not uncommon among them. Bloch believes they are
especially common among English women. Cases occur from time to
time of extreme harshness, cruelty, degrading punishment, and
semi-starvation inflicted upon children. The accused are most
usually women, and when a man and woman in conjunction are
accused it appears generally to have been the woman who played
the more active part. But it is rarely demonstrated in these
cases that the cruelty exercised had a definite sexual origin.
There is nothing, for instance, to indicate true sadism in the
famous English case in the eighteenth century of Mrs. Brownrigg
(Bloch, _Geschlechtsleben in England_, vol. ii, p. 425). It may
well be, however, in many of these cases that the real motive is
sexual, although latent and unconscious. The normal sexual
impulse in women is often obscured and disguised, and it would
not be surprising if the perverse instinct is so likewise.
It is noteworthy that a passion for whipping may be aroused by
contact with a person who desires to be whipped. This is
illustrated by the following case which has been communicated to
me: "K. is a Jew, about 40 years of age, apparently normal.
Nothing is known of his antecedents. He is a manufacturer with
several shops. S., an Englishwoman, aged 25, entered his service;
she is illegitimate, believed to have been reared in a brothel
kept by her mother, is prepossessing in appearance. On entering
K.'s service S. was continually negligent and careless. This so
provoked K. that on one occasion he struck her. She showed great
pleasure and confessed that her blunder had been deliberately
intended to arouse him to physical violence. At her suggestion K.
ultimately consented to thrash her. This operation took place in
K.'s office, S. stripping for the purpose, and the leather
driving band from a sewing-machine was used. S. manifested
unmistakable pleasure during the flagellation, and connection
occurred after it. These thrashings were repeated at frequent
intervals, and K. found a growing liking for the operation on his
own part. Once, at the suggestion of S., a girl of 13 employed by
K. was thrashed by both K. and S. alternately. The child
complained to her parents and K. made a money payment to them to
avoid scandal, the parents agreeing to keep silence. Other women
(Jewish tailoresses) employed by K. were subsequently thrashed by
him. He asserts that they enjoyed the experience. Mrs. K.,
discovering her husband's infatuation for S., commenced divorce
proceedings. S. consented to leave the country at K.'s request,
but returned almost immediately and was kept in hiding until the
decree was granted. The mutual infatuation of K. and S.
continues, though K. asserts that he cares less for her than
formerly. Flagellation has, however, now become a passion with
him, though he declares that the practice was unknown to him
before he met S. His great fear is that he will kill S. during
one of these operations. He is convinced that S. is not an
isolated case, and that all women enjoy flagellation. He claims
that the experiences of the numerous women whom he has now
thrashed bear out this opinion; one of them is a wealthy woman
separated from her husband, and is now infatuated with K."
Flagellation, more especially in its masochistic form, is
sometimes associated with true inversion. Moll presents the case
of a young inverted woman of 26, showing, indeed, many other
minor sexual anomalies, who is sexually excited when beaten with
a switch. A whip would not do, and the blows must only be on the
nates; she cannot imagine being beaten by a small woman. She has
often in this way been beaten by a friend, who should be naked at
the time, and must submit afterward to cunnilinctus. (Moll,
_Konträre Sexualempfindung_ third edition, p. 568.)
In the preceding case there were no masochistic ideas; it is
likely that in such a case beating is desired largely on account
of that purely physical effect to which attention has already
been called. In the same way self-beating with a switch or whip
has sometimes been spontaneously discovered as a method of
self-excitement preliminary to masturbation. I am acquainted with
a lady of much intellectual ability, sexually normal, who made
this discovery at the age of 18, and practised it for a time.
Professor Reverdin, also, speaks of the case of a young girl
under his care who, after having exhausted all the resources of
her intelligence, finally discovered that the climax of enjoyment
was best reached by violently whipping her own buttocks and
thighs. She had invented for this purpose a whip composed of
twelve cords each of which terminated in a large chestnut-burr
provided with its spines. (A. Reverdin, _Revue Médicale de la
Suisse Romande_, January 20, 1888, p. 17.)