[128] This opinion appears to be in harmony with the conclusions of
Eulenburg, who has devoted special study to De Sade, and points out that
the ordinary conception of "sadism" is much too narrow. (Eulenburg,
_Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895, p. 110 et seq.)
[129] Casanova, _Mémoires_, vol. viii, pp. 74-76. Goncourt in his
_Journal_, under date of April, 1862 (vol. ii, p. 27), tells a story of an
Englishman who engaged a room overlooking a scaffold where a murderer was
to be hanged, proposing to take a woman with him and to avail himself of
the excitement aroused by the scene. This scheme was frustrated by the
remission of the death penalty.
[130] _Alienist and Neurologist_, May, 1907, p. 204.
[131] This spectacle of the spider and the fly seems indeed to be
specially apt to exert a sexual influence. I have heard of a precisely
similar case in a man of intellectual distinction, and another in a lady
who acknowledged to a feeling of "exquisite pleasure," on one occasion, at
the mere sound of the death agony of a fly in a spider's web.
[132] Quoted by Obici and Marchesini, _Le Amicizie di Collegio_, p. 245.
[133] It may be noted that we have already several times encountered this
increase of excitement produced by arrest of movement. The effect is
produced whether the arrest is witnessed or is actually experienced. "A
man can increase a woman's excitement," a lady writes, "by forbidding her
to respond in any way to his caresses. It is impossible to remain quite
passive for more than a few seconds, but, during these few, excitement is
considerably augmented." In a similar way I have been told of a man of
brilliant intellectual ability who very seldom has connection with a woman
without getting her to compress with her hand the base of the urethral
canal to such an extent as to impede the passage of the semen. On
withdrawal of the hand copious emission occurs, but it is the shock of the
arrest caused by the constriction which gives him supreme pleasure. He has
practised this method for years without evil results.
[134] Féré, "Le Sadisme aux Courses de Taureaux," _Revue de médecine_,
August, 1900.
[135] Féré, _L'Instinct sexuel_, p. 255.