This anomaly may be congenital, for example, in the sexual paradoxy of
children. Every one knows the Don Juans and Messalinas with their
insatiable appetites. These types of sexual hyperaesthesia are
certainly less frequent and more abnormal in women than in men, but
the intensity is as great or greater.
Sexual hyperaesthesia manifests itself by desires excited by every
sensorial perception relating to the opposite sex, or simply by
objects which recall it to the imagination; so that fetichism plays a
great part in this condition. The feeling of satiety is hardly
experienced at all, or only for a short time after each orgasm.
Nymphomaniacs and satyrs are possessed by an insatiable sexual desire,
often associated with certain sensations of anguish. This
hyperaesthesia, even when it is not hereditary, may be developed up to
a certain point by continued or repeated artificial excitations.
In women it is during or after menstruation that the sexual appetite
and consequently sexual hyperaesthesia are generally strongest, but
there are many individual variations in this respect, and sometimes
the opposite occurs.
The effect of sexual hyperaesthesia is to direct the appetite toward
any object capable of satisfying it. When the other sex is wanting,
masturbation is generally resorted to. All mucous membranes (anus,
mouth, etc.) and even inanimate objects may serve to satisfy the
pathologically exalted appetite of such individuals. Men most
distinguished in other respects may abandon themselves to the most
foolish or abominable practices.
_Animals are often used to satisfy the hyperaesthetic sexual appetite
in both sexes. The healthy woman is not prone to such desires, unless
of psychopathic taint. Men visit prostitutes, and become excited at
the sight of every woman who is neither too old nor too repulsive.
Some individuals of this kind are pursued night and day by erotic
images, which may even become an obsession and a veritable torment._
A further degree of sexual hyperaesthesia is called _Satyriasis_ in
man, and _nymphomania_ in woman. I have observed in women two very
different varieties of sexual hyperaesthesia. In one, true nymphomania,
the subjects are attracted toward man bodily and mentally with an
elementary force; in these the whole brain follows the appetite in
quite a feminine manner. Other women, on the contrary, are driven to
masturbation by a purely peripheral excitation; they have erotic
dreams with venereal orgasms which torment rather than please them;
but they do not fall in love easily, and may have difficulty in the
choice of a husband. Their mind alone remains feminine, full of tact
and delicacy in its sentiments, while their lower nerve centers react
in a more masculine and at the same time more pathological manner.
There are many transitional forms between these two extremes.
Sexual hyperaesthetics are often unhappy, and consult the physician for
relief from the perpetual excitation which torments them. They attempt
to master themselves and check their appetite in all ways, and are
sometimes affected with nervous or mental depression. It is important,
however, to recognize the fact, that many sexual hyperaesthetics remain
quite fresh and active, and attain an advanced age, provided they
escape alcohol and venereal disease.
When sexual hyperaesthesia results chiefly from artificially acquired
habits it may often be cured by hypnotic suggestion, and establishing
self-control; but when it is hereditary and very intense, and
especially when it is connected with infantile paradoxy or other
anomalies, castration may be the only efficient remedy. When it is
chiefly acquired, any strong diversion which turns the mind from
sexual preoccupation to other subjects may have an excellent curative
effect. The most intense hereditary cases may constitute a plague for
the individual and for society, and it is then that castration may
become a blessing by calming the obsessed patient, by giving him the
opportunity for useful occupation, and by preventing him from abusing
his fellows and procreating beings similar to himself.
Nymphomaniacs often have polyandrous instincts, and they then become
more insatiable than men. Several cases of this kind have been
published in the press, and examples of such women are not rare in
history. When a woman is possessed by passion she often loses all
sense of shame, all moral sense and all discretion, as regards the
object of her desires. She pays no attention to anything which is
opposed to her passion, but may be full of reserve, tact and
good-feeling in all other respects. Cases of this kind, however, have
always a more or less marked pathological character.
In man, satyriasis is very frequent. It often happens that a husband
continually forces his wife to coitus, even during menstruation. We
have mentioned already the case of an old peasant of seventy who thus
abused his poor old wife. In such cases conjugal infidelity very
commonly occurs. The cynicism of such individuals may go so far that
they have intercourse with prostitutes or servants in the presence of
their wives, or even abuse their own children. The wife behaves in
these cases in different ways according to her character. Many
tolerate everything and do not complain, for the sake of their
children; others leave the husband or divorce him; some commit
suicide.
It would seem quite natural for nymphomaniacs to marry satyrs, but we
must bear in mind the evil results for posterity from such an
accumulation of the sexual appetite.
MASTURBATION OR ONANISM
The term onanism is derived from the name of Onan, son of Juda and
Suah and grandson of Israel. According to the Old Testament, Onan's
father wished him to marry his brother's widow and have children by
her; but this did not please Onan, and he provoked ejaculation of
semen by friction, in order to avoid having children by his
sister-in-law. "This offended God who slew him."
We have already shown that in the child the sexual appetite manifests
itself in a kind of obscure presentiment and vague sensations in the
genital organs. If a young man cannot satisfy his sexual appetite
naturally, the latter when it increases in strength provokes erotic
dreams and nocturnal emissions; or artificial excitation of the penis
may be practiced to produce orgasms: the latter phenomenon is called
_masturbation_.
Masturbation in man is performed by friction of the penis with the
hand or against some soft body. In the latter case especially erotic
images of naked women or female sexual organs is associated with
onanism. This kind of masturbation may be called _compensatory_,
because it does not depend on an anomaly of the sexual appetite, but
serves to satisfy a natural want by compensation. There are a whole
series of manipulations employed for the same object, which constitute
the psychic equivalent of compensating masturbation. _In remote
garrisons and in boys' schools the more libidinous individuals,
usually those mentally tainted, often practice mutual masturbation or
sodomy. This is the sex complex of the degenerate individual and in an
effort to exterminate these pathological manifestations, they are
being penalized by law, throughout the civilized world. It is
unnecessary to prolong this enumeration. Those we have mentioned are
the most common and it is agreed that men who are addicted to these
practices are decidedly psychopathic, whether it may be caused by
faulty heredity or anomaly in the psychology of the individual, this
still remains to be proven. In reality they are often normal in other
respects, but simply affected with sexual hyperaesthesia. Sometimes
they are feeble-minded individuals who have recourse to such practices
because they are derided by women. Others are cynics, more or less
vicious in other respects._
Compensatory masturbation is extremely widespread, but it is as a rule
neither recognized nor admitted because it is easy to conceal.
Although depressing for those whose will power is overcome by an
excitation which they cannot conquer, it is relatively the least
dangerous form of onanism. At the most it leads to a certain amount of
nervous and mental exhaustion by abuse of the facility of thus
procuring a venereal orgasm. The loss of substance from frequent
seminal ejaculations is also more or less weakening, although the
secretion from the prostate plays a much greater part than the semen.
But what especially affects the nervous system, is the repeated loss
of the will, and the failure of resolutions made many times to
overcome the desire for orgasm.
Here, as elsewhere, effect is too often confounded with cause. Because
men of feeble will power are addicted to onanism, it is imagined that
the latter is the cause of the weakness of will. In itself, a seminal
ejaculation provoked by masturbation is no more dangerous than a
nocturnal emission; both are often accompanied by nervous sensations
which are more disagreeable and exhausting than normal coitus. I must,
however, point out that the effects of moderate masturbation in the
adult have been greatly exaggerated, either by confounding the effect
with its cause, or for mercenary objects, by driving timid persons to
charlatans or to prostitutes.
The active sexual appetite of man, increased by the accumulation of
semen, is absent in woman. She does not have nocturnal emissions
accompanied by voluptuous sensations which spontaneously awaken sexual
desire. For this reason a pathological sexual excitability is
necessary to spontaneously provoke in woman voluptuous dreams or
masturbation. For the same reason we cannot speak of compensatory
masturbation in woman. Onanism, however, is not uncommon among women,
although less frequent than in men. It results either from artificial
and local excitations, from bad example, or from pathological
hyperaesthesia. When once the habit is acquired, repetition is produced
by the difficulty of resisting voluptuous desires.
Women perform masturbation by friction of the clitoris with the
finger, or by introducing various hard and rounded objects into the
vagina and imitating the movements of coitus; often also by rubbing
the crossed thighs against each other. In the insane, masturbation is
sometimes practiced to an excessive extent. Some hysterical women
introduce objects into the urethra during masturbation and cause
severe inflammation of the bladder.
Another variety of sexual excitation which is often substituted for
coitus among women, is the practice of mutual licking of the clitoris
with the tongue (_cunnilingus_). Although not so dangerous as has been
maintained, these habits are aberrations of the sexual appetite, and
it is needless to say that every human being should abstain from them
out of self-respect.
The man who, for some reason or another, cannot obtain normal coitus
should content himself with nocturnal emissions, and the woman with
voluptuous dreams, and should both abstain from active and voluntary
excitations. For my part, I consider prostitution, or "love" which is
bought, as a variety of compensatory masturbation, and not as normal
copulation. Coitus with a prostitute, generally infected with venereal
disease, who receives new clients continually, has as little affinity
with love as with the normal object of the sexual appetite--reproduction;
and its moral value is certainly inferior to that of onanism.
A second form of masturbation occurs in very young children from
accidental irritation; in boys from phimosis; in girls from itching
due to worms (oxyuris) about the anus and vulva. Innocent as regards
its cause, this form of onanism may become dangerous by habit.
Attention should therefore be paid to phimosis and worms, and the
former treated by circumcision and the latter by the usual remedies.
A third kind of masturbation is caused by example and imitation. This
often occurs in schools and among children in general; and in this way
very precocious sexual excitation may develop and become a habit
difficult to suppress. The onanism of young children is certainly
worse than that which begins after puberty; it not only renders the
child idle and bashful, or increases these faults; but it also
interferes with nutrition and digestion and develops a tendency to
sexual perversion and to impotence. It often ceases, however, after
careful supervision, combined with physical exercise and fresh air,
and direction of the attention to other things. On the whole, the
danger of this form of onanism has also been exaggerated. In most
cases it is cured, when it is not based on abnormal predispositions or
on an indolent and feeble character. Love and normal sexual
intercourse are naturally the best remedies for masturbation due to
seduction and habit, as soon as the subject has reached sexual
maturity.
We may include as a fourth form of masturbation the cases of paradoxy
which we have mentioned previously. In this case onanism is produced
spontaneously as the result of psycho-sexual precocity or hereditary
pathological satyriasis.
With the exception of the last paradoxical form which is based on
incurable satyriasis, all the kinds of onanism which we have mentioned
hitherto can only be successfully treated by kindness and confidence,
combined with work and direction of the mind to wholesome and
attractive subjects; not by threats or punishment. The new reformatory
schools called _Landerziehungsheime_ (Vide Chapter XVII) are an
excellent remedy for onanism, for they keep the child occupied from
morning to night and hardly leave him any time for bad habits; when he
goes to bed he is too tired to do anything but sleep. However, great
prudence and active supervision is required in these cases.
The fifth class is constituted by the onanism of sexual inverts, and
may be called _essential onanism_. This concerns men whose sexual
appetite is directed toward their own sex instead of the other. They
are called _homosexual_, and mutual onanism is, so to speak, the
normal satisfaction of their inverted appetite. We shall refer to this
again later on. While normal sexual intercourse is the best and most
rational remedy for compensatory masturbation, there is no question of
it here. Marriage is the worst and most scandalous remedy in such
cases. It is therefore of the greatest importance in order to judge
of the nature of the masturbation, to inquire into the kind of erotic
images with which it is associated. If, in the case of a man, the
images are those of women, it is simply a case of compensatory
masturbation; but if the images are masculine, it is a case of sexual
inversion. If masturbation is not accompanied by any images, the
question remains doubtful. In young children this is explained by the
fact that the psycho-sexual irradiations are not yet developed; but
after puberty the absence of images as an object of eroticism suggests
a certain anomaly and sometimes depends on a latent tendency to
inversion.
=Relation of Masturbation to Hypochondriasis.=--Some onanists become
much distressed, and reproach themselves for having spoilt their lives
by their bad habit. They give way to lamentations before their doctor
and their acquaintances, wring their hands with despair, and beg every
one to come to their aid. They look upon themselves as poor sinners
whose lives have been ruined, either by their own fault or by others.
They have read Lamert's "Personal Preservation," or other sensational
books which excite both the fear and the sexual desire of weak
characters, whom they are intended to exploit. These poor devils
believe themselves lost, and are truly pitiable objects. These form
the types which are paraded as terrible examples in books on onanism
which make timid persons' hair stand on end.
When these unfortunate onanists are questioned on all the
circumstances of the act of which they accuse themselves, we generally
arrive at the following results:
We recognize that we have to deal with psychopathic or neurotic
subjects more or less tainted by heredity, timid and shunning their
fellows, easily impressed by imagination, possessed of unhealthy
sentiments and ideas; in fact, hypochondriacs, predisposed to look
upon every sensation or slight indisposition as a grave disorder
threatening their health or life. They thus live in perpetual anxiety.
This mental anomaly has for a long time preceded the onanism, even if
they have masturbated, which is often even not the case.
Among the numerous patients of this kind that I have treated, there
were many who had simply had nocturnal emissions since puberty, but
they regarded themselves as lost men through masturbation! Many others
no doubt practice compensatory masturbation, generally because their
timid nature prevents them from frequenting prostitutes, or committing
other sexual excesses, while the way in which they analyze their
sensations easily leads them to onanism. On the other hand, they are
generally so afraid that they do not give way to excessive
masturbation, perhaps only once or twice a week or even less often, so
that the normal frequency of coitus, according to Luther, is often not
attained and seldom exceeded. Among these persons we find few
precocious or excessive onanists. I admit, however, that a
hypochondriacal constitution predisposes somewhat to onanism.
But, what I wish to lay stress upon, is that the onanists who are full
of lamentation and self-reproach are neither the most numerous nor
those who commit the greatest excess. The worst onanists, those who
provoke several ejaculations daily, belong to the category of sexual
hyperaesthetics. These have not the classical aspect attributed to them
by tradition; they are not pale and terrified creatures, but rather
lewd individuals who are early transformed into impudent Don Juans.
They may be as courageous, as clever and as strong as others and yet
be disposed to all kinds of evil tricks and follies. It is, therefore,
not true, as is so often said, that it is possible to recognize a
masturbator by his face or manner.
These excessive onanists no doubt do themselves harm in various ways,
but the great error of taking sexual hypochondriasis for the type of
onanists, is to confound cause with effect. Sexual hypochondriasis is
in no way the effect of onanism, but precedes it, and onanism is
rather its effect, or is simply associated with it. It is obvious that
onanism, by its depressing effect, aggravates a mind beset with
hypochondriacal anxieties.
It results from these facts, first, that a sexual hypochondriac should
be treated as a hypochondriac and not as an onanist; secondly, that
the worst slaves of masturbation are not to be looked for among pale
and dejected individuals.
Among women, especially young girls, hypochondriasis is not common and
cases of sexual hypochondriacs who accuse themselves of masturbating
are rare among them. Women who masturbate generally keep their secret
and are apparently very little affected by it. However, onanism does
them nearly as much harm as men; it is true they have no loss of
semen, but the repetition and intensity of the nervous irritation are
greater than in man, and it is this which causes most exhaustion. In
spite of this, it is curious to observe that women who masturbate are
generally less ashamed than men, and are apparently less depressed by
it. We must bear in mind that the loss of semen by masturbation has in
man a peculiarly depressing effect, for it lacks its object and
represents an absolutely abnormal satisfaction of the sexual appetite.
It may be objected that this difference is due to another cause, that
women who masturbate have less moral tone and are especially depraved
individuals. I agree that this is often the case, but far from always.
The intensity of the sexual excitability in women has nothing in
common with their character; it may be associated with high
intelligence, with high moral and aesthetic qualities, and even with a
strong will. On the other hand, deficiency in moral sense and will may
occur with sexual frigidity, and, as we have already seen, may lead to
sexual excess without any voluptuous sensation, in accordance with the
peculiarities of feminine sentiment. These facts show how complex are
the causes of a given effect in the sexual domain.
PERVERSIONS OF THE SEXUAL APPETITE OR PARAESTHESIA OF THE SEXUAL
SENSATION
We are here concerned with sexual appetite provoked by inadequate
objects. Krafft-Ebing having made a profound study of this question we
shall follow his subdivisions in the main.
=Perverted Sexual Appetite Directed Toward the Opposite Sex.=--(A.)
_Sadism_ (association of sexual desire with cruelty and violence).
History shows us a number of celebrated persons who satisfied their
sexual desire by making martyrs of their victims, up to complete
butchery. The most atrocious types of this kind are perhaps assassins
such as "Jack the Ripper," who lie in wait for their victims like
cats, pounce on them, revel in their terror, assassinate them by
inches, and wallow voluptuously in their blood.
The term sadism is derived from the celebrated Marquis de Sade, a
French author, whose obscene romances overflow with cruel
voluptuousness. Certain reminiscences of sadism are common both in man
and woman. At the moment of highest excitation in coitus it is not
uncommon for one or other of the couple to bite or scratch in the
ecstasy of their amorous embraces. Lombroso remarks on the brutal
excesses of soldiers when excited after battle. This is so to speak an
inversion of sadism as regards cause and effect. After the exaltation
of combat, that of desire possesses the mind, as in the inverse
direction exaltation of desire gives rise in certain cases to that of
violence and thirst for blood.
Krafft-Ebing draws attention to the fact that love and anger are the
two most violent effective conditions, and are at the same time the
two powers which provoke the most motor discharges. This explains why
they may be associated in the delirium of unbridled passions. To these
facts is added an atavistic relic of the instinct of man's ancestors,
the males of whom fought furiously to conquer the females by violence,
which provoked desire in them, after the subjection of the object of
their sexual appetite. True sadism can, however, only become effective
by the combination of two causes: (1) by an exalted and absolutely
pathological association of sexual desire with a sanguinary instinct,
and with the desire to illtreat and overcome a victim; (2) by an
almost absolute absence of moral sense and sympathy, combined with a
violent and egoistic sexual passion. It is evident that the slight
more or less sadic impulses which may involuntarily occur in the
performance of normal coitus, are quite exempt from the second of
these causes.
Krafft-Ebing maintains that sadism is usually, if not always,
congenital and hereditary. Sadism is for a long time restrained by
fear, education or moral sentiments. It is only gradually, when normal
coitus cannot procure for the perverted sexual appetite the
satisfaction it requires, that the sadist gives way to his passion;
this gives the latter a false appearance of acquired vice.
The highest degree of sadism leads to assassination. In this way human
tigers entice young girls into a wood and cut them to pieces. Some
begin by forcing them to coitus, after frightening them, or half
strangling them; others masturbate in their ripped up entrails. But
some others have no desire for coitus, nor anything resembling it,
their desire being satisfied only by the sight of the terror,
suffering and blood of their victim, whom they torture before killing.
Others again associate desire with the rage of a wild beast to such a
point that they swallow parts of their victim's body and drink the
blood.
Sadists become experts in the art of assassination without discovery.
The cynicism with which some of them have described their sensations
shows their cold indifference toward the tragic and the horrible.
Krafft-Ebing describes a series of atrocious types of this kind, and
unfortunately the press and the criminal law courts continually give
us fresh examples. Some sadists assassinate children, others men, when
their perversion is complicated with pederasty or sexual inversion.
(The story of Bluebeard is probably based on the successive crimes of
a sadic.)
Sadists do not always confine their attacks to living people; some of
them are _necrophiles_, who violate dead bodies and cut them in
pieces: others again kill animals, whose sufferings and blood serve to
satisfy their desires.
Some sadists satisfy themselves by flogging prostitutes or pricking
them till they bleed, while others prefer to martyrize their victims
slowly, and thus procure the maximum of pleasure. Others again are
contented with scenes symbolical of servitude, in which women are
compelled to adore and supplicate them, etc. The humiliation of women
takes part in the sadist appetite of man and often degenerates into
fetichism. Simple imagination in which he plays the part of a tyrant,
and which are complicated with onanism or normal coitus, often suffice
to satisfy the sadist. Some sadists soil themselves with the
excrements of the woman they "love!" When sadism assumes the character
of a symbol or a fetich, seminal ejaculation and sensation generally
occur without contact with the woman's body.
Sadism is more common in men, but occurs also in women. Messalina and
Catherine de Medici are historical examples. The latter had her maids
of honor flogged before her eyes, and said she was bathing in roses
when she witnessed the massacre of the Huguenots. Women in whom sadism
takes a milder form are contented with biting a man till he bleeds,
during coitus.
Sadism appears to be most often an effect of hereditary alcoholic
blastophthoria.
(B). _Masochism_ (association of sexual desire with submission to
cruelty and violence). The term masochism is applied by Krafft-Ebing
to a form of sexual perversion described by Sacher-Masoch in several
of his romances. Masochism is exactly the converse of sadism. The
desire of the masochist is excited by humiliation, submission, and
even blows; the pain he feels when he is flogged gives him intense
pleasure. Like sadism, this perversion may be incomplete. When it is
complete the masochist is affected with psychic impotence and is
incapable of normal coitus. Ill-treatment and humiliation are alone
capable of causing him erections, seminal ejaculations and pleasure.
However, comedies representing his humiliation, or corresponding
efforts of his imagination may succeed in replacing the reality and
procure the desired effect.
Like sadism, masochism is hereditary and congenital. When the first
sexual sensations are produced, the masochist child sighs for a
dominating woman who will illtreat him and make him her slave. His
imagination is transported by the idea of being on his knees, of being
trodden under foot, or bound in chains by her, etc. The cruel heroine
of his heart must ridicule and humiliate him as much as possible.
Corporal punishment with a beneficial object does not satisfy the true
masochist. Rousseau, in his "Confessions," reveals the sexual feelings
of the masochist.
It is remarkable how far poetic conceptions are combined with the
perversion of sexual sensations in masochists, leading them to dream
of an imperious and cruel woman to whom they devote a love as humble
as it is exalted, while normal coitus causes them no pleasure, and can
sometimes only be accomplished with the aid of masochistic images.
These images may also be accompanied by onanism. It is very common for
masochists to become flagellants, and to be flogged or trampled on by
prostitutes. But it often happens that they only feel pain instead of
pleasure, when the comedy which they have started appears revealed in
all its absurdity, showing them a woman paid to illtreat them, and not
doing it for her own enjoyment. Some masochists take pleasure in
imagining themselves assassinated by a woman, or even cut in pieces.
Others organize theatrical performances in which imperious women play
the part of judges, before whom they appear naked and are flogged and
condemned to death. Others again are contented with imagining these
performances, combining them sometimes with coitus or masturbation.
Krafft-Ebing is no doubt right in considering the lucubrations of the
poet Baudelaire, and his necrophile imagination of his own carrion
hung on a gibbet and devoured by vultures, as a mixture of sadism and
masochism. He sought out the most repulsive women of all races,
Chinese, negresses, dwarfs, giants, or modern women as artificial as
possible, to satisfy his pathological instinct. The following case
quoted by Krafft-Ebing from Hammond, is typical:
A married man and father of several children was sometimes subject to
attacks during which he visited a brothel, where he chose two or three
of the fattest women. He stripped the upper part of his body, lay on
the floor, crossed his hands, shut his eyes and ordered the women to
tread with all their force on his chest, neck and face. Sometimes he
required a still heavier woman or more cruel manipulations. After two
or three hours he was satisfied, paid the women liberally and regaled
them with wine, rubbed his bruises, dressed himself and returned to
his office, to repeat this singular performance a week later.
Krafft-Ebing describes, as masked masochism, certain cases of
fetichism in which the nature of the fetich which causes sexual
excitation and the manner in which it is used prove a desire for
maltreatment and humiliation by a woman. This is especially the case
with shoe and foot fetichism. Among those who are affected with this
pathological specialty, voluptuous sensations are produced when they
are trodden on by a woman's shoes or feet. They even dream of women's
shoes and feet. Some of them put nails in their shoes, the pain of
which gives them voluptuous sensations. Lastly, the shoes alone,
especially when they touch the penis, are sufficient to excite their
sexual desire. Other masked masochists are excited by the secretions
or even excrements of women.
I have been consulted by a typical masochist, who, being very
religious, was convinced that his perverted sexual appetite was a sin.
He therefore married, thinking that God and repentance would change
him. But when married he naturally found himself absolutely impotent
and incapable of coitus.
If masochism is common in men, it is produced in women rather as an
exaggeration in the domain of her normal sexual sensations, for it is
to a great extent in harmony with her passive sexual role. Woman does
not like the weak man who submits to her. She prefers a master on whom
she can lean. In fact, normal women do not like their husbands to ask
advice from them too often, nor to be wanting in decision and
self-confidence. On the contrary they like them to be firm and even
somewhat imperious, provided they are not unkind. It is notorious that
many women like to be beaten by their husbands, and are not content
unless this is done. This appears to be especially common in Russia.
Accentuated forms of pathological masochism are, however, rare in
women.
Masochism presents a certain analogy with the religious ecstasy of
fakirs and flagellants who flog themselves. These individuals appear
to become exalted in a kind of ecstatic convulsion with the idea of
pleasing God or gaining Heaven by their martyrdom. We may add that,
like sadism, masochism occurs in sexual inverts, but always having the
same sex for its object. I know an old gentleman whose only pleasure
consisted in receiving a shower of blows: as a boy, like Rousseau he
tried by all kinds of ruses to obtain corporal punishment: when he
grew up this became impossible and he devised tricks to urge
schoolboys to fight each other, pretending to be angry and exciting
their spirit of contradiction: the boys then pretended to fight him,
and this sufficed for the rest of his life to excite erections and
seminal ejaculations. This gentleman was a lawyer and told me his
history, hoping that suggestion might cure him.
The eroticism produced by submission to pain and humiliation is often
blended with that produced by performing acts of cruelty. These
mixtures of sadism and masochism have been investigated by Schrenk
Notzing, who concludes that they are intimately related.
_Fetichism_ (production of voluptuous sensations by contact with or by
the sight of certain portions of the body or clothes of woman). We
have already mentioned this symptom and have seen the part it plays in
some forms of masochism. A masked form of fetichism forms part of the
normal sexual appetite, in the sense that certain parts of the body or
clothes, certain odors, etc., especially excite the sexual desire of
many people by recalling the individual to whom they belong.
Therefore, parts of the body which normally excite sexual desire--the
breasts, sexual organs, or other parts of the body usually
covered--cannot be regarded as pathological fetiches.
The true fetichist is a very pathological being, whose entire sexual
appetite, often with all its irradiations in the higher sphere of
love, if we can speak of love in such cases, is limited to certain
objects connected with woman. The most common fetiches are women's
handkerchiefs, gloves, velvet or shoes; or their hair, hands or feet,
etc. In these cases the fetich plays the essential part, and is in no
way associated with the image of a woman. The fetich is the sole
object of "love." The sight or touch of the fetich, the pleasure of
pressing it against the heart or the genital organs, are alone capable
of producing erections and ejaculations. There are even fetichists
whose sexual desire is only excited by the sight of certain feminine
deformities, such as clubfoot, squint, etc. Hairdressers, who
masturbate after dressing women's hair, are well-known examples of
fetichism.
Certain feminine costumes may serve as fetiches, and these are kept in
some brothels to satisfy certain customers. Shoe fetichism is more
common than that of clothes or handkerchiefs. Krafft-Ebing mentions a
typical case of the psychic irradiation of fetichism; the individual
in question thought it immoral and scandalous that women's shoes
should be exposed in shop windows. Others blush when they see such
things in the windows. Fetichism is essentially a masculine
perversion. I have been consulted by a fetichist who all his life had
only felt erotic at the sight of shoes; later on he married, and his
sexual desire becoming more and more concentrated on pointed and
fashionable shoes, especially women's, but also men's, he could only
obtain pleasure with his wife when she put on the shoes he was in love
with, or when he put them on himself. The sight of shoes in shop
windows always made him blush, while the female body made no
impression on him. He could not buy the shoes he desired most, owing
to a sentiment of shame, and the sight of them was often sufficient to
produce erection and ejaculation.
_Exhibitionism._ There is a class of individuals, especially men,
whose sole sexual desire consists in masturbating in the presence of
women. They lie in wait behind some wall or bush, and masturbate
openly when women pass that way. In these subjects an orgasm is only
produced when they are observed by women. As soon as ejaculation has
occurred they fly to avoid the police. They never attempt to molest
the women whose presence excites them to this performance.
These cases are not uncommon and naturally cause much scandal, so that
the poor wretches seldom escape the police. These unfortunate persons
who sometimes hold high social positions, have often been previously
convicted, but cannot as a rule overcome their passion, which has much
worse consequences for them than for the women and children whom they
frighten or annoy.
Exhibitionism is not rare among insane women and I have myself treated
two typical cases. I do not know whether it occurs in women of sound
mind, but at all events they cannot be addicted to it without running
great risk.
=Sexual Inversion or Homosexual Love.=--However shocking or absurd the
aberrations of the sexual appetite and its irradiations may be, of
which we have spoken hitherto, they are at any rate derived from
originally normal intercourse with adults of the opposite sex. Those
we have now to deal with are distinguished by the fact that, not only
the appetite itself, but all its psychic irradiations are directed to
the same sex as the perverted individual, the latter being horrified
at the idea of genital contact with the opposite sex, quite as much as
a normal man is horrified at the idea of homosexual union. This
horror is, however, confined to sexual matters, and in no way concerns
those of social life. It is therefore a question of sexual desire of
man for man, and woman for woman.
What we have to deal with here has no connection with compensation as
in cases of compensatory masturbation or pederasty, which are
practiced, for want of anything better, by individuals whose normal
sexual appetite cannot be satisfied otherwise. When excitation and
desire become too strong, the purely animal (spinal) irritation of the
sexual appetite may drive a man or woman to satisfy themselves by
means which would otherwise disgust them.
A. _Homosexual love in man._ It seems absurd that the whole sexual
appetite and amorous ideals of a man can be directed all his life to
persons of his own sex. This pathological phenomenon, however, is as
common as it is certain, although its psychological and normal import
has long been misapprehended, as much in judicial circles as by the
general public. It is the inverts themselves, aided by psychiatrists,
who have finally thrown light on the subject. An invert, named Ulrich,
announced himself publicly as the apostle of homosexual love,
describing inverts under the name of _Urnings_, a name which is still
used in Germany. Ulrich and his disciples endeavored to prove an
absurdity by maintaining that homosexuals are a special kind of normal
men, and by attempting to obtain legal sanction for this kind of love.
Ulrich gives the name _Dionings_ to men whose sexual appetite is
normal, _i.e._, directed toward women. Such a pretension appears
necessarily ridiculous to every man whose sexual sense is normal, and
it is obviously absurd to apply the term "normal" to a sexual appetite
absolutely devoid of its natural object, procreation. But this is
quite characteristic of the sentiments of inverts.
Hirschfeld, of Berlin, has recently attempted to show that homosexuals
constitute a variety of normal man; but he plays with words and facts,
invoking the names of celebrated inverts, and wrongly asserts that
inversion is not hereditary.
From the first dawn of sexual feeling in youth, male inverts have the
same feelings as girls toward other boys. They feel the need for
passive submission, they become easily enraptured over novels and
dress, they like to occupy themselves with feminine pursuits, to dress
like girls and to frequent women's societies. They regard women as
friends, as persons with whom they have a fellow-feeling. They
generally, but not always, have a banal sentimentalism, they are fond
of religious forms and ceremonies, they admire fine clothes and
luxurious apartments; they dress their hair and "fake" themselves with
a coquetry which often exceeds that of women. They are not all like
this, but one or other of these traits predominates in different
individuals.
Their sexual appetite, usually very strong and precocious, begins with
an exalted love for some male friend. I have treated a great number of
inverts and have always been struck with the intensity of their
passion. Among other cases, I may mention that of an invert hospital
attendant, who fell madly in love with one of his comrades and covered
ten meters of white tape with the name of his beloved. The most
passionate love letters, vows of fidelity till death, the most
ferocious jealousy toward other friends of their beloved, and even
ceremonies symbolical of marriage, are daily events among the
homosexuals.
The invert does not so easily become enamored of another invert as of
normal men. These have a special attraction for him, but as they
generally repulse him with disgust, or threaten to expose or exploit
him, he is often obliged to content himself with his fellows. These
gentlemen form among themselves a secret brotherhood, a kind of
freemasonry which is recognized by signs.
The first appearance of the homosexual appetite with its youthful
impulses, causes love and happiness to appear to the invert in a
special aspect, determined by the inverted irradiation of his sexual
appetite. It represents the aim of his life as an amorous union with
his beloved, and shapes his idylls, his romance and his ideal to this
end. But later on, when his sexual desire increases and when he
discovers that the majority of men feel differently to him, that the
human race is reproduced by the union of men and women, etc., he
becomes unhappy. He perceives that it would be both ridiculous and
dangerous to reveal his inner feelings, and generally gives way to
masturbation. But all social barriers which oppose his appetite only
increase his desire, and he becomes less and less able to dominate his
passion for certain young men. The disgust and indignation of the
latter, when they discover that they are not the object of simple
affection but of perverted sexual love, are expressed only too
clearly, and the poor invert sees himself condemned to perpetual
torment in trying to hide his most violent desires and his most
intimate and ideal aspirations, and finally to live in continual dread
of being betrayed and prosecuted. It is thus easy to understand that
he is happy in the discovery that his fellows form a secret society,
and he associates with them immediately, when his moral sense and will
are not strong enough to be proof against it.
_If the invert succeeds in finding a male to his liking and with a
similar degenerative state of mind to his own, he will pay him the
attention that the normal man would to a woman. It is therefore
reasonable to believe that this mode of inversion is likewise an
expression of pathological manifestation of the individual; usually
accompanied by neurosis and a like corresponding deficiency in the
physical makeup of the individual._
The invert's ideal would be to obtain a legal license for marriage
between men; but they are not very constant in their love and are much
inclined to polyandry. Sexual love for women inspires them with
contempt; they regard it as low and disgusting, at the most only good
for the production of young inverts!
Homosexual love has played a much greater part in the world's history
than is generally believed. The Count de Platen and Sapho were
inverts. The inverts themselves maintain that it was the same with
Plato, Frederick the Great, Socrates, etc.; but this is not proved. In
the East and in Brazil, homosexual love is very common.
My experience agrees with that of Krafft-Ebing, that homosexual love
is pathological in nature, and that nearly all inverts are in a more
or less marked degree psychopaths or neurotics, whose sexual appetite
is not only abnormal but usually also exalted. Insane inverts, such as
King Louis II of Bavaria, a great number of the insane, affected, for
example, with _Pseudologia phantastica_ (pathological swindlers), and
who are also homosexual, show the intimate relationship which exists
between sexual inversion (also called "uranism") and the psychoses.
I agree with Rudin that the psycho-pathological phenomena presented by
the majority of inverts are primitive and hereditary, and that they
are hardly ever the effect of their tormented life, as Hirschfeld,
Ulrich and their disciples maintain. The vexations, anxieties and
other torments that they suffer may no doubt play a part in developing
certain nervous conditions previously latent, but they can never
create hereditary taints. We may admit that sexual inversion
corresponds to a kind of partial hermaphrodism, in which the sexual
glands and copulatory organs have the characters of one of the sexes,
while the brain has, to a great extent, those of the other sex; but
the phenomenon is none the less pathological.
The inverts with whom we have most to do, especially in public asylums
and at the courts of justice, are cynics and debauchees in spite of
the ideal which they parade; but we should be wrong in concluding that
this is always the case. The cynics make themselves heard because they
do not restrain themselves. In my private practice I have known many
very well-conducted inverts, possessing the most delicate sentiments,
who had become pessimists owing to the shame and grief of a state of
mind which they hid from the world.
Inverts of this class often commit suicide, after having carried on in
silence a desperate struggle against their morbid appetite, because
they prefer death to defeat, which they consider a dishonor. The
victims of these tragedies deserve all our pity, and sometimes our
respect. Such individuals generally hold aloof from the brotherhood of
inverts which they look upon with fear or disgust.
In the picture of homosexuals there are two lamentable shadows, which
are largely due to the severity with which most legislations track and
condemn these unfortunate beings.
(1). As soon as an invert realizes his abnormal and dangerous
situation in society, in which he feels a pariah, he often makes up
his mind to follow the advice of ignorant friends, and even, alas, of
ignorant doctors, and try and cure himself by marriage. Sometimes he
begins by visiting a brothel to see if he is capable of normal coitus
with a woman. In this he often succeeds, if he is able to picture to
himself a man in the person of the prostitute. He tries to persuade
himself that the disgust which he felt at this experimental coitus was
due to the fact that the "love" was bought; and he then decides to
enter into conjugal life. This is at the same time the greatest
absurdity and the worst action possible for him to commit, for his
wife becomes a martyr and soon feels herself deceived, abandoned and
despised. The invert treats her as a servant; he rarely has sexual
intercourse with her, sometimes not at all, and only performs it with
repugnance with a view to the procreation of young inverts, who will
rise to his ideal. He invites his male lovers to his house and they
indulge in orgies, especially when the wife, despised and neglected,
has separated from him. Such marriages, which are fortunately less
common since this question has been better understood, generally end
in divorce, preceded by bitter and mutual deceptions. It is really
criminal to favor them when we know what they lead to. (_It is against
such unions, and against sexual indulgence of this nature, that the
law ought to exert itself._)
(2). A second very grave result of homosexual love is the continual
blackmail which is levied on inverts by all kinds of scamps. Public
urinals are common meeting places for inverts. The blackmailers, who
know this very well, follow them there and offer themselves for money;
but as soon as they find out the name of their victim and his
financial position, they begin to extort hush-money, threatening to
prosecute him if he does not pay what they ask. If the invert is rich
or of high position he has only to yield to the extortion, emigrate or
commit suicide. In this way the life of most well-to-do inverts is
ruined by perpetual anxieties, emotions and torments, because their
morbid appetite instinctively urges them to abandon themselves to men
who feel differently to themselves.
_Moll, Krafft-Ebing and Hirschfeld have written at great length on
sexual inversion. The law takes a just point of view and is generally
severe as regards this anomaly, especially in Germanic countries. Even
homosexual love that does not affect minors nor insane persons, is a
sign of degeneracy, but produces no offspring and consequently dies
out by means of selection. We hope, therefore, that this type may be
extinct some day, although it is still decidedly numerous, principally
in the larger cities of the world. When a normal man is tormented by
an invert, it is much easier to get rid of him than for a young girl
to protect herself against the importunities of a man._
It is quite another thing when the invert pays his attentions to
minors, or when his appetites are complicated with dangerous sexual
paraesthesias, such as sadism. Not long ago the terrible case of a
sadist invert, Dippold, startled civilized Europe. By the aid of
cruelty and intimidation this wretch martyrized two young boys
confided to him for their education to such a degree that one of them
died. Legal protection of the two sexes against sexual abuses of all
kinds should be extended at least to the age of seventeen or eighteen.
Sexual inversion has two curious results which have not received
sufficient attention. Human society regards it as quite natural and
without danger for individuals of the same sex to bathe, sleep and
live together. In lunatic asylums, prisons, reformatories, etc., men
are attended to by men, and women by women. The vow of chastity of
Catholic priests and nuns leads in the same way to separation of the
sexes. In all these customs sexual inversion has not been taken into
consideration. It is not surprising, therefore, that homosexuals take
advantage of this state of affairs and seek these situations which
give them the opportunity for satisfying their perverted passions
without running much danger. _They willingly choose a career suitable
for their degenerate purposes, and especially that of attendant in
lunatic asylums. In the latter case they take advantage of the mental
condition of the patients and their incapacity to make complaints. In
public baths inverts can freely enjoy the sight of naked men._
So far we have only spoken of complete inversion; but there are
transitional stages. Many individuals are neutral, animated by
sensations floating between the two sexes. Krafft-Ebing even speaks
of psycho-sexual hermaphrodites, who are equally attracted by either
sex, and cohabit sometimes with one, sometimes with the other. I knew
a married man who was very capable with his wife but in spite of this
was unfaithful to her, both with men and with other women. He was
convicted several times for pederasty with men and young boys, and
confessed to me that he had more pleasure from homosexual intercourse
than from normal connection with women, but could satisfy himself
either way. An incomplete invert declared to me that his ideal would
be a man.
Along with these cases there is a series of homosexuals in whom it is
assumed that inversion has been acquired, because they commenced with
a normal sexual desire for women. After being seduced by homosexuals,
who initiate them in mutual onanism or pederasty, they are suddenly or
gradually disgusted with women and become inverts (vide _Suggestion_).
In reality, these are only relatively cases of acquired inversion. If
we except the cases which depend on pure suggestion of which we shall
speak later, there is a latent hereditary disposition to inversion,
which is awakened on the first occasion and then develops strongly. It
is easy to prove that men with normal sexual instincts immediately
abandon the habits of onanism or pederasty which they have contracted
through bad example or seduction, or by compensation for the want of
the normal object, as soon as they can obtain normal sexual
intercourse with one or more women. It is, therefore, false to regard
homosexual sensations as depending on vice and depravity: they are a
pathological product of abnormal hereditary sexual dispositions. At
any rate, this is a general rule which has few exceptions.
Sexual inversion is so widespread that in certain countries, for
instance Brazil, and even in some European towns, there are brothels
with men instead of women.
I will mention here a very curious case of purely psychical but
complete inversion of the sexual personality, combined with complete
sexual anaesthesia:
A man, aged 22, the son of an inebriate, with one imbecile
sister. Of delicate constitution, but very intelligent, he was
possessed since infancy with the idea that he was a girl,
although his genital organs were properly formed and were
normally developed at puberty. He had a horror of the society of
boys, and of all masculine work, while he was quite happy in
performing all the household duties of a woman. An irresistible
obsession urged him to dress himself as a woman, and neither
contempt, ridicule, nor punishment could cure him of it.
Attempts to give him employment as a boy in a small town failed
completely. His girlish manners made him suspected by the
police, who took him for a girl dressed in boy's clothes, and
threatened to arrest him. When he was compelled to put on male
attire he consoled himself with wearing a woman's chemise and
corset underneath.
I carefully examined this individual and found him affected with
complete sexual anaesthesia. He had a horror of everything
connected with the sexual appetite, but the idea of sexual
intercourse with men was still more repugnant than that of
normal coitus with women. Although the testicles and penis
appeared absolutely normal, he never had erections. His voice
was high pitched and his whole manner suggested that of a
eunuch.
This case is very instructive, for it clearly shows how the
psycho-sexual personality may be predetermined by heredity in the
brain alone, independently of the sexual organs, and even act without
a trace of sexual sensation or appetite. This was undoubtedly a case
of alcoholic blastophthoria and not ordinary heredity.
Krafft-Ebing describes the following scene, taken from a Berlin
journal, dated February, 1894, which gives a good idea of the manners
and customs of the homosexual fraternity:
"_The misogynist's ball._ Almost all the social elements of Berlin
have their club or meeting place--the fat, the bald, the bachelors,
the widowers--why not the misogynists? This variety of the human
species, whose society is hardly edifying, but whose psychology is
peculiar, held a fancy dress ball a few days ago. The sale, or rather
the distribution of tickets was kept very private. Their meeting place
is a well-known dancing hall. We enter the hall about midnight.
Dancing is going on to the music of a good orchestra. A thick cloud of
smoke obscures the lamps and prevents us at first from distinguishing
the details of the scene. It is only during an interval that we can
make a closer examination. Most of the people are masked, dress coats
and ball dresses are exceptional.
"But what do I see? This lady in rose tarlatan, who has just
pirouetted before us has a cigar in her mouth and smokes like a
trooper. She has also a small beard, half hidden by paint. And she is
now talking to an "angel" in tights, very _decollete_, with bare arms
crossed behind her, also smoking. They have men's voices and the
conversation is also masculine, for it turns on 'this cursed tobacco
will not draw.' Two men dressed as women!
"A clown in conventional costume leaning against a pillar is speaking
tender words to a ballet dancer, with his arm round her waist. She has
a Titian head, a fine profile and good figure. Her brilliant earrings,
her necklace, her shapely shoulders and arms seem to proclaim her sex,
when suddenly disengaging herself from the embracing arm she turns
away with a yawn, saying in a bass voice, 'Emile, why are you so
tiresome to-day?' The novice hardly believes his eyes: the ballet
dancer is also a man.
"Becoming suspicious, we continue our investigations, beginning to
think that the world is here upside down. Here is a man who comes
tripping along; but no, it cannot be a man, in spite of the small and
carefully curled mustache. The dressing of the hair, the powder and
paint on the face, the blackened eyebrows, the gold earrings, the
bouquet of flowers on the breast and shoulder, the elegant black gown,
the gold bracelets, the fan held in a white-gloved hand--none of these
things suggest a man. And with what coquetry he fans himself; how he
dances and skips about! Nevertheless, Nature has created this doll in
the form of a man. He is a salesman in one of the large sweet shops,
and the ballet dancer is his colleague!
"At the table in the corner there is a convivial meeting; several
elderly gentlemen are gathered round a group of very _decollete_
'ladies' sitting over a glass of wine and cracking jokes which are
anything but delicate. 'Who are these three ladies?' 'Ladies! laughs
my better-informed companion; well, the one on the right with the
brown hair and short fancy dress is a hair-dresser; the second, the
blonde with the pearl necklace is known here by the name of Miss
Ella, and he is a ladies' tailor; the third is the celebrated Lottie.'
"But this cannot be a man? The waist, the bust, the delicate arms, the
whole appearance is feminine! I am told that Lottie was formerly an
accountant. To-day she, or rather he, is simply 'Lottie,' and takes
pleasure in deceiving men as to his sex as long as possible. At this
moment Lottie is singing a song in a contralto voice acquired by
prolonged practice, which a female singer might envy. Lottie has also
taken female parts on the stage. Nowadays the former accountant is so
imbued with his female role that he seldom appears in the street
except in woman's attire, and even wears an embroidered nightdress.
"On closer examination of the persons present, I discovered to my
astonishment several acquaintances. My bootmaker, whom I should never
have taken for a misogynist, appears to-night as a troubador with
sword and plumed cap; and his 'Leonora,' in the costume of a bride,
generally serves me with Havanas in a cigar store. When Leonora
removed her gloves I recognized her at once by her large chilblained
hands. Here is my haberdasher promenading in an indelicate costume as
Bacchus; also a Diana, dressed up atrociously, who is really a waiter
at a cafe.
"It is impossible to describe the real 'ladies' who are at this ball.
They only associate with each other and avoid the women-hating men;
while the latter also keep to themselves and absolutely ignore the
fair sex."
=B. Feminine Sexual Inversion and Homosexual Love.=--Sexual inversion
is not rare in women, but manifests itself less publicly than the
corresponding masculine inversion. It is called Lesbian love or
_saphism_; and the women inverts are known as _tribades_. They are
described in history, but may also be observed in modern towns. _They
satisfy their pathological appetite by degenerate practices heretofore
mentioned in harmony with their inverted mentality._ The feminine
invert likes to dress as a man and feels like a man toward other
women. She goes in for manly games, wears her hair short, and takes to
men's occupations in general. Her sexual appetite is often much
exalted and then she becomes a veritable feminine Don Juan. I have
known several women of this kind, who held veritable orgies and
induced a whole series of young girls to become their lovers, in the
way we have just indicated.
Here again, as in masculine inversion, there is a true irradiated
love. Inverts want to marry and swear eternal fidelity; they celebrate
their betrothals, even openly, the invert in male attire representing
the bridegroom; or sometimes they have secret symbols, such as
exchanging rings, etc. These sexual orgies are often seasoned with
alcohol.
_The excesses of female inverts exceed those of the male. This is
their one thought, night and day, almost without interruption.
Jealousy is also as strong as among male inverts. However, these
nymphomaniac inverts are not very common._
A characteristic peculiarity of feminine inversion depends on the
irradiation of the sexual appetite in woman (_vide_ Chapters IV and
V). We have seen that there is much less distinction in woman between
love and local sensations of pleasure, and between friendship and
love, than in man. When a woman invert wishes to seduce a normal girl,
it is easy for her to do so. She first wins her affection by the aid
of the caresses of an exalted platonic love, which is not uncommon
among women; kisses, embraces, and sleeping in the same bed are much
more common among girls than boys, and little by little the invert
succeeds in causing voluptuous sensations in her victim. Very often
the object of these caresses does not recognize that there is anything
abnormal in all this, or gives way to her sensations without
reflection, and then becomes amorous in her turn. I will give an
example:
A female invert, dressed as a young man, succeeded in winning the love
of a normal girl, and was formally betrothed to her. Soon afterwards
the woman was unmasked, arrested and sent to an asylum, where she was
made to put on woman's clothes. But the young girl who had been
deceived continued to be amorous and visited her "lover," who embraced
her before every one, in a state of voluptuous ecstasy, which I
witnessed myself. When this scene was over, I took the young girl
aside and expressed my astonishment at seeing her continue to have any
regard for the sham "young man" who had deceived her. Her reply was
characteristic of a woman: "Ah! you see, doctor, I love him, and I
cannot help it!"
What can one reply to such logic? A psychic love of this kind is
hardly possible in man; but if we go to the bottom of the matter and
study the nature of woman, we can understand how certain feminine
exaltations may be unconsciously transformed into love, platonic at
first, afterwards sexual. At first, "they understand each other so
well," and have so much mutual sympathy; they give each other pet
names, they kiss and embrace, and perform all kinds of tender actions.
Finally, a graduated scale of caresses leads almost unconsciously to
sexual excitation.
_This is how it happens that a normal woman, systematically seduced by
an invert, may become madly in love with her and commit sexual
excesses with her for years, becoming herself essentially
pathological. The case only becomes really pathological when it is
definitely fixed by long habit; a thing which easily occurs in woman,
owing to the constant and monogamous nature of her love._
Krafft-Ebing's cases show the same phenomena, (for instance the invert
called "Count Sandor" and her victims). In these cases also young
girls, seduced by inverts, fell into despair and even threatened to
commit suicide when their seducers abandoned them. On the other hand,
when a normal man, seduced by an invert, practices mutual masturbation
the affair remains localized and limited to purely animal sensations
of pleasure which do not irradiate to his psychic life; such
irradiations only occur in the invert, so that his victims are always
ready to abandon him without the least regret. If we except children,
it therefore follows that the so-called male victims are nearly always
blackmailers, or simply offer themselves for money.
In fact, the normal man entirely separates the sympathy, or even the
exalted affection, which he feels for another man, from all sexual
sensations, and has not the least desire to kiss or caress his best
friend, still less to have sexual intercourse with him. All sensual
caresses between men are, therefore, suggestive of inversion even in
places where women are absent.
In the normal woman, on the contrary, as we have already mentioned,
sentiments of exalted sympathy easily provoke the desire for kisses
and caresses, and these caresses often cause in women a certain amount
of vague sensual pleasure. When this pleasure leads to progressive
tenderness and ends in mutual onanism, etc., it nevertheless remains
intimately connected with psychic exaltations and sentiments of
sympathy, from which it cannot be separated as in man.
In a former chapter we have described the difference between the two
sexes, but nowhere is it more distinctly shown than in the relations
between a female invert and her victims.
It is therefore much more difficult in woman than in man to
distinguish in particular cases between the hereditary disposition to
inversion, and saphism acquired by seduction or habit. The latter is
common in prostitutes and libidinous women.
As we have already said, the pure female invert feels like a man. The
idea of coitus with men is repugnant to her. She apes the habits,
manners and clothes of men. Female inverts have been known to wear
men's uniforms and perform military service for years, and even behave
as heroes; their sex sometimes only being discovered after their
death.
=Sexual Appetite for Children. (Pederosis.)=--It may be questioned
whether this is a special category, for many sexual assaults committed
on children are simply the effect of senile dementia, or abuse of
children to satisfy an otherwise normal sexual appetite. I have,
however, observed cases where children were so specially, or even
exclusively, the object of the sexual appetite, that I cannot doubt
the existence of a special hereditary perversion in this direction.
No doubt, most of those who abuse children are also capable of coitus
with women, or else they are inverts, sadists, etc.; but with many of
them sexual passion for children is so marked from their youth upward,
that it shows a special hereditary disposition. For this pathological
disposition, thus defined, I propose the term _pederosis_; that of
_pederasty_ applying to degeneracy between man and man, whatever
causes lead to it. Krafft-Ebing, who does not believe in the existence
of a hereditary pederosis, gives the name _erotic pedophilia_ to the
abuse of children by depraved persons.
The following are cases of exclusive and hereditary pederosis: A
talented artist, possessing high moral sentiments, was affected from
his youth with a sexual appetite exclusively directed toward little
girls of five or six years. At the age of twelve they ceased to
attract him. He was quite indifferent to adults of both sexes, and
never accomplished coitus. _Having recognized in good time the anomaly
of his appetite, he succeeded in mastering it all his life, and
through education on the subject as well as a general physical
development, he neutralized these morbid desires, particularly through
the training of his mind to cleaner and more wholesome topics. A great
help in this type of condition is work therapy. His moral sentiments
and principles were always strong enough to prevent him going any
further, and he eventually obtained relief. But this condition gave
rise to increasing nervous irritation and melancholic depression._
In another man, the sexual appetite, also perverted since its origin,
was directed only toward boys of twelve or sixteen. At one time girls
of the same age excited him, while he was quite indifferent toward
adult women and men.
In rare cases the sexual appetite of certain women is directed toward
little boys.
=Sexual Appetite for Animals. (Sodomy or Bestiality.)=[6]--A human
sexual appetite exclusively directed toward animals is certainly not
common. Coitus between man and animals usually takes place for want of
the opportunity for normal satisfaction, or else as the result of
satyriasis, nymphomania or desire for change. I have observed it
especially in idiots and imbeciles who are ridiculed by girls. To
console themselves, they give vent to their feelings with a patient
cow or goat in the silence of the stable: for this act they get
several years imprisonment, for the law on this point is severe.
Certain degraded libertines satisfy their hyperaesthetic and perverted
appetites with goats or even with large birds or rabbits.
There are, however, cases where a pathological sexual appetite is
specially directed toward animals, and it is curious to observe the
frequent preference of certain individuals for small animals which
they skin (fowls, geese, rabbits), and thus put to death.
_Bestiality is not rare in women who are also subject to this filthy,
obnoxious and degenerative practice. Even if we put aside cases of
torture inflicted on small animals and if we avoid all prejudices, we
can still, in all normality, consider bestiality as a crime,
manifested by the depraved mind. In fact, considered from the point of
view of law and humanity, bestiality is one of the most indecent of
all the pathological aberrations of the sexual appetite. Human
imagination only has marked it with the stigma of moral depravement
and has made it a crime. But it is recognized scientifically that it
is a state of mental inferiority and often a sign of idiotic tendency,
usually accompanied by a case history, tainted heredity and highly
neurotic constitution. AEstheticism has reason for complaint, and more
than one painter or sculptor has represented the union of Leda with
the Swan. It is certainly much better for society, for an idiot or an
imbecile to be castrated than for him to make a girl pregnant and
breed more idiots._
_In cases of this kind which I have known and which were brought to
justice, I consider that the real sinner, the sodomite, should be
confined to an insane asylum under medical attention, and not, as at
present, to be condemned to imprisonment, thus making a martyr of him
for no reason, and putting the ban of society upon him. It is needless
to say that cases of sodomy complicated by cruelty or sadism, should
be judged differently._
There are also other hereditary or constitutional perversions, more or
less characteristic, of the sexual appetite, but we cannot enumerate
all of them. We may mention, however, the erotic excitement which some
men feel at the sight of statues of women, which urges them to
masturbate against these statues.
SEXUAL ANOMALIES IN THE INSANE AND IN PSYCHOPATHS
When one is familiar with the population of a lunatic asylum, one is
struck by a singular phenomenon, from the sexual point of view. A
great number of insane women give evidence of intense sexual desire.
This desire is manifested in some by incessant masturbation; in others
by obscene conversation; in many others, by imaginary love, sometimes
sensual, sometimes platonic; often by direct provocation to coitus
addressed to the medical officers; but especially by perpetual scenes
of jealousy, and often by reciprocal suspicions regarding their sexual
life. In fact, a lunatic asylum reveals to us, in the form of
repulsive caricatures, all gradations and variations of a more or less
degenerate feminine sexual life, coquetry, wearing all kinds of
ornaments, jealous anger, erotic excitement, etc.
The sexual excitation of the insane often makes them soil themselves
with urine and excrements, and heap insults on persons whom their
diseased imagination suspects of sexual assaults or immodest acts
toward themselves or others. They have a tendency to believe
themselves betrothed or married to kings, emperors, Jesus Christ or
God. Pregnancy and childbirth play a large part in their delirium.
Some patients imagine themselves pregnant and pretend that they were
fecundated secretly. Afterwards they believe that some one has taken
away their child while they were asleep.
One of my former patients once accused me of going to her bed at night
and fecundating her every week. She also accused me of having hidden
the hundreds of children which I was supposed to have procreated with
her, and martyred them. Owing to these hallucinations she heard their
cries day and night.
Another patient, affected with curable acute mania, was so erotic
during her attacks that she made advances toward all the doctors who
visited her. Her mind was full of such erotic images that after her
cure she was frightened of being pregnant, although she had passed the
whole of her time of detention under supervision by female attendants.
Women who in their normal state are most modest or sexually cold may
be most erotic when they become insane, and may even behave as
prostitutes. This is especially observed in periodic hypomania. It is
a well-known fact in the female divisions of lunatic asylums, that the
doctors are always surrounded by erotic patients, who catch hold of
their clothes and pinch them, and try and embrace or scratch them
according as they are amorous or jealous, so that they often have
trouble in escaping from these signs of violent love or furious
jealousy.
On the other hand, in the male divisions of asylums, one is astonished
at the indifference and profound sexual apathy of nearly all insane
men. Some practice masturbation and others attempt pederasty, but all
with a philosophical calmness due to their dementia. Young women may
even go among them without any fear of assaults or indecent language.
It is only a few of the most violent who are exceptions to this rule.
A young lady doctor, assistant medical officer to the asylum at
Zurich, made her visits alone among all the males, even the most
violent, without any inconvenience; while, in the female divisions,
she was approached by the erotic patients as much as were the male
assistants. I mention this fact because some people wrongly imagine
that the sexual excitation of insane women is due to the visits of
male doctors. These facts are very striking and furnish perhaps the
best proof that the feminine sexual appetite is especially situated in
the higher brain, while the masculine appetite is situated more in the
lower cerebral centers, as we have shown above. Mental alienation is
due to irritations of the higher brain, and this explains why in women
it lets loose such violent sexual passions and images, and why there
is so little of this in men.
The sexual pathological symptoms of the insane are as follows:
(1). _Erotomania_ (satyriasis and nymphomania), or abnormal exaltation
of the sexual appetite. This is especially seen in acute mania, in the
early stages of general paralysis and senile dementia, also
temporarily or permanently in other psychoses. It is manifested by
sexual excesses, obscene language or excessive masturbation. All these
symptoms disappear after the attack of insanity.
(2). _Sexual anaesthesia_ or _hypoaesthesia_ or even _impotence_ may
occur in the later stages of general paralysis and senile dementia. At
the commencement of general paralysis there is often violent sexual
desire combined with more or less complete impotence. The same thing
occurs, as we shall see, in alcoholism.
(3). Subjects affected with systematic delirium of persecution and
grandeur (paranoia) sometimes commit atrocious sexual excesses, and
often tyrannize and torment in a terrible way the women who are their
victims. It is especially in the religious forms of this delirium,
combined with fanatic ecstasy, that the most repulsive sexual orgies
occur. I have treated a patient with paranoia who, full of pious
sayings, regarded himself as a kind of prophet. He made a poor girl
and her mother sleep in his room and had connection with them
alternately. Finally, he mixed his semen in coffee with the girl's
menstrual blood and made her drink the mixture, pretending that this
was a religious ceremony intended to produce a strong race. In the end
he set fire to the house of these poor women.
Subjects affected with partial paranoia often turn the heads of
susceptible women by the aid of ascetic religious phraseology, to
gratify afterwards their sexual passions. The worst cases are those
who are able to hide from the public their delirious ideas, and pass
for normal individuals, misunderstood victims, or even saints. I have
examined a very orthodox clergyman, highly esteemed by his
congregation on account of his ascetic and enthusiastic preaching. In
his own home he illtreated his wife, half strangled her, and exacted
all kinds of sexual depravity. Unfortunately, the nature of his
delirium was not very evident, and he dissimulated so well that the
jurists would not admit his irresponsibility, in spite of my medical
certificate. His wife was obliged to run away to escape from her
martyrdom. The community of property in force in this family
completely ruined this unfortunate woman. The husband was not a
hypocrite, but simply insane. Volumes could be written on sexual
atrocities committed by such people.
I will mention briefly the systematic delirium directed toward
pathological love. This is a very common symptom in insane women who
combine their amorous sentiments for man with the maddest ideas and
hallucinations. An insane woman suddenly discovers that the object of
her love is a king or Jesus Christ, and that she is betrothed to him.
In her delirium she imagines herself to be queen of the world. In her
dreams and hallucinations her king or Christ is in bed with her and
she imagines she has connection with him. Still under the influence
of hallucinations, she believes herself pregnant and carries an
imaginary child for nine months in her womb. She may even imagine that
she has given birth to a child, and that the child has been taken away
from her by the aid of narcotics, as we have seen above. Although
there is an infinite variety in the gradations, the pathological
images of the cerebral sexual sphere of insane women always revolve
round this eternal theme.
These pathological irradiations of the sexual sphere are associated
voluntarily with jealous obsessions and ideas of persecution, which
make the subjects furious, and which are confirmed by their
paraesthesias and hallucinations. Illusions of memory play a great part
in these cases, for the subjects have often never felt what they
complain of, and it is then a question of veritable hallucinational
memory. We may here observe by the way that, even among healthy
people, the sexual passions, like the others, always tend to falsify
memory, making things appear in the exclusive sense of the affective
state. Once fixed in the memory, such conceptions, the false tendency
of which was originally based on passion, gradually assume the
subjective character of certainty. Cool-headed people, or those whose
affective state directs them to contrary conceptions, then see in such
individuals a deliberate intention to misrepresent the facts. This is
the reason why people so often hurl mutual insults at each others
heads, calling each other liars and calumniators, owing to the
affective illusion of memory.
(4). One of the worst of the sexual anomalies in the insane is
_pathological jealousy_, especially in men. Their wives then become
martyrs, especially in cases of alcoholism and paranoia. It is not
uncommon for assassination to put an end to their torments. Among
insane women, jealousy is certainly not less, but they have less legal
power and less muscular strength. The most violent jealousy is found
in alcoholics.
Jealous delirium renders the subject furious; a word, a look, or some
trivial circumstance are enough for him to prove the infidelity of his
wife. The latter has to avoid the slightest thing which might arouse
jealousy, but all in vain; reserve and even prudery are regarded by
the jealous husband as hypocrisy. The unfortunate man watches his
wife, night and day, like a watchdog: he threatens and insults her
with no reason, and calumniates her in all ways, even in the presence
of a third party. He even lays elaborate traps for her. Cases of this
kind are legion.
(5). It is necessary to say that the _sexual paraesthesias_, of which
we have spoken, sadism, masochism, fetichism, inversion, etc., often
occur in the insane.
(6). The most atrocious sexual crimes are very often the work of
idiots or imbeciles, but especially _moral idiots_, _i.e._, persons
whose idiocy is limited to the moral sense, who are also called simply
_amoral_. This is due to hereditary taint, an innate absence of all
sentiments of sympathy, pity and duty. Rape, violation of children,
sexual assassination, etc., are usually due to the concomitant action
of moral idiocy and violent or perverted sexual passions.
(7). _Hypochondria_ also causes singular results in the sexual sphere.
We have already dealt with the masturbation of certain hypochondriacs,
which is often wholly or partly imaginary. Others believe they have
committed terrible sexual excesses, when nothing of the kind has
occurred. I have seen a hypochondriac married and strongly built, who
believed his health was ruined because he cohabited with his wife once
every two or three months. Other hypochondriacs become impotent simply
because they think they are. Others again imagine they are affected
with venereal disease, which they have never contracted.
(8). Hysterical men and women have a very peculiar sexuality. Hysteria
depends on auto-suggestion or on an exalted and morbid dissociability
of psychic activity. A single idea is sufficient in a hysterical
subject, to produce the realization of what it represents. The
passionate imagination may lead to opinions and actions which are
absolutely contradictory. Love and hatred often alternate by
transformation. According to the influences to which she is exposed,
the same hysterical woman may become a good or evil genius.
In the sexual domain the same extremes are produced in a very striking
manner. Inflamed by love, a hysterical woman may exhibit phenomenal
eroticism and the most violent sexual excesses, while indifference,
disgust, or simply distraction by other ideas will render her
absolutely frigid. Cold as ice toward other men, she may have
insatiable sexual desire for the man she loves.
The question is often raised whether a woman can love more than once
in her life. There is no doubt that many women are so monogamous by
instinct that they cannot love more than once; but it is also certain
that a hysterical woman is capable of loving several times, and very
different persons at different periods of her life. The personality of
certain erotic hysterical women is even so dissociable that they can
love with all their strength several men at the same time. But the
hysterical woman is also capable of hating a man with as much ardor as
she formerly loved him; or, on the contrary, of loving the one she
formerly hated, according to the suggestion of the moment. The same
phenomena occur in hysterical men.
For the same reasons the quality of the sexual sensations and
sentiments may vary in a hysterical subject according to the
influences it is subjected to, and pass from the normal to the
perverted state, or inversely. I have observed a case where a highly
cultured hysterical subject, in her early youth, fell in love with
another young girl. At this period her sentiments were purely
homosexual; her love for the young girl was clearly inverted and
accompanied by intense sexual desire, while she was absolutely
indifferent to men. Later on, a man fell in love with her, and she
yielded to him rather from pity and feminine passiveness than from
love. Still later she fell passionately in love with another man,
quite as much as she had been with the young girl of her early youth.
Her latest love was both exalted and libidinous. Her sexual appetite
had thus taken the normal direction under the influence of a
hetero-sexual affection.
In hysterical men analogous changes occur less easily, on account of
the nature of masculine sexuality which distinguishes more clearly
between the mind and the appetite; but these changes are observed
sometimes. In woman, the hysterical imagination and dissociation
facilitate a polyandrous irradiation of the sexual appetite, which is
otherwise rare in the female sex. In this respect the sexuality of
hysterical women resembles that of men and differs from that of
normal women. Hysterical men, on the other hand, become more feminine,
not by their appetite being less polygamous, but by the more
dissociated form of their thoughts and sentiments.
(9). A variety of the pathological love of abnormal individuals is
_imaginary love_, not founded on delirious ideas. Certain psychopaths
of both sexes are convinced that they love some one, but they suddenly
perceive during their betrothal, or even only after marriage, that
they are mistaken and that they have never loved the person in
question. Such illusions are the cause of numerous broken engagements,
divorce and conjugal bitterness.
(10). _Amorous tyranny_ constitutes another variety in the pathology
of love. Lovers of this kind constantly tyrannize and torment the
object of their passion, by their desires, their observations, their
sensitive temper, their contradictions, their exigencies and their
jealousy. This atrocious manner of loving is common in both sexes;
perhaps more so in women than men.
(11). The _love of psychopaths_ is a subject which has no end. If
human society was better acquainted with psychopathology a great deal
of conjugal misunderstanding and misery would be avoided.
I have known a woman who would not allow her husband to shut himself
in the water-closet, for fear he would take the servant with him!
Another became madly jealous if a woman sat opposite her husband and
cast the least glance at him; the unfortunate husband not knowing
where to look, in the street or in hotels, so as to escape his wife's
jealousy. It is still worse when the husband is jealous.
Other psychopaths torment the object of their love by the perpetual
care they take over imaginary dangers or the slightest indispositions.
Others again are affected with hyperaesthesia, and the least noise, the
slightest touch, or any sudden sensation, is enough to throw them into
excitement and make them a nuisance both to themselves and to their
surroundings.
The pathological exaltation of sentiments, which causes the most
trifling things to appear as deliberate offenses, and malicious
intentions, is still more to be feared. The disproportion between
love and sexual appetite also torments many psychopaths, either when a
deep love is combined with sexual indifference or disgust at coitus,
or even pain (vaginismus, in women, for example); or when an intense
sexual appetite is combined with want of love or ferocious egoism
(especially in men).
Certain psychopaths appear profoundly amorous but behave like brutes
to the object of their love. These are the individuals who are always
ready to strangle their sweetheart, to stab or shoot her, if she does
not immediately yield to their desires; or else the feeble creatures
who threaten to commit suicide if their love is not returned.
Others, tormented by a pathological eroticism are continually annoying
young and virtuous girls with their obsessions and their pathological
grossness. I have seen a psychopath of this kind write letters and
even post cards to a young girl, on which he had drawn pictures of the
female genitals, by way of gallantry. In women, hatred and vengeance,
aroused by jealousy, are especially blind and tenacious when the
chronic passions of psychopathia intervene; this being due to the
perseverance natural to the sex. By the aid of their refined
intrigues; by their misrepresented statements due to the illusions of
a memory distorted by passion, but uttered with a consummate dramatic
art, some women may play a truly diabolical role, and even deceive a
whole tribunal. When we get to the bottom of the matter, we often find
that the primary cause of the evil is a sexual passion embellished and
idealized afterwards by all kinds of noble motives, but in reality
more or less unconsciously hypocritical. While deceiving others, these
psychopathic women also deceive themselves. There are also a number of
male psychopaths quite analogous to the above and generally
hysterical.
Other morbid symptoms, such as obsessions and pathological impulses,
have a certain importance as regards sexual appetite and love. Love or
rejection, as well as other sexual images, may become the objects of
obsessions, and then cause the subjects much torment, but without
harming their surroundings; for the obsessed generally remain passive.
Pathological impulse to actions may, on the contrary, become dangerous
and lead to violation, whether combined with perversion or not.
(12). We have seen that _senile paradoxy_ often shows itself, as a
symptom of senile dementia, by a sexual appetite for children. This is
the initial symptom of the complaint, and may lead to the commission
of assault. The holy indignation of the public, and often of ignorant
judges, against these depraved old men often result in the public
contempt or even the imprisonment of poor patients who have hitherto
led a blameless life, and who have simply become victims of senile
degeneration of the arteries of the brain.
(13). I will mention another case which I have observed, which shows
how complex hereditary cerebral pathology may become, and lead in turn
to crime, madness and sexual perversion; giving rise to the most
tragic scenes of human life, and to the degeneration of families.
A very charming and intelligent, but deceitful man, an amoral
person whose heredity was strongly tainted with mental disease,
had strong sexual instincts partly inverted. He was attracted
rather more by men than by women, but committed excesses with
both sexes. He married a virtuous and intelligent midwife. At
long intervals he had three attacks of acute mania, but was
cured after each attack and procreated two boys and a girl. When
he was sane he spent his time in deceitful occupations and
speculation and never worked honestly to earn his living. He
behaved well toward his wife, but this did not prevent him
committing pederasty with men. He was often convicted for
pederasty and swindling, and I treated him several times in an
asylum. His poor wife complained bitterly, but found consolation
in her husband's apparent love, but especially in the careful
education of her children. But when the children grew up, her
illusions disappeared one after another. The daughter became
feeble-minded, and one of the sons became a bad character. The
mother consoled herself with the second son who appeared honest
and hard-working. The father was then in an asylum, his relapses
having led the tribunal to institute an inquiry into his mental
condition. One day the mother came to me in despair and showed
me a letter written by the son of the father, which she had
opened; the contents were as follows: "Miserable father, when
you receive this letter I shall be no longer in this world; but
before dying I wish to curse you. You have been the disgrace of
the family. You have caused misery to our mother and her
children by your crimes. Why did you bring me into this world?
For a long time I have felt evil instincts developing in me like
a cursed heritage. I struggle in vain against them; but the more
I struggle the more I feel I must succumb. I am incapable of
resisting much longer; but I will not become a criminal like
you, so I shall hang myself to-night, and I curse you again
before doing it."
The unfortunate son did in fact commit suicide, and drove his
mother to despair. I showed the father his son's letter, but he
only smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
The following is another example:
A man of 50, married, and the father of six children, ranging
from 6 to 24 years of age, violated them all, both girls and
boys. The whole family were abnormal and perverse. A son of 18
had sexual intercourse with his mother and sister. The father
also had intercourse with dogs and cats. The jury before whom I
brought the case regarded the man as mad, but he was condemned
to ten years' imprisonment. An asylum for dangerous and
perverted lunatics is urgently required for such cases.
EFFECTS OF NARCOTICS, ESPECIALLY ALCOHOL, ON THE SEXUAL APPETITE
The functional cerebral paralyses produced by narcotics closely
resemble in their psychopathological physiognomy the organic paralyses
which result from slow atrophy of the cerebral cortex, as in general
paralysis--exaltation of sentiment, tremor and slowness of movement up
to total paralysis, disorders of orientation in time and space,
profound mental dissociation affecting the subconscious automatic
actions.
At the same time the individual loses the exact appreciation of his
own personality and of the external world; he regards himself as very
capable in body and mind while he is becoming more and more powerless;
and everything appears rose-colored at the time when he is in a most
critical state. He believes himself possessed of great muscular
strength when paralysis makes him stagger, and so on.
At the commencement of narcosis the phenomena are somewhat different
from what they become later; a certain amount of excitement
predominates, as well as the spirit of enterprise and exaltation of
the appetites; while later on paralysis, relaxation and somnolence
play the principal part.
Narcosis acts in a similar way on the genetic sense. It begins by
exciting sexual desire, but diminishes the power. As Shakespere says:
"Lechery it provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the desire but it
takes away the performance." (Macbeth, Act II, Scene iii.) No doubt
the narcotics are not all equal in action, and each has its specific
peculiarities; but the words of Shakespere express the essential
effect of all narcotics on the sexual appetite: First of all
excitation of the appetite with the disappearance of moral and
intellectual inhibitory representations, and reenforcement of the
spirit of enterprise; afterwards, progressive paralysis of sexual
power, and finally extinction of the initial appetite itself.
These phenomena are of capital importance in alcoholic narcosis, which
plays the principal part in civilized countries. The initial
excitation is here very accentuated. If we make a closer examination,
however, we find from the first a relaxation of sexual activity and a
weakening of all sensory irritations. In coitus, erections are
produced more slowly; the voluptuous sensations, it is true, are of
great subjective intensity, but they are developed more slowly and
there is more difficulty in producing ejaculation. The subsequent
relaxation is very great, and a man who is even only slightly
intoxicated cannot perform coitus as rapidly, nor repeat it so often,
as when he has taken no alcoholic liquor. When the narcosis increases
the impotence becomes complete. Owing to the illusion produced by the
narcosis, however, a drunken man generally imagines himself to be very
capable.
The gross and clumsy form which flirtation assumes under the action of
alcohol is only too well known. The gross and persistent obscenity of
drunken persons in railway carriages and other places toward women is
an example of alcoholic flirtation. (_Vide_ Chapter IV.)
Another peculiarity of the sexual appetite in alcoholic narcosis is
its bestiality. The higher irradiations of love are completely
paralyzed and sensuality becomes unrestrained, even in men who, when
sober, are full of refined sentiments.
The depraving effect of alcohol on the sexual appetite is therefore
unlimited. Alcohol does not limit itself to giving free play to a
bestial appetite, by paralyzing reason and sentiments of sympathy and
duty; it also has a strong tendency to pervert the appetite itself. In
a considerable proportion of cases of exhibitionism, inversion,
pederosis, sodomy, etc., the development of the perversion is greatly
favored, or even directly produced, by the action of alcohol,
especially when there is a latent predisposition. I have observed a
whole series of perversions in persons whose sexual appetite was
normal when they were sober, but became perverted on the slightest
intoxication. I am convinced that if more attention was paid to the
subject the number of cases in which alcohol increases the perversion,
or is even necessary for its development, would be increased.
But what is of much greater importance is the fact that acute and
chronic alcoholic intoxication deteriorates the germinal protoplasm of
the procreators. I refer the reader to what I have said at the end of
Chapter I on blastophthoria. The recent researches of Bezzola seem to
prove that the old belief in the bad quality of children conceived
during drunkenness is not without foundation. Relying on the Swiss
census of 1900, in which there figure nine thousand idiots, and after
careful examination of the bulletins concerning them, this author has
proved that there are two acute annual maximum periods for the
conception of idiots (calculated from nine months before birth): the
periods of carnival and vintage, when the people drink most. In the
wine-growing districts the maximum conception of idiots at the time of
vintage is enormous, while it is almost _nil_ at other periods.
Moreover, these two maximum periods come at the time of year when
conception is at a minimum among the rest of the population; the
maximum of normal conceptions occurring at the beginning of summer.
If these facts are confirmed by further research, we may conclude that
even acute alcoholism has a blastophthoric action. We may, therefore,
assume that when a germinal cell leaves its gland at the moment when
it is impregnated with alcohol, and achieves conjugation, it is unable
to return to its normal condition, for want of opportunity to be
completely and promptly cleansed by nutrition and the circulation.
This explains how it may transmit to the individual which develops
from it all kinds of taints and defects.
After what we have said, we can tabulate the destructive effects of
the narcotic poisons and alcohol in particular, in the sexual domain,
both from the individual and social points of view, as follows:
(1). Irreflective sexual unions, resulting from exaltation of the
sexual appetite and temporary paralysis of the sentiments which
inhibit such unions in persons who are not under the influence of
alcohol. These include the seduction of girls, orgies with prostitutes
in brothels, and the procreation of children with low-class women, or
under unfavorable conditions.
(2). Increase of venereal disease. I have made statistics which show
that about 75 per cent. of venereal disease is contracted by men under
the influence of alcohol, chiefly by persons who are slightly
intoxicated and rendered enterprising thereby.
(3). All kinds of misfortunes and catastrophes, such as illegitimate
pregnancies, despair, suicide, etc., resulting from irreflective
sexual unions and venereal disease.
(4). The production of the majority of sexual crimes also resulting
from the exasperation of eroticism combined with irreflection and
general motor impulsiveness. Jealousy here plays a great part. The
most important statistics (for example, those of Baer, in Germany),
prove that from 50 to 75 per cent. of criminal assaults are committed
under the influence of alcohol. Indecent exposure, etc., is due to
alcohol in 75 or 80 per cent.
(5). Exaltation and sometimes development of sexual perversion.
(6). Creation of hereditary alcoholic blastophthoria, either as the
result of a single drinking bout, or from habitual drunkenness. The
offspring tainted with alcoholic blastophthoria suffer from various
bodily and physical anomalies, among which are dwarfism, rickets, a
predisposition to tuberculosis and epilepsy, moral idiocy and idiocy
in general, a disposition to crime and mental diseases, sexual
perversions, loss of suckling in women, and many other misfortunes.
(7). The delirium of jealousy is a specific symptom of chronic
alcoholism. Its effects are terrible and lead to all kinds of sorts of
infamies, assaults and even assassination.
(8). Alcohol is also the almost indispensable vehicle of prostitution
and proxenetism, which could not be maintained without it, at any rate
in their present disgusting and brutal form.
(9). The coarseness and vulgarity of alcoholic eroticism produce in
public places, as well as in private, an importunate and obscene form
of flirtation, which is brutally and cynically opposed to all
sentiments of propriety and modesty.
The above statements refer chiefly to men. Among women, alcoholism is
less common, at least in continental Europe; in England, however,
drunken women are often seen in the streets. Among prostitutes,
however, alcoholism is almost universal. Proxenetism makes use of
alcohol to compromise and seduce girls and thus lead them to
prostitution. When they have once fallen they often drink to forget
the horror of their situation.
The action of alcohol on the feminine sexual appetite is very
peculiar. The appetite is generally exalted, while the power is not
affected, owing to the passive role of woman in coitus. At first,
paralysis of the psychic inhibitions and their higher irradiations
(love, duty, modesty, etc.) by alcohol deprives the woman of nearly
all power of resistance against the sexual desire of the man. It
results from this that an intoxicated woman becomes the easy prey of a
man whose sexual appetite is excited. The following case is
instructive from this point of view:
A young girl of good position married a man of weak and vulgar
character. Both were rather fond of drink. When she became
pregnant the wife took large quantities of wine, by the doctor's
orders, and this led her to inebriety. The friends and
acquaintances of the husband found this amusing, and began to
flirt with her to such an extent that she fell a victim to their
sexual appetites, in her continual state of semi-intoxication.
The husband at first had not the courage to put an end to this
and did not wish to divorce her, for pecuniary reasons; for the
wife had the money. He finally decided to send her to an asylum
which I superintended, to cure her alcoholism.
From the antecedents of the patient, I expected to see a cynical
and erotic woman; but she was nothing of the kind. Although
hardly sober, this woman was modest and well-behaved. What
struck me most was her extreme of modesty, which at first made
it difficult for me to investigate her psychological state. Her
conduct was exemplary the whole time, and she eventually
confided to me that it was not so much sexual desire as the
profound indifference and feebleness developed by inebriety
which had caused her to give way. Before leaving the asylum she
joined a total abstinence society, returned to her husband and
succeeded in converting him also to total abstinence. She kept
to her pledge and lived afterwards in conjugal peace and
happiness, without ever relapsing into her old infidelity. I saw
her several years afterwards with her husband, happy and
flourishing.
I have mentioned this case to show that, even in women, sexual excess
does not necessarily destroy the character, the sentiments of modesty,
nor the will. It all depends on their cause. If there is congenital
weakness of character, the evil is irreparable; but if it is only due
to external forces which can be eliminated in time, its effect may
often be permanently suppressed. Some female inebriates are sexually
cold and repulse men; but others are erotic and even nymphomaniacs.
Whosoever has the welfare of humanity at heart, and takes the trouble
to reflect on the ravages caused by alcohol in human society, should
have the courage to make a slight effort and renounce all alcoholic
drink--say for six months at first, as an experiment--in order to
combat the social alcoholic misery by force of example, instead of
empty phrases. He will then discover, like all abstainers, that the
usage of alcohol (including wine, cider and beer) however small the
quantity consumed, only serves to maintain a habit which is vicious
and disastrous to society, by giving the contagious example of
so-called moderation, to which a great number of persons cannot
restrict themselves. He will then abstain for the rest of his days,
and it will become more and more incomprehensible to him how humanity
has been led, first by the spirit of imitation, later by the
conservation of prejudices, to develop, maintain and defend such a
social abuse by the aid of a legion of sophisms.
SEXUAL ANOMALIES AND PERVERSIONS BY SUGGESTION AND AUTO-SUGGESTION
The role of the phenomena of suggestion in sexual life is much greater
than is generally supposed. I shall return to this subject in a
special chapter, but I may state here that there is a category of
sexual perversions and anomalies of all kinds which are not hereditary
but acquired, and which Krafft-Ebing, although he cites striking
examples, wrongly attributes to the effect of sexual excess and
depravity, or which he compares to ordinary psychopathia, while in
reality they are only the direct effect of strong suggestion or
auto-suggestion.
I place in this category the cases where a man, whose sexuality has
hitherto been normal, suddenly becomes pathological as the result of
some circumstance which produces on him a profound impression. For
instance, the sexual appetite of an individual may be strongly
excited, in a brothel or elsewhere, by an erotic woman whose feet or
shoes are especially elegant. The sight of this well-fitted foot
exalts his sexual desire to a high degree. From this moment feminine
shoes, by subjective association, exercise on him an irresistible
erotic power, which dominates everything else and transforms him into
a fetichist; the female body no longer elicits his appetite, the
latter having become the slave of the image of shoes only. (Shoe
fetichism.)
Sexual inversion may also be acquired by suggestion, when a normal man
becomes excited by acts of masturbation or pederasty, or simply by
some psychic image with a strongly suggestive action. He may thus lose
his normal sexual appetite for women and become homosexual.
These phenomena occur especially in individuals whose suggestibility
is pathological or hysterical, or even simply exaggerated. But these
individuals are numerous, and this fact gives us the explanation of a
large proportion of acquired sexual anomalies, at the same time
indicating the means of curing them. In such cases, it is not a
question of moral depravity, nor necessarily of a latent hereditary
predisposition, but simply of a single sudden suggestive action,
sometimes repeated.
Among other cases, I may mention that of a well-educated man of very
refined sentiments, deeply in love with his wife, but very
suggestible, who became suddenly impotent and homosexual as the result
of a simple idea-image which became fixed in his mind and subjected it
by suggestion. His strong character enabled him to resist intercourse
with males, but he fell into despair and became very unhappy. I am
convinced that a careful study would reveal an increasing number of
cases of psychopathia acquired by suggestion or auto-suggestion.
Cases of this kind may be spontaneously cured. Treatment by suggestion
is indicated and may act directly or indirectly. Everything which is
of a functional psychic nature may occur by suggestion, or be, on the
contrary, eradicated by suggestion. The important point is to
emphasize the fact that whenever a man, hitherto normal, is affected,
without apparent cause, with a more or less sudden sexual anomaly, and
which is consequently not the effect of long habit, suggestion or
auto-suggestion should be borne in mind.
These two conceptions can, moreover, be hardly distinguished, for the
things which cause suggestion are usually the sensory perceptions of
sight, smell, touch and hearing, associated with certain situations,
or with an intense affective state which fixes them in the brain.
Sometimes it is a question of simple imaginative ideas. The cases
where a hypnotizer intentionally suggests sexual perversion probably
exist only in theory. We are, therefore, concerned with fortuitous
suggestions, acting through persons, situations, objects or ideas,
which excite the mind by the impression they produce on the sentiments
and the sexual appetite.
SEXUAL PERVERSIONS DUE TO HABIT
Without being congenital and without depending on a special
predisposition, all the perversions of the sexual appetite that we
have just described may be acquired, by means of the artificial and
continued excitation of a sexual appetite which seeks satisfaction in
change and unusual situations: Moreover, perverse satisfaction of the
sexual appetite is often resorted to--onanism, pederasty or oral
coitus--either to avoid conception, or with the idea of escaping
venereal disease, or in the case of onanism, to avoid publicity,
trouble or expense. As we have seen above alcohol favors the
development of sexual perversions.
It is evident that a commerce in women systematically tolerated by the
state, as is the proxenetism of regulated prostitution, employs all
means imaginable to attract and excite its clients. In this way
prostitution becomes the high-school for all the refinements of sexual
perversion. It not only offers special objects required by individuals
tainted by heredity with various perversions, but it artificially
develops perverse habits in the normal man. The manipulations of
sadism or masochism are even utilized to revive a sexual appetite
weakened by abuse. Individuals who have become impotent often try to
excite themselves by observing the coitus of others. In fact a leaven
of corruption and ignominy ferments on the dunghill of venal and
artificial excitation of the sexual appetite.
The apostles of Mammon and Bacchus, the former by interest, the latter
by the aid of a narcosis which paralyzes the higher sentiments and
reflection, work in concert to maintain this foul swamp. The same
individuals very commonly combine the two apostleships and become
themselves the victims of their false gods, after sacrificing hundreds
of their fellows.
To make matters more clear I will recapitulate as follows:
(1). _We often meet with pederasty without a trace of inversion of the
sexual appetite. It is also practiced on women by the psychopathic
male. But the normal man hardly ever prefers it to normal coitus._
(2). _Compensatory masturbation is very common and ceases with the
opportunity for normal coitus._
(3). _Sodomy is also often compensatory._
(4). _It is the same with assaults on children, which seldom depend on
a hereditary disposition._
(5). _Lesbian love, a form of degeneracy, artificial excitation of the
clitoris by the tongue or otherwise, may have quite a different origin
than from sexual inversion or other perversions._
All these things take place chiefly in brothels or with prostitutes,
in barracks, boarding-schools, convents, and other isolated places
where men and women live alone and separated from the other sex.
Sadism, masochism, fetichism and exhibitionism are much more rarely
the result of habits, because their object and the images with which
they are associated do not offer compensation for the normal
excitation of the sexual appetite, or only do so insufficiently.
I am here obliged to contradict Krafft-Ebing, who regards
exhibitionism as the effect of the impotence of certain individuals
depraved by excesses, or as the unconscious act of certain epileptics.
No doubt the two conditions which he mentions may present themselves,
but the exhibitionists I have observed have all been psychopaths whose
perversion was primordial and hereditary, with the exception of some
females in whom perversion originated in suggestion or alcoholism,
which had at any rate aroused the disposition.
Lesbian love merits special mention. Owing to the clitoris being more
or less concealed, women are often not satisfied by coitus, especially
when the ejaculation of the male takes place too quickly. Consequently
a number of normal women prefer to procure an orgasm by means of
lesbian love (_cunnilingus_.) There are clubs of female perverts, many
of whom are not homosexual by heredity.
Although they differ from hereditary perversions, acquired perversions
are connected with the former by a series of latent hereditary
dispositions, more or less marked, and often difficult to distinguish
in particular cases, especially when suggestion is blended with them.
Among the entirely hereditary and congenital sexual perversions, many
occur in individuals who are well conducted and often possessed of
delicate and altruistic sentiments. This point is not sufficiently
recognized. Such persons are nearly always more or less neurotic in
other respects. They are disheartened by their perversion and are so
much ashamed of it that they often prefer to carry their secret to the
grave rather than confide it to their doctor.
Others sometimes confess to a doctor, and the life of a martyr, who
is always contemplating suicide, is revealed to him. Individuals of
feeble, cynical, egoistic or abnormal natures, whose number is legion
in the corrupt centers of modern civilization, yield to their
perversion and often come before the tribunals, or else become objects
of public contempt. As it is this class which generally become known,
it is assumed by too hasty generalization that sexual perverts are
necessarily cynical, vicious or weak-minded individuals; but this
induction is false. It is unfortunately impossible to estimate the
number of sexual perversions dissimulated by a large number of
pessimists of both sexes, generally celibate and usually males.
I do not pretend that, when sexual perversion is neither hereditary
nor favored by a latent hereditary predisposition, nor developed or
fixed by alcoholism, it is usually possible to cure it by suggestion.
This often acts even in cases where alcohol has aroused a hereditary
taint. The incorrigible recidivists among the sexual perverts are, I
am convinced, either hereditary or strongly predisposed, or
degenerated by alcoholism. The original will power of the pervert is
also of great importance. Weak-willed perverts always tend to relapse.
The social sanitation of sexual intercourse would certainly reduce to
a minimum the compensatory perversions of normal persons who abstain
from alcohol. The prohibition of alcoholic drink would definitely
eliminate not only the perversions directly due to alcohol, but
gradually also those due to alcoholic blastophthoria in the
descendants. Other hereditary perversions, not of alcoholic origin,
can only be definitely eliminated by healthy selection.
Perversions acquired by suggestion or auto-suggestion should be
combated by suppression of the depraved examples which cause them, as
well as by treatment by suggestion. It is needless to say that sexual
perverts should always abstain from alcoholic drinks.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] English translation by F.J. Rebman: Rebman Co., New York.
[5] For further information on this subject see _Marshall's_
"Syphilology and Venereal Disease," (London, Balliere, Tindall & Co.);
also _Marshall's_ translation of _Fournier's_ "Treatment and
Prophylaxis of Syphilis," (New York: Rebman Co.)
[6] _Krafft-Ebing_ describes bestiality (connection with animals) and
pederasty under the general term of sodomy, but points out that the
original meaning of sodomy used in Genesis (Chapter XIX) signified
pederasty, _i.e._, anal coitus between men.
CHAPTER IX
SUGGESTION IN SEXUAL LIFE--AMOROUS INTOXICATION
=Suggestion. Cerebral Activity. Consciousness. Subconsciousness and
Amnesia. Auto-suggestion.=--The explanation of the phenomena of
hypnotism and suggestion by Liebeault and Bernheim has been a
veritable scientific revelation for human psychology. Unfortunately it
has remained to a great extent unknown to the public and the majority
of medical men and jurists. Even at the present day, this subject is
regarded either in the light of magic and occult phenomena, or as
being connected with imposture and charlatanism. This results from the
incapacity of most men to think in a psychological and philosophical
manner, to observe for themselves and to take into account the
connection which exists between the mind and cerebral activity.
I must point out the common error of many physicians, who do not
understand the psychological nature of hypnotism, and who place it,
like Dubois, in antinomy with psychotherapy. Hypnotism and suggestion
in the waking state are one and the same thing; but what the
physicians I have mentioned understand by suggestion in the waking
state--psychotherapy, action by will power, etc.--is only a chaos of
misapplied terms and psychological phenomena, only half understood by
them. Sleep by suggestion is only one of the phenomena of suggestion.
I must refer the reader to Bernheim's book on "_La Suggestion et ses
Applications a la Therapeutique_," and to my book on hypnotism ("_Der
Hypnotismus und die Suggestive Psychotherapie._" Stuttgart, 1902), for
I cannot enter into the details here. I will, however, attempt to make
clear the action of suggestion in order to explain its connection with
the sexual sensations and sentiments.
Suggestion consists in the action of ideas or representations on the
activity of the brain in general, and on some of its activities in
particular. The terms _idea-force_ and _ideoplasty_ have been
employed; but all ideas are at the same time forces and are more or
less ideoplastic according to the nature and intensity of the cerebral
activity which corresponds to them. Every representation which appears
in our consciousness is at the same time a cerebral activity. I will
explain by the aid of an example the relation which exists between the
play of our _conscious_ ideas and what is incorrectly called our
_unconscious_ cerebral activity.
For reasons which are too long to explain here, I call _subconscious_
all which is usually called unconscious, because I maintain that there
is probably nothing unconscious in our nervous activity, and that what
appears to be so is in reality accompanied by an introspection,
subordinated like its corresponding activity to the great and clear
introspection of the higher brain, which accompanies the concentrated
and mobile activity of what we call our attention in the waking state.
No doubt, we do not as a rule perceive our subconscious activities,
for want of sufficient intensity in their association with the series
of aperceptions (states subsequent to attentional activity). But we
possess a number of observations, due especially to hypnotism, which
allow us to infer by analogy the existence of subordinated
introspections corresponding to the cerebral activities which appear
to us unconscious.
For example, I think of my wife. This idea immediately calls to mind
that of a journey that I intend to take with her, and in its turn the
idea of the journey recalls that of the trunk I shall use to pack my
effects. Almost as rapidly as lightning, the three ideas: (1) my wife;
(2) the journey; (3) the trunk, apparently succeed each other in my
consciousness. But, according to the old scholasticism, the idea of
the journey is awakened by that of my wife, and that of my trunk by
that of the journey, which would, therefore, be its "cause." But a
little observation soon shows that the succession of our conscious
ideas is not so easily explained, for at every moment representations
appear which have no logical relation to those which precede them,
and cannot be caused by them, nor by immediate sensory perceptions
coming from without.
At a time when the activity of the brain was not understood, the
existence of an essential mind and a free will were assumed,
independent of the law of the conservation of energy and of the law of
causality, independent therefore of the brain, the activity of which
they commanded more or less at their pleasure. This conception is
based on ignorance of the facts.