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* * * * *
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE
PSYCHOANALYSIS
AND LOVE
BY
ANDRE TRIDON
Member of
"The Medico-Legal Society of New York City,"
"The Society for Forensic Medicine of New York City," and
"The International Association for Individual Psychology of Vienna,
Austria."
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1922, by
BRENTANO'S
_All rights reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE HEAD AND THE HEART 1
Love is independent from the will.
Victims of Venus. Love and affection.
Erotropism. What is the heart? A dead
heart can be made to beat. The heart is
a respectable organ. The antithesis head-heart.
Nerve memory.
II THE CHOICE OF A MATE 10
What we see in our mate. The meaning
of choice. The donkey's dilemma.
Chance in the discard. The dog's choice.
The behavior of copepods.
III THE QUEST OF THE FETISH 17
The hair fetishist. Everybody a fetishist.
Most common fetishes. The
breast and the bottle. Feminine fetishes.
Physiological necessities. Foot and shoe
fetishism. Non-physical fetishes. Symbolical
fetishes. Antifetishes. Attraction
or obsession?
IV THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD 29
The Oedipus complex. The Freudian
view. Jung's interpretation. Adler.
Pseudo-incest. The Neurotic life plan.
Imitation. The glands. Identification
mania. Early conflicts. Death wishes.
Our preferences. Craig's birds.
V INCEST 41
The incest fear. Incest in ancient
times. Inbreeding. The primal horde.
Repressed incestuous feelings. Blood
relations.
VI THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE 49
The organism a unit. Love's stimulation.
The successful lover. The unsuccessful
lover. Calf love.
VII THE SENSES IN LOVE 56
Sight. Auditory sensations. Smell.
The sense of taste. Touch. Holding
hands. The kiss. The birth of the kiss.
Kisses and electricity.
VIII EGO AND SEX 65
Neurotic complications. Self-love. Ego
in sex guise. Fatherhood. War prisoners.
Neurotic motherliness. When ego
and sex do not conflict.
IX HATRED AND LOVE 73
A worried wife. The test of love.
Sour grapes. Brothers and sisters. A
negro hater. Reformers. The syphilophobiac.
Deluded martyrs.
X PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY 83
Polyandry. Infidelity. When love dies.
Iwan Bloch's and Hirth's theories. Bored
wives. Getting even. Varietists and
Don Juans. The ultra-feminine. Messalina.
XI IS FREE LOVE POSSIBLE? 95
Man, the dissatisfied. The next step.
Blissful blindness. What of the child?
Disharmony between the parents. The
institution child. Free love plus birth
control.
XII PROSTITUTION 104
Economic factors. Lombrosos's theory.
Sensuality. Father fixation. Prostitution
a neurosis. The pimp. Prevention.
Prostitution has no redeeming grace.
XIII VIRGINITY 112
What men experienced in love want?
Ethical prostitution. The fear of woman.
The will-to-be-the-first. Telegony.
Goldschmidt's explanations.
XIV MODESTY, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL 122
In Turkey. On the modern stage.
Normal modesty. Suggestive draperies.
Excessive modesty. Immodest modesty.
Fear of love. The masculine protest.
Lack of modesty.
XV JEALOUSY 133
Forel's rules for husbands. Very few
men and women admit their jealousy.
Jealousy and impotence. Childish behavior.
The ego rampant. Sexless jealousy.
Husbands and lovers. Cruelty.
Making people jealous.
XVI INSANE JEALOUSY 147
Delusional jealousy. Homosexualism
and jealousy. A jealous wife. A case
of projection. Masked sadism.
XVII HOMOSEXUALISM. ITS GENESIS 155
Male lovers in Greece. Women were
harem slaves. The tide turns. Theories.
The third sex. Transvestites. Are
transvestites homosexual? Metatropism.
Steinach's experiments. Perverse birds.
Freud denies the third sex. Active and
passive types. The homosexual neurosis.
A safety device. Above and below.
A way out. The escape from biological
duties.
XVIII HOMOSEXUALISM A NEUROTIC SYMPTOM 174
A denial of life. Homosexualism is
negative love. The love letters of famous
homosexuals. Deeds of violence. A
homosexual tragedy. Women more homosexual
than men. Boastful homosexuals.
The Nietzsche-Wagner feud. Shall
perverse love be recognized? Man's
emancipation from woman. Homosexualism
and war. Is homosexualism necessary?
XIX CRUELTY AND LOVE--SADISM 188
Algolagnists. The Marquis de Sade's
biography. What Bonaparte thought of
him. Glandular drunkenness. Atavism.
Primitive religions. Primitive races and
sex violence. Animal love fights. The
sadistic mob. Is the male more cruel?
XX LOVE THAT CRAVES SUFFERING--MASOCHISM 200
Sacher Masoch's biography. Love of
the whip. The masochist is like a tired
horse. Shoe fetishism. Craving for
humiliation. Masochistic fancies. Are
women masochistic? Women who enjoy
a beating. A Freudian suggestion.
XXI WHAT LOVE OWES TO SADISTS AND
MASOCHISTS 212
Sadistic and masochistic lovers and
their fascination. The vamp. Those who
are too normal to be interesting or romantic.
XXII LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS 216
Dissatisfaction. The male artist. The
female artist. The woman who accomplishes
things. Flattery.
XXIII THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE FETISHES.
GLANDS 223
The parent-child relationship. Modern
endocrinologists ignorant of psychology.
Reciprocal influence of glands and behavior.
The pituitary gland. The thyroid.
The adrenals. The gonads.
XXIV GLANDULAR PERSONALITIES 233
The dark skinned type. The tall type.
The lean type. The obese type. The
slender type. Environment. Comfort and
behavior. What teeth indicate. Matrimonial
engineers.
XXV LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE 241
Sex cravings and motherhood cravings.
Pregnancy means health. Fear of pregnancy.
When mother love is lacking.
Frigid wives. Mother and father love.
Mothers adore their sons. Fathers partial
to daughters. The flapper and her
mother.
XXVI SHOULD WINTER MATE WITH SPRING? 251
Two disinterested brides. The case of
Wagner. A parent fixation. Physical
incompatibility. The plight of two neurotics.
What will people say? Having
her fixation-fling. Physical results. The
fate of the younger mate. King David.
XXVII NEGATIVE LOVE 263
A "clean" life. Utterances and conduct.
Oracles and prophecies. Can we
save our vital force. Sublimation. The
sexless. Ideal love. Protective measures.
Lovers of the absolute. A troublesome
patient. Higher aspirations.
XXVIII THE NEW WOMAN AND LOVE 275
George Bernard Shaw's view. The rebellion
against nature. Woman in commercial
life. Was it a sacrifice? The
pursuit. The passing of respectable prostitution.
The abettor of ethical sins.
Health versus sickness. The passing of
the flirt and of the doll. Modesty, old
and new. The unadapted woman. The
proud husband.
XXIX BIRTH CONTROL 291
What we expect of the modern woman.
The only solution. The human milch
cow. The nightmare of abortion. The
plight of the neurotic woman. The child
of the neurotic woman. Birth control
and indulgence. A great love is a holy
thing. The passing of the double standard.
XXX THE PASSING OF THE HUSBAND WORSHIP 303
Is man's vitality declining? Undue
pessimism. The wise husband. Is the
male indispensable? Loeb's experiments.
Twins to order. The mother is the
race. Matriarchal communities. Modern
woman is conceited. The terrors of the
climacteric. Masculine man is in no danger
of passing away.
XXXI PERFECT MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENTS 315
Marriage a compromise. Attractiveness
an asset. Forty and hideous. Athletic
movie idols. The foe of married
happiness. Friendship may survive love.
Separate vacations for the married. The
play function of love. Psychoanalysis
to the rescue. Wounded egotism. Democracy
in the home.
INTRODUCTION
Life would be much simpler if love among human beings were similar to
love among the animals. At mating time, any animal of any species feels
automatically attracted to any animal of the opposite sex belonging to
the same species. Age, appearance or relationship seem of no account
in the animal world. The love activities begin at a definite time of
the year, have as their obvious and exclusive purpose the reproduction
of the species and, after attaining their goal, end very early in the
summer of the same year. An exception may be made for a few wild and
domesticated animals which have several mating seasons and for a few
survivals of the prehistoric fauna, like the elephants, among which the
family group seems more permanent than among more "recent" biological
specimens.
Nor do love activities among the animals result in lasting disturbances
of their psychological life. In certain varieties of fish the male
never even sees the female whose eggs he fecundates. While we observe
at times duels to the death between two males for the possession of
one female (elks or moose), animal life seems to suffer few lasting
complications from the fact of such conflicts, which, like animal love,
are purely seasonal.
A greater regularity of the food supply which has intensified the sex
urge among human beings and removed its seasonal character, and the
progress of civilization which, for economic reasons, has placed upon
the union of male and female a thousand restrictions, has complicated
terribly what was merely among animals a periodic biological activity.
Restrictions, however, never bring about the complete suppression of
biological cravings and merely compel them to remain repressed for
varying periods of time. Repressed cravings, denied a direct normal
outlet, create for themselves indirect, morbid outlets.
We are little more than civilized animals who have been trained not to
reveal their primal cravings at certain forbidden times and places.
The cravings are there, struggling for expression and denial of their
reality does not suffice to make them unreal. It only invests them with
morbidity and abnormality.
Much of the fearsome mystery which surrounds sex is due to the fact
that we have forgotten our origin. We have set up a goal which, like
all goals worth striving for, is far ahead of the human procession and
somewhere between the earth and the stars. But that goal should not
cause us to forget our starting point.
It happens too often that "what we should be" blinds us to "what we
really are." Hence our surprise, our puzzled expression, our painful
disappointment, when one of us reveals himself suddenly as he is
instead of as he should be. Hence our absurd statutes which punish the
laggards on the road of evolution instead of helping them along. Hence
our fears in the presence of a mystery we have made mysterious, of a
danger we have made dangerous and which we make more terrifying yet by
burying our heads in the sand.
To this day the study of love has been considered as the almost
exclusive province of poets, playwrights, novelists, movie authors and
philosophers.
Those people have reveled in love's dramatic complications which they
have, whenever possible, exaggerated, for "artistic" reasons. Instead
of clarifying the problem, they have beclouded it.
In anglo-saxon countries a class of neurotics countenanced by the
police and the courts, the puritans, have further distorted the
popular misconception of love by swathing it in the morbid veils woven
by their unhealthy minds.
It is high time, therefore, that the subject of love be reviewed from
an impartial angle, from a purely scientific point of view.
Only one science is qualified to undertake that review, psychoanalysis,
for it has effected in the last twenty years a synthesis of all the
data which biology, neurology, endocrinology and other sciences have
contributed to the knowledge of human psychology and of the human
personality.
No scientist is satisfied with his findings unless they can be
described in terms of accurate measurements, hence, repeated and
checked up by any other scientist having acquired the requisite minimum
of technical skill.
The basis for such a study of love was established by the great pioneer
in the science of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud of Vienna.
By his masterly analysis of the sex life, to which, however, he has
ascribed an undue importance, he has stripped love of many veils
which made it look like a scarecrow. His successors, recognizing the
importance of other factors in the love life, ego cravings, organic
predispositions, etc., have in turn stripped love of other veils which
made it look too romantically unreal.
Thus we are gradually reaching the heart of the problem.
Love to-day is no longer animal love, nor is it as yet angelic love. We
are no longer beasts, altho the primal beast still disports itself in
our unconscious. Nor are we angels, arduous as our striving toward the
stars may be. To determine what love should be, could be or might be,
seems to be an academic waste of time and little else.
To determine, on the other hand, what love REALLY IS AT THE PRESENT
DAY, what actual level it has reached, to explain some of the
difficulties it encounters in trying to remain on that level, and
finally to suggest to MEN AND WOMEN OF TO-DAY workable modes
of adaption at that level, shall be the mission of this book.
In the coming chapters, I will show that our choice of a mate is as
completely "determined" as any other biological phenomenon; that the
"reasons" for that choice are compelling "habits" acquired in our
childhood and infancy within the family circle; that our "standards of
beauty" are memories from childhood and infancy; that in our search
for a mate we are influenced as powerfully by ego and safety cravings
as by sex cravings that the so-called "perversions" are due, at times,
to wrong training, at times, to organic disabilities and at times
to unrecognized safety cravings; that jealousy is, in the majority
of cases, due to ego cravings, not to sex cravings; finally that no
perfect adjustment of the married relation can be brought about until
democracy obtains in the home, replacing the various forms of autocracy
against which bullied wives and henpecked husbands have directed many
ineffective, neurotic revolts.
New York City
June 1, 1922
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE
CHAPTER I
THE HEAD AND THE HEART
Love, like hunger, fear or pain, is an absolutely involuntary craving.
We may deny it expression and gratification, even as we may pretend
that we are not hungry, afraid or in pain, and go without food,
protection or relief from pain; but no exertion on our part will
prevent us from experiencing love and craving its gratification. Nor
can we experience it thru an act of will.
This absolutely involuntary character of the love craving must be borne
in mind whenever we discuss the complicated and at times puzzling
relations which it brings about between human beings.
The attitude of the average person to this question is extremely vague
and illogical. The person obsessed by love cravings which are not
meeting with the approval of his environment, justifies himself by
stating loudly the overpowering character of his feelings:
"I cannot help loving him or her," "It is a feeling stronger than
myself," "It came over me suddenly," "It was a case of love at first
sight."
=Victims of Venus.= The ancients expressed their strong belief
in man's helplessness against the allpowerful fascination of the love
object by calling the lovelorn a victim of Cupid or of Venus, a puppet
of the gods, of fate.
And on the other hand, we behold modern and ancient lovers, whenever
they feel that the love object is growing indifferent to them,
reversing their attitude, denying their belief in love's involuntary
character, and using words like fickle, changeling, to designate the
love object they are losing. They speak of deception, of betrayal, of
faithlessness.
"You no longer love me," they state reproachfully. They may ask the
stupid question: "Why have you ceased to care for me?" Worse yet, they
may say to the love object; "You should be ashamed of your inconstancy."
Such remarks are not infrequently coupled with another remark which
goes more deeply to the root of the matter: "You should not show your
indifference so plainly."
In other words pretence is expected when actual love has died.
And indeed nothing else could be expected logically by such illogical
lovers, unless of course a deep affection, which may have grown between
two human beings in the course of many years of life partnership,
successfully masks the passing of the peculiar fascination which
differentiates love proper from any other human feeling.
=Love and Affection.= We may love a human being more than
ourselves, enjoy infinitely his presence, delight in giving to him
mental and physical happiness, lavish on him a thousand caresses and
yet not experience the flash of desire which leads compulsively toward
complete physical communion with that human being.
A simile from the animal world will make my meaning clearer.
A large number of animals "enjoy" light but only a small number of
them are so "fascinated" by light that they cannot resist a "craving"
to fly toward a light, contact with which may mean death to them. Only
that small minority can be called in scientific jargon "positively
phototropic," in sentimental parlance "hopelessly in love" with light.
All animals are affected in some fashion by an electric current
passing thru their bodies, but only a minority of them are so affected
by it that they must, whether they wish it or not, face the positive
electrode, as a lover fascinated by the face of his sweetheart. Only
these can be characterised as "positively galvanotropic."
=Erotropism.= Likewise a hundred men may be charmed by the sight
of a woman. Only one or two from their number may feel compelled
to seek complete union with her regardless of the obstacles to
be surmounted, of the criticism their actions may arouse, of the
expenditure of time, money and energy the adventure may entail. Only
this minority may be considered as "positively erotropic."
In other words it is the primal compulsion which nature uses to assure
the continuance of the race and which I might designate as "erotropism"
which must be considered the basis for a discussion of love.
Love as commonly understood or misunderstood at the present day, is a
series of variations on the theme of erotropism, variations due to the
complication of modern civilisation and the restrictions placed upon
all biological phenomena by the necessities of life in communities.
=What is the Heart?= The reader will notice that I have thus
far avoided any mention of the "heart" altho that organ is commonly
identified with the various emotions of love.
Physiologically speaking, the heart is no more vitally concerned with
love than with any other disturbing feeling and emotion. Love may at
times cause our heart to beat wildly, but so does strong coffee, so
does acute indigestion, so does blood poisoning, so does any sort of
violent fear.
The heart, we must not forget, is a mere muscle, which is no more
capable of being the seat of an emotion than our biceps or our calves.
The heart is an elaborate centripetal and centrifugal pump which, in
obedience to orders or impulses coming from elsewhere, draws the blood
out of the veins and sends it into the arteries at a varying rate of
speed.
=A Dead Heart Can Be Made to Beat.= The heart, taken out of
the body and attached to a well fitted system of pipes, thru which
an appropriate fluid is circulating, will start beating anew and
keep on beating until decay sets in, due to the fact that the proper
nourishment is lacking.
Talking of a sensitive heart, of a tender heart or of a heart of
stone means merely juggling with pretty pictures which correspond to
nothing physiologically. There may be sensitiveness, tenderness or
stony harshness somewhere in the organism and the heart may give them
expression by its fluctuating beats, but it acts on such occasions as a
mere registering apparatus.
Adrenin taken by the mouth or injected into the blood stream causes the
heart pump of a perfect indifferent man to throb as wildly as the heart
of a lovelorn swain. Strong doses of the nitrates may cause valvular
insufficiency and "break" a heart more effectively than any catastrophe
in one's sentimental life.
=The Heart is a Respectable Organ.= The choice of the heart as the
organ of the emotions, in particular of the love emotion, is certainly
due to the fact that it is such a faithful registering apparatus and
also to a "displacement upward" frequently observed in modern civilised
thought.
We do not willingly mention the abdomen and therefore have rechristened
it the stomach. We have read many times the appalling statement that a
woman carries her child "under her heart." The seat of the mind which
materialist physicians of ancient Greece located in the intestines,
rose later to the level of the solar plexus and with Descartes finally
reached the pineal gland. Likewise the part of the body where love
cravings receive their physical satisfaction having become taboo, the
seat of love has been raised from the pelvis to the thorax, from the
primary genital region to the breast, which bears secondary sexual
characteristics.
After which, the popular imagination has established an arbitrary
contrast and antagonism between the mysterious clocklike organ in the
chest and the mysterious soft mass in the skull.
=The Antithesis Head-heart= is one which literature is not likely
to abandon for years to come. We read that women "follow the dictates
of their heart" while men are not so prone "to lose their head." The
head is represented as the well-spring of reason while the heart is a
fount of tenderness, if not of foolishness.
Modern scientific research has demonstrated that the brain is nothing
but an apparatus for burning sugar which is transformed into electric
current which the nervous systems distribute throughout the body.
Thought of the normal type is impossible unless the various parts of
the brain are perfectly coordinated, just as the slightest accident to
a telephone wire may leave a subscriber cut off from the rest of the
world, but thoughts, feelings, emotions, cravings, originate elsewhere,
in the autonomic nervous system.
=Nerve Memory.= In our autonomic nervous system all our life
impressions are indelibly recorded, probably thru infinitesimal
chemical modifications of the nerves and the resultant tensions.
Pleasant nerve impressions (pleasant memories) direct us toward
certain objects which are the source of such impressions, unpleasant
impressions drive us away from the outside stimuli which once produced
them.
The former cause our heart to beat slowly, peacefully, powerfully,
the latter speed up the cardiac pump so as to send energy as fast as
possible wherever it is needed for defence against harm.
Pleasure, indifference and pain, built upon billions of nerve memories,
make up the woof of our thinking. They ARE our mind, the mind
that falls in love or falls out of love.
The head supplies the energy and the heart registers the rate at which
energy is sent thru the body, but the memories of which our thinking is
made are stored up elsewhere.
In a scientific study of love, therefore, I shall leave the head and
the heart as individual organs out of consideration.
CHAPTER II
THE CHOICE OF A MATE
=Love is a Compulsion.= The most striking characteristic in the
love craving, one which differentiates it sharply from other cravings,
is the compulsory exclusiveness of its choice. Hunger drives us to seek
a large number of substances which, by filling the stomach, relieve
what Cannon describes as a gastric itch.
The person in love, on the other hand, seeks only one single object
at a time, which alone seems capable of vouchsafing the desired
gratification.
A lovelorn man may be surrounded by many women, all extremely
attractive and accessible, and yet pine away for some other woman who
perhaps does not compare favorably with those he might conquer. He may,
at times, yield to the temporary attraction of a new woman, but in the
majority of cases, he will soon return to the woman he actually loves.
Not infrequently his environment will wonder at his choice. "What can
he see in her?" Physically or intellectually, anyone but himself would
see very little to "admire" in her.
=What We See in Our Mate.= The many handsome men whom we have
met, and who are mated to homely wives, the many wives we have
observed, mated to impossible husbands, and whose affection for their
unprepossessing life partner is genuine and in no way dictated by
sordid considerations, the many triangles we know of, in which a very
inferior lover or mistress is preferred to an admittedly superior
husband or wife, are evidence of the involuntary, nay compulsory,
character of the love choice.
A comparison imposes itself with certain obsessive fears or cravings
bearing upon one object which, to any one but the person experiencing
such fears or cravings, may appear anything but fearful or desirable.
The psychoanalytic investigation of the origin of such obsessions
always shows that they can be traced back to childhood impressions
which have modified our nervous reactions to certain objects or ideas.
=The Meaning of Choice.= Applied psychology and laboratory
research have in recent years attached a more and more deterministic
connotation to the term "choice." The word, which to academic
psychologists, implied the exercise of free will and "judgment," will
have some day to be accepted as synonymous with "compulsion."
A few examples from animal behavior will illustrate my meaning.
Philosophers have for years wasted breath and ink on the academic
consideration of the following puzzle:
A donkey is standing at equal distance from two bales of hay; the
two masses of fodder are mathematically alike in size, shape, color,
fragrance, quality, etc.
Unless the animal, certain philosophers said, was able to "make a
choice" of his own, he would remain motionless between the two bales
whose attraction would be perfectly balanced. He would, like some
celestial bodies, be held suspended by two forces which would not allow
him to turn to the right nor to the left. He would rationally have to
starve if attraction were a force exerting itself from the outside
exclusively.
Yet no donkey placed in such a situation will fail to make an immediate
choice. He will turn to one of the bales and start eating it.
Even if we imagine a philosophising donkey reasoning as follows:
"The two bales are equally attractive. Hence it makes no difference
which one I start with. Let us begin with either."
Even then, he will have to "make a choice," altho his selection of one
of the bales seems to be due entirely to "chance."
=Chance in the Discard.= Psychological research has eliminated
chance as a factor in human behavior, and whether our donkey starts
with the right or with the left bale, an analyst will insist that there
are reasons why he picks out that one bale to be eaten first.
Laboratory dogs which have supplied solutions for so many psychological
difficulties, have proved of service in this case too.
If the slightest surgical operation has been performed on one side of a
dog's brain, he becomes unable to move in a straight line.
He deviates from the straight line toward the side on which his brain
has been injured. If the lesion is on the right side he will be
compelled to turn to the right and vice versa. This is due to the fact
that the injury has weakened that side and the cerebral dynamo which
supplies the body with power produces less current on the injured than
on the uninjured side.
When you row a boat and slack one oar the boat turns toward the side on
which you are expending more effort. Of course the process is reversed
in a dog because the nerves of the dog cross over, the right side of
his brain supplying the left side of the body, the left side of the
brain supplying the right side of the body with power.
Let us repeat on two dogs, the experiment which academic psychologists
imagined performed on a mythical jackass.
=The Dog's Choice.= Offer two pieces of meat to a dog whose brain
has been injured on the right side and he will invariably eat the
piece of meat nearer that side. Repeat the test on a dog whose brain
has suffered a lesion on the left side and you will see him gobble the
piece of meat on the left side.
Go even further and place both pieces of meat on the left side of the
dog injured on the left side of his brain and he will "pick out" the
one farther out. Not that he "prefers" that one. He will aim at the
nearest but his injury will cause him to deviate too far to the left
and he will be unable to reach the nearest one.
Other experiments on dogs illustrate the purely organic "motives" back
of certain lines of conduct.
When both sides of a dog's brain have been injured in the frontal
region, the dog refuses to go forward or downstairs but has a tendency
to move backwards and to run upstairs.
When the back of a dog's brain has been injured on both sides, the dog
has a tendency to keep on running forward all the time and while he is
unwilling to climb stairs he will willingly go downstairs.
=The Behavior of Copepods.= When we pour carbonated water or beer
or alcohol into an aquarium, certain crustaceans called copepods will
at once swim toward the source of light, as tho they "loved" light, and
appear so interested in light that they will "forget," to eat their
food, if that food is placed away from the source of light. The same
animals when placed in water containing strychnine or caffein, will
shun the light as tho they "hated" it, and as tho they "loved" the
darkness.
We know that if a galvanic current is sent thru our head we will lean
involuntarily against the positive pole. If the current is sent thru an
aquarium, a number of the animals swimming in it will be compelled to
seek the positive pole and to remain there, others to seek the negative
pole.
In the case of the laboratory dogs, a permanent modification of
the nervous system caused a permanent modification of the animal's
behavior, which could not be "cured," (for brain injuries do not
"heal," the cells of the brain being unable to reproduce themselves),
but which would probably be compensated for by gradual adaptation.
In the case of the "phototropic" or "galvanotropic" animals, the
modification of the nervous system was only temporary but might cause a
more or less durable modification of the animals' behavior, if allowed
to last a considerable length of time.
The love attraction or "erotropism" is likewise due to certain more or
less lasting modifications of man's nervous system caused by the fact
that his nervous system was for variable periods of time exposed to the
influence of certain outside stimuli.
CHAPTER III
THE QUEST OF THE FETISH
The papers now and then tell the story of some man who was caught in
the act of clipping a little girl's braid of hair. That man is what
is called technically a hair fetishist. Hair is his fetish, that is
the part of a woman's body which attracts him more powerfully than
any other part. A search of the living quarters of that variety
of "delinquents" generally reveals that they are in the habit of
collecting women's tresses acquired in that fashion. The tresses are
almost always of the same color.
=The Hair Fetishist= whose unlawful activities bring him sooner
or later into the clutches of the police is a neurotic who presents to
an exaggerated, abnormal extent, a trait we find in all normal human
beings.
Every one of us is especially attracted by some part of the human body.
The young man who raves over his sweetheart's hair, the young woman
who blissfully runs her fingers thru her lover's hair are also hair
fetishists. But their craving is not strong enough to lead them into
committing unlawful, perverse, socially inacceptable acts.
Another widely spread type of abnormal fetishist described by novelists
and psychiatrists, but which very seldom gains newspaper notoriety, is
the foot and shoe fetishist, who buys or steals all sorts of shoes. He
too is merely the exaggeration of the man who is delighted by the sight
of a Cinderella foot or a slim ankle.
With hair and shoe fetishists, the fetish is more than a mere
attraction; it is generally a powerful sexual stimulant. Such
fetishists experience, while kissing or caressing their fetish, sexual
gratification of the autoerotic or of the involuntary type.
=Everybody a Fetishist.= There are hundreds of varieties of
fetishism, normal or abnormal. There is no person living who is not
more or less subject to the compulsive attraction of some fetish. There
is in every man or every woman something which catches the onlooker's
eye first and retains his attention longest.
This varies with every human being. Ask ten men to describe one pretty
woman. Every one of them will probably head the list of physical
qualities he has observed in her with a different fetish. One will
describe her as a blonde with a beautiful skin, rather tall and well
shaped; another will state that she is a well-shaped woman, rather
tall and with blonde hair; another will characterise her as a tall
woman with an abundance of blonde hair, etc. I knew a man, in no way
abnormal, who could not describe a pretty woman, regardless of whatever
her build was, without making a gesture of the hand outlining ample
breast curves.
=Most Common Fetishes.= Women's hair, throat, neck, shoulders,
arms and breasts seem to be the most frequently mentioned fetishes.
Fashion and the law recognise that fact. Whenever women plan to make
a physical appeal to men or women, they dress their hair with special
care and they wear low neck gowns, thereby exhibiting those various
fetishes.
It will be noticed that the parts of the body constituting the most
widely appreciated fetishes are those with which the nursing child
comes in most intimate and continuous contact.
To the child, they mean safety, comfort, caresses, food. The color
of skin or hair, the shape of neck, head and shoulders on which
his glances rest while nursing or while being carried about by the
mother, are the only ones which will appear "natural" and safe, hence
beautiful, to him in after life.
The breasts from which he derives a perfect food, at the right
temperature, which flows easily into his stomach and is assimilated
without effort, the breasts, whose texture and elasticity make them
pleasant to lean upon while nursing, may eventually become to his
simple mind the most valuable part of the female's body.
=The Breast and the Bottle.= My observations on several hundred
men fed at the breast or on the bottle in infancy, have revealed to me
that practically all the men nursed by a woman were greatly attracted
to women with well developed breasts.
The majority of men nursed on the bottle, on the other hand, preferred
thin, boyish looking girls, some of them even expressing a distinct
repugnance for rather buxom women.
It may be stated that of the few who did not confirm that rule there
were several more or less neurotic individuals, whom an unconscious
fear of incest (see Chapter V) had conditioned to fear the very type of
women by whom they had been nursed.
Arms and hands, which to the nursling mean protection, service,
caresses, transportation, etc., derive therefrom their great attraction
as fetishes.
=Feminine Fetishes.= I have thus far mentioned almost exclusively
fetishes from the female body. There are several reasons why feminine
fetishes are far more important to both men and women than masculine
fetishes. Children of both sexes are exposed to the influence of
the mother's fetishes more intimately, more constantly and more
"profitably" (nursing), than they are to the influence of the father's
fetishes.
Hence masculine fetishes are fewer and less numerous. Woman is less of
a fetishist than man. The most frequently mentioned masculine fetishes
are the bodily attributes characteristic of strength, and which, hence,
would afford most protection to the infant and the female.
No perverse fetishism is observed in women, no abnormal craving driving
women into securing unlawfully men's hair or clothing, etc.
Some writers consider transvestite women, women who enjoy masquerading
in men's clothes, as clothing fetishists, but such cases are extremely
rare and can be accounted for in other ways.
=Physiological Necessities.= There is another reason, a physiological
reason, for the great importance which men and women attach to the
feminine fetishes. More sexual excitement and a greater muscular
tension are necessary in the male than in the female at the time of
the sexual union. The female, being physiologically submissive, can
wait for her desire to grow under the influence of the male's caresses.
The male, on the contrary, has to be aggressive and cannot fulfill his
biological part unless his desire has been aroused by other sensations
than that of the sexual union.
Hence the greater expenditure of time and effort on the part of the
female to make herself attractive to the male. Hence also the long
drawn courtship of flirtation thru which the female of every animal
species endeavors to bring the male to the highest possible point of
sexual excitement before surrendering herself to him.
=Foot and Shoe Fetishism= is more complicated. The mother's feet
are the part of her body which the infant, crawling on the floor or
attempting to walk, beholds most frequently and at the closest range.
That variety of fetish, however, should not be as strong as other
fetishes more directly related to the child's nutrition, comfort and
safety. When shoe fetishism become compulsive, it is a neurosis due
to the repression of some erotic desire aroused in childhood by some
striking incident. One case cited by Freud, illustrates that process.
"A man to whom the various sex attractions of woman now mean nothing,
who in fact, can only be aroused sexually by the sight of a shoe on a
foot of a certain form, is able to recall an experience he had in his
sixth year and which proved decisive for the fixation of his libido.
One day he sat on a stool beside his governess. She was a shriveled
old maid who, that day, on account of some accident, had put a velvet
slipper on her foot and stretched it out on a foot stool.
"After a diffident attempt at normal sexual activity, undertaken at the
time of his puberty, a thin, sinewy foot like that of his governess,
had become the sole object of his desires. The man was carried away
irresistibly if other features, reminiscent of his governess, appeared
in conjunction with the foot. Through this fixation, the man did not
become neurotic but perverse, a foot fetishist, as we say."
I wish to call the reader's attention to the expression "after a
diffident attempt at normal sexual expression." It indicates a feeling
of inferiority, likely to cause failure and also increased by failure
which is always in evidence in every neurotic and which drives him
toward easier goals, along the line of least effort.
Some of the Freudians have suggested that foot fetishism is due to
the repression of an early craving for the unpleasant odors emitted
by perspiring feet. As against such a far-fetched explanation, I
would offer the fact that foot and shoe are always associated in the
unconscious of neurotic patients with the male and female genitals,
respectively.
We find the association of shoe and genitals clearly indicated in the
old custom of throwing shoes and rice at departing newlyweds (rice
symbolising the fertilising seed).
Odors, sounds, tactile sensations, etc., may also be powerful fetishes
or antifetishes, according to the impression they may have made on the
nursling. This will be discussed in more detail in the Chapter entitled
"The Senses in Love."
=Fetishes may be of a non-Physical Kind.= A profession may be
a fetish, and so can a mental attitude, in short, anything which in
childhood may have been considered as a source of safety, comfort,
egotistical gratification, etc.
Age itself, is at times a fetish. Gerontophilia is a neurosis, the
victims of which are only attracted to very old men or women, safety,
comfort and food having been assured them probably by a grandfather or
grandmother to whom they clung for neurotic reasons.
=Many Fetishes are Purely Symbolical.= Some women fall in love
with a uniform because that type of garment symbolises to them physical
strength, virility, courage, etc.
A uniform fetishist who consulted me during the war had given herself
to half a dozen officers who appeared to her irresistible until they
undressed or donned civilian clothes. After which she felt indifferent
to them and suffered remorse.
=Antifetishes=, parts of the body or their symbols which repel
us in persons of the opposite sex, can be due either to unpleasant
experiences of childhood connected with such parts of the body or to a
neurotic fear of incest. A neurotic's resistance to a mother fixation
may be so strong that in his (unconscious) fear of committing incest,
he shuns everything which in any woman reminds him of his mother.
A man whose violent mother and sister fixation had kept him till
forty-five away from all women and made him homosexual, felt extremely
uneasy and slightly ashamed in the presence of tall blonde women, the
mother and sister type. While he never enjoyed greatly the company of
any woman, he felt more at ease with small brunettes.
In his case, blonde hair and a high stature had become strong
antifetishes.
=The Quest of the Fetish= means then, in last analysis, the quest
of safety. If fetishes are so closely linked with sexuality, it is
mainly because a feeling of safety is one of the necessary conditions
for sexual potency in the male and the female alike.
As soon as fear dominates, the pelvic regions are starved of blood, for
the blood is then needed in other parts of the body, head and limbs,
for fight or flight. Sexual impotence is the result. This is probably
why in primitive races we often find the erect phallus used as a symbol
of safety, as a primitive "fetish" vouchsafing imaginary safety and
confidence.
This throws an interesting sidelight upon the real meaning of morbid
fetishism. As I said in one of the preceding paragraphs, every neurotic
feels inferior and seeks safety. The hair fetishist, for instance, is
inferior in some respect or considers himself inferior, which is about
the same and has the same consequences, as far as ultimate mental or
physical results are concerned.
The normal hair fetishist seeks a woman whose hair will symbolise to
him the safety he enjoyed close to his mother's hair. The abnormal
fetishist will crave the possession of hair which alone will place
him in turn in possession of safety, a condition in which his sexual
cravings will be easily satisfied. Not feeling capable of conquering
a woman, however, he will cut off some one's tresses, which will
symbolise to him woman, and the safety enjoyed in woman's (his
mother's) arms. In that fashion, he also gratifies his craving for
the line of least effort. Unwilling to face the social, economic,
biological responsibilities that go with the possession of a woman, he
seeks in the fetish which he steals, an easy, selfish, unsocial form of
gratification. That gratification is also a regression, for it leads
him back to the autoerotic practices of childhood.
=Attraction or Obsession.= In the normal man, then, the fetish is
an attraction, influencing his choice of a mate. In the abnormal man
it becomes an obsession, the fetish at times becoming infinitely more
important than the part of the body it suggests, at times causing the
elimination of the sexual mate which it replaces entirely.
In the normal man, the fetish, being the bearer of pleasant memories
from childhood days, facilitates one's adaption to a life partner.
The abnormal individual, unwilling to part with his childhood ways,
which were easier and safer, either demands that the life partner be
the absolute image of the person from whom he acquired his fetishes or
prefers one safe fetish to any life partner.
In the next chapter we shall see how mental and physical, real and
symbolic fetishes are forced upon us by the various developments of the
family romance which is always accompanied by a more or less marked
family feud.
CHAPTER IV
THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD
The craving for food and safety, gratified in our mother's arms, the
craving for safety gratified by the strong father's presence, develop
in our nerves automatic reactions of love or hatred (fear) toward other
human beings endowed with or lacking our mother's and father's fetishes.
Exposure to pleasurable or painful stimuli in infancy produces in
our nerves a modification which could be roughly compared to the
modification produced surgically in the brain of the dog mentioned in
Chapter II.
Even as a dog can be conditioned to "prefer" turning to the right
and to "hate" (or fear) running down stairs, a human being can,
thru continued exposure to the sight of red hair in infancy, become
conditioned to "prefer" red hair.
Many other factors, however, complicate the question of our likes and
dislikes. A child's environment contains many sources of stimulation
besides the mother's and the father's fetishes, all of them varying in
intensity, duration and character (pleasant or unpleasant).
Besides, the child is forced at some period of his life into a more
or less sudden and more or less pleasant contact with the outside
world. That contact, which at times is a conflict, often causes some of
the early impressions made upon the infant's or child's nerves to be
"repressed," thereby originating a conflict in the individual's nervous
system.
And thus we are brought to a consideration of the family romance which
various conflicts within the family circle and with the outside world,
not infrequently transform into a family feud.
=The Oedipus Complex.= The complication designated by Freud as
the Oedipus Complex is one of the most potent, altho at times one
of the least obvious factors in family conflicts and in the mental
disturbances which those conflicts occasion.
The Oedipus Complex is named after the Greek legend according to which
Oedipus killed his father and later married his mother without being
aware of their identity.
This is the form in which the Oedipus situation appears in real life:
A male child may become overattached to his mother and develop a
morbid, more or less concealed, hostility to his father. The female
child may become overattached to her father and manifest a more or less
overt hostility to her mother.
There is no case of neurosis in which analysts do not discover a more
or less marked maladjustment of that type. In fact Freud has gone as
far as stating that the Oedipus Complex is the central complex of every
neurotic disturbance.
=The Freudian View.= Freudian analysts have somewhat dramatised
the Oedipus complex which they consider as due to incestuous longings.
Those incestuous longings, according to Freud, are in their last
analysis, a yearning of the child to return to the mother's body where
the child enjoyed, in its prenatal life, absolute peace and comfort.
The average child manages to free himself gradually from the mother's
body, first seeking pleasurable sensations in his own body, sucking his
thumb, playing with his genitals, later becoming interested in other
children like himself, finally, at puberty, seeking human beings of the
opposite sex, etc.
Some children, on the other hand, never seem to free themselves from
the parent of the opposite sex. They are technically designated as the
victims of a mother fixation in the case of boys, of a father fixation
in the case of girls.
=Jung's Interpretation.= Jung, head of the Swiss school of
psychoanalysis, considers the Oedipus complication from a broader
point of view. To him the father and mother are not real persons, but
more or less symbolic and distorted figures created by the imagination
of the child. The yearning of the child for its mother, its jealousy
toward the father are simply due to its desire to monopolise a perfect
provider and protector.
=Pseudo-Incest.= To Adler of Vienna, the Oedipus complex is a
fiction created unconsciously by the neurotic who is trying to fall
back on the father or mother for support. The boy, afraid of life and
of the responsibilities imposed upon a man by a normal sexual life, is
naturally inclined to cling fondly to his mother, from whom he receives
a love and adoration which need not be won or paid for or reciprocated
and which in their demonstrativeness only stop short of sexual
gratification.
The neurotic girl dreams of monopolising the father's affection and
financial support which are not to be repaid by sexual intercourse with
its consequences, etc.
Freud's interpretation explains certain details of behavior in boys
with a mother fixation but the yearning to return to the mother's body
does not explain a father fixation in a woman.
On the other hand, Jung's explanation fails to account for some of the
grossly sexual details in the behavior of the fixation child, such as
great curiosity directed toward the parent of the opposite sex, at
times, even, attempts on the part of a boy to possess the mother in her
sleep, etc.
=The Neurotic Life Plan.= Adler has clearly seen that the Oedipus
situation is not the cause, but merely one of the details of the
neurotic life plan. A human being adopts that plan because, owing to
some inferiority, real or imaginary, (real to him), he feels unable
to compete with other human beings on a footing of equality. The
neurosis supplies him with a short cut to power along the line of least
effort. That short cut is selfish, unsocial and, hence, productive of
unpleasant results. The mother-fixation man, the father-fixation woman
shirk their biological duties, thereby leading an easier, cheaper,
self-centered life which, in the end, vouchsafes them no real positive
gratification.
What Adler has left unexplained is how the parent fixation establishes
itself in the neurotic.
=Imitation.= The Oedipus situation is simply one of the consequences of
the imitation by the child of the parent of the opposite sex.
Imitation plays a tremendous part in human life and, as far as behavior
is concerned, is an infinitely more powerful factor than heredity.
Heredity endows us with a certain set of physical organs, hence with a
number of potentialities. But the utilisation of those potentialities
is left to the individual's destiny determined by his environment.
If the son of a splendidly developed prize fighter finds himself in
an environment which countenances and lauds prize fighting, physical
power will probably become his goal early in life. If his environment
casts disobliging reflections on ring activities or if those activities
have an unpleasant financial connotation for him, (father disabled
and poor), the same boy will abstain from athletic training, remain
physically undeveloped, perhaps even grow weak and stunted.
=The Glands.= As we shall see in another chapter, the various glands
of our body have a good deal to do with the shaping of our personality
but the pressure of the social herd within which we live is also a
tremendous factor for it compels us to adopt as models for imitation
certain physical and intellectual types which are acceptable to the
herd.
The degree of the pressure exerted by the herd varies greatly with
social conditions. The pressure is not the same in an Alaska camp and
in a New England village. Unnoticeable in an artists' colony, it may
become difficult to bear in a large family group including several
members of the clergy.
Children become grown ups by imitating grown ups. A boy acquires a
man's behavior by imitating his father. A girl acquires womanly manners
by imitating her mother.
At the same time a boy with a strong organism and, consequently, a fair
amount of self confidence, is not as slavish in his imitation of his
father's ways as one who is cursed with a delicate constitution or who
may have been made timid by fear-producing or humiliating experiences.
The former is more adventurous in every way and will, not only roam
farther away from his home, but let his eyes also roam on men outside
of the family circle, whom he will pick out as secondary models.
The weak boy, seeking safety and following the line of least effort,
will cling to the closest model, his father, and in extreme cases, will
identify himself with him.
=The Identification Mania.= An exaggerated mania for identification is
always a symptom of weakness and inferiority.
The weak man joins numberless organisations and derives a great deal
of pride from the mere fact of his membership in them. In general he
will not allow anyone to discuss or criticise those organisations.
The anonymous citizen of Chicago or Chillicothe is easily aroused by
criticisms of his native city overheard elsewhere, for he identifies
himself with his native city for lack of any distinction of his own.
Members of so called "aristocratic" families, themselves incapable
of any achievement, are most unbearable owing to their family pride.
They obscurely feel that if their relationship to some more or less
distinguished ancestor was taken away from them they would sink into
complete obscurity. The stupid traveler who constantly flaunts the flag
of his country wherever he happens to be, is also an inferior who is
trying to claim all the virtues which the jingoes of his land consider
as national characteristics.
Close imitation and identification with the person we imitate cannot
but lead to conflicts, for it sooner or later means that we encroach
upon the rights of our model.
=Early Conflicts.= The little boy who imitates his father,
identifies himself with him and tries to "become" his father, may
only provoke mirth when he dons his father's garments or carries his
father's walking stick.
When he carries his imitation to the point of handling his father's
razors or sampling his cigars, he may court what, to him, is a very
unintelligible, illogical and humiliating form of punishment.
"If father is always right, why do I get spanked for doing what father
does?" the child asks himself with a child's pitiless logic.
A profound hostility to the oppressive father may then grow in the mind
of the imitative child, in no wise due to sexual complications.
This is also the way in which a rivalry may arise between son and
father for the non-sexual possession of the mother, the freedom of her
room and her bed, the sole enjoyment of her caresses, the sole disposal
of her time, the sole domination over her.
The father enjoys all those privileges, and in order to be exactly like
him, the son must also enjoy them "exclusively" which is logically
impossible and leads to unconscious death wishes.
=Death Wishes.= The death wishes that lurk in the son's mind when his
father and rival is concerned and reveal themselves thru dreams, are
not simply murderous cravings. They are symbolical, like the death
wishes which some fond mother may express thru her dreams when her
beloved child has interfered too much with her activities in her waking
hours.
The imitative boy, beaten in the race for all of his father's
possessions, of which the mother is the most valuable, wishes his
father "out of the way." If there are female children, the imitative
boy may, after giving up the mother as an unattainable goal, adopt
toward one of his sisters the attitude of protection and ownership
his father assumes toward his mother. In such cases, the feud is far
from being as serious as it would be otherwise. A sister fixation, it
goes without saying, is far less dangerous than a mother fixation. The
sister is younger than the mother, the obsession of her image being
unlikely to attract the brother later to women much older than himself.
The love which a sister returns is also far from being as unselfish,
intelligent and indulgent as that which a mother lavishes on her child.
Almost everything which has been said about the mother fixation applies
to the father fixation in girls. But we must bear in mind that owing to
the tremendous biological importance of the mother, a mother fixation
is likely to have a deeper influence on a boy than a father fixation on
a girl.
=Our Preferences.= Thus it is that the "preferences" we show when
grown up, for a certain human type, are determined by the appearance
and behavior of the males and females which were closest to us in the
formative years of our life.
In the majority of cases it is the mother type or the father type which
proves most attractive to boys and girls respectively, the type being
represented or symbolised by certain physical or mental fetishes.
In many cases, the mother or father type have been modified or replaced
by other masculine or feminine types which took the place of the mother
or father during that important period of our life.
The woman who suckled us or fed us and attended to our various physical
needs, nurse or nurse maid, may become the bearer of our fetishes.
In Europe where the wet nurse and the nurse girl are infinitely more
common than in this country, the ancillary type of love, love for
servants and menials, is observed with much greater frequency than here.
The Southern man does not show the same repugnance as the Northern
man to consort sexually with colored women of the servant class. The
colored mammy's fetishes are found competing successfully in many cases
with those of the white mother.
=Craig's Birds.= Those who believe that heredity, instinct, the call
of the blood, etc., have much to do with the choice of a mate, should
read reports of experiments performed by William Craig on pigeons. Ring
doves and passenger pigeons never mate. When the eggs of a passenger
pigeon, however, have been hatched by a ring dove, the young male
passenger pigeons will, at mating time, ignore entirely the females of
their species, "their flesh and blood," and mate with female ring doves
(the mother image) exclusively.
The fetishes which to them meant food and safety in the nest mean to
them beauty and eroticism when they reach adulthood.