Sarabaïtes concluded their religious festivals with wild sexual orgies,
which are graphically described by Cassianus. This sect persisted into
the ninth century. The later history of the Christian sects is full of
this religio-sexual element. Religious and sexual ardour take one
another’s place, pass one into the other, mutually =increase= one
another. I need merely allude to certain points familiar in the history
of civilization, and investigated and described by many recent students:
the religio-erotic orgiastic festivals of the Nicolaitans, the Adamites,
the Valesians, the Carpocratians, the Epiphanians, the Cainites, and the
Manichæans. Dixon, in his “Spiritual Wives” (2 vols., London, 1868), has
described the sexual excesses of recent Protestant sects, such as the
“Mucker” of Königsberg, the “Erweckten” (“the awakened”), the Foxian
spiritualists of Hydesville, etc. Widely known also is the peculiar
association between sexuality and religion in Mormonism, polygamy being
among the Mormons a religious ordinance.
Not only do Roman Catholicism and Protestantism exhibit such phenomena,
but in the Greek Church also sexual mysticism gives rise to the most
remarkable offshoots. Leroy-Beaulieu gives an account of the Russian
sect of the “Skakuny,” or “Jumpers,” who at their nocturnal assemblies
throw themselves into a state of erotic religious ecstasy by hopping and
jumping, like the dancing Dervishes of Islam. When the frenzy reaches a
climax, a shameless, utterly promiscuous union of the sexes occurs, of
which incest is a common feature.[55]
Quite apart from these sectarian peculiarities, religio-sexual
perceptions play a definite part in the ideas of present-day, truly
pious Christians. The idea of a “unio mystica” between man and the Deity
manifests itself everywhere.[56]
Albrecht Dieterich, in his learned work, “A Mithraist Liturgy,”
contributes valuable material to the history of civilization concerning
these mystical unions. The oldest heathen cults were familiar with the
idea of love unions as a representation of the union of man with God;
and in the New Testament the ideas of the bridegroom and the marriage
feast play a leading part. Christ is the “bridegroom” of the Church, the
Church is His “bride.” Pious maidens and nuns are happy to call
themselves the brides of Christ. This ecstatic union has always as its
substratum a sexual imagination. Augustine says: “Like a bridegroom
Christ leaves His bridal chamber; in the mood of a bridegroom He
bestrides the field of the world.”
The literature, the theology, the visions, and the plastic art of the
middle ages abound in embellishments of the mystical marriage. St.
Catherine of Siena and St. Theresa were favourite objects of this form
of art. The baroque artist Bernini, in his representation of St.
Theresa, in the Church Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, has painted a
truly modern “alcove scene,” so that a mocking Frenchman, President de
Brosses, said, speaking of this picture, “Ah, if that is divine love, I
know all about it.”
On October 8, 1900, when Crescentia Höss, of Kaufbeuren, was canonized
in the Peterskirche, a picture was exhibited in which was depicted the
mystical union between the new saint and the Redeemer. To the picture
was attached a Latin inscription signifying, “Our Lord Jesus Christ
presents to the virgin Crescentia, in the presence of the most holy
Mother of God and of Crescentia’s guardian angel as groomsman, the
marriage ring, and weds her.” The novice about to become a nun appears
before the altar dressed as a bride, in order to wed herself eternally
to Christ; and in the life of the common people we find an even more
realistic view is taken of this mystical marriage. A celibate priesthood
appears to the peasant, notwithstanding all the respect that he has for
the clerical vocation, as something strange and incomprehensible; he
regards the “primiz,” the first mass of the newly ordained priest, as a
marriage which the most reverend priest celebrates with the Church, and
for this purpose the Church is represented by a young girl. This is at
the present day still a popular custom in Baden, Bavaria, and the Tyrol.
In this ceremony, which does not lack a poetic aspect--it is admirably
described by F. P. Piger in the _Zeitschrift des Vereins für
Volkskunde_, 1899--the peasants who are present make the coarsest and
most pointed jokes, and as soon as the celebration is finished, they
withdraw, in the company of the “holy” bride, to a public-house, where
“they need not be embarrassed by the presence of the reverend priest.”
The intimate association between sexuality and religion in these
mystical unions and marriages has been shown by Ludwig Feuerbach in his
treatise, “Ueber den Marienkultus” (“On Mariolatry”), Complete Works,
Leipzig, 1846, vol. i., pp. 181-199. A very interesting instance of this
is also afforded by the following religious poem, which appears in a
poetical devotional work, at one time very widely diffused among the
feminine population of France (“Les Perles de Saint François de Sales,
ou les plus belles Pensées du Bienheureux sur l’Amour de Dieu,” Paris,
1871):
“Vive Jésus, vive sa force,
Vive son agréable amorce!
Vive Jésus, quand sa bonté
Me reduit dans la nudité;
Vive Jésus, quand il m’appelle:
Ma sœur, ma colombe, ma belle!
Vive Jésus en tous mes pas,
Vivent ses amoureux appas!
Vive Jésus, lorsque sa bouche
D’un baiser amoureux me touche!
Vive Jésus quand ses blandices
Me comblent de chastes délices!
Vive Jésus lorsque à mon aise
Il me permet que je la baise!”
[“Praise to Jesus, praise His power,
Praise His sweet allurements!
Praise to Jesus, when His goodness
Reduces me to nakedness;
Praise to Jesus when He says to me:
‘My sister, My dove, My beautiful one!’
“Praise to Jesus in all my steps,
Praise to His amorous charms!
Praise to Jesus, when His mouth
Touches mine in a loving kiss!
“Praise to Jesus when His gentle caresses
Overwhelm me with chaste joys!
Praise to Jesus when at my leisure
He allows me to kiss Him!”]
In addition to religious prostitution and to sexual mysticism, two other
religious manifestations show an intimate relationship with the sexual
life, are, indeed, in part of sexual origin--namely, =asceticism= and
the =belief in witchcraft=.
Neither of these is, as has often been maintained by superficial
writers, peculiar to the Christian faith. As Nietzsche says, Eros did
not poison Christianity alone; asceticism and the belief in witchcraft
are =common anthropological conceptions, met with throughout the history
of civilization=, and arising from the primitive ardour of religious
perceptions.
To what degree is the high estimation of asceticism--that is, the view
that earthly and eternal salvation are to be found in =complete sexual
abstinence=--associated with the religious sentiment? Religion is the
yearning after an ideal, a belief in a process of perfectibility. To
such a belief the sexual impulse and everything connected with it must
appear as the greatest possible hindrance to the realization of the
ideal, because nowhere else is the =disharmony= of existence so plainly
manifest as in the sexual life.
In the fifth chapter of his work on “The Nature of Man,” Metchnikoff has
collected all the numerous disharmonies of the reproductive organs and
the reproductive functions, in consequence of which the modern man,
become self-conscious, suffers so severely. Among these disharmonious
phenomena in social life, Metchnikoff enumerates, _inter alia_, the
troublesome, painful, and unæsthetic menstrual hæmorrhage in women,
which all primitive peoples regarded as something unclean and evil; the
pains of childbirth; the asynchronism between puberty and the general
maturity of the organism, the latter occurring much later than the
former, and thus giving rise to temporal inequalities of development in
different parts of the sexual functions, causing, for example,
masturbation actually before the development of spermatozoa; the long
interval that commonly elapses between the onset of sexual maturity and
the conclusion of marriage; the numerous disharmonious phenomena
occurring in connexion with the decline of reproductive activity at a
later stage of life, when marked specific excitability and sexual
sensibility often persist after the capacity for sexual intercourse has
been lost; and finally the disharmonies in sexual intercourse between
man and woman.
According to Metchnikoff, this disharmony of the sexual life, from the
earliest to the most advanced age, is the source of so many evils, that
almost all religions have harshly judged and severely condemned the
sexual functions, and have recommended abstinence from coitus as the
best means for the harmonious and ideal regulation of life.
In addition to this, we have to take into consideration the opposition
between spirit and matter, deeply realized already by primitive man. The
sexual, as the most intense and most sensuous expression of material
existence, was opposed to the spiritual, and was regarded as an unclean
element, which must be fought, overcome, and, when possible, utterly
uprooted, in favour of the spiritual life. In one of the most ancient of
mythologies the first recorded instance of the gratification of sexual
desire resulted in excluding man for ever from “Paradise”--in excluding
him, that is to say, from the highest kind of spiritual existence. The
principal psychological characteristic of asceticism is therefore to be
found, not only in the vow of poverty, but, in addition, and even more,
is it found in =sexual abstinence=, in the battle against the “flesh”
(“caro,” to the fathers of the early Church, always denoted the genital
organs).
What is, however, the inevitable consequence of this continual battle
with the sexual impulse? Weininger expressed the opinion (“Sex and
Character,” p. 469, second edition; Vienna, 1904): “The renunciation of
sexuality =kills= only the =physical= man, and kills him only in order,
for the first time, to ensure the complete existence of the spiritual
man”; but this is =entirely false=, and proceeds from an extremely
deficient knowledge of human nature. For the “renunciation of sexuality”
is, in truth, the most unsuitable way of securing a complete existence
for the spiritual man. Just as little will it annihilate the physical
man. For he who wishes to overcome and cast out the sexual impulse
(powerful in every normal man, and at times overwhelming in its
strength) =must keep the subject constantly before his eyes, for ever in
his thoughts=. Thus it came to pass that the ascetic was actually more
occupied with the subject of the sexual impulse than is the case with
the normal man. This was favoured all the more by the ascetic’s
voluntary =flight from the world=, by his continuous life in solitude--a
life favourable to the production of hallucinations and visions, and one
which becomes tolerable only by a sort of natural reaction in the form
of a luxuriance of imaginative sensuality. For
“Nous naissons, nous vivons pour la société:
A nous-mêmes livrés dans une solitude,
Notre bonheur bientôt fait notre inquiétude.”
(Boileau, Satire X.)
[“We are born, we live for society:
Given up to ourselves in solitude,
Our happiness is speedily replaced by restlessness.”]
This “inquiétude,” this intensification of the nervous life in all
relations, was especially noticeable in the sexual sphere. Visions of a
sexual character, erotic temptations, mortifications of the flesh in the
form of self-flagellation, self-emasculation and mutilations of the
genital organs, are characteristic =ascetic= phenomena. On the other
hand, the excessive valuation and glorification of the pure spiritual
led not only to the view that matter was something in its nature sinful
and base, =but also led directly to sexual excesses=, for many ascetic
sects declared that what happened to the already sinful body was a
matter of indifference, that every contamination of the body was
permissible. Hence is to be explained the remarkable fact of the
occurrence of =natural and unnatural unchastity in numerous ascetic
sects=.
Sexual mortification and sexual excesses--these are the two poles
between which the life of the ascetic oscillates, so that we see in each
case a marked sexual intermixture. Asceticism is, therefore, often
merely the means by which sexual enjoyment is obtained in another form
and in a more intense degree.
=Asceticism is as old as human religion, and as widely diffused
throughout the entire world.= We find individual ascetics among many
savage peoples; ascetic sects, especially among the ancient and modern
civilized races, in Babylon, Syria, Phrygia, Judæa, even in
pre-Columbian Mexico, and most developed in India, in Islam, and in
Christianity.
The Indian samkhya-doctrine, demanding increased self-discipline,
“yoga,” which was based upon the opposition between spirit and matter,
led to the adoption of asceticism in Buddhism and in the religion of the
Jains, also to the foundation of ascetic sects, such as the “Acelakas,”
the “Ajivakas,” the “Suthrēs” or “Pure,” who, according to Hardy, “are
in their life a disgrace to their name.” Yogahood attained its highest
development among Sivaitic sects of the ninth to the sixteenth
centuries; these alternated between uncontrolled satisfaction of the
rudest sexual impulses and asceticism pushed to the point of
self-torture.
In Islam it was the sect of the Sufi in which the relation between
sexuality and asceticism was especially manifest; but before this
Christianity had developed asceticism into a formal system, and had
deduced its most extreme consequences. To the early Christians, only the
nutritive impulse appeared natural; the sexual impulse was debased
nature; physical and psychical emasculation were actually recommended in
the New Testament writings (_cf._ Matt. xix. 12). Already in the second
century of the Christian era numerous Christians voluntarily castrated
themselves, and in the fourth century the Council of Nicæa found it
necessary to deal with the prevalence of this ascetic abuse, and with
the predecessors of the modern “skopzen.”[57]
Numerous ascetics and saints withdrew into solitude in order to attain
salvation by castigation of the body. But it is very noteworthy that
they almost all =lived and moved exclusively in the sexual=, and that,
in the way already explained, they came to occupy themselves incessantly
with all the problems of the sexual life.
The writings of the saints are full of such references to the _vita
sexualis_, and are, therefore, a valuable source for the history of
ancient morals. Nothing was so interesting to these ascetics as the life
of prostitutes and the sexual excesses of the impious. Numerous legends
relate the attempts of the saints to induce prostitutes to abandon their
profession, and to turn to a holy life, and the work of Charles de
Bussy, “Les Courtisanes Saintes,” shows the result of these labours. St.
Vitalius visited the brothels every night, to give the women money in
order that they might not sin, and prayed for their conversion.
Thus, in the case of the ascetics, whose thoughts were continually
occupied with sexual matters, the sole result of their castigation,
self-torture, and emasculation, was to lead their sexual life ever wider
astray into morbid and perverse paths. The monstrous =sexual visions= of
the saints reflect in a typical manner the incredible violence of the
sexual perceptions of the ascetics. To use the words of Augustine, how
far were these unhappy beings from the “serene clearness of love,” how
near were they to the “obscurity of sensual lust!” These visions, these
“false pictures,” allured the “sleepers” to something to which, indeed,
in the awakening state they could not have been misled (Augustine,
“Confessions,” x. 30). The forms of beautiful naked women (with whom,
moreover, the ascetics often really lay in bed in order to test their
powers) appeared to them in dreams. Fetichistic and symbolic vision of
an erotic nature pestered them, and led to the most violent sensual
temptations, until in the sects of the Valesians, the Marcionites, and
the Gnostics they resulted in sexual excesses. Marcion, the founder of
the well-known sect named after him, preached continence, but maintained
that sexual excesses could not hinder salvation, since it was only the
soul that rose again after death! The Gnostics oscillated between
unconditional celibacy and indiscriminate sexual indulgence. As late as
the nineteenth century an ascetic mystic led the Protestant sect of
Königsberg pietists into the grossest sensual excesses.
From asceticism arose =monasticism= and the =cloistral life=, to which
the considerations above given fully apply. The undeniable unchastity
of the medieval cloisters, which found its most characteristic
expression in denoting brothels by the name of “abbeys,” and, above all,
in popular songs and in folk-tales, also shows us very clearly the
relations between religious asceticism and the _vita sexualis_.
The idea of asceticism has not lost its primitive force even at the
present day, and retains it for certain men not under the influence of
the Church. But the character and origin of this =modern asceticism= are
different. We understand it when we remind ourselves of the saying of
Otto Weininger, this typical adherent of “modern” asceticism, that the
man who has the worst opinion of woman is not the one who has least to
do with them, but rather the one who has had the greatest number of
_bonnes fortunes_ (“Sex and Character,” p. 315).
The ascetics of early Christianity first denied sexuality--for
example, by self-castration, or by flight into solitude--in order
subsequently to affirm it the more strongly. Our modern _fin-de-siècle_
ascetics, above all, the three most successful literary apostles of
asceticism--Schopenhauer, Tolstoi, and Weininger--at first affirmed
their sexuality most intensely, in order subsequently to deny it in the
most fundamental manner. They studied voluptuousness, not merely in the
ideal, but also in reality. For this reason, also, they have furnished
us with more valuable conclusions regarding its nature and its
significance in the life of individual men than we can obtain from the
visions of the early Christian ascetics. This is true above all of
Schopenhauer and Tolstoi.
Schopenhauer had first to endure in his own person the whole tragedy of
voluptuousness, to experience the elemental force of the sexual impulse,
the “enmity” of love (see his own account given to Challemel-Lacour),
before he proceeded to grasp the full significance of the ascetic idea.
His asceticism is intimately associated with his sensuality, and with
the consequences of its activity. I believe that I have myself recently
furnished a striking proof of this fact by the publication of a hitherto
unknown holograph manuscript of the philosopher,[58] by which it is
clearly established that he had suffered from syphilitic infection. In
this connexion we find the explanation of the close relationship which
Schopenhauer himself postulated between the “wonderful venereal disease”
and asceticism. From his own utterances regarding syphilis, and, above
all, from the fact that he himself had suffered from the disease, we are
able to grasp the significance that syphilis had in the conception of
his ascetic views, which were developed under the immediate influence of
his experiences, sorrows, and passions; whereas in old age, when the
elemental force of the sexual impulse, and the unhappy consequence of
yielding to it, no longer troubled him, there appeared in his thought a
distinctly happier colouring.
Tolstoi also recognizes without reserve how much he had been affected by
voluptuousness. “I know,” he says, “how lust hides everything, how it
annihilates everything, by which the heart and the reason are
nourished.” Lack of continence on the part of men is, in his view, the
cause of the stupidity of life. Tolstoi’s conception of asceticism is,
however, by no means identical with the early Christian, the Buddhistic,
and the Schopenhauerian asceticism. In the beautiful saying, “Only with
woman can one lose purity, only with her can one preserve it,” lies the
admission that =absolute= chastity is an unattainable ideal, and that
man can reach only a =relative asceticism=. We should hold fast to this
utterance in Tolstoi’s teaching, which is in no way systematically
developed, and should ignore his insane doctrine of the unchastity of
married life. Later, during our discussion of the so-called “problem of
continence,” we shall return to this idea of a relative continence, and
of the good that lies therein.
Weininger, whose views are unquestionably strongly pathological, recurs
wholly to the ideas of early Christian asceticism. According to him,
“coitus in every case contradicts the idea of humanity”! Sexuality
debases man, reproduction and fertility are “=nauseating=.”[59] Man is
not free, only because he has originated in an immoral manner! In woman
he denies again and again the idea of humanity. The renunciation, the
conquest of femininity, it is this that he demands. =Since all
femininity is immorality, woman must cease to be woman, and must become
man!=[60]
Georg Hirth has described Weininger’s book as “an unparalleled crime
against humanity.”[61] Since, however, Probst, in his psychiatric study
of Weininger, has brought forward evidence to show that in Weininger’s
book we have to do with the work of a lunatic, the author of this crime
cannot at any rate be held responsible. It is only to be regretted that
so many readers have been led astray by the presence of isolated
thoughtful passages in the book to take Weininger in earnest as a
“thinker,” and even in company with the bizarre August Strindberg to
believe that Weininger has solved “the most difficult of all problems”!
* * * * *
Very significant and influential even down to the present day are the
relations between religion and sexual sentiments exhibited in the
=belief in witchcraft=.[62] This belief, extending backwards to the most
remote age, is the principal source of all misogyny and contempt for
women--of which fact we cannot too often remind our modern misogynists,
in order to make clear to them the utter stupidity, the primitiveness,
and the atavistic character of their views.
Here, again, we must first show the falsity of the view that the belief
in witches is a specifically Christian experience. To the diffusion of
this error the celebrated work of J. Michelet, “La Sorcière,” has
especially contributed, for in this book the witch is represented as a
Christian medieval discovery. But the Christian religion, as such, is as
little blameworthy for this belief as are all the other confessions of
faith. =The belief in witches, with its religio-sexual basis, is a
primitive general anthropological phenomenon=, a fixture, a part of
primitive human history arising from the primeval relations between
religious magic and the sexual life.
“When we look deeply into the province of psychology,” says G. H. von
Schubert, “we not only suspect, but recognize with great certainty,
that there exists a secret combination between the activities of the
animal carnal sexual impulse and the receptivity of human nature for
magical manifestations.
“We stand here in the depths of the abyss in which the lust of the
flesh becomes inflamed to the lust of hell, and in which the flesh,
with all its indwelling forces of sin and death, celebrated its
greatest triumph over the spirit appointed by God to command the
flesh.”[63]
The animism of primitive man, and of savage man at the present day, sees
in all frightful natural phenomena shaking his innermost being to its
foundation the manifestation and action of demons and sorcerers. The
rutting impulse also, which attracts primitive man to woman, appears to
him to be due to the influence of a demon, =and soon woman herself came
to seem to man something uncanny, something magical=. Thus, in its
origin the belief in witchcraft arises from the =sexual impulse=, and
=throughout its history sorcery in all its forms remained associated
with the sexual impulse=.
This sexual origin of the belief in witches and in magic has been
carefully described by the celebrated ethnologist K. Fr. Ph. von
Martius, on the basis of his observations amongst the indigens of
Central Brazil. “=All sorcery arises from rutting=,” said an old Indian
to him.
Magic propagates itself by means of sexual desire, and, according to
Martius, will predominate among primitive peoples as long as these
=remain unchaste=.[64] Secret arts, voluptuousness, and unnatural vice
are inseparable one from another. This is proved by the entire history
of human civilization and morals. Among the indigens of Brazil, the
“pajé” or “piache,” the sorcerer or medicine-man, plays the same part as
the medieval or Christian witch.
Sorcerers and witches are, above all, experienced in the sexual
province; popular belief always turns first to this subject. The witches
of ancient Rome resemble those of the middle ages in respect of their
evil practices in sexual relations. According to J. Frank, the word
“hexe” (witch) is derived from “hagat”--that is, “vagabond woman.” The
ascetic view of the middle ages, formulated principally by men, saw in
woman one who seduced man to sensual, sinful lust, the personification
of the Evil One, the “janua diaboli,” and, ultimately, a female demon
and a witch, whose very being is an impersonation of the obscene and the
sexual. The doctrines of Original Sin and of the Immaculate Conception
had unquestionably an important share in this conception of woman.
The idea of woman as a witch turned almost exclusively on the sexual,
and the witch was for the most part represented as a “=mistress of the
devil=” (_cf._ W. G. Soldan, “History of Witch-Trials,” pp. 147-159;
Stuttgart, 1843), in which sexual perversion plays the principal part,
since, instead of simple sexual intercourse, the most horrible unnatural
vice was assumed to occur.
Holzinger, in his valuable lecture on the “Natural History of Witches,”
characterized the spiritual and moral condition of the time, which
brought forth such an idea, in a few apt words:
“Whilst in the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries,
as those well acquainted with the state of morals during this period
can all confirm, a most unbounded freedom was dominant in sexual
relations, the State and the Church were desirous of compelling the
people to keep better order by the use of actual force, and by
religious compulsion. So forced a transformation in so vital a matter
necessarily resulted in a reaction of the worst kind, and forced into
secret channels the impulse which it had attempted to suppress. This
reaction occurred, moreover, with an elemental force. There resulted
widespread sexual violence and seduction, hesitating at nothing, often
insanely daring, in which everywhere the devil was supposed to help;
every one’s head was turned in this way, the uncontrolled lust of
debauchees found vent in secret bacchanalian associations and orgies,
wherein many, with or without masquerade, played the part of Satan;
shameful deeds were perpetrated by excited women and by procuresses
and prostitutes ready for any kind of immoral abomination; add to
these sexual orgies the most widely diffused web of a completely
developed theory of witchcraft, and the systematic strengthening by
the clergy of the widely prevalent belief in the devil--all these
things woven in a labyrinthine connexion, made it possible for
thousands upon thousands to be murdered by a disordered justice and to
be sacrificed to delusion.”
The study of the witch-trials of the middle ages and of recent
times--for it is well known that in the seventies of the nineteenth
century (!) such trials still occurred[65]--would without doubt afford
valuable contributions to the doctrine of psychopathia sexualis, and at
the same time would throw a remarkable light upon the origin of sexual
aberrations.
What a large amount of sexual abnormality arises even to-day from this
common, human, obscure, superstitious impulse dependent upon the
intermixture of religious mysticism and sexual desire, and which in the
medieval belief in witches attained such astonishing development!
As Michelet proved in his great work on “Sorcery,” it was =the religious
imagination straying into sexual by-paths=, which for the most part
animated the belief in witchcraft, and thus led to the most horrible
aberrations, principally of a sadistic nature.
Like superstition, so also the sexual-religious obsession of the middle
ages, still persists in many persons, =even at the present day=, and
gives rise to sexual anomalies.
Apart from asceticism and the belief in witchcraft, theological
literature offers numerous instances of the relationship between
religion and sexuality.
In an essay published six years ago,[66] I showed the important part
which sexual questions have played in the so-called =pastoral
medicine=--that is to say, in those theological writings in which the
individual facts and problems of medicine are studied from the
theological standpoint, and their relation to dogma is determined. We
find here theological casuistry carried to its extreme limits, in
relation to all possible problems of the _vita sexualis_. The
experiences of the confessional are employed in a remarkable manner, the
religious imagination wandering, in a peculiar combination of
scholasticism and sensuality, in the obscure fields of human aberration.
The =ostensible= inducement to the theological consideration of sexual
problems is in part offered by the statements of perverse individuals in
the confessional, and in part by public scandals. In both cases
casuistry endeavours, from the religious standpoint, to formulate
certain normal rules for the judgment of the various matters relating to
the sexual life. This would, however, have been impossible, had there
not existed an intimate connexion between sexuality and religion.
Only in this way is it possible to explain the origin of the gigantic
=literature of sexual casuistry= in theology, and especially in pastoral
medicine. A comprehension of these facts has led certain writers to
launch bitter invectives against the system of which the confessional
formed so essential a part. This is a narrow and prejudiced view, which
we mention only to condemn. There is, however, ample justification for
the representations of =physicians= and =anthropologists=, who are able
to observe matters in the great connexion sketched above, and who have
recognized the relations between religion and the sexual life to be
something common to all humanity, not the artificial products of any
particular spiritual tendency. It is precisely the frequent endeavours
of the Catholic Church to overcome the worst outgrowths in this
direction, which teach us, notwithstanding their failure to eradicate
sexual aberrations, that these relationships depend upon the very nature
of religion.
There is not a single sexual problem which has not been discussed in
the most subtle manner by the theological casuists,[67] so that their
writings offer us a most instructive picture of =imaginative activity=
in the sexual sphere.
The most detailed discussion, verging on the salacious, of the degree to
which sexual contact is permissible, gave rise to the name “theologiens
mammillaires,” because some of them--Benzi, for example, and
Rousselot--sanctioned “tatti mammillari” (mammillary palpation). This
doctrine was condemned by Pope Benedict XIV., which proves that the
Catholic Church as such has not invariably sanctioned these things.
In the “Golden Key” (“Llave de Oro”) of Antonio Maria Claret, the
Archbishop of Cuba, in Debreyne’s “Moechialogie,” in the writings on
moral theology of Liguori, Dens, and J. C. Saettler, in the
“Diaconales,” widely diffused in France, and in many similar works, all
possible sexual problems which have come before the confessional, or
possibly =might= come there, have been thoroughly discussed--even the
most improbable and impossible. Coitus interruptus, irrigatio vaginæ
post coitum, pollutions (nocturnal seminal emissions), bestiality,
necrophilia, figuræ Veneris (positions in which coitus is effected),
procuration, various kinds of caresses, conjugal onanism, abortion,
varieties of masturbation, pæderasty, intercourse with a statue (!),
psychical onanism, pædication, etc.--all have been subjected to a subtle
critical theological analysis. In a sense, these writings are really
valuable mines for the study of psychopathia sexualis. Later we shall
have frequently to touch on the religious etiology of the individual
sexual aberrations.
From the preceding discussion it appears quite clearly that the
relations between religion and the _vita sexualis_ are to be regarded as
general anthropological phenomena, and not as peculiarities arising by
chance, the accidental results of beliefs, time, or race. The modern
physician, jurist, and criminal anthropologist must therefore pay the
most careful attention to the religious factor in the normal and
abnormal sexual life of mankind, if he wishes to arrive at an
unprejudiced and undisturbed knowledge of sexual anomalies. Havelock
Ellis has also laid stress on the leading significance of religious
sexual perceptions. He proved that small oscillations of erotic feelings
accompany all religious perceptions, and that in some circumstances the
erotic feelings overwhelm the religious perceptions.[68] We still meet
with sexual excesses under the cloak of religion, as occurred recently
(1905) in Holland, and (1901) in England. In the English instance young
girls were initiated into the most horrible forms of unchastity in the
religious association founded by the American Horos and his wife, and
known by the name of “Theocratic Unity.”[69]
Friedrich Schlegel, as Rudolf von Gottschall remarks, proclaimed in his
“Lucinde” the new evangel of the future, in which voluptuousness--as
during the time of Astarte--is to form a part of religious ritual. The
reawakened tendency of our own day towards romantic modes of perception
would certainly seem to involve the danger of a renewal and
strengthening of religio-sexual ideas.
For as long as the feelings of love carry with them an inexpressible,
overwhelming force, like that of religious perceptions, the intimate
association between religion and sexuality will persist both in a good
and a bad sense. An elderly physician, who in his interesting book
detailed the experiences derived from forty years of practice,[70] made
very apposite remarks regarding this religious sexualism. According to
him, unbounded piety is “often no more than a sexual symptom,”
proceeding from =deprivation of love or satiety of love=, the latter
reminding us of the saying “Young whore, old devotee.” Moreover, this is
true alike of man and woman. Piety dependent upon deprivation of love
can often be cured by “castor, cold douches, or a well-arranged marriage
with a robust, energetic man,” who drives away for ever the “heavenly
bridegroom.”[71]
The religious perception is a completely =general= yearning, and the
same is the case with the associated sexual feelings. The boundless
everlasting impulsion which both contain does not admit of any
individualization. For this reason, the religio-sexual perceptions can
play only a subordinate part in the individual love of the future; they
constitute only the first step in the history of the idealization of the
sexual impulse, and of its spiritualization to form love.
In the romance “Scipio Cicala,” by Rehfues, the Neapolitan abbess calls
out “=I love love=,” after she has gone through the enumeration of all
the phases of passionate love towards God. The modern man, however, says
to the woman, and the woman says to the man, “=I love you=”; the general
religious love has capitulated to the individual love.
This is clearly the direction taken by “the way of the spirit” in love,
which we shall now pursue further.
[33] _Cf_. F. von Andrian, “Some Results of Modern Ethnology,” in
“Correspondenzblatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie,
Ethnologie, und Urgeschichte” (1894, No. 8, p. 71).
[34] “Love,” in the sense above defined, is peculiar to mankind, and
for this reason we must, as Ploss-Bartels also insists, admit its
existence in human beings at the very lowest levels of civilization.
There it is, indeed, no more than “a faintly glimmering, easily
extinguished spark,” while among civilized peoples it has become “a
bright, widely diffused flame.”
[35] Regarding the connexion between sexuality and spiritual activity,
see also Virey, “Recherches médico-philosophiques sur la Nature et les
Facultés de l’Homme” (Paris, 1817, p. 39).
[36] For the apt and convenient word _poietic_, in preference to
_creative_ or _productive_, I have to thank Mr. H. G. Wells. See his
most admirable “A Modern Utopia,” and on p. 265 _et seq._ his
brilliant classification of “four main classes of mind--the Poietic,
the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base.”... “The Poietic or creative
class of mental individuality embraces a wide range of types,” but, he
goes on to say, the two principal varieties of the _poietic_ type are
those classified as _artistic_ and _scientific_ natures respectively.
It is the quality by which these two natures are distinguished from
the kinetic and the dull to which Mr. Wells gives the name of
“poietic,” and it is precisely this quality whose interconnexion with
the sexual life is insisted on in the text by Dr. Bloch and by the
authors from whom he quotes.--TRANSLATOR.
[37] _Cf._ W. Griesinger, “Mental Disorders,” third edition
(Brunswick, 1871, p. 7).
[38] Rudolf Topp speaks of a “degeneration” of the “healthy natural
reproductive impulse” into the “sexual impulse.” In the primeval
period of human history, he maintains, man knew and gratified the
reproductive impulse only; the sexual impulse developed gradually, and
in a later stage of the evolutionary history of mankind, out of the
reproductive impulse, and, in fact, is a degeneration (!) of the
latter. In this period we may look for the first beginnings of
functional impotence, on account of the too frequent exercise of the
sexual function. _Cf._ R. Topp, “On the Therapeutic Use of Yohimbin
‘Riedel’ as an Aphrodisiac, with Especial Reference to Functional
Impotence in the Male,” published in the _Allgemeine Medizinische
Central-Zeitung_, 1906, No. 10.
[39] From this fact we may draw the conclusion that the so-called
_hospitable prostitution_ is only a variety of religious prostitution.
[40] J. A. Dulaure, “Des Divinités génératrices,” etc. (Paris, 1885).
[41] W. Schwartz, “Prehistoric Anthropological Studies,” p. 278
(Berlin, 1884).
[42] _Cf._ J. J. Bachofen, “The Legend of Tanaquil, an Investigation
concerning Orientalism in Rome and Italy,” p. 43 (Heidelberg, 1870).
[43] _Cf._ the details and more exact reports in my work,
“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp.
84, 85.
[44] Karsandas Mulji, “History of the Sect of Mahārājas or
Vallabhāchārjas in Western India,” p. 161 (London, 1865).
[45] _Cf._ E. Hardy, “History of Indian Religions,” pp. 124-126
(Leipzig, 1898).
[46] K. Fr. Ph. von Martius, “Contributions to the Ethnography and
Philology of America,” vol. i., p. 113 (Leipzig, 1867).
[47] Starke, “The Primitive Family,” p. 135 (Leipzig, 1888).
[48] _Cf._ L. Tobler, “Old Maids in Belief and Custom among the German
People” (_Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie_), by Lazarus and
Steinthal, vol. xiv., pp. 64-90 (Berlin, 1882).
[49] W. H. Roscher, “Nectar and Ambrosia,” pp. 80-89 (Leipzig, 1883).
[50] _Cf._ Edward Sellon, “Annotations on the Sacred Writings of the
Hindus,” p. 3 (London, 1865).
[51] Ploss-Bartels, “Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde,” vol. i.,
p. 580 (eighth edition, Leipzig, 1905).
[52] E. Hardy, _op. cit._, p. 125.
[53] Sellon, “Annotations,” etc., p. 30.
[54] Ploss-Bartels, _op. cit._, p. 608.
[55] _Cf._ H. Beck, “Count Tolstoi’s ‘Kreuzer Sonata,’” etc., p. 5
(Leipzig, 1898).
[56] _Cf._ “Mystical Marriages,” in the _Vossische Zeitung_, No. 370,
August 9, 1904.
[57] _Cf._ Adolf Harnack, “Medical Data from Ancient Ecclesiastical
History” (Leipzig, 1892, pp. 27, 28, and 52).
[58] Iwan Bloch, “Schopenhauer’s Illness in the Year 1823” (A
Contribution to Pathography based upon an Unpublished Document). Paper
read at the Berlin Society for the History of the Natural Sciences and
Medicine on June 15, 1906. Printed in _Medizinische Klinik_, 1906,
Nos. 25 and 26.
[59] It is a remarkable fact that the hypersexual Marquis de Sade
expressed this identical idea, in precise agreement with the asexual
Weininger.
[60] _Cf._ the chapter “Woman and Humanity,” in “Sex and Character,”
pp. 453-472.
[61] G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 219. _Cf._ also the pertinent remark
of Grete Meisel-Hess, “Misogyny and Contempt for Women” (Vienna,
1904).
[62] _Cf._ also the exhaustive research, with regard to witch-mania
and witchcraft, by Count von Hoensbroech, “The Papacy in its
Socio-Civil Reality” (third edition, vol. i., pp. 380-599; Leipzig).
[63] Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert, “The Sins of Sorcery in their Old
and New Form” (Erlangen, 1854, p. 25).
[64] _Cf._ K. Fr. von Martius, “The Nature, the Diseases, the Doctors,
and the Therapeutic Methods of the Primitive Inhabitants of Brazil”
(Munich, 1843, pp. 111-113).
[65] According to Holzinger, on August 20, 1877, at St. Jacobo in
Mexico, five witches were burnt alive! Then “hundreds of angry pens
were set in motion to declaim the horrible anachronism.” As late as
1875, Friedrich Nippold, in a work published by Holtzendorff and
Oncken--“Problems of the Day in Germany”--gives an account of the
continued belief in witches at the present day.
[66] Iwan Bloch, “Regarding the Idea of a History of Civilization in
Relation to Medicine,” published in _Die Medizinische Woche_, 1900,
No. 36.
[67] The best-known of these are Augustine, Benzi, Bouvier,
Cangiamila, Capellmann, Claret, Debreyne, Dens, Filliucius, Gury,
Liguori, Moja, Molinos, Moullet, Pereira, Rodriguez, Rousselot, Sa,
Thomas Sanchez, Samuel Schroeer, Skiers, Soto, Suarez, Tamburini,
Thomas Aquinas, Vivaldi, Wigandt, Zenardi. Copious extracts from their
writings are given by Count von Hoensbroech in the second volume of
his work--“The Papacy in its Socio-Civil Reality” (Leipzig, 1907).
[68] Havelock Ellis, “The Sexual Impulse and the Sentiment of Shame.”
[69] We shall return later to the religio-sexual “Masses,” celebrated
even at the present day in Paris and other large towns.
[70] “Personal Experiences, or Forty Years from the life of a
Well-known Physician” (Leipzig, 1854, three vols.). In addition,
“Gleanings In and Out of Myself,” from the papers of the author of the
“Personal Experiences,” etc. (Leipzig, 1856, four vols.).
[71] “Gleanings In and Out of Myself,” vol. ii., pp. 37-45. Regarding
the relations between religion and sexuality, many interesting details
are found in the work of George Keben, “The Half-Christians and the
Whole Devil: the Road to Hell of Superstition” (Gross-Lichterfelde,
1905), especially in the chapter “The Brothel,” pp. 93-110.
CHAPTER VII
THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT IN LOVE--THE EROTIC SENSE OF SHAME (NAKEDNESS AND
CLOTHING)
“_Shame has made no change in man as regards his bodily outlines, but
shame has played a very important part in the entire province of
clothing, and it has acquired such spiritual power that the entire
amatory life of the higher human beings is dominated by it. It is, in
the first place, in consequence of this sense of shame that man’s
amatory life has ultimately and individually separated from that of
other animals._”--WILHELM BÖLSCHE.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII
The individualizing influence of the sentiment of shame -- Recent
anthropological researches regarding the origin and nature of the
erotic sense of shame -- The animal and the social factor of shame --
Shame as a biological sense of warding off -- Coquetry -- The
fundamental social element of the sense of shame -- Lombroso’s theory
of shame -- The dread of arousing repulsion -- Connexion of the sense
of shame with clothing -- Conditions among the indigens of Central
Brazil -- Nudity as a natural condition -- The coverings of the
genital organs among the primitive races have a protective function,
and are not portions of clothing -- Origin of clothing -- The original
purpose of decoration and adornment -- Relation of clothing to the
feeling of love -- Tattooing a preliminary stage to clothing --
Prehistoric painting of the body -- Tattooing as a sexual lure --
Tattooing of the genital organs -- Sexual effect of colours --
Occurrence of tattooing amongst modern civilized nations -- Recent
anthropological researches regarding this subject -- Erotic tattooing
-- Tattooing in women of the upper classes -- The colour element in
clothing -- Its connexion with sexual charm -- With jealousy -- With
sexual allurement -- Sexual influence of concealment -- The stimulus
of the unknown -- The two fundamental elements of fashion --
Accentuation and display of portions of the body -- Influence of
partial concealment, of _retroussé_ -- The two principal forms of
clothing -- Accentuating and enlarging influences of clothing -- H.
Lotzes’s theory of the nature of clothing -- Reciprocal influence
between clothing and personality -- “Physiognomy” of clothing --
Clothing as an expression of the psyche -- Denuding of portions of the
body as a sexual stimulus -- Fashion -- Its absence in antiquity --
Difference between ancient and modern clothing -- Diaphanous raiment
of the ancient half-world -- Analysis of clothing -- Upper and under
clothing -- The waist -- Further differentiation into clothing proper
and more intimate articles of dress -- Dressing and undressing --
Separation of the body-spheres by the waist -- Beginnings of fashion
in the middle ages -- The corset as a witness of Christian teaching --
Contest between medieval fashion and asceticism -- Victory of fashion
-- Accentuation of the bosom -- _Décolleté_ -- Views of the æsthetics
on this subject -- Harmfulness of the corset -- A sin against
æsthetics and hygiene -- Its deleterious influence upon the thoracic
and abdominal organs -- The corset and anæmia -- Atrophy of the
mammary glands -- Other serious consequences -- Its influence on the
female reproductive organs -- The corset and “fluor albus” -- The
corset and sterility -- Pre-Raphaelite flat-breastedness --
Accentuation of the regions of the hips -- Tournure (_cul de Paris_),
the “crinolette” -- Indication of the abdominal region and of
pregnancy -- The farthingale and the crinoline -- Waldeyer’s views
regarding the cause of the difference between men’s clothing and
women’s -- Greater simplicity of men’s clothing -- Connexion of this
with the greater mental differentiation of man -- Former anomalies of
men’s clothing -- The breeches-flap -- Feminine men’s clothing --
Present predominance of the English style in men’s clothing --
Influence of clothing on the skin -- _Venus im Pelz_ (Venus in fur) --
Sacher-Masoch’s explanation of the sexual influence of furs -- The
face and clothing -- Sexual differentiation of the features -- The
relation of clothing to the environment -- Enlargement of the
conception of “fashion” -- Theory of fashion -- The two functions of
fashion -- Social equalization and individual differentiation -- The
_demi-monde_ and fashion -- Fashion as a safeguard of personality --
Economic theories of fashion -- Their connexion with capitalism -- The
reform of women’s clothing -- “Rational dress.”
The relation between the feeling of shame and nudity as a problem
of modern civilization -- Prudery -- Natural and lascivious
nakedness -- Prudery is concealed lust -- Schleiermacher’s talented
characterization of the sexual element in prudery -- Psychiatric
observations -- Unnatural increase in the sense of shame -- Importance
to civilization of the genuine, natural feeling of shame -- False
fig-leaf morality -- Natural views regarding nudity and sexual matters
the watchword for the future.
CHAPTER VII
The first step on the road to the individualization of love was effected
at the very outset of the grey primeval age by the origination of the
sexual =sense of shame=. Recent researches have for the first time
established the fact that the sense of shame is not innate in man, but
that it is =a specific product of civilization=--that is to say, a
mental phenomenon arising in the course of progressive evolution, and as
such is peculiar to man--present already, indeed, in the naked man, but,
above all, characteristic of the =clothed= man. Clothing and the sense
of shame have developed proportionally side by side, and in dependence
each on the other; and originally both subserved the same purpose, to
develop more strongly, and to bring to expression the individual,
personal, peculiar nature of the individual man. They mirror the first
individual activities in the amatory life of primitive man.
Georg Simmel has recognized very clearly this individualizing influence
of the sense of shame by saying: “The entire sense of shame depends upon
the self-uplifting of the individual.”[72]
By means of the recent critical investigations of leading
anthropologists and ethnologists, we have obtained most important
conclusions regarding the erotic sense of shame. Above all worthy of
mention are the clear-sighted investigations of Havelock Ellis, and
these have been supplemented by the researches of C. H. Stratz, Karl von
den Steinen, etc.
Havelock Ellis distinguishes an =animal= and a =social= factor of shame.
The former is specifically of a sexual nature, and is the simplest and
most primitive element in the sense of shame. It is unquestionably more
strongly developed in woman than in man; originally, indeed, it was
peculiar to the female sex, and was the expression of the endeavour to
protect the genital organs against the undesired approach of the male.
In this form we may observe the sense of shame in other animals.
The sexual sense of shame of the female animal, declares Havelock Ellis,
is rooted in the sexual periodicity of the female sex in general, and is
an involuntary expression of the organic fact that the present time is
not the time for love. Since this fact persists throughout the greater
part of the life of the females of all animals kept under man’s
control, the expression of this sense of warding off becomes so much a
matter of custom that it manifests itself also at times when it has
ceased to be appropriate. We see this, for example, in the bitch, which,
when on heat, herself runs up to the dog, but then turns round again and
tries to run away, and finally permits copulation only after the most
delicate approaches on the part of the dog. =In this manner the sense of
shame becomes more and more a simple manifestation of the proximity of
the male; it comes to be expected by the male, and takes its place among
his ideas of what is sexually desirable in the female.= Thus the sense
of shame would appear to be also explicable as =a psychical secondary
sexual character=. The sexual sense of shame of the female, continues
Havelock Ellis, is, therefore, the unavoidable by-product of the
naturally aggressive demeanour of the male being in sexual relations,
and of the naturally repellent demeanour of the female; and this, again,
is founded upon the fact that--in man and in nearly all the species
allied to him--the sexual function of the female is periodic, and must
always be treated with circumspection by the other sex; whereas in the
male any care of this kind in regard to the exercise of his own sexual
functions is seldom or never needed.
Groos very rightly points out that the great biological and
psychological importance of =coquetry= is dependent upon this protective
nature of the sense of shame, coquetry arising from the conflict between
the sexual instinct and the innate sense of shame. It is to some extent
the turning to account of the sense of shame for sensual purposes, a
seldom failing speculation on the sexual impulse of the male, and in
this sense it is the outcome of a genuine gynecocratic instinct, which
we shall again encounter in our study of masochism.
Since, then, it is no longer possible to question the data of the most
recent researches, by which we are assured of the existence of a
primitively organic animal basis for the sexual feeling of shame, it is
quite as little open to doubt that the true psychic individual
importance of the feeling of shame arises out of a second fundamental
element of that feeling, out of the =social= factor; and this factor
also affords an explanation of the origin of the sense of shame in man.
This phenomenal form of the sense of shame is, moreover, specifically
human.
This second social fundamental element of the sense of shame is =the
fear of arousing disgust=.
In this connexion we must refer to the interesting and thoroughly
naturalistic theory of Lombroso regarding the origin of the sense of
shame. Lombroso starts from the observation that in many prostitutes
there exists a kind of remarkable equivalent of the sense of
shame--namely, the dislike to permit of an inspection of their genital
organs when they are menstruating, or when for any other reason the
organs are not clean. Now, the Romance term for shame is derived from
“putere,” which indicates the origin of the sense of shame from the
repugnance to the smell of decomposing secretions. If we connect with
this the fact that the kiss was originally a smell, Lombroso declares
that this pseudo-shame of prostitutes represents the original, primitive
sense of shame of primeval woman--that is, the fear of being disgusting
to man.[73] Sergi also accepts this hypothesis of Lombroso’s.
According to Richet’s studies regarding the origin of disgust, the
genito-anal region, with its secretions and excrements, is an object of
disgust among most primitive races, for which reason they carefully
conceal it even from their own sex, but more particularly from the other
sex. Later, quite commonly the fear of arousing dislike or disgust plays
a prominent part in the production of the sense of shame. This fear
relates not only to the actual sexual organs, but also to the buttocks.
Among many primitive races the latter alone are covered.
The idea also of =ceremonial= uncleanness, aroused especially by the
process of menstruation, and associated with ritual practices, plays a
part in the genesis of the sense of shame.
Incontestably, however, the sense of shame has most intimate relations
with =clothing=; but clothing is in part only to be referred to the
above-described primary factors of the sense of shame. In the later
course of the development of civilization, however, clothing has come to
play a peculiar independent rôle in the further development of a refined
sexual sense of shame.
Karl von den Steinen is led, as the result of his own observations among
the Bakäiri of Central Brazil, to the most remarkable conclusions.
“I find it,” he writes, “impossible to believe that the sense of
shame, which is entirely wanting among these naked Indians, can in
other men be a primary sense. I am compelled to believe that this
sense first made its appearance after certain parts of the body had
been covered by clothing, and that the nakedness of women was first
concealed from the gaze of others when, perhaps, in very slightly
complicated economic and social conditions, the value of marriageable
girls had increased, in consequence of more active intercourse, as is
now the case among the principal families in Schingu. I am also of
opinion that we make the explanation more difficult than it really is
when we theoretically believe ourselves to possess a greater sense of
shame than we practically have.”[74]
Thus we find that among the Bakäiri, who go =completely naked=, our
(sexual) sense of shame is almost completely undeveloped; more
especially, a sense of shame due to disclosure of parts does not exist,
whilst the purely animal, physiological sense of shame is clearly
manifested by these people.[75]
Where nudity is customary, the erotic sense of shame is very slightly
developed. Civilized man also accustoms himself with incredible
quickness to nudity, as if it were an entirely natural condition.
“The feeling of being in the presence of nudity is no longer noticed
after a quarter of an hour, and when those who witness it are
intentionally reminded of it, and are asked whether naked men and
women, fathers, mothers, and children, who are standing about or
walking unconcernedly, should be condemned or regarded with compassion
on account of their shamelessness, the observer only feels inclined to
laugh, as at something quite absurd, or to protest at a preposterous
suggestion.... With what rapidity in unfamiliar regions it is possible
to become accustomed to a purely nude environment is most clearly
shown by the fact that I myself, in the night from the 15th to the
16th September, and again on the following night, dreamed of my German
home, and there in my dream I saw all my acquaintances as completely
nude as the Bakäiri with whom I was sojourning. I myself felt
astonished at this, but my neighbour at table at a dinner-party at
which in my dream I was a guest, a lady of quality, at once bade me
compose myself, and said, ‘Now we all go like this.’”[76]
The Bakäiri, who go completely naked, have no “private parts.” They jest
about these parts verbally and pictorially with complete indifference.
It would be ridiculous for this reason to regard them as “indecent.” The
onset of puberty is celebrated in the case of both sexes by noisy
popular festivals, in which the “private parts” receive a demonstrative
and joyful attention. A man who wishes to inform a stranger that he is
the father of one of those present, a woman who wishes to declare
herself to be the mother of a child, grasps the genital organs with an
earnest and unconcerned demeanour, intending by this gesture to indicate
that they themselves are the procreators. The cloth covering the penis
of the male, and the three cornered apron of the female, are not for
purposes of concealment, but are simply intended to protect the mucous
membranes--as a bandage or an apron in the women, and in the men as an
apparatus for the mechanical treatment of phimosis.
It is only in jest that such things can be regarded as “articles of
clothing,” the principal object of which is to subserve the sense of
shame. Sexual excitement is not concealed by this simple covering. The
red threads of the Trumai, the vari-coloured cloths of the Bororo, are
adornments, by which attention is attracted to this region rather than
repelled.[77] The completely naked Suyá women wash their genital organs
in the river in the presence of Europeans.[78]
Thus among these Caribs of Central Brazil, who are still living in the
stone age, we observe in all their simplicity the results of complete
nudity, and we are able to determine that this nudity entirely prevents
the origination of an erotic sense of shame in our meaning of the term.
The physiological factors of the sense of shame are not, taken alone,
sufficiently strong to lead to the appearance of this sense in its full
strength as a special psychical phenomenon. It is first in association
with clothing that these physiological factors have any great
significance in the production of the sense of shame.
C. H. Stratz, in a historical and anthropological study regarding
women’s clothing (Stuttgart, 1900), has compared the data of the more
recent ethnological investigations with the facts already known in the
history of civilization and art, and has noticed a remarkable agreement
between the two. According to him, “the first original purpose of
clothing was, not the covering, but simply and solely the =adornment= of
the naked body.”[79] The naked man feels little or no shame; the clothed
man is the first to feel shame--=he feels it when the customary ornament
is lacking=. This is true alike for primitive and for civilized man. For
Stratz very rightly points out that any manifestation of nudity which is
prescribed by fashion--that is to say, by the then dominant code of
beautification--is never felt as nudity. On the contrary, a lady in a
high-necked dress amongst the _décolletée_ ladies of a ballroom, “would
feel deeply ashamed because her breast was not bare.”
The history of =clothing= and of =fashion=, which is so closely
associated therewith, affords us the most important elements for the
understanding of the sense of shame of modern man, and for the judgment
of its importance and of its natural limitations. Moreover, clothing has
most intimate relations to love as a psychical phenomenon. “How great an
influence,” says Emanuel Herrmann, “love exercises, in all its stages,
upon clothing, and how clearly, on the other hand, love is expressed by
clothing!”[80] Clothing more especially satisfies the general human
need, proved by Hoche and myself to exist, for variety in sexual
relationships, which continually demands new allurements and new
stimuli.
The preliminary stage of clothing, a kind of symbolic clothing for
primitive man, is the =staining=, =painting=, and =tattooing=, of the
skin, regarding which recent ethnological researches, especially those
of Westermarck,[81] Joest,[82] and Marquardt,[83] have afforded us
noteworthy conclusions.
It is a fact of great interest that the tendency to painting and
adorning the body existed already in prehistoric times, thus affording
a notable illustration of the truth of Herbert Spencer’s opinion that
the vanity of uncivilized man was much greater than that of civilized
man. In palæolithic dwellings coloured earths have actually been
discovered, and coloured pastes made by mixing iron rust with reindeer
fat, which unquestionably were employed for the colouring of the human
body. Moreover, as Ludwig Stein remarks, the history of cosmetics, which
Lord Bacon, in his “Cosmetica,” dated from the days of Biblical
antiquity, can be traced back with certainty to the man of the ice age,
upon whose individual and moral qualities this fact throws a significant
light. According to Klaatsch, palæolithic man was not contented simply
with painting his skin; he also tattooed himself by means of fine flint
knives.[84]
Painting and tattooing of the body must, then, be regarded as a
primitive stage of clothing. Ploss-Bartels remarks: “I find it
impossible to doubt that the original meaning of tattooing is to be
found in the endeavour =to cover nakedness=”; and Joest, the most
learned student of tattooing, is of the same opinion. He writes: “The
less a man clothes himself, the more he tattoos his skin; and the more
he clothes himself, the less he tattoos.”[85]
We must also regard the coloration of the skin produced by tattooing as
a means of allurement; tattooing was, in fact, =principally= carried out
for the purpose of sexual allurement and stimulation. The tattooed man
is the more beautiful, the more worthy object of desire. Even in cases
in which painting and tattooing were originally undertaken for other
purposes--for instance, with some therapeutic aim, or perhaps to serve
as means of social or political differentiation--still, these signs and
visible changes in the skin of the body speedily exerted a powerful
influence upon the other sex, and by sexual selection were converted
into sexual lures.[86]
This sexual character of tattooing is indicated also by the fact that
amongst numerous savage people of the South Seas, in the Caroline
Islands, in New Guinea, and in the Pelew Islands, the girls, in order to
attract the men, were accustomed to tattoo =exclusively the genital
region=, and especially the mons Veneris; thus, by tattooing, they made
this region markedly apparent. It is characteristic that Miklucho-Maclay
at the first glance received the impression that the girl tattooed in
this manner wore on the mons Veneris a three-cornered piece of blue
cloth, so closely can tattooing simulate clothing.
The sexual nature of tattooing is also shown by its association with
=phallic= festivals. In Tahiti there is a very characteristic legend
regarding the sexual origin of tattooing.[87] Among many primitive
peoples the first appearance of menstruation gives the signal for
tattooing, and for priapistic festivals.
An important sexual relationship is also manifested by the =colour=
element of tattooing. It appears that the sense of love in primitive man
is closely connected with the sight of particular colours. According to
Konrad Lange, the sensual voluptuous value of these colours obtained its
peculiar character from the feeling of love associated with viewing
them; and, speaking generally, we can prove the existence of a certain
=association between the love of colour and the sexual impulse=. Lange
records an experience of his own youth, that when, about fourteen years
of age, he was glancing at a vari-coloured necktie he had feelings which
were not very different in their nature from sexual desire. He rightly
draws attention to the fact that in primitive man this association of
ideas is especially vivid, for the reason that, as already stated, the
painting of the body is usually first undertaken at the time of the
commencement of puberty.[88]
It is a significant fact that among modern civilized peoples the
practice of tattooing is generally confined to certain lower classes of
the population, such as sailors, criminals, and prostitutes, among whom
the primitive impulses remain active in a quite exceptional strength, as
Lombroso has more especially shown in his “Palimsesti di Carcere,” and
in his works on the criminal and the prostitute. Very frequently obscene
tattooings were found in such persons.[89] Marro, Lacassagne, Batut, and
Rudolf Bergh, have also studied the tattooings of prostitutes and
criminals, and have observed the same objects and ornaments in both
classes. Salillas in Spain, Drago in the Argentine, Ellis and Greaves in
England, and Tronow in Russia, obtained similar results. In 12·5 per
cent. of the inmates of reformatories in Brieg, Kurella found that the
skin was tattooed. According to him, cynicism, revenge, cruelty,
remorselessness, gloomy or indifferent fatalism, bestial lewdness, with
a dominant tendency to unnatural vices of every kind, “constituted the
principal psychical manifestations exhibited by these tattoo-pictures.”
“Pæderastic symbols among the men, and tribadistic among the female
prostitutes, are of especially frequent occurrence, and among these we
often find a mackerel sketched on the vulva, denoting the _souteneur_;
still more perverse sexual representations even French authors such as
Batut have not ventured to reproduce; we see things which would send
the _police des mœurs_ out of their minds. Already in quite young
vagabonds, frequently sons of prostitutes, we see representations of
this kind.”[90]
Not only, however, in criminals and prostitutes, but also in the
non-criminal members of the lowest classes of the population, we often
observe erotic tattooings of the most obscene character, which, without
doubt, serve as sexual lures and stimuli. J. Robinsohn and Friedrich S.
Krauss recently published an interesting account of these matters.[91]
=Cases of Tattooing in Women of the Upper Classes.=--It appears that
the primitive tendency to tattooing as a sexual stimulus and means of
allurement has recently revived in certain circles of the refined
sensual world. René Schwaeblé, in his celebrated book based on his own
observations and moral studies, and entitled, “Les Détraquées de
Paris” (Paris, 1904), gives an account of the increasing diffusion of
tattooing among both men and women of the upper classes of Parisian
society, for which purpose a specialist has opened an _atelier_ in the
Rue Blanche, in Montmartre. Schwaeblé devotes a special chapter to the
“_tatouées_” (pp. 47-57), and describes an assembly of some of these
distinguished libertines in a house in the Rue de la Pompe in Passy.
In one of these ladies, tattooing imitated in a most deceptive manner
a pair of stockings, thus affording a characteristic instance of the
above-mentioned association between tattooing and clothing. Another
woman had inscriptions tattooed on the thighs and hips; in two the
legs were adorned with garlands of vine-leaves, birds were billing on
the abdomen, and on the back were depicted many coloured bouquets of
flowers, with the inscription, “X. pinxit, after Watteau.” A
marchioness had her family coat-of-arms depicted between the shoulder
blades; another great lady had had tattooed on her body the maddest
and most obscene drawings of a satanistic character! Two unmistakably
homosexual women had a common tattooing--that is to say, one was
complementary to the other; only when they were side by side had the
picture a meaning. The most remarkable of all the tattooings, however,
was that of the hostess. On her body was the picture of a complete
hunt, the individual scenes of which wound round her body; it was in
the most vivid colours; carriages, packs of hounds and hunters were
all shown. The final goal of the hunt was a fox tattooed in the
genital region.
Tattooing leads on to the consideration of =many-coloured clothing=,
which is especially common in primitive conditions of mankind. Such
clothing, in such conditions, serves chiefly to accentuate particular
portions of the body, in order to stimulate the sexual appetite of
members of the opposite sex. According to Moseley, the savage begins by
painting and tattooing himself for the sake of adornment. Then he takes
a movable appendage, which he throws round his body, and on which he
places the ornamentation =which he had previously marked on his skin in
a more or less ineradicable manner=. Now a greater =variation= is
rendered possible than was the case with tattooing and painting. Thus,
by means of vari-coloured and bright bands, fringes, girdles, and
aprons, which for the most part are attached in the genital region,
attention is drawn to this part--and here a =contrast of colours= is
found extremely effective. The Indians of the Admiralty Islands have as
their only article of clothing a brilliant white mussel-shell, which
exhibits a striking contrast to the dark colour of their skin. The
Areois of Tahiti, a class of privileged libertines and voluptuous
individuals, manifested this character in public places by wearing a
girdle made of “ti-leaves.”[92]
The first and most primitive form of clothing was this =pubic ornament=,
the original purpose of which was adornment, not concealment. The latter
significance it acquired only in proportion as the genital organs became
the object of a superstitious feeling of fear and respect, and were
regarded as the seat of a dangerous magic.[93] The above-mentioned
connexion between sexuality and magic here made itself apparent. It was
necessary that this wonderful, daimonic region should be concealed, in
order to protect an onlooker from its evil and influence, or,
contrariwise, to protect the genital region from the evil glance of the
observer. Both ideas are ethnologically demonstrable. According to
Dürkheim, the genital organs, and especially those of women, were
covered in primitive times, in order to prevent the perception of any
disagreeable emanations from these regions. Finally, Waitz, Schurz, and
Letourneau propounded the theory that the jealousy of primitive man was
the primary ground of clothing, and was indirectly also the cause of the
sense of shame. This view is supported by the interesting ethnological
fact that in many races only the married women are clothed, whilst the
fully-grown unmarried girls go completely naked. The married woman is
part of the property of the husband; to the latter, clothing appears to
be a protection against glances at his property--to unclothe the wife is
a dishonour and a shame. When the idea of possession was extended to the
relationship between the father and his unmarried daughters, these
latter also were clothed; thus the idea of chastity and the feeling of
shame were developed.[94]
We can, however, adduce numerous considerations in support of the view
that the first covering of the genital organs, in association with the
pubic ornament, did not arise out of the feeling of shame, but, on the
contrary, that it served as a means of sexual allurement. By all kinds
of striking ornaments, such as cat’s tails, mussel-shells, or strips of
hide, fastened either in front or behind, every possible attention was
attracted to the genital region or the buttocks.[95] Concealment made
itself felt as a =more powerful= sensual stimulus than nudity. This is
an old anthropological experience which still possesses great
significance in our modern civilized life.
Virey believed that human beings had more intense and manifold sexual
enjoyments than the lower animals, because these latter see their wives
at all times without any kind of adornment, whereas the half-opened veil
with which the human female conceals or partially discloses her charms
increases a hundredfold the already boundless lust of mankind. “The less
one sees, the more does imagination picture.”[96] That which causes a
refined and sensual stimulus is not the entirely naked, but the
half-naked or partial nudity. Westermarck remarks:
“We have numerous examples of races who generally go about completely
naked, but sometimes employ a covering. In such cases they always wear
the latter in circumstances which make it perfectly clear that the
covering is used simply as a means of allurement. Thus, Lohmann
relates that among the Saliras only prostitutes wear clothing, and
they do this =in order to stimulate by means of the unknown=. Barth
informs us that among many heathen races in Central Africa, the
married women go entirely naked, whilst the girls ripe for marriage
clothe themselves (in order that they may appear worthy of desire).
The married women of Tipperah wear no more than a short apron, while
the unmarried girls cover the breasts with vari-coloured cloths with
fringed edges. Among the Toungta, the breasts of the women remain
uncovered after the birth of the first child, but the unmarried women
wear a narrow breast-cloth.”[97]
The significance of clothing and partial clothing as a sexual stimulus,
proved by K. von den Steinen and Stratz to exist among primitive
peoples, can be shown to form an element in the “fashion” of civilized
races, which provides the imagination with entirely new sexual stimuli,
by means of the two fundamental elements of the =accentuation= and
=disclosure= of certain parts, and speaks to man of “hidden joys.” Moses
made use of this psychical sexual influence of clothing. He wished to
increase the numbers of his small people, and therefore he ordered the
=concealment= of the feminine charms, “=in order to stimulate the senses
of the male members of his community=, and thus increase the fertility
of his people.”[98] Nudity, rejected by him as =unsuitable=, came in the
Christian teaching to be regarded as “=immoral=”; for such a change in
the point of view, we can find numerous examples in the public life of
the present day.
The greatest sensual stimulus is exerted by the =half-clothing= or
=partial disclosure= of the body, the so-called _retroussé_--that is,
the art of bringing about a refined mutual influence between the charms
of clothing and the charms of the body.[99] This plays a very important
part in the origination of the so-called “clothes fetichism,” which we
shall describe at greater length when we come to the consideration of
these sexual anomalies.
There are two fundamental forms of clothing, the =tropical= (coat and
sash) and the =arctic= (doublet and hose), and these, in addition to
their simple function of protecting in the tropics from the powerful
rays of the sun, and in the northern climates of protecting from cold,
serve also in both sexes as a means of sexual allurement. The changeful
phenomena and phases of “fashion in clothing” afford the most certain
proofs of this fact; they may, in fact, be regarded as the most valuable
sexual psychological documents of the successive epochs of
civilization. The celebrated writer on æsthetics Friedrich Theodor
Vischer has regarded them especially from this point of view in his
original work, distinguished by its pithy style, “Fashion and Cynicism:
Contributions to the Knowledge of the Forms of Civilization and of our
Moral Ideas” (Stuttgart, 1888). He regards “the rage to excel in
man-catching” as “the most powerful of impulses, capable of inflaming to
fever-heat the madness of fashion, with its brainless changes, its
furious inclinations, its raging distortions.” In a certain sense we may
also speak of some of the fashions of men’s clothing as an art of
“woman-catching.” Still, on the whole, this feature is much less
manifest here than in relation to woman’s clothing.
Clothing has a sexually stimulating influence in a twofold manner:
either certain parts are especially =accentuated= and =enlarged= by the
shape or cut of the clothing and by peculiar kinds of ornamentation, or
else particular portions of the body are directly =denuded=. Both of
these have a sexual influence.
The accentuation and enlargement of certain parts of the body by means
of clothing takes its origin in man’s belief that by this means he
really produces certain enlargements of his personality, =as though
these portions of clothing were actually a part of himself=. This
remarkable theory of clothing, according to which the latter represents
a =strengthening of the body=, a kind of outwardly projected emanation
of the human personality, a direct continuation of the body, was first
enunciated by the celebrated philosopher Hermann Lotze. He writes:
“Everywhere when we place a foreign body in connexion with the surface
of our body (for not the hand alone develops this peculiarity), =the
consciousness of our personal identity is in a certain sense
transmitted into the ends and outer surface of this foreign body=, and
there arise feelings, partly of an enlargement of our personal ego,
partly of a change in form and in extent of movement, now become
possible to us, but naturally foreign to our organs, and partly of an
unaccustomed tension, firmness, or security of our carriage.”[100]
Naturally the reciprocal influence of one person upon another is not
wanting, and the observer believes that in the clothing he actually
finds the body. Parts that otherwise would not have attracted attention
now appear as important objects. For example, the tall hat, as a
prolongation of the head, seems to give the latter a certain height and
worth. Gustave Flaubert, in “Madame Bovary,” very beautifully describes
this remarkable transition, this identification of clothing with the
body:
“Beneath her hair, which was drawn upwards towards the top of the
head, the skin of the nape of her neck appeared to have a brownish
tint, which gradually became paler, and lost itself in the shadows of
her clothing. Her dress spread out on either side over the chair on
which she was sitting; it fell in many folds, and spread out on the
floor. When he chanced to touch it with his foot, he immediately drew
the foot back again, =as if he had trodden on something living=.”
The same association of ideas has led to the idea that clothing “is, as
it were, a complete skin to man,” as if it must represent a kind of
“ideal nudity.”[101] Clothing represents the person, shelters the
nature, the soul. It can, therefore, become the means of expression of
human peculiarities, of individual traits of character. There exists a
“physiognomy” of clothing; it is a mirror of the physical and spiritual
being.[102] Very rightly is it asserted, in a pseudonymous essay on the
“Erotics of Clothing,” that clothing, in the course of the many thousand
years of the development of civilization, has taken up into itself so
much of the =spirit= of mankind that we should find a solution for all
the problems of human civilization if we were able completely and
immediately to understand the spirit of clothing. The form of clothing
is at the same time also the most subtle and accurate measuring
apparatus for the peculiar and personal in a man--for the individual in
him.[103]
If the accentuation of certain parts is the first sexual stimulus of
clothing the denuding of certain parts is the second. When once the
custom of concealing the body has been introduced, the denuding of
portions of the body has acquired a sexually stimulating effect which it
did not previously possess, and which it does not now possess among
primitive communities. In the saying of a thoughtful writer, that there
is a great difference from an erotic point of view between a glance at
the naked leg of a sturdy peasant girl and a glance at the naked leg of
a fashionable young lady, this different conception of nudity finds very
clear expression. There is, in fact, a natural, sexually indifferent
nudity, and an artificial, erotically stimulating nudity. It is the
latter only which plays a part in the history of clothing and of
fashion; and it is this, in association with the erotic accentuation of
certain portions of the body, which has from early times been cultivated
for the allurement of men, and above all by the world of prostitution
and by the half-world.
This first occurred in classical antiquity, to which, however, true
“fashion” was unknown, because clothing was not then, as it is in modern
times, fused with the body, and therefore did not appear to be a
continuation and representation of the bodily personality. In general,
the refined quality of the modern “mode” was lacking, in regard to the
accentuation of particular parts of the body by means of clothing. Very
aptly has Schopenhauer, in the second volume of his “Parerga and
Paralipomena,” pointed out the thorough-going difference between antique
and modern clothing in this relationship. In the days of antiquity
clothing was still a whole, which remained distinct from the body, and
which allowed the human form to be recognized as distinctly as possible
in all its parts. Sexual stimulation could be effected only by the
employment of =diaphanous= fabrics, which were preferred in the circles
of the half-world and by effeminate men. Varro, Juvenal, and Seneca
chastise with biting words this immorality of “coacæ vestes,” and of the
network clothing imported from Egypt. Then there appeared for the first
time as a peculiar type the woman in man’s clothing, a proof of the wide
diffusion of the love of boys, on which those prostitutes who went about
clothed as men must have speculated when they assumed this dress.
The analysis of clothing into =upper-clothing= and =under-clothing=
signifies a differentiation of clothing very effective as regards erotic
influence. For the first time could the individual portions of the body
appear in definite significance in relation to the body as a whole. And
the indication of the waist became characteristic of fashion in
clothing.[104]
The analysis of clothing was carried a stage further in the separation
of clothing, properly speaking, from that which lies beneath it, the
more intimate covering of the body, the washable underclothing--shirt,
chemise, petticoat, etc. More especially had this differentiation a
great erotic significance. It was the increase in the number of
individual articles of clothing which first gave rise to the erotically
tinged idea of the gradual “dressing” and “undressing,” to the idea of
the intimate “toilet.” The possibilities of disclosure, half
concealment, and semi-nudity were notably increased, and a much larger
playground was opened to the erotic imagination.
In association with this, the waist, especially in the case of woman,
indicated a separation of the bodily spheres into an upper sphere,
associated chiefly with the intellectual, and a lower sphere, belonging
rather to the purely sexual.
“The waist, which is already, roughly speaking, indicated by the sash
or girdle, but which, in consequence of the progressive
differentiation of feminine clothing, comes to play a principal part
in women’s dress, divides the woman’s body into thorax and abdomen.
The fully clothed woman becomes an insect, a wasp, with two sharply
defined emotional and sexual spheres, with a heavenly and an earthly
division.”[105]
With this classification and differentiation of clothing there now
developed a fertile field for the activity of “fashion,” which
therefore, as such, first really takes its rise in the middle ages.
According to Sombart,[106] it was in the Italian States of the fifteenth
century that it first became a living reality. Fashion is a product of
the Christian middle ages; the specific element that this period
introduced into feminine clothing--the corset--is a witness to Christian
doctrine.
Stratz remarks on this subject:
“Strange as it may seem, it is very remarkably true that =the corset
derives its origin from the Christian worship of God=. Owing to the
strict ecclesiastical control in the middle ages--strict, at least, as
regards public life--the dominant ascetic point of view demanded the
fullest possible covering of the feminine body, and the =mortification
of the flesh=; it insisted, at any rate, that those portions of the
body should be withdrawn from the view of sinful man which are
regarded as especially characteristic of the female sex. Through woman
sin had entered the world, and therefore woman must, above all, take
care to conceal as much as possible the sinful characteristics of her
baser sex. Whilst man, by the greatest possible increase in breadth of
shoulders and chest, endeavoured to suggest a more powerful and
warlike aspect, we find that among women from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century, the endeavour was dominant to make the breasts as
flat and childlike and as narrow as possible, and for this purpose,
=for the compression and obliteration of the breasts, an early form of
the corset was employed=.”[107]
It is characteristic that fashion later employed the corset in precisely
the =opposite= sense--namely, in order to make the breasts “stand out
more prominently above the upper margin of the corset, which continually
became shorter.” Thus there arose a conflict between medieval fashion
and the ascetic tendencies of the times. Fashion was victorious along
the whole line, as we can learn in detail in Ritter’s interesting essay
regarding the nudities of the middle ages.[108]
Since the middle ages, two portions of the body have in the female sex
been especially accentuated by clothing--the breasts, and the region of
the hips and the buttocks.
As we have already pointed out, the corset was especially employed to
accentuate the breasts, the corset having already produced the
stimulating contrast between the prominence of the breast and the
slenderness of the waist, increased by lacing. At the same time, at an
early date the denuding of the upper part of the breasts was associated
with this accentuation, the top of the dress being cut away in front _à
la grand’ gorge_, whilst the corset, strengthened by rods of whalebone
or steel, produced a _bonne conché_. This accentuation of the breasts
dominated feminine fashion down to the present day. Besides the use of
the corset in this matter, the region of the breasts was also rendered
more prominent by the use of artificial breasts made of wax, by
ornaments in the form of breast-rings, etc.
The partial denuding of the breasts represents the true _décolleté_ of
our balls and parties, a custom which a man so tolerant in other
respects as H. Bahr condemns on æsthetic grounds.[109]
“The art of undressing and enjoying =in imagination= beautiful girls
and women,” says Georg Hirth, “is learnt chiefly at Court and other
balls, at which the feminine guests are compelled by fashion to bare
the upper part of the body. It is astonishing how quickly, how
invariably, the girls of the upper classes accustom themselves to this
exhibition, which exercises so stimulating an effect upon us of the
opposite sex. And yet they would turn up their noses if, at the
parties of non-commissioned officers and servants, the women allowed
such extensive glimpses of their charms. I once heard a girl three
years of age express a naive surprise when she saw the _décolletage_
of her mother, who was about to go to a ball. What a scolding would
the poor servant-girl get if _she_ were to exhibit her nudity to the
children in such a manner!”[110]
Fr. Th. Vischer also severely criticizes this exposure of feminine
nudities _coram publico_. Moreover, the free enjoyment of alcohol
customary among men at these evening entertainments is likely to induce
a frame of mind in which the charms thus freely displayed before their
eyes will receive an attention _not_ purely æsthetic.
As regards the corset more particularly, it is not only =unæsthetic=,
but also =unhygienic=.
The corset draws in the beautiful outline of the feminine body in the
most disagreeable manner; the wasp waist which it produces is an ugly
exaggeration of the natural condition. The lady editor of the _Documents
of Women_ instituted an inquiry amongst a number of artists in regard to
the corset. One of these, the architect Leopold Bauer, replied as
follows:
“Nature has endowed the feminine body with a most beautiful outline.
It is almost incomprehensible that the ideal of beauty should during
so lengthy a period aim at the destruction of this wonderful and
unique perfection. The corset makes an ugly bend in the vertebral
column, it makes the hip shapeless, it suggests an unnatural and even
repulsive development of the breasts, which transforms our sentiment
of the sacred beauty of the human body into the lowest sexual and
perverse impulses. That the corset does _not_ really make the body
appear slender is no longer open to doubt. All the suggested
advantages of the corset are prejudices.... It is only when women’s
dress is freed from the tyranny of this detestable corset that it will
be able to develop in a free and artistic manner.”[111]
Physicians are unanimous regarding the unhygienic nature of the corset.
The deleterious influence of tight-lacing upon the form and the activity
of the thoracic and abdominal organs has been thoroughly elucidated by
many authors. I need refer only, among many, to the writings of Hugo
Klein,[112] Menge,[113] and O. Rosenbach,[114] regarding the dangers of
the corset. The corset hinders the sufficient inspiration, which is so
necessary for the adequate activity of the respiratory and circulatory
organs, and herein we find a principal cause of anæmia (O. Rosenbach);
it exercises the most harmful pressure on the abdominal organs,
especially on the stomach and the liver, and presses them out of their
natural situation, so that it gives rise to a descent of the kidneys,
the liver, and the genital organs. The extremely ugly “pendulous belly”
is also dependent on the influence of the corset. The pressure of the
corset also often gives rise to an atrophy of the mammary glands, and to
abnormal changes in the nipples. Thence ensues, further, a serious
hindrance to the function of lactation, which may indeed be rendered
completely impossible. For this reason, Georg Hirth, in his admirable
essay upon the indispensable character of the maternal breast, exclaims:
“Away with the corset!”[115]
The dorsal and abdominal muscles also undergo partial atrophy in
consequence of the habitual wearing of the corset, because this garment
to some extent relieves these muscles of their natural function. Anæmia,
gastric and hepatic disorders, and intercostal neuralgia are also
dependent upon this “most disastrous error of woman’s dress,” as von
Krafft-Ebing calls the corset. Menge has very thoroughly studied the
hurtful influence of the corset on the feminine reproductive organs. He
enumerates, as a result of wearing it, among many evil results,
inflammatory states and enlargement of the ovaries, relaxation of the
uterine muscles, atrophy and excessive proliferation of the uterine
mucous membrane, the onset of the extremely disagreeable _fluor albus_,
premature termination of pregnancy, displacements of the uterus
(retroflexion, anteversion, prolapse), abnormal stretching of the entire
pelvic floor, retention of urine, constipation, and nervous troubles of
the most varied character. Very often, also, sterility in woman is
causally dependent upon the constriction and pressure exercised by the
corset.
Rightly, therefore, the abandonment of the corset plays a principal part
in the “reformed dress” of woman--a subject to which we shall later
return.
In addition to the accentuation of the breast by the corset and by other
apparatus,[116] another aim of feminine fashion has been most persistent
in very various forms, namely, the exaggeration of =the hips, or the
buttocks, or both=--in fact, of all the visible parts of the clothed
body which are directly related to the sexual functions of woman; that
is to say, there has been a persistent endeavour to indicate in the most
prominent manner, in a way to stimulate the male, the secondary sexual
characters of the female in this region of the body.
“The thoroughly modern women,” says Heinrich Pudor, “coquet at the
present day less with their breasts than with their hind-quarters--for
this reason, because for the most part they have a masculine type
(?). It began with the _cul de Paris_. Nowadays, clothes are cut in
such a way that in the view from the back the gluteal region is
especially prominent. This is how the fashionable wife of a German
officer strikes us at present.
“‘Tailor-made’ is the phrase that has for some time been in use in
England. The tailor has made it--not the milliner. No, the tailor, who
perhaps is at the same time bath-master and masseur.... Certain
species of baboons are distinguished by their brightly coloured and
prominent hind-quarters--there seems to be no doubt that our modern
ladies in high life have taken these for their example. Or can it be
that they wish to avail themselves of the homosexual inclinations of
their male acquaintances? Beyond question this is so. Here we find the
fundamental ground of the type of clothing of our own day by which so
much attention is drawn to the region of the buttocks. What is
repulsive here is not the homosexuality, but the misuse that is made
of clothing. In fact, that which is most repulsive to a refined
sentiment is this--that women have their clothes cut as tightly as
possible round the hips, in order that the broad pelvis, which is
especially characteristic of women as a sexual being, shall be as far
as possible visibly isolated.”[117]
Similarly Fr. Th. Vischer has castigated the immorality of the gross
accentuation of kallipygian charms,[118] which in the eighteenth century
was inaugurated by the invention of the so-called _tournure_ (_cul de
Paris_), against which Mary Wollstonecraft inveighed so severely. By the
tension of the clothing, not only the buttocks, but also the hips and
the thighs, were rendered grossly apparent. In certain epochs, also, the
feminine abdomen was very markedly indicated by the mode of dress; for
instance, in the middle ages, down to the sixteenth century, fashion
provided women and girls with the insignia of pregnancy, as is apparent
in the pictures of Jan van Eyck (“The Lamb,” “Eva”), Hans Memling
(“Eva”), and Titian (“The Beauty of Urbino”). The fashion of the “thick
abdomen” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was only another
variation of the same theme.
In close relation to the variations of fashion we have just described is
the =farthingale= (_montgolfière_) or =crinoline=. It was first adopted
in the sixteenth century by courtesans and prostitutes, who thus
exhibited rounded and provocative forms, wishing to allure men by these
_vertugales_, which, according to the _bon mot_ of a Franciscan,
expelled _vertu_, leaving behind only the _gale_ (syphilis). The aptest
remarks regarding the repulsive and dirty fashion of the crinoline were
made by Schopenhauer.[119] It seems as if the crinoline, which is well
known to have celebrated its greatest triumph during the period of the
Second Empire in France--who is not familiar with the characteristic
daguerrotypes of that period?--has recently endeavoured to come to life
once more, for it appears that attempts have actually been made towards
the rehabilitation of this monstrosity of clothing.
The physical difference between man and woman is also beyond question
the principal cause of the difference between masculine and feminine
clothing. According to Waldeyer (Proceedings of the Twenty-Sixth
Congress of Anthropologists at Kassel, 1895, published in the _Journal
of the German Society of Anthropologists_, No. 9, p. 76), it is
especially the difference in the length and position of the thigh-bones
that is responsible for the differentiation between masculine and
feminine clothing. In woman, the upper ends of the femora are, in
consequence of the greater width of the pelvis, more widely separated
than in the male; and since in both sexes these bones are closely
approximated at the knees, in women their position appears more oblique.
This, in combination with the comparative shortness of women’s thighs,
has a manifest influence upon the gait, especially in running, in which
man distinctly excels woman. In this purely anatomical difference is to
be found the reason why the masculine mode of dress, which makes the
lower extremities very manifest, is not adapted for woman, especially
when in the upright posture. This is an important cause for the
differentiation between masculine and feminine clothing.
A further fundamental difference between the clothing of man and that of
woman is the much greater simplicity and monotony, on the whole, of
masculine clothing. This has, with good reason, been associated with the
greater intellectual differentiation of man, who, therefore, stands less
in need of any peculiar accentuation of the individual personality by
means of clothing. Woman, who earlier was =only= a sexual being,
utilized clothing in manifold ways as a means of sexual allurement, as
the chief means of compensation for the life of activity denied her by
Nature and custom, whereas to man, on the whole, the employment of
sexual stimulation by means of clothing was superfluous.
Georg Simmel writes from another point of view. He is of opinion that
woman, in comparison with man, is, on the whole, the more constant
being, but that precisely this constancy, which expresses the equability
and unity of her nature on the emotional side, demands, on the
principle of compensation of vital tendencies, a more active variability
in other less central provinces; whereas, on the contrary, man, in his
very nature less constant, who is not accustomed to cleave with the same
unconditional concentration of all vital interests to any once
experienced emotional relationship, precisely in consequence of this,
stands less in need of such external variability. Man, as regards
objective phenomena, is, on the whole, more indifferent than woman,
because fundamentally he is the more variable being, and therefore can
more easily dispense with such objective variability.[120]
Notwithstanding this, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century
there were not wanting, in the fashion of men’s clothing, attempts to
employ certain parts of dress for the purpose of sexual stimulation. I
refer in this connexion to my earlier contributions.[121] Here I shall
allude only in passing to the peculiar and characteristic variations of
men’s clothing in the form of marked attention drawn to the male
genitals by the breeches-flap (_braguettes_); to the shoe, _à la
poulaine_, which imitated the form of a male penis; to certain
effeminate tendencies in the dress of man which have recurred very often
since the days of the Roman Empire,[122] which are connected with the
wide diffusion of homosexual tendencies, and which sometimes have given
men’s dress so variegated a character, have involved such frequent
changes and such occasional nudities, that at these times it could enter
into competition with women’s clothing. In this respect, clothing
enables us to draw conclusions not merely regarding the nature of the
men who wore it, but also regarding the character of the time. There
exists also the modern dandyhood, which recalls many peculiarities of
earlier times; but, on the whole, fashion in men’s clothing tends to
simplicity and sexual indifference. This movement originated in England,
and the English fashion in men’s clothing has become dominant throughout
the whole world, whereas women’s clothing now, as formerly, receives its
fashionable stimulus from Paris.
In addition to the indirect relations of clothing with the _vita
sexualis_, which we have already described, there is a direct
relationship, and this is =the effect of certain fabrics upon the skin=,
from which certain associations of ideas and certain abnormal
tendencies may arise. Thus, for example, the contact of woollen stuffs
and of furs has a sexually stimulating influence. Ryan compared their
influence with that of flagellation.[123] In this sense, also, furs and
the whip go together--these two symbols of “masochism”; velvet has a
similar effect. The celebrated author of “Venus im Pelz,” Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, in his well-known romance bearing this name, deals fully
with the sexual significance of furs. According to him, they exert a
peculiar, prickling, physical stimulus, perhaps dependent upon their
being charged with electricity, and upon the warmth of their atmosphere.
A woman in a fur coat is like a “great cat,[124] a powerful electric
battery.” Influences of smell also appear to be associated herewith.
For, in a letter to his wife, Sacher-Masoch once wrote to tell her what
voluptuous pleasure it would give to him to bathe his face in the warm
odour of her furs.[125] With the description of the stimulating effect
of fur dependent upon sensations of contact and smell, he associated
also the fact that fur gave woman a dominant, masterful, magical
influence. His “Venus im Pelz” is also to him “one who commands.” Titian
found for the rosy beauty of his beloved one no more costly frame than
dark fur. It is doubtless the strong contrast-effect between the
delicate charm and the shaggy surroundings that evokes that remarkable
symbolical relationship to longings for power and cruel despotism. In a
thoughtful essay, “Venus im Pelz” (_Berliner Tageblatt_, No. 487,
September 25, 1903), the idea is developed and explained, that the love
of woman for furs results from her inward nature. It is the secret
longing for an increase of her power and influence by means of
contrast.[126]
Men’s and women’s clothing comprises the covering of the entire body
with the exception of the face--the idea does not, as a rule, include
the head-covering and the way the hair is dressed. In a recent work, H.
Pudor brings the face into a peculiar =sexual relationship with the
clothing=. His remarks on this subject, which contain many valuable
observations, notwithstanding the fact that much of what he says is
overdrawn, run as follows:
“There is no doubt that the face is a bearer of the sexual sense in
the second and third degree. Not only the mouth or the larynx. The
nose, especially in virtue of the mucous membranes by which odours are
perceived. The eye, in virtue of the magnetic currents, the perception
of light, and the chemical activity of the retina. But even the cheeks
and the ears. Let some one you are fond of whisper something into your
ear--notice the emotional wave you will feel, and observe how from the
ear there are paths of conduction to the sexual cells [!]. Above all,
however, naturally the mouth. We speak of the labia of the female
genital organs, and therewith already we indicate the relationship to
the lips of the mouth. We can, in fact, prove the existence, not only
of a parallelism in the structure of the mouth and that of the sexual
organs, in man just as in woman. We can go even further: we can regard
the sacral region as the forehead, the anal region as the nose, the
pudendal region as the mouth, and the gluteal region as the cheeks
[!].
“If we regard the sexual differentiation of the features of the face
as established, from this standpoint we gain an interesting light upon
the deeper lying causes of the wearing of clothes. Civilized mankind
conceals the sexual organs of the first degree; the sexual organs of
the third degree--that is, the features of the face--are left naked;
in fact, on account of the thorough way in which the parts of the body
adjacent to the face are covered, stress is actually laid upon the
nakedness of the face as bearing sexual organs of the third
degree--now we recognize the rôle played by the hat--and by means of
that which we call coquetry, we see mirrored in the features the
proper sexual organs, or we have our attention drawn to the sexual
organs by means of the features, and by the latter we are made aware
of certain peculiarities of the former. In this connexion, let us
remember certain facial adornments which serve to limit still more the
naked area of the face, and to clothe a larger portion of that region,
such as the locks of hair covering the ears which the dancer Cléo de
Mérode introduced, ringlets such as were worn in youth by our
grandmothers, or the chin-band drawn across the middle of the chin.
Perhaps even other ornaments of the face (neck-band, ear-rings, and
even eyeglasses and lorgnette [!]) also play a certain part in this
connexion. Think, above all, of the stand-up collar and all other
varieties of high collar by which the clothing is carried up as high
as the chin. But those parts of the face which remain naked must now
be as naked as possible; for this reason hairs, unless they belong to
the beard as sexual organs of the second degree, must be removed, and
society determinedly insists that faces shall be clean-shaven.”[127]
The relation of the face to the clothing already makes clear to us the
idea of “costume” as an extension of clothing beyond the mere covering
of the body. All which surrounds man, which has a relation to his
appearance, is costume in the widest sense of the word; thus,
sitting-room, workshop, study, dressing-room, park, library, etc.
“We take pains regarding all that we have nearest to us and round
about us, our toilet, because therein we are at home, therein we
suffer and we rejoice. Where we feel ourselves at home, we shall
endeavour so to arrange matters that everything is comfortable to us,
down to the furthest manifestations of our existence, so that our
sitting-room, our bedroom, our house and our garden, constitute =a
prolongation, an extension of our clothing=” (A. von Eye).[128]
Thus it happens that fashion is concerned, not merely with clothing, but
also with an abundance of customary details of environment. The
arrangement and furnishing of rooms, artistic objects, bodily exercises,
social intercourse, sports, etc., are subject to the caprices of
fashion. On this extended idea of fashion is based Fr. Th. Vischer’s
definition: “Fashion is a general term to denote a complex of temporary
current forms of civilization.”
The =theory= of fashion has been elaborated especially by Sombart[129]
and Simmel.[130] In the work of W. Fred,[131] also, we find some
thoughtful observations.
According to Simmel, fashion fulfils a double task. On the one hand, it
is the imitation of a given example, and thus satisfies the need for
social dependence; it leads the individual along the path on which all
are going. But, on the other hand, it satisfies also the need for
difference, the tendency to differentiation, to variation, to
self-assertion. This fashion effects by means of frequent changes, and
by the fact that first of all it is always a class fashion. The fashions
of the upper classes are distinguished from those of the lower classes,
and are instantly abandoned when the lower classes adopt them. Thus,
=according to Simmel’s definition, fashion is nothing else than a
peculiar form among many forms of life, by means of which the tendency
towards social equalization is connected with the tendency towards
individual differentiation and variation to constitute a unitary
activity=.
In Paris, the centre of fashion, the associated work of these two
tendencies may be studied most accurately and purely. We can there
observe how at first always a portion only of society adopts the
fashion, whilst the commonalty are still only on the way towards its
adoption. If the fashion has become entirely general, if it is followed
without exception, it is already over, it is no longer “fashionable,”
because this class difference has ceased to exist.
“By means of this interplay--between its tendency to general diffusion
on the one hand, and, on the other, the annihilation of its
significance which this very diffusion brings about--fashion exercises
the peculiar charm of the border-line, the charm of simultaneous
beginning and ending, the charm of that which is at the same time new
and obsolete” (Simmel).
In connexion with this fact we find that from the earliest times the
“=demi-monde=” has always given the impulse to new fashions. Owing to
the peculiarly uncertain position occupied by this class, everything
conventional, everything long in use, is detested by its members; only
newness and change are agreeable.
“In the continuous endeavour to find new, hitherto unheard-of
fashions, in the heedlessness with which precisely that which is
opposed to what has gone before is passionately grasped, there lies an
æsthetic form of the destructive impulse, which all pariah existences
appear to possess, so long, at any rate, as they are not completely
enslaved” (Simmel).
On the other hand, the equalizing tendency of fashion serves delicate,
sensitive natures as a kind of =protection= of their personality, as
Simmel has shown in a masterly manner. To such persons fashion plays the
part, as it were, of a mask.
“Thus it is a delicate shame and shyness, lest by a peculiarity in
outward aspect, some peculiarity of the subjective character might
perhaps be betrayed, that leads many natures to seek with eagerness
the concealing equalization of fashion.... It gives a veil and a
protection to all that lies within, and that thereby becomes more
perfectly free.”
That modern fashion is, for the most part, a child of the nineteenth
century, and is most intimately dependent upon the nature of capitalism,
has been directly proved by W. Sombart. He indicates as a decisive fact
in the process of the formation of fashion the perception that the
participation of the consumer is thereby reduced to a minimum, that, on
the contrary, the driving force in the creation of modern fashion is the
capitalistic entrepreneur. If, for example, a Parisian cocotte discovers
a new style of dress, or if, as the newspapers recently reported, the
King of England introduces the fashion of a white hat or white shoes for
men, these actions have, according to Sombart, the character only of
intermediate assistance. The true driving agent for the rapid =general=
diffusion of fashion, and for the frequent =changes of fashion=, remains
the capitalistic entrepreneur, the producer, or merchant. Sombart proves
this convincingly by striking examples. This economic aspect of fashion
must receive no less consideration than the psychological.
If men’s clothing, as we have already said, is, in the gross, far less
subject to the dominion of fashion than women’s clothing, still recently
efforts have been apparent to simplify women’s clothing also, to make it
independent of the caprices of fashion, and, above all, to subordinate
it to hygienic principles. It is noteworthy that these efforts proceed
more particularly from the leaders of the modern woman’s movement, an
interesting proof of the connexion already alluded to between
personality and clothing. The more differentiated and the more inwardly
rich the personality, the simpler and more monotonous is the clothing.
To this extent, therefore, the desire for simplification of feminine
clothing is an entirely logical postulate of the emancipation of women.
But this demand finds a justification also from the point of view of
hygiene. This fact has been discussed especially by Paul
Schultze-Naumburg in his book on “The Culture of the Feminine Body as
the Basis of Women’s Clothing” (Leipzig, 1901). He insists above all on
the =complete abandonment of the corset=, and of the “small waist,” and
on a return of women’s clothing to the free, simple outlines of the
antique. He makes, also, very noteworthy observations on the unhygienic
footgear of both sexes.
The idea that woman’s clothing should unconstrainedly represent the form
of her body has been admirably realized in the different varieties of
the so-called “=reformed dress=.” Not without influence on these
deserving attempts has been the recognition of the distinguished
simplicity and hygienic purposefulness of the Japanese women’s clothing.
For the present, however, fashion, as of old, remains dominant, and
celebrates annually its triumph in respect of new discoveries and
refinements of the dress of women of the world, employing for this
purpose the familiar means of accentuation and disclosure, and of
coloured and ornamental stimuli. The “woman’s movement” has as yet had
little ostensible and practical influence in liberating women’s dress
from the all-powerful control of fashion.
Now that we have considered clothing and fashion in their relations to
the sexual life, and have learned to understand how they combine in
action as means of sexual stimulation of a peculiar nature, we are in a
position to grasp the =relations between the sense of shame and nudity=,
as it presents itself to us as a =problem of modern civilization=.
While, as Simmel also maintains, and as we have thoroughly explained
above, clothing, through the intermediation of fashion, gives rise to
shamelessness as a group manifestation, or, as we are accustomed to say
at the present day, seriously impairs the sense of shame in such a
manner as would be repelled with disgust if it were adopted by the
personal choice of an isolated individual,[132] clothing has, on the
other hand, led astray the natural biological sense of shame, since it
is the sole cause of the “exaggerated sense of shame” known as
=prudery=. Prudery recognizes the existence of =clothed= human beings
only; it will not recognize the existence of naked man; it refuses to
admit the purely moral-æsthetic influence of natural nudity--to prudery
this is something immoral and repulsive.
To prudery alone we must ascribe the fact that we modern civilized human
beings have completely lost the taste for natural nudity, and also for
the natural sense of shame, and thus we show little understanding of the
ennobling, civilizing influence of both.
Natural nudity, the state in which every human being is born into this
world, not artificial nudity, with its lascivious influence dependent
upon clothing, posture, and gesture, is purely an object of simple
contemplation for the human being of normal perceptions, who sees in the
unclothed human body precisely the same individual natural object as he
sees in the bodies of other living beings. People, in other respects
extremely prudish, admit this when they have the opportunity--at the
present day certainly very rare--of seeing completely naked human beings
in natural surroundings, as, for instance, when bathing.
It is only when we introduce =intentionally= a sensual or, speaking
generally, an artificial influence, that nudity has an effect of
lascivious stimulation. =Prudery is, however, nothing more than such a
way of looking at nudity, with concealed lustful feelings.= The talented
Schleiermacher already recognized this fact. He unmasked prudery as a
lack of the sense of shame, and very clearly pointed out the sexual and
lascivious element which it conceals. In his “Vertrauten Briefen über
die Lucinde” (edition of K. Gutzkow, Hamburg, 1835, pp. 63-65) we find
the following beautiful passage:
“What, then, shall we think of those who pretend to be in a condition
of quiet thought and activity, and yet are so intolerably sensitive
that as a result of the most trivial and most remote impulse, passion
arises in them, and who believe themselves to be the more fully
equipped with the sense of shame the more readily they find in
everything something worthy of suspicion? They do not really find what
they pretend to find in every occurrence; =it is their own crude lust
which lies always on the watch=, and springs forward as soon as
anything shows itself in the distance akin to themselves, and which
therefore they find it possible to condemn; and they will quickly
seize an opportunity for blaming anything of which the motives were
=absolutely blameless=. Ordinarily, indeed, blamelessness appears to
them a pretence. Youths and maidens are represented as knowing nothing
as yet of love, but none the less as full of yearnings which every
moment threaten to break out, and which clutch the slightest
opportunity in order to grasp the forbidden fruit. But this is absurd.
True youths and maidens are, indeed, the ideals of this kind of
modesty, =but in them it takes another form=. Only that which has no
other purpose than to arouse desire and passion can do them any harm;
=but why should they not be allowed to learn love and to understand
Nature, both of which they see everywhere round them=? Why should they
not, without restraint, understand and enjoy what is thought and said
about these matters, since in this way so much the less would passion
be aroused in them? =Such anxious and limited modesty as is at the
present day characteristic of society is based only upon the
consciousness of a great and widespread perversity, and upon a deep
corruption.= What will be the end of all this? If matters were left to
themselves, they would become worse and worse; when we so persistently
hunt out that which in reality is =not shameful=, we shall at last
succeed in finding something immodest in every circle of ideas; and
finally all conversation and all society must come to an end; we must
separate the sexes so that they may not look at one another; we must
introduce monasticism, or even something more severe. But this is not
to be borne, and it will happen to our society as it happened to our
wives when morality confined them ever more and more strictly, until
at last it became improper for them to show the tips of their
fingers--and then in despair they suddenly turned round, and they
exposed their necks, their shoulders, and their breasts to the rude
winds and to lascivious eyes; or, like the caterpillars, they cast off
their old skin by a predetermined movement. Thus will it be; when
corruption has reached its climax, and the crude impulses become so
dominant =that it is no longer possible to keep them within bounds=,
all these false appearances will break down of themselves, and behind
them we shall see youthful shamelessness which has long intimately
entwined itself round the body of society, so that this has become the
true skin in which society naturally and easily moves. Complete
corruption and =completed culture, by way of which we return to
blamelessness=--both of these make an end of prudery.”
Fine words from a theologian! This thoroughly just description of the
nature of prudery and of its dangers should be laid seriously to heart
by our modern theological bigots and moral fanatics. How truly
Schleiermacher has depicted the nature of prudery is shown by the
observations of the alienist J. L. A. Koch, that it is precisely the
women who were formerly prudish and “moral” when they become insane--for
example, in mania--who are much more shameless than women who in
everyday life had taken a more natural view of sexual relationships.
The =eternal concealment= of the most natural things is what first makes
them appear unnatural, first awakens desire, where otherwise they would
have been passed by quietly and harmlessly without attention. At the
present day the natural justifiable sense of shame has been
=intensified= to an unnatural degree, and has been falsified to such an
extent that this exaggeration of the sense of shame, this unceasing
objective suppression of natural harmless activities and feelings, has
really increased the hidden desires to an immeasurable degree; it is
this, in fact, which heaps fuel on the fire of fleshly lust.[133]
The genuine, natural, biological sense of shame sets bounds to lust. To
this shame we owe the ennobling and spiritualizing of the crude sexual
impulse; it is the preliminary stage to the individualization of that
impulse. It is intimately related to that voluntary, temporary, and
relative continence which has so great an importance for the individual
life. The sense of shame has civilized the sexual impulse without
denying its essential basis.
Complete culture returns to complete innocence. It knows no fig-leaves;
it does not go about, as did recently in the Dresden Museum a clergyman
affected with the psychosis of hyper-prudery, knocking off the genital
organs from naked statues; nor does it castrate the human spirit, as we
find most biographers do even now in the case of the great men whose
lives they describe. It recognizes the sexual as something noble and
natural.
The sense of shame is an inalienable acquirement of civilization; it is
self-respect. But, as Havelock Ellis rightly remarks, in =completely
developed= human beings self-respect keeps a tight rein on any excess of
the sense of shame. Knowledge and culture give the death-blow to all
false prudery. The cultured man looks the natural in the face; he
recognizes its value and its necessity. To him the sexual is the
indispensable preliminary of life; hence in its essential nature it is
something =harmless, wholly comprehensible=; something that must not be
underrated, but =above all must not be overrated=, as our virtuous
hypocrites and fanatics of prudery invariably overrate it.
The true league against immorality is the league against prudery. The
apostles of the nude do more service to true morality than the men of
the “Lex-Heinze,” than those who hold conferences on morality, than the
German Christian League of Virtue. A natural conception of the
nude--that is the watchword of the future. This is shown by all the
hygienic, æsthetic, and ethical endeavours of our time.
[72] G. Simmel, “Philosophy of Fashion” (Berlin, 1906, p. 27).
[73] _Cf._ C. Lombroso and G. Ferrero, “Woman as Criminal and
Prostitute.”
[74] Karl von den Steinen, “Experiences among the Savage Races of
Central Brazil” (Berlin, 1894, p. 199).
[75] _Op. cit._, p. 66.
[76] _Op. cit._, p. 64.
[77] A discussion of the early manifestations of the sexual sense of
shame as exhibited by savages and by primitive man would hardly be
complete without an allusion to the theory mentioned by Robert
Browning (“Bishop Blougram’s Apology,” Collected Works, 1889, vol.
iv., p. 271):
“Suppose a pricking to incontinence--
Philosophers deduce you chastity
Or shame, from just the fact that at the first
Whoso embraced a woman in the field,
Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,
So stood a ready victim in the reach
Of any brother savage, club in hand;
Hence saw the use of going out of sight
In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:
I read this in a French book t’other day.”
[78] _Op. cit._, pp. 190, 191, 195. _Cf._ also the interesting remarks
regarding the nudity of the indigens of South America by Alex. von
Humboldt, “Journey in the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent”
(Stuttgart, vol. ii., pp. 15, 16).
[79] Somewhat diverging from these views, Karl von den Steinen (_op.
cit._, pp. 174, 178, and 186) is of opinion that man learned first by
their use for practical ends the employment of the articles later
utilized for adornment. Above all, in this connexion, he alludes to
tattooing, which originated, he believes, in the practice of smearing
the body with various coloured earths and with different kinds of
clay, these at the same time serving to promote coolness and to afford
a protection against the bites of insects. _Cf._ also Yrjö Hirn, “The
Origin of Art” (Leipzig, 1904, p. 222).
[80] E. Herrmann, “Natural History of Clothing” (Vienna, 1878, p.
239).
[81] Edward Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage.”
[82] Wilhelm Joest, “Tattooing, Scarifying, and Painting the Body”
(Berlin, 1887).
[83] Carl Marquardt, “Tattooing of Both Sexes in Samoa” (Berlin.
1899).
[84] Ludwig Stein, “The Beginnings of Human Civilization” (Leipzig,
1906, pp. 74, 75); Edward Tylor, “Anthropology: an Introduction to the
Study of Man and Civilization” (Macmillan, 1881, p. 237).
[85] According to Karl von den Steinen (_op. cit._, p. 186), the oil
colours used in painting the body are “=actually the clothing of the
Indians, employed for this purpose as occasion demands=.” Their oldest
aim was protection against heat, cutaneous irritation, and external
noxious influences.
[86] _Cf._ Y. Hirn, “The Origin of Art” (Leipzig, 1904, pp. 223, 224).
[87] _Cf._ my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia
Sexualis,” vol. ii., p. 338.
[88] _Cf._ K. Lange, “The Nature of Art” (Berlin, 1901, vol. ii., pp.
185, 186).
[89] The significance of tattooing of this nature in the diagnosis of
sexual perversities we shall later discuss at greater length.
[90] _Cf._ Kurella, “The Natural History of the Criminal” (Stuttgart,
1893, pp. 105-112).
[91] “Erotic Tattooing” in “Anthropophyteia, Annual for Folk-lore and
for Researches regarding the History of the Evolution of Sexual
Morals,” edited by Friedrich S. Krauss (Leipzig, 1904, vol. i., pp.
507-513). According to an account in the _Temps_, in a deserter from
the French army the most remarkable tattooings were observed. On the
breast there were two seductive women throwing kisses to a sturdy
musketeer, in addition to portraits of music-hall singers, both male
and female--for example, Yvette Guilbert. The entire back was covered
with love sketches. _Cf._ _B. Z. am Mittag_, August 21, 1906.
[92] William Ellis, “Polynesian Researches” (London, 1859, vol. i., p.
235).
[93] _Cf._ Hirn, “The Origin of Art,” pp. 214, 215.
[94] _Cf._ Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._ pp. 56-62.
[95] It is well known that the buttocks formed an object of erotic
allurement in many savage races, and especially so in certain African
tribes.
[96] J. J. Virey, “Woman” (Leipzig, 1825, p. 300).
[97] Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage,” pp. 193, 197.
[98] C. H. Stratz, “Women’s Clothing” (Stuttgart, 1900, p. 42).
[99] In his “Confessions,” Rousseau writes regarding the collar of the
beautiful courtesan Giulietta: “Her cuffs and collar had silken
threads running through them, and were adorned with pictures of roses.
=These made a beautiful contrast with her fine skin.=”
[100] H. Lotze, “Mikrokosmus: Ideas regarding the Natural History of
Mankind” (third edition, Leipzig, 1878, vol. ii., p. 210).
[101] H. Bahr, “Clothing Reform,” in _Dokumente der Frauen_, 1902,
vol. vi., No. 23, p. 665.
[102] _Cf._ the detailed account of this aspect of clothing in my
“Contributions to the Etiology of the Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol.
ii., pp. 334-336.
[103] _Cf._ Lucianus, “Erotics of Clothing,” published in _Die
Fackel_, edited by Karl Kraus (Vienna, No. 198, March 12, 1906, pp.
12, 13).
[104] _Cf._, in this connexion, Ernest Kapp, “Fundamental Outlines of
a Philosophy of Technique,” p. 267 (Brunswick, 1877).
[105] Lucianus, “Erotica of Clothing,” p. 16.
[106] W. Sombart, “Domestic Economy and Fashion” (Wiesbaden, 1902, p.
12).
[107] Stratz, “Woman’s Clothing,” pp. 123, 124.
[108] B. Ritter, “Nudities in the Middle Ages: Outlines of the History
of Morals,” in the _Annual of Science and Art_, published by O. Wigand
(Leipzig, 1855, vol. iii., p. 229).
[109] H. Bahr, “Clothing Reform,” _op. cit._, p. 666.
[110] G. Hirth, “Ways to Love,” p. 619.