Soon after my return from Baku, I was transferred to Warsaw, in order

to take part in the May-day celebrations of 1905--these May-day

celebrations taking place according to the calendar of non-Russian

countries.

The war, the unceasing extensive strikes and disturbances, had

resulted everywhere in giving rise to horrible misery, which was

further increased by the political crisis and by the arrest of all

branches of industry.

All the misery of which I had always dreamed I now saw unceasingly

around me. It might be believed that at length my desires would have

obtained satisfaction! But this was not so. In the same degree as that

with which the poverty around me increased did my sensibility, too,

become blunted; I became accustomed to its appearance; I regarded it

as an everyday occurrence, as something easily comprehensible.

=Somewhat= more did I love and honour humanity on account of this

misery; but not to the extent of something beyond force, something

“superhuman,” which would have been necessary for my complete

satisfaction. Perhaps in Baku I should have experienced this

superhuman feeling, had it not been that at the decisive moment my

body gave way under the strain. Was that, perhaps, prearranged by

Nature? Has Nature imposed these limits upon an individual, in order

to prevent him from raising himself above the human standard?

Can it be that the state into which I fell at Baku resembled a

“syncope of the soul,” which ensued when my psychical state began to

verge upon the superhuman, in consequence of the torments around me,

just as bodily syncope renders us unconscious when physical pain

exceeds the limits of human capacity?

These questions now began to occupy me. I could only attain certainty

by means of experiment; and I must obtain certainty, even if the half

of humanity had to be sacrificed, as one sacrifices a rabbit in an

experiment.

Impatiently I awaited the first of May.... Perhaps that day would

bring me a solution of the riddle!... The workmen were still

undecided: should they demonstrate or not?... I began to urge them

=in favour of= the demonstration; =my= reason is easy to

understand....

It was unquestionably one of the largest demonstrations that Warsaw

had ever witnessed. In the narrow streets there was packed an

innumerable crowd. Suddenly from all sides the soldiers charged the

demonstration.... A frightful panic--such as I have never before

seen--seized the crowd. Resistance was not to be thought of--it was a

_sauve qui peut_!

In mad fear of death, every one began to scream, and to seek refuge in

the houses.... At the doors of the houses there ensued a frightful

pressure. Many were thrown to the ground; these were trodden to pulp.

On the ground-floor the windows were broken in, and people crawled

through them into the houses. Meanwhile, the Cossacks were raging up

and down, cutting people down with their sabres. There were deafening

screams of fear, and with these and with the groans of the wounded

there mingled the bestial “Süiy” of the Cossacks, so as to produce a

nerve-lacerating concert of hell. And around one could see the

unnaturally dilated pupils, the widely opened eyes, and the faces

distracted with anxiety, of those who were seeking safety in flight.

The same excitement had seized on me also; with a wildly beating

heart, and an unbearably distressing feeling of contracture in the

loins, which produced in my entire organism a kind of “anxious

ecstasy,” I began to hope.... But it would not come....

XVI.

In Odessa, which was exhausted by unceasing fights and strikes, the

strength of the reaction began to make itself felt, and there were

fears of a “pogrom” (an attack on the Jews). The forces of the

reaction in these pogroms always made use of the Lumpenproletariat

(the blackguardly element of the mob).

Since the most trustworthy of our Odessa associates were Jews, and

thus had no influence with the Lumpenproletariat, they urged me to go

to Odessa, and, as a non-Hebrew, to use my influence to prevent the

pogrom. It was not possible for me to refuse, although in secret I

rejoiced at the prospect of the pogrom.

In Kiew, where I had some business, I met by chance an acquaintance

belonging to my more prosperous past. This man knew nothing of my

revolutionary activities. He, for his part, was an arch anti-Semite.

In consequence of the disturbances, his business had been completely

ruined. He described the whole revolution as the work of the Jews, and

also abused the Government, which, in his opinion, was to blame for

the weakness which it exhibited in dealing with the revolutionary

forces.

“But,” he continued, with a wink, “if the Government does nothing, we

shall know how to help ourselves a little!” I pretended to be entirely

of his opinion, and he told me in confidence that there already

existed in Odessa a secret committee, which was to take the matter in

hand. He also was a member. A large sum of money had already been

collected, in order to pay certain persons who were to arrange the

entire “Hetze.” If I wished, I could be his guest, and he would make

me a member of the committee. I agreed.

The next day I was actually enrolled in the committee. Who the members

really were I did not learn. One characteristic was common to them

all--a frightful indolence.... Everything was ready. They would

arrange for patriotic demonstrations, and would then throw

proclamations amongst the people, to tell them that the Jews had sworn

an oath to combine with the Japanese for the destruction of Holy

Russia; that the revolution had been begun by the Jews in order that

the Little Father’s army must meet enemies on both sides at once.

Thus, for all the present misery the Jews only were to blame, etc....

Everything had been arranged already, and was in the hands of people

who were prepared to undertake the whole affair. The only thing now

wanting was the proclamation.

My acquaintances now began to praise my genius as an author, and they

all pressed me to begin immediately to compose the required leaflet.

The proposal suited me; I do not need to say why. With zeal I threw

myself upon the task, and the proclamation was a masterpiece of

demagogic art, and a crowning example of the “appeal to the beast in

man,” as it is ordinarily called.

The diffusion of this “document of civilization,” as it is called by

the revolutionists, took place in connexion with the planned

demonstration. The day passed without an outbreak, although the

imminence of the storm could, as one may say, be felt in the air. Not

until the evening were a few Jews beaten here and there.

On the second day our people arranged for a second demonstration. From

the other side they endeavoured to form a counter-demonstration, and

the two came in conflict. The Black Hundreds (drawn from the

Lumpenproletariat), who fought in the name of “patriotism,” dispersed

the counter-demonstrators, and began to demolish and to plunder in the

Jewish quarter of the town.

The breaking of the panes of glass, and the destruction of the goods

in the shop-windows and of the furniture in the houses, seemed to

inflame the crowd more and more; they must have experienced a sort of

voluptuous sensation in connexion with these activities. Finally, they

found some Jews who had hidden themselves. A horrible yell was now

raised. The Jews were dragged out into the street; they were struck

with everything available--with cudgels, hatchets, and knives--until

they were completely unrecognizable. The crowd found more and more of

them. Most of them threw themselves on their knees and begged for

life; it was most horrible to see them, beaten till their features

were no longer distinguishable, still pleading for mercy. Now the mob

really began to smell blood, and to display its whole true human

nature. Each began to murder according to his own individual fancy.

Here a man cut the breast from a nursing mother; there they tore the

clothes from some girls, and flogged them naked through the streets.

In another place they dragged a Jewess, naked, from her house into the

street, tied her hand and foot, and fastened her by the hair to the

axle of a cab; then they drove off at a gallop until she was battered

to death. Behind the cab there ran street-arabs, striking at her

body.... But to what purpose is it to describe these scenes, at which

one’s heart is convulsed in one’s body with sorrow, and simultaneously

one wishes to exult with joy and triumph?

Here I saw once more, in their proper environment, the 50,000 of whom

Blanqui speaks. A wave of the hand would have sufficed--although 99

per cent, of them unquestionably felt no hostility towards the

Jews--to produce in all of them the most infernal anti-Semitic

excesses. If the police would allow it, as they allow the pogrom,

another wave of the hand would direct the mob with no less ease to

make an attack on another human variety--for example, on the

capitalists.

What psychological factor drove them on?... Was it simply a tendency

to cruelty?... No!... A love of cruelty considered by itself, without

a nobler motive, is inhuman, inharmonious to human nature, and man

=cannot= escape his own nature. There must therefore be other motives

at the basis of such actions, motives of a nature more humanly

comprehensible.

But look at all those slaughterers! Regard their physiognomy! Not a

trace of cruelty--only suffering, =unheard-of= suffering, is reflected

on these faces!... The fear of death and the pain of their victims

prepares for =themselves= incredible torment!... Do you not believe

that these people will return to their houses, and will suffer intense

mental pain?... They will continually see, in imagination, the last

beseeching glance of their victim, full of complaint and reproach,

directed upon them!... What hatred, what contempt, will they feel for

the animal which has awakened within them! They will feel a longing to

spit in their own faces, to strike themselves, to strangle

themselves!... Before every one whom they meet they will lower their

eyes: “He knows that I have murdered people, amid the most cruel

tortures, against whom there was no hatred in my heart--murdered only

for this reason: because I had within me the instinctive demand for

spiritual torment; because by the situation in which I suddenly found

myself one pole of my hermaphrodite nature was suddenly discharged!”

“They are =masochists=, only they do not know it.”

Self-contempt suddenly seized me amidst this Satanic orgy of suffering

on the part of such =unconscious, instinctive masochists=. The

remembrance that all these persons were being led onwards by a blind

animal impulse, and that to-morrow they would fall on their knees

before their God and pray to Him for pardon, filled me with disgust. I

began to hate this stupid mass. I wanted to see them grovel in the

dust themselves, and howl for mercy.

For this purpose it was only necessary to organize the _Selbstschutz_

(a union for the prevention of persecution of the Jews). In order to

effect this, I tried to get into the Jewish quarter. I succeeded in

doing so by means of some side passages. Hardly had I reached this

quarter, when I came across masses of these “Self-Protectors.”

Finally, I found among them some acquaintances, and I joined them.

A heated contest now began to rage.... As the Black Hundreds were now

so energetically attacked, all their heroism was speedily at an end:

they took to flight. At this moment the soldiers appeared--not, as one

might have imagined, to attack the Black Hundreds, but to attack the

“Self-Protectors.”

My arm, which was stretched out in front of me, was traversed

longitudinally by a rifle-bullet in a peculiar manner. I sank to the

ground at first, but soon recovered sufficiently to get up and run

away.

That inexpressible sense of complete satisfaction by means of

suffering, for which I was continually searching--which, so to say, I

felt to slumber within me--once more appeared in actual experience. I

always had the impression that there was something wanting, that it

was necessary to awaken something within me which hitherto had existed

in my consciousness only in a dormant state.... At the same time, a

voice whispered to me that I was demanding something superhuman; that

the attainment of such a thing must logically overwhelm my purely

=human= powers, and that it would involve my annihilation.

Day and night these thoughts tormented me: “You =must= gain this

experience--even if it involves your destruction!... But what if, at

the last moment--as at Baku--a further incapacity, a ‘spiritual

syncope,’ ensues?”

One thing I knew--“When you reach it, it will only be by yourself; all

others will break to pieces =before= you!”

XVII.

I no longer had any interest in the development of revolutionary

affairs, since for =my own= purposes they were no longer serviceable.

The new questions which now arose--as, for example, the propaganda

among the Lumpenproletariat--left me cold.... In the pogrom we had

seen what an unawakened force--reputed as revolutionary, but in

reality =masochistic=--was slumbering in the Lumpenproletariat. That

this force could also be used in the service of reaction was ascribed

to the fact that all these thieves, criminals, and prostitutes, came

into contact only with the working classes. But since they earn from

the latter nothing but contempt, their sensibility was turned

=against= the working classes.

This unfortunate state of affairs it was proposed to counteract by

going among the criminals, just as in earlier years they had gone

among the working people. An endeavour was made to organize the

Lumpenproletariat, in order to win their sympathies.

The movement was in part successful, although it brought with it much

corruption. Thus it happened that the criminals endeavoured to turn

the matter to their own advantage, and began to pursue their

profession in the name of anarchism. For example, in Warsaw they

visited the house of an enormously rich Jewish banker, whose father

had recently died, and, under the mask of anarchism, demanded from him

10,000 roubles, with the threat that if he did not give the money,

they would dig up the corpse of his father and bury it in

unconsecrated ground. When we remember there is nothing more horrible

for an orthodox Jew than to rest in unconsecrated soil, we shall

understand that the banker gave the money; but this occurrence aroused

a great sensation, and people began to identify anarchists with common

criminals.

Now the anarchists had to endure the persecution, not only of the

Government, but also that of other revolutionary parties and of the

Lumpenproletariat--the latter for this reason: because they did not

wish their names to be associated with actions which were undertaken

for personal advantage, and not for revolutionary aims.

This campaign against the anarchists from three different sides must

soon bring about disaster.

During this time I was perpetually puzzling over the problem: “Will

the idea you have dreamed of be realized within you?... Will it lead

to your destruction?... Or will it overwhelm your powers, and lead

once more to spiritual syncope?”

By means of an experiment, the matter could be determined!...

Supposing one were to distribute broadcast plague bacilli!... If

entire towns were to suffer from this disease!... If the fear of death

was to seize the whole crowd of those who, in their cowardice at every

strike, every demonstration, every fight at the barricades, had hidden

behind the stove or crept under the bed!... If this fear of death were

to increase to a general panic, affecting entire towns, entire

countries, as happened in the middle ages!... If the people, in their

despair, should look for the disseminators of the trouble, and should

proceed to hew one another to pieces!... Would my relief come then?...

Will there be an =answer= for me?

I shudder to think of the suffering which this would entail for me! I

feel that I am not equal to this!... I suffer, on the other hand,

inexpressibly, because I have no answer, no recognition, no

satisfaction!... I will--and I cannot. To endure longer this

hermaphroditic state--this is death or lunacy!... What to do?... How

to free oneself from this horrible dilemma?

Oh, why am I not like others?... Why cannot I simply accept =that

which is=?... Why do I torment myself to climb the mountain, in order

to stand before a bottomless abyss?... Before an abyss whose secret

depths will be manifest to me only if I hurl myself into it!...

What to do?... What to do?... Shall I, or shall I not?... I =will=!...

I =must=!...

As I was about to do it, I was arrested! Chance or foresight?

Oh, fate, fate! =That= is too much of suffering!... Oh, mankind,

mankind, what have you done?... A single one wished to =see=. A single

one wished to tear a veil from the image--and you have hindered it!...

Eternally you will have darkness around you!... But why will you not

allow me to see the light?

Is it thus that you thank =me=, who have loved humanity as no other

has loved!

Yes; that is once over again the cruel, the pitiless philosophy of

Golgotha--

“=He who will love--must suffer!=”

[588] Havelock Ellis, “Studies in the Psychology of Sex,” vol. iii.,

“Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[589] A special account of this matter is found in an interesting work

by G. H. Schneider, “Joy and Sorrow of the Human Race: a Social and

Psychological Investigation of the Fundamental Problems of Ethics”

(Stuttgart, 1883).

[590] _Cf._ Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “Recent Researches regarding

the Marquis de Sade and his Time” (Berlin, 1904). I refer the reader

to this, my second, work on the Marquis de Sade, as a critical

description of the true de Sade based upon contemporary sources. My

former work upon this subject I now regard as inadequate, youthful,

and containing numerous errors.

[591] See the description of this in G. Hirth’s “Ways to Love,” p.

638.

[592] They are still more clearly to be observed in animals.

[593] Havelock Ellis, “Eroticism and Pain,” in his “Analysis of the

Sexual Impulse.”

[594] Friedrich S. Krauss, “Procreation in the Morals, the Customs,

and the Beliefs of the Southern Slavs,” published in _Kryptadia_, vol.

vii., pp. 208, 209 (Paris, 1899).

[595] A. Eulenburg, “Sadism and Masochism,” published in “Borderland

Questions of Nervous and Mental Life,” No. 19, pp. 9, 10 (published by

Loewenfeld and Kurella, Wiesbaden, 1902).

[596] Ch. Féré, “Sadism in the Bull-fight,” published in the _Revue de

Médecine_, 1900, No. 8.

[597] The sadistic element in lynch law has recently been most vividly

described by Feliz Baumann in his interesting book, “In Darkest

America: Manners and Customs in the United States.” (Dresden, 1902).

[598] Francisque Bouiller, _Du Plaisir et de la Douleur_, p. 72

(Paris, 1865).

[599] A. Horwicz, “Psychological Analysis on Psychological Grounds,”

p. 361 (Magdeburg, 1878).

[600] Michel Montaigne, “Essais,” p. 35 (Paris, 1886).

[601] Havelock Ellis, “Analysis of the Sexual Impulse.”

[602] J. J. Virey, “Woman,” p. 347.

[603] This point of view has been especially insisted on by Felix von

Luschan. _Cf._ _Politsch-anthropologische Revue_, 1902, No. 1 p. 71.

[604] K. von don Steinen, “The Savage Races of Central Brazil,” p. 332

(Berlin, 1894).

[605] S. R. Steinmetz, “Ethnological Studies regarding the First

Development of Punishment,” vol. i., p. 23 (Leiden and Leipzig, 1894).

[606] _Cf._ also Albert Eulenburg, “Sadism and Masochism,” pp. 57-68

(with a good bibliography; Wiesbaden, 1902); Iwan Bloch,

“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii.,

pp. 75-97; Pierre Guénolé, “L’étrange Passion. La Flagellation dans

les Mœurs d’Aujourd’hui. Études et Documents” (Paris, 1904); Don

Brennus Aléra, “La Flagellation Passionelle” (Paris, 1905); Lord

Drialys, “Les Délices du Fouet. Précédé d’un Essai sur la Flagellation

et le Masochisme par Jean de Villiot” (contains numerous interesting

details; Paris, 1907).

[607] Especially at the time when flogging as a judicial punishment

was still practised in Germany. The sadistic influence of this

punishment is described by W. Reinhard in his celebrated book “Lenchen

im Zuchthause” (“Lenchen in the Penitentiary”), reprinted 1901

(Karlsruhe, 1840). In Russia these conditions remain unaltered.

[608] P. Näcke, “Forensic, Psychiatrical, and Psychological Aspects of

the Trial of Dippold, especially in Connexion with Sadism,” published

in the _Archives for Criminal Anthropology_, 1903, vol. xiii., No. 4,

pp. 350-372.

[609] Regarding the English flagellation brothels, and regarding

Theresa Berkley, see my work, “The Sexual Life in England,” vol. ii.,

pp. 429-443.

[610] H. Lawes, “Die Weibliche Reize,” p. 180 (Leipzig, _circa_ 1877).

[611] Siegfried Türkel (“Sexual Pathological Cases,” published in the

_Archives for Criminal Anthropology_, vol. xi., pp. 219, 220) reports

the case of an actor, who, known under the name of “The Ravisher,”

induced prostitutes, whom he paid liberally, to resist him sometimes

for hours, and then apparently to yield to his superior force. He once

took a young girl into his dwelling, bound her suddenly, and violated

her in this state.

[612] In this case, according to von Krafft-Ebing, the life of his

victim depended on the fact whether ejaculation occurred soon or late.

[613] _Cf._ Santlus, “The Psychology of Human Impulses,” published in

the _Archives for Psychiatry_, 1864, vol. vi., p. 255.

[614] _Cf._ regarding sadistic arson my “Contributions to the Etiology

of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 116-118.

[615] G. Chr. Lichtenberg, “Miscellaneous Writings,” edited by L. Chr.

Lichtenberg and Friedrich Kries, vol. ii., p. 447 (Göttingen, 1801).

[616] To this category belongs also the peculiar case reported by

Siegfried Türkel (“Sexual Pathological Cases,” published in the

_Archives for Criminal Anthropology_, 1903, vol. xi., pp. 215-218) of

a historian who became sexually excited by the view of a woman

suffering from sexual deprivation, and of her mental trouble. Another

man (_ibid._, p. 222, 223) obtained sexual excitement and

gratification only by watching the anxiety of women--for example, of

such as he had himself falsely accused of theft!

[617] _Cf._ the reference to erotic dictionaries in my “Contributions

to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 104, 105.

Recently F. S. Krauss, in his “Anthropophyteia,” has devoted special

attention to this peculiar manifestation of the popular soul.

[618] R. Schwaeblé, “Les Détraquées de Paris,” pp. 3-10.

[619] The typical literary advocate of masochism, who in actual life

was a passionate worshipper of the whip, was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

(1836-1895). _Cf._ regarding him, his life, his sexual perversions,

and his writings, C. F. von Schlichtegroll, “Sacher-Masoch and

Masochism” (Dresden, 1901); Wanda von Sacher-Masoch, “Confessions of

my Life” (Berlin and Leipzig, 1906); C. F. von Schlichtegroll,

“‘Wanda’ without Fur and Mask. An Answer to ‘Wanda’ von

Sacher-Masoch’s ‘Confessions of My Life,’ with extracts from

Sacher-Masoch’s Diary” (Leipzig, 1906).

[620] A. de Musset, “Confessions of a Child of his Time.”

[621] Ertel, “A ‘Slave,’” published in the _Archives for Criminal

Anthropology_, issued by Hans Gross, vol. xxv., Nos. 1 and 2, p. 107

(Leipzig, 1906). Hamburg appears to be the chief centre of masochistic

prostitution. See also the report given by D. Hausen, “The Cane and

the Whip,” second edition, pp. 164, 165 (Dresden, 1902).

[622] Regarding the voluptuous sensations connected with hanging, see

my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii.,

p. 173, and more especially my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. iii.,

pp. 94-99 (Berlin, 1903); also Havelock Ellis, “Analysis of the Sexual

Impulse.”

[623] _Cf._ Castor and Pollux, “The Masseuse Improprieties of Berlin”

(Berlin, 1900).

[624] This is a favourite masochistic situation. Hans Baldung has

immortalized it in a picture, in which Phyllis rides upon Aristotle. I

owe to the kindness of my colleague Dr. Kantorowicz, in Hanover, the

knowledge that J. von Falke describes an ivory relief representing the

same scene. King Alexander looks on, and “rejoices at the scene--how

the bearded old man, controlled by the beauty, with the bit in his

mouth, is crawling about on all-fours, carrying the lady, armed with a

whip.” In Semrau-Lübke’s “Elements of the History of Art,” vol. iii.,

p. 532 (Stuttgart, 1903), a picture on glass, from the Rahn Collection

in Zurich, is described, which represents the same history.

[625] Ertel, _op. cit._, pp. 105, 106.

[626] The following extremely valuable contribution to the psychology

of the Russian revolution now in progress was sent in September, 1906,

from Russia to my colleague Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld. He most kindly gave

me this extremely interesting sketch for publication in this place. It

throws a very clear light upon the nature of algolagnia. We have here

a unique psychological document, which deserves the attention of

politicians and sociologists no less than that of anthropologists and

psychologists.

CHAPTER XXII

SEXUAL FETICHISM

“_With respect to the evolution of physiological love, it is probable

that its germ is always to be sought and to be found in an individual

fetichistic charm which a person of one sex exercises upon a person of

the other sex._”--R. VON KRAFFT-EBING.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXII

Physiological foundation of sexual fetichism -- Definition -- “Partial

attraction” -- Theory of fetichism -- Psychological process by which

it originates -- Idealization and accentuation in love -- The ideal

isolation of certain parts -- “Lesser” and “greater” fetichism -- The

most frequent forms of sexual fetichism -- Racial fetichism --

Peculiar inclinations towards exotic individuals -- Hair fetichism --

Various forms of this -- The “plait-cutters” -- Trial of a

plait-cutter -- Hair fetichism in women -- Baldness fetichism --

Fetichism for other parts of the body -- Breast fetichism -- Genital

fetichism -- The phallus cult -- Cunnilinctus and fellatio -- A case

of genital fetichism -- A hermaphrodite fetichist -- Hand fetichism --

Buttock fetichism -- Smell fetichism -- Red hair and the odour of the

body -- A passage from d Annunzio’s “Lust” -- Axillary-odour fetichism

-- The odour of the entire body as a fetich -- Influence of specific

genital odours -- Skatological fetiches -- “Skatology” in folk-lore --

The “muse latrinal” -- The “renifleurs” and “épongeurs” -- Sexual

perfumes -- Influence of flowers and scents -- Sexual taste fetichism

-- Priapistic means of enjoyment -- Examples -- Fetichism for

horsewomen -- For bodily defects -- For old men -- Voice fetichism --

Object fetichism -- Shoe fetichism, or “retifism” -- Explanation of

these -- Peculiarities of shoe fetichism -- Corset, stocking, and

handkerchief fetichism -- Fabric and costume fetichism.

CHAPTER XXII

Like algolagnia, =sexual fetichism= rests upon a physiological basis,

and is merely a more or less abnormal increase of fetichistic ideas and

perceptions, which are rooted in the very nature of the sexual

attraction.

By fetichism (derived from the Portuguese _feitico_ Italian

_fetisso_--magic, charm) we understand the limitation of love, its

transference from the entire personality to a =portion= of this

personality, or, it may be, to some =lifeless= physical object =related=

to the personality.[627] This fascinating “portion” of the beloved

personality, or the “object” associated with this personality, is the

sexual “fetich.” Within physiological limits, the part concerned

exercises a particular attraction, and is especially exciting, but in

the ideas of the lover it remains associated with the entire personality

to which it belongs. Fetichism first becomes abnormal, or pathological,

when the partial representation becomes completely divorced from the

general representation of the personality, so that, for example, a plait

of hair or a pocket-handkerchief is loved alone and by itself,

disconnected from the person to whom it belongs.

The development of love can always be referred to fetichistic ideas, for

when we examine critically the first general impression which the

beloved makes upon the lover, we always find that there are certain

=parts= or =functions= which have made the =greatest= impression, and

have exercised a greater erotic influence than other portions. To the

former of these, therefore, the imagination and the sensibility more

especially =cleave=. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of

Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., p. 311), I defined sexual fetiches as

peculiar =symbols= of the =essence= of the beloved personality, with

which the idea of the entire type is most readily associated. M.

Hirschfeld later enunciated the same views.

As sexual fetiches we may have: (1) =Portions of the body=; (2)

=functions and emanations of the body=; and (3) =objects which have any

kind of relation to the body=.

Under (1) we may enumerate the hand, the foot, the nose, the ears, the

eyes, the hair of the head, the hair of the beard, the throat and the

back of the neck, the breasts, the hips, the genital organs, the

buttocks, the calves. All these parts may constitute sexual fetiches.

The same is true of all the influences enumerated under (2)--viz., gait,

movement, voice, glance, odour, complexion.

Under (3) we may enumerate the clothing as a =whole= (as costume) and in

its individual parts, upper-clothing and underclothing, hat, eyeglasses,

way of dressing the hair, necktie, bodice, corset, chemise, petticoat,

stockings, shoes or boots, apron, handkerchief, clothing materials (fur,

satin, silk), the colour of clothing (mourning, parti-coloured blouses,

white clothing, uniform), fashion (_cul de Paris_, _décolleté_ and

_retroussé_, _tricot_); indeed, clothing fetichism goes so far that a

particular shape of the heel of the shoe, a particular mode of

ornamentation of some particular part of the clothing, and, finally, any

striking part of the clothing, may become a sexual fetich.

This fetichistic influence is further increased by a peculiar

characteristic of human love. This is its tendency towards

=idealization=, =beautification=, and =enlargement= of those parts which

especially affect the senses. This beautification and idealization

extends from the body to the clothing, and to articles in general, used

by the beloved person, but normally remains associated with the entire

personality. It is first by means of the enlargement and accentuation of

a distinct part that this becomes separated from the general idea, and

thus its removal and conversion into a “fetich” is prepared for. In the

chapter on clothing we drew attention to this general anthropological

phenomenon of the enlargement and accentuation of many parts by means of

such measures as painting, articles of clothing, exposure, way of doing

the hair, etc.

Inasmuch as now, by the ideal and actual accentuation of the part under

consideration, it is projected as a more independent structure, and

separates itself from the personality as a whole, it is involuntarily

=isolated= in idea by the fetichist, and becomes =generalized= to

constitute an independent stimulus, which may now, temporarily or

permanently, completely take the place of the personality as a whole.

This physiological process embraces both the “lesser” and the “greater”

fetichism of Binet.

The lesser fetichism consists in this: that the lover, without going so

far as to lose sight completely of the entire person of his beloved,

still directs his attention to =individual= special charms, or is in

general first attracted to the beloved woman by means of =quite

distinct qualities=, such as the shape and smallness of the hand, the

colour and sparkling of the eyes, the abundance and softness of the

hair, the complexion, a distinct odour, a melodious voice, etc. In the

“lesser” fetichism the partial representation plays, indeed, a very

prominent part in the general picture, but does not entirely obliterate

this picture.

In the “greater” fetichism, on the other hand, a particular portion, or

function, or quality, or an article of clothing, or an object of

customary use belonging to the beloved person, is isolated from this

latter, and in a sense becomes transformed into the latter, and assumes

wholly and completely the character of a being capable by itself of

exercising a sexually exciting influence. This is genuine sexual

fetichism.

Binet and von Schrenck-Notzing have referred the genesis of fetichism,

as a rule, to some =chance occurrence= during childhood--to a

fetichistic impression which chanced to coincide with sexual excitement,

and thus obtained a permanently sexual coloration. The time of puberty

and the first sexual relationships are especially dangerous for the

formation of such associations of ideas. Von Schrenck-Notzing rightly

draws attention to the fact that this perverse associative connexion, as

a reaction to powerful external impressions, does not occur only, as

Binet assumes, in predisposed individuals, but is also =quite peculiarly

characteristic of the childish mental life at the time when the brain is

undergoing growth, as well as of the less-developed intellectual powers

of savage races=, among whom at the present time, in quite other

provinces than the sexual, fetichism is cultivated in the most excessive

manner; thus, fetichism is often manifested by persons with perfectly

normal brains. Such chance occurrences for the origination of sexual

fetichism occur in games, in reading, in solitary and mutual

masturbation. Nearly always, in connexion with the genesis of fetichism,

we can prove that there has been some such actual predisposing cause.

In numerous cases of the “greater” fetichism, especially in the category

of the hair fetichists (“plait-cutters”), shoe fetichists, and

handkerchief fetichists, there is also associated a more or less severe

psychopathic constitution, on the foundation of which the fetichistic

impulse has developed as a kind of “=coercive idea=” (obsession). These

are the cases which have the greatest forensic importance, and which

gain publicity.

We shall now proceed to give a brief account of the most important forms

of sexual fetichism, and those most frequently encountered.

First of all, =parts=, =functions=, and =qualities= of the body may

constitute sexual fetiches; the possibilities in this respect, extending

from head to foot, have been enumerated above. Moreover, odd as it may

sound, the =entire human being= may also become a sexual fetich, not as

a whole personality--that would be normal love--but as a =national= or

=racial= individual. In such a case we have the so-called “=racial

fetichism=.” The European newspapers are full of interesting reports of

the peculiar attractive force exercised by exotic individuals, female or

male, such as negroes, Arabs, Abyssinians, Moors, Indians, Japanese,

etc., upon European men and women respectively. Whenever members of such

races come to stay in any European capital, we hear of remarkable love

affairs between white girls and these strangers, of romantic abductions,

and other mad adventures. The novelty, peculiarity, piquancy of the

strange races has the effect of a fetich. The size, the figure, the

physiognomy, tint of skin, smell, tattooing, adornment, costume, speech,

dance, and song, of these savage men exercise a fascinating influence.

White men have from very early times had a peculiar weakness for negroes

and for mulatto women and girls. As early as the eighteenth century

there existed in Paris negro brothels; and somewhat later, after

Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, negroes and negresses came in large

numbers to Paris, and were utilized for the gratification of the lusts

of both sexes.

Notwithstanding the deeply-rooted racial hatred, even in America racial

fetichism gives rise to numerous connexions of this kind. The “coloured

girl” exercises a powerful attractive force upon the American man; and

even the proud American woman manifests, with an especial frequency in

Chicago, a certain preference for the male negro.[628] But much greater

is the alluring force exercised by the white upon the negro. More

especially among civilized negroes does the white woman play the part of

a fetich. This is the explanation of the frequent rape, or attempted

rape, of white girls on the part of negroes--one of the principal causes

of the Southern lynchings.

Among the parts of the body which act as fetiches, we have especially to

mention the hair of woman’s head. “=Hair fetichism=” is widely diffused,

both in the physiological “lesser” form and in the pathological

“greater” form. The abundance and the colour of the hair have an equal

influence in normal love also as a “fetich.” Hair, “of sweetest flesh,

the tenderest, Sweetest growth,” as Eduard Grisebach terms it in his

“Neue Tanhäuser,” has a profound sexual significance; with primitive

man, also, it probably played the same rôle of a sexually stimulating

“veil” which was later played by tattooing and clothing. The hair of the

head, and special modes of arranging that hair, play an important part

in sexual selection among the savage races. The odour of the hair also

has a sexually stimulating influence, and remains persistent in the

imagination. The softness also of the hair, the waving, curling movement

of woman’s loosened hair, and the rustling of the hair, excite the

imagination. But most important of all is the colour of the hair; and in

this respect =blonde= or reddish-blonde hair unquestionably takes the

first rank as a sexual fetich. Blonde hair exercised such an influence

in the days of the Roman Empire. The demi-monde of all times has

utilized this form of hair fetichism, felt by men, for its own purposes,

either by dyeing the hair a fair colour, or by the wearing of

fair-haired wigs. There exist, also, fetichistic impulses towards brown,

black, and red hair respectively. Jon Lehmann tells (_Breslauer

Zeitung_, August 24, 1906) of a great libertine who was happy with any

or all pretty girls, as long as they had not red hair and were not the

daughters of clergymen. Innumerable times had he made this assertion.

Many years later Lehmann found him as the happy husband of--a red-haired

clergyman’s daughter! “C’est l’amour qui a fait cela,” he answered

laconically to the astonished question why he had been so unfaithful to

the principles of his youth.

Hair fetichism manifests itself in various ways. Many people are,

properly speaking, rather smell fetichists than hair fetichists; they

content themselves simply with smelling the hair, and this constitutes

their only, or their principal, sexual gratification. Other hair

fetichists obtain sexual enjoyment by looking at the hair, or by passing

the fingers through it. The following case, reported by Archenholtz

(“England and Italy,” vol. i., p. 448; Leipzig, 1785), is typical:

“I was acquainted with an Englishman who was an honourable man; but he

had a very peculiar taste, which, as he frequently assured me, was

deeply rooted in his soul. His greatest pleasure, which alone could

intoxicate his senses, was to comb the hair of a beautiful woman. He

kept a very handsome mistress for this purpose only. =Love and woman

did not, in the ordinary sense, come under consideration; he had

nothing to do except with her hair.= In the hours that suited him, she

must take down her hair and let him pass his hands through it. This

operation produced in him the most intense degree of physical

voluptuousness.”

The most remarkable class of hair-fetichists are the so-called

“=plait-cutters=.” The transition to this morbid state depends upon the

custom, widely diffused in earlier times, of cutting off and preserving

locks of hair as erotic fetiches. This sexual reliquary cult flourished

especially in the eighteenth century, during the period of “sentiment.”

Friedrich S. Krauss reports (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. i., p. 163) that

among the Southern Slavs young men and women gave one another tufts of

pubic hair as sexual fetiches. The “wig-collectors” also belong to the

category of harmless hair fetichists. More serious are the genuine

“plait-cutters”--persons who are accustomed to cut plaits of hair from

the heads of girls, who are happy in the possession of these plaits, and

who obtain sexual gratification simply by looking at and touching them.

These plait-cutters are almost unquestionably pathological individuals,

who act under the influence of coercive impulses. Recently, in Berlin,

two such cases attracted public attention. The judicial proceedings

connected with the former of these cases elicited such interesting

details regarding the development, psychology, and activity of plait

fetichism that it is worth preserving, and is therefore given here at

length, quoted from a report in the _Berliner Tageblatt_, No. 118, of

March 6, 1906.

PERVERSITIES BEFORE THE LAW COURTS.

The plait-cutter whose arrest attracted so much attention appeared

yesterday in the Assessor’s Court, under the presidency of the

judicial assessor Förster. The accused, Robert S., was a student of

the Technical High School at Charlottenburg. The accused was

prosecuted and defended by counsel. He was born at Valparaiso in the

year 1883. The accusation was that, between the months of November and

January last, he had, in sixteen cases, in the public streets, cut

plaits of hair from the heads of young girls, taking also the ribbons

with which their hair was tied; this charge was one of theft. In

twelve cases also he was accused of bodily maltreatment and actual

injury. Two medical experts were present to advise the court. During

the inquiry the public was excluded from the court, but the

representatives of the Press were admitted.

The accused replied to the inquiries of the President, that he had

come to Germany in the year 1888, and that he had been at school in

Thorn, Bergedorf, and Hamburg. In Hamburg he had passed his final

examination, and had received a good report on leaving. He had always

had a special fondness for mathematics; he had studied for one term at

Munich. He had always worked very hard. He admitted that in sixteen

cases he had cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls in the streets

of Berlin. In his rooms =thirty-one plaits= had been

found.--_President_: Had you such tendencies in earlier

years?--_Accused_: Yes; at the age of sixteen years I secretly, one

evening, cut some hair from the head of my sister, thirteen years of

age, and kept it. I have always had a desire for beautiful long hair;

finally, this desire became so strong that I was unable to resist it

any longer. The first time that I cut some hair from the head of a

girl was the day of the entrance of the Crown Princess. I do not know

why I suddenly was unable to resist the impulse. It became more

powerful after I returned from a journey to South America, which I

made as a voluntary machinist. The voyage lasted five months. I had

worked very hard while on board. During the whole voyage I was in a

gloomy mood, and when I returned the impulse became continually

greater.--_President_: In what way did the impulse affect

you?--_Accused_: I frequently ran after little girls without being

able to gratify the desire to possess their hair. Then I succeeded,

amid the crowd at the entrance festivities Unter den Linden, to cut

some loose hair from the head of a girl with a pair of scissors,

without the girl becoming aware of it.--_President_: What did you do

with the hair?--_Accused_: Nothing at all.--_President_: What did you

think about while you where doing it?--_Accused_: Nothing. I simply

put the hair into my pocket.--_President_: And afterwards?--_Accused_:

Several times Unter den Linden I cut loose hair from girls’

heads.--_President_: When did you begin to cut off entire

plaits?--_Accused_: In November, at the entrance of the King of Spain.

Then, in the “Opernplatz,” I cut a plait from the head of a child; the

girl did not notice it, and I remained quiet. The plait was fastened

with ribbon.--_President_: What did you do with the plait?--_Accused_:

I took it home, combed it, and put it in a box on my writing-table, on

which was the inscription “Mementoes.” I afterwards frequently =took

the hair out and kissed it=. Often I laid it on my pillow and rested

my head on it.--_President_: Were you not fully aware that you were

doing something wrong, and that you were interfering profoundly with

the rights of another individual?--_Accused_: I did not think about

it.--_President_: If the proceedings were now to come to an end, and

if you were discharged, would you do the same thing again?--_Accused_:

I do not think that I should do it again, now that I have experienced

what the consequences are.--_President_: Can you give security that in

the future your will will be stronger than the impulse?--_Accused_: I

cannot give any guarantee.--_President_: Have you never read in the

papers that the citizens of Berlin were very much agitated by this

cutting off of girls’ hair?--_Accused_: I have read nothing of the

kind.--_President_: When were you arrested?--_Accused_: On January 27.

From a girl whose hair was plaited in two plaits I cut one plait; when

she came near me again, I wanted to cut off the other plait, and then

I was arrested.--_President_: Is it true that you put a ribbon round

each plait of hair, and marked it with the date you had cut it

off?--_Accused_: To some extent I did so.--_President_: Have you ever

had sexual relations with woman?--_Accused_: No, never. I have only

had a strong impulse to gain possession of beautiful long

hair.--_President_: Would not long beautiful men’s hair have satisfied

you as well?--_Accused_: Yes.--_Counsel for the Defence_: Did you not

have this morbid impulse in quite early youth? You told me that you

remembered the hair of many girls from the time that you were at

school in Thorn. At that time you were eight years old. You said to

me that you had thought no more about the persons to whom the hair

belonged, but only, and all the more, about their hair.--_Accused_:

That is correct. It is indifferent to me whether the person to whom

the hair belonged is young and beautiful or old and ugly: my only

interest is in the hair.--_President_: Have you the same interest in

white hair?--_Accused_: My attraction is only to fair hair.--In reply

to a further question on the part of the President, the accused

declared that he had been a very active member of the academic

gymnastic club, and that he belonged to a students’ purity

alliance.--_Counsel for the Defence_: The accused has stated that,

while he is at work, it often happens that suddenly plaits of hair

seem to appear before his eyes. He often has reveries in which it

seems to him that in all countries women and girls with beautiful hair

are at his disposal, and that he is able to rob them of their hair.

Among his colleagues the accused has always felt himself to be thrust

into the background. He had the feeling that he was =destined for

great things=, and that his comrades would not recognize this. The

accused, whose father is dead, had received assistance for his

studies; his brother is an officer at sea; one of his sisters is

mentally disordered.--Of the witnesses who had been summoned to

attend, three only were examined. Captain von W., whose daughter, when

walking in the Leipzigerstrasse, had been robbed of part of her hair

by the accused, gave evidence that the affair had had very

disagreeable consequences to his daughter. Since that time the child

had suffered from a terrible feeling of anxiety; she had experienced a

nervous shock, and frequently cried out anxiously in the middle of the

night, because she was dreaming of the plait-cutter.--The next

witness, Frau Gall, an old acquaintance of the family of the accused,

described his character as exceptionally good. All who knew him had

been astonished to hear of his actions; no one who knew him had ever

observed this passion for hair. Recently he had obviously been

overstrained mentally, and very distrait; generally speaking, he was

not high-spirited and happy, like other young fellows. According to

further evidence given by this witness, regarding the family history,

it appeared that the accused was affected with congenital

taint.--Undergraduate Schmeding, President of “the Alliance for the

Maintenance of Chastity,” had become intimately acquainted with the

accused, in consequence of their holding similar views. He described

him as having a good character, but as dreamy, melancholy, and

reserved, and unfamiliar with harmless cheerfulness and joy.--Dr.

Hoffmann, one of the medical advisers to the court, said: We have in

this case to do with a peculiar mode of activity of the sexual

impulse. Although such an impulse does not completely abrogate

responsibility, still, in this case, normal responsibility is greatly

limited from early youth onwards. The accused has an imaginative

belief that he is not sufficiently esteemed; he believes that he could

make himself invisible; he believes that he could build a great

castle, and furnish the rooms of this castle with innumerable plaits

of hair. Moreover, he is =hereditarily tainted with insanity=, and

bodily examination shows that he has =numerous stigmata of

degeneration=. § 51 of the Criminal Code should apply to this case.

Since the accused can hardly be supposed to have the power of

controlling his impulse, it would appear necessary that he should be

treated in a lunatic asylum.--Dr. Leppmann, the other medical adviser,

said: The case before us is one of extreme rarity. The accused

suffers from severe congenital taint, and exhibits a number of

stigmata of degeneration. At the time his offences were committed the

accused was certainly emotionally disturbed, and at the present time

is still ill. Von Krafft-Ebing reports only a few such cases, and the

same is true of Dr. Moll. The accused was incapable of free voluntary

determination; he is still unhealthy, and must be treated as a sick

man.--_Counsel for the Prosecution_: If the accused had been in

possession of normal mental health, it would have been necessary to

punish him with exceptional severity, for such offences as his

profoundly endangered public security; it would not be right for any

gaps to exist in our Criminal Code which made the punishment of such

an offence impossible. We may dispute in detail under which paragraph

the offence comes, but there can be no question but that it is a

punishable offence. The medical experts had, however, shown that the

accused was not fully sane, and he must be dealt with from this

standpoint.

The President summed up as follows: The public sense of justice

naturally demands severe punishment for such an offence. The accused,

however, is not criminally responsible. In view of the evidence given

by the medical experts, the accused must be discharged, on the

understanding that his family will immediately take steps to have him

confined in an asylum. It was possible that this decision would not

satisfy every one, but in view of the evidence before the court, no

other course was possible.

This case appears to have had a suggestive influence, for shortly

afterwards a cashier, Alfred L., was arrested, who had cut plaits of

hair from the heads of two young girls. In his home were found, in

addition, seventeen plaits of hair, which he had =bought=, among these

the queue of a Chinese! Already when a schoolboy L. had been affected

with this morbid impulse.

There exist also homosexual or pseudo-homosexual hair fetichists,

especially among women, to whom the hair of another woman’s head becomes

a fetich. Remarkable is the following passage in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s

romance “Lust” (pp. 210-212; Berlin, 1902):

“‘Do you remember,’ asked Donna Francesca (of her friend Donna Maria),

‘at school, how we all wished to comb your hair? how we used to fight

about it every day? Imagine, Andreas, that blood used actually to

flow! Ah, I shall never forget the scenes between Carlotta Fiordelise

and Gabriella Vanni. It was maniacal! To comb the hair of Maria

Bandinelli was the one ardent desire of all the girls, great and small

alike. The infection spread through the whole school. There followed

prohibitions, warnings, severe punishment; we were even threatened

with having our own hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? All our

heads were bewitched by the black snake which hung from your head to

your heels. What passionate tears every evening! And when Gabriella

Vanni, from jealousy, made that treacherous cut with a pair of

scissors! Gabriella had really lost her wits. Do you remember?...’”

“Andreas remarked that none of his lady friends had had such a growth

of hair, so thick, so dark a forest, in which she could conceal

herself. The history of all these young girls, in love with a plait of

hair, filled with passion and jealousy, who burned to lay comb and

hands upon this living treasure, seemed to him a most stimulating and

poetic episode of cloistral life.”

There exists also a negative hair fetichism. Hirschfeld reports the case

of a prostitute who was a well-developed fetichist for baldness. Among

many races, removal of the hair is a means of sexual stimulation.

Nose, lips, mouth (_cf._ Belot’s novel, “La Bouche de Madame X.”), and

ears, can all become the objects of sexual fetichism, though in most

cases only of the lesser fetichism; the eyes also, which as fetichistic

charms play an important part, and are effective especially through

their colour. It is uncertain if, in this relationship, clear blue eyes

or sparkling black eyes have the greater importance. The female breast

is a natural physiological fetich for the male sex. But over and above

this there exists a remarkable variety of breast fetichists, who employ

the isolated breast, separated from the body, for the binding of books.

According to Witkowski (“Tetoniana,” p. 35; Paris, 1898), certain

bibliomaniacs and erotomaniacs have books bound with women’s skin taken

from the region of the breast, so that the nipple forms a characteristic

swelling on the cover! A further account of these human skin fetichists

is given by Dr. Picard in the _Gazette Médicale de Paris_, July 19,

1906.

Von Krafft-Ebing contests the existence of a special “=genital

fetichism=”; but the universal diffusion of the phallus-cult contradicts

his opinion; the phallus-cult is unquestionably connected with

fetichistic ideas, which are embodied in the symbols of the lingam and

the yoni. According to Weininger,[629] woman, speaking generally, is

=only= a phallus fetichist; man exists for her only as a sexual organ.

“I think people have been unwilling to see--or they have been

unwilling to say; they have hardly formed accurate idea for

themselves--what the copulatory organ of a man is for a woman, as

wife, even as virgin; what it psychologically signifies; how it

dominates to the uttermost the entire life of woman, although she

herself may be completely unconscious of the fact. I do not mean at

all that woman regards the male penis as beautiful, or even pretty.

She regards it as man regards the Gorgon’s head, as the bird regards

the snake--it exercises upon her a hypnotizing, magical, fascinating

influence.”

Goethe lays stress on the beauty which the male penis has in woman’s

eyes, when, in the paralipomena to the first part of “Faust” (Weimar

edition, vol. xiv., p. 307), he makes Satan say in his address to women:

“Für euch sind zwei Dinge

Von köstlichem Glanz,

Das leuchtende Gold

Und ein glänzender....”

Georg Hirth also (“Ways to Love,” pp. 566, 567) speaks of an instinctive

belief on the part of woman in the “beauty and the paradisaical force of

the phallus,” and he regrets “the unnatural depreciation and mendacious

concealment of this portion of the male body” by the conventional

morality discovered by the world of men.

The wide diffusion of the genital fetichistic tendencies in man and

woman is clearly manifested by the extremely frequent occurrence of

isolated adoration of the genital organs in the practices of

cunnilinctus and fellatio, which in numerous individuals completely

replace normal coitus.

Very rare is a case, which came under my own observation, of isolated

penis-foreskin fetichism in a heterosexual man. He is thirty years of

age, and a student of natural science, in whom at the age of four

years the first manifestation of sexual excitement occurred; later,

towards the age of puberty, sexual excitement became always associated

with the mental representation of a male penis, and more especially of

the foreskin of that organ, whilst he felt antipathy to the idea of

actual sexual intercourse with men, and felt attracted to women.

Still, from time to time the imaginative representation of the membrum

virile takes possession of his mind as a sort of coercive idea, and

when this happens the patient masturbates, at the same time often

making sketches of a penis.

A singular case of exclusively genital fetichism is reported by P.

Garnier (“Les Fetichistes,” pp. 170-174; Paris, 1896).

This case was that of a man, forty-eight years of age, who in normal

sexual intercourse was almost completely impotent, and who could

obtain sexual gratification only by the =observation of the genital

organs of human beings and animals=, and who, as in the case just

mentioned, was sexually excited by making sketches of genital organs.

This person exhibited obvious symptoms of nervous disorder.

We might regard it as hardly possible that cases should exist in

which the fetichism related to genital organs of a dubious

character--“hermaphrodite fetichism”; and yet a veritable case of such

hermaphrodite fetichism has come under my own observation.

The case is that of an officer, who is always searching for

hermaphroditic formations of the genital organs. He is pretty well

known in this respect among the prostitutes of Berlin, who make use of

his inclination for their own advantage, by a demonstration to him of

reputed hermaphrodites. He has had the good fortune to discover

several real hermaphrodites; but notwithstanding all his endeavours,

his affection has never been returned.

The hand, especially a woman’s hand, is not simply an object for

cheiromancy, but is also the occasion of a sexual fetichism by which the

hand is spiritualized. The beautiful, finely-formed hand is a powerful

love-charm. Binet reports the case of a young man in whom sexual

excitement was exclusively produced by a woman’s hand, and he was always

on the look-out for opportunities of touching the beautiful hands of

women. Isolated foot fetichism is rarer; it is generally associated with

the very common shoe fetichism (_vide infra_). The buttocks, the

kallipygian charms of women, have always been a sexual fetich for men.

Among flagellants this may become isolated as a fetich, and completely

divorced from the personality as a whole. For such individuals, in

sexual relationships, only the posteriora exist.

Among the bodily functions which are capable of acting as fetiches, the

=smell=, the emanation of the body, unquestionably takes the first

place. Smell fetichism is a very frequent phenomenon. Regarding the

intimate relationships between the sense of smell and the _vita

sexualis_, and regarding the existence of certain specific sexual

odours, I have already recorded the most important facts in the first

chapter of the present work (pp. 15-18). As sexual odours, the emanation

from the hair of the head, the emanation from the armpits, the smell of

the genital region, and the general emanation from the skin, come under

consideration.[630]

The fetichism for red hair is frequently no more than an apparent hair

fetichism; much more often it is really a smell fetichism, because since

early times red-haired individuals have been supposed to emit an

emanation having a powerful sexually exciting influence. In the Romance

countries, France and Italy, this belief is universally diffused. I

quote another passage from d’ Annunzio’s “Lust” (p. 66):

“‘Have you noticed the armpits of Madame Chlysoloras?’ The Duke of

Beffi indicated the dancer, upon whose alabaster forehead a firebrand

of red hair was shining, like that which we see in the priestesses of

Alma Tadema. Her bodice was fastened on the shoulders by very narrow

straps, and in the armpits one could see two luxuriant tufts of red

hair.

“Bomminaco begins to speak at large regarding the peculiar odour which

is diffused by red-haired women.”

Binet tells of a student of medicine who one day, when sitting on a

bench reading, suddenly had an erection of the penis, and on looking

round he saw sitting on the same bench a red-haired woman, whom he had

not before consciously observed, from whom a powerful odour emanated.

The =odour of the armpits= also appears in France to find fetichistic

lovers. The French cocotte commonly assumes during coitus a position in

which the man has his nose in one of her armpits, and sometimes

spontaneously offers this position. At the unrestrained dances in the

Parisian winter season, more especially at the very free _bal des quat’z

arts_, held in the spring, we frequently see the men sniffing at the

armpits of the girls.

It is unquestionable that the odour of the body at large may in certain

circumstances act as a sexual fetich. Many peculiar love relationships

prove this fact. From very early times among the common people the odour

of sweat has been regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac. I may allude to

the case, reported by von Krafft-Ebing, of King Henry III., who dried

his face with the chemise of Maria of Cleves, dripping with sweat, and

thereby was inspired with a passionate love for her. I may refer also to

the case of a peasant who, when dancing, was accustomed to dry the face

of his partner with his handkerchief, which he had carried in his own

armpit, and thus produced in her voluptuous excitement. An Indian king,

when choosing his beloved, did so simply by smelling the clothing

moistened by their perspiration, and selected the woman whose clothing

was most agreeable to his sense of smell.[631] Oscar A. H. Schmitz

informed me that an English traveller in India related to him that in

India lovers sometimes changed underclothing. Each wears the shirt

impregnated with the perspiration of the other. The love of Princess

Chimay for the gipsy Rigó is stated to have been a typical “smell-love”

of this kind. It is said that the odour of negresses and mulattresses

has an especially powerful exciting influence upon Frenchmen, of which

the poet Baudelaire is mentioned as an example; this writer declared

that smell was the third and highest degree of voluptuousness. Recently

Peter Altenberg, in “Prodromos,” has described the sexual importance of

the odour of the body at large. Such typical smell fetichists,

luxuriating in the general emanation of the feminine body, are mentioned

by Macé, the chief of the Parisian police. He describes very vividly

how, in the larger shops, such men move about among the feminine

customers, in order to intoxicate themselves with the odours proceeding

from them.

In opposition to these general bodily odours, the specific genital

odours play in the human species a subordinate part; they are for the

most part perceived as unpleasant. Falck[632] is of opinion that this

antipathy only becomes apparent after sexual intercourse, whilst before

such intercourse the odour of the genital organs has a slight erotic

stimulating influence. Many cases of cunnilinctus and fellatio are

certainly referable to olfactory impressions. The following case is

plainly indicative of the sexual influence of genital odours:

An Italian woman loved, after sexual intercourse, to retain on her

hands the odour of the genital secretions, and on such occasions,

although usually a scrupulously clean person, she avoided washing her

hands. She was especially fond of mingling this odour with that of

cigarette smoke. She was entirely free from stigmata of degeneration;

on the contrary, she was an extremely robust, well-developed person.

One of the most remarkable and monstrous phenomena in the domain of

sexual perversities is that by which the =processes and products of the

ultimate stages of metabolism= become associated with libido sexualis,

become true sexual fetiches, and can more especially give rise to a

formal speciality of smell fetichism. The position of the orifices of

the alimentary canal and of the urinary apparatus in the =immediate

neighbourhood= of the genital organs gives rise to a certain associative

conjunction between the functions of these parts, and this association

is rendered more intimate by various circumstances (_cf._ my

“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp.

224, 225). In addition, the idealizing influence of libido sexualis

plays a part here; the identification of the desired individual with the

lover’s own ego leads the disagreeable and disgusting character of those

processes and parts to disappear, and ultimately brings about a

comparison between the real æsthetic charm of the beloved person and the

coarsely material processes in question, which takes the form of a

sensually stimulating contrast. There is not in this case any quite

unusual association of ideas on the part of a completely degenerate

individual; we have rather to do with a =general anthropological and

ethnological phenomenon=. I was myself the first to give an elaborate

proof of this fact (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia

Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 223-240); and I illuminated more especially the

remarkable rôle of the so-called “=skatology=”--that is, the sexual

influence of the ultimate products of human metabolism, and of the

processes associated therewith--in =folk-lore=, in =mythology=, in

=superstition=, and in the =literature of all nations and times=. In

this way do we first arrive at an understanding of the possibility of an

erotic influence exercised by defæcation and micturition, which is so

often observed at the present day; above all, in the so-called “=muse

latrinale=”--in the widely diffused practice of scribbling obscene

inscriptions on the walls of public lavatories[633]--which finds

expression also in sexual “=copralagnia and urolagnia=.”

Compare, in this connexion, S. Soukhanoff, “Contribution à l’Étude des

Perversions Sexuelles,” published in _Annales Médico-Psycologiques_,

January and February, 1901--a case of urolagnia and copralagnia in a

habitual masturbator, twenty-seven years of age. A remarkable case of

sexual excitement produced by the odour of newly made hay, in a lawyer,

twenty-five years of age, is reported by Amrain (“Anthropophyteia,” vol.

iv., p. 237). This person took off all his clothes, and rolled as if

intoxicated in the hay, until ejaculation occurred. He called his

impulse a “vis major.”

It is clear that masochistic and sadistic elements play an important

part in many cases of urolagnia and copralagnia. But there are pure

forms of smell fetichism in this category, as we see in the case of

those persons who become sexually excited in consequence of the smell of

the urine and fæces of the beloved person; or, speaking generally, by

the smell of those excrements, the person from whom they are derived

being a matter of indifference. These are the _renifleurs_ and

_épongeurs_ of the French observers, who haunt public lavatories in

order to obtain sexual excitement from the smell of the excrements of

persons of the opposite sex. There even exist individuals who have the

acts of defæcation and micturition performed by others on to their own

bodies; in this case the masochistic element is associated with the

element of smell fetichism.

A greater rôle than that of the natural sexual odours is at the present

day played by =artificial perfumes=, which, as a fact, are frequently

employed as sexual fetiches. Their origin, and the cause of their use,

has been already explained (p. 17). From early times prostitution and

the demi-monde have made the most extensive use of these artificial

scents for the sexual allurement of men. Men are, in general, more

sensitive to sexual stimulation by means of perfumes than women are.

These perfumes are partly derived from plants; in fact, the simple odour

of certain flowers produces sexual excitement--a fact well known to many

peasant girls.[634] Other sexually stimulating scents are derived from

the animal kingdom, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. A French firm of

perfumers advertises a perfume--“charme secret”--the local employment of

which is clearly suggested in the advertisement. But in most cases only

a portion of the clothing or underclothing is perfumed. There exist

typical perfume fetichists, who can, as a rule, be sexually excited only

by means of some definite perfume, in the absence of which they are

impotent.

In comparison with smell, =taste= plays a very minor part. Still, a

primevally old popular custom, the use of “priapistic flavouring

agents,” rests upon fetichistic ideas of this kind. Cunnilinctus and

fellatio are perhaps also committed with the desire to taste the genital

organs; just as the same must be the case with those not very rare

practices in which flavouring agents or beverages are brought into

contact with the genital organs, are impregnated, as it were, with their

essence, and then swallowed. To this belongs also the following original

case:

A man obtains sexual gratification only in this way: by introducing a

cigar, small end first, into the female genital passage, leaving it

there a long time, and then smoking it, with the end thus impregnated

in his mouth.

There exist many other forms of fetichism. It is impossible to enumerate

all these varieties. I shall, for example, refer only to the not

uncommon fetichism of women for athletes and acrobats, or for singers

and actors; and to that of men for dancers, and especially for

horsewomen, whose appearance has quite a fascinating influence on many

men, more particularly when they are actually on horseback.

Analogous to the previously described hermaphrodite fetichism is

fetichism for other bodily defects, as for obese, lame, and hunchbacked

persons.

Von Krafft-Ebing reported the case of a man who loved only girls with

a limp, which I can parallel by an observation of my own. A merchant,

thirty-two years of age (with slight stigmata of

degeneration--Darwinian pointed ears, slight asymmetry of the

skull--but in other respects with a very powerful build of body, and

having performed his year’s service in the cavalry), who since ten

years of age has been addicted to excessive masturbation, =is potent

only in intercourse with a girl who limps=. He cannot state when this

perversion first manifested itself in him. In any case, it has

developed into a typical fetichism.

To this category belong, also, the abnormal love towards =elderly=

individuals, heterosexual “gerontophilia,” and the fetichistic influence

of certain peculiarities of character. Thus, it is an old experience

that a Don Juanesque, bold, and self-assertive appearance on the part of

men, and even depravity and sexual lawlessness, exercise a fascinating

influence upon many women. This is, as it were, homologous to the

previously described influence of prostitutes and fast women upon men.

A peculiar fetich is constituted also by the human =voice=. A

sympathetic voice has often been the cause of a violent love passion.

Singers, both men and women, know something of this powerful fetichistic

charm of the voice.

Finally, sexual fetichism can extend to objects in relationship with the

beloved person, or with any human individual (“=object fetichism=”), and

this is very readily accounted for by the =personification= and

=spiritualization= of these objects of human use, and especially of

clothing, which appears to be a =part of the personality= itself, and so

quite naturally becomes a sexual fetich. (See the detailed description

given on p. 140 _et seq._)

Among the various forms of clothing fetichism, by far the commonest is

=shoe fetichism=, or “=retifism=.” After the Marquis de Sade, who in his

writings described the most important sexual perversions, active

algolagnia has been termed “sadism”; and after Sacher-Masoch, passive

algolagnia has been termed “masochism.” I consider, therefore, that with

the same and even greater justification, as I have already suggested in

my work on Rétif de la Bretonne,[635] foot and shoe fetichism may be

denoted by the term “retifism,” for it is this sexual perversion which

manifests itself most markedly in Rétif’s life (1734-1806), and in him,

also, this perversion found its first literary interpreter and apostle,

in exactly the same manner as sadism was made known in wider circles by

de Sade and masochism by Sacher-Masoch. Rétif first described typical

foot fetichism and shoe fetichism, and also wrote the first history of

this subject. In him this tendency appeared at the early age of ten

years, as he relates (vol. i., pp. 90-93) in his celebrated

autobiography--a work greatly admired by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and

other heroes of our classical literature. In this place, also, he gives

a very good explanation of the genesis of foot fetichism and shoe

fetichism:

“This fondness for beautiful feet, =which in me is so strong that it

unfailingly arouses my most powerful lust, and leads me to ignore any

ugliness in other respects=--does it arise from any physical or

emotional predisposition? In all those who have this peculiarity it is

very strong. Is it connected with any preference for an easy gait, for

a gracious, voluptuous, dancing movement? The peculiar attraction

which the foot-covering exercises is only the reflex of the preference

for beautiful feet, which stimulate even an animal. =Thus a man comes

to prize the covering almost as much as the thing itself.= The passion

which, since childhood, I have felt for such beautiful foot-coverings

was an acquired inclination, which, however, rested on a natural

preference. But the love for a small foot has a physical basis, which

finds expression in the Latin proverb, ‘Parvus pes, barathrum

grande.’”

Rétif was a typical shoe fetichist. He trembled with desire on viewing a

woman’s shoe; he blushed when he saw it, as if it were the girl herself.

As a true fetichist, he =collected= the slippers and shoes of his

mistresses; he kissed them, and smelled them, and sometimes masturbated

into them. Especially fascinating to him were the =high heels= of

women’s shoes, a sight of which sufficed to produce in him intense

sexual excitement.

Shoe-fetichism existed in ancient times, and long ago it was assumed

that there was a relationship between the foot and the _vita sexualis_.

References to this matter will be found in my earlier work,

“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp.

323-325. In modern shoe-fetichism masochistic ideas (ideas of being

trodden on, of placing the beloved’s foot on the back of the neck) or

sadistic ideas (ideas of treading upon the beloved’s feet, etc.) played

a part; also there were associated sensations of smell proceeding from

the leather; the colour of the shoes is likewise of importance. The

“foot-wooers”--thus are the shoe fetichists named in the speech of

prostitutes--have the most varied inclinations in respect of different

shapes and fashions of shoes. One loves ladies’ boots, another

riding-boots, a third dancing-shoes, a fourth slippers, a fifth actually

loves coarse wooden peasants’ shoes. Also, in respect of ornamentation,

colour, heels, etc., fancies vary. In one case known to me, a clergyman

was purely a heel fetichist. Hirschfeld records (“The Nature of Love,”

p. 148) the case of a man who was sexually excited only by means of the

ankle-wrinkles in boots; also the case of a woman who was fascinated by

the dusty boots of men, etc.[636]

Of other articles of clothing, the =corset=, =petticoat=, =chemise=,

=apron=, and, more especially, =stockings= and =handkerchiefs=, form

objects of sexual fetichism. Félicien Rops appears to have been at once

a corset fetichist and a stocking fetichist, for he frequently draws

feminine figures naked, except in respect of their wearing corset and

stockings. There are many men who are able to complete intercourse with

a woman only when she keeps on her stockings or shoes. Others are

excited only by the articles of clothing; for instance, they represent

in imagination corset shops, in order, by looking at the corsets, to

produce orgasm and ejaculation; or they collect or steal[637] feminine

underclothing, especially handkerchiefs, in order to obtain sexual

excitement from smelling or looking at these, or to masturbate with

them. Finally, there exist fetichists for particular materials, such as

fur (loved especially by masochists), satin, silk, or even entire

costumes, such as a woman’s riding-dress, tights, mourning, etc. D’Estoc

describes, under the name “la course des araignées” (“the spider race”),

the appearance of twenty women in a brothel, who were clothed only in

long black gloves reaching to the shoulders and long black stockings. In

the Berlin newspapers there recently appeared an account of the

fetichism of a prince for long “gants de suède” on slender women’s arms.

Unique in its kind would appear to be the case of the spectacle

fetichist, of which Hirschfeld gives an account (_op. cit._, pp. 145,

146).

[627] M. Hirschfeld has therefore suggested the apt name “partial

attraction” for fetichism; unfortunately, no adjective can be formed

from this term, so that for practical purposes the foreign word is

more applicable.

[628] _Cf._ Felix Baumann, “From Darkest America,” pp. 10, 41.

[629] “Sex and Character,” pp. 340, 341.

[630] In the second volume of “Anthropophyteia” (1905, pp. 445-447),

under the title, “The Sense of Smell in Relation to the Vita

Sexualis,” I have published a contribution to this interesting theme.

I addressed questions regarding the matter to various authorities; and

among the answers I obtained, I must mention more especially those of

Dr. Th. Petermann and Oscar A. H. Schmitz, to whom I owe valuable

accounts and observations, which are in part utilized in the present

chapter.

[631] Witmalett, “Man and Woman in Conjugal Union,” p. 48 (Leipzig and

Stuttgart); J. P. Frank, “System of a Complete Medicinal Polity,” vol.

ii., pp. 78, 79 (Frankenthal, 1791).

[632] N. D. Falck, “Treatise on Venereal Diseases.”

[633] Martial alludes (“Epigrams,” xii. 61, verses 7-10) to the

obscene “carmina quæ legunt cacantes.”

[634] Many women are sexually excited by the flowers of the garden

chestnut-tree, the smell of which resembles that of the semen of the

male. A correspondent has communicated to me several observations of

this nature from the Taunus district. G. d’Anunzio (“Lust,” p. 10)

also describes the awakening of libido sexualis in woman by the

smelling of a bouquet of flowers.

[635] Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “Rétif de la Bretonne: the Man, the

Author, and the Reformer” (Berlin, 1906).

[636] _Cf._, regarding shoe fetichism, also the work of P. Näcke, “Un

Cas de Fétichisme de Souliers, etc.,” published in the _Bulletin de la

Société de Médicine Mentale de Belgique_, 1894.

[637] The Berlin newspapers, a few years ago, were full of accounts of

such a thief, who stole underclothing (_cf._ _Berliner Tageblatt_, No.

465, September 13, 1903). He was the terror of all housewives in the

western suburbs of Berlin. Ultimately he was caught, and proved to be

a workman, K. W. by name. In his house the police found a varied

assortment of underclothing.

CHAPTER XXIII

ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH CHILDREN, INCEST, ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH

CORPSES AND ANIMALS (BESTIALITY), EXHIBITIONISM, AND OTHER SEXUAL

PERVERSITIES. APPENDIX: THE TREATMENT OF SEXUAL PERVERSITIES.

“_But what a source of devastation is a public or private teacher of

youth, when his heart is impure!_... _What a tragic example of

misleading is he who, himself in a position imposing upon him the duty

of leading others towards virtue, is animated by the most detestable

of all passions._”--JOHANN PETER FRANK.

CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXIII

Acts of fornication on the part of adults with children -- “Pædophilia

erotica” -- Superstitious motives -- Shunammitism -- As a popular

custom -- Opportunity as a cause of pædophilia -- Its frequency among

menservants and schoolmasters -- Acts of fornication with children

less than six years of age -- Examples -- With children between the

ages of six and fourteen years -- Alluring influence of _fruits verts_

upon debauchees -- Causes -- The mania for defloration -- Other causal

factors of acts of fornication with children -- Examples.

Early appearance of the sexual impulse in children -- Causes -- In the

country -- The _demi-vierge_ type -- Early puberty in girls --

Examples of sexual intercourse between children -- Child prostitution

-- Parisian flower-girls -- Match-selling girls and “music pupils” of

Berlin -- Blackmail -- Causes of child prostitution.

Incest -- Causes -- Incest in France -- Sexual relationship with a

third individual on the part of two persons closely related to one

another.

Acts of fornication with animals (zoophilia, bestiality) -- Genuine

zoophilia -- A remarkable case thereof -- Causes of bestiality -- Its

frequency in the country -- Report of cases -- Bestiality on the part

of a woman -- Reputed seduction of human beings by animals.

Acts of fornication with corpses (necrophilia) -- Motives -- Symbolic

necrophilia -- Love of statues -- Influence of museums on uncultured

individuals -- Sexual intercourse with statues -- Pygmalionism -- Acts

of fornication with objects resembling the human body -- “Dames et

hommes de voyage” -- Exhibitionism -- Morbid foundation of this --

Other motives -- Masturbation as a cause -- A remarkable case of

exhibitionism -- “Frotteurs” -- Example -- Voyeurs -- Secret sexual

clubs -- “Essayeurs” -- “Stercoraires platoniques” -- Pædication --

Opium, hashish, and ether employed for sexual purposes -- Use of these

drugs in Paris -- Sexual fantasies of the opium smoker.

_Appendix: The Treatment of Sexual Perversions._ -- Importance of

psychological factors in the treatment of sexual perversions --

Management of the primary trouble -- Psycho-therapeutics and

suggestive therapeutics -- Verbal suggestions -- Confidence in the

knowledge of the physician -- Sexual perversions as diseases of the

will -- Need for the education of the will -- Suggestion in the waking

state -- Suggestion by means of letters -- By means of hypnosis --

Special prescriptions.

CHAPTER XXIII

One of the most tragic, but unfortunately one of the most frequent, of

occurrences is =premature sexual intercourse on the part of

children=--partly resulting from =acts of fornication by adults with

children=, partly resulting from =premature awakening of the sexual

impulse in children, and premature sexual activity on their part=. These

two varieties of premature sexual intercourse in children must be

sharply distinguished each from the other.

The alleged increase of sexual offences in which children are concerned

is by von Krafft-Ebing wrongly associated with the more widely diffused

nervousness of recent generations. As a matter of fact, such offences

have occurred at all times and among all peoples, with no less frequency

than at the present day. “Erotic pædophilia” is a very widely diffused

phenomenon. It arises from superstitious[638] grounds; as, for example,

from the belief which prevails in many countries that venereal and

other diseases are cured by copulation with an intact child. The

primeval belief that intercourse with immature girls prolonged life,

that an emanation from them rejuvenated old men (the so-called

“=Shunammitism=”[639]), led in former times, and leads even at the

present day, to acts of fornication with children. Less commonly do

timidity and impotence on the part of adult men, rendering intercourse

with adult women difficult or impossible, give rise to the seduction or

rape of defenceless and unsuspicious children. The act of fornication

with children as a =popular custom= is a symptom of a primitive degree

of civilization, and is therefore met with, even at the present day,

among savage nations, a matter regarding which Ploss-Bartels gives

detailed accounts.

Passing to consider the cause of acts of fornication with children =at

the present day=, and the means by which such acts are effected,

unquestionably =opportunity= plays an important part in their

production. All those persons who by their occupation are brought into

prolonged diurnal and nocturnal association with children, and are

frequently alone with them, such as menservants, nursemaids,

governesses, housekeepers, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, the

directors and other officials of orphan asylums, etc., constitute a

disproportionately large contingent of those who commit offences under §

176^{3} and § 182 of the Criminal Code. This does not arise from

exceptional criminality on the part of these persons as compared with

those belonging to other professions, but simply and solely from the

fact that they are continually alone with children, and that any sexual

excitement which may arise is thus directed towards these, because no

adult is there. Sometimes a morbid neuropathic or psychopathic

constitution plays a part; but more commonly we have to do simply with

lasciviousness and sensuality, which avails itself of the opportunity

thus offered.

Rétif de la Bretonne warned parents regarding menservants and nursemaids

as seducers of children. These persons are apt to execute unchaste acts

with children =in the very first years of life=; in order to gratify

their own voluptuousness, they play with the genital organs of these

poor innocents, and thus prematurely awaken sexual sensibility, and

often give rise to premature onanistic habits. These acts of impropriety

carried on with small children--which must be sharply distinguished from

those with older children, the cases being classified as relating in the

first place to children under six years of age, and in the second place

to children between the ages of six and fourteen years--are far commoner

than is usually imagined, and perhaps even more dangerous in respect of

the bodily and mental development of the child, than the second variety

of unchaste acts, with older children. In most cases it is persons of

the female sex who misuse small children in this way, and often this

arises from the fear of impregnation resulting from intercourse with an

adult man. Generally we have to do with a lascivious disposition, as,

for example, in the following cases, which came under my own

observation:

In one of these cases a woman seduced a boy four years of age to the

performance of systematic improper acts; in the other case, a boy of

five years of age was taken (_horribile dictu_) by his own mother into

her bed, and taught to perform coitus with her, in so far as this was

possible, and also to perform manipulations with her genital organs.

The little boy repeated this practice with his sister, three years of

age, and, being caught in the act, he confessed the whole history.

A boy aged four played freely with his own genital organs, and also

made peculiar coitus-like movements in bed, and in contact with his

mother. When the latter, greatly alarmed, asked him how he had learned

to do this, he explained that a young woman twenty years of age,

living in the house, had performed these manipulations with him.

Magnan also reports (“Lectures on Mental Disorders,” Nos. 2 and 3, p.

41) the case of a lady, twenty-nine years of age, who performed sexual

acts with her nephew, aged five.

These cases rarely attain publicity, because they usually remain

undiscovered. Fornicatory acts with children, such as are frequently

alluded to in the newspapers, chiefly concern children between the ages

of six and fourteen years. In these cases the offences are most often

committed by schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, or by private tutors

and governesses. We further often find other women undertaking such

acts, displaying a sexual activity which they have no opportunity of

satisfying in intercourse with full-grown men. In the third place,

debauchees and exhausted _roués_ seek new and piquant excitement by

intercourse with such _fruits verts_. Of such Laurent writes:[640]

“They have used and misused woman; they have explored all the stages

of natural and unnatural love; they have visited Lesbos and Paphos;

and they have experienced every possible sexual artificiality. Their

sexual desires have become torpid, their manliness is on the decline,

and sexual death approaches. But the more exhausted they are, the less

willing are they patiently to acquiesce in their loss. It is with them

as with inebriates who are full to the throat and still continue to

drink. One day they notice a little girl in the street and feel

stimulated by her youthful charms. Thus their love begins.”

The =blameless=, the =natural=, and the =pure=, in the essence of the

child and of the intact virgin, has a stimulating influence upon such

perverted individuals: it acts as a =contrast= to their own sexual

shamelessness and artificiality. The contrast, in fact, has the effect

of a most powerful stimulus. Nor can we fail to recognize the existence

in such cases also of a =sadistic= element in the performance of coitus

with a defenceless child, and in the sanguinary act of defloration of an

immature individual. In the eighties there flourished in England such a

“=mania for defloration=,” the scandalous details of which were

illustrated in a lurid light by the revelations of the _Pall Mall

Gazette_.[641] With regard to this sadistic element in acts of

fornication with children, we must take into account the possibility

that in the corporal punishment of children by the teacher may have

originated the awakening of the latter’s sexual activities,[642] and

that in this we may find the cause of the beginning of sexual

relationships between teacher and pupil.

Other not infrequent causes of the sexual misuse of children are to be

found in =alcoholic intoxication= and in =senile dementia=. =Tramps=,

also, who have for a long time been deprived of the opportunity of

intercourse with women, are apt to gratify their long-repressed libido

on the body of the first child they meet. =Child labour in factories=

also offers opportunities for fornicatory acts with children.

A few especially striking instances of acts of fornication with children

are appended:

1. The son of a greengrocer, A., twenty years of age, living in the

Keibelstrasse, had for a long time immoral intercourse with the

eight-year-old daughter of the milkman W., in the same street. He had

not only violated her, but had committed other injuries. The young

fellow continued his immoral conduct after he had become infected with

venereal disease, and therefore naturally infected the girl. She

became so ill that she had to be confined to bed, and the doctor who

was called in diagnosed venereal infection. Notwithstanding this, the

little girl continued to lie about the matter, and only after a

whipping did she admit having had intercourse with A. The latter, a

man with a crippled foot, as soon as he saw that his misconduct had

been discovered, concealed himself in an outhouse, and was only

arrested by the police after a prolonged search. He is now in prison.

2. The model and friend of a painter, during the absence of the latter

from home, seduced his son, twelve years of age, after preliminary

repeated masturbation, to coitus and cunnilinctus.

3. A celebrated actress, now in advanced age, in the case of a boy who

sought a situation in her house, gave rise by various manipulations to

an erection of the penis, and seduced him to coitus; she invited him

repeatedly to visit her, and continued this scandalous practice with

him for eight years.

4. The governess Friederike B. was accused of improper conduct and

seduction of the little boy Szepsan, and was condemned to six months’

rigorous imprisonment. In April, 1900, Szepsan disappeared through her

connivance; she had him confined under false names in various

cloisters. The accused denied all blame, and declared that she was the

benefactress of Szepsan, whom she intended to bring up as a priest.

The evidence, however, sufficed for her conviction.

5. A very scandalous affair is reported by _Le Matin_. Some time ago

the Parisian police arrested a young fellow on account of an offence

against certain civil and natural laws. The accused thereupon

denounced an old Count W., and others of his friends, and also Baron

A., who daily waited the coming out of the boys from certain Parisian

schools, and then took them in his automobile to his own house or to

that of Count W. The police, having received information, kept under

observation the sons of certain distinguished families attending the

school in question, and ascertained that the statements were true. The

Count and his friends carried off the boys, among whom were three sons

of an engineer, the eldest thirteen years of age, to the Avenue

MacMahon or the Avenue Friedland. A., who is engaged to a young lady

belonging to the Parisian aristocracy, was arrested; Count W. has

escaped. The examination of their dwelling disclosed all kinds of

compromising materials.

In view of the wide diffusion of acts of fornication with children, we

must always keep one point clearly before our minds, on account of the

great forensic importance of the matter. That is the question whether

the initiative to the improper act proceeded in the first place =from

the child=, in consequence of a =premature awakening of the sexual

impulse=. [See, for example, Emil Schultze-Malkowsky, “The Sexual

Impulse in Childhood,” in the periodical _Sex and Society_, 1907, No. 7,

pp. 370-373. He reports five sexual scenes dating from the year 1864,

the heroine of which was a little girl seven years of age!]

In a certain proportion only of such cases have we to do with a

degenerative, morbid, inherited state; in many instances this sexual

perversity occurs in children who in other respects are perfectly

healthy,[643] and is evoked by seduction, bad education, and chance

causes, such as intestinal worms, etc. This is to be observed also in

children of savage races, among whom this phenomenon of sexual

prematurity is perhaps more frequent, in part owing to climatic

conditions. In the country the observation of sexual acts on the part of

animals, frequently occurring under their very eyes, makes children

early acquainted with the fact of sexual intercourse. In large towns

prostitution and overcrowded dwellings, in ways to which we have already

alluded in detail, give rise in many cases to a very early initiation of

children into a knowledge of the facts of sexual life.

Apart from the question of child prostitution, to which we shall allude

presently, we can observe such early mature types of children also in

every class of the population of large towns. Among the circles of the

middle classes, and among the “upper ten thousand,” we have the type of

the _demi-vierge_, which recently Hans von Kahlenberg has so admirably

described in his “Nixchen.” In the female sex this early sexual maturity

is much more clearly manifest. In an essay entitled “The Zoo as an

Educator,” in the weekly newspaper _Der Roland von Berlin_ (No. 27, July

5, 1906), we find a striking description of such a type:

“We find definite types of early-ripe girls, which we must regard as a

peculiar acquirement of the twentieth century. We distinguish without

difficulty the simple, hot-blooded, sensual variety from the

thoroughly developed perverse types. A short-legged, buxom type is the

most predominant. Such girls seem extraordinarily energetic, and

appear also to excel in mental powers their pale-cheeked and

half-alive male companions. Their dress is extremely conspicuous, and

they wear highly ornamented hats. Whilst, when we look at them from

behind, their whole figure suggests the age of fifteen or seventeen

years, the front view suggests that they are at least eight years

older. They prefer to lace very tightly, in order to display their

rounded hips, and to make their already strongly developed breasts all

the more imposing. But this development displays their mental and

physical corruption, especially when undeveloped shoulders and thin

arms show beyond question that they are really of a very tender age.

The sharply-cut features, with the sparkling black eyes, which at once

fascinate us, plainly indicate the lines which the passions are about

to engrave on their features; we discern, also, that by the age of

thirty they will already be old women.”

Sexual intercourse on the part of children with one another, or with

grown persons in cases in which the invitation has proceeded from the

child, are by no means rare occurrences. The following remarkable cases

may illustrate this:

1. Some years ago a schoolboy, K. J., thirteen years of age, was

accused in Berlin of several acts of sexual intercourse with girls of

from six to eight years. The guilt of the accused was fully proved. He

was sent to a reformatory.

2. A young man made the acquaintance of a girl sixteen years of age.

Although greatly impassioned, he did not dare to touch the girl,

because he was deceived by her sweet and blameless demeanour, and did

not wish to be her first seducer. Soon afterwards he learned that this

angel had had sexual intercourse for several years with a married man

forty years of age!

3. Legroux showed in 1890, at the weekly meeting of the physicians of

the Hospital St. Louis, a boy, eleven years of age, who, after three

months’ sexual intercourse with a syphilitic girl aged seven years,

had been infected in the ordinary manner, _per vias naturales_

(reference in _Unna’s Monatsheft für Dermatologie_, 1890, vol. x., p.

335).

4. In Paris, in December, 1906 (according to the _Vossische Zeitung_

of December 15, 1906, No. 558), a band of youthful street and shop

thieves, ten in number, of ages varying from eleven to fourteen years,

were arrested. Their leaders were a boy of twelve and a girl of

thirteen years, the latter, Eliza Cailles by name, known generally by

the nickname of “Beautiful Aliette.” This Aliette, a strikingly pretty

little person, in a long dress of extremely fashionable cut, with a

wonderful hat and most elegant gloves, ruled her band with the most

exemplary self-confidence. They were all smart fellows; =they were all

of them her lovers, and with these ten husbands she was the happiest

of wives=.

Acts of fornication with children also explain the melancholy phenomenon

of the existence of a widely diffused =child prostitution= in all large

towns of the old and new world, regarding which, in the previously

mentioned works on prostitution in these towns, detailed accounts will

be found.[644] The little flower-girls of Paris, the Berlin

match-sellers and wax-candle-sellers or “music pupils”--all these

provide a large contingent to child prostitution. To a great extent they

are associated with equally youthful criminals and _souteneurs_, and

avail themselves for blackmailing purposes of the existence of § 176^{3}

and § 186 of the Criminal Code. Among them there are even individuals

given to peculiar sexual “specialities,” who gratify perverse lusts in

various artificial ways. Social misery, bad example, and seduction are,

indeed, often to be blamed as causes of this early sexual depravity, but

it is precisely in respect of child prostitution that Lombroso’s

doctrine of the born prostitute has considerable justification.

* * * * *

In exceptional cases only does =incest=--sexual intercourse between

those nearly related by blood, either in the same generation, as between

brother and sister, or in the ascending and descending line--depend upon

pathological causes. The origin of the dread and horror inspired by

incest remains “a moot question of historical research.”[645] Within

historical times and among savage peoples incestuous intercourse was

permitted and widely diffused. Without doubt, racial hygienic experience

regarding the pernicious effects of this extreme form of incest gave

rise to the recognition of the fact that incest must be forbidden. At

the present day incest occurs almost exclusively as the result of chance

associations--as, for example, in alcoholic intoxication, in consequence

of close domestic intimacy in small dwellings, in the absence of other

opportunity for sexual intercourse. In such circumstances not

infrequently among the lower classes of the population we observe, as a

favouring factor, a complete absence of any conception of the immorality

of incest.

Remarkable is the tendency to incestuous unions in certain epochs--as,

for example, in the period of the French Rococo, when it was introduced

by suggestion on a large scale, and manifested itself with alarming

frequency. Numerous credible historical examples of this I have recorded

in my “Recent Researches concerning the Marquis de Sade” (pp. 165-168).

Mirabeau, and especially Rétif de la Bretonne (see my work on Rétif, pp.

381-382), luxuriated in horribly blasphemous incestuous ideas.[646]

According to Theodor Mundt, who speaks of these tendencies in his

sketches of “Paris during the Second Empire” (vol. i., pp. 141, 142;

Berlin, 1867), it appears that the French nature is not repelled to the

same degree as the German by the idea of sexual union between those

nearly related by blood. Eugene Sue relates, in his “Mysteries of

Paris,” that among the lowest strata of the population fathers often

have intercourse with their own daughters.

But such things also happen in Germany. In August, 1907, a manual

labourer, forty-seven years of age, was condemned to three years’

imprisonment because he had had incestuous intercourse with his

daughter, now twenty-seven years of age, during the previous fifteen

years (!), and had continued this incestuous relationship after he had

himself remarried. The girl had been for several years living in

intimate sexual relationship with her father, who watched jealously to

prevent his daughter having anything to do with another man. Among many

Indian tribes of Central America incest is said to be always practised

when the eldest daughter accompanies the father for a few days into the

mountains, in order to prepare his maize bread for him.

Relations somewhat analogous are those in which parent and child have

sexual intercourse with the same person--when, for example, mother and

daughter have the same lover. Other peculiar combinations are possible,

and are actually observed. Unique, however, would appear to be the case

reported by d’Estoc (“Paris-Eros,” p. 209), in which a young man had

sexual intercourse with a woman, with her two daughters, and also

utilized the father of this family as a passive pæderast! In a

manuscript novel, which I once saw, a man was made the lover of both

husband and wife.

One of the most remarkable of sexual aberrations, in the reality of

which, as Mirabeau[647] remarked, it is hardly possible to believe, is

=fornication with animals--zoophilia and bestiality=.[648]

We will first describe zoophilia, a sexual inclination towards animals

without actual sexual intercourse. Genuine zoophilia, or “=animal

fetichism=,” as a perversion =monopolizing= the human being’s circle of

sexual ideas, is very rare. Until recently, only a single case has been

published--that recorded by Dr. Hanc in 1887, in the _Wiener

Medizinische Blâtter_, and quoted also by von Krafft-Ebing. But I

myself, in the year 1905, observed a second case of genuine zoophilia,

and have recorded it elsewhere.[649] This extraordinarily rare case may

as well be once more detailed here:

The person concerned was a farmer, forty-two years of age, of a large

and imposing appearance, a healthy aspect, and normal conformation.

His family history did not show any points of importance throwing

light on the peculiar development of his _vita sexualis_. In the

family several unhappy marriages had occurred. The patient’s parents

had also lived in such an inharmonious marriage. His mother had a

masterful manner; he felt no love for her. He knew nothing of any

sexual abnormalities in his family. He lays especial stress upon the

fact that when an infant he was brought up on the bottle, and that in

this way he missed the first unconscious natural sexual stimulations

which, according to the theory propounded by S. Freud, proceed from

the suckling at the maternal breast. To this he mainly ascribes his

lack of sexual sensibility towards the female sex. When he was a boy

twelve years of age, the patient experienced sexual excitement for the

first time when riding on a fine horse. Since that time his sexual

sensibility as a whole has been closely connected with the idea of

fine horses, in this way, that merely to look at them produced

libidinous excitement, so that for years, once a week, while riding,

he had an ejaculation, accompanied by intense voluptuous sensations.

It is, however, remarkable that he never had any erotic dreams

connected with horses. As already stated, his sexual sensibility

regarding the human female, and also the human male, is non-existent.

His views regarding women are Schopenhauerian. The few attempts he had

made at intimate intercourse with women--in most cases these were

_puellæ publicæ_--were repulsive to him; he had on these occasions no

erection at all, or only a very slight one. The _vita sexualis_ of the

patient is, speaking generally, by no means an active one. He does not

experience nocturnal pollutions, and is completely satisfied sexually

by the weekly ejaculations and libidinous excitement which occurs when

riding on horseback. For several years the patient has suffered from

frequent insomnia, the cause of which he considered to be material

troubles combined with gloomy thoughts about his abnormal sexual

condition. Bromides, veronal, and other hypnotic drugs, are of little

use to him, for habituation soon sets in; on the other hand, cold

foot-baths have a better effect. The patient, who, as he himself says,

has a strong antipathy to normal sexual intercourse, which he regards

as a “bestial act,” believes that he might perhaps attain a normal

sexual condition if he could meet with a wife who would be

sympathetic, and would be in harmony with him mentally and physically.

He is, however, in this respect extremely sceptical, since he is well

aware of the rarity of that complete harmony which is the

indispensable prerequisite of a happy marriage. The patient exhibited

no symptoms whatever of “degeneration.” The genital organs were

normal, and nervous sleeplessness in a man forty-two years of age,

dependent upon material cares and emotional depression, cannot be

regarded as a symptom of degeneration, when we reflect how frequently

in persons who are otherwise quite healthy such nervous insomnia may

make its appearance, as a result of the struggle for life, at or near

the age of forty years.

True zoophilia is a typical sexual perversion, and appears to occur

principally in men. The use of animals (dogs) for purely onanistic

purposes, in the way of licking the female genital organs, cannot be

included in this connexion. In French novels and moral studies of recent

times such types of zoophilous women are, indeed, described; thus, for

example, in Octave Mirbeau’s “Badereise eines Neurasthenikers” (1902) we

find a description of Princess Karagnine as such a perverse woman,

endowed with a peculiar “passion for animals,” especially for stallions,

who caresses them with obvious signs of sexual excitement. And in the de

Goncourts’ “Diary” I find the following remark:

“Every time I visit the Zoological Gardens, I am struck by the number

of bizarre, remarkably eccentric, exotic, indefinable women we meet

here, to whom the contact with the animal world of this place appears

to constitute an adventure of physical love” (Edmond and Jules de

Goncourt, “Leaves from a Diary,” 1851 to 1895).

R. Schwaeblé also gives an interesting account of the zoophilous

tendencies of Frenchwomen (“Les Détraquées de Paris,” pp. 203-212).

Unquestionably, modern zoological gardens offer even more than country

life opportunities to women of zoophilous instincts, and can in this

respect become dangerous. I remember from my own schooldays in Hanover

remarkable scenes in the much-visited zoological gardens of that

town--scenes which at that time we naturally did not really understand,

but on which the above remarks and observations throw a clear light.

Thus we shall no longer be surprised by the following extremely

remarkable case of zoophilia in the female sex:

_Kleptomania in a Girl aged Thirteen._--A girl thirteen years of age,

who is incurably affected with kleptomania, and who at the same time

has a morbid inclination towards horses, is the most recent phenomenon

in the province of decadence. The unfortunate child is the daughter,

Frida, of a married couple living in the Höchstestrasse. She had

committed a number of thefts of vehicles, which might have been

attributed only to skilled professional thieves. The morbid tendency

compels the child to take the horse by the bridle and lead it away.

She does not appear to have any tendency to sell the animal, or to

steal anything from the carriage. Her love for horses led her in

earlier years to unusual acts. Thus she took the horse of a dairyman

in the Elbingerstrasse out of its stall, mounted it, and rode away.

The child has been under medical treatment for a long time on account

of her extremely unusual tendency, and we understand that the medical

evidence shows that she cannot be held legally responsible for the

offences she has committed (_Berliner Tageblatt_, No. 352, July 14,

1906).

Passing now to consider definite acts of fornication with animals

(_Sodomie_--see note ^{648} to p. 640, bestiality),[650] there is

hardly any animal which has not been in some way and at some time

utilized for the gratification of human lust; but naturally in most

cases the animals always available were employed, such as dogs, cats,

sheep, goats, hens, geese, ducks, horses. Martin Schurig, as early as

1730, in his “Gynæcologia” (pp. 380-387), recorded a large number of

cases of bestial aberrations in which, in addition to the animals above

mentioned, apes, bears, and even fishes were employed. In antiquity

snakes were often the objects of unnatural lust on the part of women,

playing the part of the modern lap-dog. Bestiality is very widely

diffused.[651] Countries especially celebrated for the frequency of this

practice are China and Italy; in the former country =geese=, in the

latter =goats=, are preferred for sexual malpractices. In India, and

also among the Southern Slavs, horses and donkeys play the principal

part as objects of bestial love.[652]

Acts of fornication with animals are due to various causes; in

exceptional cases only can they be referred to morbid predisposition. In

the lower classes of the population, and among many races--as, for

example, among the Southern Slavs and among the Persians--the

superstitious belief that venereal disease can be cured by intercourse

with animals occasionally gives rise to bestiality. More frequently the

=lack of opportunity for normal gratification= of the sexual impulse is

the cause of bestiality; and it is naturally of more frequent occurrence

in the country, for the reason that there human beings live in closer

association with animals than they do in the town. The herdsman alone

with his herd in a solitary place, the groom who in the stable suddenly

finds himself in a state of sexual excitement, the peasant whose wife is

perhaps ailing--all these indulge in bestiality simply from opportunity.

Friedrich S. Krauss learned from a trustworthy authority that in the

Austrian cavalry Slavonic soldiers frequently gratified their sexual

impulse upon mares. When they are caught doing this, they excuse

themselves by saying that they are too poor to pay a woman. Commonly

these fellows escape punishment. In brothels, also, bestial practices

are common; in some cases debauchees themselves take part in these

practices, in others prostitutes make a display of bestial intercourse.

Frequently, also, sadistic impulses, similar to those which find

expression in the torturing or slaughtering of animals during coitus,

play a part in bestial intercourse.

An eyewitness describes such a brothel scene, which took place in the

Via San Pietro all’ Orto at Milan. An old roué played the principal

part in this; he had become so depraved that he had sexual intercourse

with a duck, the throat of which was cut during the bestial act!

Some forty years ago, in the Karntnerstrasse in Vienna, a prostitute was

found in her room, murdered, and her chambermate and professional

companion was condemned to imprisonment as guilty of the murder. After

some years, however, the real murderer was discovered, and he was

detected by the fact that he was only able to have an erection of the

penis when he killed a =hen=. He was known among the prostitutes as “the

hen-man.”

Another case of sadistic bestiality was recently reported by the

veterinary surgeon Grundmann, at Marienburg in Saxony (the reference

will be found in the _Berliner Tierärztliche Wochenschrift_ for

September 14, 1906):

A man, thirty-eight years of age, of bad reputation, one night found

his way into a byre in order to gratify his sexual desires by

intercourse with a cow. First he introduced his penis into the vagina

of a heifer nine months old; then he tried the same thing on a cow,

which threw him off, and he fell to the ground. In a rage at this, he

seized a pitchfork and forcibly thrust one of the prongs, first into

the anus of the heifer, and then into that of the cow. The cow died

speedily, whilst the heifer had to be slaughtered next day. In the

cow, in addition to a laceration of the rectum about 1-1/2 inches in

length, there was found laceration of the capsules of the right and

left kidneys, perforation of the mesentery, of the colon, of the

liver, and of the diaphragm, also a laceration 1-1/2 inches long and

equally deep in the right lung. These extensive injuries showed that

the pitchfork must have been thrust in repeatedly. The appearances in

the body of the slaughtered heifer were similar to those found in the

cow. The accused was condemned to imprisonment for two years and three

months, part of this term being for the offence against morality and

part for the injury to property.

The following extremely rare case of bestiality on the part of a woman

was seen by Krauss (_op. cit._, p. 281):

“If I can venture to credit the reports I have so frequently heard

(and it is difficult to believe that they are pure inventions), among

the Southern Slavs intercourse between women and horses or asses is

comparatively common. How they go to work in this matter I do not know

from personal observation. I did, however, once see a Chrowot woman of

ideal beauty, who =stood= at night completely naked in front of a

lighted lamp, and in this position had intercourse with a tom cat. She

experienced so intense an orgasm that she did not notice me, although

I watched the scene barely two paces from the window.”

The part played by lap-dogs in the case of many ladies has been

previously mentioned.

Formerly the question was quite seriously discussed, whether a human

being could be seduced or violated by an animal, and Hufeland relates a

fantastic story of copulation between a dog and a sleeping little girl,

which I have criticized in another work;[653] but there are, as a matter

of fact, no proofs of such an occurrence, or of its possibility. In

brothels, certainly, dogs are from time to time _trained_ to have

intercourse with prostitutes.[654]

Much rarer than acts of fornication with animals are similar acts with

=corpses=, the so-called “=necrophilia=.” In the works of de Sade, we

find references to the algolagnistic factor of this rare sexual

aberration, to the sadistic or masochistic element in necrophilia,

inasmuch as in the case of the dead individual we have to do with a

completely helpless and defenceless being, who is totally unable to

resist the act; sadism is also manifested in the not uncommon mutilation

of the corpses;[655] and the sadistic impulse further obtains

gratification from the idea of decomposition, from the smell, the cold,

and the horror. In the case of necrophilia opportunity also plays a

part. Soldiers and monks who are occupied in watching the dead, and who

chance to be seized with sexual excitement, have gratified themselves

with female corpses.

Sexual acts with corpses are, indeed, not so rare as was formerly

assumed, but they belong to the class of sexual aberrations regarding

which we have but few authentic observations, most of these derived

from French authors. Remarkable is the following recent case, which

occurred in April, 1901:[656]

The following hardly credible case of necrophilia is reported from

Schonau: In the cemetery of that place Frau Maschke, thirty years of

age, was buried in the morning, but the grave was not completely

filled in. In the evening an inhabitant visited the grave of a

relative, which was close to that of Frau Maschke, and she noticed

with alarm that the top of the coffin in which the corpse of Frau

Maschke was lying was moving up and down. The discoverer of this

alarming occurrence hastened to the sexton, and reported the fact. The

sexton hurried to the cemetery with several workmen, and there, to

their horror, they surprised an inmate of the poorhouse named Wokatsch

as he was in the act of violating the woman’s corpse. The bestial

criminal was at once arrested. Soon afterwards a judicial

investigation took place, for which purpose the corpse was removed

from the grave and taken to the mortuary in order to determine how far

the criminal had actually proceeded in his attempt on the body.

In folk-lore, mythology, and belles-lettres, necrophilia plays a large

part, a matter to which I have referred at greater length in another

work (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol.

ii., pp. 288-296). The =idea= of intercourse with a dead body, and also

that of intercourse with an insensible human being, somewhat frequently

gives rise to peculiar forms of sexual aberration. First of all in this

connexion we have to consider =symbolic necrophilia=, in which the

person concerned contents himself with the simple appearance of death. A

prostitute or some other woman must clothe herself in a shroud, lie in a

coffin, or on the “bed of death,” or in a room draped as a “chamber of

death,” and during the whole time must pretend to be dead, whilst the

necrophilist satisfies himself sexually by various acts. Cases of such a

nature are reported by de Sade, Neri, Taxil, Tarnowsky, etc.

Closely allied to these necrophilist tendencies is the remarkable

“=Venus statuaria=,” =the love for and sexual intercourse with statues

and other representations of the human person=. Here also, apart from

certain =aesthetic= motives,[657] which may predominate in the case of

statues of exceptional artistic perfection, we have to do, for the most

part, with the same motives that give rise to necrophilia--sadistic,

masochistic, and fetichistic. In the case of individuals who are

sexually extremely excitable, a walk through a museum containing many

statues may suffice to give rise to libido. Of this we have examples.

Generally, however, we have to do with immature, youthful, and, above

all, =uncultured= individuals, who are devoid of all æsthetic

sensibility, and have grown up also in a state of prudery and horror of

the nude. It is of similar persons that the Catholic moral theologian

Bouvier speaks, when, in his “Manuel des Confesseurs” (Verviers, 1876),

he discusses the case of masturbation before a statue of the Holy

Virgin. We have previously given examples of the fact that direct sexual

intercourse with a statue occurs as part of a religious fetichism and

phallus cult (p. 101). In such cases the statue is taken for the

divinity, but in a profane statue-love it is taken for the living human

being, as in the celebrated case of the gardener who attempted coitus

with the statue of the Venus of Milo. The idea of the life of the statue

is even more distinctly manifest in the so-called “=pygmalionism=,” an

imitation of the ancient legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, and a

utilization of this legend for erotic ends. Naked living women, in such

cases, stand as “statues” upon suitable pedestals, and are watched by

the pygmalionist, whereupon they gradually come to life. The whole scene

induces sexual enjoyment in the pygmalionist, who is generally an old,

outworn debauchee. Canler has described such practices as going on in

Parisian brothels, on one occasion three prostitutes appearing

respectively as the goddesses Venus, Minerva, and Juno.[658]

In this connexion we may refer to fornicatory acts effected with

=artificial imitations= of the human body, or of individual parts of

that body. There exist true Vaucansons in this province of pornographic

technology, clever mechanics who, from rubber and other plastic

materials, prepare entire male or female bodies, which, as _hommes_ or

_dames de voyage_, subserve fornicatory purposes. More especially are

the genital organs represented in a manner true to nature. Even the

secretion of Bartholin’s glands is imitated, by means of a “pneumatic

tube” filled with oil. Similarly, by means of fluid and suitable

apparatus, the ejaculation of the semen is imitated. Such artificial

human beings are actually offered for sale in the catalogue of certain

manufacturers of “Parisian rubber articles.” A more precise account of

these “fornicatory dolls” is given by Schwaeblé (“Les Détraquées de

Paris,” pp. 247-263). The most astonishing thing in this department is

an erotic romance (“La Femme Endormie,” by Madame B.; Paris, 1899), the

love heroine of which is such an artificial doll, which, as the author

in the introduction tells us, can be employed for all possible sexual

artificialities, without, like a living woman, resisting them in any

way. The book is an incredibly intricate and detailed exposition of this

idea.

A comparatively common sexual aberration is “=exhibitionism=,” first

described by Lasègue,[659] the exposure of the genital organs, or other

naked parts of the body, or the performance of sexual acts =in public

places=, either in order, by the public exposure, to produce sexual

excitement, or else as a result of the blind yielding to sexual impulse,

regardless of the fact of publicity. In these cases we have =almost

always= to do with a =morbid= phenomenon, dependent upon =epileptic= or

other mental disorders. Thus, Seiffer, among eighty-six exhibitionists,

found eighteen epileptics, seventeen dements, thirteen “degenerates,”

eight neurasthenics, eight alcoholics, eleven “habitual” exhibitionists,

and in ten cases =various= other morbid conditions. Of the eighty-six

cases, eleven concerned persons of the female sex.[660] Recently, Burgl,

in a careful and critical work upon exhibitionism,[661] has suggested

the terms “exhibition” and “exhibitionism,” the former to be employed to

denote an =isolated= act of exhibition, the latter to denote the

=repeated= or =customary= act of exposure of the genital organs _coram

publico_. This distinction is important, because exhibition occurs in

mentally healthy persons, as well as in those suffering from mental

disorder; exhibitionism, on the other hand, is, if we except extremely

rare instances in debauchees not suffering from mental disorder, met

with only in insane or mentally defective individuals.

In the case of these latter we have always to do with the actions of

weak-minded persons; or with impulsive actions in persons in a state of

epileptic or alcoholic confusion; or, finally, with coercive ideas in

neurasthenic or hysterical persons, in paranoia, in general paralysis of

the insane, or in some other form of insanity. But cases of exhibition

or exhibitionism may sometimes occur from other motives in more or less

healthy persons. Among the Slavonic peoples, exposure of the genital

organs or of the buttocks is frequently an expression of =contempt=

towards some one, or also an act of =superstition= (Krauss).

Exhibitionism as a =popular custom= occurred at medieval festivals, and

also in connexion with the “obscene gestures” of the ancients.[662] By

=habituation in early childhood= the tendency to exhibitionism can be

favoured, we learn from the case reported by von Schrenck-Notzing,[663]

in which the person concerned had as a boy taken part in childish games

in which the children passed by one another with bared genital organs.

In his monograph upon the anomalies of the sexual impulse, which abounds

in fine touches, Hoche (_op. cit._, p. 488) very rightly refers to the

manner in which the exhibitionist tendency is favoured by habitual

=masturbation=. Through the practice of masturbation the =sense of shame

in respect to one’s own body= is certainly destroyed, and thus, in the

case of an onanist, when some unusual impulse impells him, for example,

to expose his genital organs in the presence of a person of the other

sex, =certain powerful inhibitory impulses are lacking=, which, in

non-onanists, would immediately overcome this impulse.

Of the two following cases of exhibitionism, that of a homosexual

officer, twenty-five years of age, is certainly the most remarkable. In

youth this patient had also masturbated to great excess, and he gives

the following report of his exhibitionist tendencies:

“As a boy seven to ten years of age (that is, before I began to

masturbate), it was a pleasure to me to go barefoot, and to show

myself to others in this way. This impulse suddenly disappeared. But

at about the age of fifteen or sixteen years (the time when I began to

masturbate) this impulse reappeared, and has continued down to the

present time. Inasmuch as time and opportunity were generally wanting,

I could only satisfy these desires in my own home, when I went home on

furlough. Since in the neighbourhood of my home I was very well known,

I endeavoured by taking extremely long walks, or by little journeys to

neighbouring parts, to reach places where I might hope to remain

unrecognized. I was accustomed on these occasions to wear a shooting

jacket and knickerbockers; the knickerbockers were wide and loose, and

of as thin cloth as possible, so that I could easily roll them up in

order that my thighs might be bare (for if the thighs remained covered

the whole affair would have given me no pleasure). Further, on these

occasions I was accustomed to wear no ordinary underclothing, but only

a nightshirt. As soon as I reached the desired place, and had hidden

the jacket, stockings, and shoes in a suitable place, the nightshirt

was arranged as a blouse. Usually I had beforehand tried the

arrangement of the dress at home. Often I went up to people who were

engaged in field labours (I was especially fond of haymakers), and

begged them to allow me to help them, which they were usually willing

enough to do. I then took off my coat and bared my feet, and then,

although there seemed no apparent reason for that, I took off my

knickerbockers, until ultimately I was in the costume above described.

I must, however, as already said, =be seen=; common people or workmen

had usually to suffice me; but when people of education (for example,

visitors at health resorts) saw me, this was what I greatly preferred.

When once one gentleman said to another, ‘Look at his beautiful legs!

what lovely legs he has!’ and I heard this by chance, I was extremely

happy. I was then eighteen years of age, but even now I look back upon

that incident with great pleasure. I also =loved to show myself

entirely naked=; in such cases I always remained quite close to a pond

or a stream, in order, if necessary, to be able to make the excuse

that I had just been bathing. Frequently, however, I lay down close to

a railway in a suitable place quite naked in an artistic posture, and

enjoyed the pleasure of seeing the trains go by.

“I commonly did this only in warm, fine weather; but I also did it

sometimes in snowy weather. When going about like this in very little

clothing, or entirely naked, I had extremely agreeable sensations. The

affair usually ended in my masturbating until ejaculation occurred;

=after which I returned, as it were, to reality. Otherwise I believe I

should never have been able to bring myself to resume my normal

clothing. For in this state I was almost insensitive to hunger,

thirst, fatigue, heat, etc.; it was, in fact, a trance-like, extremely

happy state.=