Scatalogic Symbolism--Urolagnia--Coprolagnia--The Ascetic Attitude Towards
the Flesh--Normal basis of Scatalogic Symbolism--Scatalogic Conceptions
Among Primitive Peoples--Urine as a Primitive Holy Water--Sacredness of
Animal Excreta--Scatalogy in Folk-lore--The Obscene as Derived from the
Mythological--The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to Manifest Itself in
Scatalogic Forms--The basis of Physiological Connection Between the
Urinary and Genital Spheres--Urinary Fetichism Sometimes Normal in
Animals--The Urolagnia of Masochists--The Scatalogy of Saints--Urolagnia
More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a Symbolism of Object--Only
Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism--Comparative Rarity of
Coprolagnia--Influence of Nates Fetichism as a Transition to
Coprolagnia--Ideal Coprolagnia--Olfactory Coprolagnia--Urolagnia and
Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus.
We meet with another group of erotic symbolisms--alike symbolisms of
object and of act--in connection with the two functions adjoining the
anatomical sexual focus: the urinary and alvine excretory functions. These
are sometimes termed the scatalogical group, with the two subdivisions of
urolagnia and Coprolagnia.[24] _Inter fæces et urinam nascimur_ is an
ancient text which has served the ascetic preachers of old for many
discourses on the littleness of man and the meanness of that reproductive
power which plays so large a part in man's life. "The stupid bungle of
Nature," a correspondent writes, "whereby the generative organs serve as a
means of relieving the bladder, is doubtless responsible for much of the
disgust which those organs excite in some minds."
At the same time, it is necessary to point out, such reflex influence may
act not in one direction only, but also in the reverse direction. From
the standpoint of ascetic contemplation eager to belittle humanity, the
excretory centers may cast dishonor upon the genital center which they
adjoin. From the more ecstatic standpoint of the impassioned lover, eager
to magnify the charm of the woman he worships, it is not impossible for
the excretory centers to take on some charm from the irradiating center of
sex which they enclose.
Even normally such a process is traceable. The normal lover may not
idealize the excretory functions of his mistress, but the fact that he
finds no repulsion in the most intimate contacts and feels no disgust at
the proximity of the excretory orifices or the existence of their
functions, indicates that the idealization of love has exerted at all
events a neutralizing influence; indeed, the presence of an acute
sensibility to the disturbing influence of this proximity of the excretory
orifices and their functions must be considered abnormal; Swift's
"Strephon and Chloe"--with the conviction underlying it that it is an easy
matter for the excretory functions to drown the possibilities of
love--could only have proceeded from a morbidly sensitive brain.[25]
A more than mere neutralizing influence, a positively idealizing influence
of the sexual focus on the excretory processes adjoining it, may take
place in the lover's mind without the normal variations of sexual
attraction being over-passed, and even without the creation of an
excretory fetichism.
Reflections of this attitude may be found in the poets. In the
_Song of Songs_ the lover says of his mistress, "Thy navel is
like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting;" in his
lyric "To Dianeme," Herrick says with clear reference to the
mons veneris:--
"Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit,
Having a living fountain under it;"
and in the very numerous poems in various languages which have
more or less obscurely dealt with the rose as the emblem of the
feminine pudenda there are occasional references to the stream
which guards or presides over the rose. It may, indeed, be
recalled that even in the name _nymphæ_ anatomists commonly apply
to the _labia minora_ there is generally believed to be a poetic
allusion to the Nymphs who presided over streams, since the
_labia minora_ exert an influence on the direction of the urinary
stream.
In _Wilhelm Meister_ (Part I, Chapter XV), Goethe, on the basis
of his own personal experiences, describes his hero's emotions in
the humble surroundings of Marianne's little room as compared
with the stateliness and order of his own home. "It seemed to him
when he had here to remove her stays in order to reach the
harpsichord, there to lay her skirt on the bed before he could
seat himself, when she herself with unembarrassed frankness would
make no attempt to conceal from him many natural acts which
people are accustomed to hide from others out of decency--it
seemed to him, I say, that he became bound to her by invisible
bands." We are told of Wordsworth (Findlay's _Recollections of De
Quincey_, p. 36) that he read _Wilhelm Meister_ till "he came to
the scene where the hero, in his mistress's bedroom, becomes
sentimental over her dirty towels, etc., which struck him with
such disgust that he flung the book out of his hand, would never
look at it again, and declared that surely no English lady would
ever read such a work." I have, however, heard a woman of high
intellectual distinction refer to the peculiar truth and beauty
of this very passage.
In one of his latest novels, _Les Rencontres de M. de Bréot_,
Henri de Régnier, one of the most notable of recent French
novelists, narrates an episode bearing on the matter before us. A
personage of the story is sitting for a moment in a dark grotto
during a night fête in a nobleman's park, when two ladies enter
and laughingly proceed to raise their garments and accomplish a
natural necessity. The man in the background, suddenly overcome
by a sexual impulse, starts forward; one lady runs away, the
other, whom he detains, offers little resistance to his advances.
To M. de Bréot, whom he shortly after encounters, he exclaims,
abashed at his own actions: "Why did I not flee? But could I
imagine that the spectacle of so disgusting a function would have
any other effect than to give me a humble opinion of human
nature?" M. de Bréot, however, in proceeding to reproach his
interlocutor for his inconsiderate temerity, observes: "What you
tell me, sir, does not entirely surprise me. Nature has placed
very various instincts within us, and the impulse that led you to
what you have just now done is not so peculiar as you think. One
may be a very estimable man and yet love women even in what is
lowliest in their bodies." In harmony with this passage from
Régnier's novel are the remarks of a correspondent who writes to
me of the function of urination that it "appeals sexually to most
normal individuals. My own observations and inquiries prove this.
Women themselves instinctively feel it. The secrecy surrounding
the matter lends, too, I think, a sexual interest."
The fact that scatalogic processes may in some degree exert an
attraction even in normal love has been especially emphasized by
Bloch (_Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil
II, pp. 222, et seq.): "The man whose intellect and æsthetic
sense has been 'clouded by the sexual impulse' sees these things
in an entirely different light from him who has not been overcome
by the intoxication of love. For him they are idealized (sit
venia verbo) since they are a part of the beloved person, and in
consequence associated with love." Bloch quotes the _Memoiren
einer Sängerin_ (a book which is said to be, though this seems
doubtful, genuinely autobiographical) in the same sense: "A man
who falls in love with a girl is not dragged out of his poetic
sphere by the thought that his beloved must relieve certain
natural necessities every day. It seems, indeed, to him to be
just the opposite. If one loves a person one finds nothing
obscene or disgusting in the object that pleases me." The
opposite attitude is probably in extreme cases due to the
influence of a neurotic or morbidly sensitive temperament. Swift
possessed such a temperament. The possession of a similar
temperament is doubtless responsible for the little prose poem,
"L'Extase," in which Huysmans in his first book, _Le Drageloir á
Epices_, has written an attenuated version of "Strephon and
Chloe" to express the disillusionment of love; the lover lies in
a wood clasping the hand of the beloved with rapturous emotion;
"suddenly she rose, disengaged her hand, disappeared in the
bushes, and I heard as it were the rustling of rain on the
leaves." His dream has fled.
In estimating the significance of the lover's attitude in this matter, it
is important to realize the position which scatologic conceptions took in
primitive belief. At certain stages of early culture, when all the
emanations of the body are liable to possess mysterious magic properties
and become apt for sacred uses, the excretions, and especially the urine,
are found to form part of religious ritual and ceremonial function. Even
among savages the excreta are frequently regarded as disgusting, but under
the influence of these conceptions such disgust is inhibited, and those
emanations of the body which are usually least honored become religious
symbols.
Urine has been regarded as the original holy water, and many
customs which still survive in Italy and various parts of Europe,
involving the use of a fluid which must often be yellow and
sometimes salt, possibly indicate the earlier use of urine. (The
Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus, was mixed
with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J.J.
Blunt, _Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs_, p. 173.) Among
the Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine
man urinated alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a
successful young warrior was sprinkled in the same way. Mungo
Park mentions that in Africa on one occasion a bride sent a bowl
of her urine which was thrown over him as a special mark of honor
to a distinguished guest. Pennant remarked that the Highlanders
sprinkled their cattle with urine, as a kind of holy water, on
the first Monday in every quarter. (Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites_,
pp. 228, 239; Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, "Bride-Ales.")
Even the excreta of animals have sometimes been counted sacred.
This is notably so in the case of the cow, of all animals the
most venerated by primitive peoples, and especially in India.
Jules Bois (_Visions de l'Inde_, p. 86) describes the spectacle
presented in the temple of the cows at Benares: "I put my head
into the opening of the holy stables. It was the largest of
temples, a splendor of precious stones and marble, where the
venerated heifers passed backwards and forwards. A whole people
adored them. They take no notice, plunged in their divine and
obscure unconsciousness. And they fulfil with serenity their
animal functions; they chew the offerings, drink water from
copper vessels, and when they are filled they relieve themselves.
Then a stercoraceous and religious insanity overcomes these
starry-faced women and venerable men; they fall on their knees,
prostrate themselves, eat the droppings, greedily drink the
liquid, which for them is miraculous and sacred." (Cf. Bourke,
_Scatalogic Rites_, Chapter XVII.)
Among the Chevsurs of the Caucasus, perhaps an Iranian people, a
woman after her confinement, for which she lives apart, purifies
herself by washing in the urine of a cow and then returns home.
This mode of purification is recommended in the Avesta, and is
said to be used by the few remaining followers of this creed.
We have not only to take into account the frequency with which among
primitive peoples the excretions possess a religious significance. It is
further to be noted that in the folk-lore of modern Europe we everywhere
find plentiful evidence of the earlier prevalence of legends and practices
of a scatalogical character. It is significant that in the majority of
cases it is easy to see a sexual reference in these stories and customs.
The legends have lost their earlier and often mythical significance, and
frequently take on a suggestion of obscenity, while the scatalogical
practices have become the magical devices of lovelorn maidens or forsaken
wives practiced in secrecy. It has happened to scatalogical rites to be
regarded as we may gather from the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes, that the
sacred leathern phallus borne by the women in the Bacchanalia was becoming
in his time, an object to arouse the amusement of little boys.
Among many primitive peoples throughout the world, and among the
lower social classes of civilized peoples, urine possesses magic
properties, more especially, it would seem, the urine of women
and that of people who stand, or wish to stand, in sexual
relationship to each other. In a legend of the Indians of the
northwest coast of America, recorded by Boas, a woman gives her
lover some of her urine and says: "You can wake the dead if you
drop some of my urine in their ears and nose." (_Zeitschrift für
Ethnologie_, 1894, Heft IV, p. 293.) Among the same Indians there
is a legend of a woman with a beautiful white skin who found on
bathing every morning in the river that the fish were attracted
to her skin and could not be driven off even by magical
solutions. At last she said to herself: "I will make water on
them and then they will leave me alone." She did so, and
henceforth the fish left her. But shortly after fire came from
Heaven and killed her. (Ib., 1891, Heft V, p. 640.) Among both
Christians and Mohammedans a wife can attach an unfaithful
husband by privately putting some of her urine in his drink. (B.
Stern, _Medizin in der Türkei_, vol. ii, p. 11.) This practice is
world-wide; thus among the aborigines of Brazil, according to
Martius, the urine and other excretions and secretions are potent
for aphrodisiacal objects. (Bourke's _Scatalogic Rites of All
Nations_ contains many references to the folk-lore practices in
this matter; a study of popular beliefs in the magic power of
urine, published in Bombay by Professor Eugen Wilhelm in 1889, I
have not seen.)
The legends which narrate scatalogic exploits are numerous in the
literature of all countries. Among primitive peoples they often
have a purely theological character, for in the popular
mythologies of all countries (even, as we learn from
Aristophanes, among the Greeks) natural phenomena such as the
rain, are apt to be regarded as divine excretions, but in course
of time the legends take on a more erotic or a more obscene
character. In the Irish _Book of Leinster_ (written down
somewhere about the twelfth century, but containing material of
very much older date) we are told how a number of princesses in
Emain Macha, the seat of the Ulster Kings, resolved to find out
which of them could by urinating on it melt a snow pillar which
the men had made, the woman who succeeded to be regarded as the
best among them. None of them succeeded, and they sent for
Derbforgaill, who was in love with Cuchullain, and she was able
to melt the pillar; whereupon the other women, jealous of the
superiority she had thus shown, tore out her eyes. (Zimmer,
"Keltische Beiträge," _Zeitschrift für Deutsche Alterthum_, vol.
xxxii, Heft II, pp. 216-219.) Rhys considers that Derbforgaill
was really a goddess of dawn and dusk, "the drop glistening in
the sun's rays," as indicated by her name, which means a drop or
tear. (J. Rhys, _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as
Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom_, p. 466.) It is interesting to
compare the legend of Derbforgaill with a somewhat more modern
Picardy folk-lore _conte_ which is clearly analogous but no
longer seems to show any mythologic element, "La Princesse qui
pisse par dessus les Meules." This princess had a habit of
urinating over hay-cocks; the king, her father, in order to break
her of the habit, offered her in marriage to anyone who could
make a hay-cock so high that she could not urinate over it. The
young men came, but the princess would merely laugh and at once
achieve the task. At last there came a young man who argued with
himself that she would not be able to perform this feat after she
had lost her virginity. He therefore seduced her first and she
then failed ignobly, merely wetting her stockings. Accordingly,
she became his bride. (Kryptadia, vol. i. p. 333.) Such legends,
which have lost any mythologic elements they may originally have
possessed and have become merely _contes_, are not uncommon in
the folk-lore of many countries. But in their earlier more
religious forms and in their later more obscene forms, they alike
bear witness to the large place which scatalogic conceptions play
in the primitive mind.
It is a notable fact in evidence of the close and seemingly normal
association with the sexual impulse of the scatalogic processes, that an
interest in them, arising naturally and spontaneously, is one of the most
frequent channels by which the sexual impulse first manifests itself in
young boys and girls.
Stanley Hall, who has made special inquiries into the matter,
remarks that in childhood the products of excretion by bladder
and bowels are often objects of interest hardly less intense for
a time than eating and drinking. ("Early Sense of Self,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, April, 1898, p. 361.)
"Micturitional obscenities," the same writer observes again,
"which our returns show to be so common before adolescence,
culminate at 10 or 12, and seem to retreat into the background as
sex phenomena appear." They are, he remarks, of two classes:
"Fouling persons or things, secretly from adults, but openly with
each other," and less often "ceremonial acts connected with the
act or the product that almost suggest the scatalogical rites of
savages, unfit for description here, but of great interest and
importance." (G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 116.)
The nature of such scatalogical phenomena in childhood--which are
often clearly the instinctive manifestations of an erotic
symbolism--and their wide prevalence among both boys and girls,
are very well illustrated in a narrative which I include in
Appendix B, History II.
In boys as they approach the age of puberty, this attraction to the
scatalogic, when it exists, tends to die out, giving place to more normal
sexual conceptions, or at all events it takes a subordinate and less
serious place in the mind. In girls, on the other hand, it often tends to
persist. Edmond de Goncourt, a minute observer of the feminine mind,
refers in _Chérie_ to "those innocent and triumphant gaieties which
scatalogic stories have the privilege of arousing in women who have
remained still children, even the most distinguished women." The extent to
which innocent young women, who would frequently be uninterested or
repelled in presence of the sexually obscene are sometimes attracted by
the scatalogically obscene, becomes intelligible, however, if we realize
that a symbolism comes here into play. In women the more specifically
sexual knowledge and experience of life frequently develop much later than
in men or even remains in abeyance, and the specifically sexual phenomena
cannot therefore easily lend themselves to wit, or humor, or imagination.
But the scatalogic sphere, by the very fact that in women it is a
specially intimate and secret region which is yet always liable to be
unexpectedly protruded into consciousness, furnishes an inexhaustible
field for situations which have the same character as those furnished by
the sexually obscene. It thus happens that the sexually obscene which in
men tends to overshadow the scatalogically obscene, in women--partly from
inexperience and partly, it is probable, from their almost physiological
modesty--plays a part subordinate to the scatalogical. In a somewhat
analogous way scatalogical wit and humor play a considerable part in the
work of various eminent authors who were clergymen or priests.
In addition to the anatomical and psychological associations which
contribute to furnish a basis on which erotic symbolisms may spring up,
there are also physiological connections between the genital and urinary
spheres which directly favor such symbolisms. In discussing the analysis
of the sexual impulse in a previous volume of these _Studies_, I have
pointed out the remarkable relationship--sometimes of transference,
sometimes of compensation--which exists between genital tension and
vesical tension, both in men and women. In the histories of normal sexual
development brought together at the end of that and subsequent volumes the
relationship may frequently be traced, as also in the case of C.P. in the
present study (p. 37). Vesical power is also commonly believed to be in
relation with sexual potency, and the inability to project the urinary
stream in a normal manner is one of the accepted signs of sexual
impotency.[26] Féré, again, has recorded the history of a man with
periodic crises of sexual desire, and subsequently sexual obsession
without desire, which were always accompanied by the impulse to urinate
and by increased urination.[27] In the case, recorded by Pitres and Régis,
of a young girl who, having once at the sight of a young man she liked in
a theater been overcome by sexual feeling accompanied by a strong desire
to urinate, was afterward tormented by a groundless fear of experiencing
an irresistible desire to urinate at inconvenient times,[28] we have an
example of what may be called a physiological scatalogic symbolism of sex,
an emotion which was primarily erotic becoming transferred to the bladder
and then remaining persistent. From such a physiological symbolism it is
but a step to the psychological symbolisms of scatalogic fetichism.
It is worthy of note, as an indication that such phenomena are
scarcely abnormal, that a urinary symbolism, and even a strictly
sexual fetichism, are normal among many animals.
The most familiar example of this kind is furnished by the dog,
who is sexually excited in this manner by traces of the bitch and
himself takes every opportunity of making his own path
recognizable. "This custom," Espinas remarks (_Des Sociétés
Animales_, p. 228), "has no other aim than to spread along the
road recognizable traces of their presence for the benefit of
individuals of the other sex, the odor of these traces doubtless
causing excitement."
It is noteworthy, also, that in animals as well as in man, sexual
excitement may manifest itself in the bladder. Thus Daumas states
(_Chevaux de Sahara_, p. 49) that if the mare urinates when she
hears the stallion neigh it is a sign that she is ready for
connection.
It is in masochism, or passive algolagnia, that we may most frequently
find scatalogic symbolism in its fully developed form. The man whose
predominant impulse is to subjugate himself to his mistress and to receive
at her hands the utmost humiliation, frequently finds the climax of his
gratification in being urinated on by her, whether in actual fact or only
in imagination.
In many such cases, however, it is evident that we have a mixed
phenomenon; the symbolism is double. The act becomes desirable because it
is the outward and visible sign of an inwardly experienced abject slavery
to an adored person. But it is also desirable because of intimately sexual
associations in the act itself, as a symbolical detumescence, a simulacrum
of the sexual act, and one which proceeds from the sexual focus itself.
Krafft-Ebing records various cases of masochism in which the
emission of urine on to the body or into the mouth formed the
climax of sexual gratification, as, for instance (_Psychopathia
Sexualis_, English translation, p. 183) in the case of a Russian
official who as a boy had fancies of being bound between the
thighs of a woman, compelled to sleep beneath her nates and to
drink her urine, and in later life experienced the greatest
excitement when practicing the last part of this early
imagination.
In another case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing and by him termed
"ideal masochism" (_Op. cit._, pp. 127-130), the subject from
childhood indulged in voluptuous day-dreams in which he was the
slave of a beautiful mistress who would compel him to obey all
her caprices, stand over him with one foot on his breast, sit on
his face and body, make him wait on her in her bath, or when she
urinated, and sometimes insist on doing this on his face; though
a highly intellectual man, he was always too timid to attempt to
carry any of his ideas into execution; he had been troubled by
nocturnal enuresis up to the age of 20.
Neri, again (_Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali_, vol. i, fasc.
7 and 8, 1896), records the case of an Italian masochist who
experienced the greatest pleasure when both urination and
defecation were practiced in this manner by the woman he was
attached to.
In a previous volume of these _Studies_ ("Sexual Inversion,"
History XXVI) I have recorded the masochistic day-dreams of a boy
whose impulses were at the same time inverted; in his reveries
"the central fact," he states, "became the discharge of urine
from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were very fond of
him, I let it be in my face." In actual life the act of urination
casually witnessed in childhood became the symbol, even the
reality, of the central secret of sex: "I stood rooted and
flushing with downcast eyes till the act was over, and was
conscious for a considerable time of stammering speech and
bewildered faculties.... I was overwhelmed with emotion and could
barely drag my feet from the spot or my eyes from the damp
herbage where he had deposited the waters of secrecy. Even to-day
I cannot dissociate myself from the shuddering charm that moment
had for me."
It is not only the urine and the fæces which may thus acquire a symbolic
fascination and attractiveness under the influence of masochistic
deviations of sexual idealization. In some cases extreme rapture has been
experienced in licking sweating feet. There is, indeed, no excretion or
product of the body which has not been a source of ecstasy: the sweat from
every part of the body, the saliva and menstrual fluid, even the wax from
the ears.
Krafft-Ebing very truly points out (_Psychopathia Sexualis_,
English translation, p. 178) that this sexual scatalogic
symbolism is precisely paralleled by a religious scatalogic
symbolism. In the excesses of devout enthusiasm the ascetic
performs exactly the same acts as are performed in these excesses
of erotic enthusiasm. To mix excreta with the food, to lick up
excrement, to suck festering sores--all these and the like are
acts which holy and venerated women have performed.
Not only the saint, but also the prophet and medicine-man have
been frequently eaters of human excrement; it is only necessary
to refer to the instance of the prophet Ezekiel, who declared
that he was commanded to bake his bread with human dung, and to
the practices of medicine-men at Torres Straits, in whose
training the eating of human excrement takes a recognized part.
(Deities, notably Baal-Phegor, were sometimes supposed to eat
excrement, so that it was natural that their messengers and
representatives among men should do so. As regards Baal-Phegor,
see Dulaure, _Des Divinités Génératrices_, Chapter IV, and J.G.
Bourke, _Scatalogic Rites of All Nations_, p. 241. See also
Ezekiel, Chapter IV, v. 12, and _Reports Anthropological
Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, p. 321.)
It must be added, however, that while the masochist is overcome
by sexual rapture, so that he sees nothing disgusting in his act,
the medicine-man and the ascetic are not so invariably overcome
by religious rapture, and several ascetic writers have referred
to the horror and disgust they experienced, at all events at
first, in accomplishing such acts, while the medicine-men when
novices sometimes find the ordeal too severe and have to abandon
their career. Brénier de Montmorand, while remarking, not without
some exaggeration, that "the Christian ascetics are almost all
eaters of excrement" ("Ascétisme et Mysticisme," _Revue
Philosophique_, March, 1904, p. 245), quotes the testimonies of
Marguerite-Marie and Madame Guyon as to the extreme repugnance
which they had to overcome. They were impelled by a merely
intellectual symbolism of self-mortification rather than by the
profoundly felt emotional symbolism which moves the masochist.
Coprophagic acts, whether under the influences of religious
exaltation or of sexual rapture, inevitably excite our disgust.
We regard them as almost insane, fortified in that belief by the
undoubted fact that coprophagia is not uncommon among the insane.
It may, therefore, be proper to point out that it is not so very
long since the ingestion of human excrement was carried out by
our own forefathers in the most sane and deliberate manner. It
was administered by medical practitioners for a great number of
ailments, apparently with entirely satisfactory results. Less
than two centuries ago, Schurig, who so admirably gathered
together and arranged the medical lore of his own and the
immediately preceding ages, wrote a very long and detailed
chapter, "De Stercoris Humani Usu Medico" (_Chylologia_, 1725,
cap. XIII; in the Paris _Journal de Médecine_ for February 19,
1905, there appeared an article, which I have not seen, entitled
"Médicaments oubliées: l'urine et la fiente humaine.") The
classes of cases in which the drug was found beneficial would
seem to have been extremely various. It must not be supposed that
it was usually ingested in the crude form. A common method was to
take the fæces of boys, dry them, mix them with the best honey,
and administer an electuary. (At an earlier period such drugs
appear to have met with some opposition from the Church, which
seems to have seen in them only an application of magic; thus I
note that in Burchard's remarkable Penitential of the fourteenth
century, as reproduced by Wasserschleben, 40 days' penance is
prescribed for the use of human urine or excrement as a medicine.
Wasserschleben _Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche_, p.
651.)
The urolagnia of masochism is not a simple phenomenon; it embodies a
double symbolism: on the one hand a symbolism of self-abnegation, such as
the ascetic feels, on the other hand a symbolism of transferred sexual
emotion. Krafft-Ebing was disposed to regard all cases in which a
scatalogical sexual attraction existed as due to "latent masochism." Such
a point of view is quite untenable. Certainly the connection is common,
but in the majority of cases of slightly marked scatalogical fetichism no
masochism is evident. And when we bear in mind the various considerations,
already brought forward, which show how widespread and clearly realized is
the natural and normal basis furnished for such symbolism, it becomes
quite unnecessary to invoke any aid from masochism. There is ample
evidence to show that, either as a habitual or more usually an occasional
act, the impulse to bestow a symbolic value on the act of urination in a
beloved person, is not extremely uncommon; it has been noted of men of
high intellectual distinction; it occurs in women as well as men; when
existing in only a slight degree, it must be regarded as within the normal
limits of variation of sexual emotion.
The occasional cases in which the urine is drunk may possibly
suggest that the motive lies in the properties of the fluid
acting on the system. Support for this supposition might be found
in the fact that urine actually does possess, apart altogether
from its magic virtues embodied in folk-lore, the properties of a
general stimulant. In composition (as Masterman first pointed
out) "beef-tea differs little from healthy urine," containing
exactly the same constituents, except that in beef-tea there is
less urea and uric acid. Fresh urine--more especially that of
children and young women--is taken as a medicine in nearly all
parts of the world for various disorders, such as epistaxis,
malaria and hysteria, with benefit, this benefit being almost
certainly due to its qualities as a general stimulant and
restorative. William Salmon's _Dispensatory_, 1678 (quoted in
_British Medical Journal_, April 21, 1900, p. 974), shows that in
the seventeenth century urine still occupied an important place
as a medicine, and it frequently entered largely into the
composition of Aqua Divina.
Its use has been known even in England in the nineteenth century.
(Masterman, _Lancet_, October 2, 1880; R. Neale, "Urine as a
Medicine," _Practitioner_, November, 1881; Bourke brings together
a great deal of evidence as to the therapeutic uses of urine in
his _Scatalogic Rites_, especially pp. 331-335; Lusini has shown
that normal urine invariably increases the frequency of the heart
beats, _Archivio di Farmacologia_, fascs. 19-21, 1893.)
But it is an error to suppose that these facts account for the
urolagnic drinking of urine. As in the gratification of a normal
sexual impulse, the intense excitement of gratifying a scatalogic
sexual impulse itself produces a degree of emotional stimulation
far greater than the ingestion of a small amount of animal
extractives would be adequate to effect. In such cases, as much
as in normal sexuality, the stimulation is clearly psychic.
When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not
the urine itself which is attractive, we are clearly concerned with a
symbolism of act and not with the fetichistic attraction of an excretion.
When the excretion, apart from the act, provides the attraction, we seem
usually to be in the presence of an olfactory fetichism. These fetichisms
connected with the excreta appear to be experienced chiefly by individuals
who are somewhat weak-minded, which is not necessarily the case in regard
to those persons for whom the act, rather than its product apart from the
beloved person, is the attractive symbol.
The sexually symbolic nature of the act of urination for many
people is indicated by the existence, according to Bloch, who
enumerates various kinds of indecent photographs, of a group
which he terms "the notorious _pisseuses_." It is further
indicated by several of the reproductions in Fuch's _Erotsiche
Element in der Karikatur_, such as Delorme's "La Necessitê n'a
point de Loi." (It should be added that such a scene by no means
necessarily possesses any erotic symbolism, as we may see in
Rembrandt's etching commonly called "Le Femme qui Pisse," in
which the reflected lights on the partly shadowed stream furnish
an artistic motive which is obviously free from any trace of
obscenity.) In the case which Krafft-Ebing quotes from Maschka of
a young man who would induce young girls to dance naked in his
room, to leap, and to urinate in his presence, whereupon seminal
ejaculation would take place, we have a typical example of
urolagnic symbolism in a form adequate to produce complete
gratification. A case in which the urolagnic form of scatalogic
symbolism reached its fullest development as a sexual perversion
has been described in Russia by Sukhanoff (summarized in
_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, November, 1900, and
_Annales Medico-psychologiques_, February, 1901), that of a young
man of 27, of neuropathic temperament, who when he once chanced
to witness a woman urinating experienced voluptuous sensations.
From that moment he sought close contact with women urinating,
the maximum of gratification being reached when he could place
himself in such a position that a woman, in all innocence, would
urinate into his mouth. All his amorous adventures were concerned
with the search for opportunities for procuring this difficult
gratification. Closets in which he was able to hide, winter
weather and dull days he found most favorable to success. (A
somewhat similar case is recorded in the _Archives de
Neurologie_, 1902, p. 462.)
In the case of a robust man of neuropathic heredity recorded by
Pelanda some light is shed on the psychic attitude in these
manifestations; there was masturbation up to the age of 16, when
he abandoned the practice, and up to the age of 30 found complete
satisfaction in drinking the still hot urine of women. When a
lady or girl in the house went to her room to satisfy a need of
this kind, she had hardly left it but he hastened in, overcome by
extreme excitement, culminating in spontaneous ejaculation. The
younger the woman the greater the transport he experienced. It is
noteworthy that in this, as possibly in all similar cases, there
was no sensory perversion and no morbid attraction of taste or
smell; he stated that the action of his senses was suspended by
his excitement, and that he was quite unable to perceive the odor
or taste of the fluid. (Pelanda, "Pornopatice," _Archivio di
Psichiatria_, facs. iii-iv, 1889, p. 356.) It is in the emotional
symbolism that the fascination lies and not in any sensory
perversion.
Magnan records the spontaneous development of this sexual
symbolism in a girl of 11, of good intellectual development but
alcoholic heredity, who seduced a boy younger than herself to
mutual masturbation, and on one occasion, lying on the ground and
raising her clothes, asked him to urinate on her. (_International
Congress of Criminal Anthropology_, 1889.) This case (except for
the early age of the subject) illustrates sporadically occurring
urolagnic symbolism in a woman, to whom such symbolism is fairly
obvious on account of the close resemblance between the emission
of urine and the ejaculation of semen in the man, and the fact
that the same conduit serves for both fluids. (A urolagnic
day-dream of this kind is recorded in the history of a lady
contained in the third volume of these _Studies_, Appendix B,
History VIII.) The natural and inevitable character of this
symbolism is shown by the fact that among primitive peoples urine
is sometimes supposed to possess the fertilizing virtues of
semen. J.G. Frazer in his edition of Pausanias (vol. iv, p. 139)
brings together various stories of women impregnated by urine.
Hartland also (_Legend of Perseus_, vol. i, pp. 76, 92) records
legends of women who were impregnated by accidentally or
intentionally drinking urine.
The symbolic sexual significance of urolagnia has hitherto
usually been confused with the fetichistic and mainly olfactory
perversion by which the excretion itself becomes a source of
sexual excitement. Long since Tardieu referred, under the name of
"renifleurs," to persons who were said to haunt the neighborhood
of quiet passages, more especially in the neighborhood of
theatres, and who when they perceived a woman emerge after
urination, would hasten to excite themselves by the odor of the
excretion. Possibly a fetichism of this kind existed in a case
recorded by Belletrud and Mercier (_Annales d'Hygiène Publique_,
June, 1904, p. 48). A weak-minded, timid youth, who was very
sexual but not attractive to women, would watch for women who
were about to urinate and immediately they had passed on would go
and lick the spot they had moistened, at the same time
masturbating. Such a fetichistic perversion is strictly analogous
to the fetichism by which women's handkerchiefs, aprons or
underlinen become capable of affording sexual gratification. A
very complete case of such urolagnic fetichism--complete because
separated from association with the person accomplishing the act
of urination--has been recorded by Moraglia in a woman. It is the
case of a beautiful and attractive young woman of 18, with thick
black hair, and expressive vivacious eyes, but sallow complexion.
Married a year previously, but childless, she experienced a
certain amount of pleasure in coitus, but she preferred
masturbation, and frankly acknowledged that she was highly
excited by the odor of fermented urine. So strong was this
fetichism that when, for instance, she passed a street urinal she
was often obliged to go aside and masturbate; once she went for
this purpose into the urinal itself and was almost discovered in
the act, and on another occasion into a church. Her perversion
caused her much worry because of the fear of detection. She
preferred, when she could, to obtain a bottle of urine--which
must be stale and a man's (this, she said, she could detect by
the smell)--and to shut herself up in her own room, holding the
bottle in one hand and repeatedly masturbating with the other.
(Moraglia, "Psicopatie Sessuali," _Archivio di Psichiatria_, vol.
xiii, fasc. 6, p. 267, 1892.) This case is of especial interest
because of the great rarity of fully developed fetichism in
women. In a slight and germinal degree I believe that cases of
fetichism are not uncommon in women, but they are certainly rare
in a well-marked form, and Krafft-Ebing declared, even in the
late editions of his _Psychopathia Sexualis_, that he knew of no
cases in women.
So far we have been concerned with the urolagnic rather than the
coprolagnic variety of scatalogical symbolism. Although the two are
sometimes associated there is no necessary connection, and most usually
there is no tendency for the one to involve the other. Urolagnia is
certainly much the more frequently found; the act of urination is far more
apt to suggest erotically symbolical ideas than the idea of defecation.
It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. The act of
urination lends itself more easily to sexual symbolism; it is more
intimately associated with the genital function; its repetition is
necessary at more frequent intervals so that it is more in evidence;
moreover, its product, unlike that of the act of defecation, is not
offensive to the senses. Still coprolagnia occurs and not so very
infrequently. Burton remarked that even the normal lover is affected by
this feeling: "immo nec ipsum amicæ stercus foctet."[29]
Of Caligula who, however, was scarcely sane, it was said "et quidem
stercus uxoris degustavit."[30] In Parisian brothels (according to Taxil
and others) provision is made for those who are sexually excited by the
spectacle of the act of defecation (without reference to contact or odor)
by means of a "tabouret de verre," from under the glass floor of which the
spectacle of the defecating women may be closely observed. It may be added
that the erotic nature of such a spectacle is referred to in the Marquis
de Sade's novels.
There is one motive for the existence of coprolagnia which must not be
passed over, because it has doubtless frequently served as a mode of
transition to what, taken by itself, may well seem the least æsthetically
attractive of erotic symbols. I refer to the tendency of the nates to
become a sexual fetich. The nates have in all ages and in all parts of the
world been frequently regarded as one of the most æsthetically beautiful
parts of the feminine body.[31] It is probable that on the basis of this
entirely normal attraction more than one form of erotic symbolism is at
all events in part supported. Dühren and others have considered that the
æsthetic charm of the nates is one of the motives which prompt the desire
to inflict flagellation on women. In the same way--certainly in some and
probably in many cases--the sexual charm of the nates progressively
extends to the anal region, to the act of defecation, and finally to the
feces.
In a case of Krafft-Ebing's (_Op. cit._, p. 183) the subject,
when a child of 6, accidentally placed his hand in contact with
the nates of the little girl who sat next to him in school, and
experienced so great a pleasure in this contact that he
frequently repeated it; when he was 10 a nursery governess, to
gratify her own desires, placed his finger in her vagina; in
adult life he developed urolagnic tendencies.
In a case of Moll's the development of a youthful admiration for
the nates in a coprolagnic direction may be clearly traced. In
this case a young man, a merchant, in a good position, sought to
come in contact with women defecating; and with this object would
seek to conceal himself in closets; the excretal odor was
pleasurable to him, but was not essential to gratification, and
the sight of the nates was also exciting and at the same time not
essential to gratification; the act of defecation appears,
however, to have been regarded as essential. He never sought to
witness prostitutes in this situation; he was only attracted to
young, pretty and innocent women. The coprolagnia here, however,
had its source in a childish impression of admiration for the
nates. When 5 or 6 years old he crawled under the clothes of a
servant girl, his face coming in contact with her nates, an
impression that remained associated in his mind with pleasure.
Three or four years later he used to experience much pleasure
when a young girl cousin sat on his face; thus was strengthened
an association which developed naturally into coprolagnia. (Moll,
_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i, p. 837.)
It is scarcely necessary to remark that an admiration for the
nates, even when reaching a fetichistic degree, by no means
necessarily involves, even after many years, any attraction to
the excreta. A correspondent for whom the nates have constituted
a fetich for many years writes: "I find my craving for women with
profuse pelvic or posterior development is growing and I wish to
copulate from behind; but I would feel a sickening feeling if any
part of my person came in contact with the female anus. It is
more pleasing to me to see the nates than the mons, yet I loathe
everything associated with the anal region."
Moll has recorded in detail a case of what may be described as "ideal
coprolagnia"--that is to say, where the symbolism, though fully developed
in imagination, was not carried into real life--which is of great interest
because it shows how, in a very intelligent subject, the deviated
symbolism may become highly developed and irradiate all the views of life
in the same way as the normal impulse. (The subject's desires were also
inverted, but from the present point of view the psychological interest of
the case is not thereby impaired.) Moll's case was one of symbolism of
act, the excreta offering no attraction apart from the process of
defecation. In a case which has been communicated to me there was, on the
other hand, an olfactory fetichistic attraction to the excreta even in the
absence of the person.
In Moll's case, the patient, X., 23 years of age, belongs to a
family which he himself describes as nervous. His mother, who is
anæmic, has long suffered from almost periodical attacks of
excitement, weakness, syncope and palpitation. A brother of the
mother died in a lunatic asylum, and several other brothers
complain much of their nerves. The mother's sisters are very
good-natured, but liable to break out in furious passions; this
they inherit from their father. There appears to be no nervous
disease on the patient's father's side. X.'s sisters are also
healthy.
X. himself is of powerful undersized build and enjoys good
health, injured by no excesses. He considers himself nervous. He
worked hard at school and was always the first in his class; he
adds, however, that this is due less to his own abilities than
the laziness of his school-fellows. He is, as he remarks, very
religious and prays frequently, but seldom goes to church.
In regard to his psychic characters he says that he has no
specially prominent talent, but is much interested in languages,
mathematics, physics and philosophy, in fact, in abstract
subjects generally. "While I take a lively interest in every kind
of intellectual work," he says, "it is only recently that I have
been attracted to real life and its requirements. I have never
had much skill in physical exercises. For external things until
recently I have only had contempt. I have a delicately
constituted nature, loving solitude, and only associating with a
few select persons. I have a decided taste for fiction, poetry
and music; my temperament is idealistic and religious, with
strict conceptions of duty and morality, and aspirations towards
the good and beautiful. I detest all that is common and coarse,
and yet I can think and act in the way you will learn from the
following pages."
Regarding his sexual life, X. made the following communication:
"During the last two years I have become convinced of the
perversion of my sexual instinct. I had often previously thought
that in me the impulse was not quite normal, but it is only
lately that I have become convinced of my complete perversion. I
have never read or heard of any case in which the sexual feelings
were of the same kind. Although I can feel a lively inclination
towards superior representatives of the female sex, and have
twice felt something like love, the sight or the recollection
even of a beautiful woman have never caused sexual excitement."
In the two exceptional instances mentioned it appears that X. had
an inclination to kiss the women in question, but that the
thought of coitus had no attraction. "In my voluptuous dreams,
connected with the emission of semen, women in seductive
situations have never appeared. I have never had any desire to
visit a _puella publica_. The love-stories of my fellow-students
seemed very silly, dances and balls were a horror to me, and only
on very rare occasions could I be persuaded to go into society.
It will be easy to guess the diagnosis in my case: I suffer from
the sexual attraction of my own sex, I am a lover of boys.
"You cannot imagine what a world of thoughts, wishes, feelings
and impulses the words 'knabe,' 'pais,' 'garcon,' 'boy,'
'ragazzo' have for me; one of these words, even in an unmeaning
clause of a translation-book, calls before me the whole sum of
associations which in course of time have become bound up with
this idea, and it is only with an effort that I can scare away
the wild band. This group of thoughts shows a wonderful mixture
of warm sensuality and ideal love, it unites my lowest and
highest impulses, the strength and the weakness of my nature, my
curse and my blessing. My inclination is especially towards boys
of the age of 12 to 15; though they may be rather younger or
older. That I should prefer beautiful and intelligent boys is
comprehensible. I do not want a prostitute, but a friend or a
son, whose soul I love, whom I can help to become a more perfect
man, such as I myself would willingly be.
"When I myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had
no dearer wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes. I have
sought, hoped, waited, grieved, and been at last disillusioned,
overcome by desire and despair, and have not found that friend.
Even later the hope often reappeared, but always in vain, and I
cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the
autobiographies of Urnings. I do not know personally a single
fellow-sufferer. It is also doubtful whether such an
acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very
peculiar conception of homosexuality. As you will see, I have
little more in common with what are called pæderasts than sexual
indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself: 'Does any
other man in the whole world feel like you? Are you alone in the
earth with your morbid desires? Are you a pariah of pariahs, or
is there, perhaps, another soul with similar longings living near
you? How often in summer have I gone to the lakes and streams
outside cities to seek boys bathing; but I always came back
unsatisfied, whether I found any or not. And in winter I have
been irresistibly impelled to return to the same spots, as if it
were sanctified by the boys, but my darlings had vanished and
cold winds blew over the icy floods, so that I would return
feeling as though I had buried all my happiness.
"It must be borne in mind, therefore, that what I have to say
regarding my sexual impulses only refers to fancies and never to
their practical realization. My sensual impulses are not
connected with the sexual organs; all my voluptuous ideas are not
in the least connected with these parts. For this reason I have
never practiced onanism and _immissio membri in anum_ is as
repulsive to me as to a normal man. Even every imitation of
coitus is, for me, without attraction. In a boy's body two things
specially excite me: _his belly and his nates_, the first as
containing the digestive tract, the second as holding the opening
of the bowels. Of the vegetable processes of life in the boy none
interest me nearly so much as the progress of his digestion and
the process of defecation. It is incredible to what an extent
this part of physiology has occupied me from youth. If as a boy I
wanted to read something of a piquantly exciting character I
sought in my father's encyclopædia for articles like:
Obstruction, Constipation, Hæmorrhoids, Fæces, etc. No function
of the body seemed to be so significant as this, and I regarded
its disturbances as the most important in the whole mechanism of
life. The description of other disorders I could read in cold
blood, but intussusception of the bowels makes me ill even
to-day. I am always extremely pleased to hear that the digestion
of the people around me is in good condition. A man who did not
sufficiently watch over his digestion aroused distrust in me, and
I imagined that wicked men must be horribly indifferent regarding
this weighty matter. Even more than in ordinary persons was I
interested in the digestion of more mysterious beings, like
magicians in legends, or men of other nations. I would willingly
have made an anthropological study of my favorite subject, only
to my annoyance books nearly always pass over the matter in
silence. In history and fiction I regretted the absence of
information concerning the state of my heroes' digestion when
they languished in prison or in some unaccustomed or unhealthy
spot. For this reason I held no book more precious than one which
describes how a young man after being shipwrecked lived for a
long time in a narrow snow-hut, and it was conscientiously stated
that he became aware of digestive disturbances. No immorality
angers me more than the foolish practice of ladies who in society
neglect the satisfaction of their natural needs from misplaced
motives of modesty. On a railway journey I suffer horribly from
the thought that one of my fellow-travelers may be prevented from
fulfilling some imperative natural necessity.
"I naturally devote the greatest attention to my own digestion.
With painful conscientiousness I go to stool every day at the
same hour; if the operation does not come off to my satisfaction
I feel not so much physical as mental discomfort. To this quite
useful hygienic interest became associated at puberty a sensual
interest. Since my fourteenth year I have had no greater
enjoyment than to defecate undressed (I do not do so now) after
having first carefully examined the distension of my abdomen. In
summer I would go into the woods, undress myself in a secluded
spot and indulge in the voluptuous pleasures of defecation. I
would sometimes combine with this a bath in a stream. I would
exhaust my imagination in the effort to invent specially
enjoyable variations, longed for a desert island where I could go
about naked, fill my body with much nourishing food, hold in the
excrement as long as possible and then discharge it in some
subtly-thought-out spot. These practices and ideas often caused
erections and later on emissions, but the genitals played no part
in my conceptions; their movements were uncomfortable and gave no
pleasure.
"I soon longed to be associated in these orgies with some boy of
the same age, but I wanted not only a companion in my passion,
but also a real friend. Since there could be no question of
masturbation or pæderasty, our love would have been limited to
kisses, embraces, and--as a compensation for coitus--defecation
together. That would have been perfect bliss to me. I will spare
you the unæsthetic contents of my voluptuous dreams. But I
remained without a companion, and, therefore, without real
enjoyment. [He has, however, on various occasions experienced
erections, and even emissions, on seeing, by chance, men or boys
defecate.] Hinc illæ lacrimæ; the excitement over my own
defecation only took place _faute de mieux_.
"I knew very well that my thoughts and practices were impure and
contemptible. Ah! how often, when the intoxication was over, have
I thrown myself remorsefully on my knees, praying to God for
pardon! For some weeks I repressed my longing; but at last it was
too strong for me, I tried to justify myself and fell into my
vice anew. That I was guilty of licentiousness and loved boys
sexually first became clear to me later on, when I knew the
significance of erection as a sign of sexual excitement.
"No one can imagine with what demoniacal joy I am possessed at
the thought of a beautiful naked boy whose abdomen is filled as
the result of long abstinence from stool. The thought powerfully
excites me, a flood of passion goes through my blood and my limbs
tremble. I would never grow tired of feeling that belly and
looking at it. My passion would express itself in tempestuous
caresses, and the boy would have to assume various positions in
order to show off the beauty of his form, i.e., to bring the
parts in question into better view. To observe defecation would
still further increase this peculiar enjoyment. If the boy's
bowels were not sufficiently filled I would feed him with all
sorts of food which produces much excrement, such as potatoes,
coarse bread, etc. If possible I would seek to delay defecation
for two or three days, so that it might be as copious as
possible. When at last it occurred it would be an unspeakable joy
for me to watch the fæces--which would have to be fairly
firm--emerging from the anus."
X. would like to be a teacher and thinks he could exert a
beneficial influence on boys. In spite of the pain he has
suffered he does not think he would like to be cured of his
perverse inclinations, for they have given him joy as well as
pain, and the pain has chiefly been owing to the fact that he
could not gratify his inclinations. X. smokes and drinks in
moderation, and has no feminine habits. (The foregoing is a
condensed summary of the case which is fully reported by Moll,
_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, pp. 295-305.)
The case of coprolagnia communicated to me is that of a married
man, normal in all other respects, intellectually brilliant and
filling successfully a very responsible position. When a child
the women of his household were always indifferent as to his
presence in their bedrooms, and would satisfy all natural calls
without reserve before him. He would dream of this with
erections. His sexual interests became slowly centered in the act
of defecation, and this fetich throughout life never appealed to
him so powerfully as when associated with the particular type of
household furniture which was used for this purpose in his own
house. The act of defecation in the opposite sex or anything
pertaining to or suggesting the same caused uncontrollable sexual
excitement; the nates also exerted a great attraction. The alvine
excreta exerted this influence even in the absence of the woman;
it was, however, necessary that she should be a sexually
desirable person. The perversion in this case was not complete;
that is to say, that the excitement produced by the act of
defecation or the excretion itself was not actually preferred to
coitus; the sexual idea was normal coitus in the normal manner,
but preceded by the visual and olfactory enjoyment of the
exciting fetich. When coitus was not possible the enjoyment of
the fetich was accompanied by masturbation (as in the analogous
case of urolagnia in a woman summarized on p. 62.) On one
occasion he was discovered by a friend in a bedroom belonging to
a woman, engaged in the act of masturbation over a vessel
containing the desired fetich. In an agony of shame he begged the
mercy of silence concerning this episode, at the same time
revealing his life-history. He has constantly been haunted by the
dread of detection, as well as by remorse and the consciousness
of degradation, also by the fear that his unconquerable obsession
may lead him to the asylum.
The scatalogic groups of sexual perversions, urolagnia and coprolagnia, as
may be sufficiently seen in this brief summary, are not merely olfactory
fetiches. They are, in a larger proportion of cases, dynamic symbols, a
preoccupation with physiological acts which, by associations of contiguity
and still more of resemblance, have gained the virtue of stimulating in
slight cases, and replacing in more extreme cases, the normal
preoccupation with the central physiological act itself. We have seen that
there are various considerations which amply suffice to furnish a basis
for such associations. And when we reflect that in the popular mind, and
to some extent in actual fact, the sexual act itself is, like urination
and defecation, an excretory act, we can understand that the true
excretory acts may easily become symbols of the pseudo-excretory act. It
is, indeed, in the muscular release of accumulated pressures and tensions,
involved by the act of liberating the stored-up excretion, that we have
the closest simulacrum of the tumescence and detumescence of the sexual
process.[32]
In this way the erotic symbolism of urolagnia and coprolagnia is
completely analogous with that dynamic symbolism of the clinging and
swinging garments which Herrick has so accurately described, with the
complex symbolism of flagellation and its play of the rod against the
blushing and trembling nates, with the symbols of sexual strain and stress
which are embodied in the foot and the act of treading.