Exhibitionism--Illustrative Cases--A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship--The
Impulse to Defile--The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude--The Sexual Organs
as Fetichs--Phallus Worship--Adolescent Pride in Sexual
Development--Exhibitionism of the Nates--The Classification of the Forms
of Exhibitionism--Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy.
There is a remarkable form of erotic symbolism--very definite and standing
clearly apart from all other forms--in which sexual gratification is
experienced in the simple act of exhibiting the sexual organ to persons of
the opposite sex, usually by preference to young and presumably innocent
persons, very often children. This is termed exhibitionism.[54] It would
appear to be a not very infrequent phenomenon, and most women, once or
more in their lives, especially when young, have encountered a man who has
thus deliberately exposed himself before them.
The exhibitionist, though often a young and apparently vigorous man, is
always satisfied with the mere act of self-exhibition and the emotional
reaction which that act produces; he makes no demands on the woman to whom
he exposes himself; he seldom speaks, he makes no effort to approach her;
as a rule, he fails even to display the signs of sexual excitation. His
desires are completely gratified by the act of exhibition and by the
emotional reaction it arouses in the woman. He departs satisfied and
relieved.
A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the
nature of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in
which it may originate. It is the case of a business man of 49,
of neurotic heredity, an affectionate husband and father of a
family, who, to his own grief and shame, is compelled from time
to time to exhibit his sexual organs to women in the street. As a
boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to coitus; both had
their sexual parts exposed. From that time sexual contacts, as of
his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive,
as well as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched
before each other with their sexual parts exposed, and also
imitation of the copulation of animals. Coitus was first
practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the woman's
sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement.
It was also necessary--and this consideration is highly important
as regards the development of the tendency to exhibition--that
the woman should be excited by the sight of his organs. Even when
he saw or touched a woman's parts orgasm often occurred. It was
the naked sexual organs in an otherwise clothed body which
chiefly excited him. He was not possessed of a high degree of
potency. Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him,
and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual
matters. His self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration,
and it was accompanied by the idea that other people felt as he
did about the sexual effects of the naked organs, that he was
shocking but at the same time sexually exciting a young girl. He
was thus gratifying himself through the belief that he was
causing sexual gratification to an innocent girl. This man was
convicted several times, and was finally declared to be suffering
from impulsive insanity. (Schrenck-Notzing,
_Kriminal-psychologische und Psycho-pathologische Studien_, 1902,
pp. 50-57.) In another case of Schrenck-Notzing's, an actor and
portrait painter, aged 31, in youth masturbated and was fond of
contemplating the images of the sexual organs of both sexes,
finding little pleasure in coitus. At the age of 24, at a bathing
establishment, he happened to occupy a compartment next to that
occupied by a lady, and when naked he became aware that his
neighbor was watching him through a chink in the partition. This
caused him powerful excitement and he was obliged to masturbate.
Ever since he has had an impulse to exhibit his organs and to
masturbate in the presence of women. He believes that the sight
of his organs excites the woman (Ib., pp. 57-68). The presence of
masturbation in this case renders it untypical as a case of
exhibitionism. Moll at one time went so far as to assert that
when masturbation takes place we are not entitled to admit
exhibitionism, (_Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis_, bd. i,
p. 661), but now accepts exhibitionism with masturbation
("Perverse Sexualempfindung," _Krankheiten und Ehe_). The act of
exhibition itself gratifies the sexual impulse, and usually it
suffices to replace both tumescence and detumescence.
A fairly typical case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing, is that of a
German factory worker of 37, a good, sober and intelligent
workman. His parents were healthy, but one of his mother's and
also one of his father's sisters were insane; some of his
relatives are eccentric in religion. He has a languishing
expression and a smile of self-complacency. He never had any
severe illness, but has always been eccentric and imaginative,
much absorbed in romances (such as Dumas's novels) and fond of
identifying himself with their heroes. No signs of epilepsy. In
youth moderate masturbation, later moderate coitus. He lives a
retired life, but is fond of elegant dress and of ornament.
Though not a drinker, he sometimes makes himself a kind of punch
which has a sexually exciting effect on him. The impulse to
exhibitionism has only developed in recent years. When the
impulse is upon him he becomes hot, his heart beats violently,
the blood rushes to his head, and he is oblivious of everything
around him that is not connected with his own act. Afterwards he
regards himself as a fool and makes vain resolutions never to
repeat the act. In exhibition the penis is only half erect and
ejaculation never occurs. (He is only capable of coitus with a
woman who shows great attraction to him.) He is satisfied with
self-exhibition, and believes that he thus gives pleasure to the
woman, since he himself receives pleasure in contemplating a
woman's sexual parts. His erotic dreams are of self-exhibition to
young and voluptuous women. He had been previously punished for
an offense of this kind; medico-legal opinion now recognized the
incriminated man's psychopathic condition. (Krafft-Ebing, _Op.
cit._, pp. 492-494.)
Trochon has reported the case of a married man of 33, a worker in
a factory, who for several years had exhibited himself at
intervals to shop-girls, etc., in a state of erection, but
without speaking or making other advances. He was a hard-working,
honest, sober man of quiet habits, a good father to his family
and happy at home. He showed not the slightest sign of insanity.
But he was taciturn, melancholic and nervous; a sister was an
idiot. He was arrested, but on the report of the experts that he
committed these acts from a morbid impulse he could not control
he was released. (Trochon, _Archives de l'Anthropologie
Criminelle_, 1888, p. 256.)
In a case of Freyer's (_Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte_, third
year, No. 8) the occasional connection of exhibitionism with
epilepsy is well illustrated by a barber's assistant, aged 35,
whose father suffered from chronic alcoholism and was also said
to have committed the same kind of offense as his son. The mother
and a sister suffered nervously. From ages of 7 to 18 the subject
had epileptic convulsions. From 16 to 21 he indulged in normal
sexual intercourse. At about that time he had often to pass a
playground and at times would urinate there; it happened that the
children watched him with curiosity. He noticed that when thus
watched sexual excitement was caused, inducing erection and even
ejaculation. He gradually found pleasure in this kind of sexual
gratification; finally he became indifferent to coitus. His
erotic dreams, though still usually about normal coitus, were now
sometimes concerned with exhibition before little girls. When
overcome by the impulse he could see and hear nothing around him,
though he did not lose consciousness. After the act was over he
was troubled by his deed. In all other respects he was entirely
reasonable. He was imprisoned many times for exhibiting himself
to young schoolgirls, sometimes vaunting the beauty of his organs
and inviting inspection. On one occasion he underwent mental
examination, but was considered to be mentally sound. He was
finally held to be a hereditarily tainted individual with
neuropathic constitution. The head was abnormally broad, penis
small, patellar reflex absent, and there were many signs of
neurasthenia. (Krafft-Ebing, _Op. cit._, pp. 490-492.)
The prevalence of epilepsy among exhibitionists is shown by the
observations of Pelanda in Verona. He has recorded six cases of
this perversion, all of which eventually reached the asylum and
were either epileptics or with epileptic relations. One had a
brother who was also an exhibitionist. In some cases the penis
was abnormally large, in others abnormally small. Several had
very weak sexual impulse; one, at the age of 62, had never
effected coitus, and was proud of the fact that he was still a
virgin, considering, he would say, the epoch of demoralization in
which we live. (Pelanda, "Pornopatici," _Archivio di
Psichiatria_, fasc. ii-iv, 1889.)
In a very typical case of exhibitionism which Garnier has
recorded, a certain X., a gentleman engaged in business in Paris,
had a predilection for exhibiting himself in churches, more
especially in Saint-Roch. He was arrested several times for
exposing his sexual organs here before ladies in prayer. In this
way he finally ruined his commercial position in Paris and was
obliged to establish himself in a small provincial town. Here
again he soon exposed himself in a church and was again sent to
prison, but on his liberation immediately performed the same act
in the same church in what was described as a most imperturbable
manner. Compelled to leave the town, he returned to Paris, and in
a few weeks' time was again arrested for repeating his old
offense in Saint Roch. When examined by Garnier, the information
he supplied was vague and incomplete, and he was very embarrassed
in the attempt to explain himself. He was unable to say why he
chose a church, but he felt that it was to a church that he must
go. He had, however, no thought of profanation and no wish to
give offense. "Quite the contrary!" he declared. He had the sad
and tired air of a man who is dominated by a force stronger than
his will. "I know," he added, "what repulsion my conduct must
inspire. Why am I made thus? Who will cure me?" (P. Garnier,
"Perversions Sexuelles," _Comptes Rendus_, International Congress
of Medicine at Paris in 1900, _Section de Psychiatrie_, pp.
433-435.)
In some cases, it would appear, the impulse to exhibitionism may
be overcome or may pass away. This result is the more likely to
come about in those cases in which exhibitionism has been largely
conditioned by chronic alcoholism or other influences tending to
destroy the inhibiting and restraining action of the higher
centers, which may be overcome by hygiene and treatment. In this
connection I may bring forward a case which has been communicated
to me by a medical correspondent in London. It is that of an
actor, of high standing in his profession and extremely
intelligent, 49 years of age, married and father of a large
family. He is sexually vigorous and of erotic temperament. His
general health has always been good, but he is a high-strung,
neurotic man, with quick mental reactions. His habits had for a
long time been decidedly alcoholic, but two years ago, a small
quantity of albumen being found in the urine, he was persuaded to
leave off alcohol, and has since been a teetotaller. Though
ordinarily very reticent about sexual matters, he began four or
five years ago to commit acts of exhibitionism, exposing himself
to servants in the house and occasionally to women in the
country. This continued after the alcohol had been abandoned and
lasted for several years, though the attention of the police was
never attracted to the matter, and so far as possible he was
quietly supervised by his friends. Nine months after, the acts of
exhibitionism ceased, apparently in a spontaneous manner, and
there has so far been no relapse.
Exhibitionism is an act which, on the face of it, seems nonsensical and
meaningless, and as such, as an inexplicable act of madness, it has
frequently been treated both by writers on insanity and on sexual
perversion. "These acts are so lacking in common sense and intelligent
reflection that no other reason than insanity can be offered for the
patient," Ball concluded.[55] Moll, also, who defines exhibitionism
somewhat too narrowly as a condition in which "the charm of the exhibition
lies for the subject in the display itself," not sufficiently taking into
consideration the imagined effect on the spectator, concludes that "the
psychological basis of exhibitionism is at present by no means cleared
up."[56]
We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as
fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship. The
exhibitionist displays the organ of sex to a feminine witness, and in the
shock of modest sexual shame by which she reacts to that spectacle, he
finds a gratifying similitude of the normal emotions of coitus.[57] He
feels that he has effected a psychic defloration.
Exhibitionism is thus analogous, and, indeed, related, to the
impulse felt by many persons to perform indecorous acts or tell
indecent stories before young and innocent persons of the
opposite sex. This is a kind of psychic exhibitionism, the
gratification it causes lying exactly, as in physical
exhibitionism, in the emotional confusion which it is felt to
arouse. The two kinds of exhibitionism may be combined in the
same person: Thus, in a case reported by Hoche (p. 97), the
exhibitionist an intellectual and highly educated man, with a
doctor's degree, also found pleasure in sending indecent poems
and pictures to women, whom, however, he made no attempt to
seduce; he was content with the thought of the emotions he
aroused or believed that he aroused.
It is possible that within this group should come the agent in
the following incident which was lately observed by a lady, a
friend of my own. An elderly man in an overcoat was seen standing
outside a large and well-known draper's shop in the outskirts of
London; when able to attract the attention of any of the
shop-girls or of any girl in the street he would fling back his
coat and reveal that he was wearing over his own clothes a
woman's chemise (or possibly bodice) and a woman's drawers; there
was no exposure. The only intelligible explanation of this action
would seem to be that pleasure was experienced in the mild shock
of interested surprise and injured modesty which this vision was
imagined to cause to a young girl. It would thus be a
comparatively innocent form of psychic defloration.
It is of interest to point out that the sexual symbolism of active
flagellation is very closely analogous to this symbolism of exhibitionism.
The flagellant approaches a woman with the rod (itself a symbol of the
penis and in some countries bearing names which are also applied to that
organ) and inflicts on an intimate part of her body the signs of blushing
and the spasmodic movements which are associated with sexual excitement,
while at the same time she feels, or the flagellant imagines that she
feels, the corresponding emotions of delicious shame.[58] This is an even
closer mimicry of the sexual act than the exhibitionist attains, for the
latter fails to secure the consent of the woman nor does he enjoy any
intimate contact with her naked body. The difference is connected with the
fact that the active flagellant is usually a more virile and normal person
than the exhibitionist. In the majority of cases the exhibitionist's
sexual impulse is very feeble, and as a rule he is either to some degree a
degenerate, or else a person who is suffering from an early stage of
general paralysis, dementia, or some other highly enfeebling cause of
mental disorganization, such as chronic alcoholism. Sexual feebleness is
further indicated by the fact that the individuals selected as witnesses
are frequently mere children.
It seems probable that a form of erotic symbolism somewhat
similar to exhibitionism is to be found in the rare cases in
which sexual gratification is derived from throwing ink, acid or
other defiling liquids on women's dresses. Thoinot has recorded a
case of this kind (_Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1898, pp. 484, _et
seq._). An instructive case has been presented by Moll. In this
case a young man of somewhat neuropathic heredity had as a youth
of 16 or 17, when romping with his young sister's playfellows,
experienced sexual sensations on chancing to see their white
underlinen. From that time white underlinen and white dresses
became to him a fetich and he was only attracted to women so
attired. One day, at the age of 25, when crossing the street in
wet weather with a young lady in a white dress, a passing vehicle
splashed the dress with mud. This incident caused him strong
sexual excitement, and from that time he had the impulse to throw
ink, perchloride of iron, etc., on to ladies' white dresses, and
sometimes to cut and tear them, sexual excitement and ejaculation
taking place every time he effected this. (Moll, "Gutachten über
einem Sexual Perversen [Besudelungstrieb]," _Zeitschrift für
Medizinalbeamte_, Heft XIII, 1900). Such a case is of
considerable psychological interest. Thoinot considers that in
these cases the fleck is a fetich. That is an incorrect account
of the matter. In this case the white garments constituted the
primary fetich, but that fetich becomes more acutely realized,
and at the same time both parties are thrown into an emotional
state which to the fetichist becomes a mimicry of coitus, by the
act of defilement. We may perhaps connect with this phenomenon
the attraction which muddy shoes often exert over the
shoe-fetichist, and the curious way in which, as we have seen (p.
18), Restif de la Bretonne associates his love of neatness in
women with his attraction to the feet, the part, he remarks,
least easy to keep clean.
Garnier applied the term _sadi-fetichism_ to active flagellation
and many similar manifestations such as we are here concerned
with, on the grounds that they are hybrids which combine the
morbid adoration for a definite object with the impulse to
exercise a more or less degree of violence. From the standpoint
of the conception of erotic symbolism I have adopted there is no
need for this term. There is here no hybrid combination of two
unlike mental states. We are simply concerned with states of
erotic symbolism, more or less complete, more or less complex.
The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves
a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's
mind to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is
directed. He seeks to cause an emotion which, probably in most cases, he
desires should be pleasurable. But from one cause or another his finer
sensibilities are always inhibited or in abeyance, and he is unable to
estimate accurately either the impression he is likely to produce or the
general results of his action, or else he is moved by a strong impulsive
obsession which overpowers his judgment. In many cases he has good reason
for believing that his act will be pleasurable, and frequently he finds
complacent witnesses among the low-class servant girls, etc.
It may be pointed out here that we are quite justified in
speaking of a penis-fetichism and also of a vulva-fetichism. This
might be questioned. We are obviously justified in recognizing a
fetichism which attaches itself to the pubic hair, or, as in a
case with which I am acquainted, to the clitoris, but it may seem
that we cannot regard the central sexual organs as symbols of
sex, symbols, as it were, of themselves. Properly regarded,
however, it is the sexual act rather than the sexual organ which
is craved in normal sexual desire; the organ is regarded merely
as the means and not as the end. Regarded as a means the organ is
indeed an object of desire, but it only becomes a fetich when it
arrests and fixes the attention. An attention thus pleasurably
fixed, a vulva-fetichism or a penis-fetichism, is within the
normal range of sexual emotion (this point has been mentioned in
the previous volume when discussing the part played by the
primary sexual organs in sexual selection), and in coarse-grained
natures of either sex it is a normal allurement in its
generalized shape, apart from any attraction to the person to
whom the organs belong. In some morbid cases, however, this
penis-fetichism may become a fully developed sexual perversion. A
typical case of this kind has been recorded by Howard in the
United States. Mrs. W., aged 39, was married at 20 to a strong,
healthy man, but derived no pleasure from coitus, though she
received great pleasure from masturbation practiced immediately
after coitus, and nine years after marriage she ceased actual
coitus, compelling her husband to adopt mutual masturbation. She
would introduce men into the house at all times of the day or
night, and after persuading them to expose their persons would
retire to her room to masturbate. The same man never aroused
desire more than once. This desire became so violent and
persistent that she would seek out men in all sorts of public
places and, having induced them to expose themselves, rapidly
retreat to the nearest convenient spot for self-gratification.
She once abstracted a pair of trousers she had seen a man wear
and after fondling them experienced the orgasm. Her husband
finally left her, after vainly attempting to have her confined in
an asylum. She was often arrested for her actions, but through
the intervention of friends set free again. She was a highly
intelligent woman, and apart from this perversion entirely
normal. (W.L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," _Alienist and
Neurologist_, January, 1896.) It is on the existence of a more or
less developed penis-fetichism of this kind that the
exhibitionist, mostly by an ignorant instinct, relies for the
effects he desires to produce.
The exhibitionist is not usually content to produce a mere titillated
amusement; he seeks to produce a more powerful effect which must be
emotional whether or not it is pleasurable. A professional man in
Strassburg (in a case reported by Hoche[59]) would walk about in the
evening in a long cloak, and when he met ladies would suddenly throw his
cloak back under a street lamp, or igniting a red-fire match, and thus
exhibit his organs. There was an evident effort--on the part of a weak,
vain, and effeminate man--to produce a maximum of emotional effect. The
attempt to heighten the emotional shock is also seen in the fact that the
exhibitionist frequently chooses a church as the scene of his exploits,
not during service, for he always avoids a concourse of people, but
perhaps toward evening when there are only a few kneeling women scattered
through the edifice. The church is chosen, often instinctively rather than
deliberately, from no impulse to commit a sacrilegious outrage--which, as
a rule, the exhibitionist does not feel his act to be--but because it
really presents the conditions most favorable to the act and the effects
desired. The exhibitionist's attitude of mind is well illustrated by one
of Garnier's patients who declared that he never wished to be seen by more
than two women at once, "just what is necessary," he added, "for an
exchange of impressions." After each exhibition he would ask himself
anxiously: "Did they see me? What are they thinking? What do they say to
each other about me? Oh! how I should like to know!" Another patient of
Garnier's, who haunted churches for this purpose, made this very
significant statement: "Why do I like going to churches? I can scarcely
say. _But I know that it is only there that my act has its full
importance_. The woman is in a devout frame of mind, and she must see that
such an act in such a place is not a joke in bad taste or a disgusting
obscenity; _that if I go there it is not to amuse myself; it is more
serious than that!_ I watch the effect produced on the faces of the ladies
to whom I show my organs. I wish to see them express a profound joy. I
wish, in fact, that they may be forced to say to themselves: _How
impressive Nature is when thus seen!_"
Here we trace the presence of a feeling which recalls the
phenomena of the ancient and world-wide phallic worship, still
liable to reappear sporadically. Women sometimes took part in
these rites, and the osculation of the male sexual organ or its
emblematic representation by women is easily traceable in the
phallic rites of India and many other lands, not excluding Europe
even in comparatively recent times. (Dulaure in his _Divinités
Génératices_ brings together much bearing on these points; cf.:
Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter XVII, and Bloch,
_Beiträge zur Psychopathia Sexualis_, Teil I, pp. 115-117. Colin
Scott has some interesting remarks on phallic worship and the
part it has played in aiding human evolution, "Sex and Art,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 191-197.
Irving Rosse describes some modern phallic rites in which both
men and women took part, similar to those practiced in vaudouism,
"Sexual Hypochondriasis," _Virginia Medical Monthly_, October,
1892.)
Putting aside any question of phallic worship, a certain pride
and more or less private feeling of ostentation in the new
expansion and development of the organs of virility seems to be
almost normal at adolescence. "We have much reason to assume,"
Stanley Hall remarks, "that in a state of nature there is a
certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the
new local development. I think it will be found that
exhibitionists are usually those who have excessive growth here,
and that much that modern society stigmatizes as obscene is at
bottom more or less spontaneous and perhaps in some cases not
abnormal. Dr. Seerley tells me he has never examined a young man
largely developed who had the usual strong instinctive tendency
of modesty to cover himself with his hands, but he finds this
instinct general with those whose development is less than the
average." (G. Stanley Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 97.) This
instinct of ostentation, however, so far as it is normal, is held
in check by other considerations, and is not, in the strict
sense, exhibitionism. I have observed a full-grown telegraph boy
walking across Hampstead Heath with his sexual organs exposed,
but immediately he realized that he was seen he concealed them.
The solemnity of exhibitionism at this age finds expression in
the climax of the sonnet, "Oraison du Soir," written at 16 by
Rimbaud, whose verse generally is a splendid and insolent
manifestation of rank adolescence:--
"Doux comme le Seigneur du cèdre et des hysopes,
Je pisse vers les cieux bruns très haut et très loin,
Avec l'assentiment des grands héliotropes."
(J.A. Rimbaud, _Oeuvres_, p. 68.)
In women, also, there would appear to be traceable a somewhat
similar ostentation, though in them it is complicated and largely
inhibited by modesty, and at the same time diffused over the body
owing to the absence of external sexual organs. "Primitive
woman," remarks Madame Renooz, "proud of her womanhood, for a
long time defended her nakedness which ancient art has always
represented. And in the actual life of the young girl to-day
there is a moment when by a secret atavism she feels the pride of
her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot
understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering
between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely
knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A sort of
confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing
was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs
of that human epoch." (Céline Renooz, _Psychologie Comparée de
l'Homme et de la Femme_, p. 85.) It may be added that among
primitive peoples, and even among some remote European
populations to-day, the exhibition of feminine nudity has
sometimes been regarded as a spectacle with religious or magic
operation. (Ploss, _Das Weib_, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp.
663-680; Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p.
304.) It is stated by Gopcevic that in the long struggle between
the Albanians and the Montenegrians the women of the former
people would stand in the front rank and expose themselves by
raising their skirts, believing that they would thus insure
victory. As, however, they were shot down, and as, moreover,
victory usually fell to the Montenegrians, this custom became
discredited. (Quoted by Bloch, _Op. cit._, Teil II, p. 307.)
With regard to the association, suggested by Stanley Hall,
between exhibitionism and an unusual degree of development of the
sexual organs, it must be remarked that both extremes--a very
large and a very small penis--are specially common in
exhibitionists. The prevalence of the small organ is due to an
association of exhibitionism with sexual feebleness. The
prevalence of the large organ may be due to the cause suggested
by Hall. Among Mahommedans the sexual organs are sometimes
habitually exposed by religious penitents, and I note that
Bernhard Stern, in his book on the medical and sexual aspects of
life in Turkey, referring to a penitent of this sort whom he saw
on the Stamboul bridge at Constantinople, remarks that the organ
was very largely developed. It may well be in such a case that
the penitent's religious attitude is reinforced by some lingering
relic of a more fleshly ostentation.
It is by a pseudo-atavism that this phallicism is evoked in the
exhibitionist. There is no true emergence of an ancestrally inherited
instinct, but by the paralysis or inhibition of the finer and higher
feelings current in civilization, the exhibitionist is placed on the same
mental level as the man of a more primitive age, and he thus presents the
basis on which the impulses belonging to a higher culture may naturally
take root and develop.
Reference may here be made to a form of primitive exhibitionism,
almost confined to women, which, although certainly symbolic, is
absolutely non-sexual, and must not, therefore, be confused with
the phenomena we are here occupied with. I refer to the
exhibition of the buttocks as a mark of contempt. In its most
primitive form, no doubt, this exhibitionism is a kind of
exorcism, a method of putting evil spirits, primarily, and
secondarily evil-disposed persons, to flight. It is the most
effective way for a woman to display sexual centers, and it
shares in the magical virtues which all unveiling of the sexual
centers is believed by primitive peoples to possess. It is
recorded that the women of some peoples in the Balkan peninsula
formerly used this gesture against enemies in battle. In the
sixteenth century so distinguished a theologian as Luther when
assailed by the Evil One at night was able to put the adversary
to flight by protruding his uncovered buttocks from the bed. But
the spiritual significance of this attitude is lost with the
decay of primitive beliefs. It survives, but merely as a gesture
of insult. The symbolism comes to have reference to the nates as
the excretory focus, the seat of the anus. In any case it ignores
any sexual attractiveness in this part of the body. Exhibitionism
of this kind, therefore, can scarcely arise in persons of any
sensitiveness or æsthetic perception, even putting aside the
question of modesty, and there seems to be little trace of it in
classic antiquity when the nates were regarded as objects of
beauty. Among the Egyptians, however, we gather from Herodotus
(Bk. II, Chapter LX) that at a certain popular religious festival
men and women would go in boats on the Nile, singing and playing,
and when they approached a town the women on the boats would
insult the women of the town by injurious language and by
exposing themselves. Among the Arabs, however, the specific
gesture we are concerned with is noted, and a man to whom
vengeance is forbidden would express his feelings by exposing his
posterior and strewing earth on his head (Wellhausen, _Rests
Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, p. 195). It is in Europe and in
mediæval and later times that this emphatic gesture seems to have
flourished as a violent method of expressing contempt. It was by
no means confined to the lower classes, and Kleinpaul, in
discussing this form of "speech without words," quotes examples
of various noble persons, even princesses, who are recorded thus
to have expressed their feelings. (Kleinpaul, _Sprache ohne
Worte_, pp. 271-273.) In more recent times the gesture has become
merely a rare and extreme expression of unrestrained feeling in
coarse-grained peasants. Zola, in the figure of Mouquette in
_Germinal_, may be said to have given a kind of classic
expression to the gesture. In the more remote parts of Europe it
appears to be still not altogether uncommon. This seems to be
notably the case among the South Slavs, and Krauss states that
"when a South Slav woman wishes to express her deepest contempt
for anyone she bends forward, with left hand raising her skirts,
and with the right slapping her posterior, at the same time
exclaiming: 'This for you!'" (Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 200.)
A verbal survival of this gesture, consisting in the contemptuous
invitation to kiss this region, still exists among us in remote
parts of the country, especially as an insult offered by an angry
woman who forgets herself. It is said to be commonly used in
Wales. ("Welsh Ædoelogy," Kryptadia, vol. ii, pp. 358, et seq.)
In Cornwall, when addressed by a woman to a man it is sometimes
regarded as a deadly insult, even if the woman is young and
attractive, and may cause a life-long enmity between related
families. From this point of view the nates are a symbol of
contempt, and any sexual significance is excluded. (The
distinction is brought out by Diderot in _Le Neveu de Rameau:_
"_Lui:_--Il y a d'autres jours ou il ne m'en coûterait rien pour
être vil tant qu'on voudrait; ces jours-là, pour un liard, je
baiserais le cul à la petite Hus. _Moi:_--Eh! mais, l'ami, elle
est blanche, jolie, douce, potelée, et c'est un acte d'humilité
auquel un plus delicat que vous pourrait quelquefois s'abaisser.
_Lui:_--Entendons-nous; c'est qu'il y a baiser le cul au simple,
et baiser le cul au figuré.")
It must be added that a sexual form of exhibitionism of the nates
must still be recognized. It occurs in masochism and expresses
the desire for passive flagellation. Rousseau, whose emotional
life was profoundly affected by the castigations which as a child
he received from Mlle Lambercier, has in his _Confessions_ told
us how, when a youth, he would sometimes expose himself in this
way in the presence of young women. Such masochistic
exhibitionism seems, however, to be rare.
While the manifestations of exhibitionism are substantially the same in
all cases, there are many degrees and varieties of the condition. We may
find among exhibitionists, as Garnier remarks, dementia, states of
unconsciousness, epilepsy, general paralysis, alcoholism, but the most
typical cases, he adds, if not indeed the cases to which the term properly
belongs, are those in which it is an impulsive obsession. Krafft-Ebing[60]
divides exhibitionists into four clinical groups: (1) acquired states of
mental weakness, with cerebral or spinal disease clouding consciousness
and at the same time causing impotence; (2) epileptics, in whom the act is
an abnormal organic impulse performed in a state of imperfect
consciousness; (3) a somewhat allied group of neurasthenic cases; (4)
periodical impulsive cases with deep hereditary taint. This classification
is not altogether satisfactory. Garnier's classification, placing the
group of obsessional cases in the foreground and leaving the other more
vaguely defined groups in the background, is probably better. I am
inclined to consider that most of the cases fall into one or other of two
mixed groups. The first class includes cases in which there is more or
less congenital abnormality, but otherwise a fair or even complete degree
of mental integrity; they are usually young adults, they are more or less
precisely conscious of the end they wish to attain, and it is often only
with a severe struggle that they yield to their impulses. In the second
class the beginnings of mental or nervous disease have diminished the
sensibility of the higher centers; the subjects are usually old men whose
lives have been absolutely correct; they are often only vaguely aware of
the nature of the satisfaction they are seeking, and frequently no
struggle precedes the manifestation; such was the case of the overworked
clergyman described by Hughes,[61] who, after much study, became morose
and absent-minded, and committed acts of exhibitionism which he could not
explain but made no attempt to deny; with rest and restorative treatment
his health improved and the acts ceased. It is in the first class of cases
alone that there is a developed sexual perversion. In the cases of the
second class there is a more or less definite sexual intention, but it is
only just conscious, and the emergence of the impulse is due not to its
strength but to the weakness, temporary or permanent, of the higher
inhibiting centers.
Epileptic cases, with loss of consciousness during the act, can only be
regarded as presenting a pseudo-exhibitionism. They should be excluded
altogether. It is undoubtedly true that many cases of real or apparent
exhibitionism occur in epileptics.[62] We must not, however, too hastily
conclude that because these acts occur in epileptics they are necessarily
unconscious acts. Epilepsy frequently occurs on a basis of hereditary
degeneration, and the exhibitionism may be, and not infrequently is, a
stigma of the degeneracy and not an indication of the occurrence of a
minor epileptic fit. When the act of pseudo-exhibitionism is truly
epileptic, it will usually have no psychic sexual content, and it will
certainly be liable to occur under all sorts of circumstances, when the
patient is alone or in a miscellaneous concourse of people. It will be on
a level with the acts of the highly respectable young woman who, at the
conclusion of an attack of _petit mal_, consisting chiefly of a sudden
desire to pass urine, on one occasion lifted up her clothes and urinated
at a public entertainment, so that it was with difficulty her friends
prevented her from being handed over to the police.[63] Such an act is
automatic, unconscious, and involuntary; the spectators are not even
perceived; it cannot be an act of exhibitionism. Whenever, on the other
hand, the place and the time are evidently chosen deliberately,--a quiet
spot, the presence of only one or two young women or children,--it is
difficult to admit that we are in the presence of a fit of epileptic
unconsciousness, even when the subject is known to be epileptic.
Even, however, when we exclude those epileptic pseudo-exhibitionists who,
from the legal point of view, are clearly irresponsible, it must still be
remembered that in every case of exhibitionism there is a high degree of
either mental abnormality on a neuropathic basis, or else of actual
disease. This is true to a greater extent in exhibitionism than in almost
any other form of sexual perversion. No subject of exhibitionism should be
sent to prison without expert medical examination.