The Sexual Instinct and its Morbid Manifestations from the Double Standpoint of Jurisprudence and Psychiatry

Preface

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

In the present work I sketch in broad outline those facts and observations which inspired me with the idea of making enquiry into the causes of sexual perversion, and this not merely under the influence of depravity and licentious excess; preferably, in fact I may say chiefly, I examine these causes as connected with a morbid condition of the organism, whether congenital or acquired.

Above all I make it my business to throw all the light possible on the part played by heredity and by the phenomena of arrested development, as well as by the various morbid causes conditioning the etiology of sexual perversions, and to differentiate these with the very utmost clearness from proved depravity of character conscious and premeditated vice.

My Treatise on Sexual Perversion appeared in the first instance in Russian in 1885. A large number of Works have followed suit since in different countries, and I have enjoyed the very great satisfaction of noting that my conclusions have been in the main confirmed by all my learned fellow-workers in other parts of Europe.

Carrying my investigations further into this subject, one equally delicate and impor- tant, I have since brought together a very considerable number of fresh observations, all of which support the views originally expressed in the present work. But, as previously to last year the whole of my time was consecrated to teaching my Classes at the Academy of Medicine, leisure has hitherto failed me to draw up a fair and proper statement of my observations. From another point of view, it may be that, con- sidering their special subject, they are still too recent to be published at once.

Meantime I am bound to state that this fresh evidence has not in any way modified my convictions on the question of sexual aberrations. I may add that the further experience of these last few years makes me insist with even greater confidence than before on the practical conclusions with regard to examination by medico-legal experts which I had previously drawn, and which are laid down in this book.

I would beg my excellent translators, Messrs. W. C. COSTELLO, Ph.D., and A. K. ALLINSON, M.A., as also Mr. CHARLES CARRINGTON, my Publisher, to accept my very sincere thanks for their kindness in undertaking the English Translation. I owe it to them that I am in a position to bring my book under the notice of my English colleagues, as well as that of English Jurists, Physicians and Jurists being the two classes I had particularly in view when I wrote my book.

Professor BENJAMIN TAKNOWSKY.

ST. PETERSBURG,

7 March, 1898.

Intro

INTRODUCTION

Exact knowledge of the causes and conditions of development of sexual aberrations, and of the influence on them of hereditary constitution, education, the impressions of every-day life, and modern refined civilization, is the prerequisite for a rational prophylaxis of sexual aberrations, and for a correct sexual education.

(DR.) SCHRENCK NOTZING.

INTRODUCTION.

Five years ago I was called upon to give my opinion as an expert in a case of pederasty.

On looking through my observations on this subject, and comparing them with the corresponding chapters of the most widely known manuals of forensic medicine, I was struck with the want of agreement between the assertion of official science on the one hand and clinical facts on the other. Each fresh technical examination taught me more clearly to recognize not only how insufficient was the knowledge contained in the manuals dealing with perversity of genesic activity, but also the incorrectness of many of the guiding principles of examination into the actual circumstance. Later studies on this matter by KRAFFT-EBING, LOMBROSO, CHAR- COT, MAONAN and other alienists have rendered

XVIII INTRODUCTION.

it quite impossible to adhere to former views, and yet further confirm my conviction of the truth of the conclusions I have deduced from clinical observation.

At present the difference of opinion between the medical jurist and the clinical physician has become so broad, that it appears to be highly necessary, in order to explain these contradictions, to indicate the foundations on which approximately correct answers to medico-forensic questions may be based, and to prepare the way for wider, more united and more fruitful study of the subject.

The medical jurist sees depravity, over- satiated lust, inveterate vice, wickedness, and so on, where the clinical observer recognizes with certainty the symptoms of a morbid condition with its typical evolution and result. Where the former would punish vice, the latter enters a plea for the necessity of methodical therapeutics. On the other hand, there is a whole series of acts, which are relatively but lightly punished by the law, in which the medical jurist sees only impropriety, caprice or play carried too far, recognizing all the time the moral responsibility of the culprit, whereas the clinical observer discerns therein the outset of a grave malady, the

INTRODUCTION. XIX

beginning of an incurable psychical disturbance, requiring careful watching and treatment. Lastly, the clinical doctor discovers real depravity and complete moral decay in cases, where the medical jurist is more often inclined to suppose the wrong-doer a victim of violence or of fraud.

It is certainly not difficult to understand, why, in any question as to perversity of the genesic activity, the observations and conclu- sions of the clinical physician must take precedence in the discovery of the truth. The medical jurist has exclusively to do with incriminated persons, who first of all seek to escape punishment and therefore mostly deny quite obvious facts. Even in the rare cases of frank admission of culpability the accused sees no reason for describing the intimate causes and motives of his actions. The physician appears naturally in his eyes more as an accuser than as a defender; and when, having made up his mind to undergo the sentence, he confesses the facts, he has no object to gain in making an avowal, one generally fraught with ill -con sequences to himself, of his perverted sexual instincts and the impulses that drive him to gratify his genesic sense in abnormal ways. It is but

XX INTRODUCTION.

seldom that the medical jurist can obtain the diaries of such individuals, their . corre- spondence or other interesting documents, such as are for instance to be found in the classical treatises of Caspar and of Tardieu. But such diaries and autobiographies show very prominently the usual fault of all productions of the kind, viz. the wish to excite interest, to exhibit their good aspects only. In this way the description becomes exaggerated, untrue and utterly deceptive. The clinical physician on the contrary has not to examine incriminated persons. The sufferer comes to him spontaneously to seek for advice. He hopes for assistance from the physician and in all sincerity confides his ailments to him, even in their slightest details. There is no room here for preme- ditated fraud or conscious un veracity. The physician is therefore in a position to distinguish the initial symptoms of an anomaly or of a malady, to follow its development and observe its progress during a number of years. By such means he obtains a complete, consistent and decisive view of the disease.

The representatives of two specialities are the most frequently consulted by such patients:

INTRODUCTION. XXI

physicians devoted to the treatment of mental diseases and specialists for diseases of the genital organs. To the first the applicants are mostly persons with well-defined symptoms, in whom there also exists concurrent perversity of the genesic instinct, not to mention other derangements of the nervous system. The disturbance of the genesic activity is here only an accessory symptom among the series of the other more serious cerebral phenomena which trouble the patient. The specialists for mental diseases have besides opportunities for observing in their asylums the ultimate form of those maladies, which at their inception are manifested in perversity of the genesic action and terminate in complete madness.

Specialists for diseases of the genital organs are resorted to by such as find themselves suffering from any manifestations of organic anomaly, however slight, from arrested devel- opment or from the premonitory signs of incipient disease, when a diminution of the sexual power comes into prominence above all other symptoms, or finally when syphilitic infection makes an avowal inevitable of some perversity of the genesic sense of one sort or another.

XXH INTRODUCTION.

Amongst those consulting the specialist of this class are: The Young Man who after attaining the age of manhood becomes aware of complete impotency where women are concerned, and is obscurely conscious of abnormal sexual promptings within; the Old Man, whose sexual activity has long ago disappeared, but who suddenly feels a new sensual impulse, an exaggerated wantonness and morbid stimulation of desire; the Husband, who idolizes his wife and from time to time gives way to the irrepressible sexual impulse, but who feels impelled to accomplish the conjugal act in some quite unusual and to his own consciousness disgusting manner; the Voluptuary, who has become aware of a diminution of his genesic power and does not know whether it is to be attributed to a quantitative or a qualitative alteration of function. All these haste first of all to the specialist in maladies of the genital organs for advice. Again it is to him the habitual pederast makes his involuntary confession, who has accidentally become inoculated with syphilis, and the boy who has recently been seduced and finds himself attacked by some trouble of the anus or rectum. The avowal of their failing is usually a source of great

INTRODUCTION. XXIII

moral mortification to patients. It is often made in writing, with precautions of mystery and secrecy ; and then a frank confession can only be expected, if the physician avoids meeting it with reproof, but holds himself ready to give his assistance.

I may further remark in this place, that nearly all pederasts, of whatever rank, are more or less known to each other, at least in large towns, and that they generally go for advice to the same physician, whose task of obtaining open and frank confessions with regard to such abnormal genesic facts is much facilitated by the fact.

In the course of my 25 years of medical practice, I have had more particularly to do with various phases of disease affecting the genital organs. And as I carefully noted all my observations I was able to make a large collection of facts bearing upon morbid manifestations of the genesic sense.

The actual criminal and the undoubted madman are two extremes, between which is found a host of unrecognized sufferers, and vicious subjects burdened with an abnormal function of the genesic action; of these two classes the latter will furnish the greater part of the material for the following investigation.

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

Intrust that [observations, not emanating from the prosecuting bench, nor from the registers of lunatic asylums, observations taken on persons belonging to society in general, who have not been bereft of their legal status, and who may be held to be sane, may supply new data for a proper differentiation between vice and disease, between congenital defect and moral lapse.

My intention has been to make my treat- ment of the subject intelligible not only to the physician, but also to the jurist. Therefore the exposition may be somewhat lengthened, because of the necessity of digressions in order to make it as generally comprehensible as possible. I am convinced that it can only be by an exact enquiry into so-called offences against public morals, and a methodical exposition of the facts as compared with the usual legal procedure, that will enable jurists, thoroughly initiated into the actual state of science relating to the morbid manifestations of the genesic sense, to come to a proper conclusion.

General

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

THE genesic instinct presents itself in the human being previous to the development of sexual maturity, and in a healthy organism finds expression in an impulse towards persons of the opposite sex, an impulse which soon changes into a voluntary desire for the accomplishment of the sexual act which, as it becomes more developed, may attain to the degree of a continual sexual want.

Among anomalies of the genesic functions perversity of the genesic instinct shows itself most distinctly in. a morbid inclination towards persons of the same sex. Among men, who form more exclusively the subject of the present research, this form of sexual perversity is designated by the comprehensive expression of "Pederasty Bestiality and Sodomy are, as we shall see further on, no more than variations of the above-mentioned abnormal genesic impulse.

The pederastic manifestations constitute the more definite and better studied group of sexual aberrations, as they are more often the subject of judicial investigation; and for this reason the most prominent place is given in the present work to Pederasty in the widest sense of the expression.

But this vice must not be isolated in this study, without considering also its connection with the other forms and kinds of perversion of sexual activity, which we shall therefore also touch upon, as much as may be necessary for the elucidation of the subject.

As Pederasty is developed under the influence of very different causes, it must, as all other aberrations of the genesic sense, be distributed from the clinical and etiological points of view into several groups and kinds, differing considerably one from another.

The morbid manifestations of sexual activity separate first of all into two great groups, according as they develop in such subjects as are from their birth disposed to such aberrations and to nervous disorders of all sorts, or on the other hand, show themselves in persons, relatively healthy, and who are not under the influence of hereditary infirmity.

In the first group the disorder of the genesic functions is to be referred to a psychopathic or neuropathic constitution ; whereas in the second group we have to do with individuals, who from their birth have always enjoyed a properly constituted and normally acting nervous system.

The morbid symptoms again resulting from hereditary infirmity also show themselves under different forms.

In some cases they present themselves with the very first awakening of the genesic instinct, and in their development remain refractory to the influence of education or example, attain their greatest intensity in the period of sexual maturity and manhood, and subsist during the rest of the lifetime, with periodical diminution or increase.

These aberrations are in their nature constant and invariable, special to the particular organism, in precisely the same way as other innate peculiarities of character feeling or morality are special to the same individual.

The said disturbances constitute the first kind of hereditary infirmity, which we will denominate in general innate Perversion of the sexual instinct; and in this group we shall class innate Pederasty.

To the second division of the same group belong such modifications of the genesic activity as now and then show themselves nolens volens in the form of morbid attacks, which are separated by intervals, during which the sexual functions are performed in a normal manner.

The denomination periodical Perversion of the genesic sense in general, and periodical Pederasty in particular, appears to me best to represent the morbid disturbances in question, because they are in perfect analogy with the so-called periodical psychoses (mental disturbances), those higher manifestations of psychical degeneracy, a degeneracy manifesting itself in occasional outbursts of mental disturbance, while there are long intervals between the attacks during which the mental powers exhibit a relatively normal activity.

In a third class of genesic disturbances I reckon those disorders which show themselves in the well-known morbid manifestations known under the general name of Epilepsy. During the mental disturbance incidental to this malady, there may be exhibited a sort of psychical epilepsy, in the form of an epileptic pederasty.

I regard as paroxysmal phenomena analogous to hysteria and mania those morbid manifestations of the genesic sense that are observed in the so-called erotomania and satyriasis. The description of the last named forms the termination of the group of sexual perturbations founded on hereditary infirmity.

The second group includes all those aberrations of the genesic activity, that may be the result of education or example, or come spontaneously from personal impulse, as the expression of vicious propensity, or of wilful depravity.

The expression : u Acquired Perversion" of the sexual functions and acquired Pederasty answers best in our opinion to the class included in the above group.

This group also contains sundry subdivisions consisting of such perturbations of the sexual functions as are the symptom of a developing disease of the nervous centres, or of the entire organism a disease that attacks subjects who from their birth have had a healthy, well constituted brain.

Among these are to be reckoned the sexual perversions peculiar to the decrepitude of old age Senile Pederasty; and again the sexual aberrations observed during the initial period of paralytic idiocy Paralytic Pederasty.

Every student of nature knows, that the division into groups and species based on any particular symptom is purely conventional and artificial, and serves only to facilitate research without being grounded on any immovable, unchangeable organic foundation. The same holds good with the grouping proposed by me. It must needs undergo modifications as life goes on; the various kinds and types little by little dissolve into each other, becoming mutually complicated one with the other, acquire new, fresh shades of colouring and form, according to the composite forms of genesic aberration, which will be described as a separate group.

I have further analysed the objective symptoms, which enable one to form an opinion on the pederastic perversion of the sexual activity, and which must needs constitute the basis of any special medico-judicial investigation.

Finally, I have endeavoured to determine the data which may serve to establish a differential diagnosis of the different groups and classes of sexual aberrations. We shall begin by describing the forms of sexual aberrations most frequently encountered.

Original footnotes

Group A. Perversion of the Genesic Instinct Based on Hereditary Infirmity

Group A. PERVERSION OF THE GENESIC INSTINCT BASED ON HEREDITARY INFIRMITY.

I. CONGENITAL CONTRARY-SEXUAL FEELING (CONGENITAL PEDERASTY)

JUST as children may be born with abnormally constituted extremities, trunk, head or other members, a congenital tendency may in like manner appear towards perverse modes of manifestation of the genesic instinct.

As in a physical cripple the whole organism may be more or less normally developed, apart from the particular abnormality, so in a moral abortion the psychical constitution may be more or less normal, with the exception of the particular perversion present. The irregular or faulty development of the nervous centres may present a particular character, by reason of which a functional disturbance caused thereby may be limited to any particular domain, that for instance of sexual activity.

But the faulty development of certain nervous centres is not without influence on the development of the others. It is generally possible to recognize in an abortion, notwithstanding the more or less regular constitution of the non-affected parts of the body, a number of slight deviations and irregularities which, if not apparent on a superficial view, are nevertheless discovered by careful examination. In the same way where there is congenital disturbance in limited nervous centres, it has a certain influence upon the whole of the nervous system, which shows itself in certain hardly perceptible irregularities. In order therefore to obtain a general view of the anomaly in question with all the irregularities connected with it, it is necessary to follow up its general development from its very first manifestations.

The child born with congenital sexual perversion grows up and develops to all appearance quite regularly in every way. The genesic sense alone generally awakens unusually early and, as the period of sexual maturity approaches, a whole series of abnormal morbid manifestations show themselves. The first of these symptoms is an expression of shame, not before girls or women, but in presence of grown-up men. For instance, the boy is more ashamed to undress himself before a strange man, than before a woman. On the other hand he prefers the company and caresses of men to those of women. He feels a great attachment to a man, follows him about incessantly, obeys him without a murmur, is charmed with him in one word, he " adores " a man, either a brave, generous and clever man or one with strongly developed muscles, whilst he remains quite indifferent towards women. At length he attains puberty; in the night he often has violent erections with emission of semen. The pollutions are accompanied by dreams, at first indetermined, easily forgotten; but they each time become more distinct, decided and often astonish the youth himself by their strange nature. They are not female caresses nor meetings with women that appear to him in his dreams, but the pressure of the hand, the kiss of well-built, handsome grown-up men. The final erection ending with seminal emission is not provoked in dream by a female form in seductive attitudes and movements, but by the embracing, caresses and kisses of men.

Not only does the representation of womanly form give rise to no sexual excitation, but it paralyzes all voluptuous feeling, when such exists already. Among normally constituted men the heat of sexual erethism rapidly disappears at the sight of grown-up men. On the contrary this same erethism is quenched at once in the congenital pederast in the presence of women. The sight of a naked young woman leaves him indifferent, whereas that of a naked man will awaken in him feelings of lust.

From books and conversation with his comrades he discovers that something quite unusual and abnormal is taking place within him. But the strangeness to him of the phenomenon itself, the difficulty of giving it a distinct form, and his ever increasing shyness when in company with men, cause the youth to dissimulate his misfortune. Sometimes, incited thereto by companions of his age, he ventures to share the couch of some girl and to accomplish the act of manhood, but each time the effort fails and is not seldom followed by a hysterical fit.

Just as a normally constituted and sexually developed man, try as he may, cannot feel any lustful desire for another man, so it is equally impossible for the congental pederast to accomplish coition with a woman. Such fruitless endeavours serve only to still more discourage the young man and finally inspire him with a disgust for women. He now seeks the companionship of men, pays court to them, falls in love with them, and in the meantime seeks for satisfaction in onanism.

In consequence of the congenital morbid erethism, the so-called excitable weakness of the nervous system, the feelings of lubricity become soon intensified to their utmost, and often find in the simple physical contact with the beloved person the determination of an emissio seminis. The love of such subjects is extraordinarily violent, morbidly passionate, absorbs all their moral and sensitive faculties, and is at first purely Platonic; it is only later on that the sexual feeling and its con- sequent genesic impulse finds satisfaction in mutual masturbation or in onanistic excitation of the adored person. Finally, when the latter consents to it, or because he wishes to satisfy his lust otherwise, the act of sodomy is consummated, in which the morbidly dis- posed participator always plays the part of the passive pederast.

Concurrently with the exaggeration of sexual perversion just described, other peculiarities

13

of the sick organism begin to show them- selves. The youth is impelled to give himself a feminine appearance, likes to wear female attire, to have his hair curled, to walk about with exposed neck, and tightened waist, to scent, powder and rouge the face, to paint the eyebrows, etc. In this way is developed a type of womanish-looking men, disgusting to those of their own sex and looked upon with contempt by women, and whom it is easy to recognize by their appearance. They are generally of middle-sized or slight build, with broad hips and narrow shoulders, affect- ing a feminine walk and a peculiar swinging gait ; with perfumed locks, eccentric dress, bracelets on their wrists, they seek by every means, laughing, talking and gesticulation, to draw the attention of men to themselves. The unhappy creature cannot realize, parti- cularly if there is a relatively weak develop- ment of his understanding, that he is so much the more repugnant to normally consti- tuted men the more he seeks to imitate a woman. At once fantastical, even to hysteria, envious, cowardly, mean, revengeful and spiteful, he combines in himself all the faults of the woman, without any of her qualities, and possesses none of the attractive traits of

14

the manly character. He is therefore de- spicable alike to men and women.

Many such sufferers willingly acknowledge their abnormal condition which they endeavour to explain to themselves. "I have a female soul in a man's body," wrote K. H. Ulrichs, 1 who has written quite a series of treatises, which, although very interesting as the detailed confessions of a psychopathic subject, are at the same without order and too long drawn out, as is the case with most of the same class of works.

It often happens that such patients feel depressed in mind by the knowledge of their infirmity and of their inability to fight against it. In this connection, a letter, kindly com- municated to us by Professor J. Mierzejewsky, is of great interest. It is to the following effect : " .... To speak frankly, I am even here, far away, exposed to temptations, against which I am defenceless, and I do not really know what it means ; malady, or the power of youthful impressions, or want of will, against which I have been fighting in vain for more than four years or an unlucky

1 Numa Numantins, Anthropologische Studien iiber die mannmannliche Geschlechtsliebe, etc. (Anthropological Studies of Sexual Love as between Man and Man), Leipzig, 1869.

15

nature, a fatal destiny, or else an instinct that death only can cure?! That is why I at times brood on the thought of some rapid and painless poison, for in truth this instinct is in contradiction with my judgment . . . ."

A few months before his marriage with a charming girl, a patient of mine wrote to me as follows: "I am a slave to my fatal passion, I cannot abandon vice and I am not able to love Friiulein X . . ., although I feel that it is only with her that I could be happy. In her absence, I love her under- standing, her soul, her visage even ; but when I see her, I feel that I should not be in a condition to become her husband .... It would be the greatest of misfortunes. Up to the present I have never been able to have intercourse with women with her it will be the same thing . . . There remains for me nothing but death, if your help proves to be powerless . . . "

Sometimes the patient, perpetually tortured by jealousy of women because of their success with men, feels despair on account of his mostly unsuccessful loves, often repulsed with contempt, in a fit of melancholy takes his own life or, sinking deeper and deeper, he

16

confines himself to the narrow circle of a few fellow-sufferers, and terminates his exist- ence in a half stupid condition. Otherwise he may become the victim of one form or another of acute mania, if his miserable existence is not previously put an end to by some other accidental malady. The type here described combines in it the principal characteristics of the congenital pederast as most frequently met with.

However, there are others again who, in their efforts to ape the fair sex, adopt more eccentric forms. So, for instance, Taylor 1 in this connection has written a most impor- tant observation, emboding his description of the celebrated English actress and advent- uress Elisa Edwards who, after her death, was discovered to have been a man in dis- guise. From his earliest youth he felt an inclination for men, from the age of 14 wore female clothing, went on the stage, had many amorous adventures, lived as a Mistress, and used to fasten up his genitals, which were quite normally developed, to his body by a special bandage, so as not to be recognized.

Notwithstanding the clear, explicit expres- sion of the inclination to copy the female

1 Medic. Jurisprudence, 1873. Vol. II, pp. 286 and 473.

17

sex in the above case, the sexual perversity implied differs really in no respect from that exhibited by the previously described type of the born passive pederast, or so-called u Cy- nede * .

But besides such cases as this, there exist other intermediate forms occurring under cir- cumstances to be presently defined, morbid aberrations now more, now less, strongly marked, which form a gradual transition to obvious forms of hereditary mental derange- ment.

In the weaker defined manifestations the boy or youth exhibits only his predisposition to occupy himself with feminine work He likes to knit, to sew, to make doll's clothes; otherwise he distinguishes himself by his peculiar preference for feminine manners, he strives to be graceful and coquettish in his demeanour, imitates the tone and voice -of a woman, etc,, and is awkward and out of his element and blushes when in conversation with men. On the contrary, he is quite free from embarrassment in the company of young girls, is glad to take the woman's part in dancing, always choosing for cavalier a vigo- rous, stalwart manly dancer, becoming quite enlivened and merry, when he has found a

18

man to his taste, or else growing confused and troubled at his sight and running away like a timid little girl.

Another occupies all his leisure time before the looking-glass ; combs his hair, puts on curl-papers, paints his face, adorns his per- son, studying in the most serious fashion what is becoming to him and what is not. He has a wonderful remembrance of the most complicated female toilettes, and is able to describe them in all their details; in this matter he exhibits a quite delicate taste, but shows himself absolutely wanting in taste when he adopts male attire. He either sports a too violently coloured neck-tie, or he ex- poses his neck so low, that it appears extra- vagantly exaggerated, even for a woman; or else he has his hair curled in long locks, and covers his fingers with rings and puts brace- lets upon his wrists.