Chapter XXII
Like algolagnia, =sexual fetichism= rests upon a physiological basis, and is merely a more or less abnormal increase of fetichistic ideas and perceptions, which are rooted in the very nature of the sexual attraction.
By fetichism (derived from the Portuguese feitico Italian fetisso--magic, charm) we understand the limitation of love, its transference from the entire personality to a =portion= of this personality, or, it may be, to some =lifeless= physical object =related= to the personality.[627] This fascinating “portion” of the beloved personality, or the “object” associated with this personality, is the sexual “fetich.” Within physiological limits, the part concerned exercises a particular attraction, and is especially exciting, but in the ideas of the lover it remains associated with the entire personality to which it belongs. Fetichism first becomes abnormal, or pathological, when the partial representation becomes completely divorced from the general representation of the personality, so that, for example, a plait of hair or a pocket-handkerchief is loved alone and by itself, disconnected from the person to whom it belongs.
The development of love can always be referred to fetichistic ideas, for when we examine critically the first general impression which the beloved makes upon the lover, we always find that there are certain =parts= or =functions= which have made the =greatest= impression, and have exercised a greater erotic influence than other portions. To the former of these, therefore, the imagination and the sensibility more especially =cleave=. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., p. 311), I defined sexual fetiches as peculiar =symbols= of the =essence= of the beloved personality, with which the idea of the entire type is most readily associated. M. Hirschfeld later enunciated the same views.
As sexual fetiches we may have: (1) =Portions of the body=; (2) =functions and emanations of the body=; and (3) =objects which have any kind of relation to the body=.
Under (1) we may enumerate the hand, the foot, the nose, the ears, the eyes, the hair of the head, the hair of the beard, the throat and the back of the neck, the breasts, the hips, the genital organs, the buttocks, the calves. All these parts may constitute sexual fetiches.
The same is true of all the influences enumerated under (2)--viz., gait, movement, voice, glance, odour, complexion.
Under (3) we may enumerate the clothing as a =whole= (as costume) and in its individual parts, upper-clothing and underclothing, hat, eyeglasses, way of dressing the hair, necktie, bodice, corset, chemise, petticoat, stockings, shoes or boots, apron, handkerchief, clothing materials (fur, satin, silk), the colour of clothing (mourning, parti-coloured blouses, white clothing, uniform), fashion (cul de Paris, décolleté and retroussé, tricot); indeed, clothing fetichism goes so far that a particular shape of the heel of the shoe, a particular mode of ornamentation of some particular part of the clothing, and, finally, any striking part of the clothing, may become a sexual fetich.
This fetichistic influence is further increased by a peculiar characteristic of human love. This is its tendency towards =idealization=, =beautification=, and =enlargement= of those parts which especially affect the senses. This beautification and idealization extends from the body to the clothing, and to articles in general, used by the beloved person, but normally remains associated with the entire personality. It is first by means of the enlargement and accentuation of a distinct part that this becomes separated from the general idea, and thus its removal and conversion into a “fetich” is prepared for. In the chapter on clothing we drew attention to this general anthropological phenomenon of the enlargement and accentuation of many parts by means of such measures as painting, articles of clothing, exposure, way of doing the hair, etc.
Inasmuch as now, by the ideal and actual accentuation of the part under consideration, it is projected as a more independent structure, and separates itself from the personality as a whole, it is involuntarily =isolated= in idea by the fetichist, and becomes =generalized= to constitute an independent stimulus, which may now, temporarily or permanently, completely take the place of the personality as a whole.
This physiological process embraces both the “lesser” and the “greater” fetichism of Binet.
The lesser fetichism consists in this: that the lover, without going so far as to lose sight completely of the entire person of his beloved, still directs his attention to =individual= special charms, or is in general first attracted to the beloved woman by means of =quite distinct qualities=, such as the shape and smallness of the hand, the colour and sparkling of the eyes, the abundance and softness of the hair, the complexion, a distinct odour, a melodious voice, etc. In the “lesser” fetichism the partial representation plays, indeed, a very prominent part in the general picture, but does not entirely obliterate this picture.
In the “greater” fetichism, on the other hand, a particular portion, or function, or quality, or an article of clothing, or an object of customary use belonging to the beloved person, is isolated from this latter, and in a sense becomes transformed into the latter, and assumes wholly and completely the character of a being capable by itself of exercising a sexually exciting influence. This is genuine sexual fetichism.
Binet and von Schrenck-Notzing have referred the genesis of fetichism, as a rule, to some =chance occurrence= during childhood--to a fetichistic impression which chanced to coincide with sexual excitement, and thus obtained a permanently sexual coloration. The time of puberty and the first sexual relationships are especially dangerous for the formation of such associations of ideas. Von Schrenck-Notzing rightly draws attention to the fact that this perverse associative connexion, as a reaction to powerful external impressions, does not occur only, as Binet assumes, in predisposed individuals, but is also =quite peculiarly characteristic of the childish mental life at the time when the brain is undergoing growth, as well as of the less-developed intellectual powers of savage races=, among whom at the present time, in quite other provinces than the sexual, fetichism is cultivated in the most excessive manner; thus, fetichism is often manifested by persons with perfectly normal brains. Such chance occurrences for the origination of sexual fetichism occur in games, in reading, in solitary and mutual masturbation. Nearly always, in connexion with the genesis of fetichism, we can prove that there has been some such actual predisposing cause.
In numerous cases of the “greater” fetichism, especially in the category of the hair fetichists (“plait-cutters”), shoe fetichists, and handkerchief fetichists, there is also associated a more or less severe psychopathic constitution, on the foundation of which the fetichistic impulse has developed as a kind of “=coercive idea=” (obsession). These are the cases which have the greatest forensic importance, and which gain publicity.
We shall now proceed to give a brief account of the most important forms of sexual fetichism, and those most frequently encountered.
First of all, =parts=, =functions=, and =qualities= of the body may constitute sexual fetiches; the possibilities in this respect, extending from head to foot, have been enumerated above. Moreover, odd as it may sound, the =entire human being= may also become a sexual fetich, not as a whole personality--that would be normal love--but as a =national= or =racial= individual. In such a case we have the so-called “=racial fetichism=.” The European newspapers are full of interesting reports of the peculiar attractive force exercised by exotic individuals, female or male, such as negroes, Arabs, Abyssinians, Moors, Indians, Japanese, etc., upon European men and women respectively. Whenever members of such races come to stay in any European capital, we hear of remarkable love affairs between white girls and these strangers, of romantic abductions, and other mad adventures. The novelty, peculiarity, piquancy of the strange races has the effect of a fetich. The size, the figure, the physiognomy, tint of skin, smell, tattooing, adornment, costume, speech, dance, and song, of these savage men exercise a fascinating influence. White men have from very early times had a peculiar weakness for negroes and for mulatto women and girls. As early as the eighteenth century there existed in Paris negro brothels; and somewhat later, after Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, negroes and negresses came in large numbers to Paris, and were utilized for the gratification of the lusts of both sexes.
Notwithstanding the deeply-rooted racial hatred, even in America racial fetichism gives rise to numerous connexions of this kind. The “coloured girl” exercises a powerful attractive force upon the American man; and even the proud American woman manifests, with an especial frequency in Chicago, a certain preference for the male negro.[628] But much greater is the alluring force exercised by the white upon the negro. More especially among civilized negroes does the white woman play the part of a fetich. This is the explanation of the frequent rape, or attempted rape, of white girls on the part of negroes--one of the principal causes of the Southern lynchings.
Among the parts of the body which act as fetiches, we have especially to mention the hair of woman’s head. “=Hair fetichism=” is widely diffused, both in the physiological “lesser” form and in the pathological “greater” form. The abundance and the colour of the hair have an equal influence in normal love also as a “fetich.” Hair, “of sweetest flesh, the tenderest, Sweetest growth,” as Eduard Grisebach terms it in his “Neue Tanhäuser,” has a profound sexual significance; with primitive man, also, it probably played the same rôle of a sexually stimulating “veil” which was later played by tattooing and clothing. The hair of the head, and special modes of arranging that hair, play an important part in sexual selection among the savage races. The odour of the hair also has a sexually stimulating influence, and remains persistent in the imagination. The softness also of the hair, the waving, curling movement of woman’s loosened hair, and the rustling of the hair, excite the imagination. But most important of all is the colour of the hair; and in this respect =blonde= or reddish-blonde hair unquestionably takes the first rank as a sexual fetich. Blonde hair exercised such an influence in the days of the Roman Empire. The demi-monde of all times has utilized this form of hair fetichism, felt by men, for its own purposes, either by dyeing the hair a fair colour, or by the wearing of fair-haired wigs. There exist, also, fetichistic impulses towards brown, black, and red hair respectively. Jon Lehmann tells (Breslauer Zeitung, August 24, 1906) of a great libertine who was happy with any or all pretty girls, as long as they had not red hair and were not the daughters of clergymen. Innumerable times had he made this assertion. Many years later Lehmann found him as the happy husband of--a red-haired clergyman’s daughter! “C’est l’amour qui a fait cela,” he answered laconically to the astonished question why he had been so unfaithful to the principles of his youth.
Hair fetichism manifests itself in various ways. Many people are, properly speaking, rather smell fetichists than hair fetichists; they content themselves simply with smelling the hair, and this constitutes their only, or their principal, sexual gratification. Other hair fetichists obtain sexual enjoyment by looking at the hair, or by passing the fingers through it. The following case, reported by Archenholtz (“England and Italy,” vol. i., p. 448; Leipzig, 1785), is typical:
“I was acquainted with an Englishman who was an honourable man; but he had a very peculiar taste, which, as he frequently assured me, was deeply rooted in his soul. His greatest pleasure, which alone could intoxicate his senses, was to comb the hair of a beautiful woman. He kept a very handsome mistress for this purpose only. =Love and woman did not, in the ordinary sense, come under consideration; he had nothing to do except with her hair.= In the hours that suited him, she must take down her hair and let him pass his hands through it. This operation produced in him the most intense degree of physical voluptuousness.”
The most remarkable class of hair-fetichists are the so-called “=plait-cutters=.” The transition to this morbid state depends upon the custom, widely diffused in earlier times, of cutting off and preserving locks of hair as erotic fetiches. This sexual reliquary cult flourished especially in the eighteenth century, during the period of “sentiment.” Friedrich S. Krauss reports (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. i., p. 163) that among the Southern Slavs young men and women gave one another tufts of pubic hair as sexual fetiches. The “wig-collectors” also belong to the category of harmless hair fetichists. More serious are the genuine “plait-cutters”--persons who are accustomed to cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls, who are happy in the possession of these plaits, and who obtain sexual gratification simply by looking at and touching them. These plait-cutters are almost unquestionably pathological individuals, who act under the influence of coercive impulses. Recently, in Berlin, two such cases attracted public attention. The judicial proceedings connected with the former of these cases elicited such interesting details regarding the development, psychology, and activity of plait fetichism that it is worth preserving, and is therefore given here at length, quoted from a report in the Berliner Tageblatt, No. 118, of March 6, 1906.
PERVERSITIES BEFORE THE LAW COURTS.
The plait-cutter whose arrest attracted so much attention appeared yesterday in the Assessor’s Court, under the presidency of the judicial assessor Förster. The accused, Robert S., was a student of the Technical High School at Charlottenburg. The accused was prosecuted and defended by counsel. He was born at Valparaiso in the year 1883. The accusation was that, between the months of November and January last, he had, in sixteen cases, in the public streets, cut plaits of hair from the heads of young girls, taking also the ribbons with which their hair was tied; this charge was one of theft. In twelve cases also he was accused of bodily maltreatment and actual injury. Two medical experts were present to advise the court. During the inquiry the public was excluded from the court, but the representatives of the Press were admitted.
The accused replied to the inquiries of the President, that he had come to Germany in the year 1888, and that he had been at school in Thorn, Bergedorf, and Hamburg. In Hamburg he had passed his final examination, and had received a good report on leaving. He had always had a special fondness for mathematics; he had studied for one term at Munich. He had always worked very hard. He admitted that in sixteen cases he had cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls in the streets of Berlin. In his rooms =thirty-one plaits= had been found.--President: Had you such tendencies in earlier years?--Accused: Yes; at the age of sixteen years I secretly, one evening, cut some hair from the head of my sister, thirteen years of age, and kept it. I have always had a desire for beautiful long hair; finally, this desire became so strong that I was unable to resist it any longer. The first time that I cut some hair from the head of a girl was the day of the entrance of the Crown Princess. I do not know why I suddenly was unable to resist the impulse. It became more powerful after I returned from a journey to South America, which I made as a voluntary machinist. The voyage lasted five months. I had worked very hard while on board. During the whole voyage I was in a gloomy mood, and when I returned the impulse became continually greater.--President: In what way did the impulse affect you?--Accused: I frequently ran after little girls without being able to gratify the desire to possess their hair. Then I succeeded, amid the crowd at the entrance festivities Unter den Linden, to cut some loose hair from the head of a girl with a pair of scissors, without the girl becoming aware of it.--President: What did you do with the hair?--Accused: Nothing at all.--President: What did you think about while you where doing it?--Accused: Nothing. I simply put the hair into my pocket.--President: And afterwards?--Accused: Several times Unter den Linden I cut loose hair from girls’ heads.--President: When did you begin to cut off entire plaits?--Accused: In November, at the entrance of the King of Spain. Then, in the “Opernplatz,” I cut a plait from the head of a child; the girl did not notice it, and I remained quiet. The plait was fastened with ribbon.--President: What did you do with the plait?--Accused: I took it home, combed it, and put it in a box on my writing-table, on which was the inscription “Mementoes.” I afterwards frequently =took the hair out and kissed it=. Often I laid it on my pillow and rested my head on it.--President: Were you not fully aware that you were doing something wrong, and that you were interfering profoundly with the rights of another individual?--Accused: I did not think about it.--President: If the proceedings were now to come to an end, and if you were discharged, would you do the same thing again?--Accused: I do not think that I should do it again, now that I have experienced what the consequences are.--President: Can you give security that in the future your will will be stronger than the impulse?--Accused: I cannot give any guarantee.--President: Have you never read in the papers that the citizens of Berlin were very much agitated by this cutting off of girls’ hair?--Accused: I have read nothing of the kind.--President: When were you arrested?--Accused: On January 27. From a girl whose hair was plaited in two plaits I cut one plait; when she came near me again, I wanted to cut off the other plait, and then I was arrested.--President: Is it true that you put a ribbon round each plait of hair, and marked it with the date you had cut it off?--Accused: To some extent I did so.--President: Have you ever had sexual relations with woman?--Accused: No, never. I have only had a strong impulse to gain possession of beautiful long hair.--President: Would not long beautiful men’s hair have satisfied you as well?--Accused: Yes.--Counsel for the Defence: Did you not have this morbid impulse in quite early youth? You told me that you remembered the hair of many girls from the time that you were at school in Thorn. At that time you were eight years old. You said to me that you had thought no more about the persons to whom the hair belonged, but only, and all the more, about their hair.--Accused: That is correct. It is indifferent to me whether the person to whom the hair belonged is young and beautiful or old and ugly: my only interest is in the hair.--President: Have you the same interest in white hair?--Accused: My attraction is only to fair hair.--In reply to a further question on the part of the President, the accused declared that he had been a very active member of the academic gymnastic club, and that he belonged to a students’ purity alliance.--Counsel for the Defence: The accused has stated that, while he is at work, it often happens that suddenly plaits of hair seem to appear before his eyes. He often has reveries in which it seems to him that in all countries women and girls with beautiful hair are at his disposal, and that he is able to rob them of their hair. Among his colleagues the accused has always felt himself to be thrust into the background. He had the feeling that he was =destined for great things=, and that his comrades would not recognize this. The accused, whose father is dead, had received assistance for his studies; his brother is an officer at sea; one of his sisters is mentally disordered.--Of the witnesses who had been summoned to attend, three only were examined. Captain von W., whose daughter, when walking in the Leipzigerstrasse, had been robbed of part of her hair by the accused, gave evidence that the affair had had very disagreeable consequences to his daughter. Since that time the child had suffered from a terrible feeling of anxiety; she had experienced a nervous shock, and frequently cried out anxiously in the middle of the night, because she was dreaming of the plait-cutter.--The next witness, Frau Gall, an old acquaintance of the family of the accused, described his character as exceptionally good. All who knew him had been astonished to hear of his actions; no one who knew him had ever observed this passion for hair. Recently he had obviously been overstrained mentally, and very distrait; generally speaking, he was not high-spirited and happy, like other young fellows. According to further evidence given by this witness, regarding the family history, it appeared that the accused was affected with congenital taint.--Undergraduate Schmeding, President of “the Alliance for the Maintenance of Chastity,” had become intimately acquainted with the accused, in consequence of their holding similar views. He described him as having a good character, but as dreamy, melancholy, and reserved, and unfamiliar with harmless cheerfulness and joy.--Dr. Hoffmann, one of the medical advisers to the court, said: We have in this case to do with a peculiar mode of activity of the sexual impulse. Although such an impulse does not completely abrogate responsibility, still, in this case, normal responsibility is greatly limited from early youth onwards. The accused has an imaginative belief that he is not sufficiently esteemed; he believes that he could make himself invisible; he believes that he could build a great castle, and furnish the rooms of this castle with innumerable plaits of hair. Moreover, he is =hereditarily tainted with insanity=, and bodily examination shows that he has =numerous stigmata of degeneration=. § 51 of the Criminal Code should apply to this case. Since the accused can hardly be supposed to have the power of controlling his impulse, it would appear necessary that he should be treated in a lunatic asylum.--Dr. Leppmann, the other medical adviser, said: The case before us is one of extreme rarity. The accused suffers from severe congenital taint, and exhibits a number of stigmata of degeneration. At the time his offences were committed the accused was certainly emotionally disturbed, and at the present time is still ill. Von Krafft-Ebing reports only a few such cases, and the same is true of Dr. Moll. The accused was incapable of free voluntary determination; he is still unhealthy, and must be treated as a sick man.--Counsel for the Prosecution: If the accused had been in possession of normal mental health, it would have been necessary to punish him with exceptional severity, for such offences as his profoundly endangered public security; it would not be right for any gaps to exist in our Criminal Code which made the punishment of such an offence impossible. We may dispute in detail under which paragraph the offence comes, but there can be no question but that it is a punishable offence. The medical experts had, however, shown that the accused was not fully sane, and he must be dealt with from this standpoint.
The President summed up as follows: The public sense of justice naturally demands severe punishment for such an offence. The accused, however, is not criminally responsible. In view of the evidence given by the medical experts, the accused must be discharged, on the understanding that his family will immediately take steps to have him confined in an asylum. It was possible that this decision would not satisfy every one, but in view of the evidence before the court, no other course was possible.
This case appears to have had a suggestive influence, for shortly afterwards a cashier, Alfred L., was arrested, who had cut plaits of hair from the heads of two young girls. In his home were found, in addition, seventeen plaits of hair, which he had =bought=, among these the queue of a Chinese! Already when a schoolboy L. had been affected with this morbid impulse.
There exist also homosexual or pseudo-homosexual hair fetichists, especially among women, to whom the hair of another woman’s head becomes a fetich. Remarkable is the following passage in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s romance “Lust” (pp. 210-212; Berlin, 1902):
“‘Do you remember,’ asked Donna Francesca (of her friend Donna Maria), ‘at school, how we all wished to comb your hair? how we used to fight about it every day? Imagine, Andreas, that blood used actually to flow! Ah, I shall never forget the scenes between Carlotta Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni. It was maniacal! To comb the hair of Maria Bandinelli was the one ardent desire of all the girls, great and small alike. The infection spread through the whole school. There followed prohibitions, warnings, severe punishment; we were even threatened with having our own hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? All our heads were bewitched by the black snake which hung from your head to your heels. What passionate tears every evening! And when Gabriella Vanni, from jealousy, made that treacherous cut with a pair of scissors! Gabriella had really lost her wits. Do you remember?...’”
“Andreas remarked that none of his lady friends had had such a growth of hair, so thick, so dark a forest, in which she could conceal herself. The history of all these young girls, in love with a plait of hair, filled with passion and jealousy, who burned to lay comb and hands upon this living treasure, seemed to him a most stimulating and poetic episode of cloistral life.”
There exists also a negative hair fetichism. Hirschfeld reports the case of a prostitute who was a well-developed fetichist for baldness. Among many races, removal of the hair is a means of sexual stimulation.
Nose, lips, mouth (cf. Belot’s novel, “La Bouche de Madame X.”), and ears, can all become the objects of sexual fetichism, though in most cases only of the lesser fetichism; the eyes also, which as fetichistic charms play an important part, and are effective especially through their colour. It is uncertain if, in this relationship, clear blue eyes or sparkling black eyes have the greater importance. The female breast is a natural physiological fetich for the male sex. But over and above this there exists a remarkable variety of breast fetichists, who employ the isolated breast, separated from the body, for the binding of books. According to Witkowski (“Tetoniana,” p. 35; Paris, 1898), certain bibliomaniacs and erotomaniacs have books bound with women’s skin taken from the region of the breast, so that the nipple forms a characteristic swelling on the cover! A further account of these human skin fetichists is given by Dr. Picard in the Gazette Médicale de Paris, July 19, 1906.
Von Krafft-Ebing contests the existence of a special “=genital fetichism=”; but the universal diffusion of the phallus-cult contradicts his opinion; the phallus-cult is unquestionably connected with fetichistic ideas, which are embodied in the symbols of the lingam and the yoni. According to Weininger,[629] woman, speaking generally, is =only= a phallus fetichist; man exists for her only as a sexual organ.
“I think people have been unwilling to see--or they have been unwilling to say; they have hardly formed accurate idea for themselves--what the copulatory organ of a man is for a woman, as wife, even as virgin; what it psychologically signifies; how it dominates to the uttermost the entire life of woman, although she herself may be completely unconscious of the fact. I do not mean at all that woman regards the male penis as beautiful, or even pretty. She regards it as man regards the Gorgon’s head, as the bird regards the snake--it exercises upon her a hypnotizing, magical, fascinating influence.”
Goethe lays stress on the beauty which the male penis has in woman’s eyes, when, in the paralipomena to the first part of “Faust” (Weimar edition, vol. xiv., p. 307), he makes Satan say in his address to women:
“Für euch sind zwei Dinge Von köstlichem Glanz, Das leuchtende Gold Und ein glänzender....”
Georg Hirth also (“Ways to Love,” pp. 566, 567) speaks of an instinctive belief on the part of woman in the “beauty and the paradisaical force of the phallus,” and he regrets “the unnatural depreciation and mendacious concealment of this portion of the male body” by the conventional morality discovered by the world of men.
The wide diffusion of the genital fetichistic tendencies in man and woman is clearly manifested by the extremely frequent occurrence of isolated adoration of the genital organs in the practices of cunnilinctus and fellatio, which in numerous individuals completely replace normal coitus.
Very rare is a case, which came under my own observation, of isolated penis-foreskin fetichism in a heterosexual man. He is thirty years of age, and a student of natural science, in whom at the age of four years the first manifestation of sexual excitement occurred; later, towards the age of puberty, sexual excitement became always associated with the mental representation of a male penis, and more especially of the foreskin of that organ, whilst he felt antipathy to the idea of actual sexual intercourse with men, and felt attracted to women. Still, from time to time the imaginative representation of the membrum virile takes possession of his mind as a sort of coercive idea, and when this happens the patient masturbates, at the same time often making sketches of a penis.
A singular case of exclusively genital fetichism is reported by P. Garnier (“Les Fetichistes,” pp. 170-174; Paris, 1896).
This case was that of a man, forty-eight years of age, who in normal sexual intercourse was almost completely impotent, and who could obtain sexual gratification only by the =observation of the genital organs of human beings and animals=, and who, as in the case just mentioned, was sexually excited by making sketches of genital organs. This person exhibited obvious symptoms of nervous disorder.
We might regard it as hardly possible that cases should exist in which the fetichism related to genital organs of a dubious character--“hermaphrodite fetichism”; and yet a veritable case of such hermaphrodite fetichism has come under my own observation.
The case is that of an officer, who is always searching for hermaphroditic formations of the genital organs. He is pretty well known in this respect among the prostitutes of Berlin, who make use of his inclination for their own advantage, by a demonstration to him of reputed hermaphrodites. He has had the good fortune to discover several real hermaphrodites; but notwithstanding all his endeavours, his affection has never been returned.
The hand, especially a woman’s hand, is not simply an object for cheiromancy, but is also the occasion of a sexual fetichism by which the hand is spiritualized. The beautiful, finely-formed hand is a powerful love-charm. Binet reports the case of a young man in whom sexual excitement was exclusively produced by a woman’s hand, and he was always on the look-out for opportunities of touching the beautiful hands of women. Isolated foot fetichism is rarer; it is generally associated with the very common shoe fetichism (vide infra). The buttocks, the kallipygian charms of women, have always been a sexual fetich for men. Among flagellants this may become isolated as a fetich, and completely divorced from the personality as a whole. For such individuals, in sexual relationships, only the posteriora exist.
Among the bodily functions which are capable of acting as fetiches, the =smell=, the emanation of the body, unquestionably takes the first place. Smell fetichism is a very frequent phenomenon. Regarding the intimate relationships between the sense of smell and the vita sexualis, and regarding the existence of certain specific sexual odours, I have already recorded the most important facts in the first chapter of the present work (pp. 15-18). As sexual odours, the emanation from the hair of the head, the emanation from the armpits, the smell of the genital region, and the general emanation from the skin, come under consideration.[630]
The fetichism for red hair is frequently no more than an apparent hair fetichism; much more often it is really a smell fetichism, because since early times red-haired individuals have been supposed to emit an emanation having a powerful sexually exciting influence. In the Romance countries, France and Italy, this belief is universally diffused. I quote another passage from d’ Annunzio’s “Lust” (p. 66):
“‘Have you noticed the armpits of Madame Chlysoloras?’ The Duke of Beffi indicated the dancer, upon whose alabaster forehead a firebrand of red hair was shining, like that which we see in the priestesses of Alma Tadema. Her bodice was fastened on the shoulders by very narrow straps, and in the armpits one could see two luxuriant tufts of red hair.
“Bomminaco begins to speak at large regarding the peculiar odour which is diffused by red-haired women.”
Binet tells of a student of medicine who one day, when sitting on a bench reading, suddenly had an erection of the penis, and on looking round he saw sitting on the same bench a red-haired woman, whom he had not before consciously observed, from whom a powerful odour emanated.
The =odour of the armpits= also appears in France to find fetichistic lovers. The French cocotte commonly assumes during coitus a position in which the man has his nose in one of her armpits, and sometimes spontaneously offers this position. At the unrestrained dances in the Parisian winter season, more especially at the very free bal des quat’z arts, held in the spring, we frequently see the men sniffing at the armpits of the girls.
It is unquestionable that the odour of the body at large may in certain circumstances act as a sexual fetich. Many peculiar love relationships prove this fact. From very early times among the common people the odour of sweat has been regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac. I may allude to the case, reported by von Krafft-Ebing, of King Henry III., who dried his face with the chemise of Maria of Cleves, dripping with sweat, and thereby was inspired with a passionate love for her. I may refer also to the case of a peasant who, when dancing, was accustomed to dry the face of his partner with his handkerchief, which he had carried in his own armpit, and thus produced in her voluptuous excitement. An Indian king, when choosing his beloved, did so simply by smelling the clothing moistened by their perspiration, and selected the woman whose clothing was most agreeable to his sense of smell.[631] Oscar A. H. Schmitz informed me that an English traveller in India related to him that in India lovers sometimes changed underclothing. Each wears the shirt impregnated with the perspiration of the other. The love of Princess Chimay for the gipsy Rigó is stated to have been a typical “smell-love” of this kind. It is said that the odour of negresses and mulattresses has an especially powerful exciting influence upon Frenchmen, of which the poet Baudelaire is mentioned as an example; this writer declared that smell was the third and highest degree of voluptuousness. Recently Peter Altenberg, in “Prodromos,” has described the sexual importance of the odour of the body at large. Such typical smell fetichists, luxuriating in the general emanation of the feminine body, are mentioned by Macé, the chief of the Parisian police. He describes very vividly how, in the larger shops, such men move about among the feminine customers, in order to intoxicate themselves with the odours proceeding from them.
In opposition to these general bodily odours, the specific genital odours play in the human species a subordinate part; they are for the most part perceived as unpleasant. Falck[632] is of opinion that this antipathy only becomes apparent after sexual intercourse, whilst before such intercourse the odour of the genital organs has a slight erotic stimulating influence. Many cases of cunnilinctus and fellatio are certainly referable to olfactory impressions. The following case is plainly indicative of the sexual influence of genital odours:
An Italian woman loved, after sexual intercourse, to retain on her hands the odour of the genital secretions, and on such occasions, although usually a scrupulously clean person, she avoided washing her hands. She was especially fond of mingling this odour with that of cigarette smoke. She was entirely free from stigmata of degeneration; on the contrary, she was an extremely robust, well-developed person.
One of the most remarkable and monstrous phenomena in the domain of sexual perversities is that by which the =processes and products of the ultimate stages of metabolism= become associated with libido sexualis, become true sexual fetiches, and can more especially give rise to a formal speciality of smell fetichism. The position of the orifices of the alimentary canal and of the urinary apparatus in the =immediate neighbourhood= of the genital organs gives rise to a certain associative conjunction between the functions of these parts, and this association is rendered more intimate by various circumstances (cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 224, 225). In addition, the idealizing influence of libido sexualis plays a part here; the identification of the desired individual with the lover’s own ego leads the disagreeable and disgusting character of those processes and parts to disappear, and ultimately brings about a comparison between the real æsthetic charm of the beloved person and the coarsely material processes in question, which takes the form of a sensually stimulating contrast. There is not in this case any quite unusual association of ideas on the part of a completely degenerate individual; we have rather to do with a =general anthropological and ethnological phenomenon=. I was myself the first to give an elaborate proof of this fact (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 223-240); and I illuminated more especially the remarkable rôle of the so-called “=skatology=”--that is, the sexual influence of the ultimate products of human metabolism, and of the processes associated therewith--in =folk-lore=, in =mythology=, in =superstition=, and in the =literature of all nations and times=. In this way do we first arrive at an understanding of the possibility of an erotic influence exercised by defæcation and micturition, which is so often observed at the present day; above all, in the so-called “=muse latrinale=”--in the widely diffused practice of scribbling obscene inscriptions on the walls of public lavatories[633]--which finds expression also in sexual “=copralagnia and urolagnia=.”
Compare, in this connexion, S. Soukhanoff, “Contribution à l’Étude des Perversions Sexuelles,” published in Annales Médico-Psycologiques, January and February, 1901--a case of urolagnia and copralagnia in a habitual masturbator, twenty-seven years of age. A remarkable case of sexual excitement produced by the odour of newly made hay, in a lawyer, twenty-five years of age, is reported by Amrain (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. iv., p. 237). This person took off all his clothes, and rolled as if intoxicated in the hay, until ejaculation occurred. He called his impulse a “vis major.”
It is clear that masochistic and sadistic elements play an important part in many cases of urolagnia and copralagnia. But there are pure forms of smell fetichism in this category, as we see in the case of those persons who become sexually excited in consequence of the smell of the urine and fæces of the beloved person; or, speaking generally, by the smell of those excrements, the person from whom they are derived being a matter of indifference. These are the renifleurs and épongeurs of the French observers, who haunt public lavatories in order to obtain sexual excitement from the smell of the excrements of persons of the opposite sex. There even exist individuals who have the acts of defæcation and micturition performed by others on to their own bodies; in this case the masochistic element is associated with the element of smell fetichism.
A greater rôle than that of the natural sexual odours is at the present day played by =artificial perfumes=, which, as a fact, are frequently employed as sexual fetiches. Their origin, and the cause of their use, has been already explained (p. 17). From early times prostitution and the demi-monde have made the most extensive use of these artificial scents for the sexual allurement of men. Men are, in general, more sensitive to sexual stimulation by means of perfumes than women are. These perfumes are partly derived from plants; in fact, the simple odour of certain flowers produces sexual excitement--a fact well known to many peasant girls.[634] Other sexually stimulating scents are derived from the animal kingdom, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. A French firm of perfumers advertises a perfume--“charme secret”--the local employment of which is clearly suggested in the advertisement. But in most cases only a portion of the clothing or underclothing is perfumed. There exist typical perfume fetichists, who can, as a rule, be sexually excited only by means of some definite perfume, in the absence of which they are impotent.
In comparison with smell, =taste= plays a very minor part. Still, a primevally old popular custom, the use of “priapistic flavouring agents,” rests upon fetichistic ideas of this kind. Cunnilinctus and fellatio are perhaps also committed with the desire to taste the genital organs; just as the same must be the case with those not very rare practices in which flavouring agents or beverages are brought into contact with the genital organs, are impregnated, as it were, with their essence, and then swallowed. To this belongs also the following original case:
A man obtains sexual gratification only in this way: by introducing a cigar, small end first, into the female genital passage, leaving it there a long time, and then smoking it, with the end thus impregnated in his mouth.
There exist many other forms of fetichism. It is impossible to enumerate all these varieties. I shall, for example, refer only to the not uncommon fetichism of women for athletes and acrobats, or for singers and actors; and to that of men for dancers, and especially for horsewomen, whose appearance has quite a fascinating influence on many men, more particularly when they are actually on horseback.
Analogous to the previously described hermaphrodite fetichism is fetichism for other bodily defects, as for obese, lame, and hunchbacked persons.
Von Krafft-Ebing reported the case of a man who loved only girls with a limp, which I can parallel by an observation of my own. A merchant, thirty-two years of age (with slight stigmata of degeneration--Darwinian pointed ears, slight asymmetry of the skull--but in other respects with a very powerful build of body, and having performed his year’s service in the cavalry), who since ten years of age has been addicted to excessive masturbation, =is potent only in intercourse with a girl who limps=. He cannot state when this perversion first manifested itself in him. In any case, it has developed into a typical fetichism.
To this category belong, also, the abnormal love towards =elderly= individuals, heterosexual “gerontophilia,” and the fetichistic influence of certain peculiarities of character. Thus, it is an old experience that a Don Juanesque, bold, and self-assertive appearance on the part of men, and even depravity and sexual lawlessness, exercise a fascinating influence upon many women. This is, as it were, homologous to the previously described influence of prostitutes and fast women upon men.
A peculiar fetich is constituted also by the human =voice=. A sympathetic voice has often been the cause of a violent love passion. Singers, both men and women, know something of this powerful fetichistic charm of the voice.
Finally, sexual fetichism can extend to objects in relationship with the beloved person, or with any human individual (“=object fetichism=”), and this is very readily accounted for by the =personification= and =spiritualization= of these objects of human use, and especially of clothing, which appears to be a =part of the personality= itself, and so quite naturally becomes a sexual fetich. (See the detailed description given on p. 140 et seq.)
Among the various forms of clothing fetichism, by far the commonest is =shoe fetichism=, or “=retifism=.” After the Marquis de Sade, who in his writings described the most important sexual perversions, active algolagnia has been termed “sadism”; and after Sacher-Masoch, passive algolagnia has been termed “masochism.” I consider, therefore, that with the same and even greater justification, as I have already suggested in my work on Rétif de la Bretonne,[635] foot and shoe fetichism may be denoted by the term “retifism,” for it is this sexual perversion which manifests itself most markedly in Rétif’s life (1734-1806), and in him, also, this perversion found its first literary interpreter and apostle, in exactly the same manner as sadism was made known in wider circles by de Sade and masochism by Sacher-Masoch. Rétif first described typical foot fetichism and shoe fetichism, and also wrote the first history of this subject. In him this tendency appeared at the early age of ten years, as he relates (vol. i., pp. 90-93) in his celebrated autobiography--a work greatly admired by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and other heroes of our classical literature. In this place, also, he gives a very good explanation of the genesis of foot fetichism and shoe fetichism:
“This fondness for beautiful feet, =which in me is so strong that it unfailingly arouses my most powerful lust, and leads me to ignore any ugliness in other respects=--does it arise from any physical or emotional predisposition? In all those who have this peculiarity it is very strong. Is it connected with any preference for an easy gait, for a gracious, voluptuous, dancing movement? The peculiar attraction which the foot-covering exercises is only the reflex of the preference for beautiful feet, which stimulate even an animal. =Thus a man comes to prize the covering almost as much as the thing itself.= The passion which, since childhood, I have felt for such beautiful foot-coverings was an acquired inclination, which, however, rested on a natural preference. But the love for a small foot has a physical basis, which finds expression in the Latin proverb, ‘Parvus pes, barathrum grande.’”
Rétif was a typical shoe fetichist. He trembled with desire on viewing a woman’s shoe; he blushed when he saw it, as if it were the girl herself. As a true fetichist, he =collected= the slippers and shoes of his mistresses; he kissed them, and smelled them, and sometimes masturbated into them. Especially fascinating to him were the =high heels= of women’s shoes, a sight of which sufficed to produce in him intense sexual excitement.
Shoe-fetichism existed in ancient times, and long ago it was assumed that there was a relationship between the foot and the vita sexualis. References to this matter will be found in my earlier work, “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 323-325. In modern shoe-fetichism masochistic ideas (ideas of being trodden on, of placing the beloved’s foot on the back of the neck) or sadistic ideas (ideas of treading upon the beloved’s feet, etc.) played a part; also there were associated sensations of smell proceeding from the leather; the colour of the shoes is likewise of importance. The “foot-wooers”--thus are the shoe fetichists named in the speech of prostitutes--have the most varied inclinations in respect of different shapes and fashions of shoes. One loves ladies’ boots, another riding-boots, a third dancing-shoes, a fourth slippers, a fifth actually loves coarse wooden peasants’ shoes. Also, in respect of ornamentation, colour, heels, etc., fancies vary. In one case known to me, a clergyman was purely a heel fetichist. Hirschfeld records (“The Nature of Love,” p. 148) the case of a man who was sexually excited only by means of the ankle-wrinkles in boots; also the case of a woman who was fascinated by the dusty boots of men, etc.[636]
Of other articles of clothing, the =corset=, =petticoat=, =chemise=, =apron=, and, more especially, =stockings= and =handkerchiefs=, form objects of sexual fetichism. Félicien Rops appears to have been at once a corset fetichist and a stocking fetichist, for he frequently draws feminine figures naked, except in respect of their wearing corset and stockings. There are many men who are able to complete intercourse with a woman only when she keeps on her stockings or shoes. Others are excited only by the articles of clothing; for instance, they represent in imagination corset shops, in order, by looking at the corsets, to produce orgasm and ejaculation; or they collect or steal[637] feminine underclothing, especially handkerchiefs, in order to obtain sexual excitement from smelling or looking at these, or to masturbate with them. Finally, there exist fetichists for particular materials, such as fur (loved especially by masochists), satin, silk, or even entire costumes, such as a woman’s riding-dress, tights, mourning, etc. D’Estoc describes, under the name “la course des araignées” (“the spider race”), the appearance of twenty women in a brothel, who were clothed only in long black gloves reaching to the shoulders and long black stockings. In the Berlin newspapers there recently appeared an account of the fetichism of a prince for long “gants de suède” on slender women’s arms. Unique in its kind would appear to be the case of the spectacle fetichist, of which Hirschfeld gives an account (op. cit., pp. 145, 146).
[627] M. Hirschfeld has therefore suggested the apt name “partial attraction” for fetichism; unfortunately, no adjective can be formed from this term, so that for practical purposes the foreign word is more applicable.
[628] Cf. Felix Baumann, “From Darkest America,” pp. 10, 41.
[629] “Sex and Character,” pp. 340, 341.
[630] In the second volume of “Anthropophyteia” (1905, pp. 445-447), under the title, “The Sense of Smell in Relation to the Vita Sexualis,” I have published a contribution to this interesting theme. I addressed questions regarding the matter to various authorities; and among the answers I obtained, I must mention more especially those of Dr. Th. Petermann and Oscar A. H. Schmitz, to whom I owe valuable accounts and observations, which are in part utilized in the present chapter.
[631] Witmalett, “Man and Woman in Conjugal Union,” p. 48 (Leipzig and Stuttgart); J. P. Frank, “System of a Complete Medicinal Polity,” vol. ii., pp. 78, 79 (Frankenthal, 1791).
[632] N. D. Falck, “Treatise on Venereal Diseases.”
[633] Martial alludes (“Epigrams,” xii. 61, verses 7-10) to the obscene “carmina quæ legunt cacantes.”
[634] Many women are sexually excited by the flowers of the garden chestnut-tree, the smell of which resembles that of the semen of the male. A correspondent has communicated to me several observations of this nature from the Taunus district. G. d’Anunzio (“Lust,” p. 10) also describes the awakening of libido sexualis in woman by the smelling of a bouquet of flowers.
[635] Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “Rétif de la Bretonne: the Man, the Author, and the Reformer” (Berlin, 1906).
[636] Cf., regarding shoe fetichism, also the work of P. Näcke, “Un Cas de Fétichisme de Souliers, etc.,” published in the Bulletin de la Société de Médicine Mentale de Belgique, 1894.
[637] The Berlin newspapers, a few years ago, were full of accounts of such a thief, who stole underclothing (cf. Berliner Tageblatt, No. 465, September 13, 1903). He was the terror of all housewives in the western suburbs of Berlin. Ultimately he was caught, and proved to be a workman, K. W. by name. In his house the police found a varied assortment of underclothing.
Chapter XXIII
ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH CHILDREN, INCEST, ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH CORPSES AND ANIMALS (BESTIALITY), EXHIBITIONISM, AND OTHER SEXUAL PERVERSITIES. APPENDIX: THE TREATMENT OF SEXUAL PERVERSITIES.
“But what a source of devastation is a public or private teacher of youth, when his heart is impure!... What a tragic example of misleading is he who, himself in a position imposing upon him the duty of leading others towards virtue, is animated by the most detestable of all passions.”--JOHANN PETER FRANK.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXIII
Acts of fornication on the part of adults with children -- “Pædophilia erotica” -- Superstitious motives -- Shunammitism -- As a popular custom -- Opportunity as a cause of pædophilia -- Its frequency among menservants and schoolmasters -- Acts of fornication with children less than six years of age -- Examples -- With children between the ages of six and fourteen years -- Alluring influence of fruits verts upon debauchees -- Causes -- The mania for defloration -- Other causal factors of acts of fornication with children -- Examples.
Early appearance of the sexual impulse in children -- Causes -- In the country -- The demi-vierge type -- Early puberty in girls -- Examples of sexual intercourse between children -- Child prostitution -- Parisian flower-girls -- Match-selling girls and “music pupils” of Berlin -- Blackmail -- Causes of child prostitution.
Incest -- Causes -- Incest in France -- Sexual relationship with a third individual on the part of two persons closely related to one another.
Acts of fornication with animals (zoophilia, bestiality) -- Genuine zoophilia -- A remarkable case thereof -- Causes of bestiality -- Its frequency in the country -- Report of cases -- Bestiality on the part of a woman -- Reputed seduction of human beings by animals.
Acts of fornication with corpses (necrophilia) -- Motives -- Symbolic necrophilia -- Love of statues -- Influence of museums on uncultured individuals -- Sexual intercourse with statues -- Pygmalionism -- Acts of fornication with objects resembling the human body -- “Dames et hommes de voyage” -- Exhibitionism -- Morbid foundation of this -- Other motives -- Masturbation as a cause -- A remarkable case of exhibitionism -- “Frotteurs” -- Example -- Voyeurs -- Secret sexual clubs -- “Essayeurs” -- “Stercoraires platoniques” -- Pædication -- Opium, hashish, and ether employed for sexual purposes -- Use of these drugs in Paris -- Sexual fantasies of the opium smoker.
Appendix: The Treatment of Sexual Perversions. -- Importance of psychological factors in the treatment of sexual perversions -- Management of the primary trouble -- Psycho-therapeutics and suggestive therapeutics -- Verbal suggestions -- Confidence in the knowledge of the physician -- Sexual perversions as diseases of the will -- Need for the education of the will -- Suggestion in the waking state -- Suggestion by means of letters -- By means of hypnosis -- Special prescriptions.
Chapter XXIII
One of the most tragic, but unfortunately one of the most frequent, of occurrences is =premature sexual intercourse on the part of children=--partly resulting from =acts of fornication by adults with children=, partly resulting from =premature awakening of the sexual impulse in children, and premature sexual activity on their part=. These two varieties of premature sexual intercourse in children must be sharply distinguished each from the other.
The alleged increase of sexual offences in which children are concerned is by von Krafft-Ebing wrongly associated with the more widely diffused nervousness of recent generations. As a matter of fact, such offences have occurred at all times and among all peoples, with no less frequency than at the present day. “Erotic pædophilia” is a very widely diffused phenomenon. It arises from superstitious[638] grounds; as, for example, from the belief which prevails in many countries that venereal and other diseases are cured by copulation with an intact child. The primeval belief that intercourse with immature girls prolonged life, that an emanation from them rejuvenated old men (the so-called “=Shunammitism=”[639]), led in former times, and leads even at the present day, to acts of fornication with children. Less commonly do timidity and impotence on the part of adult men, rendering intercourse with adult women difficult or impossible, give rise to the seduction or rape of defenceless and unsuspicious children. The act of fornication with children as a =popular custom= is a symptom of a primitive degree of civilization, and is therefore met with, even at the present day, among savage nations, a matter regarding which Ploss-Bartels gives detailed accounts.
Passing to consider the cause of acts of fornication with children =at the present day=, and the means by which such acts are effected, unquestionably =opportunity= plays an important part in their production. All those persons who by their occupation are brought into prolonged diurnal and nocturnal association with children, and are frequently alone with them, such as menservants, nursemaids, governesses, housekeepers, schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, the directors and other officials of orphan asylums, etc., constitute a disproportionately large contingent of those who commit offences under § 176^{3} and § 182 of the Criminal Code. This does not arise from exceptional criminality on the part of these persons as compared with those belonging to other professions, but simply and solely from the fact that they are continually alone with children, and that any sexual excitement which may arise is thus directed towards these, because no adult is there. Sometimes a morbid neuropathic or psychopathic constitution plays a part; but more commonly we have to do simply with lasciviousness and sensuality, which avails itself of the opportunity thus offered.
Rétif de la Bretonne warned parents regarding menservants and nursemaids as seducers of children. These persons are apt to execute unchaste acts with children =in the very first years of life=; in order to gratify their own voluptuousness, they play with the genital organs of these poor innocents, and thus prematurely awaken sexual sensibility, and often give rise to premature onanistic habits. These acts of impropriety carried on with small children--which must be sharply distinguished from those with older children, the cases being classified as relating in the first place to children under six years of age, and in the second place to children between the ages of six and fourteen years--are far commoner than is usually imagined, and perhaps even more dangerous in respect of the bodily and mental development of the child, than the second variety of unchaste acts, with older children. In most cases it is persons of the female sex who misuse small children in this way, and often this arises from the fear of impregnation resulting from intercourse with an adult man. Generally we have to do with a lascivious disposition, as, for example, in the following cases, which came under my own observation:
In one of these cases a woman seduced a boy four years of age to the performance of systematic improper acts; in the other case, a boy of five years of age was taken (horribile dictu) by his own mother into her bed, and taught to perform coitus with her, in so far as this was possible, and also to perform manipulations with her genital organs. The little boy repeated this practice with his sister, three years of age, and, being caught in the act, he confessed the whole history.
A boy aged four played freely with his own genital organs, and also made peculiar coitus-like movements in bed, and in contact with his mother. When the latter, greatly alarmed, asked him how he had learned to do this, he explained that a young woman twenty years of age, living in the house, had performed these manipulations with him.
Magnan also reports (“Lectures on Mental Disorders,” Nos. 2 and 3, p. 41) the case of a lady, twenty-nine years of age, who performed sexual acts with her nephew, aged five.
These cases rarely attain publicity, because they usually remain undiscovered. Fornicatory acts with children, such as are frequently alluded to in the newspapers, chiefly concern children between the ages of six and fourteen years. In these cases the offences are most often committed by schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, or by private tutors and governesses. We further often find other women undertaking such acts, displaying a sexual activity which they have no opportunity of satisfying in intercourse with full-grown men. In the third place, debauchees and exhausted roués seek new and piquant excitement by intercourse with such fruits verts. Of such Laurent writes:[640]
“They have used and misused woman; they have explored all the stages of natural and unnatural love; they have visited Lesbos and Paphos; and they have experienced every possible sexual artificiality. Their sexual desires have become torpid, their manliness is on the decline, and sexual death approaches. But the more exhausted they are, the less willing are they patiently to acquiesce in their loss. It is with them as with inebriates who are full to the throat and still continue to drink. One day they notice a little girl in the street and feel stimulated by her youthful charms. Thus their love begins.”
The =blameless=, the =natural=, and the =pure=, in the essence of the child and of the intact virgin, has a stimulating influence upon such perverted individuals: it acts as a =contrast= to their own sexual shamelessness and artificiality. The contrast, in fact, has the effect of a most powerful stimulus. Nor can we fail to recognize the existence in such cases also of a =sadistic= element in the performance of coitus with a defenceless child, and in the sanguinary act of defloration of an immature individual. In the eighties there flourished in England such a “=mania for defloration=,” the scandalous details of which were illustrated in a lurid light by the revelations of the Pall Mall Gazette.[641] With regard to this sadistic element in acts of fornication with children, we must take into account the possibility that in the corporal punishment of children by the teacher may have originated the awakening of the latter’s sexual activities,[642] and that in this we may find the cause of the beginning of sexual relationships between teacher and pupil.
Other not infrequent causes of the sexual misuse of children are to be found in =alcoholic intoxication= and in =senile dementia=. =Tramps=, also, who have for a long time been deprived of the opportunity of intercourse with women, are apt to gratify their long-repressed libido on the body of the first child they meet. =Child labour in factories= also offers opportunities for fornicatory acts with children.
A few especially striking instances of acts of fornication with children are appended:
1. The son of a greengrocer, A., twenty years of age, living in the Keibelstrasse, had for a long time immoral intercourse with the eight-year-old daughter of the milkman W., in the same street. He had not only violated her, but had committed other injuries. The young fellow continued his immoral conduct after he had become infected with venereal disease, and therefore naturally infected the girl. She became so ill that she had to be confined to bed, and the doctor who was called in diagnosed venereal infection. Notwithstanding this, the little girl continued to lie about the matter, and only after a whipping did she admit having had intercourse with A. The latter, a man with a crippled foot, as soon as he saw that his misconduct had been discovered, concealed himself in an outhouse, and was only arrested by the police after a prolonged search. He is now in prison.
2. The model and friend of a painter, during the absence of the latter from home, seduced his son, twelve years of age, after preliminary repeated masturbation, to coitus and cunnilinctus.
3. A celebrated actress, now in advanced age, in the case of a boy who sought a situation in her house, gave rise by various manipulations to an erection of the penis, and seduced him to coitus; she invited him repeatedly to visit her, and continued this scandalous practice with him for eight years.
4. The governess Friederike B. was accused of improper conduct and seduction of the little boy Szepsan, and was condemned to six months’ rigorous imprisonment. In April, 1900, Szepsan disappeared through her connivance; she had him confined under false names in various cloisters. The accused denied all blame, and declared that she was the benefactress of Szepsan, whom she intended to bring up as a priest. The evidence, however, sufficed for her conviction.
5. A very scandalous affair is reported by Le Matin. Some time ago the Parisian police arrested a young fellow on account of an offence against certain civil and natural laws. The accused thereupon denounced an old Count W., and others of his friends, and also Baron A., who daily waited the coming out of the boys from certain Parisian schools, and then took them in his automobile to his own house or to that of Count W. The police, having received information, kept under observation the sons of certain distinguished families attending the school in question, and ascertained that the statements were true. The Count and his friends carried off the boys, among whom were three sons of an engineer, the eldest thirteen years of age, to the Avenue MacMahon or the Avenue Friedland. A., who is engaged to a young lady belonging to the Parisian aristocracy, was arrested; Count W. has escaped. The examination of their dwelling disclosed all kinds of compromising materials.
In view of the wide diffusion of acts of fornication with children, we must always keep one point clearly before our minds, on account of the great forensic importance of the matter. That is the question whether the initiative to the improper act proceeded in the first place =from the child=, in consequence of a =premature awakening of the sexual impulse=. [See, for example, Emil Schultze-Malkowsky, “The Sexual Impulse in Childhood,” in the periodical Sex and Society, 1907, No. 7, pp. 370-373. He reports five sexual scenes dating from the year 1864, the heroine of which was a little girl seven years of age!]
In a certain proportion only of such cases have we to do with a degenerative, morbid, inherited state; in many instances this sexual perversity occurs in children who in other respects are perfectly healthy,[643] and is evoked by seduction, bad education, and chance causes, such as intestinal worms, etc. This is to be observed also in children of savage races, among whom this phenomenon of sexual prematurity is perhaps more frequent, in part owing to climatic conditions. In the country the observation of sexual acts on the part of animals, frequently occurring under their very eyes, makes children early acquainted with the fact of sexual intercourse. In large towns prostitution and overcrowded dwellings, in ways to which we have already alluded in detail, give rise in many cases to a very early initiation of children into a knowledge of the facts of sexual life.
Apart from the question of child prostitution, to which we shall allude presently, we can observe such early mature types of children also in every class of the population of large towns. Among the circles of the middle classes, and among the “upper ten thousand,” we have the type of the demi-vierge, which recently Hans von Kahlenberg has so admirably described in his “Nixchen.” In the female sex this early sexual maturity is much more clearly manifest. In an essay entitled “The Zoo as an Educator,” in the weekly newspaper Der Roland von Berlin (No. 27, July 5, 1906), we find a striking description of such a type:
“We find definite types of early-ripe girls, which we must regard as a peculiar acquirement of the twentieth century. We distinguish without difficulty the simple, hot-blooded, sensual variety from the thoroughly developed perverse types. A short-legged, buxom type is the most predominant. Such girls seem extraordinarily energetic, and appear also to excel in mental powers their pale-cheeked and half-alive male companions. Their dress is extremely conspicuous, and they wear highly ornamented hats. Whilst, when we look at them from behind, their whole figure suggests the age of fifteen or seventeen years, the front view suggests that they are at least eight years older. They prefer to lace very tightly, in order to display their rounded hips, and to make their already strongly developed breasts all the more imposing. But this development displays their mental and physical corruption, especially when undeveloped shoulders and thin arms show beyond question that they are really of a very tender age. The sharply-cut features, with the sparkling black eyes, which at once fascinate us, plainly indicate the lines which the passions are about to engrave on their features; we discern, also, that by the age of thirty they will already be old women.”
Sexual intercourse on the part of children with one another, or with grown persons in cases in which the invitation has proceeded from the child, are by no means rare occurrences. The following remarkable cases may illustrate this:
1. Some years ago a schoolboy, K. J., thirteen years of age, was accused in Berlin of several acts of sexual intercourse with girls of from six to eight years. The guilt of the accused was fully proved. He was sent to a reformatory.
2. A young man made the acquaintance of a girl sixteen years of age. Although greatly impassioned, he did not dare to touch the girl, because he was deceived by her sweet and blameless demeanour, and did not wish to be her first seducer. Soon afterwards he learned that this angel had had sexual intercourse for several years with a married man forty years of age!
3. Legroux showed in 1890, at the weekly meeting of the physicians of the Hospital St. Louis, a boy, eleven years of age, who, after three months’ sexual intercourse with a syphilitic girl aged seven years, had been infected in the ordinary manner, per vias naturales (reference in Unna’s Monatsheft für Dermatologie, 1890, vol. x., p. 335).
4. In Paris, in December, 1906 (according to the Vossische Zeitung of December 15, 1906, No. 558), a band of youthful street and shop thieves, ten in number, of ages varying from eleven to fourteen years, were arrested. Their leaders were a boy of twelve and a girl of thirteen years, the latter, Eliza Cailles by name, known generally by the nickname of “Beautiful Aliette.” This Aliette, a strikingly pretty little person, in a long dress of extremely fashionable cut, with a wonderful hat and most elegant gloves, ruled her band with the most exemplary self-confidence. They were all smart fellows; =they were all of them her lovers, and with these ten husbands she was the happiest of wives=.
Acts of fornication with children also explain the melancholy phenomenon of the existence of a widely diffused =child prostitution= in all large towns of the old and new world, regarding which, in the previously mentioned works on prostitution in these towns, detailed accounts will be found.[644] The little flower-girls of Paris, the Berlin match-sellers and wax-candle-sellers or “music pupils”--all these provide a large contingent to child prostitution. To a great extent they are associated with equally youthful criminals and souteneurs, and avail themselves for blackmailing purposes of the existence of § 176^{3} and § 186 of the Criminal Code. Among them there are even individuals given to peculiar sexual “specialities,” who gratify perverse lusts in various artificial ways. Social misery, bad example, and seduction are, indeed, often to be blamed as causes of this early sexual depravity, but it is precisely in respect of child prostitution that Lombroso’s doctrine of the born prostitute has considerable justification.
* * * * *
In exceptional cases only does =incest=--sexual intercourse between those nearly related by blood, either in the same generation, as between brother and sister, or in the ascending and descending line--depend upon pathological causes. The origin of the dread and horror inspired by incest remains “a moot question of historical research.”[645] Within historical times and among savage peoples incestuous intercourse was permitted and widely diffused. Without doubt, racial hygienic experience regarding the pernicious effects of this extreme form of incest gave rise to the recognition of the fact that incest must be forbidden. At the present day incest occurs almost exclusively as the result of chance associations--as, for example, in alcoholic intoxication, in consequence of close domestic intimacy in small dwellings, in the absence of other opportunity for sexual intercourse. In such circumstances not infrequently among the lower classes of the population we observe, as a favouring factor, a complete absence of any conception of the immorality of incest.
Remarkable is the tendency to incestuous unions in certain epochs--as, for example, in the period of the French Rococo, when it was introduced by suggestion on a large scale, and manifested itself with alarming frequency. Numerous credible historical examples of this I have recorded in my “Recent Researches concerning the Marquis de Sade” (pp. 165-168). Mirabeau, and especially Rétif de la Bretonne (see my work on Rétif, pp. 381-382), luxuriated in horribly blasphemous incestuous ideas.[646] According to Theodor Mundt, who speaks of these tendencies in his sketches of “Paris during the Second Empire” (vol. i., pp. 141, 142; Berlin, 1867), it appears that the French nature is not repelled to the same degree as the German by the idea of sexual union between those nearly related by blood. Eugene Sue relates, in his “Mysteries of Paris,” that among the lowest strata of the population fathers often have intercourse with their own daughters.
But such things also happen in Germany. In August, 1907, a manual labourer, forty-seven years of age, was condemned to three years’ imprisonment because he had had incestuous intercourse with his daughter, now twenty-seven years of age, during the previous fifteen years (!), and had continued this incestuous relationship after he had himself remarried. The girl had been for several years living in intimate sexual relationship with her father, who watched jealously to prevent his daughter having anything to do with another man. Among many Indian tribes of Central America incest is said to be always practised when the eldest daughter accompanies the father for a few days into the mountains, in order to prepare his maize bread for him.
Relations somewhat analogous are those in which parent and child have sexual intercourse with the same person--when, for example, mother and daughter have the same lover. Other peculiar combinations are possible, and are actually observed. Unique, however, would appear to be the case reported by d’Estoc (“Paris-Eros,” p. 209), in which a young man had sexual intercourse with a woman, with her two daughters, and also utilized the father of this family as a passive pæderast! In a manuscript novel, which I once saw, a man was made the lover of both husband and wife.
One of the most remarkable of sexual aberrations, in the reality of which, as Mirabeau[647] remarked, it is hardly possible to believe, is =fornication with animals--zoophilia and bestiality=.[648]
We will first describe zoophilia, a sexual inclination towards animals without actual sexual intercourse. Genuine zoophilia, or “=animal fetichism=,” as a perversion =monopolizing= the human being’s circle of sexual ideas, is very rare. Until recently, only a single case has been published--that recorded by Dr. Hanc in 1887, in the Wiener Medizinische Blâtter, and quoted also by von Krafft-Ebing. But I myself, in the year 1905, observed a second case of genuine zoophilia, and have recorded it elsewhere.[649] This extraordinarily rare case may as well be once more detailed here:
The person concerned was a farmer, forty-two years of age, of a large and imposing appearance, a healthy aspect, and normal conformation. His family history did not show any points of importance throwing light on the peculiar development of his vita sexualis. In the family several unhappy marriages had occurred. The patient’s parents had also lived in such an inharmonious marriage. His mother had a masterful manner; he felt no love for her. He knew nothing of any sexual abnormalities in his family. He lays especial stress upon the fact that when an infant he was brought up on the bottle, and that in this way he missed the first unconscious natural sexual stimulations which, according to the theory propounded by S. Freud, proceed from the suckling at the maternal breast. To this he mainly ascribes his lack of sexual sensibility towards the female sex. When he was a boy twelve years of age, the patient experienced sexual excitement for the first time when riding on a fine horse. Since that time his sexual sensibility as a whole has been closely connected with the idea of fine horses, in this way, that merely to look at them produced libidinous excitement, so that for years, once a week, while riding, he had an ejaculation, accompanied by intense voluptuous sensations. It is, however, remarkable that he never had any erotic dreams connected with horses. As already stated, his sexual sensibility regarding the human female, and also the human male, is non-existent. His views regarding women are Schopenhauerian. The few attempts he had made at intimate intercourse with women--in most cases these were puellæ publicæ--were repulsive to him; he had on these occasions no erection at all, or only a very slight one. The vita sexualis of the patient is, speaking generally, by no means an active one. He does not experience nocturnal pollutions, and is completely satisfied sexually by the weekly ejaculations and libidinous excitement which occurs when riding on horseback. For several years the patient has suffered from frequent insomnia, the cause of which he considered to be material troubles combined with gloomy thoughts about his abnormal sexual condition. Bromides, veronal, and other hypnotic drugs, are of little use to him, for habituation soon sets in; on the other hand, cold foot-baths have a better effect. The patient, who, as he himself says, has a strong antipathy to normal sexual intercourse, which he regards as a “bestial act,” believes that he might perhaps attain a normal sexual condition if he could meet with a wife who would be sympathetic, and would be in harmony with him mentally and physically. He is, however, in this respect extremely sceptical, since he is well aware of the rarity of that complete harmony which is the indispensable prerequisite of a happy marriage. The patient exhibited no symptoms whatever of “degeneration.” The genital organs were normal, and nervous sleeplessness in a man forty-two years of age, dependent upon material cares and emotional depression, cannot be regarded as a symptom of degeneration, when we reflect how frequently in persons who are otherwise quite healthy such nervous insomnia may make its appearance, as a result of the struggle for life, at or near the age of forty years.
True zoophilia is a typical sexual perversion, and appears to occur principally in men. The use of animals (dogs) for purely onanistic purposes, in the way of licking the female genital organs, cannot be included in this connexion. In French novels and moral studies of recent times such types of zoophilous women are, indeed, described; thus, for example, in Octave Mirbeau’s “Badereise eines Neurasthenikers” (1902) we find a description of Princess Karagnine as such a perverse woman, endowed with a peculiar “passion for animals,” especially for stallions, who caresses them with obvious signs of sexual excitement. And in the de Goncourts’ “Diary” I find the following remark:
“Every time I visit the Zoological Gardens, I am struck by the number of bizarre, remarkably eccentric, exotic, indefinable women we meet here, to whom the contact with the animal world of this place appears to constitute an adventure of physical love” (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, “Leaves from a Diary,” 1851 to 1895).
R. Schwaeblé also gives an interesting account of the zoophilous tendencies of Frenchwomen (“Les Détraquées de Paris,” pp. 203-212).
Unquestionably, modern zoological gardens offer even more than country life opportunities to women of zoophilous instincts, and can in this respect become dangerous. I remember from my own schooldays in Hanover remarkable scenes in the much-visited zoological gardens of that town--scenes which at that time we naturally did not really understand, but on which the above remarks and observations throw a clear light.
Thus we shall no longer be surprised by the following extremely remarkable case of zoophilia in the female sex:
Kleptomania in a Girl aged Thirteen.--A girl thirteen years of age, who is incurably affected with kleptomania, and who at the same time has a morbid inclination towards horses, is the most recent phenomenon in the province of decadence. The unfortunate child is the daughter, Frida, of a married couple living in the Höchstestrasse. She had committed a number of thefts of vehicles, which might have been attributed only to skilled professional thieves. The morbid tendency compels the child to take the horse by the bridle and lead it away. She does not appear to have any tendency to sell the animal, or to steal anything from the carriage. Her love for horses led her in earlier years to unusual acts. Thus she took the horse of a dairyman in the Elbingerstrasse out of its stall, mounted it, and rode away. The child has been under medical treatment for a long time on account of her extremely unusual tendency, and we understand that the medical evidence shows that she cannot be held legally responsible for the offences she has committed (Berliner Tageblatt, No. 352, July 14, 1906).
Passing now to consider definite acts of fornication with animals (Sodomie--see note ^{648} to p. 640, bestiality),[650] there is hardly any animal which has not been in some way and at some time utilized for the gratification of human lust; but naturally in most cases the animals always available were employed, such as dogs, cats, sheep, goats, hens, geese, ducks, horses. Martin Schurig, as early as 1730, in his “Gynæcologia” (pp. 380-387), recorded a large number of cases of bestial aberrations in which, in addition to the animals above mentioned, apes, bears, and even fishes were employed. In antiquity snakes were often the objects of unnatural lust on the part of women, playing the part of the modern lap-dog. Bestiality is very widely diffused.[651] Countries especially celebrated for the frequency of this practice are China and Italy; in the former country =geese=, in the latter =goats=, are preferred for sexual malpractices. In India, and also among the Southern Slavs, horses and donkeys play the principal part as objects of bestial love.[652]
Acts of fornication with animals are due to various causes; in exceptional cases only can they be referred to morbid predisposition. In the lower classes of the population, and among many races--as, for example, among the Southern Slavs and among the Persians--the superstitious belief that venereal disease can be cured by intercourse with animals occasionally gives rise to bestiality. More frequently the =lack of opportunity for normal gratification= of the sexual impulse is the cause of bestiality; and it is naturally of more frequent occurrence in the country, for the reason that there human beings live in closer association with animals than they do in the town. The herdsman alone with his herd in a solitary place, the groom who in the stable suddenly finds himself in a state of sexual excitement, the peasant whose wife is perhaps ailing--all these indulge in bestiality simply from opportunity. Friedrich S. Krauss learned from a trustworthy authority that in the Austrian cavalry Slavonic soldiers frequently gratified their sexual impulse upon mares. When they are caught doing this, they excuse themselves by saying that they are too poor to pay a woman. Commonly these fellows escape punishment. In brothels, also, bestial practices are common; in some cases debauchees themselves take part in these practices, in others prostitutes make a display of bestial intercourse. Frequently, also, sadistic impulses, similar to those which find expression in the torturing or slaughtering of animals during coitus, play a part in bestial intercourse.
An eyewitness describes such a brothel scene, which took place in the Via San Pietro all’ Orto at Milan. An old roué played the principal part in this; he had become so depraved that he had sexual intercourse with a duck, the throat of which was cut during the bestial act!
Some forty years ago, in the Karntnerstrasse in Vienna, a prostitute was found in her room, murdered, and her chambermate and professional companion was condemned to imprisonment as guilty of the murder. After some years, however, the real murderer was discovered, and he was detected by the fact that he was only able to have an erection of the penis when he killed a =hen=. He was known among the prostitutes as “the hen-man.”
Another case of sadistic bestiality was recently reported by the veterinary surgeon Grundmann, at Marienburg in Saxony (the reference will be found in the Berliner Tierärztliche Wochenschrift for September 14, 1906):
A man, thirty-eight years of age, of bad reputation, one night found his way into a byre in order to gratify his sexual desires by intercourse with a cow. First he introduced his penis into the vagina of a heifer nine months old; then he tried the same thing on a cow, which threw him off, and he fell to the ground. In a rage at this, he seized a pitchfork and forcibly thrust one of the prongs, first into the anus of the heifer, and then into that of the cow. The cow died speedily, whilst the heifer had to be slaughtered next day. In the cow, in addition to a laceration of the rectum about 1-1/2 inches in length, there was found laceration of the capsules of the right and left kidneys, perforation of the mesentery, of the colon, of the liver, and of the diaphragm, also a laceration 1-1/2 inches long and equally deep in the right lung. These extensive injuries showed that the pitchfork must have been thrust in repeatedly. The appearances in the body of the slaughtered heifer were similar to those found in the cow. The accused was condemned to imprisonment for two years and three months, part of this term being for the offence against morality and part for the injury to property.
The following extremely rare case of bestiality on the part of a woman was seen by Krauss (op. cit., p. 281):
“If I can venture to credit the reports I have so frequently heard (and it is difficult to believe that they are pure inventions), among the Southern Slavs intercourse between women and horses or asses is comparatively common. How they go to work in this matter I do not know from personal observation. I did, however, once see a Chrowot woman of ideal beauty, who =stood= at night completely naked in front of a lighted lamp, and in this position had intercourse with a tom cat. She experienced so intense an orgasm that she did not notice me, although I watched the scene barely two paces from the window.”
The part played by lap-dogs in the case of many ladies has been previously mentioned.
Formerly the question was quite seriously discussed, whether a human being could be seduced or violated by an animal, and Hufeland relates a fantastic story of copulation between a dog and a sleeping little girl, which I have criticized in another work;[653] but there are, as a matter of fact, no proofs of such an occurrence, or of its possibility. In brothels, certainly, dogs are from time to time trained to have intercourse with prostitutes.[654]
Much rarer than acts of fornication with animals are similar acts with =corpses=, the so-called “=necrophilia=.” In the works of de Sade, we find references to the algolagnistic factor of this rare sexual aberration, to the sadistic or masochistic element in necrophilia, inasmuch as in the case of the dead individual we have to do with a completely helpless and defenceless being, who is totally unable to resist the act; sadism is also manifested in the not uncommon mutilation of the corpses;[655] and the sadistic impulse further obtains gratification from the idea of decomposition, from the smell, the cold, and the horror. In the case of necrophilia opportunity also plays a part. Soldiers and monks who are occupied in watching the dead, and who chance to be seized with sexual excitement, have gratified themselves with female corpses.
Sexual acts with corpses are, indeed, not so rare as was formerly assumed, but they belong to the class of sexual aberrations regarding which we have but few authentic observations, most of these derived from French authors. Remarkable is the following recent case, which occurred in April, 1901:[656]
The following hardly credible case of necrophilia is reported from Schonau: In the cemetery of that place Frau Maschke, thirty years of age, was buried in the morning, but the grave was not completely filled in. In the evening an inhabitant visited the grave of a relative, which was close to that of Frau Maschke, and she noticed with alarm that the top of the coffin in which the corpse of Frau Maschke was lying was moving up and down. The discoverer of this alarming occurrence hastened to the sexton, and reported the fact. The sexton hurried to the cemetery with several workmen, and there, to their horror, they surprised an inmate of the poorhouse named Wokatsch as he was in the act of violating the woman’s corpse. The bestial criminal was at once arrested. Soon afterwards a judicial investigation took place, for which purpose the corpse was removed from the grave and taken to the mortuary in order to determine how far the criminal had actually proceeded in his attempt on the body.
In folk-lore, mythology, and belles-lettres, necrophilia plays a large part, a matter to which I have referred at greater length in another work (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 288-296). The =idea= of intercourse with a dead body, and also that of intercourse with an insensible human being, somewhat frequently gives rise to peculiar forms of sexual aberration. First of all in this connexion we have to consider =symbolic necrophilia=, in which the person concerned contents himself with the simple appearance of death. A prostitute or some other woman must clothe herself in a shroud, lie in a coffin, or on the “bed of death,” or in a room draped as a “chamber of death,” and during the whole time must pretend to be dead, whilst the necrophilist satisfies himself sexually by various acts. Cases of such a nature are reported by de Sade, Neri, Taxil, Tarnowsky, etc.
Closely allied to these necrophilist tendencies is the remarkable “=Venus statuaria=,” =the love for and sexual intercourse with statues and other representations of the human person=. Here also, apart from certain =aesthetic= motives,[657] which may predominate in the case of statues of exceptional artistic perfection, we have to do, for the most part, with the same motives that give rise to necrophilia--sadistic, masochistic, and fetichistic. In the case of individuals who are sexually extremely excitable, a walk through a museum containing many statues may suffice to give rise to libido. Of this we have examples. Generally, however, we have to do with immature, youthful, and, above all, =uncultured= individuals, who are devoid of all æsthetic sensibility, and have grown up also in a state of prudery and horror of the nude. It is of similar persons that the Catholic moral theologian Bouvier speaks, when, in his “Manuel des Confesseurs” (Verviers, 1876), he discusses the case of masturbation before a statue of the Holy Virgin. We have previously given examples of the fact that direct sexual intercourse with a statue occurs as part of a religious fetichism and phallus cult (p. 101). In such cases the statue is taken for the divinity, but in a profane statue-love it is taken for the living human being, as in the celebrated case of the gardener who attempted coitus with the statue of the Venus of Milo. The idea of the life of the statue is even more distinctly manifest in the so-called “=pygmalionism=,” an imitation of the ancient legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, and a utilization of this legend for erotic ends. Naked living women, in such cases, stand as “statues” upon suitable pedestals, and are watched by the pygmalionist, whereupon they gradually come to life. The whole scene induces sexual enjoyment in the pygmalionist, who is generally an old, outworn debauchee. Canler has described such practices as going on in Parisian brothels, on one occasion three prostitutes appearing respectively as the goddesses Venus, Minerva, and Juno.[658]
In this connexion we may refer to fornicatory acts effected with =artificial imitations= of the human body, or of individual parts of that body. There exist true Vaucansons in this province of pornographic technology, clever mechanics who, from rubber and other plastic materials, prepare entire male or female bodies, which, as hommes or dames de voyage, subserve fornicatory purposes. More especially are the genital organs represented in a manner true to nature. Even the secretion of Bartholin’s glands is imitated, by means of a “pneumatic tube” filled with oil. Similarly, by means of fluid and suitable apparatus, the ejaculation of the semen is imitated. Such artificial human beings are actually offered for sale in the catalogue of certain manufacturers of “Parisian rubber articles.” A more precise account of these “fornicatory dolls” is given by Schwaeblé (“Les Détraquées de Paris,” pp. 247-263). The most astonishing thing in this department is an erotic romance (“La Femme Endormie,” by Madame B.; Paris, 1899), the love heroine of which is such an artificial doll, which, as the author in the introduction tells us, can be employed for all possible sexual artificialities, without, like a living woman, resisting them in any way. The book is an incredibly intricate and detailed exposition of this idea.
A comparatively common sexual aberration is “=exhibitionism=,” first described by Lasègue,[659] the exposure of the genital organs, or other naked parts of the body, or the performance of sexual acts =in public places=, either in order, by the public exposure, to produce sexual excitement, or else as a result of the blind yielding to sexual impulse, regardless of the fact of publicity. In these cases we have =almost always= to do with a =morbid= phenomenon, dependent upon =epileptic= or other mental disorders. Thus, Seiffer, among eighty-six exhibitionists, found eighteen epileptics, seventeen dements, thirteen “degenerates,” eight neurasthenics, eight alcoholics, eleven “habitual” exhibitionists, and in ten cases =various= other morbid conditions. Of the eighty-six cases, eleven concerned persons of the female sex.[660] Recently, Burgl, in a careful and critical work upon exhibitionism,[661] has suggested the terms “exhibition” and “exhibitionism,” the former to be employed to denote an =isolated= act of exhibition, the latter to denote the =repeated= or =customary= act of exposure of the genital organs coram publico. This distinction is important, because exhibition occurs in mentally healthy persons, as well as in those suffering from mental disorder; exhibitionism, on the other hand, is, if we except extremely rare instances in debauchees not suffering from mental disorder, met with only in insane or mentally defective individuals.
In the case of these latter we have always to do with the actions of weak-minded persons; or with impulsive actions in persons in a state of epileptic or alcoholic confusion; or, finally, with coercive ideas in neurasthenic or hysterical persons, in paranoia, in general paralysis of the insane, or in some other form of insanity. But cases of exhibition or exhibitionism may sometimes occur from other motives in more or less healthy persons. Among the Slavonic peoples, exposure of the genital organs or of the buttocks is frequently an expression of =contempt= towards some one, or also an act of =superstition= (Krauss). Exhibitionism as a =popular custom= occurred at medieval festivals, and also in connexion with the “obscene gestures” of the ancients.[662] By =habituation in early childhood= the tendency to exhibitionism can be favoured, we learn from the case reported by von Schrenck-Notzing,[663] in which the person concerned had as a boy taken part in childish games in which the children passed by one another with bared genital organs. In his monograph upon the anomalies of the sexual impulse, which abounds in fine touches, Hoche (op. cit., p. 488) very rightly refers to the manner in which the exhibitionist tendency is favoured by habitual =masturbation=. Through the practice of masturbation the =sense of shame in respect to one’s own body= is certainly destroyed, and thus, in the case of an onanist, when some unusual impulse impells him, for example, to expose his genital organs in the presence of a person of the other sex, =certain powerful inhibitory impulses are lacking=, which, in non-onanists, would immediately overcome this impulse.
Of the two following cases of exhibitionism, that of a homosexual officer, twenty-five years of age, is certainly the most remarkable. In youth this patient had also masturbated to great excess, and he gives the following report of his exhibitionist tendencies:
“As a boy seven to ten years of age (that is, before I began to masturbate), it was a pleasure to me to go barefoot, and to show myself to others in this way. This impulse suddenly disappeared. But at about the age of fifteen or sixteen years (the time when I began to masturbate) this impulse reappeared, and has continued down to the present time. Inasmuch as time and opportunity were generally wanting, I could only satisfy these desires in my own home, when I went home on furlough. Since in the neighbourhood of my home I was very well known, I endeavoured by taking extremely long walks, or by little journeys to neighbouring parts, to reach places where I might hope to remain unrecognized. I was accustomed on these occasions to wear a shooting jacket and knickerbockers; the knickerbockers were wide and loose, and of as thin cloth as possible, so that I could easily roll them up in order that my thighs might be bare (for if the thighs remained covered the whole affair would have given me no pleasure). Further, on these occasions I was accustomed to wear no ordinary underclothing, but only a nightshirt. As soon as I reached the desired place, and had hidden the jacket, stockings, and shoes in a suitable place, the nightshirt was arranged as a blouse. Usually I had beforehand tried the arrangement of the dress at home. Often I went up to people who were engaged in field labours (I was especially fond of haymakers), and begged them to allow me to help them, which they were usually willing enough to do. I then took off my coat and bared my feet, and then, although there seemed no apparent reason for that, I took off my knickerbockers, until ultimately I was in the costume above described. I must, however, as already said, =be seen=; common people or workmen had usually to suffice me; but when people of education (for example, visitors at health resorts) saw me, this was what I greatly preferred. When once one gentleman said to another, ‘Look at his beautiful legs! what lovely legs he has!’ and I heard this by chance, I was extremely happy. I was then eighteen years of age, but even now I look back upon that incident with great pleasure. I also =loved to show myself entirely naked=; in such cases I always remained quite close to a pond or a stream, in order, if necessary, to be able to make the excuse that I had just been bathing. Frequently, however, I lay down close to a railway in a suitable place quite naked in an artistic posture, and enjoyed the pleasure of seeing the trains go by.
“I commonly did this only in warm, fine weather; but I also did it sometimes in snowy weather. When going about like this in very little clothing, or entirely naked, I had extremely agreeable sensations. The affair usually ended in my masturbating until ejaculation occurred; =after which I returned, as it were, to reality. Otherwise I believe I should never have been able to bring myself to resume my normal clothing. For in this state I was almost insensitive to hunger, thirst, fatigue, heat, etc.; it was, in fact, a trance-like, extremely happy state.=
“The desire to be photographed naked came later. I should have been extremely delighted to play the part of a naked model. I tried with great energy in various places (Vienna, Leipzig, and Hamburg) to get such a photograph as I wanted; but I was always turned away with a shrug of the shoulders or a shake of the head. Finally I succeeded in Erfurt, at a small photographer’s, in having my wish fulfilled.” (The patient sent a copy of this photograph.)
As the description clearly shows, we have here to do with exhibitionism upon an epileptic or neurasthenic basis. The patient describes the “confusional state,” out of which he awakens to “reality,” very vividly. An objection, however, to the idea of epilepsy is to be found in his very complete memory of these transactions.
Without doubt, in the following case, reported by von Schrenck-Notzing (op. cit., p. 96), we have to do with a case of neurasthenic exhibitionism:
The patient, a portrait-painter thirty-one years of age, was accused in the law-courts of repeated acts of exhibitionism. The imagination and sensuality of the accused have been abnormally excitable since earliest youth. For the last twenty years he has masturbated to excess almost every day, with imaginative representation, when masturbating, of male and female genital organs. In coitus he obtained no gratification. He preferred to expose his own genital organs to persons of the female sex, in the belief that he would in this way produce in them sexual excitement. This exhibitionism is a central point in his sexual life, and has acquired the character of a coercive impulse. He is profoundly neurasthenic, and exhibits extensive changes of character, loss of energy, lachrymosity, ideas of suicide, etc. Exhibits signs of mental weakness. Exhibitionism is to him a complete equivalent to ordinary sexual enjoyment, and is performed owing to an organic compulsion. Ethically, his personality is weakened. The accused was discharged on account of greatly diminished criminal responsibility.
As a sub-variety of exhibitionists, we must refer to the so-called “=frotteurs=,” individuals who rub their genital organs, either bared or covered, against persons of the opposite sex, and thus obtain sexual gratification. In their case also we almost always have to do with morbid conditions. The following case (Vossische Zeitung, No. 258, June 6, 1906) was recently observed in Berlin:
The architect, Eduard P., was accused of offences committed in the opera-house of Berlin. In February and March, 1906, he had repeatedly soiled ladies’ clothing in a disgusting manner. At a time when the ladies had their whole attention directed to the stage, the offender, standing or sitting behind them, contaminated their clothing, and disappeared in the next interval. The whole mode of procedure suggested the activity of a man with an abnormal morbid predisposition, who in this place yielded to certain perverse impulses. Several complaints having been made, some detectives were dispersed through the audience, until finally the accused was caught in the act. During the second act of a performance of “Lohengrin,” the detective Brumme observed the accused pressing up from behind against a lady, and, in the semi-obscurity of the performance, acting in the manner already mentioned. P. was arrested, and admitted that he had repeatedly acted in this way. Before the judge the accused also confessed that he had done the same thing on other occasions. How he had been led to do it he could not say. Each time after committing the offence he had suffered very bitter remorse.
The accused was acquitted of the criminal charge on the ground of mental disorder.
The psychical element of exhibitionism also plays a part in the practice of the so-called “=voyeurs=”[664] and “=voyeuses=,” that numerous group of male and female individuals who are sexually excited by =regarding= the sexual acts of other persons (active voyeurs), or who =allow themselves to be watched= by others when themselves performing sexual acts (passive voyeurs). In many brothels, apertures in the wall or other arrangements have been made for these voyeurs or gagas, through which they watch sexual scenes. In fashionable dressmakers’ shops, men are also said to watch ladies trying on dresses--at least, so I have been informed by a Parisian. Recently women also have been more and more inclined to see such spectacles, so that Schwaeblé devotes a special chapter to the voyeuses in his book on the perverse women of Paris. Messalina compelled her court ladies to prostitute themselves in her presence. Not infrequently male and female voyeurs unite to form societies and =secret sexual clubs=, in which all the sexual acts are performed in public.
Thus, in the end of September, 1906, in Graz, a “Secret Society for Immoral Purposes” was discovered by the police. At the head of this club was a merchant, thirty years of age, B----, jun. A number of other persons of good position belonged to this sexual club. They met in the great restaurant “Zum Königstiger.” Under the title of “An Assembly of Beauty,” festivals were held in the magnificent garden of this restaurant, which were concluded as orgies behind closed doors. The beautiful gardens of the Schlossberg were also the scene of many meetings of the club.[665]
A remarkable category of voyeurs is constituted by the so-called “=stercoraires platoniques=,”[666] individuals who obtain sexual enjoyment by observing the acts of defæcation and micturition performed by persons of the other sex, and seek opportunities for such observations in brothels or public lavatories. In the closet of one of the Berlin railway-stations such a stercoraire recently made a small artificial opening in the wall, through which he was able to watch other persons when engaged in the act of defæcation!
Here also we may refer to =heterosexual pædication=, to coitus analis, which, according to the reports of French authors (Tardieu, Martineau, and Taxil), appears to be especially common in France, but which is by no means rare also in other countries. It becomes comprehensible only in view of the fact that the anus may itself be an erogenic zone. Details regarding this matter are given by Freud.[667] Krauss, also, in the second volume of his “Anthropophyteia” (p. 392 et seq.), has given numerous examples of pædication. Among others, he reports two cases related to him by the ethnologist Friedrich Müller, in which men had coitus with their wives only per anum.
Finally, we must refer to a practice which appears to be confined to France, the =customary use of opium, hashish, and ether, for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement=, regarding which Schwaeblé (op. cit., pp. 19-36) and d’Estoc (op. cit., pp. 151-158) give very interesting reports. There exist in Paris special opium-houses, hashish-houses, and ether-houses, some for men and some for women. Three opium-houses are to be found, for example, in the Avenue Hoche, the Avenue Jéna, and the Rue Lauriston; there is an ether-restaurant in Neuilly; one for opium, hashish, and ether in the Rue de Rivoli. All these means of enjoyment evoke after a time sexual ideas and fantasies of an extremely peculiar character, associated with actual voluptuous sensations. Opium gives rise to “ardent, brilliant pictures of an excessively stimulated imagination,”[668] frequently of a perverse character; hashish has a similar but even stronger influence; and ether gives rise to a more powerful stimulation of the sexual organs, to a “vibration of the flesh and of the soul.” The interior of these unwholesome places of exotic enjoyment, in which frequently homosexual acts also occur, is vividly described by both the above-named French authors.[669]
Appendix
THE TREATMENT OF SEXUAL PERVERSIONS
In the treatment of sexual perversions and anomalies, always a matter of great difficulty, knowledge of mankind, tact, and the finer understanding of the physician for the psychological peculiarities of each individual case, must play a greater part than any definite method of medical treatment. An exact understanding of the true =nature= of the sexually abnormal personality is the indispensable preliminary to our exercising a favourable influence upon morbid impulses and practices. Unquestionably, the physician must in the first place treat all =actual diseases underlying the sexual abnormalities=, by means of the physical and pharmacological therapeutical methods open to us in such abundance. Bodily and mental =repose= is here often the first need we have to satisfy; and for this purpose a change of environment, climatic cures, and such drugs as bromide and camphor may be very useful. But the principal matter must remain =psychical, suggestive= treatment. The mere =discussion= of the matter with the physician, the possibility at length of confiding in one capable of taking a thoroughly objective, calm, comprehensive view of the matter, one who by his profession is instructed in all secrets of the human spiritual and impulsive life, and who is aware of all the bodily necessities--this by itself suffices to restore to these unhappy beings, who are tortured by the evil demon of their unhappy impulse, who are often in a state of spiritual despair and hypochondria, to restore to them an inward confidence and a healing repose. This is the great triumph of medical research in this hitherto tabooed, and yet so enormously important, department, which only crass ignorance or evil-minded hypocrisy could designate as “improper” or “unworthy.” We have passed beyond the fruitless and dangerous method of “moral preaching,” to attain a =scientific understanding= of sexual anomalies; we have exposed the roots of these anomalies, lying deep in the physical and psychical nature of humanity, and we have recognized their connexion with so many other phenomena of the civilization of our time. When I speak of a “treatment” of the common, widely diffused sexual anomalies, it appears to me that that standpoint is the best which regards them as pure =diseases of the will=, which have been diffused in all times, but have never been more distinctly manifest, and never have possessed more importance, than they do at the present day, when will, energy, has become the most important weapon in the ever more violent struggle for existence. As Napoleon III. said, it is not to the apathetic man, but to the =energetic= man, that the future belongs, to the man with the will of iron. But nothing paralyzes the will so much as the dominance of blind and, above all, of =abnormal=, impulses. Unquestionably they conceal within themselves, when frequently gratified, feelings rather of pain than of pleasure, and become the unconquerable source of hypochondria and self-contempt. The stronger the impulse becomes, the longer the habit has lasted of yielding to that impulse, the greater is the loss of will from which the individual suffers. The first and most important task of the physician is, therefore, to weaken the impulse by means of strengthening the will. He must consistently and methodically =educate the will=, in order to assist the patient to obtain the victory over his impulse. As Goethe says in his “Epimenides”:
“Noch ist vieles zu erfüllen, Noch ist manches nicht vorbei: Doch wir alle, durch den =Willen= Sind wir schon von Banden frei.”
[“Much there remains to fulfil, Many things have yet to be endured: Still, all of us, by the exercise of =will= Can to a large extent free ourselves from our fetters.”]
The best way to attain this is to employ =personal influence= by means of =suggestion=. We must recommend frequent =conversations= on the part of the patient with the physician, which can be powerfully supplemented by =epistolary communications= on the part of the physician, of which an excellent example will be found in the “Psychotherapeutic Letters” by H. Oppenheim (Berlin, 1906).[670] =Hypnosis= is also of value, although it does not appear to do any more in these cases than is effected by suggestion in the waking state.[671]
It is not so easy to transform a Hamlet into a man of action. We must impose tasks upon the will, tasks both mental and physical; we must regulate the mode of life; we must give to the individuality special prescriptions adapted to the particular case, and we must call to our assistance, whenever advisable, the friends and associates of our patient. The great enemy of the will, alcohol, must be absolutely prohibited; on the other hand, the taste for finer enjoyment and also for easy sports and pastimes must be stimulated.[672] The vita sexualis needs repose in every case, and, above all, masturbation must be energetically resisted. If we succeed in diminishing the intensity of the impulse, and in increasing the power of the will, we have already done much. In isolated cases, we must also always make the attempt to conduct the libido and its activity very gradually into normal channels, perhaps with the assistance of suggestive ideas in coitu, for which, above all, the assistance of the sexual partner is indispensable. Only an experienced physician can here hit the mark.
[638] The Public Prosecutor Amschl reports in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xvi., p. 173, a gross case of this character, in which a peasant affected with venereal ulcers, having been advised that a cure could only be obtained by intercourse with a pure virgin, had sexual intercourse with his own daughter, and--was cured!!
[639] See 1 Kings i. 1-4.
[640] E. Laurent, “Morbid Love: A Psycho-Pathological Study,” pp. 183, 184 (Leipzig, 1895). Cf. also P. Bernard, “Des Attendants à la Pudeur sur les Petites Filles” (Paris, 1886).
[641] A detailed description of this affair is given in my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 350-381 (Charlottenburg, 1901).
[642] Compare in this connexion more especially the apt remarks of J. P. Frank, “System of a Medical Polity,” vol. vi., pp. 94, 95 (Frankenthal, 1792).
[643] Cf. Sollier’s remarks on this subject in Von Schrenck-Notzing’s “Die Suggestions-Therapie,” p. 7.
[644] Regarding child prostitution in Berlin, numerous details are to be found in the work, “Child Prostitution in Berlin: Unvarnished Revelations and Moral Pictures by an Initiate” (Leipzig, 1895).
[645] G. Schmoller, “Elements of General Political Economy,” vol. i., p. 233 (Leipzig, 1901).
[646] Such relations can become actual, even at the present day, as we learn from the case reported by the Public Prosecutor, Dr. Kersten, in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology (1904, vol. xvi., p. 330), of a Moor, sixty-five years of age, who, in intercourse with his step-daughter, procreated a daughter, and later with this daughter of his own, when she was thirteen years of age, had sexual intercourse!
[647] G. Mirabeau, “Erotika Biblion,” p. 91 (Brussels, 1868).
[648] German authors use the word Sodomie to denote sexual relationships between human beings and animals. Mr. Havelock Ellis informs me (in a private letter) “the German use of ‘sodomy’ to include ‘bestiality’ is quite ancient, and no doubt had a theological origin. I imagine the confusion was made with the idea of throwing on to ‘bestiality’ the same reprobation as the Bible metes out to ‘sodomy.’” There is, of course, no mention of bestiality in connexion with the destruction of Sodom. The sin for which the city was destroyed was the desire for carnal knowledge of the two angels in the house of Lot (Gen. xix. 5). The signification of the various terms used to denote unnatural intercourse is thus defined by Mann, in his work on “Forensic Medicine”: =Sodomy= means unnatural sexual intercourse between two human beings, usually of the male sex.... =Tribadism=, the gratification of the sexual instinct between two human beings of the female sex.... =Pederastia= is that form of sodomy in which the passive rôle is played by a boy, the active agent being man or boy. =Bestiality= means sexual intercourse between mankind and the lower animals. Generally speaking, in this translation the terms mentioned are used as above defined. If there is any variation from that use, the context will manifest it. In any case, =Sodomy= has never been employed in the translation as an equivalent of the German Sodomie, the latter term having been invariably rendered by =Bestiality=.--TRANSLATOR.
[649] Iwan Bloch, “A Remarkable Case of Sexual Perversion (Zoophilia),” published in Medizinische Klinik, 1906, No. 2.
[650] Of the recent literature on this subject I may refer to G. Dubois-Dessaulle, “Étude sur la Bestialité au Point de Vue Historique, Médical, et Juridique” (Paris, 1905); F. Reichert, “The Significance of Sexual Psychopathy in Human Beings, in Relation to Veterinary Practice,” Inaugural Dissertation (Bern and Munich, 1902); Franz Hora, “A Case of Unnatural Fornication with a Goose,” published in the Tierärztliches Zentralblatt, 1903, No. 13, p. 197; R. Froehner, “Sadistic Injuries to Animals,” published in the Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift, No. 1, 1903, p. 153; same author in Der Preussische Kreistierarzt, vol. i., pp. 487-491 (Berlin, 1904); Grundmann, “A Case of Bestiality and Sadism,” published in the Deutsche Tierärztliche Wochenschrift, 1905, No 45. A very painstaking and critical study of unnatural fornication with animals is published by Haberda in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Gerichtliche Medizin, 1907, vol. xxxiii., supplementary number. It deals with 162 medico-legal cases. Among these, two only concern girls of sixteen and twenty-nine years of age respectively, persons who have had improper relations with dogs. Most of the male offenders were =persons whose occupations brought them much into contact with domestic animals=; about half of them were under twenty years of age. The animals concerned were cattle, goats, horses, dogs, pigs, sheep, and hens. In the majority of cases there were fornicatory acts--acts analogous to sexual intercourse--less commonly other sexual contacts. The girl of sixteen was caught in the act of intercourse with a dog. The majority of male offenders made use of female animals. In two cases young men allowed dogs to have intercourse with them per anum, the dogs having been trained to do this, and in both of them were found lacerations of the anus and rectum. Only in a few of the 172 cases of bestiality was there any reason to doubt the mental integrity of the person concerned. In those cases there was senile dementia, epilepsy, or alcoholism. The principal causes for the practice of bestiality were enhanced opportunities, the lack of possibility in the country for conjugal or extra-conjugal normal sexual intercourse, or, finally, superstition (belief in the possibility of curing of venereal disease by intercourse with animals).
[651] Regarding the ethnology of bestiality, consult my “Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 272-276.
[652] Cf. F. S. Krauss, “Bestial Aberrations,” published in “Anthropophyteia,” vol. iii., pp. 265-322.
[653] Iwan Bloch, “The Origin of Syphilis,” part i., p. 22 (Jena, 1901).
[654] The following authentic case, which occurred in the year 1902, appears to be unique. A man compelled his wife, who was amiable but somewhat weak-minded, to have intercourse with a male pointer, which he himself prepared for the act, and in course of time he made the animal complete coitus with his wife five or six times whilst he looked on (“A Horrible Case,” published in the Archives for Criminal Anthropology, vol. xiii., pp. 320, 321). A case of bestiality with a rabbit is reported by Boëteau (“Un Cas de Bestialité,” published in France Médicale, 1891, vol. xxxviii., p. 593). Regarding passive bestiality with dogs, cf. A. Montalti, “La pederastia tra il cane a l’ uomo,” published in Sperimentale, 1887, vol. lx., p. 285; Delastre et Linas, “Sodomie Bestiale” (Societe de Médecine Lègale, 1873-74, vol. cxi., p. 165); Brouardel, “Pédérastie d’un Chien à l’Homme,” (published in the Semaine Médicale, 1887, vol. vii., p. 318); Féré, “Note sur un Cas de Bestialité chez la Femme” (published in Archives de Neurologie, 1903, p. 90).
[655] The belief in vampires is in part dependent upon necrophilia. In Southern Slavonic countries the corpses of young women and girls were sometimes found which had been disinterred. The necrophilist had misused them sexually, and had then cut off the breasts and torn out the intestines (F. S. Krauss, “Anthropophyteia,” vol. ii., p. 391). In the fifth decade of the nineteenth century the notorious necrophilist Sergeant Bertrand performed similar acts.
[656] Reported by A. Eulenburg, “Sadism and Masochism,” p. 56. Another case of necrophilia, with subsequent mutilation, occurred during the night of December 21-22, 1901, in the mortuary at Weiher, on the corpse of the wife of a day-labourer. The offender, who was arrested, had, on account of intense sexual hyperæsthesia, committed other sexual offences, among them bestiality (cf. “A Case of Necrophilia,” published in the Archives of Criminal Anthropology, 104, vol. xvi., pp. 289-303).
[657] These æsthetic motives were predominant in the cases of statue-love reported from antiquity.
[658] Cf. L. Fiaux “Les Maisons de Tolérance,” pp. 176, 177 (Paris, 1892). Moreover, the well-known tableaux vivants of the variety theatre can be regarded as a lesser form of such pygmalionistic spectacles.
[659] Ch. Lasègue, “Les Exhibitionistes,” published in L’Union Médicale, 1877, No. 50.
[660] Cf. A. Hoche, “Elements of a General Forensic Psycho-Pathology,” published in the “Handbook of Forensic Psychiatry,” p. 502 (Berlin, 1901).
[661] G. Burgl, “Exhibitionists before the Law-Courts,” published in the Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1903, vol. lx., Nos. 1, 2, pp. 119-144.
[662] Regarding this custom of obscene gestures, which is extremely remarkable from the point of view of the history of civilization, see the second volume, now in course of preparation, of my work on “The Origin of Syphilis.”
[663] Von Schrenck-Notzing, “Crimino-Psychological and Psycho-Pathological Studies,” pp. 50-57 (Leipzig, 1902).
[664] Not to be confused with the “=essayeurs=,” a speciality of the brothels of Paris. These are male individuals who are hired by the owner of the brothel, in order, in the presence of clients, to carry out indecent manipulations in association with the prostitutes, and thus to induce sexual excitement in the guests, and stimulate them to fornication (cf. L. Fiaux, “Lee Maisons de Tolérance,” p. 177).
[665] Regarding secret sexual clubs, see also my “Sexual Life in England,” vol. i., pp. 400-415.
[666] Cf. L. Taxil, “La Corruption Fin de Siècle,” p. 226 (Paris, 1904).
[667] S. Freud, “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory,” pp. 40-42.
[668] L. Lewin, the article “Opium,” in Eulenburg’s “Realenzyklopädie der Heilkunde,” vol. xvii., p. 629 (Vienna, 1898).
[669] The following interesting reports, given by A. Wernichs (“Geographico-Medical Studies,” pp. 48-50), elucidate very exactly the nature of the sexual fantasies of the opium-smoker, which have the character of an indeterminate and by no means coercive sexual desire: “It is not necessary to proceed to gratification; one is almost disinclined to bring the series of beautiful pictures to an end in this way. All the joyful sexual experiences follow one another in a peculiar and fanciful admixture. Alluring forms appear in the most stimulating postures. Often one does not seem to take part in the matter oneself. Beautiful women whom one has seen in any part of the world, at the theatre, etc., move before one’s eyes, in the most beloved games of our youth. Everything that memory and the half-dream brings us is naked, shining, delicate, luxurious--and for us alone; for me these groupings, these fountains with bathing forms, these gestures, these embraces.” It is, therefore, not simply by chance that the majority of Chinese brothels have arrangements for opium-smokers, and that, contrariwise, many opium-dens provide opportunities for sexual enjoyment. Indeed, prostitutes are said to prefer opium-smokers, precisely because the latter, as long as the effect of the opium persists, do not come to an end of their enjoyment.
[These sexual fantasies of the opium-smoker probably occur only in the initial stages of indulgence in the drug. The =confirmed= opium-smoker, like the man habituated to the hypodermic injection of morphine, is probably, with rare exceptions, completely impotent. Sexual appetite and power return, however, when the habit is cured.--TRANSLATOR.]
[670] I refer more especially to the last letter, one directed to an onanist (pp. 42-44), as instructive in this connexion.
[671] Cf. also Alfred Fuchs, “Therapeutics of the Abnormal Sexual Life in Men” (Stuttgart, 1899).
[672] In such cases music, more especially the more emotional music of Wagner, must be employed only with great care.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE.--With regard to offences against morality, see the comprehensive work by Mittermaier, “Crimes and Offences against Morality” (Berlin, 1906) (gives a comparative description of the legislation of various countries). See also J. Werthauer, “Offences against Morality in Large Towns” (Berlin, 1907).
XXIV. OFFENCES AGAINST MORALITY FROM THE FORENSIC STANDPOINT
“In view of the peculiar character of sexually perverse acts, or rather in view of the widely diffused interest in sexual questions and of the hypocrisy which seems inseparable from their consideration, it is easily comprehensible how to these acts there is commonly ascribed a forensic importance greater than that which properly attaches to them. And it is precisely this hypocrisy with which all questions connected with sexuality are treated on the public platform, which hinders a natural mode of regarding them, and renders so difficult an unprejudiced judgment regarding all the relevant facts.”--J. SALGÓ.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXIV
Importance of sexual perversions to the State and to society -- Exaggerated views regarding their injurious influence -- One-sided condemnation of them from the forensic-psychiatric standpoint -- Their wide diffusion among healthy individuals -- Protection against real injury to public and private interests from sexual offences -- Their frequency among diseased persons -- The idea of degeneration -- Congenital taint and the stigmata of degeneration -- Significance of these stigmata -- Social causes of degeneration -- Significance of tattooing -- § 51 of the Criminal Code -- The idea of “diminished responsibility” -- Characterization of sexual emotions -- Other factors lessening responsibility (menstruation, etc.) -- Points of view in the punishment of acts of fornication with persons under age -- Value of the evidence of children in the law-courts -- The age of consent -- The condemnation and punishment of sexual offences.
Chapter XXIV
It is the evident duty of the State to protect society from certain manifestations of the sexual impulse, occurring publicly in the form of “=offences against morality=,” and whenever these manifestations =interfere= with the persons and the rights of citizens. The sexual impulse has been compared with a powerful stream, which, when confined to its natural bed, is a never-ending source of blessing to the surrounding country; but which, as soon as with elemental force it overflows its banks and gives rise to widespread floods, is the cause of unspeakable misery among the entire population.[673] This comparison would be just if the facts were as stated. But, as I have already pointed out, =as a whole=, sexual perversions have played a far smaller part in the decadence of fallen nations than has hitherto been assumed. The biological and economical history of civilization has taught us to recognize numerous other influences, which, in such a process of national decay, play at least as great a part as sexual “degeneration,” and in many cases a much greater part than this. Frequently, indeed, sexual perversions and unnatural modes of gratification of the sexual impulse are =in the first place a consequence of economic and social abnormalities=, and are intimately connected with the so-called social problem. The above-named stream, to pursue the image, only trickles over its banks here and there, without giving rise to any widespread and devastating flood. And so long as these destructive tendencies are wanting, the State has no right to take measures against sexual perversions, or at most can justly do so only by dealing with their social causes. In view of the extensive diffusion of sexual anomalies among persons who in other respects are perfectly healthy, we must ask ourselves whether the importance of these anomalies, in respect of the offences against morality to which in certain circumstances they may give rise, has not been overestimated. This idea has recently been put forward by J. Salgó, in his valuable monograph, “The Forensic Importance of Sexual Perversities” (Halle, 1907). I am more especially pleased to find that this author shares the view which I have myself advocated for years, that sexual perversities in the majority of cases are not indications of “degeneration,” as has been assumed both by psychiatrists and neurologists, especially under the influence of the doctrine of Möbius, who pushed this idea much too far. Moreover, the late Jolly, in his lectures to practising physicians upon sexual aberrations, expressly maintained the justice of my view of sexual anomalies as an anthropological phenomenon. With regard to the nature of sexual perversions, psychiatric science will have greatly to modify its general views, in order to attain an objective consideration of their significance.
“=Psychiatry=,” says Salgó (op. cit., pp. 37, 38), “=must not follow the decoy-call of the law (which has wandered into a blind alley), by endeavouring to cover with the mantle of specialist science the serious legal errors in the matter of perverse sexuality. The incontestable domain of psychiatric experience in forensic questions is already sufficiently large, and it needs no artificial extension. But it is an artificial extension to indicate as morbid all the aberrations of sexual activity, or any single one of such aberrations, in the absence of indubitable or demonstrable symptoms of physical disturbance, and in the absence of a clearly recognizable and abnormal course--simply because they contravene the existing criminal law.=”
The blind alley of psychiatry is the prison and the asylum. Because psychiatry is principally concerned with those sexual perversities which have criminal or psychiatric importance, with the =abnormalities= and the =crimes= of the sexually perverse, psychiatric science failed to recognize the extraordinarily wide diffusion of sexual perversions among persons who are mentally and physically healthy. Among the healthy, homosexuality, sadism, masochism, fetichism, etc., may make their appearance in more or less severe forms; just as other “vicious habits” may occur in the healthy, just as passionate tobacco-smoking, or intoxication with any sport, may become =an ineradicable habit=, or at least a =habit extremely difficult to eradicate=. Neither jurisprudence nor psychiatry can be spared the accusation of having misled “public opinion,” this terrible monster so often hostile to civilization, in respect of sexual perversities, regarding whose nature recent scientific research, and above all, anthropological research, has diffused a light. =I am acquainted with a number of persons whose bodily and mental health is excellent, persons who are, indeed, imposing in respect of their primeval German racial force, who have assured me that they suffer from the most severe sexual perversions!= Recall the description given on p. 584 of a masochistic “slave” of the most extreme type. I do not go so far as Salgó, who demands for sexual anomalies, in so far as they are not criminal, the same “right of existence” (p. 7) as for the normal sexual impulse; but I do assert that sexual anomalies exist in individuals who are in other respects perfectly healthy, and that they do not always injure the personal health or the bodily and moral well-being of another, as is the case with sexual perversions arising upon a morbid foundation and attaining forensic importance. Above all, I must sharply condemn the fashion of =glorifying= sexual perversities, which have been regarded as a peculiar privilege of the highest mental development, and as corresponding to an especial refinement of sensibility. This assertion may be refuted by reference to the fact, often mentioned before, that the most incredible and most artificial sexual malpractices occur among savage races, who in this respect could give points to our modern decadents and epicurean æsthetes. In any case, sexual perversions in themselves have neither a moral nor a forensic importance, and must be regarded as more or less biological variations of the normal impulse.
Where, on the other hand, the =public= or =individual= interest is injured by these perversions, the State has unquestionably the right of intervention and the right of prevention. In every case in which we have to do with the production of a public nuisance, with the bodily or mental injury of other human beings, with the employment of force, with the misuse of the lessened or absent responsibility of children, of unconscious persons, of those asleep, and of those mentally disordered, society must intervene in its own interest, and must take suitable measures to protect itself against such offences. Now, it is certain--and to have established this is an honour to psychiatric science--that it is precisely these latter sexual =offences= which in the great majority of cases are committed by =diseased= persons and by those who are more or less =irresponsible=. Therefore, we are thoroughly justified in demanding that in every such criminal case, the bodily and mental condition of the accused should be subjected to a medical examination. A typical mental disorder, such as imbecility, epilepsy, alcoholic insanity, general paralysis of the insane, paranoia, etc., will be detected without difficulty, and thereby responsibility will at once be excluded. More difficult are the =transitional= stages between health and disease, the so-called “=borderland cases=,” the cases of “psychopathically deficient responsibility” and of “disequilibrium.” In forensic medicine two ideas play a very great part in this connexion, that of “=degeneration=” and that of “=diminished responsibility=.”
Every sexually perverse person must be examined for signs of severe hereditary taint, as well as for the so-called “stigmata of degeneration.” If we can prove that in his family there have been =several= instances of =severe= mental disorder, of alcoholism, syphilis, diabetes, and other diseases leading to degeneration, the suspicion that there is a psychopathic foundation for the sexual offence is justified. But we must insist that congenital taint does not make itself felt in every case, and cannot, therefore, always be made responsible as a causal influence in the production of a sexual perversion.[674]
The so-called “stigmata of degeneration” have importance only when they are =very markedly= developed, and when =several= of them are simultaneously present. We distinguish physical and mental stigmata degenerationis. To the former belong disturbances and inhibitions of development, malformations, such as asymmetry of the skull, narrowness of the palate, hare-lip, cleft palate, anomalies of the teeth and the hair, difficulties of speech, tic convulsif, abnormal and morbid states of the genital organs and genital functions, and more especially malformations of the ear, such as Morel’s ear (the complete or partial absence of the helix or antihelix), the Darwinian pointed ear, etc.[675]
The mental degenerative phenomena comprise all that are known as “bizarre or abnormal” characters; those who possess such characters are termed “eccentrics” and “originals,” or are known as persons “psychopathically below par” (J. L. A. Koch), as “disequilibrated” (Eschle), as “superior degenerates” (Magnan). These phenomena comprise peculiar disturbances of the harmony of the spiritual life, characterized by lack of balance between emotion and intellect, as well as by an abnormal irritability and undue reaction to stimulation. We may find complete absence of ethical perception, so-called “moral insanity,” of which E. Kraepelin and his school have proved that it may arise secondarily as a sequel to certain mental disorders. Striking in these unbalanced persons is the disharmony of the entire conduct of life, the internal lack of the point d’appui, the unsteadiness, the suddenness of their actions, which often occur under the influence of coercive ideas and abnormal impulses, the abnormally early appearance and the extraordinary intensity of the sexual impulse, the tendency to cruelty (O. Rosenbach). In judging the personality of the degenerate as a whole, we must always take into account the =entire course of life=, to which only too often the remark of Stifter applies: “In his life we saw only beginnings without continuations, and continuations without beginnings.”
On the other hand, we must not forget that many of the bodily stigmata of degeneration occur also in healthy persons, and that the existence of such stigmata in mentally disordered persons and in criminals may also be referred to social causes, to bad conditions of life and deficient nutriment, to alcoholism, syphilis, or rickets. For this reason P. Näcke[676] rightly insists =that many of the so-called stigmata of degeneration are socially produced=, and will therefore disappear with the employment of a purposive social hygiene; he gives as an example the rachitic bandy legs of English factory labourers. Therefore, for the proof of degeneration, we must lay more stress upon =mental= stigmata, upon abnormality of the spiritual personality, abnormality of its intellectual and emotional character, and from this proceed to infer the irresistible character of a morbid impulsive manifestation.
In addition to the study of the stigmata of degeneration, the study of =tattooing= is of forensic importance in the consideration of the sexual offences; the character and the date of the tattooing give sometimes interesting information regarding the nature of the personality.
Thus Lombroso[677] reports the case of an offender against morality, fifty years of age, with prominent ears and scanty growth of hair. This man ravished a girl of fifteen, whose mother was his mistress. =At the early age of fifteen= he had had the most obscene pictures tattooed upon his body; and upon inquiry he stated that he had begun to masturbate at the age of thirteen years, and had begun to have intercourse with women at the age of fifteen years. He denied the accusation of rape, and maintained that he had enjoyed the girl without using force. =His tattooing, however, gave evidence= of his capacity to commit sexual crime. The pictures served as a =certain and important proof of this=.
This appeared even more clearly in the case of the ravisher Francesco Spiteri, published by Dr. F. Santangelo in 1892, =whose utterly immoral and sexually perverse mode of life was most wonderfully displayed and recorded by means of the tattooings by which his entire body was covered=. It will suffice here to allude to the drawing of a fish and of seven points upon his membrum. This indicated that his penis (Italian, pesce = fish) since his youth had pædicated seven boys (= seven points)!
In the case of sexual offences we have to consider, in addition to the question of degeneration, that of =diminished= or =entirely absent responsibility=. In cases of unmistakable mental disorder, responsibility does not exist, nor in epileptic confusional states, nor in profound alcoholic intoxication.[678] Between complete irresponsibility and complete responsibility there are numerous transitional stages, which are all classified under the idea of =diminished responsibility=. This fact is not recognized by § 51 of the Criminal Code, which runs as follows:
“A punishable offence has not been committed when the accused at the time the action was performed was in a state of unconsciousness, or in a state or morbid disturbance of mental activity, by means of which his freedom of will was excluded.”
In this we find the idea of “morbid disturbance of mental activity,” which is definitely wider than the idea of mental disease, in so far as it embraces transient mental disorders in persons who are not suffering from definite mental disease; but it does not take into consideration the even more important notion of diminished responsibility, which is applicable to all the above described borderland states and transitional conditions lying between mental health and mental disease. Häussler (op. cit., p. 39) as long as eighty years ago demanded the recognition of the idea of diminished responsibility--that is, of a condition “in which responsibility for the action was =diminished= by an imperfectly developed intelligence, without the disturbance of intellectual activity being sufficiently great completely to abolish free voluntary determination” (Aschaffenburg). Since that time, by the address given on September 16, 1887, to the Association of German Alienists at Frankfort on “diminished responsibility,” Jolly opened a discussion upon this question. In this discussion the majority of German psychiatrists recommended the legislative recognition of such an idea, among these Wollenberg, Hoche, Cramer, Kirn, Aschaffenburg, von Schrenck-Notzing, etc.[679]
In connexion with diminished responsibility we must distinguish between =individuals= and =actions=. Among the individuals recognized above as persons “psychopathically below par,” responsibility may be diminished permanently and for a number of different actions; but in other cases healthy normal individuals may exhibit diminished responsibility in respect of =isolated actions=, when, for example, an =excessively strong emotion=, or a state of =acute intoxication=, has for a certain time and in relation to a particular action abrogated responsibility. In this connexion, in addition to acute alcoholic intoxication, certain =sexual= processes have especially to be considered. Häussler recognized the influence of the sexual impulse upon responsibility, and considered that certain actions performed under the influence of that impulse were performed without complete responsibility, and he declared that the voluptuary was a person whose mental health was imperfect.[680] Forel[681] also regarded the “slaves of the sexual impulse” as mentally abnormal, as individuals whose responsibility was diminished. I consider it indisputable that sexual emotions, especially when they arise suddenly, diminish responsibility, and limit, to some extent at least, the freedom of voluntary determination. Regarding certain processes of the vita sexualis, such as the epoch of =puberty= in both sexes, regarding =menstruation=, =pregnancy=, and the =climacteric in women=, this fact has been already generally recognized. It ought, however, to be admitted regarding the sexual impulse in general, more especially when the whole character of the action proves that it has been the consequence of a suddenly arising powerful emotion. Von Krafft-Ebing also is of this opinion.[682] It is, moreover, in most cases possible to determine whether the offence was caused =only by a powerful sexual emotion=, by means of which the intelligence and the freedom of the will of a person, in other respects normally responsible, were temporarily limited or completely arrested; or whether other motives intervened, so that the action must be regarded as the result of conscious choice.
In conclusion, another point must be considered, which is related to the question of sexual offences committed with children, and which possesses forensic importance. This is the circumstance that in many such cases there is no question of the “seduction” of children, but that, on the contrary, the incitation =first= proceeded from the children themselves. In the previous chapter we discussed the early appearance of sexual activity in children. Moreover, in such cases we could distinguish between a nobler and a grosser, more sensual love.
As an example of the former, I may allude to the ardent, affectionate love of a girl of twelve for a thoroughly honourable man of forty years of age, who certainly had no idea of sexual intimacy with the child, and who was unable to free himself from her passionate caresses. We often observe such intimate inclinations on the part of young girls towards mature men, and we must be careful in such cases to avoid immediately thinking of pædophilic unchastity.
In another case a mother complained that her daughter, seven years of age, was in continual pursuit of a boy of fourteen, and could not be cured of the affection.
Maria Lischnewska reports (“Mutterschutz,” 1905, p. 155) the case of a boy, not yet six years of age, who drew up the nightgown of his foster-mother, and endeavoured to have intercourse with her.
The sexual offences committed by clergymen and tutors upon the girls taught by them are apt to be seen in a different light when we subject the youthful accuser to a strict cross-examination, and, in addition, to a physical examination, whereby in many cases we bring to light the fact that, long =before= the recent offence, they have been accustomed =of their own free will= to have sexual relations with =other= men. Casper long ago drew attention to these circumstances. Very often =from the pupil herself proceed actual advances= of the worst kind, which have proved ruinous to many a young teacher whose morals were previously above reproach.
Finally, there is an important point which must not be forgotten: the untrustworthy character of childish evidence, a matter which has recently been discussed by the specialist Adolf Baginsky.[683] This writer, whose knowledge of childish psychology is so profound, remarks:
“The evidence given by children in the law-courts appears to those who are really familiar with the child mind to be =absolutely worthless= and =utterly devoid of importance=, and this is the more the case the more frequently the child repeats its statement, and the more firmly it sticks to its evidence.”
He alludes to the law of Sweden, according to which the child is not competent to give evidence in a law-court before the completion of its fifteenth year.
All these circumstances must be considered in relation to the question of the so-called “=age of consent=.” M. Hirschfeld justly remarks that the natural age of consent is equivalent to that at which a child is competent to make a choice (“The Nature of Love,” p. 284). I consider that the decision of the Italian Criminal Code is the best; by this Code the age of consent for =both= sexes is placed at the conclusion of the sixteenth year.
The majority of crimes committed from purely sexual motives belong to the crimes of passion, in the sense of Ferris, and indeed to crimes committed under the coercion of the most powerful of organic impulses. I doubt whether the existing punishments are the most suitable for the purpose for which they are designed. In any case, gentleness is here above all demanded, and we should invoke the saying, “Judge not, that ye be not judged!” Indeed, an evangelical minister[684] speaks truly when he says:
“=The enormous majority of men and women, who constitute themselves the judges of offences against morality, whilst they themselves take every opportunity of infringing the moral laws they profess to uphold--lie day after day, throughout their whole life--their position is built upon hypocrisy and lies.=”
It very rarely happens that a judge who condemns a thief or a murderer has himself been guilty of this crime, but without doubt it frequently happens that a judge condemns other men on account of sexual offences which he has himself committed. In the case of =sexual crimes= we almost always have to do with individuals to whom more good could be done by =medical influence= than by imprisonment; we must entrust the physician with the duty of protecting society against such offenders. “=In this province, physicians will become the judges of the future=,” says M. Hirschfeld most justly.[685] Until this end is attained, let us remind German judges of an anecdote which I found in an old French encyclopædia:[686]
“A courtesan in Madrid killed her lover, on account of his unfaithfulness; she was condemned and brought before the king, from whom she hid nothing. The king said to her: ‘Thou hast loved =too much= to be a reasonable being.’”
[673] E. Weisbrod, “Offences against Morality before the Law Courts,” p. 5 (Berlin and Leipzig, 1891). Cf., regarding offences against morality, in addition to the above-mentioned work of Tardieu, the interesting “Notes et Observations de Médecine Légale: Attentats aux Mœurs,” by H. Legludic (Paris, 1896); also P. Viazzi, “Sur Reati Sessuali” (Turin, 1896); L. Thoinot, “Attentats aux Mœurs et Perversions du Sens Génital” (Paris, 1898); Toulouse, “Les Délits Sexuels,” published in “Les Conflicts Intersexuels et Sociaux,” pp. 318-326 (Paris, 1904). Regarding offences against morality from the forensic standpoint, see also the comprehensive work of Mittermaier, “Crimes and Offences against Morality” (Berlin, 1906), which contains a comparative account of the legislative enactments of the principal countries of Europe. In addition, consult J. Werthauer, “Offences against Morality in Large Towns” (Berlin, 1907).
[674] Cf. Th. Ziehen, “Degeneratives Irresein,” in Eulenburg’s “Realenzyklopädie,” vol. v., p. 448 (Vienna, 1895); A. Hoche, “Handbook of Forensic Psychiatry,” p. 413.
[675] Cf., in this connexion, P. Näcke, “The Value of the So-called Stigmata of Degeneration” (Archives of Criminal Psychology, May, 1904), and “The Great Value of Certain Signs of Degeneration” (Archives of Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xvi., pp. 181, 182). The most important, according to him, are stigmata of the head and of the genital system, on account of the relationships to the brain and to the reproductive organs. Disturbances of development of the auricle are not so important as those of the globe of the eye (absence of the iris, nystagmus, opacities of the lens, coloboma iridis, ptosis, microphthalmus, anophthalmus, colour-blindness, etc.). Penta has recently drawn attention to the importance and frequency of anomalies of the sexual organs in stuprators and in the sexually perverse (cf. Archives of Criminal Anthropology, 1904, vol. xvi., p. 343; cf. also the observations of Matthaes, quoted in note ^{490}, p. 477).
[676] Paul Näcke, “Criminality and Insanity in Women,” pp. 154-156 (Vienna and Leipzig, 1894).
[677] C. Lombroso, “Recent Advances in the Study of Criminality,” pp. 177, 178.
[678] Cf. G. Aschaffenburg, “Responsibility in Mental Disease,” published in Hoche’s “Handbook of Forensic Psychiatry,” pp. 13-47.
[On the question of “Responsibility in Mental Disease,” English readers will naturally refer to Maudsley’s classical work bearing this title, published in the International Scientific Series.--TRANSLATOR.]
[679] Cf. A. von Schrenck-Notzing, “The Question of Diminished Responsibility, etc.,” published in “Crimino-Psychological and Psychopathological Studies,” pp. 76-101 (Leipzig, 1902).
[680] Häussler, op. cit., p. 39.
[681] A. Forel, “The Responsibility of Normal Human Beings,” p. 21 (Munich, 1901).
[682] Von Krafft-Ebing, “Psychopathia Sexualis,” p. 331.
[683] Adolf Baginsky, “The Impressionability of Children under the Influence of their Environment,” published in Medizinische Reform, edited by Rudolf Lennhoff, 1906, Nos. 43, 44 (especially pp. 533, 534).
[684] “Another Conventional Lie: Studies concerning Love, Marriage, and Morality,” by an Evangelical Clergyman, p. 7 (Leipzig).
[685] Kraepelin (“The Question of Diminished Responsibility,” published in the Monatschrijt für Kriminal-Psychiatrie, 1904, No. 8) pleads that the necessity for imprisonment should be determined, not by judges, but by medical “crimino-pedagogues,” and he demands “places of secure restraint” (“Sicherungsanstalten”), differing in character from ordinary prisons, for the detention of criminals whose responsibility is diminished. Similarly, P. Näcke (“The So-called Moral Insanity,” p. 60; Wiesbaden, 1902), considers that the prison should be transformed into a kind of “hospital and educational institution.”
[686] “Encyclopediana ou Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Ana,” p. 59 (Paris, 1701).
XXV. THE QUESTION OF SEXUAL ABSTINENCE (DIE ENTHALTSAMKEITSFRAGE)
“O heiliger Büsser, folg’ ich dir, Folge ich dir, Frau Minne?”
EDUARD GRISEBACH.
[“Holy Penitence, art thou my aim, Or is it thou whom I pursue, lovely woman?”]
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXV
Great variation in the views held regarding sexual abstinence -- Five groups -- The apostles of absolute asceticism -- Criticism of their views -- View of duplex sexual morality -- Its refutation -- The unfounded doubt in the possibility of abstinence -- Recommendation of relative temporary abstinence from the medical and moral standpoint -- Relative abstinence as an ideal of civilization -- Recognition of this ideal among the ancient Israelites -- Wise prescriptions and utterances in the Bible and the Talmud -- Misrepresentation of this idea by the notion of absolute asceticism -- Reaction against the latter -- Rules regarding the frequency of intercourse -- Self-command as a principle of enjoyment -- Abstinence before the first sexual intercourse -- Sexual maturity and physical maturity -- Sexual tension of the third decade of life -- Erb’s experiences regarding the harmful consequences of abstinence -- Lowenfeld’s reports -- Comparison with the dangers of extra-conjugal sexual intercourse -- Value of abstinence later in life -- Influence upon intellectual activity -- Higher civilizing value of the idea of abstinence.
Chapter XXV
There is no disputed question in respect of which the divergent views are so sharply opposed as they are regarding the importance, the value, and the consequences of =sexual abstinence=.
[The question has been recently discussed by O. Schreiber, in a paper entitled “Sexual Abstinence,” published in Medizinische Blätter, 1907, Nos. 25-27.]
I distinguish =five= groups of opinion:
1. The apostles of =absolute asceticism= during the whole of life (Tolstoi, Weininger, Norbert Grabowsky, Kurnig, etc.).
2. The medical advocates of =relative temporary continence=, until it becomes possible to enjoy permanent hygienic intercourse, free from all objections.
3. The advocates of “=duplex sexual morality=,” who demand from woman sexual abstinence until she marries, but who regard this as impossible in the case of man.
4. The “=Vera=”[687] =enthusiasts=, who on =moral= grounds demand abstinence for =both= sexes until marriage.
5. Those who =doubt= the possibility of abstinence of =any= kind for either sex, whether absolute =or= relative.
Regarding those mentioned under the first heading, who demand absolute, life-long sexual abstinence, it is hardly necessary to say a word. It is nonsense, a pious superstition, a Utopia contrary alike to nature and to civilization, born of the belief in the “sinfulness” of sexual intercourse.
The normal sexual impulse is a =natural= phenomenon; it is pure and thoroughly ethical; and it is only in an insane confusion and in a morally reprehensible falsification of his own nature that man has come to regard it as a “sin,” as an “evil.” Man has a natural, inborn right to the gratification of the sexual impulse. Absolute asceticism must be rejected as a thoroughly =immoral= doctrine.
The same is true of the duplex sexual morality, alluded to under the third heading, by which that is justified to man which is denied to woman. This “=morality=” (lucus a non lucendo) presupposes for man a natural impulse, and demands for him a right to gratify it, whilst the existence of such an impulse and of such a right is denied to woman. We have shown that this view is an inevitable consequence of coercive marriage morality.[688]
The standpoint of the sceptics alluded to under § 5 is one which denies the possibility of =any= abstinence, even merely temporary abstinence; but this view is equally to be rejected. Man is a natural being; his sexual impulse is a natural instinct, and as such one whose existence is justified; but at the same time man is a =civilized being=. Civilization is an elevation, an ennoblement, a transfiguration of nature, whose unduly powerful impulses and powers must be tamed and harmonized by civilization. The right to sexual gratification is therefore opposed by the =duty= to set bounds to the sexual impulse, to conduct it into such paths that no harm can result from its exercise, either to the individual or to society; and in order that, like all other impulses, it may subserve the purposes of the evolution of civilization. To this end, however, a =relative abstinence= is of great importance (this is a matter which has not hitherto been sufficiently recognized); but this course it is only possible to follow when, at the same time, we emphatically =affirm the rightness of sexuality=, and when it is our desire to utilize it as a =civilizing factor of the first rank=. The “individualization” of the sexual impulse has been described in detail in an earlier chapter of this work, to which I may refer the reader. If we fail to recognize the value of =temporary abstinence=, and the importance of the storing up of sexual energy which is thereby effected, and the transformation of this energy into other energies of a spiritual nature, such an individualization becomes impossible.
Alike the medical advocates (§ 2) and the moral advocates (§ 4) of a relative temporary abstinence for both sexes have, from their respective standpoints, made a just demand. This is, in fact, in both cases an “ideal standpoint,” to use the phrase of F. A. Lange; but it is also an ideal most desirable to set before youth, and more especially before our German youth. We cannot repeat too often, or insist with too much emphasis, what an endless blessing results from the endeavour towards, and from the realization of, temporary sexual abstinence, more especially in the years of =preparation= for life, but also in the years of =independent creative work=.
The importance of =relative= sexual abstinence was first recognized by the ancient Israelites. Numerous wise prescriptions and utterances prove this. Julius Preuss, the most celebrated student of ancient Jewish medicine, has recently, in an interesting study of “Sexual Matters in the Bible and the Talmud” (Allgemeine Medizinische Central-Zeitung, 1906, No. 30 et seq.), collected the following facts bearing on the matter:
“Chastity was a self-evident demand for the unmarried. It is true that, in view of the early occurrence of puberty, they married very young--at the age of eighteen or twenty; and Rabbi Huna is of opinion that anyone who at the age of twenty is still unmarried passes his days in sin or--which he regards as even worse--in sinful thoughts. There are three whom God praises every day: an unmarried man who lives in a large town and does not sin; a poor man who finds an object of value and returns it to the owner, and a rich man who gives his tithe secretly. Once when this doctrine was read out in the presence of Rabbi Safra, who as a young man lived in a large town, his face lighted up with joy. But Raba said to him: ‘It is not meant such a one as thou art, but such a one as Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Oschaja, who live in the street of the prostitutes, and make shoes for them, to whom, therefore, the prostitutes come, and look upon them, but who, notwithstanding this, do not raise their eyes to look upon the prostitutes.’”
After marriage also they endeavoured by valuable prescriptions to enforce the great civilizing idea of temporary sexual abstinence. Thus, intercourse during menstruation was strictly forbidden, and was regarded as a deadly sin; the same was the case as regards intercourse when there was any other hæmorrhage from the genital organs; but in this case the abstinence must last even longer. It is remarkable that the Catholic theologians allowed sexual intercourse without limit when such morbid hæmorrhage was present, and allowed it also, with certain restrictions, during menstruation. Further, among the ancient Hebrews intercourse was forbidden during the week of mourning for parents or brothers or sisters; it was forbidden also during the festival of atonement. Guests in an inn when travelling were also forbidden sexual intercourse, doubtless on grounds of decency. Intercourse was likewise forbidden in times of famine, in order to spare the bodily forces.
Golden sayings recognize the value of moderation and of relative abstinence.
According to an ancient Israelitish popular saying, sexual intercourse is one of eight things =which are beautiful when enjoyed in strict moderation, but harmful when enjoyed very freely=. The others are walking, possessions, work, wine, sleep, warm water (for bathing and for drinking), and venesection.
Rabbi Jochanan said: “Man possesses a little limb: he who satisfies it hungers; he who allows it to hunger is satisfied.”
Rabbi Ilai said: “When man observes that his evil impulse is more powerful than he is himself, let him go to a place where people do not know him, let him put on dark clothes, let him wear a dark turban, and let him do that which his heart desires; but let him not publicly profane the name of God.” This can only mean that in general he only controls the desire who has already tasted the fruit--that is to say, that abstinence is the safest means against lust; but he who, notwithstanding this, finds that the impulse threatens to become too violent, still has the duty to fight against it, and in any case not to yield immediately.
This ancient notion of relative asceticism was, unfortunately, falsified and thrust into the background by the Utopian and contra-natural idea of absolute asceticism; its great value was completely obscured by the inevitable reaction against the principle of absolute chastity. This reaction led actually to the formation of rules regarding the frequency of intercourse, such as that attributed to Luther--“Twice a week does harm neither to her nor to me”; =although it is precisely in this department of life that no rules can be given, and that the greatest individual variations occur=, so that “twice a week” may for many constitute by far too much, and can only be regarded as permissible to robust constitutions. =Daily= indulgence in sexual intercourse, continued for a =long period= of time, would be deleterious even to a Hercules, =and in all circumstances would be harmful to both parties=. Nature herself, by exhibiting a certain periodicity in sexual excitement (which periodicity is admittedly far more distinct in women than it is in men, who can “always” love), has facilitated temporary abstinence. This is, in fact, a natural demand even of the most extreme ethical materialism; for, as Friedrich Albert Lange[689] rightly points out, “even though the individual sensual pleasure, as with Aristippos or Lamettrie, is raised to a principle, =self-control= still remains a requirement of philosophy, if only in order to assure the permanence of the capacity for enjoyment.” So also the poet of the “New Tanhäuser” sings:
“Selig, der da ewig schmachtet, Sei gepriesen, Tantalus, Hätt’ er je, wonach er trachtet, Würd’ es auch schon Ueberdruss: Gib mir immer =Eine= Beere, Aus der vollen Traube nur, Und ich schmachte gern, Cythere, Lebenslang auf deiner Spur!”
[“Happy is he who eternally desires. A happy man art thou, Tantalus! If he ever attained that for which he longs, He would instantly taste satiety: Let me have but a =single= grape From the full cluster, Gladly, Cytherea, will I live, Ever desiring, in thy courts!”]
The question of abstinence is an entirely different one, according as it relates to the time =before= or =after= the first experience of sexual intercourse. Experience shows that in the former case abstinence is far easier than it is when the forbidden fruit has once been tasted. If, with the author of this book, relative asceticism is regarded as the most desirable ideal, we shall endeavour in =youth= to realize that ideal for as long a time as possible, =without= any interruption by sexual intercourse; whereas in the later period of the fully-developed sexual life we shall practise sexual abstinence only from time to time.
With regard to the former point, it would be the greatest good fortune for every man if he could remain sexually abstinent until the complete maturity of body and mind--that is, until the age of twenty-five.[690] But this is in most cases an impossibility. Yet it =is possible= for =every= healthy man--and it is an imperative demand of individual and social hygiene--=to abstain completely from sexual intercourse at least until the age of twenty=. That is possible without any harm resulting, and it is carried out by innumerable persons of both sexes. It is, indeed, a fact that in civilized countries the physical and mental maturity of girls and boys by no means coincides with their sexual maturity, but, on the contrary, occurs from three to five years later. First between the ages of twenty and twenty-two does man attain complete development.[691] If the sexual impulse is not artificially awakened and stimulated during these years of adolescence, it may remain very moderate, without masturbation and without pollutions, and can be easily controlled. Relations with the other sex have not yet become necessary for the development of the individual personality. The human being has still enough to do in isolation. First with the commencement of the third decade of life do the conditions alter, and sexual tension becomes so great as to demand the adequate and natural discharge given by the normal sexual act. If this is impossible, pollutions form the natural, or masturbation forms the unnatural, outlet; and when abstinence is continued for a long time after attaining this age, the vital freshness and the spiritual and emotional condition are more or less impaired. To have emphasized this fact, in opposition to those authors[692] who declared that total sexual abstinence is absolutely harmless to mature men, was the great service of Wilhelm Erb,[693] the celebrated, widely experienced Heidelberg neurologist.
“It is a well-known fact,” he writes, “that healthy young men with a powerful sexual impulse suffer not a little from abstinence, that from time to time they are ‘as if possessed’ by the impulse, that erotic ideas press in upon them from all sides, disturb their work and their nocturnal repose, and imperiously demand relief. I always remember the remark of a friend of my youth, a young artist, who, when speaking of these things, was accustomed to say with intense meaning: ‘Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte in seinem Bette weinend sass....’ And the same man could not sufficiently extol the relaxing, disburdening, and positively refreshing influence of an occasional gratification; and the same thing has been said to me innumerable times by earnest and thoroughly moderate men.”
Women also gave him similar assurances.[694] In numerous cases Erb observed physical and mental harm to result from abstinence--sometimes in healthy individuals, but more especially in the neuropathic.
Important also are the investigations of L. Löwenfeld[695] regarding the influence of abstinence. He found that in men under the age of twenty-four any troubles worth mentioning as a result of sexual abstinence were comparatively rare, as compared with the case of men between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-six years, the years of complete manly power and sexual capacity; and he found that whereas in healthy persons these disturbances were indeed of a trifling character (general excitability, sexual hyperæsthesia, hypochondriacal ideas, disinclination for work, slight attacks of giddiness), in neuropathic persons, on the contrary, there would occur coercive ideas, melancholy, feelings of anxiety, and even hallucinations. Females, according to Löwenfeld, bear abstinence--even absolute abstinence--much better than men, but in them also hysterical and neurasthenic conditions may develop as a result of sexual abstinence.
All these harmful consequences of abstinence are, however, neither in man nor in woman, of such a nature that, where an opportunity for sexual intercourse at once hygienic and free from ethical objections is wanting, the gratification of the sexual impulse need be advised by the physician as a “therapeutic measure.” No; Erb himself insists that, on the contrary, the dangers threatened by venereal diseases =altogether outweigh= the comparatively rare and trifling injuries to health resulting from abstinence. “Extra-conjugal” sexual intercourse involves the dangers of syphilitic or gonorrhœal infection, or of illegitimate pregnancy, which latter to-day must, unfortunately, be regarded as a kind of severe disease. In contrast with these evils, any harmful consequences of abstinence fade away to nothing.
Later in life, when the possibility of a permanent pure love exists, the value of temporary abstinence is to be found especially in the spiritual sphere. Precisely for the “erotocrat,” as Georg Hirth terms one endowed with a powerful and healthy sexual impulse, is this temporary abstinence of a certain importance, because the stored-up quantum of sexual tension re-enforces the inward spiritual productivity. A number of men, at once endowed with strong sexual needs and with a noble mental capacity, have assured me that, in consequence of abstinence, they have temporarily experienced a peculiar deepening and concentration of their mental capacity, by means of which they were undeniably enabled to increase their mental output. This point in the hygiene of intellectual activity, which seems not to have been unknown to Goethe, has been as yet too little studied.
In any case, it is definitely established that from the standpoint of civilization the idea of sexual abstinence is justified, if for this reason alone: because in it we find a great means for increasing and strengthening of the =will=; but, in the second place, because in it we have a valuable protection against the dangers of wild love; and, finally, because sexual abstinence emphasizes the fact that life contains other things worth striving for besides matters of sex, that the content of life is far from being exhausted by the sexual, even though the sexual impulse, in addition to the impulse of self-preservation, will always remain the most powerful of all vital activities.
[687] “Vera” is the heroine of a novel (“Eine für Viele: Aus dem Tagebuche eines Mädchens”) which attracted considerable attention in Germany. She demanded from men entering on marriage the same virgin intactitude which men are accustomed to expect in their wives. English readers will be reminded of Evadne, in Sarah Grand’s “The Heavenly Twins.” Evadne, it will be remembered, left her husband at the church door, owing to information she received regarding his preconjugal career. In England we might speak of “Evadne” enthusiasts, instead of “Vera” enthusiasts.--TRANSLATOR.
[688] P. Näcke also (“A Contribution to the Woman’s Question and to the Question of Sexual Abstinence,” op. cit., p. 49) strongly condemns this duplex morality, which he regards as “obviously unjust.” Cf. also Max Thal, “Sexual Morality: an Attempt to solve the Problem of Sexual, and more Particularly of the so-called Duplex Morality” (Breslau, 1904).
[689] Friedrich Albert Lange, “History of Materialism,” vol. iii., p. 302, English edition.
[690] “My dear young men,” thus wrote Ernst Moritz Arndt, at the age of eighty-nine, to the Burschenschaft (Students’ Association) of Jena, “I can wish nothing better for you than that you should arrange your course of life in Jena, and pass through it, as I heretofore passed through it, making a courageous, vigorous, and earnest fight against the lusty, overbearing impulses of youth, which in the best case are so easily carried to excess.... In these your most valuable years, between eighteen and twenty, you must, with redoubled manliness, courage, and chastity, strive to deserve the praise given by Caius Julius Cæsar to the young men of Germany.”
[691] Cf., in this connexion, the remarks of A. Herzen, “Science and Morality,” pp. 11, 12 (Berlin, 1901). The same age for human maturity was fixed on also by J. C. G. Ackermann (“The Diseases of the Learned,” p. 268; Nürnberg, 1777).
[692] I need mention only Seved Ribbing, Acton, Rubner, Paget, Hegar, Beale, Herzen, A. Eulenburg, V. Cnyrim, and Fürbringer.
[693] Wilhelm Erb, “Remarks on the Consequences of Sexual Abstinence,” published in the Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1903, vol. ii., No. I., pp. 1-18.
[694] Theodor Mundt, in his “Madonna” (pp. 240, 241; Leipzig, 1835), has very vividly described the beneficial and refreshing influence of coitus upon women.
[695] L. Löwenfeld, “The Sexual Life and Nervous Troubles,” pp. 62-69, fourth edition.
XXVI. SEXUAL EDUCATION
“Better a year too early than an hour too late.”--OKER BLOM.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXVI
Science and practice have hitherto, for the most part, ignored the sexual -- The danger of blind chance in the sexual province -- Necessity for the enlightenment of the coming generation -- Sexual education as a part of general pedagogy -- The right to the knowledge of one’s own body -- Sexual enlightenment of young people -- The dispute regarding the when and the how -- Distinction between the youth of the country and the youth of the town -- Points of association -- A passage from Gutzkow’s autobiography -- Disastrous sources of early sexual enlightenment -- Character of the pedagogic enlightenment -- Importance of this -- Suggestions regarding the methods of sexual enlightenment (Sigmund, Lischnewska, F. W. Förster) -- My own views -- Education of the character and of the will -- Principal rules of sexual pedagogy -- Education to manhood.
Chapter XXVI
The manner in which up to the present day humanity has, properly speaking, completely ignored the fact of sexuality is at once remarkable and difficult to understand. Until recently people went so far as to regard scientific research into sexual matters by =adult persons= as improper! The mystical idea of the sinfulness, of the radically evil character, of the sexual, was a dogma which even natural science appeared to admit. Our attitude towards the sexual was as if it were at once Sphinx and Gorgon’s head, as if it were the veiled statue of Sais. We stood helpless, in the face of this mysterious and malignant power, against the =blind hazard of chance which plays= so momentous a part, more especially in sexual affairs. As everywhere in life, so here also, the dominion of chance could be overcome only by means of knowledge. The solution of the sexual problem demands, in the first place, =openness=, =clearness=, =learning= in the department of the sexual, knowledge of cause and effect, and the =transmission= of this knowledge to the =next generation=, so that this latter may without harm become wise. =Sexual education= is an important chapter in general pedagogy.[696]
Regarding animals, plants, and stones the youthful human being of to-day acquires the most exact information, but we have hitherto =refused= him the right to understand his own body, and to acquire a knowledge of certain important vital functions of that body. There can be no doubt about the fact that the modern human being, who has learned to so large an extent to regard himself as a =social= being, has a sacred natural right to this knowledge.
Celebrated pedagogues of a hundred years ago, such as Rousseau, Salzmann, Basedow, Jean Paul, etc., expressed themselves in favour of the early sexual enlightenment of youth, and gave the most valuable advice regarding the methods to be employed;[697] but their views remained for the most part devoid of practical effect, and it is only in recent years, in connexion with the question of the protection of motherhood, with the campaign against prostitution, and with the attempt to suppress venereal diseases, that interest in this matter has been reawakened; and there now exists in this department an extensive literature, belonging chiefly to the last few years, proceeding from the pens of physicians, pedagogues, hygienists, and advocates of woman’s rights.[698] It is, in truth, the burning question of our time, the solution of which is here attempted. Correct sexual education forms the foundation for the ennoblement and resanation of our entire sexual life. Only =knowledge= and =will= can here effect a cure. Thus, sexual pedagogy naturally falls into two parts--=sexual enlightenment= and the =education of the will=.
The need for sexual enlightenment is now recognized by all far-seeing social hygienists and pedagogues. The only difference of opinion concerns the =when= and the =how=. Some plead for enlightenment as early as possible, in the first years of school life; others wish to defer enlightenment until puberty, or even later. I am of opinion that the circumstances in this respect are entirely different, according as we have to do with small towns and the open country, where more careful watching of children is possible, and where the dangers of premature sexual development and of seduction are not so great, or as we have to do with large towns, where, in my view, the children =cannot be enlightened too early=, since town life brings the children of all classes, and social misery brings more especially the children of the lowest classes of the population, so early into contact with sexual matters that a purposive enlightenment becomes absolutely indispensable. Children living in large towns should, from ten years onwards, be gradually and carefully made acquainted with the principal facts of the sexual life. We find here =more points of association= than is usually imagined. Gutzkow, in his admirable autobiography, “From the Days of My Boyhood” (Frankfort-a.-M., 1852, pp. 263, 264), has beautifully described this:
“The first appearances of love in the heart of the child occur as secretly as the fall of the dew upon flowers. Playing and jesting, innocence gropes its way through the darkness. Words, perceptions, ideas, which to the adult appear to be full of dangerous barbs, the child grasps with careless security, and takes the duplex sexual life of humanity to be a primeval fact which came into the world with man as a matter of course, and one which requires no explanation. Born from the mother’s womb, to the child the mother is the secure bridge by which it is conducted past all the riddles of womanhood. The child imitates the love of the father for the mother, plays the game of the family, plays father and mother, plays at being himself, a child. From the rustling autumn leaves, from abandoned bundles of straw, huts and nests are built, and for half an hour at a time a completely blameless boy can lie down besides his girl playmate, quietly, and as if magnetized by the intimation of love. Danger is in truth not far distant from such a practice of childish naïveté; it lurks in the background, and seeks only an opportunity to lead astray. But a child never understands the significance of the severe punishment which it so often receives for its imitative imaginary family life. The amatory life of the adult first breaks upon the imagination of the child and upon his quiet play like the opening of a door into a house. People take so little care of what they do before the innocent; they exhibit passionate affection for one another; they caress when the children are by. The child sees, ponders, and listens. Certain hieroglyphics alarm it; tales are laughed at--tales which suddenly throw a strange and wonderful light upon quite familiar human beings. The boy will notice that his elder sister has a joy or a sorrow, the nature of which he cannot completely grasp. He sees an elder brother filled with the joy of life, with the lust of youth, with the love of adventure, and no attempt is made to conceal these passions from the child.... Such and similar experiences succeed one another without cessation, and tales which the child hears are listened to with eagerness. The red threads of love and of the charm of beautiful women are not to be grasped by the hand of a child, and yet they have upon the child a certain secret influence.”
The child hears and sees much that is erotic, even immoral, but does not stop to think about it, does not understand it. After a while its ignorance becomes a puzzle; soon lascivious thoughts arise. Maria Lischnewska describes very vividly this psychological process in the soul of the child, in part according to her observations as a teacher. She justly criticizes the “stork stories,” to which the child listens without believing them, in order subsequently to be enlightened in an extremely disagreeable manner by older ill-conditioned comrades.[699]
These children, ten or twelve years of age, often learn about sexual matters from the lowest side, =without= obtaining a =true knowledge=. They frequently acquire the most astounding verbal treasury of lewd expressions, and even sing obscene songs, of which Maria Lischnewska gives a remarkable example on the part of a girl twelve years of age.
No, there can be no question that the child at school, from the tenth year onwards, should, without fear of disastrous consequences, be enlightened regarding sexual matters by parents and teachers, in order to avoid the dangers which we have just described. But this instruction must be divested of any individual relationship, of any personal character, and must be communicated in thoroughly general terms, as =natural scientific knowledge=, as a medical doctrine, belonging to the province of philosophical and pathological science. In this way will be avoided any undesirable accessory effect related to subjective perceptions. When Matthisson esteems youth as happy on this account, because the =book of possibilities= is not yet open to its gaze, this certainly does =not= hold as regards sexual enlightenment. Here, to a certain degree, this book of possibilities must be disclosed, if we do not wish all the poetry and all the ideal view of life to be utterly destroyed by contact with rude reality. Precisely in this case do we understand the wonderful remark of Goethe, that we receive the veil of poetry from the hand of =truth=. This first renders possible a truly earnest and profound conception of sexual relationships; this creates a consciousness of responsibility which cannot be awakened sufficiently early. The true danger is, as Freud[700] also points out, the intermixture of “lasciviousness and prudery” with which humanity is accustomed to regard the sexual problem, just because people have not learned sufficiently to understand the connexion between cause and effect in this department of human activity.
Various methods have been recommended for sexual enlightenment. I shall discuss more particularly the suggestions of the Austrian Realschul professor, Sigmund, of the Volkschul teacher, Maria Lischnewska, and of the University professor, F. W. Förster.
Sigmund (quoted by Ullmann, op. cit., p. 7) considers that in the Volkschüler (primary schools), in the case of children up to the age of eleven years, there should be no systematic explanation of sexual matters, and that this should be begun first in the Gymnasium (higher school). His scheme of instruction is as follows:
1. The enlightenment of the pupils at the Gymnasium is to be effected in five stages (Classes I., II., V., VI., VII.)
2. The enlightenment in the lower classes is limited to the processes of sexual reproduction. In the first class, the origin and birth of the mammalian young and the origin of insects’ eggs are explained. In the second class, the origin and birth of reptiles’ and birds’ eggs, the fertilization of the eggs of fishes and batrachians, the ova of the sea-urchin, and those of the jellyfish, are described. =The act of sexual intercourse will not be alluded to in the first two classes--that is, it will not be mentioned to children before the age of thirteen years.=
3. The completion of the idea of “sexual life” is effected by means of botanical and zoological instruction in the upper school in a synthetic manner, wherein no important detail is omitted, but the copulatory act is kept in the background.
4. All sexual matters expressly concerning human beings, and all the pathological relations of the sexual life, should be left to the hygienic instruction, which is given during one hour weekly to the seventh class as a part of general instruction in somatology.
5. The natural history taught to the sixth class will embrace zoology only; the natural system will be considered in an ascending series (excluding human somatology, which in a logical manner is deferred until the study of zoology is completed, and it will thus be dealt with in the seventh class, as a preparation to the instruction in hygiene).
6. In conferences with parents, the parents can be kept informed regarding the nature of the instruction which is being given to their children, and can at the same time be led to work in unison with the school in this matter.
Maria Lischnewska advises beginning already in the third class of primary schools--that is, when the child is only eight years old--to give instruction in the elements of natural science, more especially utilizing, as the first means of sexual enlightenment, the examples of vegetable fertilization, as well as the reproduction of fishes and birds. Even to the question “Whence do little children come?” an answer should be given, more or less in the following terms:
“The child lies in the body of the mother: when she breathes, then the child breathes; when she eats and drinks, the child also obtains his food. It lies there warm and safe. Gradually it becomes larger and begins to move. It has to lie somewhat curled up, because there is so little room for it. But the mother feels that it is alive; she is full of joy, and makes ready the child’s clothing and its bed. Finally it is fully grown. The mother’s body opens, and the child comes to the light. Then the mother takes it into her arms with joy and nourishes it with her milk.” Then the teacher would pause, and continue after a while: “Now, would you like to see the child?” Then there would naturally be a many-voiced “Yes, yes!” and the teacher would show to the class a picture such as our anatomical atlases exhibit now in beautiful form. The abdominal walls of the mother are turned back, and the child is seen slumbering. Then the teacher would say: “Thus you also slept within the body of your mother. You belong to her as to no other human being in the whole world. For this reason you should always love and honour her.”
Thus is the child’s urgent demand for knowledge satisfied. He is freed from all prying into nooks and corners. He experiences a feeling of honourable respect towards the primary source of life.
In the fourth school year further examples of the reproduction of plants, fishes, and birds should be given; in the fifth and sixth years the first demonstration of the process of sexual union among the mammals, with some account of embryology; and the process of birth should also be described. Then there should follow (at about the age of thirteen or fourteen) enlightenment regarding the development of the sexual life and regarding venereal diseases--information, that is to say, concerning hygiene and concerning the protection of one’s own body. Physicians such as Oker Blom and Dr. Agnes Hacker definitely demand that elucidation regarding this latter point should =not= be deferred until the time of puberty.
F. W. Förster proposes to postpone the whole process of enlightenment =until the twelfth or thirteenth year=; and if at an earlier age a child expresses any natural doubt regarding the stork fables, the following answer should be given (op. cit., p. 606):
“Where small children come from is a matter which you cannot yet understand. We grown-up persons even understand very little about it. I promise you that I will explain to you what we know of the matter on your twelfth birthday, but only if you promise me something in return. Do you know that there are boys and girls so bumptious that they behave as if they already knew all about it, because they have somewhere picked up a word or two without really understanding it? Promise me that you will never listen when such as these begin to talk about the matter; for you may be certain that the true secrets are matters of which they are ignorant, for this reason--they would not speak about it. He who really knows holds it as a sacred matter; he is silent about it, and does not call it out at the street comers.”
Förster strongly advises =against= associating sexual enlightenment with a knowledge of the reproductive process in plants and animals, for this reason: that if this is done “the human being is brought too near to the vegetable and animal life,” and the “sacred thought” of the elevation of humanity above the animal is obscured. He then gives very beautiful examples and modes of instruction for such sexual enlightenment of children twelve years of age.
I myself am of opinion that, without in any way making light of the difference between man and animal, the earlier elucidation at about the age of ten years should be associated with the general instruction in natural history regarding the reproductive process of animals and plants; and then very gradually, up to the age of fourteen, all important points in this department can be explained, including, finally, an account of the venereal diseases. It is obvious that after this time, more especially in the dangerous years of puberty, systematic enlightenment must be continued. That which is good and useful in this department of knowledge cannot be too often repeated.
But all enlightenment will be useless unless hand in hand with it there proceeds =a process of education of the character and the will=. Our school youth thinks and dreams too much, and does too little. Up to the present time it has been believed that it is sufficient to teach children, and to continue to teach them, to care for their health, to see that they have good food and sound sleep, without also taking into consideration the necessity for awakening the =individuality= and the =energy= slumbering in each one of them. The “gymnasium” must concern itself with the =gymnastics=, not only of the body, but also of the mind, and must thus restore that harmony between body and mind which appears to have been quite lost at the present day. Bodily education by games and sports is only one of the means for this purpose. The principal aim is to strengthen the character, to induce the habit of self-command and self-denial by a profound and intimate grasp of sexual problems. Nowhere does fantastic dreaming take revenge more thoroughly than in sexual relationships, for which reason also the so-called “only children” are especially endangered;[701] nowhere do clear knowledge, objective acquirements, and a firm will celebrate finer triumphs over blind impulses than they do here. The principal rule of sexual pedagogy runs as follows: Avoid the =first opportunity= and the =first contact=; keep the child and the young man and the young woman at a distance from all the stimulating pleasures and enjoyments of the adult. The production of manliness, as it has recently been described by Mosso,[702] Güssfeldt,[703] Georg Sticker,[704] and Ludwig Gurlitt,[705] has the greatest importance, more especially as regards the sexual life. This has been insisted on, above all, by Hans Wegener[706] and F. W. Förster (op. cit.). Moral statistics have incontrovertibly proved that progress in civilization and morals does not depend upon punishment or upon prophylactic measures against errors and excesses of passion, but only upon the =subjective= improvement and strengthening of the single individual. Guizot declared: “C’est de l’état intérieur de l’homme que dépend l’état visible de la société.” Drobisch,[707] in his “Moral Statistics,” has established this fact yet more firmly. Energy is the magic word for all vital activities of the present day, both spiritual and physical. Discipline, work, abstinence, bodily hygiene, are the means for educating the character, and these also play the principal part in sexual pedagogy.[708]
[696] For this reason, Fr. W. Förster, in his admirable “Jugendlehre” (Berlin, 1906), devotes a special section to the subject of “sexual pedagogy” (pp. 602-652).
[697] Maria Lischnewska, in her admirable work upon “The Sexual Instruction of Children,” published in Mutterschutz, 1905, vol. i., pp. 137-150, quotes the principal passages relating to this subject from the works of the writers just mentioned.
[698] In addition to the two admirable works already mentioned, by F. W. Förster and M. Lischnewska, I may allude also to the following: Richard Flachs, “Sexual Enlightenment as a Part of the Education of our Young People,” with a full bibliography (Dresden and Leipzig, 1906); Carl Kopp, “Sexual Affairs in the Education of Youth” (Leipzig, 1904); Max Marcuse, “Sexual Enlightenment in Youth” (Leipzig, 1905); “Sexual Hygiene and Sexual Enlightenment in the School” (a Discussion at the First International Congress for School Hygiene, held at Nürnberg, 1904), published in the “Reports of the German Society for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases,” 1904, vol. ii., pp. 63-71; Karl Ullmann, “The Sexual Enlightenment of School-Children,” published in the Monatsschrift für Gesundheitspflege, 1906, No. 1; M. Flesch, “Enlightenment in the School,” published in Blätter für Volksgesundheitspflege, vol. iv., p. 164; Emma Eckstein, “The Sexual Question in the Education of the Child” (Leipzig, 1904); Adelheid von Bennigsen, “Sexual Pedagogy in the House and the School” (Berlin, 1903); Alfred Fournier, “Pour nos Fils quand ils auront Dix-huit Ans” (Paris, 1905); M. Oker Blom, “Beim Onkel Doktor auf dem Lande”: a Book for Parents, second edition (Vienna, 1906); Friedrich Siebert, “A Book for Parents” (Munich, 1905); same author, “What shall I say to my Child?” (Munich, 1904); Mary Wood-Allen, “When the Boy becomes Man” (Zurich, 1904); same author, “Tell me the Truth, dear Mother”; W. Busch, “No more Stork Stories: a Practical Introduction, showing how Children should be taught the Truth, and how the Family should be Safeguarded from Moral Contamination” (Leipzig, 1904); E. von den Steinen, “The Human Sexual Life: a Lecture to those leaving School” (Düsseldorf, 1906); cf. also, by the same author, “An Address to those leaving School concerning Sexual Love,” published in the Journal for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases, 1900, vol. v., pp. 259, 260; F. Siebert, “Our Sons: their Enlightenment regarding the Dangers of the Sexual Life” (Straubing, 1907); F. Siebert, “The Sexual Problem in Childhood,” published in “The Book of the Child,” edited by Adele Schreiber (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907), vol. i., pp. 106-117; L. Bergfeld, “Take the Bandage from your Eyes, dear Sister: an Open Letter to Adolescent Girls” (Munich, 1907).
[699] In some cases the child will criticize the grown-up’s fables with a sharp-sighted logic, as the following story proves: Pepito, a child seven years of age, asks his mother, “Tell me, mamma, how do children come?” “People buy them.” “I don’t believe that people buy them!” “Why not?” “Because poor people have the most!”
[700] S. Freud, “Collection of Minor Writings upon the Doctrine of Neurosis,” p. 216 (Leipzig and Vienna, 1906).
[701] Cf. Eugen Neter, “The Only Child and its Education” (Munich, 1906).
[702] Angelo Mosso, “Physical Culture in Youth” (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1894).
[703] Paul Güssfeldt, “The Education of German Youth” (Berlin, 1890).
[704] Georg Sticker, “Health and Education,” second edition (Giessen, 1903).
[705] Ludwig Gurlitt, “Education in Manliness” (Berlin, 1907).
[706] Hans Wegener, “We Young Men: the Sexual Problem of the Cultured Young Man before Marriage: Purity, Strength, and the Love of Woman” (Düsseldorf and Leipzig, 1906).
[707] M. W. Drobisch, “Moral Statistics and the Freedom of the Human Will,” pp. 96-101 (Leipzig, 1867). Valuable works regarding the education of the character and the social education of the child are found in the first volume (second edition) of the monumental work edited by Adele Schreiber, “The Book of the Child” (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907), from the pens of Laura Frost (pp. 42-63), F. A. Schmidt (pp. 168-179), Lüngen (pp. 192-201), G. Kerschensteiner (pp. 202-207), R. Penzig (pp. 215-222), and Adele Schreiber (pp. 223-231). Important in relation to sexual enlightenment is also the question (one actively discussed at the present moment) of the =education of the sexes in common=--the so-called =co-education=. It has been proved by experience that co-education has a good effect in sexual relationships (cf. Gertrud Bäumer, “Co-education,” op. cit., vol. ii., pp. 44-48).
[708] The question of sexual education and enlightenment occupies at the moment a place in the foreground of public interest, and rightly so; for upon this depends principally the further reform and the resanation of all the sexual relationships of civilized peoples. For this reason the Discussions, now in the press, of the Third Congress of the Society for the Suppression of Venereal Diseases (“Sexualpädagogik”), Leipzig, 1907, were occupied exclusively with this subject, which was considered in elaborate debates from four points of view:
1. Sexual instruction in the house and the school. 2. Sexual enlightenment of young persons at puberty. 3. Sexual instruction of teachers and parents. 4. Sexual dietetics and education.
The present position of sexual pedagogy in all these respects is exactly defined in this comprehensive volume; and, in addition, at the conclusion of the book we find a compend of the recent literature of the subject. Much of value regarding sexual regimen is to be found in the work of H. Mann, “Art and the Sexual Conduct of Life” (Oranienburg, 1907), and in that of A. Eulenburg, “Sexual Regimen,” published in Mutterschutz, July and August, 1907. As an opponent of early sexual enlightenment, we must mention G. Leubuscher (“School Medicine and School Hygiene,” pp. 65-70; Leipzig, 1907). He considers that such enlightenment should only be given at the time of leaving school. His reasons, however, are not convincing, and, above all, do not apply to large towns.
Chapter XXVII
NEO-MALTHUSIANISM, THE PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION, ARTIFICIAL STERILITY AND ARTIFICIAL ABORTION
“Formerly the use of such devices was regarded as immoral and punishable, and was actually punished; it was condemned as an interference with the Divine plan. But such views and measures are extreme. Here, as everywhere, human foresight and methodical interference are permissible.”--GUSTAV SCHMOLLER.
CONTENTS OF CHAPTER XXVII
Importance of the problem of population -- Malthus and hie doctrine -- Its fallacies -- Temporary validity -- “Moral restraint” -- Neo-malthusianism -- The foundation of the Malthusian League -- Great antiquity of malthusian practices -- Disharmony of the family instinct -- The mica operation of the Australian indigens -- Artificial abortion among primitive races -- Methods of preventing pregnancy in ancient times -- In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- Relative justification of the use of preventive measures -- Views of recent physicians on this subject -- Summary of the principal methods of preventing conception -- Limitation of coitus to particular times -- Advice of Soranos and Capellmann -- Feskstitow’s “conception-curve” -- Influence of particular seasons of the year -- Prolongation of the period of lactation -- Buttenstedt’s “Happiness in Marriage” and Funcke’s “New Revelation” -- Criticism of these fantasies -- Divergences from the normal method of coitus -- Passive demeanour of the woman -- Coitus interruptus -- Exaggerated views of its injurious influence -- Coitus interruptus and anxiety-neurosis -- Trifling effect in healthy individuals -- Repeated interruptions of coitus -- Mechanical means of preventing conception -- Compression -- Muscular action -- Mensinga’s “occlusive pessary” -- Holweg’s “obturator” -- The condom -- Chemico-physical preventive measures -- Douches -- The “Lady’s Friend” -- Antiseptic powders and security sponges -- Combination of chemical and mechanical means -- The “Venus apparatus” -- The duplex occlusive pessary -- Inflammatory affections after the use of chemical preventive measures -- Herpes progenitalis -- Artificial sterility -- Operative methods of inducing it -- Vaporization and castration -- The “ovariées” -- Wide diffusion of artificial abortion -- Critical remarks regarding the punishment of abortion in Germany -- The right of the unborn child -- Rape and abortion -- The methods of expelling the ovum -- Internal means -- Mechanical means -- Danger and consequences of both -- Social means for limiting abortion.