I.
The Definition of Erotic Symbolism—Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object—Erotic Fetichism—Wide extension of the symbols of Sex—The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic Fetiches—The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism—Classification of the Phenomena—The Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person—Stendhal's "Crystallization."
By "erotic symbolism" I mean that tendency whereby the lover's attention is diverted from the central focus of sexual attraction to some object or process which is on the periphery of that focus, or is even outside of it altogether, though recalling it by association of contiguity or of similarity. It thus happens that tumescence, or even in extreme cases detumescence, may be provoked by the contemplation of acts or objects which are away from the end of sexual conjugation.[[1]]
In considering the phenomena of sexual selection in a previous volume,[[2]] it was found that there are four or five main factors in the constitution of beauty in so far as beauty determines sexual selection. Erotic symbolism is founded on the factor of individual taste in beauty; it arises as a specialized development of that factor, but it is, nevertheless, incorrect to merge it in sexual selection. The attractive characteristics of a beloved woman or man, from the point of view of sexual selection, are a complex but harmonious whole leading up to a desire for the complete possession of the person who displays them. There is no tendency to isolate and dissociate any single character from the individual and to concentrate attention upon that character at the expense of the attention bestowed upon the individual generally. As soon as such a tendency begins to show itself, even though only in a slight or temporary form, we may say that there is erotic symbolism.
Erotic symbolism is, however, by no means confined to the individualizing tendency to concentrate amorous attention upon some single characteristic of the adult woman or man who is normally the object of sexual love. The adult human being may not be concerned at all, the attractive object or act may not even be human, not even animal, and we may still be concerned with a symbol which has parasitically rooted itself on the fruitful site of sexual emotion and absorbed to itself the energy which normally goes into the channels of healthy human love having for its final end the procreation of the species. Thus understood in its widest sense, it may be said that every sexual perversion, even homosexuality, is a form of erotic symbolism, for we shall find that in every case some object or act that for the normal human being has little or no erotic value, has assumed such value in a supreme degree; that is to say, it has become a symbol of the normal object of love. Certain perversions are, however, of such great importance on account of their wide relationships, that they cannot be adequately discussed merely as forms of erotic symbolism. This is notably the case as regards homosexuality, auto-erotism, and algolagnia, all of which phenomena have therefore been separately discussed in previous studies. We are now mainly concerned with manifestations which are more narrowly and exclusively symbolical.
A portion of the field of erotic symbolism is covered by what Binet (followed by Lombroso, Krafft-Ebing, and others) has termed "erotic fetichism," or the tendency whereby sexual attraction is unduly exerted by some special part or peculiarity of the body, or by some inanimate object which has become associated with it. Such erotic symbolism of object cannot, however, be dissociated from the even more important erotic symbolism of process, and the two are so closely bound together that we cannot attain a truly scientific view of them until we regard them broadly as related parts of a common psychic tendency. If, as Groos asserts,[[3]] a symbol has two chief meanings, one in which it indicates a physical process which stands for a psychic process, and another in which it indicates a part which represents the whole, erotic symbolism of act corresponds to the first of these chief meanings, and erotic symbolism of object to the other.
Although it is not impossible to find some germs of erotic symbolism in animals, in its more pronounced manifestations it is only found in the human species. It could not be otherwise, for such symbolism involves not only the play of fancy and imagination, the idealizing aptitude, but also a certain amount of power of concentrating the attention on a point outside the natural path of instinct and the ability to form new mental constructions around that point. There are, indeed, as we shall see, elementary forms of erotic symbolism which are not uncommonly associated with feeble-mindedness, but even these are still peculiarly human, and in its less crude manifestations erotic symbolism easily lends itself to every degree of human refinement and intelligence.
"It depends primarily upon an increase of the psychological process of representation," Colin Scott remarks of sexual symbolism generally, "involving greater powers of comparison and analysis as compared with the lower animals. The outer impressions come to be clearly distinguished as such, but at the same time are often treated as symbols of inner experiences, and a meaning read into them which they would not otherwise possess. Symbolism or fetichism is, indeed, just the capacity to see meaning, to emphasize something for the sake of other things which do not appear. In brain terms it indicates an activity of the higher centers, a sort of side-tracking or long-circuiting of the primitive energy; ... Rosetti's poem, 'The Woodspurge,' gives a concrete example of the formation of such a symbol. Here the otherwise insignificant presentation of the three-cupped woodspurge, representing originally a mere side-current of the stream of consciousness, becomes the intellectual symbol or fetich of the whole psychosis forever after. It seems, indeed, as if the stronger the emotion the more likely will become the formation of an overlying symbolism, which serves to focus and stand in the place of something greater than itself; nowhere at least is symbolism a more characteristic feature than as an expression of the sexual instinct. The passion of sex, with its immense hereditary background, in early man became centered often upon the most trivial and unimportant features.... This symbolism, now become fetichistic, or symbolic in a bad sense, is at least an exercise of the increasing representative power of man, upon which so much of his advancement has depended, while it also served to express and help to purify his most perennial emotion." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii, No. 2, p. 189.)
In the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume, the analysis of the large and complex mass of sexual phenomena which are associated with pain, gradually resolved them to a considerable extent into a special case of erotic symbolism; pain or restraint, whether inflicted on or by the loved person, becomes, by a psychic process that is usually unconscious, the symbol of the sexual mechanism, and hence arouses the same emotions as that mechanism normally arouses. We may now attempt to deal more broadly and comprehensively with the normal and abnormal aspects of erotic symbolism in some of their most typical and least mixed forms.
"When our human imagination seeks to animate artificial things," Huysmans writes in Là-bas, "it is compelled to reproduce the movements of animals in the act of propagation. Look at machines, at the play of pistons in the cylinders; they are Romeos of steel in Juliets of cast-iron." And not only in the work of man's hands but throughout Nature we find sexual symbols which are the less deniable since, for the most part, they make not the slightest appeal to even the most morbid human imagination. Language is full of metaphorical symbols of sex which constantly tend to lose their poetic symbolism and to become commonplace. Semen is but seed, and for the Latins especially the whole process of human sex, as well as the male and female organs, constantly presented itself in symbols derived from agricultural and horticultural life. The testicles were beans (fabæ) and fruit or apples (poma and mala); the penis was a tree (arbor), or a stalk (thyrsus), or a root (radix), or a sickle (falx), or a ploughshare (vomer). The semen, again, was dew (ros). The labia majora or minora were wings (alæ); the vulva and vagina were a field (ager and campus), or a ploughed furrow (sulcus), or a vineyard (vinea), or a fountain (fons), while the pudendal hair was herbage (plantaria).[[4]] In other languages it is not difficult to trace similar and even identical imagery applied to sexual organs and sexual acts. Thus it is noteworthy that Shakespeare more than once applies the term "ploughed" to a woman who has had sexual intercourse. The Talmud calls the labia minora the doors, the labia majora hinges, and the clitoris the key. The Greeks appear not only to have found in the myrtle-berry, the fruit of a plant sacred to Venus, the image of the clitoris, but also in the rose an image of the feminine labia; in the poetic literature of many countries, indeed, this imagery of the rose may be traced in a more or less veiled manner.[[5]]
The widespread symbolism of sex arose in the theories and conceptions of primitive peoples concerning the function of generation and its nearest analogies in Nature; it was continued for the sake of the vigorous and expressive terminology which it furnished both for daily life and for literature; its final survivals were cultivated because they furnished a delicately æsthetic method of approaching matters which a growing refinement of sentiment made it difficult for lovers and poets to approach in a more crude and direct manner. Its existence is of interest to us now because it shows the objective validity of the basis on which erotic symbolism, as we have here to understand it, develops. But from first to last it is a distinct phenomenon, having a more or less reasoned and intellectual basis, and it scarcely serves in any degree to feed the sexual impulse. Erotic symbolism is not intellectual but emotional in its origin; it starts into being, obscurely, with but a dim consciousness or for the most part none at all, either suddenly from the shock of some usually youthful experience, or more gradually through an instinctive brooding on those things which are most intimately associated with a sexually desirable person.
The kind of soil on which the germs of erotic symbolism may develop is well seen in cases of sexual hyperæsthesia. In such cases all the emotionally sexual analogies and resemblances, which in erotic symbolism are fixed and organized, may be traced in vague and passing forms, a single hyperæsthetic individual perhaps presenting a great variety of germinal symbolisms.
Thus it has been recorded of an Italian nun (whose sister became a prostitute) that from the age of 8 she had desire for coitus, from the age of 10 masturbated, and later had homosexual feelings, that the same feelings and practices continued after she had taken the veil, though from time to time they assumed religious equivalents. The mere contact, indeed, of a priest's hand, the news of the presentation of an ecclesiastic she had known to a bishopric, the sight of an ape, the contemplation of the crucified Christ, the figure of a toy, the picture of a demon, the act of defecation in the children entrusted to her care (whom, on this account, and against the regulations, she would accompany to the closets), especially the sight and the mere recollection of flies in sexual connection—all these things sufficed to produce in her a powerful orgasm. (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1902, fasc. II-III, p. 338.)
A boy of 15 (given to masturbation), studied by Macdonald in America, was similarly hyperæsthetic to the symbols of sexual emotion. "I like amusing myself with my comrades," he told Macdonald, "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the governess kisses me on saying good night or when I lean against her breast. I have that sensation, too, when I see some of the pictures in the comic papers, but only in those representing a woman, as when a young man skating trips up a girl so that her clothes are raised a little. When I read how a man saved a young girl from drowning, so that they swam together, I had the same sensation. Looking at the statues of women in the museum produces the same effect, or when I see naked babies, or when a mother suckles a child. I have often had that sensation when reading novels I ought not to read, or when looking at a new-born calf, or seeing dogs and cows and horses mounting on each other. When I see a girl flirting with a boy, or leaning on his shoulder or with his arm round her waist, I have an erection. It is the same when I see women and little girls in bathing costume, or when boys talk of what their fathers and mothers do together. In the Natural History Museum I often see things which give me that sensation. One day when I read how a man killed a young girl and carried her into a wood and undressed her I had a feeling of enjoyment. When I read of men who were bastards the idea of a woman having a child in that way gives me this sensation. Some dances, and seeing young girls astride a horse, excited me, too, and so in a circus when a woman was shot out of a cannon and her skirts flew in the air. It has no effect on me when I see men naked. Sometimes I enjoy seeing women's underclothes in a shop, or when I see a lady or a girl buying them, especially if they are drawers. When I saw a lady in a dress which buttoned from top to bottom it had more effect on me than seeing underclothes. Seeing dogs coupling gives me more pleasure than looking at pretty women, but less than looking at pretty little girls." In order of increasing intensity he placed the phenomena that affected him thus: The coupling of flies, then of horses, then the sight of women's undergarments, then a boy and a girl flirting, then cows mounting on each other, the statues of women with naked breasts, then contact with the governess's body and breasts, finally coitus. (Arthur Macdonald, Le Criminel-Type, pp. 126 et seq.)
It is worthy of remark that the instinct of nutrition, when restrained, may exhibit something of an analogous symbolism, though in a minor degree, to that of sex. The ways in which a hyperæsthetic hunger may seek its symbols are illustrated in the case of a young woman called Nadia, who during several years was carefully studied by Janet. It is a case of obsession ("maladie du scrupule"), simulating hysterical anorexia, in which the patient, for fear of getting fat, reduced her nourishment to the smallest possible amount. "Nadia is generally hungry, even very hungry. One can tell this by her actions; from time to time she forgets herself to such an extent as to devour greedily anything she can put her hands on. At other times, when she cannot resist the desire to eat, she secretly takes a biscuit. She feels horrible remorse for the action, but, all the same, she does it again. Her confidences are very curious. She recognizes that a great effort is needed to avoid eating, and considers she is a heroine to resist so long. 'Sometimes I spent whole hours in thinking about food, I was so hungry; I swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled on the floor, I wanted to eat so badly. I would look in books for descriptions of meals and feasts, and tried to deceive my hunger by imagining that I was sharing all these good things,'" (P. Janet, "La Maladie du Scrupule," Revue Philosophique, May, 1901, p. 502.) The deviations of the instinct of nutrition are, however, confined within narrow limits, and, in the nature of things, hunger, unlike sexual desire, cannot easily accept a fetich.
"There is almost no feature, article of dress, attitude, act," Stanley Hall declares, "or even animal or perhaps object in nature, that may not have to some morbid soul specialized erogenic and erethic power."[[6]] Even a mere shadow may become a fetich. Goron tells of a merchant in Paris—a man with a reputation for ability, happily married and the father of a family, altogether irreproachable in his private life—who was returning home one evening after a game of billiards with a friend, when, on chancing to raise his eyes, he saw against a lighted window the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months to gaze at the window. Yet—and herein lies the fetichism—he made no attempt to see the woman or to find out who she was; the shadow sufficed; he had no need of the realty.[[7]] It is even possible to have a negative fetich, the absence of some character being alone demanded, and the case has been recorded in Chicago of an American gentleman of average intelligence, education, and good habits who, having as a boy cherished a pure affection for a girl whose leg had been amputated, throughout life was relatively impotent with normal women, but experienced passion and affection for women who had lost a leg; he was found by his wife to be in extensive correspondence with one-legged women all over the country, expending no little money on the purchase of artificial legs for his various protegées.[[8]]
It is important to remember, however, that while erotic symbolism becomes fantastic and abnormal in its extreme manifestations, it is in its essence absolutely normal. It is only in the very grossest forms of sexual desire that it is altogether absent. Stendhal described the mental side of the process of tumescence as a crystallization, a process whereby certain features of the beloved person present points around which the emotions held in solution in the lover's mind may concentrate and deposit themselves in dazzling brilliance. This process inevitably tends to take place around all those features and objects associated with the beloved person which have most deeply impressed the lover's mind, and the more sensitive and imaginative and emotional he is the more certainly will such features and objects crystallize into erotic symbols. "Devotion and love," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "may be allowed to hallow the garments as well as the person, for the lover must want fancy who has not a sort of sacred respect for the glove or slipper of his mistress. He would not confound them with vulgar things of the same kind." And nearly two centuries earlier Burton, who had gathered together so much of the ancient lore of love, clearly asserted the entirely normal character of erotic symbolism. "Not one of a thousand falls in love," he declares, "but there is some peculiar part or other which pleaseth most, and inflames him above the rest.... If he gets any remnant of hers, a busk-point, a feather of her fan, a shoe-tie, a lace, a ring, a bracelet of hair, he wears it for a favor on his arm, in his hat, finger, or next his heart; as Laodamia did by Protesilaus, when he went to war, sit at home with his picture before her: a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious than any Saint's Relique, he lays it up in his casket (O blessed Relique) and every day will kiss it: if in her presence his eye is never off her, and drink he will where she drank, if it be possible, in that very place," etc.[[9]]
Burton's accuracy in describing the ways of lovers in his century is shown by a passage in Hamilton's Mémoires de Gramont. Miss Price, one of the beauties of Charles II's court, and Dongan were tenderly attached to each other; when the latter died he left behind a casket full of all possible sorts of love-tokens pertaining to his mistress, including, among other things, "all kinds of hair." And as regards France, Burton's contemporary, Howell, wrote in 1627 in his Familiar Letters concerning the repulse of the English at Rhé: "A captain told me that when they were rifling the dead bodies of the French gentlemen after the first invasion they found that many of them had their mistresses' favors tied about their genitories."
Schurig (Spermatologia, p. 357) at the beginning of the eighteenth century knew a Belgian lady who, when her dearly loved husband died, secretly cut off his penis and treasured it as a sacred relic in a silver casket. She eventually powdered it, he adds, and found it an efficacious medicine for herself and others. An earlier example, of a lady at the French court who embalmed and perfumed the genital organs of her dead husband, always preserving them in a gold casket, is mentioned by Brantôme. Mantegazza knew a man who kept for many years on his desk the skull of his dead mistress, making it his dearest companion. "Some," he remarks, "have slept for months and years with a book, a garment, a trifle. I once had a friend who would spend long hours of joy and emotion kissing a thread of silk which she had held between her fingers, now the only relic of love." (Mantegazza, Fisiologia dell' Amore, cap. X.) In the same way I knew a lady who in old age still treasured in her desk, as the one relic of the only man she had ever been attracted to, a fragment of paper he had casually twisted up in a conversation with her half a century before.
The tendency to treasure the relics of a beloved person, more especially the garments, is the simplest and commonest foundation of erotic symbolism. It is without doubt absolutely normal. It is inevitable that those objects which have been in close contact with the beloved person's body, and are intimately associated with that person in the lover's mind, should possess a little of the same virtue, the same emotional potency. It is a phenomenon closely analogous to that by which the relics of saints are held to possess a singular virtue. But it becomes somewhat less normal when the garment is regarded as essential even in the presence of the beloved person.[[10]]
While an extremely large number of objects and acts may be found to possess occasionally the value of erotic symbols, such symbols most frequently fall into certain well-defined groups. A vast number of isolated objects or acts may be exceptionally the focus of erotic contemplation, but the objects and acts which frequently become thus symbolic are comparatively few.
It seems to me that the phenomena of erotic symbolism may be most conveniently grouped in three great classes, on the basis of the objects or acts which arouse them.
I. PARTS OF THE BODY.—
A. Normal: Hand, foot, breasts, nates, hair, secretions and excretions, etc.
B. Abnormal: Lameness, squinting, pitting of smallpox, etc. Paidophilia or the love of children, presbyophilia or the love of the aged, and necrophilia or the attraction for corpses, may be included under this head, as well as the excitement caused by various animals.
II. INANIMATE OBJECTS.[[11]]—
A. Garments: Gloves, shoes and stockings and garters, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs, underlinen.
B. Impersonal Objects: Here may be included all the various objects that may accidentally acquire the power of exciting sexual feeling in auto-erotism. Pygmalionism may also be included.
III. ACTS AND ATTITUDES.—
A. Active: Whipping, cruelty, exhibitionism.
B. Passive: Being whipped, experiencing cruelty. Personal odors and the sound of the voice may be included under this head.
C. Mixoscopic: The vision of climbing, swinging, etc. The acts of urination and defecation. The coitus of animals.
Although the three main groups into which the phenomena of erotic symbolism are here divided may seem fairly distinct, they are yet very closely allied, and indeed overlap, so that it is possible, as we shall see, for a single complex symbol to fall into all three groups.
A very complete kind of erotic symbolism is furnished by Pygmalionism or the love of statues.[[12]] It is exactly analogous to the child's love of a doll, which is also a form of sexual (though not erotic) symbolism. In a somewhat less abnormal form, erotic symbolism probably shows itself in its simplest shape in the tendency to idealize unbeautiful peculiarities in a beloved person, so that such peculiarities are ever afterward almost or quite essential in order to arouse sexual attraction. In this way men have become attracted to limping women. Even the most normal man may idealize a trifling defect in a beloved woman. The attention is inevitably concentrated on any such slight deviation from regular beauty, and the natural result of such concentration is that a complexus of associated thoughts and emotions becomes attached to something that in itself is unbeautiful. A defect becomes an admired focus of attention, the embodied symbol of the lover's emotion.
Thus a mole is not in itself beautiful, but by the tendency to erotic symbolism it becomes so. Persian poets especially have lavished the richest imagery on moles (Anis El-Ochchâq in Bibliothèque des Hautes Etudes, fasc, 25, 1875); the Arabs, as Lane remarks (Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, p. 214), are equally extravagant in their admiration of a mole.
Stendhal long since well described the process by which a defect becomes a sexual symbol. "Even little defects in a woman's face," he remarked, "such as a smallpox pit, may arouse the tenderness of a man who loves her, and throw him into deep reverie when he sees them in another woman. It is because he has experienced a thousand feelings in the presence of that smallpox mark, that these feelings have been for the most part delicious, all of the highest interest, and that, whatever they may have been, they are renewed with incredible vivacity on the sight of this sign, even when perceived on the face of another woman. If in such a case we come to prefer and love ugliness, it is only because in such a case ugliness is beauty. A man loved a woman who was very thin and marked by smallpox; he lost her by death. Three years later, in Rome, he became acquainted with two women, one very beautiful, the other thin and marked by smallpox, on that account, if you will, rather ugly. I saw him in love with this plain one at the end of a week, which he had employed in effacing her plainness by his memories." (De l'Amour, Chapter XVII.)
In the tendency to idealize the unbeautiful features of a beloved person erotic symbolism shows itself in a simple and normal form. In a less simple and more morbid form it appears in persons in whom the normal paths of sexual gratification are for some reasons inhibited, and who are thus led to find the symbols of natural love in unnatural perversions. It is for this reason that so many erotic symbolisms take root in childhood and puberty, before the sexual instincts have reached full development. It is for the same reason also, that, at the other end of life, when the sexual energies are failing, erotic symbols sometimes tend to be substituted for the normal pleasures of sex. It is for this reason, again, that both men and women whose normal energies are inhibited sometimes find the symbols of sexual gratification in the caresses of children.
The case of a schoolmistress recorded by Penta instructively shows how an erotic symbolism of this last kind may develop by no means as a refinement of vice, but as the one form in which sexual gratification becomes possible when normal gratification has been pathologically inhibited. F. R., aged 48, schoolmistress; she was some years ago in an asylum with religious mania, but came out well in a few months. At the age of 12 she had first experienced sexual excitement in a railway train from the jolting of the carriage. Soon after she fell in love with a youth who represented her ideal and who returned her affection. When, however, she gave herself to him, great was her disillusion and surprise to find that the sexual act which she had looked forward to could not be accomplished, for at the first contact there was great pain and spasmodic resistance of the vagina. There was a condition of vaginismus. After repeated attempts on subsequent occasions her lover desisted. Her desire for intercourse increased, however, rather than diminished, and at last she was able to tolerate coitus, but the pain was so great that she acquired a horror of the sexual embrace and no longer sought it. Having much will power, she restrained all erotic impulses during many years. It was not until the period of the menopause that the long repressed desires broke out, and at last found a symbolical outlet that was no longer normal, but was felt to supply a complete gratification. She sought the close physical contact of the young children in her care. She would lie on her bed naked, with two or three naked children, make them suck her breasts and press them to every part of her body. Her conduct was discovered by means of other children who peeped through the keyhole, and she was placed under Penta for treatment. In this case the loss of moral and mental inhibition, due probably to troubles of the climacteric, led to indulgence, under abnormal conditions, in those primitive contacts which are normally the beginning of love, and these, supported by the ideal image of the early lover, constituted a complete and adequate symbol of natural love in a morbidly perverted individual. (P. Penta, Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali, January, 1896.)
The term "erotic symbolism" has already been employed by Eulenburg (Sexuale Neuropathie, 1895, p. 101). It must be borne in mind that this term, implying the specific emotion, is much narrower than the term "sexual symbolism," which may be used to designate a great variety of ritual and social practices which have played a part in the evolution of civilization.
Sexual Selection in Man, iv, "Vision."
K. Groos, Der Æsthetische Genuss, p. 122. The psychology of the associations of contiguity and resemblance through which erotic symbolism operates its transference is briefly discussed by Ribot in the Psychology of the Emotions, Part 1, Chapter XII; the early chapters of the same author's Logique des Sentiments may also be said to deal with the emotional basis on which erotic symbolism arises.
A number of synonyms for the female pudenda are brought together by Schurig—cunnus, hortus, concha, navis, fovea, larva, canis, annulus, focus, cymba, antrum, delta, myrtus, etc.—and he discusses many of them. (Muliebria, Section I, cap. I.)
Kleinpaul, Sprache Ohne Worte, pp. 24-29; cf. K. Pearson, on the general and special words for sex, Chances of Death, vol. ii, pp. 112-245; a selection of the literature of the rose will be found in a volume of translations entitled Ros Rosarum.
G. S. Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 470.
Goron, Les Parias de l'Amour, p. 45.
A. R. Reynolds, Medical Standard, vol. x, cited by Kiernan, "Responsibility in Sexual Perversion," American Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry, 1882.
R. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II, and Mem. III, Subs. I.
Numerous examples are given by Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, pp. 265-268.
Chevalier (De l'Inversion, 1885; id., L'Inversion Sexuelle, 1892, p. 52), followed by E. Laurent (L'Amour Morbide, 1891, Chapter X), separates this group from other fetichistic perversions, under the head of "azoöphilie." I see no adequate ground for this step. The various forms of fetichism are too intimately associated to permit of any group of them being violently separated from the others.
This has already been considered as a perversion founded on vision, in discussing Sexual Selection in Man. IV.
II.
Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism—Wide Prevalence and Normal Basis—Restif de la Bretonne—The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction Among Some Peoples—The Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, etc.—The Congenital Predisposition in Erotic Symbolism—The Influence of Early Association and Emotional Shock—Shoe-fetichism in Relation to Masochism—The Two Phenomena Independent Though Allied—The Desire to be Trodden On—The Fascination of Physical Constraint—The Symbolism of Self-inflicted Pain—The Dynamic Element in Erotic Symbolism—The Symbolism of Garments.
Of all forms of erotic symbolism the most frequent is that which idealizes the foot and the shoe. The phenomena we here encounter are sometimes so complex and raise so many interesting questions that it is necessary to discuss them somewhat fully.
It would seem that even for the normal lover the foot is one of the most attractive parts of the body. Stanley Hall found that among the parts specified as most admired in the other sex by young men and women who answered a questionnaire the feet came fourth (after the eyes, hair, stature and size).[[13]] Casanova, an acute student and lover of women who was in no degree a foot fetichist, remarks that all men who share his interest in women are attracted by their feet; they offer the same interest, he considers, as the question of the particular edition offers to the book-lover.[[14]]
In a report of the results of a questionnaire concerning children's sense of self, to which over 500 replies were received, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the main facts ascertained with reference to the feet: "A special period of noticing the feet comes somewhat later than that in which the hands are discovered to consciousness. Our records afford nearly twice as many cases for feet as for hands. The former are more remote from the primary psychic focus or position, and are also more often covered, so that the sight of them is a more marked and exceptional event. Some children become greatly excited whenever their feet are exposed. Some infants show signs of fear at the movement of their own knees and feet covered, and still more often fright is the first sensation which signalizes the child's discovery of its feet.... Many are described as playing with them as if fascinated by strange, newly-discovered toys. They pick them up and try to throw them away, or out of the cradle, or bring them to the mouth, where all things tend to go.... Children often handle their feet, pat and stroke them, offer them toys and the bottle, as if they, too, had an independent hunger to gratify, an ego of their own.... Children often develop [later] a special interest in the feet of others, and examine, feel them, etc., sometimes expressing surprise that the pinch of the mother's toe hurts her and not the child, or comparing their own and the feet of others point by point. Curious, too, are the intensifications of foot-consciousness throughout the early years of childhood, whenever children have the exceptional privilege of going barefoot, or have new shoes. The feet are often apostrophized, punished, beaten sometimes to the point of pain for breaking things, throwing the child down, etc. Several children have habits, which reach great intensity, and then vanish, of touching or tickling the feet, with gales of laughter, and a few are described as showing an almost morbid reluctance to wear anything upon the feet, or even to having them touched by others.... Several almost fall in love with the great toe or the little one, especially admiring some crease or dimple in it, dressing it in some rag of silk or bit of ribbon, or cut-off glove fingers, winding it with string, prolonging it by tying on bits of wood. Stroking the feet of others, especially if they are shapely, often becomes almost a passion with young children, and several adults confess a survival of the same impulse which it is an exquisite pleasure to gratify. The interest of some mothers in babies' toes, the expressions of which are ecstatic and almost incredible, is a factor of great importance." (G. Stanley Hall, "Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898.) In childhood, Stanley Hall remarks elsewhere (Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 104), "a form of courtship may consist solely in touching feet under the desk." It would seem that even animals have a certain amount of sexual consciousness in the feet; I have noticed a male donkey, just before coitus, bite the feet of his partner.
At the same time it is scarcely usual for the normal lover, in most civilized countries to-day, to attach primary importance to the foot, such as he very frequently attaches to the eyes, though the feet play a very conspicuous part in the work of certain novelists.[[15]]
In a small but not inconsiderable minority of persons, however, the foot or the boot becomes the most attractive part of a woman, and in some morbid cases the woman herself is regarded as a comparatively unimportant appendage to her feet or her boots. The boots under civilized conditions much more frequently constitute the sexual symbol than do the feet themselves; this is not surprising since in ordinary life the feet are not often seen.
It is usually only under exceptionally favoring conditions that foot-fetichism occurs, as in the case recorded by Marandon de Montyel of a doctor who had been brought up in the West Indies. His mother had been insane and he himself was subject to obsessions, especially of being incapable of urinating; he had had nocturnal incontinence of urine in childhood. All the women of the people in the West Indies go about with naked feet, which are often beautiful. His puberty evolved under this influence, and foot-fetichism developed. He especially admired large, fat, arched feet, with delicate skin and large, regular toes. He masturbated with images of feet. At 15 he had relations with a colored chambermaid, but feared to mention his fetichism, though it was the touch of her feet that chiefly excited him. He now gave up masturbation, and had a succession of mistresses, but was always ashamed to confess his fancies until, at the age of 33, in Paris, a very intelligent woman who had become his mistress discovered his mania and skillfully enabled him to yield to it without shock to his modesty. He was devoted to this mistress, who had very beautiful feet (he had been horrified by the feet of Europeans generally), until she finally left him. (Archives de Neurologie, October, 1904.)
Probably the first case of shoe-fetichism ever recorded in any detail is that of Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806), publicist and novelist, one of the most remarkable literary figures of the later eighteenth century in France. Restif was a neurotic subject, though not to an extreme degree, and his shoe-fetichism, though distinctly pronounced, was not pathological; that is to say, that the shoe was not itself an adequate gratification of the sexual impulse, but simply a highly important aid to tumescence, a prelude to the natural climax of detumescence; only occasionally, and faute de mieux, in the absence of the beloved person, was the shoe used as an adjunct to masturbation. In Restif's stories and elsewhere the attraction of the shoe is frequently discussed or used as a motive. His first decided literary success, Le Pied de Fanchette, was suggested by a vision of a girl with a charming foot, casually seen in the street. While all such passages in his books are really founded on his own personal feelings and experiences, in his elaborate autobiography, Monsieur Nicolas, he has frankly set forth the gradual evolution and cause of his idiosyncrasy. The first remembered trace dated from the age of 4, when he was able to recall having remarked the feet of a young girl in his native place. Restif was a sexually precocious youth, and at the age of 9, though both delicate in health and shy in manners, his thoughts were already absorbed in the girls around him. "While little Monsieur Nicolas," he tells us, "passed for a Narcissus, his thoughts, as soon as he was alone, by night or by day, had no other object than that sex he seemed to flee from. The girls most careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him most, and as the part least easy to keep clean is that which touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially Madeleine, were the most elegant of the girls at that time; their carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles, which were not yet worn at Sacy, had blue or rose ribbon, according to the color of the skirt. I thought of these girls with emotion; I desired—I knew not what; but I desired something, if it were only to subdue them." The origin Restif here assigns to his shoe-fetichism may seem paradoxical; he admired the girls who were most clean and neat in their dress, he tells us, and, therefore, paid most attention to that part of their clothing which was least clean and neat. But, however paradoxical the remark may seem, it is psychologically sound. All fetichism is a kind of not necessarily morbid obsession, and as the careful work of Janet and others in that field has shown, an obsession is a fascinated attraction to some object or idea which gives the subject a kind of emotional shock by its contrast to his habitual moods or ideas. The ordinary morbid obsession cannot usually be harmoniously co-ordinated with the other experiences of the subject's daily life, and shows, therefore, no tendency to become pleasurable. Sexual fetichisms, on the other hand, have a reservoir of agreeable emotion to draw on, and are thus able to acquire both stability and harmony. It will also be seen that no element of masochism is involved in Restif's fetichism, though the mistake has been frequently made of supposing that these two manifestations are usually or even necessarily allied. Restif wishes to subject the girl who attracts him, he has no wish to be subjected by her. He was especially dazzled by a young girl from another town, whose shoes were of a fashionable cut, with buckles, "and who was a charming person besides." She was delicate as a fairy, and rendered his thoughts unfaithful to the robust beauties of his native Sacy. "No doubt," he remarks, "because, being frail and weak myself, it seemed to me that it would be easier to subdue her." "This taste for the beauty of the feet," he continues, "was so powerful in me that it unfailingly aroused desire and would have made me overlook ugliness. It is excessive in all those who have it." He admired the foot as well as the shoe: "The factitious taste for the shoe is only a reflection of that for pretty feet. When I entered a house and saw the boots arranged in a row, as is the custom, I would tremble with pleasure; I blushed and lowered my eyes as if in the presence of the girls themselves. With this vivacity of feeling and a voluptuousness of ideas inconceivable at the age of 10 I still fled, with an involuntary impulse of modesty, from the girls I adored."
We may clearly see how this combination of sensitive and precocious sexual ardor with extreme shyness, furnished the soil on which the germ of shoe-fetichism was able to gain a firm root and persist in some degree throughout a long life very largely given up to a pursuit of women, abnormal rather by its excessiveness than its perversity. A few years later, he tells us, he happened to see a pretty pair of shoes in a bootmaker's shop, and on hearing that they belonged to a girl whom at that time he reverently adored at a distance he blushed and nearly fainted.
In 1749 he was for a time attracted to a young woman very much older than himself; he secretly carried away one of her slippers and kept it for a day; a little later he again took away a shoe of the same woman which had fascinated him when on her foot, and, he seems to imply, he used it to masturbate with.
Perhaps the chief passion of Restif's life was his love for Colette Parangon. He was still a boy (1752), she was the young and virtuous wife of the printer whose apprentice Restif was and in whose house he lived. Madame Parangon, a charming woman, as she is described, was not happily married, and she evidently felt a tender affection for the boy whose excessive love and reverence for her were not always successfully concealed. "Madonna Parangon," he tells us, "possessed a charm which I could never resist, a pretty little foot; it is a charm which arouses more than tenderness. Her shoes, made in Paris, had that voluptuous elegance which seems to communicate soul and life. Sometimes Colette wore shoes of simple white drugget or with silver flowers; sometimes rose-colored slippers with green heels, or green with rose heels; her supple feet, far from deforming her shoes, increased their grace and rendered the form more exciting." One day, on entering the house, he saw Madame Parangon elegantly dressed and wearing rose-colored shoes with tongues, and with green heels and a pretty rosette. They were new and she took them off to put on green slippers with rose heels and borders which he thought equally exciting. As soon as she had left the room, he continues, "carried away by the most impetuous passion and idolizing Colette, I seemed to see her and touch her in handling what she had just worn; my lips pressed one of these jewels, while the other, deceiving the sacred end of nature, from excess of exaltation replaced the object of sex (I cannot express myself more clearly). The warmth which she had communicated to the insensible object which had touched her still remained and gave a soul to it; a voluptuous cloud covered my eyes." He adds that he would kiss with rage and transport whatever had come in close contact with the woman he adored, and on one occasion eagerly pressed his lips to her cast-off underlinen, vela secretiora penetralium.
At this period Restif's foot-fetichism reached its highest point of development. It was the aberration of a highly sensitive and very precocious boy. While the preoccupation with feet and shoes persisted throughout life, it never became a complete perversion and never replaced the normal end of sexual desire. His love for Madam Parangon, one of the deepest emotions in his whole life, was also the climax of his shoe-fetichism. She represented his ideal woman, an ethereal sylph with wasp-waist and a child's feet; it was always his highest praise for a woman that she resembled Madame Parangon, and he desired that her slipper should be buried with him. (Restif de la Bretonne, Monsieur Nicolas, vols. i-iv, vol. xiii, p. 5; id., Mes Inscriptions, pp. ci-cv.)
Shoe-fetichism, more especially if we include under this term all the cases of real or pseudo-masochism in which an attraction to the boots or slippers is the chief feature, is a not infrequent phenomenon, and is certainly the most frequently occurring form of fetichism. Many cases are brought together by Krafft-Ebing in his Psychopathia Sexualis. Every prostitute of any experience has known men who merely desire to gaze at her shoes, or possibly to lick them, and who are quite willing to pay for this privilege. In London such a person is known as a "bootman," in Germany as a "Stiefelfrier."
The predominance of the foot as a focus of sexual attraction, while among us to-day it is a not uncommon phenomenon, is still not sufficiently common to be called normal; the majority of even ardent lovers do not experience this attraction in any marked degree. But these manifestations of foot-fetichism which with us to-day are abnormal, even when they are not so extreme as to be morbid, may perhaps become more intelligible to us when we realize that in earlier periods of civilization, and even to-day in some parts of the world, the foot is generally recognized as a focus of sexual attraction, so that some degree of foot-fetichism becomes a normal phenomenon.
The most pronounced and the best known example of such normal foot-fetichism at the present day is certainly to be found among the Southern Chinese. For a Chinese husband his wife's foot is more interesting than her face. A Chinese woman is as shy of showing her feet to a man as a European woman her breasts; they are reserved for her husband's eyes alone, and to look at a woman's feet in the street is highly improper and indelicate. Chinese foot-fetichism is connected with the custom of compressing the feet. This custom appears to rest on the fact that Chinese women naturally possess a very small foot and is thus an example of the universal tendency in the search for beauty to accentuate, even by deformation, the racial characteristics. But there is more than this. Beauty is largely a name for sexual attractiveness, and the energy expended in the effort to make the Chinese woman's small foot still smaller is a measure of the sexual fascination which it exerts. The practice arose on the basis of the sexual attractiveness of the foot, though it has doubtless served to heighten that attractiveness, just as the small waist, which (if we may follow Stratz) is a characteristic beauty of the European woman, becomes to the average European man still more attractive when accentuated, even to the extent of deformity, by the compression of the corset.
Referring to the sexual fascination exerted by the foot in China, Matignon writes: "My attention has been drawn to this point by a large number of pornographic engravings, of which the Chinese are very fond. In all these lascivious scenes we see the male voluptuously fondling the woman's foot. When a Celestial takes into his hand a woman's foot, especially if it is very small, the effect upon him is precisely the same as is provoked in a European by the palpation of a young and firm bosom. All the Celestials whom I have interrogated on this point have replied unanimously: 'Oh, a little foot! You Europeans cannot understand how exquisite, how sweet, how exciting it is!' The contact of the genital organ with the little foot produces in the male an indescribable degree of voluptuous feeling, and women skilled in love know that to arouse the ardor of their lovers a better method than all Chinese aphrodisiacs—including 'giusen' and swallows' nests—is to take the penis between their feet. It is not rare to find Chinese Christians accusing themselves at confession of having had 'evil thoughts on looking at a woman's foot.'" (Dr. J. Matignon, "A propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1898.)
It is said that a Chinese Empress, noted for her vice and having a congenital club foot, about the year 1100 B.C., desired all women to resemble her, and that the practice of compressing the foot thus arose. But this is only tradition, since, in 300 B.C., Chinese books were destroyed (Morache, Art. "Chine," Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales, p. 191). It is also said that the practice owes its origin to the wish to keep women indoors. But women are not secluded in China, nor does foot compression usually render a woman unable to walk. Many intelligent Chinese are of opinion that its object is to promote the development of the sexual parts and of the thighs, and so to aid both intercourse and parturition. There is no ground for believing that it has any such influence, though Morache found that the mons veneris and labia are largely developed in Chinese women, and not in Tartar women living in Pekin (who do not compress the foot). If there is any correlation between the feet and the pelvic regions, it is more probably congenital than due to the artificial compression of the feet. The ancients seem to have believed that a small foot indicated a small vagina. Restif de la Bretonne, who had ample opportunities for forming an opinion on a matter in which he took so great an interest, believed that a small foot, round and short, indicated a large vagina (Monsieur Nicolas, vol. i, reprint of 1883, p. 92). Even, however, if we admit that there is a real correlation between the foot and the vagina, that would by no means suffice to render the foot a focus of sexual attraction.
It remains the most reasonable view that the foot bandage must be regarded as strictly analogous to the waist bandage or corset which also tends to produce deformity of the constricted region. Stratz has ingeniously remarked (Frauenkleidung, third edition, p. 101) that the success of the Chinese in dwarfing trees may have suggested a similar attempt in regard to women's feet, and adds that in any case both dwarfed trees and bound feet bear witness in the Mongolian to the same love for small and elegant, not to say deformed, things. For a Chinaman the deformed foot is a "golden water-lily."
Many facts (together with illustrations) bearing on Chinese deformation of the foot will be found in Ploss, Das Weib, vol. i, Section IV.
The significance of the sexual emotion aroused by the female foot in China and the origin of its compression begin to become clear when we realize that this foot-fetichism is merely an extreme development of a tendency which is fairly well marked among nearly all the peoples of yellow race. Jacoby, who has brought together a number of interesting facts bearing on the sexual significance of the foot, states that a similar tendency is to be found among the Mongol and Turk peoples of Siberia, and in the east and central parts of European Russia, among the Permiaks, the Wotiaks, etc. Here the woman, at all events when young, has always her feet, as well as head, covered, however little clothing she may otherwise wear.
"On hot nights or on baking days," Jacoby states, "you may see these women with uncovered breasts, or even entirely naked without embarrassment, but you will never see them with bare feet, and no male relations, except the husband, will ever see the feet and lower part of the legs of the women in the house. These women have their modesty in their feet, and also their coquetry; to unbind the feet of a woman is for a man a voluptuous act, and the touch of the bands produces the same effect as a corset still warm from a woman's body on a European man. A woman's beauty, that which attracts and excites a man, lies in her foot; in Mordvin love poems celebrating the beauty of women there is much about her attire, especially her embroidered chemise, but as regards the charms of her person the poet is content to state that 'her feet are beautiful;' with that everything is said. The young peasant woman of the central provinces as part of her holiday raiment puts on great woolen stockings which come up to the groin and are then folded over to below the knee. To uncover the feet of a person of the opposite sex is a sexual act, and has thus become the symbol of sexual possession, so that the stocking or foot-gear became the emblem of marriage, as later the ring. (It was so among the Jews, as we see in the book of Ruth, Chapter III, v. 4, and Chapter IV, vv. 7 and 8). St. Vladimir the Great asked in marriage the daughter of Prince Rogvold; as Vladimir's mother had been a serf, the princess proudly replied that she 'would not uncover the feet of a slave.' At the present time in the east of Russia when a young girl tries to find out by divination whom she will have as a husband the traditional formula is 'Come and take my stockings off.' Among the populations of the north and east, it is sometimes the bride who must do this for her husband on the wedding night, and sometimes the bridegroom for his wife, not as a token of love, but as a nuptial ceremony. Among the professional classes and small nobility in Russia parents place money in the stocking of their child at marriage as a present for the other partner, it being supposed that the couple mutually remove each other's foot raiment, as an act of sexual possession, the emblem of coitus." (Paul Jacoby, Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, December, 1903, p. 793.) The practice among ourselves of children hanging up their stockings at night for presents would seem to be a relic of the last-mentioned custom.
While we may witness the sexual symbolism of the foot, with or without an associated foot-fetichism, most highly developed in Asia and Eastern Europe, it has by no means been altogether unknown in some stages of western civilization, and traces of it may be found here and there even yet. Schinz refers to the connection between the feet and sexual pleasure as existing not only among the Egyptians and the Arabs, but among the ancient Germans and the modern Spaniards,[[16]] while Jacoby points out that among the Greeks, the Romans, and especially the Etruscans, it was usual to represent chaste and virgin goddesses with their feet covered, even though they might be otherwise nude. Ovid, again, is never weary of dwelling on the sexual charm of the feminine foot. He represents the chaste matron as wearing a weighted stola which always fell so as to cover her feet; it was only the courtesan, or the nymph who is taking part in an erotic festival, who appears with raised robes, revealing her feet.[[17]] So grave a historian as Strabo, as well as Ælian, refers to the story of the courtesan Rhodope whose sandal was carried off by an eagle and dropped in the King of Egypt's lap as he was administering justice, so that he could not rest until he had discovered to whom this delicately small sandal belonged, and finally made her his queen. Kleinpaul, who repeats this story, has collected many European sayings and customs (including Turkish), indicating that the slipper is a very ancient symbol of a woman's sexual parts.[[18]]
In Rome, Dufour remarks, "Matrons having appropriated the use of the shoe (soccus) prostitutes were not allowed to use it, and were obliged to have their feet always naked in sandals or slippers (crepida and solea), which they fastened over the instep with gilt bands. Tibullus delights to describe his mistress's little foot, compressed by the band that imprisoned it: Ansaque compressos colligat arcta pedes. Nudity of the foot in woman was a sign of prostitution, and their brilliant whiteness acted afar as a pimp to attract looks and desires." (Dufour, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. II., ch. xviii.)
This feeling seems to have survived in a more or less vague and unconscious form in mediæval Europe. "In the tenth century," according to Dufour (Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. VI., p. 11), "shoes a la poulaine, with a claw or beak, pursued for more than four centuries by the anathemas of popes and the invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediæval casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first glance it is not easy to see why these shoes—terminating in a lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other metal appendage—should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted on this kind of foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some libertine, who wore poulaines in the shape of the phallus, a custom adopted also by women. This kind of poulaine was denounced as mandite de Dicu (Ducange's Glossary, at the word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear poulaines." In Louis XL's court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length.
Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved longer than other countries the ancient classic traditions in regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual attraction. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary that the Virgin's feet should be concealed, the clergy ordaining that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in 1649 in his Arte de la Pintura: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked. Let thanks be given to the Holy Inquisition which commands that this liberty should be corrected!" It was Pacheco's duty in Seville to see that these commands were obeyed. At the court of Philip IV. at this time the princesses never showed their feet, as we may see in the pictures of Velasquez. When a local manufacturer desired to present that monarch's second bride, Mariana of Austria, with some silk stockings the offer was indignantly rejected by the Court Chamberlain: "The Queen of Spain has no legs!" Philip V.'s, queen was thrown from her horse and dragged by the feet; no one ventured to interfere until two gentlemen bravely rescued her and then fled, dreading punishment by the king: they were, however, graciously pardoned. Reinach ("Pieds Pudiques," Cultes, Mythes et Religions, pp. 105-110) brings together several passages from the Countess D'Aulnoy's account of the Madrid Court in the seventeenth century and from other sources, showing how careful Spanish ladies were as regards their feet, and how jealous Spanish husbands were in this matter. At this time, when Spanish influence was considerable, the fashion of Spain seems to have spread to other countries. One may note that in Vandyck's pictures of English beauties the feet are not visible, though in the more characteristically English painters of a somewhat later age it became usual to display them conspicuously, while the French custom in this matter is the farthest removed from the Spanish. At the present day a well-bred Spanish woman shows as little as possible of her feet in walking, and even in some of the most characteristic Spanish dances there is little or no kicking, and the feet may even be invisible throughout. It is noteworthy that in numerous figures of Spanish women (probably artists' models) reproduced in Ploss's Das Weib the stockings are worn, although the women are otherwise, in most cases, quite naked. Max Dessoir mentions ("Psychologie der Vita Sexualis," Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1894, p. 954) that in Spanish pornographic photographs women always have their shoes on, and he considers this an indication of perversity. I have seen the statement (attributed to Gautier's Voyage en Espagne, where, however, it does not occur) that Spanish prostitutes uncover their feet in sign of assent, and Madame d'Aulnoy stated that in her time to show her lover her feet was a Spanish woman's final favor.
The tendency, which we thus find to be normal at some earlier periods of civilization, to insist on the sexual symbolism of the feminine foot or its coverings, and to regard them as a special sexual fascination, is not without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic manifestations of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear to us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of development, of a mental or emotional impulse which was probably experienced by our forefathers, and is often traceable among young children to-day.[[19]] The occasional reappearance of this bygone impulse and the stability which it may acquire are thus conditioned by the sensitive reaction of an abnormally nervous and usually precocious organism to influences which, among the average and ordinary population of Europe to-day, are either never felt, or quickly outgrown, or very strictly subordinated in the highly complex crystallizations which the course of love and the process of tumescence create within us.
It may be added that this is by no means true of foot-fetichism only. In some other fetichisms a seemingly congenital predisposition is even more marked. This is not only the case as regards hair-fetichism and fur-fetichism (see, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth edition, pp. 233, 255, 262). In many cases of fetichisms of all kinds not only is there no record of any commencement in a definite episode (an absence which may be accounted for by the supposition that the original incident has been forgotten), but it would seem in some cases that the fetichism developed very slowly.
In this sense, it will be seen, although it is hazardous to speak of foot-fetichism as strictly an atavism, it may certainly be said to arise on a congenital basis. It represents the rare development of an inborn germ, usually latent among ourselves, which in earlier stages of civilization frequently reached a normal and general fruition.
It is of interest to emphasize this congenital element of foot symbolism, because more than any other forms of sexual perversion the fetichisms are those which are most vaguely conditioned by inborn states of the organism and most definitely aroused by seemingly accidental associations or shocks in early life. Inversion is sometimes so fundamentally ingrained in the individual's constitution that it arises and develops in spite of the very strongest influence in a contrary direction. But a fetichism, while it tends to occur in sensitive, nervous, timid, precocious individuals—that is to say, individuals of more or less neuropathic heredity—can usually, though not always, be traced to a definite starting point in the shock of some sexually emotional episode in early life.
A few examples of the influences of such association may here be given, referring miscellaneously to various forms of erotic symbolism. Magnan has recorded the case of a hair-fetichist, living in a district where the women wore their hair done up, who at the age of 15 experienced pleasurable feelings with erection at the sight of a village beauty combing her hair; from that time flowing hair became his fetich, and he could not resist the temptation to touch it and if possible sever it, thus becoming a hair-despoiler, for which he was arrested but not sentenced. (Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, vol. v, No. 28.)
I have elsewhere recorded the history of a boy of 14, having already had imperfect connection with a grown-up woman, who associated much with a young married lady; he had no sexual relations with her, but one day she urinated in his presence, and he saw that her mons veneris was covered by very thick hair; from that time he worshiped this woman in secret and acquired a life-long fetichistic attraction to women whose pubic hair was similarly abundant (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. iii, Appendix B, History V).
Roubaud reported the case of a general's son, sexually initiated at the age of 14 by a blonde young lady of 21 who, in order to avoid detection, always retained her clothing: gaiters, a corset and a silk dress; when the boy's studies were completed and he was sent to a garrison where he could enjoy freedom he found that his sexual desires could only be aroused by blonde women dressed like the lady who had first aroused his sexual desires; consequently he gave up all thoughts of matrimony, as a woman in nightclothes produced impotence (Traité de l'Impuissance, p. 439). Krafft-Ebing records the somewhat similar case of a nervous Polish boy of old family seduced at the age of 17 by a French governess, who during several months practiced mutual masturbation with him; in this way his attention became attracted by her very elegant boots, and in the end he became a confirmed boot-fetichist (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation, p. 249).
A boy of 7, of bad heredity, was taught to masturbate by a servant girl; on one occasion she practiced this on him with her foot without taking off her shoe; it was the first time the manœuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus established which led to shoe-fetichism (Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs, produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked, ejaculation being thus produced, while to obtain complete satisfaction he would make a prostitute, otherwise naked, sit in front of him in her shoes, moving her feet so that the shoes creaked. (Moraglia, Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xiii, p. 568.)
Bechterew, in St. Petersburg, has recorded the case of a man who when a child used to fall asleep at the knees of his nurse with his head buried in the folds of her apron; in this position he first experienced erection and voluptuous sensations; when a youth he had no attraction to naked women, and in real life and in dreams was only excited sexually under conditions recalling his early experience; in his relations with women he preferred them dressed, and was excited by the rustling sound of their skirts; in this case there was no traceable neuropathic taint nor any other personal peculiarity. (Summarized in Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, January-February, 1904, p. 72.)
In a curious case recorded in detail by Moll, a philologist of sensitive temperament but sound heredity, who had always been fond of flowers, at the age of 21 became engaged to a young lady who wore large roses fastened in her jacket; from this time roses became to him a sexual fetich, to kiss them caused erection, and his erotic dreams were accompanied by visions of roses and the hallucination of their odor; the engagement was finally broken off and the rose-fetichism disappeared (Untersuchungen über Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 540).
Such associations may naturally occur in the early experiences of even the most normal persons. The degree to which they will influence the subsequent life and thought and feeling depends on the degree of the individual's morbid emotional receptivity, on the extent to which he is hereditarily susceptible of abnormal deviation. Precocity is undoubtedly a condition which favors such deviation; a child who is precociously and abnormally sensitive to persons of the opposite sex before puberty has established the normal channels of sexual desire, is peculiarly liable to become the prey of a chance symbolism. All degrees of such symbolism are possible. While the average insensitive person may fail to perceive them at all, for the more alert and imaginative lover they are a fascinating part of the highly charged crystallization of passion. A more nervously exceptional person, when once such a symbolism has become firmly implanted, may find it an absolutely essential element in the charm of a beloved and charming person. Finally, for the individual who is thoroughly unsound the symbol becomes generalized; a person is no longer desired at all, being merely regarded as an appendage of the symbol, or being dispensed with altogether; the symbol is alone desired, and is fully adequate to impart by itself complete sexual gratification. While it must be considered a morbid state to demand a symbol as an almost essential part of the charm of a desired person, it is only in the final condition, in which the symbol becomes all-sufficing, that we have a true and complete perversion. In the less complete forms of symbolism it is still the woman who is desired, and the ends of procreation may be served; when the woman is ignored and the mere symbol is an adequate and even preferred stimulus to detumescence the pathological condition becomes complete.
Krafft-Ebing regarded shoe-fetichism as, in large measure, a more or less latent form of masochism, the foot or the shoe being the symbol of the subjection and humiliation which the masochist feels in the presence of the beloved object. Moll is also inclined to accept such a connection.
"The very numerous class of boot-and-shoe-fetichists," Krafft-Ebing wrote, "forms the transition to the manifestations of another independent perversion, i.e., fetichism itself; but it stands in closer relationship to the former.... It is highly probable, and shown by a correct classification of the observed cases, that the majority, and perhaps all of the cases of shoe-fetichism, rest upon a basis of more or less conscious masochistic desire for self-humiliation.... The majority or all may be looked upon as instances of latent masochism (the motive remaining unconscious) in which the female foot or shoe, as the masochist's fetich, has acquired an independent significance." (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth edition, pp. 159, et seq.) "Though Krafft-Ebing may not have cleared up the whole matter," Moll remarks, "I regard his deductions concerning the connection of foot-and-shoe fetichism to masochism as the most important progress that has been made in the theoretic study of sexual perversions.... In any case, the connection is very frequent." (Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 306.)
It is quite easy to see that this supposed identity of masochism and foot-fetichism forms a seductive theory. It is also undoubtedly true that a masochist may very easily be inclined to find in his mistress's foot an aid to the ecstatic self-abnegation which he desires to attain.[[20]] But only confusion is attained by any general attempt to amalgamate masochism and foot-fetichism. In the broad sense in which erotic symbolism is here understood, both masochism and foot-fetichism may be coördinated as symbolisms; for the masochist his self-humiliating impulses are the symbol of ecstatic adoration; for the foot-fetichist his mistress's foot or shoe is the concentrated symbol of all that is most beautiful and elegant and feminine in her personality. But if in this sense they are coördinated, they remain entirely distinct and have not even any necessary tendency to become merged. Masochism merely simulates foot-fetichism; for the masochist the boot is not strictly a symbol, it is only an instrument which enables him to carry out his impulse; the true sexual symbol for him is not the boot, but the emotion of self-subjection. For the foot-fetichist, on the other hand, the foot or the shoe is not a mere instrument, but a true symbol; the focus of his worship, an idealized object which he is content to contemplate or reverently touch. He has no necessary impulse to any self-degrading action, nor any constant emotion of subjection. It may be noted that in the very typical case of foot-fetichism which is presented to us in the person of Restif de la Bretonne (ante, p. 18), he repeatedly speaks of "subjecting" the woman for whom he feels this fetichistic adoration, and mentions that even when still a child he especially admired a delicate and fairy-like girl in this respect because she seemed to him easier to subjugate. Throughout life Restif's attitude toward women was active and masculine, without the slightest trace of masochism.[[21]]
To suppose that a fetichistic admiration of his mistress's foot is due to a lover's latent desire to be kicked, is as unreasonable as it would be to suppose that a fetichistic admiration for her hand indicated a latent desire to have his ears boxed. In determining whether we are concerned with a case of foot-fetichism or of masochism we must take into consideration the whole of the subject's mental and emotional attitude. An act, however definite, will not suffice as a criterion, for the same act in different persons may have altogether different implications. To amalgamate the two is the result of inadequate psychological analysis and only leads to confusion.
It is, however, often very difficult to decide whether we are dealing with a case which is predominantly one of masochism or of foot-fetichism. The nature of the action desired, as we have seen, will not suffice to determine the psychological character of the perversion. Krafft-Ebing believed that the desire to be trodden on, very frequently experienced by masochists, is absolutely symptomatic of masochism.[[22]] This is scarcely the case. The desire to be trodden on may be fundamentally an erotic symbolism, closely approaching foot-fetichism, and such slight indications of masochism as appear may be merely a parasitic growth on the symbolism, a growth perhaps more suggested by the circumstances involved in the gratification of the abnormal desire than inherent in the innate impulse of the subject. This may be illustrated by the interesting case of a very intelligent man with whom I am well acquainted.
C. P., aged 38. Heredity good. Parents both healthy and normal. Several children of the marriage, all sexually normal so far as is known. C. P. is the youngest of the family and separated from the others by an interval of many years. He was a seven-months' child. He has always enjoyed good health and is active and vigorous, both mentally and physically.
From the age of 9 or 10 to 14 he masturbated occasionally for the sake of physical relief, having discovered the act for himself. He was, however, quite innocent and knew nothing of sexual matters, never having been initiated either by servants or by other boys.
"When I encounter a woman who very strongly attracts me and whom I very greatly admire," he writes, "my desire is never that I may have sexual connection with her in the ordinary sense, but that I may lie down upon the floor on my back and be trampled upon by her. This curious desire is seldom present unless the object of my admiration is really a lady, and of fine proportions. She must be richly dressed—preferably in an evening gown, and wear dainty high-heeled slippers, either quite open so as to show the curve of the instep, or with only one strap or 'bar' across. The skirts should be raised sufficiently to afford me the pleasure of seeing her feet and a liberal amount of ankle, but in no case above the knee, or the effect is greatly reduced. Although I often greatly admire a woman's intellect and even person, sexually no other part of her has any serious attraction for me except the leg, from the knee downwards, and the foot, and these must be exquisitely clothed. Given this condition, my desire amounts to a wish to gratify my sexual sense by contact with the (to me) attractive part of the woman. Comparatively few women have a leg or foot sufficiently beautiful to my mind to excite any serious or compelling desire, but when this is so, or I suspect it, I am willing to spend any time or trouble to get her to tread upon me and am anxious to be trampled on with the greatest severity.
"The treading should be inflicted for a few minutes all over the chest, abdomen and groin, and lastly on the penis, which is, of course, lying along the belly in a violent state of erection, and consequently too hard for the treading to damage it. I also enjoy being nearly strangled by a woman's foot.
"If the lady finally stands facing my head and places her slipper upon my penis so that the high heel falls about where the penis leaves the scrotum, the sole covering most of the rest of it and with the other foot upon the abdomen, into which I can see as well as feel it sink as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, orgasm takes place almost at once. Emission under these conditions is to me an agony of delight, during which practically the lady's whole weight should rest upon the penis.
"One reason for my special pleasure in this method seems to be that first the heel and afterwards the sole of the slipper as it treads upon the penis greatly check the passage of the semen and consequently the pleasure is considerably prolonged. There is also a curious mental side to the affair. I love to imagine that the lady who is treading upon me is my mistress and I her slave, and that she is doing it to punish me for some fault, or to give herself (not me) pleasure.
"It follows that the greater the contempt and severity with which I am 'punished,' the greater becomes my pleasure. The idea of 'punishment' or 'slavery' is seldom aroused except when I have great difficulty in accomplishing my desire and the treader is more than usually handsome and heavy and the trampling mercilessly inflicted. I have been trampled so long and so mercilessly several times, that I have flinched each time the slipper pressed its way into my aching body and have been black and blue for days afterwards. I take the greatest interest in leading ladies on to do this for me where I think I will not offend, and have been surprisingly successful. I must have lain beneath the feet of quite a hundred women, many of them of good social position, who would never dream of permitting any ordinary sexual intercourse, but who have been so interested or amused by the idea as to do it for me—many of them over and over again. It is perhaps needless to say that none of my own or the ladies' clothing is ever removed, or disarranged, for the accomplishment of orgasm in this manner. After a long and varied experience, I may say that my favorite weight is 10 to 11 stone, and that black, very high-heeled slippers, in combination with tan silk stockings, seem to give me the greatest pleasure and create in me the strongest desires.
"Boots, or outdoor shoes, do not attract me to anything like the same degree, although I have, upon several occasions, enjoyed myself fairly well by their use. Nude women repel me, and I find no pleasure in seeing a woman in tights. I am not averse to normal sexual connection and occasionally employ it. To me, however, the pleasure is far inferior to that of being trampled upon. I also derive keen pleasure—and usually have a strong erection—from seeing a woman, dressed as I have described, tread upon anything which yields under her foot—such as the seat of a carriage, the cushions of a punt, a footstool, etc., and I enjoy seeing her crush flowers by treading upon them. I have often strolled along in the wake of some handsome lady at a picnic or garden party, for the pleasure of seeing the grass upon which she has trodden rise slowly again after her foot has pressed it. I delight also to see a carriage sway as a woman leaves or enters it—anything which needs the pressure of the foot.
"To pass now to the origin of this direction of my feelings.
"Even in early childhood I admired pretty feminine foot-gear, and in the contemplation of it experienced vague sensations which I now recognize as sexual. When a lad of 14 or so, I stayed a good deal at the house of some intimate friends of my parents, the daughter of the house—an only child—a beautiful and powerful girl, about six years my senior, being my special chum. This girl was always daintily dressed, and having most lovely feet and ankles not unnaturally knew it. Whenever possible she dressed so as to show off their beauty to the best advantage—rather short skirts and usually little high-heeled slippers—and was not averse to showing them in a most distractingly coquettish manner. She seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would scrunch or yield under her foot, such as flowers, little windfallen apples and pears, acorns, etc., or heaps of hay, straw or cut grass. As we wandered about the gardens—for we were left to do exactly as we liked—I got quite accustomed to seeing her hunt out and tread upon such things, and used to chaff her about it. At that time I was—as I am still—fond of lying at full length on a thick hearthrug before a good fire. One evening as I was lying in this way and we were alone, A. crossed the room to reach a bangle from the mantelpiece. Instead of reaching over me, she playfully stepped upon my body, saying that she would show me how the hay and straw felt. Naturally I fell in with the joke and laughed. After standing upon me a few moments she raised her skirt slightly and, holding on to the mantelpiece for support, stretched out one dainty foot in its brown silk stocking and high-heeled slipper to the blaze to warm, while looking down and laughing at my scarlet, excited face. She was a perfectly frank and charming girl, and I feel pretty certain that, although she evidently enjoyed my excitement and the feeling of my body yielding under her feet, she did not on this first occasion clearly understand my condition; nor can I remember that, though the desire for sexual gratification drove me nearly mad, it appeared to awaken in her any reciprocal feeling. I took hold of her raised foot and, after kissing it, guided it by an absolutely irresistible impulse on to my penis, which was as hard as wood and seemed almost bursting. Almost at the moment that her weight was thrown upon it, orgasm took place for the first time in my life thoroughly and effectively. No description can give any idea of what I felt—I only know that from that moment my distorted sexual focus was fixed forever. Numberless times, after that evening, I felt the weight of her dainty slippers, and nothing will ever cause the memory of the pleasure she thus gave me to fade. I know that A. came to enjoy treading upon me, as much as I enjoyed having her do it. She had a liberal dress allowance and, seeing the pleasure they gave me, she was always buying pretty stockings and ravishing slippers with the highest and most slender Louis heels she could find and would show them to me with the greatest glee, urging me to lie down that she might try them on me. She confessed that she loved to see and feel them sink into my body as she trod upon me and enjoyed the crunch of the muscles under her heel as she moved about. After some minutes of this, I always guided her slipper on to my penis, and she would tread carefully, but with her whole weight—probably about 9 stone—and watch me with flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and quivering lips, as she felt—as she must have done plainly—the throbbing and swelling of my penis under her foot as emission took place. I have not the smallest doubt that orgasm took place simultaneously with her, though we never at any time spoke openly of it. This went on for several years on almost every favorable opportunity we had, and after a month or two of separation sometimes four or five times during a single day. Several times during A.'s absence I masturbated by getting her slipper and pressing it with all my strength against the penis while imagining that she was treading upon me. The pleasure was, of course, very inferior to her attentions. There was never at any time between us any question of normal sexual intercourse, and we were both well content to let things drift as they were.
"A little after 20 I went abroad, and on my return about three years later I found her married. Although we met often, the subject was never alluded to, though we remained firm friends. I confess I often, when I could do so without being seen, looked longingly at her feet and would have gladly accepted the pleasure she could have given me by an occasional resumption of our strange practice—but it never came.
"I went abroad again, and now neither she nor her husband are alive and leave no issue. From time to time I have had occasional relations with prostitutes, but always in this manner, though I much prefer to find some lady of or above my own social position who will do the treading for me. This is, however, interestingly difficult.
"Out of say a hundred women (which at home and abroad is what I should estimate must have stood upon my body) I should say quite 80 or 85 were not prostitutes. Certainly not more than 10 to 12 shared any sexual excitement, but while they were evidently excited they were not gratified. A. alone, so far as I know, had complete sexual satisfaction of it. I have never asked a woman in so many words to tread upon me for the purpose of gratifying my sexual desires (prostitutes excepted), but have always tempted them to do it in a jocular or teasing manner, and it is very doubtful if more than a few (married) women really understood, even after they had given me the extreme pleasure, that they had done so, because any flushing and movement on my part under their feet was not unnaturally put down to the trampling to which they were subjecting me, and it was easy for me to guide the foot as often as was necessary on to the penis till orgasm took place, and even to keep it there by laying hold of the other one to kiss it or on some other pretext during emission. Of course many understood after once doing it (most have done it only once) what I was at, and, although they did not ever discuss it nor did I, they were not unwilling to give me as many treadings as I cared to playfully suggest. I don't think they got any pleasure sexually out of it themselves, though they could see plainly that I did, and they did not object to give it me. I have spent as long as twelve months with some women working gradually nearer and nearer to my desire—often getting what I want in the end, but more often failing. I never risk it till I am certain it would be safe to ask it, and have never had a serious rebuff. In very many cases I should say the doing of what I want has simply been regarded by the woman as gratifying a silly and perhaps amusing whim, in which, beyond the novelty of treading on a man's body, she has taken but little interest.
"As in normal seduction, the endeavor to win the woman over to do what I want without arousing her antagonism is a great part of the charm to me, and naturally the better her social position the more difficult this becomes—and the more attractive. I have found that in three instances prostitutes have performed the same office for other men and knew all about it. It is not uninteresting to note that these three women were all of fine, massive build—one standing about 5 feet 10 inches and weighing nearly 14 stone—but with comparatively uninteresting faces. The weight, build and clothing count for a good deal in exciting me. I find that a sudden check to a man at the supreme moment of sexual pleasure tends to heighten and prolong the pleasure. My physical satisfaction is due to the fact that by getting the lady to stand with all her weight upon my penis (as it lies between her foot and the soft bed of my own body into which it is deeply pressed) the act of emission is enormously prolonged, with corresponding enjoyment. For this reason also I prefer a very high-heeled slipper. The seminal fluid has to be forced past two separate obstacles—the pressure of the heel close at the root of the penis and afterwards the ball of the foot which compresses the outer half, leaving a free portion between them under the arched sole of the slipper. I may add that the pleasure is greatly increased by the retention of the urine, and I always try to retain as much water as I dare. I have an unconquerable aversion to red in slippers or stockings; it will even cause impotence. Why, I know not. Strange as it may seem, although pain and bruising are often inflicted by a severe treading, I have never been in any way injured by the practice, and my pleasure in it seems not to diminish by constant repetition. The comparative difficulty of obtaining the pleasure from just the woman I want has a never-ending, if inexplicable, charm for me."
It will be observed that in this case special importance is attached to shoes with high heels, and the subject considers that the pressure of such shoes is for mechanical reasons most favorable for procuring ejaculation. Nearly all heterosexual shoe-fetichists seem, however, to be equally attracted by high heels. Restif de la Bretonne frequently referred to this point, and he gave a number of reasons for the attractiveness of high heels: (1) They are unlike men's boots and, therefore, have a sexual fascination; (2) they make the leg and foot look more charming; (3) they give a less bold and more sylph-like character to the walk; (4) they keep the feet clean. (Restif de la Bretonne, Nuits de Paris, vol. v, quoted in Preface to his Mes Inscriptions, p. ciii.) It is doubtless the first reason—the fact that high heels are a kind of secondary sexual character—which is most generally potent in this attraction.
The foregoing history, while it very distinctly brings before us a case of erotic symbolism, is not strictly an example of shoe-fetichism. The symbolism is more complex. The focus of beauty in a desirable woman is transferred and concentrated in the region below the knee; in that sense we have foot-fetichism. But the act of coitus itself is also symbolically transferred. Not only has the foot become the symbol of the vulva, but trampling has become the symbol of coitus; intercourse takes place symbolically per pedem. It is a result of this symbolization of the foot and of trampling that all acts of treading take on a new and symbolical sexual charm. The element of masochism—of pleasure in being a woman's slave—is a parasitic growth; that is to say, it is not founded in the subject's constitution, but chances to have found a favorable soil in the special circumstances under which his sexual life developed. It is not primary, but secondary, and remains an unimportant and merely occasional element.
It may be instructive to bring forward for comparison a case in which also we have a symbolism involving boot-fetichism, but extending beyond it. In this case there is a basis of inversion (as is not infrequent in erotic symbolisms), but from the present point of view the psychological significance of the case remains the same.
A. N., aged 29, unmarried, healthy, though not robust, and without any known hereditary taint. Has followed various avocations without taking great interest in them, but has shown some literary ability.
"I am an Englishman," his own narrative runs, "the third of three children. At my birth my father was 41 and my mother 34. My mother died of cancer when I was 15. My father is still alive, a reserved man, who still nurses his sorrow for his wife's death. I have no reason to believe my parents anything but normal and useful members of society. My sister is normal and happily married. My brother I have reason to believe to be an invert.
"A horoscope cast for me describes me in a way I think correct, and so do my friends: 'A mild, obliging, gentle, amiable person, with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close friendships. There is much that is firm, steadfast and industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little that is subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with those you dislike. There is a serious and sad side to your character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative when in these moods. But you are not pessimistic. You have superior abilities, for they are intuitively intellectual. There is a cold reticence which restrains generous impulses and which inclines to acquisitiveness; it will make you deliberate, inventive, adding self-esteem, some vanity.'
"At an early age I was left much alone in the nursery and there contracted the habit of masturbation long before the age of puberty. I use the word 'masturbation' for want of a better, though it may not quite describe my case. I have never used my hand to the penis. As far back as I can remember I have had what a Frenchman has described as 'le fetichisme de la chaussure,' and in those early days, before I was 6 years old, I would put on my father's boots, taken from a cupboard at hand, and then tying or strapping my legs together would produce an erection, and all the pleasurable feelings experienced, I suppose, by means of masturbation. I always did this secretly, but couldn't tell why. I continued this practice on and off all my boyhood and youth. When I discovered the first emission I was much surprised. I always did this thing without loosening my trousers. As to how these feelings arose I am totally unable to say. I can't remember being without such feelings, and they seem to me perfectly normal. The sight, or even thought, of high boots, or leggings, especially if well polished or in patent leather, would set all my sexual passions aflame, and does yet. As a boy my great desire was to wear these things. A soldier in boots and spurs, a groom in tops, or even an errand-boy in patent leather leggings, fascinated me, and to this day, despite reason and everything else. The sight of such things produced an erection. An emission I could always produce by tightly tying my legs together, but only when wearing boots, and preferably leggings, which when I had pocket money I bought for this purpose. (At the present moment I have five pairs in the house and two pairs of high boots, quite unjustified by ordinary use.) This habit I lapse into yet at times. The smell of leather affects me, but I never know how far this may be due to association with boots; the smell suggests the image. Restraint by a leather strap is more exciting than by cords. Erotic dreams always take the form of restraint on the limbs when booted.
"Uniforms and liveries have a great temptation for me, but only when of a tight-fitting nature and smart, as soldiers', grooms', etc., but not sailors'; most powerfully when the person is in boots or leggings and breeches.
"I was a quiet, sensitive boy, taking no part in games or sports. Have always been indifferent to them. I made few friends, but didn't want them. The craving for friendship came much later, after I was 21. I was a day boy at a private school, and never had any conversation with any boy on sexual matters, though I was dimly aware of much 'nastiness' about the school. I knew nothing of sodomy. But all these things were repulsive to me, notwithstanding my secret practices. I was a 'good boy.'
"Up to the age of 21 I was perfectly satisfied with my own society, something of a prig, fond of books and reading, etc. I was and ever have been absolutely insensible to the influence of the other sex. I am not a woman hater, and take intellectual pleasure in the society of certain ladies, but they are nearly all much older than myself. I have a strong repulsion from sexual relations with women. I should not mind being married for the sake of companionship and for the sake of having boys of my own. But the sexual act would frighten me. I could not in my present frame of mind go to bed with a woman. Yet I feel an immense envy of my married friends in that they are able to give out, and find satisfaction for, their affection in a way that is quite impossible for me. I picture certain boys in the place of the wife.
"I am now only happy in the society of men younger than myself, age 17 to (say) 23 or 24, youths with smooth faces, or first sign of hair on lip, well groomed, slightly effeminate in feature, of sympathetic, perhaps weak nature. I feel I want to help them, do something for them, devote myself entirely to their welfare.
"With such there is no fixed line between friendship and love. I yearn for intimacy with particular friends, but never dare express it. I find so many people object to any strong expression of feeling that I dare not run the risk of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of these desired intimates.
"I have no desire for pædicatio, but the idea itself does not repulse me or seem unnatural, though personally it repels me a little. But I think this to be mere prejudice on my part, which might be broken down if the loved person showed a willingness to act a passive part. I should never dare to make an advance, however.
"I am restrained by moral and religious considerations from making my real feelings known, and I feel I should sink in my own estimation if I gave way, though my natural desire is to do so. In the face of opportunities (not I mean of pædicatio, but of expression of excessive affection, etc.), or what might be such, I always fail to speak lest I should forfeit the esteem of the other person. I have a feeling of surprise when any one I like evinces a liking for me. I feel that those I love are immeasurably my superiors, though my reason may tell me it is not so. I would grovel at their feet, do anything to win a smile from them, or to make them give me their company.
"Ordinary bodily contact with the boy I love gives me most exquisite pleasure, and I never lose an opportunity of bringing such contact about when it can be done naturally. I feel an immense desire to embrace, kiss, squeeze, etc., the person, to generally maul him, and say nice things—the kind of things a man usually says to a woman. A handshake, the mere presence of the person, makes me happy and content.
"I can say with the Albanian: 'If I find myself in the presence of the beloved, I rest absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, I think of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears I fall into confusion. My heart beats faster. I have eyes and ears only for the beloved.'
"I feel that my capacity of affection is finer and more spiritual than that which commonly subsists between persons of different sexes. And so, while trying to fight my instincts by religion, I find my natural feeling to be part of my religion, and its highest expression. In this sense I can speak from experience in my own case, and more especially in that of my brother, that what you have said about philanthropic activity resulting from repressed homosexuality is very true indeed. I can say with one of your female cases: 'Love is to me a religion. The very nature of my affection for my friends precludes the possibility of any element entering into it which is not absolutely pure and sacred.' I am, however, madly jealous. I want entire possession, and I can't bear for a moment that any one I do not care for should know the person I love.
"I am never attracted by men older than myself. The youths who attract me may be of any class, though preferably, I think, of a class a little lower than myself. I am not quite sure of this, however, as circumstances may have contributed more than deliberate choice to bring certain youths under my notice. Those who have exercised the most powerful influence on me have been an Oxford undergraduate, a barber's assistant, and a plumber's apprentice. Though naturally fond of intellectual society, I do not ask for intellect in those I love. It goes for nothing. I always prefer their company to that of the most educated persons. This preference has alienated me to some extent from more refined and educated circles that formerly I was intimate with.
"I have been led entirely out of my old habits by association with younger friends, and now do things which before I should never have dreamed of doing. My thoughts now are always with certain youths, and if they speak of leaving the town, or in any way talk of a future that I cannot share, I suffer horrid sinkings of the heart and depression of spirits."
This case, while it concerns a person of quite different temperament, with a more innate predisposition to specific perversions, is yet in many respects analogous to the previous case. There is boot-fetichism; nothing is felt to be so attractive as the foot-gear, and there is also at the same time more than this; there is the attraction of repression and constraint developed into a sexual symbol. In C. P.'s case that symbolism arises from the experience of an abnormal heterosexual relationship; in A. N.'s case it is founded on auto-erotic experiences associated with inversion; in both alike the entire symbolism has become diffused and generalized.
In the two cases just brought forward we have an erotic symbolism of act founded on, and closely associated with, an erotic symbolism of object. It may be instructive to bring forward another case in which no fetichistic feeling toward an object can be traced, but an erotic symbolism still clearly exists. In this case pain, even when self-inflicted, has acquired a symbolic value as a stimulus to tumescence, without any element of masochism. Such a case serves to indicate how the sexual attraction of pain is really a special case of the erotic symbolism with which we are here concerned.
A. W., aged 50, a writer and lecturer, physically and mentally energetic and enjoying good health. He is, however, very emotional and of nervous temperament, but self-controlled. Though physically well developed, the sexual organs are small. He is married to an attractive woman, to whom he is much attached, and has two healthy children.
At 10 or 12 years of age he had a frequent desire to be whipped, his parents never having struck him, and on one occasion he asked a brother to go with him to the closet to get him to whip him on the posterior; but on arrival he was too shy to make the request. He did not recognize the cause of these desires, knowing nothing of such things except from the misinformation of his school-fellows' talk. As far as he can remember, he was an entirely normal, healthy boy up to the age of about 15, when his attention was arrested by an advertisement of a quack medicine for the results of "youthful excesses."
Being a city boy, he was unfamiliar with the coupling even of animals, had never had a conscious erection and did not know of frictional excitement. Experiment, however, resulted in an orgasm, and, though believing that it was wicked or at least weak and degrading, he indulged in masturbation at intervals, usually about six times a month, and has continued even up to the present.
He had an abnormally small opening in the prepuce, making the uncovering of the glans almost impossible. (At the age of about 37, he himself slit the prepuce by three or four cuts of a scissors at intervals of about ten days. This was followed by a marked decrease in desire, especially as he shortly afterwards learned the importance of local cleanliness.) While in college at about the age of 19 he began to have nocturnal emissions occasionally and once or twice a week when at stool. Alarmed by these, he consulted a physician, who warned him of the danger, gave him bromide and prescribed cold bathing of the parts, with a hard, cool bed. These stopped the emissions.
He never had connection with women until the age of about 25, and then only three times until his marriage at 30 years of age, being deterred partly by conscientious scruples, but more by shyness and convention, and deriving very little pleasure from these instances. Even since marriage he has derived more pleasure from sexual excitement than from coitus, and can maintain erection for as long as two hours.
He has always been accustomed to torture himself in various ingenious ways, nearly always connected with sex. He would burn his skin deeply with red hot wire in inconspicuous places. These and similar acts were generally followed by manual excitation nearly always brought to a climax.
He considers that he is attracted to refined and intellectual women. But he is without very ardent desires, having several times gone to bed with attractive women who stripped themselves naked, but without attempting any sexual intercourse with them. He became interested in the "Karezza" theory and has tried to practice it with his wife, but could never entirely control the emission.
He has hired a masseur to whip him, as children are whipped, with a heavy dog whip, which caused pleasurable excitement. During this time he had relations with his wife generally about once a week without any great ecstasy. She was cold and sexually slow, owing to conventional sex repression and to an idea that the whole thing was "like animals" and to fear of child-bearing, usually necessitating the use of a cover or withdrawal. It was only eight years after their marriage that she desired and obtained a child. During these years he would often stick pins through his mammæ and tie them together by a string round the pins drawn so short as to cause great pain and then indulge himself in the sexual act. He used strong wooden clips with a tack fixed in them, so as to pierce and pinch the mammæ, and once he drove a pin entirely through the penis itself, then obtaining orgasm by friction. He was never able to get an automatic emission in this way, though he often tried, not even by walking briskly during an erection.
In another class of cases a purely ideal symbolism may be present by means of a fetich which acts as a powerful stimulus without itself being felt to possess any attraction. A good illustration of this condition is furnished by a case which has been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in New Zealand.
"The patient went out to South Africa as a trooper with the contingent from New Zealand, throwing up a good position in an office to do so. He had never had any trouble as regards connection with women before going out to South Africa. While in active service at the front he sustained a nasty fall from his horse, breaking his leg. He was unconscious for four days, and was then invalided down to Cape Town. Here he rapidly got well, and his accustomed health returning to him he started having what he terms 'a good time.' He repeatedly went to brothels, but was unable to have more than a temporary erection, and no ejaculation would take place. In one of these places he was in company with a drunken trooper, who suggested that they should perform the sexual act with their boots and spurs (only) on. My patient, who was also drunk, readily assented, and to his surprise was enabled to perform the act of copulation without any difficulty at all. He has repeatedly tried since to perform the act without any spurs, but is quite unable to do so; with the spurs he has no difficulty at all in obtaining all the gratification he desires. His general health is good. His mother was an extremely nervous woman, and so is his sister. His father died when he was quite young. His only other relation in the colony is a married sister, who seems to enjoy vigorous health."
The consideration of the cases here brought forward may suffice to show that beyond those fetichisms which find their satisfaction in the contemplation of a part of the body or a garment, there is a more subtle symbolism. The foot is a center of force, an agent for exerting pressure, and thus it furnishes a point of departure not alone for the merely static sexual fetich, but for a dynamic erotic symbolization. The energy of its movements becomes a substitute for the energy of the sexual organs themselves in coitus, and exerts the same kind of fascination. The young girl (page 35) "who seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would scrunch or yield under her foot," already possessed the germs of an erotic symbolism which, under the influence of circumstances in which she herself took an active part, developed into an adequate method of sexual gratification.[[23]] The youth who was her partner learned, in the same way, to find an erotic symbolism in all the pressure reactions of attractive feminine feet, the swaying of a carriage beneath their weight, the crushing of the flowers on which they tread, the slow rising of the grass which they have pressed. Here we have a symbolism which is altogether different from that fetichism which adores a definite object; it is a dynamic symbolism finding its gratification in the spectacle of movements which ideally recall the fundamental rhythm and pressure reactions of the sexual process.
We may trace a very similar erotic symbolism in an absolutely normal form. The fascination of clothes in the lover's eyes is no doubt a complex phenomenon, but in part it rests on the aptitudes of a woman's garments to express vaguely a dynamic symbolism which must always remain indefinite and elusive, and on that account always possess fascination. No one has so acutely described this symbolism as Herrick, often an admirable psychologist in matters of sexual attractiveness. Especially instructive in this respect are his poems, "Delight in Disorder," "Upon Julia's Clothes," and notably "Julia's Petticoat." "A sweet disorder in the dress," he tells us, "kindles in clothes a wantonness;" it is not on the garment itself, but on the character of its movement that he insists; on the "erring lace," the "winning wave" of the "tempestuous petticoat;" he speaks of the "liquefaction" of clothes, their "brave vibration each way free," and of Julia's petticoat he remarks with a more specific symbolism still,
"Sometimes 'twould pant and sigh and heave,
As if to stir it scarce had leave;
But having got it, thereupon,
'Twould make a brave expansion."
In the play of the beloved woman's garment, he sees the whole process of the central act of sex, with its repressions and expansions, and at the sight is himself ready to "fall into a swoon."
G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 113. It will be noted that the hand does not appear among the parts of the body which are normally of supreme interest. An interest in the hand is by no means uncommon (it may be noted, for instance, in the course of History XII in Appendix B to vol. iii of these Studies), but the hand does not possess the mystery which envelops the foot, and hand-fetichism is very much less frequent than foot-fetichism, while glove-fetichism is remarkably rare. An interesting case of hand-fetichism, scarcely reaching morbid intensity, is recorded by Binet, Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale, pp. 13-19; and see Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 214 et seq.
Mémoires, vol. i, Chapter VII.
Among leading English novelists Hardy shows an unusual but by no means predominant interest in the feet and shoes of his heroines; see, e.g., the observations of the cobbler in Under the Greenwood Tree, Chapter III. A chapter in Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften (Part I, Chapter II) contains an episode involving the charm of the foot and the kissing of the beloved's shoe.
Schinz, "Philosophie des Conventions Sociales," Revue Philosophique, June, 1903, p. 626. Mirabeau mentions in his Erotika Biblion that modern Greek women sometimes use their feet to provoke orgasm in their lovers. I may add that simultaneous mutual masturbation by means of the feet is not unknown to-day, and I have been told by an English shoe-fetichist that he at one time was accustomed to practice this with a married lady (Brazilian)—she with slippers on and he without—who derived gratification equal to his own.
Jacoby (loc. cit. pp. 796-7) gives a large number of references to Ovid's works bearing on this point. "In reading him," he remarks, "one is inclined to say that the psychology of the Romans was closely allied to that of the Chinese."
R. Kleinpaul, Sprache ohne Worte, p. 308. See also Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, pp. 306-308. Bloch brings together many interesting references bearing on the ancient sexual and religious symbolism of the shoe, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 324.
Jacoby (loc. cit. p. 797) appears to regard shoe-fetichism as a true atavism: "The sexual adoration of feminine foot-gear," he concludes, "perhaps the most enigmatic and certainly the most singular of degenerative insanities, is thus merely a form of atavism, the return of the degenerate to the very ancient and primitive psychology which we no longer understand and are no longer capable of feeling."
Moll has reported in detail (Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, Teil II, pp. 320-324) a case which both he and Krafft-Ebing regard as illustrative of the connection between boot-fetichism and masochism. It is essentially a case of masochism, though manifesting itself almost exclusively in the desire to perform humiliating acts in connection with the attractive person's boots.
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth edition, p. 174) that "when in cases of shoe-fetichism the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of sexual desire one is justified in presuming that masochistic motives have remained latent.... Latent masochism may always be assumed as the unconscious motive." In this way he hopelessly misinterprets some of his own cases.
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation, pp. 159 and 174). Yet some of the cases he brings forward (e.g., Coxe's as quoted by Hammond) show no sign of masochism, since, according to Krafft-Ebing's own definition (p. 116), the idea of subjugation by the opposite sex is of the essence of masochism.
Her actions suggest that there is often a latent sexual consciousness in regard to the feet in women, atavistic or pseudo-atavistic, and corresponding to the sexual attraction which the feet formerly aroused, almost normally, in men. This is also suggested by the case, referred to by Shufeldt, of an unmarried woman, belonging to a family exhibiting in a high degree both erotic and neurotic traits, who had "a certain uncontrollable fascination for shoes. She delights in new shoes, and changes her shoes all day long at regular intervals of three hours each. She keeps this row of shoes out in plain sight in her apartment." (R. W. Shufeldt, "On a Case of Female Impotency," 1896, p. 10.)
III.
Scatalogic Symbolism—Urolagnia—Coprolagnia—The Ascetic Attitude Towards the Flesh—Normal basis of Scatalogic Symbolism—Scatalogic Conceptions Among Primitive Peoples—Urine as a Primitive Holy Water—Sacredness of Animal Excreta—Scatalogy in Folk-lore—The Obscene as Derived from the Mythological—The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to Manifest Itself in Scatalogic Forms—The basis of Physiological Connection Between the Urinary and Genital Spheres—Urinary Fetichism Sometimes Normal in Animals—The Urolagnia of Masochists—The Scatalogy of Saints—Urolagnia More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a Symbolism of Object—Only Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism—Comparative Rarity of Coprolagnia—Influence of Nates Fetichism as a Transition to Coprolagnia—Ideal Coprolagnia—Olfactory Coprolagnia—Urolagnia and Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus.
We meet with another group of erotic symbolisms—alike symbolisms of object and of act—in connection with the two functions adjoining the anatomical sexual focus: the urinary and alvine excretory functions. These are sometimes termed the scatalogical group, with the two subdivisions of urolagnia and Coprolagnia.[[24]] Inter fæces et urinam nascimur is an ancient text which has served the ascetic preachers of old for many discourses on the littleness of man and the meanness of that reproductive power which plays so large a part in man's life. "The stupid bungle of Nature," a correspondent writes, "whereby the generative organs serve as a means of relieving the bladder, is doubtless responsible for much of the disgust which those organs excite in some minds."
At the same time, it is necessary to point out, such reflex influence may act not in one direction only, but also in the reverse direction. From the standpoint of ascetic contemplation eager to belittle humanity, the excretory centers may cast dishonor upon the genital center which they adjoin. From the more ecstatic standpoint of the impassioned lover, eager to magnify the charm of the woman he worships, it is not impossible for the excretory centers to take on some charm from the irradiating center of sex which they enclose.
Even normally such a process is traceable. The normal lover may not idealize the excretory functions of his mistress, but the fact that he finds no repulsion in the most intimate contacts and feels no disgust at the proximity of the excretory orifices or the existence of their functions, indicates that the idealization of love has exerted at all events a neutralizing influence; indeed, the presence of an acute sensibility to the disturbing influence of this proximity of the excretory orifices and their functions must be considered abnormal; Swift's "Strephon and Chloe"—with the conviction underlying it that it is an easy matter for the excretory functions to drown the possibilities of love—could only have proceeded from a morbidly sensitive brain.[[25]]
A more than mere neutralizing influence, a positively idealizing influence of the sexual focus on the excretory processes adjoining it, may take place in the lover's mind without the normal variations of sexual attraction being over-passed, and even without the creation of an excretory fetichism.
Reflections of this attitude may be found in the poets. In the Song of Songs the lover says of his mistress, "Thy navel is like a round goblet, wherein no mingled wine is wanting;" in his lyric "To Dianeme," Herrick says with clear reference to the mons veneris:—
"Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit,
Having a living fountain under it;"
and in the very numerous poems in various languages which have more or less obscurely dealt with the rose as the emblem of the feminine pudenda there are occasional references to the stream which guards or presides over the rose. It may, indeed, be recalled that even in the name nymphæ anatomists commonly apply to the labia minora there is generally believed to be a poetic allusion to the Nymphs who presided over streams, since the labia minora exert an influence on the direction of the urinary stream.
In Wilhelm Meister (Part I, Chapter XV), Goethe, on the basis of his own personal experiences, describes his hero's emotions in the humble surroundings of Marianne's little room as compared with the stateliness and order of his own home. "It seemed to him when he had here to remove her stays in order to reach the harpsichord, there to lay her skirt on the bed before he could seat himself, when she herself with unembarrassed frankness would make no attempt to conceal from him many natural acts which people are accustomed to hide from others out of decency—it seemed to him, I say, that he became bound to her by invisible bands." We are told of Wordsworth (Findlay's Recollections of De Quincey, p. 36) that he read Wilhelm Meister till "he came to the scene where the hero, in his mistress's bedroom, becomes sentimental over her dirty towels, etc., which struck him with such disgust that he flung the book out of his hand, would never look at it again, and declared that surely no English lady would ever read such a work." I have, however, heard a woman of high intellectual distinction refer to the peculiar truth and beauty of this very passage.
In one of his latest novels, Les Rencontres de M. de Bréot, Henri de Régnier, one of the most notable of recent French novelists, narrates an episode bearing on the matter before us. A personage of the story is sitting for a moment in a dark grotto during a night fête in a nobleman's park, when two ladies enter and laughingly proceed to raise their garments and accomplish a natural necessity. The man in the background, suddenly overcome by a sexual impulse, starts forward; one lady runs away, the other, whom he detains, offers little resistance to his advances. To M. de Bréot, whom he shortly after encounters, he exclaims, abashed at his own actions: "Why did I not flee? But could I imagine that the spectacle of so disgusting a function would have any other effect than to give me a humble opinion of human nature?" M. de Bréot, however, in proceeding to reproach his interlocutor for his inconsiderate temerity, observes: "What you tell me, sir, does not entirely surprise me. Nature has placed very various instincts within us, and the impulse that led you to what you have just now done is not so peculiar as you think. One may be a very estimable man and yet love women even in what is lowliest in their bodies." In harmony with this passage from Régnier's novel are the remarks of a correspondent who writes to me of the function of urination that it "appeals sexually to most normal individuals. My own observations and inquiries prove this. Women themselves instinctively feel it. The secrecy surrounding the matter lends, too, I think, a sexual interest."
The fact that scatalogic processes may in some degree exert an attraction even in normal love has been especially emphasized by Bloch (Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 222, et seq.): "The man whose intellect and æsthetic sense has been 'clouded by the sexual impulse' sees these things in an entirely different light from him who has not been overcome by the intoxication of love. For him they are idealized (sit venia verbo) since they are a part of the beloved person, and in consequence associated with love." Bloch quotes the Memoiren einer Sängerin (a book which is said to be, though this seems doubtful, genuinely autobiographical) in the same sense: "A man who falls in love with a girl is not dragged out of his poetic sphere by the thought that his beloved must relieve certain natural necessities every day. It seems, indeed, to him to be just the opposite. If one loves a person one finds nothing obscene or disgusting in the object that pleases me." The opposite attitude is probably in extreme cases due to the influence of a neurotic or morbidly sensitive temperament. Swift possessed such a temperament. The possession of a similar temperament is doubtless responsible for the little prose poem, "L'Extase," in which Huysmans in his first book, Le Drageloir á Epices, has written an attenuated version of "Strephon and Chloe" to express the disillusionment of love; the lover lies in a wood clasping the hand of the beloved with rapturous emotion; "suddenly she rose, disengaged her hand, disappeared in the bushes, and I heard as it were the rustling of rain on the leaves." His dream has fled.
In estimating the significance of the lover's attitude in this matter, it is important to realize the position which scatologic conceptions took in primitive belief. At certain stages of early culture, when all the emanations of the body are liable to possess mysterious magic properties and become apt for sacred uses, the excretions, and especially the urine, are found to form part of religious ritual and ceremonial function. Even among savages the excreta are frequently regarded as disgusting, but under the influence of these conceptions such disgust is inhibited, and those emanations of the body which are usually least honored become religious symbols.
Urine has been regarded as the original holy water, and many customs which still survive in Italy and various parts of Europe, involving the use of a fluid which must often be yellow and sometimes salt, possibly indicate the earlier use of urine. (The Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus, was mixed with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J. J. Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs, p. 173.) Among the Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine man urinated alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a successful young warrior was sprinkled in the same way. Mungo Park mentions that in Africa on one occasion a bride sent a bowl of her urine which was thrown over him as a special mark of honor to a distinguished guest. Pennant remarked that the Highlanders sprinkled their cattle with urine, as a kind of holy water, on the first Monday in every quarter. (Bourke, Scatalogic Rites, pp. 228, 239; Brand, Popular Antiquities, "Bride-Ales.")
Even the excreta of animals have sometimes been counted sacred. This is notably so in the case of the cow, of all animals the most venerated by primitive peoples, and especially in India. Jules Bois (Visions de l'Inde, p. 86) describes the spectacle presented in the temple of the cows at Benares: "I put my head into the opening of the holy stables. It was the largest of temples, a splendor of precious stones and marble, where the venerated heifers passed backwards and forwards. A whole people adored them. They take no notice, plunged in their divine and obscure unconsciousness. And they fulfil with serenity their animal functions; they chew the offerings, drink water from copper vessels, and when they are filled they relieve themselves. Then a stercoraceous and religious insanity overcomes these starry-faced women and venerable men; they fall on their knees, prostrate themselves, eat the droppings, greedily drink the liquid, which for them is miraculous and sacred." (Cf. Bourke, Scatalogic Rites, Chapter XVII.)
Among the Chevsurs of the Caucasus, perhaps an Iranian people, a woman after her confinement, for which she lives apart, purifies herself by washing in the urine of a cow and then returns home. This mode of purification is recommended in the Avesta, and is said to be used by the few remaining followers of this creed.
We have not only to take into account the frequency with which among primitive peoples the excretions possess a religious significance. It is further to be noted that in the folk-lore of modern Europe we everywhere find plentiful evidence of the earlier prevalence of legends and practices of a scatalogical character. It is significant that in the majority of cases it is easy to see a sexual reference in these stories and customs. The legends have lost their earlier and often mythical significance, and frequently take on a suggestion of obscenity, while the scatalogical practices have become the magical devices of lovelorn maidens or forsaken wives practiced in secrecy. It has happened to scatalogical rites to be regarded as we may gather from the Clouds of Aristophanes, that the sacred leathern phallus borne by the women in the Bacchanalia was becoming in his time, an object to arouse the amusement of little boys.
Among many primitive peoples throughout the world, and among the lower social classes of civilized peoples, urine possesses magic properties, more especially, it would seem, the urine of women and that of people who stand, or wish to stand, in sexual relationship to each other. In a legend of the Indians of the northwest coast of America, recorded by Boas, a woman gives her lover some of her urine and says: "You can wake the dead if you drop some of my urine in their ears and nose." (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1894, Heft IV, p. 293.) Among the same Indians there is a legend of a woman with a beautiful white skin who found on bathing every morning in the river that the fish were attracted to her skin and could not be driven off even by magical solutions. At last she said to herself: "I will make water on them and then they will leave me alone." She did so, and henceforth the fish left her. But shortly after fire came from Heaven and killed her. (Ib., 1891, Heft V, p. 640.) Among both Christians and Mohammedans a wife can attach an unfaithful husband by privately putting some of her urine in his drink. (B. Stern, Medizin in der Türkei, vol. ii, p. 11.) This practice is world-wide; thus among the aborigines of Brazil, according to Martius, the urine and other excretions and secretions are potent for aphrodisiacal objects. (Bourke's Scatalogic Rites of All Nations contains many references to the folk-lore practices in this matter; a study of popular beliefs in the magic power of urine, published in Bombay by Professor Eugen Wilhelm in 1889, I have not seen.)
The legends which narrate scatalogic exploits are numerous in the literature of all countries. Among primitive peoples they often have a purely theological character, for in the popular mythologies of all countries (even, as we learn from Aristophanes, among the Greeks) natural phenomena such as the rain, are apt to be regarded as divine excretions, but in course of time the legends take on a more erotic or a more obscene character. In the Irish Book of Leinster (written down somewhere about the twelfth century, but containing material of very much older date) we are told how a number of princesses in Emain Macha, the seat of the Ulster Kings, resolved to find out which of them could by urinating on it melt a snow pillar which the men had made, the woman who succeeded to be regarded as the best among them. None of them succeeded, and they sent for Derbforgaill, who was in love with Cuchullain, and she was able to melt the pillar; whereupon the other women, jealous of the superiority she had thus shown, tore out her eyes. (Zimmer, "Keltische Beiträge," Zeitschrift für Deutsche Alterthum, vol. xxxii, Heft II, pp. 216-219.) Rhys considers that Derbforgaill was really a goddess of dawn and dusk, "the drop glistening in the sun's rays," as indicated by her name, which means a drop or tear. (J. Rhys, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom, p. 466.) It is interesting to compare the legend of Derbforgaill with a somewhat more modern Picardy folk-lore conte which is clearly analogous but no longer seems to show any mythologic element, "La Princesse qui pisse par dessus les Meules." This princess had a habit of urinating over hay-cocks; the king, her father, in order to break her of the habit, offered her in marriage to anyone who could make a hay-cock so high that she could not urinate over it. The young men came, but the princess would merely laugh and at once achieve the task. At last there came a young man who argued with himself that she would not be able to perform this feat after she had lost her virginity. He therefore seduced her first and she then failed ignobly, merely wetting her stockings. Accordingly, she became his bride. (Κρυπτάδια, vol. i. p. 333.) Such legends, which have lost any mythologic elements they may originally have possessed and have become merely contes, are not uncommon in the folk-lore of many countries. But in their earlier more religious forms and in their later more obscene forms, they alike bear witness to the large place which scatalogic conceptions play in the primitive mind.
It is a notable fact in evidence of the close and seemingly normal association with the sexual impulse of the scatalogic processes, that an interest in them, arising naturally and spontaneously, is one of the most frequent channels by which the sexual impulse first manifests itself in young boys and girls.
Stanley Hall, who has made special inquiries into the matter, remarks that in childhood the products of excretion by bladder and bowels are often objects of interest hardly less intense for a time than eating and drinking. ("Early Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 361.) "Micturitional obscenities," the same writer observes again, "which our returns show to be so common before adolescence, culminate at 10 or 12, and seem to retreat into the background as sex phenomena appear." They are, he remarks, of two classes: "Fouling persons or things, secretly from adults, but openly with each other," and less often "ceremonial acts connected with the act or the product that almost suggest the scatalogical rites of savages, unfit for description here, but of great interest and importance." (G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 116.) The nature of such scatalogical phenomena in childhood—which are often clearly the instinctive manifestations of an erotic symbolism—and their wide prevalence among both boys and girls, are very well illustrated in a narrative which I include in Appendix B, History II.
In boys as they approach the age of puberty, this attraction to the scatalogic, when it exists, tends to die out, giving place to more normal sexual conceptions, or at all events it takes a subordinate and less serious place in the mind. In girls, on the other hand, it often tends to persist. Edmond de Goncourt, a minute observer of the feminine mind, refers in Chérie to "those innocent and triumphant gaieties which scatalogic stories have the privilege of arousing in women who have remained still children, even the most distinguished women." The extent to which innocent young women, who would frequently be uninterested or repelled in presence of the sexually obscene are sometimes attracted by the scatalogically obscene, becomes intelligible, however, if we realize that a symbolism comes here into play. In women the more specifically sexual knowledge and experience of life frequently develop much later than in men or even remains in abeyance, and the specifically sexual phenomena cannot therefore easily lend themselves to wit, or humor, or imagination. But the scatalogic sphere, by the very fact that in women it is a specially intimate and secret region which is yet always liable to be unexpectedly protruded into consciousness, furnishes an inexhaustible field for situations which have the same character as those furnished by the sexually obscene. It thus happens that the sexually obscene which in men tends to overshadow the scatalogically obscene, in women—partly from inexperience and partly, it is probable, from their almost physiological modesty—plays a part subordinate to the scatalogical. In a somewhat analogous way scatalogical wit and humor play a considerable part in the work of various eminent authors who were clergymen or priests.
In addition to the anatomical and psychological associations which contribute to furnish a basis on which erotic symbolisms may spring up, there are also physiological connections between the genital and urinary spheres which directly favor such symbolisms. In discussing the analysis of the sexual impulse in a previous volume of these Studies, I have pointed out the remarkable relationship—sometimes of transference, sometimes of compensation—which exists between genital tension and vesical tension, both in men and women. In the histories of normal sexual development brought together at the end of that and subsequent volumes the relationship may frequently be traced, as also in the case of C. P. in the present study (p. 37). Vesical power is also commonly believed to be in relation with sexual potency, and the inability to project the urinary stream in a normal manner is one of the accepted signs of sexual impotency.[[26]] Féré, again, has recorded the history of a man with periodic crises of sexual desire, and subsequently sexual obsession without desire, which were always accompanied by the impulse to urinate and by increased urination.[[27]] In the case, recorded by Pitres and Régis, of a young girl who, having once at the sight of a young man she liked in a theater been overcome by sexual feeling accompanied by a strong desire to urinate, was afterward tormented by a groundless fear of experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate at inconvenient times,[[28]] we have an example of what may be called a physiological scatalogic symbolism of sex, an emotion which was primarily erotic becoming transferred to the bladder and then remaining persistent. From such a physiological symbolism it is but a step to the psychological symbolisms of scatalogic fetichism.
It is worthy of note, as an indication that such phenomena are scarcely abnormal, that a urinary symbolism, and even a strictly sexual fetichism, are normal among many animals.
The most familiar example of this kind is furnished by the dog, who is sexually excited in this manner by traces of the bitch and himself takes every opportunity of making his own path recognizable. "This custom," Espinas remarks (Des Sociétés Animales, p. 228), "has no other aim than to spread along the road recognizable traces of their presence for the benefit of individuals of the other sex, the odor of these traces doubtless causing excitement."
It is noteworthy, also, that in animals as well as in man, sexual excitement may manifest itself in the bladder. Thus Daumas states (Chevaux de Sahara, p. 49) that if the mare urinates when she hears the stallion neigh it is a sign that she is ready for connection.
It is in masochism, or passive algolagnia, that we may most frequently find scatalogic symbolism in its fully developed form. The man whose predominant impulse is to subjugate himself to his mistress and to receive at her hands the utmost humiliation, frequently finds the climax of his gratification in being urinated on by her, whether in actual fact or only in imagination.
In many such cases, however, it is evident that we have a mixed phenomenon; the symbolism is double. The act becomes desirable because it is the outward and visible sign of an inwardly experienced abject slavery to an adored person. But it is also desirable because of intimately sexual associations in the act itself, as a symbolical detumescence, a simulacrum of the sexual act, and one which proceeds from the sexual focus itself.
Krafft-Ebing records various cases of masochism in which the emission of urine on to the body or into the mouth formed the climax of sexual gratification, as, for instance (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation, p. 183) in the case of a Russian official who as a boy had fancies of being bound between the thighs of a woman, compelled to sleep beneath her nates and to drink her urine, and in later life experienced the greatest excitement when practicing the last part of this early imagination.
In another case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing and by him termed "ideal masochism" (Op. cit., pp. 127-130), the subject from childhood indulged in voluptuous day-dreams in which he was the slave of a beautiful mistress who would compel him to obey all her caprices, stand over him with one foot on his breast, sit on his face and body, make him wait on her in her bath, or when she urinated, and sometimes insist on doing this on his face; though a highly intellectual man, he was always too timid to attempt to carry any of his ideas into execution; he had been troubled by nocturnal enuresis up to the age of 20.
Neri, again (Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali, vol. i, fasc. 7 and 8, 1896), records the case of an Italian masochist who experienced the greatest pleasure when both urination and defecation were practiced in this manner by the woman he was attached to.
In a previous volume of these Studies ("Sexual Inversion," History XXVI) I have recorded the masochistic day-dreams of a boy whose impulses were at the same time inverted; in his reveries "the central fact," he states, "became the discharge of urine from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were very fond of him, I let it be in my face." In actual life the act of urination casually witnessed in childhood became the symbol, even the reality, of the central secret of sex: "I stood rooted and flushing with downcast eyes till the act was over, and was conscious for a considerable time of stammering speech and bewildered faculties.... I was overwhelmed with emotion and could barely drag my feet from the spot or my eyes from the damp herbage where he had deposited the waters of secrecy. Even to-day I cannot dissociate myself from the shuddering charm that moment had for me."
It is not only the urine and the fæces which may thus acquire a symbolic fascination and attractiveness under the influence of masochistic deviations of sexual idealization. In some cases extreme rapture has been experienced in licking sweating feet. There is, indeed, no excretion or product of the body which has not been a source of ecstasy: the sweat from every part of the body, the saliva and menstrual fluid, even the wax from the ears.
Krafft-Ebing very truly points out (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation, p. 178) that this sexual scatalogic symbolism is precisely paralleled by a religious scatalogic symbolism. In the excesses of devout enthusiasm the ascetic performs exactly the same acts as are performed in these excesses of erotic enthusiasm. To mix excreta with the food, to lick up excrement, to suck festering sores—all these and the like are acts which holy and venerated women have performed.
Not only the saint, but also the prophet and medicine-man have been frequently eaters of human excrement; it is only necessary to refer to the instance of the prophet Ezekiel, who declared that he was commanded to bake his bread with human dung, and to the practices of medicine-men at Torres Straits, in whose training the eating of human excrement takes a recognized part. (Deities, notably Baal-Phegor, were sometimes supposed to eat excrement, so that it was natural that their messengers and representatives among men should do so. As regards Baal-Phegor, see Dulaure, Des Divinités Génératrices, Chapter IV, and J. G. Bourke, Scatalogic Rites of All Nations, p. 241. See also Ezekiel, Chapter IV, v. 12, and Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 321.)
It must be added, however, that while the masochist is overcome by sexual rapture, so that he sees nothing disgusting in his act, the medicine-man and the ascetic are not so invariably overcome by religious rapture, and several ascetic writers have referred to the horror and disgust they experienced, at all events at first, in accomplishing such acts, while the medicine-men when novices sometimes find the ordeal too severe and have to abandon their career. Brénier de Montmorand, while remarking, not without some exaggeration, that "the Christian ascetics are almost all eaters of excrement" ("Ascétisme et Mysticisme," Revue Philosophique, March, 1904, p. 245), quotes the testimonies of Marguerite-Marie and Madame Guyon as to the extreme repugnance which they had to overcome. They were impelled by a merely intellectual symbolism of self-mortification rather than by the profoundly felt emotional symbolism which moves the masochist.
Coprophagic acts, whether under the influences of religious exaltation or of sexual rapture, inevitably excite our disgust. We regard them as almost insane, fortified in that belief by the undoubted fact that coprophagia is not uncommon among the insane. It may, therefore, be proper to point out that it is not so very long since the ingestion of human excrement was carried out by our own forefathers in the most sane and deliberate manner. It was administered by medical practitioners for a great number of ailments, apparently with entirely satisfactory results. Less than two centuries ago, Schurig, who so admirably gathered together and arranged the medical lore of his own and the immediately preceding ages, wrote a very long and detailed chapter, "De Stercoris Humani Usu Medico" (Chylologia, 1725, cap. XIII; in the Paris Journal de Médecine for February 19, 1905, there appeared an article, which I have not seen, entitled "Médicaments oubliées: l'urine et la fiente humaine.") The classes of cases in which the drug was found beneficial would seem to have been extremely various. It must not be supposed that it was usually ingested in the crude form. A common method was to take the fæces of boys, dry them, mix them with the best honey, and administer an electuary. (At an earlier period such drugs appear to have met with some opposition from the Church, which seems to have seen in them only an application of magic; thus I note that in Burchard's remarkable Penitential of the fourteenth century, as reproduced by Wasserschleben, 40 days' penance is prescribed for the use of human urine or excrement as a medicine. Wasserschleben Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche, p. 651.)
The urolagnia of masochism is not a simple phenomenon; it embodies a double symbolism: on the one hand a symbolism of self-abnegation, such as the ascetic feels, on the other hand a symbolism of transferred sexual emotion. Krafft-Ebing was disposed to regard all cases in which a scatalogical sexual attraction existed as due to "latent masochism." Such a point of view is quite untenable. Certainly the connection is common, but in the majority of cases of slightly marked scatalogical fetichism no masochism is evident. And when we bear in mind the various considerations, already brought forward, which show how widespread and clearly realized is the natural and normal basis furnished for such symbolism, it becomes quite unnecessary to invoke any aid from masochism. There is ample evidence to show that, either as a habitual or more usually an occasional act, the impulse to bestow a symbolic value on the act of urination in a beloved person, is not extremely uncommon; it has been noted of men of high intellectual distinction; it occurs in women as well as men; when existing in only a slight degree, it must be regarded as within the normal limits of variation of sexual emotion.
The occasional cases in which the urine is drunk may possibly suggest that the motive lies in the properties of the fluid acting on the system. Support for this supposition might be found in the fact that urine actually does possess, apart altogether from its magic virtues embodied in folk-lore, the properties of a general stimulant. In composition (as Masterman first pointed out) "beef-tea differs little from healthy urine," containing exactly the same constituents, except that in beef-tea there is less urea and uric acid. Fresh urine—more especially that of children and young women—is taken as a medicine in nearly all parts of the world for various disorders, such as epistaxis, malaria and hysteria, with benefit, this benefit being almost certainly due to its qualities as a general stimulant and restorative. William Salmon's Dispensatory, 1678 (quoted in British Medical Journal, April 21, 1900, p. 974), shows that in the seventeenth century urine still occupied an important place as a medicine, and it frequently entered largely into the composition of Aqua Divina.
Its use has been known even in England in the nineteenth century. (Masterman, Lancet, October 2, 1880; R. Neale, "Urine as a Medicine," Practitioner, November, 1881; Bourke brings together a great deal of evidence as to the therapeutic uses of urine in his Scatalogic Rites, especially pp. 331-335; Lusini has shown that normal urine invariably increases the frequency of the heart beats, Archivio di Farmacologia, fascs. 19-21, 1893.)
But it is an error to suppose that these facts account for the urolagnic drinking of urine. As in the gratification of a normal sexual impulse, the intense excitement of gratifying a scatalogic sexual impulse itself produces a degree of emotional stimulation far greater than the ingestion of a small amount of animal extractives would be adequate to effect. In such cases, as much as in normal sexuality, the stimulation is clearly psychic.
When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not the urine itself which is attractive, we are clearly concerned with a symbolism of act and not with the fetichistic attraction of an excretion. When the excretion, apart from the act, provides the attraction, we seem usually to be in the presence of an olfactory fetichism. These fetichisms connected with the excreta appear to be experienced chiefly by individuals who are somewhat weak-minded, which is not necessarily the case in regard to those persons for whom the act, rather than its product apart from the beloved person, is the attractive symbol.
The sexually symbolic nature of the act of urination for many people is indicated by the existence, according to Bloch, who enumerates various kinds of indecent photographs, of a group which he terms "the notorious pisseuses." It is further indicated by several of the reproductions in Fuch's Erotsiche Element in der Karikatur, such as Delorme's "La Necessitê n'a point de Loi." (It should be added that such a scene by no means necessarily possesses any erotic symbolism, as we may see in Rembrandt's etching commonly called "Le Femme qui Pisse," in which the reflected lights on the partly shadowed stream furnish an artistic motive which is obviously free from any trace of obscenity.) In the case which Krafft-Ebing quotes from Maschka of a young man who would induce young girls to dance naked in his room, to leap, and to urinate in his presence, whereupon seminal ejaculation would take place, we have a typical example of urolagnic symbolism in a form adequate to produce complete gratification. A case in which the urolagnic form of scatalogic symbolism reached its fullest development as a sexual perversion has been described in Russia by Sukhanoff (summarized in Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, November, 1900, and Annales Medico-psychologiques, February, 1901), that of a young man of 27, of neuropathic temperament, who when he once chanced to witness a woman urinating experienced voluptuous sensations. From that moment he sought close contact with women urinating, the maximum of gratification being reached when he could place himself in such a position that a woman, in all innocence, would urinate into his mouth. All his amorous adventures were concerned with the search for opportunities for procuring this difficult gratification. Closets in which he was able to hide, winter weather and dull days he found most favorable to success. (A somewhat similar case is recorded in the Archives de Neurologie, 1902, p. 462.)
In the case of a robust man of neuropathic heredity recorded by Pelanda some light is shed on the psychic attitude in these manifestations; there was masturbation up to the age of 16, when he abandoned the practice, and up to the age of 30 found complete satisfaction in drinking the still hot urine of women. When a lady or girl in the house went to her room to satisfy a need of this kind, she had hardly left it but he hastened in, overcome by extreme excitement, culminating in spontaneous ejaculation. The younger the woman the greater the transport he experienced. It is noteworthy that in this, as possibly in all similar cases, there was no sensory perversion and no morbid attraction of taste or smell; he stated that the action of his senses was suspended by his excitement, and that he was quite unable to perceive the odor or taste of the fluid. (Pelanda, "Pornopatice," Archivio di Psichiatria, facs. iii-iv, 1889, p. 356.) It is in the emotional symbolism that the fascination lies and not in any sensory perversion.
Magnan records the spontaneous development of this sexual symbolism in a girl of 11, of good intellectual development but alcoholic heredity, who seduced a boy younger than herself to mutual masturbation, and on one occasion, lying on the ground and raising her clothes, asked him to urinate on her. (International Congress of Criminal Anthropology, 1889.) This case (except for the early age of the subject) illustrates sporadically occurring urolagnic symbolism in a woman, to whom such symbolism is fairly obvious on account of the close resemblance between the emission of urine and the ejaculation of semen in the man, and the fact that the same conduit serves for both fluids. (A urolagnic day-dream of this kind is recorded in the history of a lady contained in the third volume of these Studies, Appendix B, History VIII.) The natural and inevitable character of this symbolism is shown by the fact that among primitive peoples urine is sometimes supposed to possess the fertilizing virtues of semen. J. G. Frazer in his edition of Pausanias (vol. iv, p. 139) brings together various stories of women impregnated by urine. Hartland also (Legend of Perseus, vol. i, pp. 76, 92) records legends of women who were impregnated by accidentally or intentionally drinking urine.
The symbolic sexual significance of urolagnia has hitherto usually been confused with the fetichistic and mainly olfactory perversion by which the excretion itself becomes a source of sexual excitement. Long since Tardieu referred, under the name of "renifleurs," to persons who were said to haunt the neighborhood of quiet passages, more especially in the neighborhood of theatres, and who when they perceived a woman emerge after urination, would hasten to excite themselves by the odor of the excretion. Possibly a fetichism of this kind existed in a case recorded by Belletrud and Mercier (Annales d'Hygiène Publique, June, 1904, p. 48). A weak-minded, timid youth, who was very sexual but not attractive to women, would watch for women who were about to urinate and immediately they had passed on would go and lick the spot they had moistened, at the same time masturbating. Such a fetichistic perversion is strictly analogous to the fetichism by which women's handkerchiefs, aprons or underlinen become capable of affording sexual gratification. A very complete case of such urolagnic fetichism—complete because separated from association with the person accomplishing the act of urination—has been recorded by Moraglia in a woman. It is the case of a beautiful and attractive young woman of 18, with thick black hair, and expressive vivacious eyes, but sallow complexion. Married a year previously, but childless, she experienced a certain amount of pleasure in coitus, but she preferred masturbation, and frankly acknowledged that she was highly excited by the odor of fermented urine. So strong was this fetichism that when, for instance, she passed a street urinal she was often obliged to go aside and masturbate; once she went for this purpose into the urinal itself and was almost discovered in the act, and on another occasion into a church. Her perversion caused her much worry because of the fear of detection. She preferred, when she could, to obtain a bottle of urine—which must be stale and a man's (this, she said, she could detect by the smell)—and to shut herself up in her own room, holding the bottle in one hand and repeatedly masturbating with the other. (Moraglia, "Psicopatie Sessuali," Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xiii, fasc. 6, p. 267, 1892.) This case is of especial interest because of the great rarity of fully developed fetichism in women. In a slight and germinal degree I believe that cases of fetichism are not uncommon in women, but they are certainly rare in a well-marked form, and Krafft-Ebing declared, even in the late editions of his Psychopathia Sexualis, that he knew of no cases in women.
So far we have been concerned with the urolagnic rather than the coprolagnic variety of scatalogical symbolism. Although the two are sometimes associated there is no necessary connection, and most usually there is no tendency for the one to involve the other. Urolagnia is certainly much the more frequently found; the act of urination is far more apt to suggest erotically symbolical ideas than the idea of defecation. It is not difficult to understand why this should be so. The act of urination lends itself more easily to sexual symbolism; it is more intimately associated with the genital function; its repetition is necessary at more frequent intervals so that it is more in evidence; moreover, its product, unlike that of the act of defecation, is not offensive to the senses. Still coprolagnia occurs and not so very infrequently. Burton remarked that even the normal lover is affected by this feeling: "immo nec ipsum amicæ stercus foctet."[[29]]
Of Caligula who, however, was scarcely sane, it was said "et quidem stercus uxoris degustavit."[[30]] In Parisian brothels (according to Taxil and others) provision is made for those who are sexually excited by the spectacle of the act of defecation (without reference to contact or odor) by means of a "tabouret de verre," from under the glass floor of which the spectacle of the defecating women may be closely observed. It may be added that the erotic nature of such a spectacle is referred to in the Marquis de Sade's novels.
There is one motive for the existence of coprolagnia which must not be passed over, because it has doubtless frequently served as a mode of transition to what, taken by itself, may well seem the least æsthetically attractive of erotic symbols. I refer to the tendency of the nates to become a sexual fetich. The nates have in all ages and in all parts of the world been frequently regarded as one of the most æsthetically beautiful parts of the feminine body.[[31]] It is probable that on the basis of this entirely normal attraction more than one form of erotic symbolism is at all events in part supported. Dühren and others have considered that the æsthetic charm of the nates is one of the motives which prompt the desire to inflict flagellation on women. In the same way—certainly in some and probably in many cases—the sexual charm of the nates progressively extends to the anal region, to the act of defecation, and finally to the feces.
In a case of Krafft-Ebing's (Op. cit., p. 183) the subject, when a child of 6, accidentally placed his hand in contact with the nates of the little girl who sat next to him in school, and experienced so great a pleasure in this contact that he frequently repeated it; when he was 10 a nursery governess, to gratify her own desires, placed his finger in her vagina; in adult life he developed urolagnic tendencies.
In a case of Moll's the development of a youthful admiration for the nates in a coprolagnic direction may be clearly traced. In this case a young man, a merchant, in a good position, sought to come in contact with women defecating; and with this object would seek to conceal himself in closets; the excretal odor was pleasurable to him, but was not essential to gratification, and the sight of the nates was also exciting and at the same time not essential to gratification; the act of defecation appears, however, to have been regarded as essential. He never sought to witness prostitutes in this situation; he was only attracted to young, pretty and innocent women. The coprolagnia here, however, had its source in a childish impression of admiration for the nates. When 5 or 6 years old he crawled under the clothes of a servant girl, his face coming in contact with her nates, an impression that remained associated in his mind with pleasure. Three or four years later he used to experience much pleasure when a young girl cousin sat on his face; thus was strengthened an association which developed naturally into coprolagnia. (Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 837.)
It is scarcely necessary to remark that an admiration for the nates, even when reaching a fetichistic degree, by no means necessarily involves, even after many years, any attraction to the excreta. A correspondent for whom the nates have constituted a fetich for many years writes: "I find my craving for women with profuse pelvic or posterior development is growing and I wish to copulate from behind; but I would feel a sickening feeling if any part of my person came in contact with the female anus. It is more pleasing to me to see the nates than the mons, yet I loathe everything associated with the anal region."
Moll has recorded in detail a case of what may be described as "ideal coprolagnia"—that is to say, where the symbolism, though fully developed in imagination, was not carried into real life—which is of great interest because it shows how, in a very intelligent subject, the deviated symbolism may become highly developed and irradiate all the views of life in the same way as the normal impulse. (The subject's desires were also inverted, but from the present point of view the psychological interest of the case is not thereby impaired.) Moll's case was one of symbolism of act, the excreta offering no attraction apart from the process of defecation. In a case which has been communicated to me there was, on the other hand, an olfactory fetichistic attraction to the excreta even in the absence of the person.
In Moll's case, the patient, X., 23 years of age, belongs to a family which he himself describes as nervous. His mother, who is anæmic, has long suffered from almost periodical attacks of excitement, weakness, syncope and palpitation. A brother of the mother died in a lunatic asylum, and several other brothers complain much of their nerves. The mother's sisters are very good-natured, but liable to break out in furious passions; this they inherit from their father. There appears to be no nervous disease on the patient's father's side. X.'s sisters are also healthy.
X. himself is of powerful undersized build and enjoys good health, injured by no excesses. He considers himself nervous. He worked hard at school and was always the first in his class; he adds, however, that this is due less to his own abilities than the laziness of his school-fellows. He is, as he remarks, very religious and prays frequently, but seldom goes to church.
In regard to his psychic characters he says that he has no specially prominent talent, but is much interested in languages, mathematics, physics and philosophy, in fact, in abstract subjects generally. "While I take a lively interest in every kind of intellectual work," he says, "it is only recently that I have been attracted to real life and its requirements. I have never had much skill in physical exercises. For external things until recently I have only had contempt. I have a delicately constituted nature, loving solitude, and only associating with a few select persons. I have a decided taste for fiction, poetry and music; my temperament is idealistic and religious, with strict conceptions of duty and morality, and aspirations towards the good and beautiful. I detest all that is common and coarse, and yet I can think and act in the way you will learn from the following pages."
Regarding his sexual life, X. made the following communication: "During the last two years I have become convinced of the perversion of my sexual instinct. I had often previously thought that in me the impulse was not quite normal, but it is only lately that I have become convinced of my complete perversion. I have never read or heard of any case in which the sexual feelings were of the same kind. Although I can feel a lively inclination towards superior representatives of the female sex, and have twice felt something like love, the sight or the recollection even of a beautiful woman have never caused sexual excitement." In the two exceptional instances mentioned it appears that X. had an inclination to kiss the women in question, but that the thought of coitus had no attraction. "In my voluptuous dreams, connected with the emission of semen, women in seductive situations have never appeared. I have never had any desire to visit a puella publica. The love-stories of my fellow-students seemed very silly, dances and balls were a horror to me, and only on very rare occasions could I be persuaded to go into society. It will be easy to guess the diagnosis in my case: I suffer from the sexual attraction of my own sex, I am a lover of boys.
"You cannot imagine what a world of thoughts, wishes, feelings and impulses the words 'knabe,' 'παις,' 'garcon,' 'boy,' 'ragazzo' have for me; one of these words, even in an unmeaning clause of a translation-book, calls before me the whole sum of associations which in course of time have become bound up with this idea, and it is only with an effort that I can scare away the wild band. This group of thoughts shows a wonderful mixture of warm sensuality and ideal love, it unites my lowest and highest impulses, the strength and the weakness of my nature, my curse and my blessing. My inclination is especially towards boys of the age of 12 to 15; though they may be rather younger or older. That I should prefer beautiful and intelligent boys is comprehensible. I do not want a prostitute, but a friend or a son, whose soul I love, whom I can help to become a more perfect man, such as I myself would willingly be.
"When I myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had no dearer wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes. I have sought, hoped, waited, grieved, and been at last disillusioned, overcome by desire and despair, and have not found that friend. Even later the hope often reappeared, but always in vain, and I cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the autobiographies of Urnings. I do not know personally a single fellow-sufferer. It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of homosexuality. As you will see, I have little more in common with what are called pæderasts than sexual indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself: 'Does any other man in the whole world feel like you? Are you alone in the earth with your morbid desires? Are you a pariah of pariahs, or is there, perhaps, another soul with similar longings living near you? How often in summer have I gone to the lakes and streams outside cities to seek boys bathing; but I always came back unsatisfied, whether I found any or not. And in winter I have been irresistibly impelled to return to the same spots, as if it were sanctified by the boys, but my darlings had vanished and cold winds blew over the icy floods, so that I would return feeling as though I had buried all my happiness.
"It must be borne in mind, therefore, that what I have to say regarding my sexual impulses only refers to fancies and never to their practical realization. My sensual impulses are not connected with the sexual organs; all my voluptuous ideas are not in the least connected with these parts. For this reason I have never practiced onanism and immissio membri in anum is as repulsive to me as to a normal man. Even every imitation of coitus is, for me, without attraction. In a boy's body two things specially excite me: his belly and his nates, the first as containing the digestive tract, the second as holding the opening of the bowels. Of the vegetable processes of life in the boy none interest me nearly so much as the progress of his digestion and the process of defecation. It is incredible to what an extent this part of physiology has occupied me from youth. If as a boy I wanted to read something of a piquantly exciting character I sought in my father's encyclopædia for articles like: Obstruction, Constipation, Hæmorrhoids, Fæces, etc. No function of the body seemed to be so significant as this, and I regarded its disturbances as the most important in the whole mechanism of life. The description of other disorders I could read in cold blood, but intussusception of the bowels makes me ill even to-day. I am always extremely pleased to hear that the digestion of the people around me is in good condition. A man who did not sufficiently watch over his digestion aroused distrust in me, and I imagined that wicked men must be horribly indifferent regarding this weighty matter. Even more than in ordinary persons was I interested in the digestion of more mysterious beings, like magicians in legends, or men of other nations. I would willingly have made an anthropological study of my favorite subject, only to my annoyance books nearly always pass over the matter in silence. In history and fiction I regretted the absence of information concerning the state of my heroes' digestion when they languished in prison or in some unaccustomed or unhealthy spot. For this reason I held no book more precious than one which describes how a young man after being shipwrecked lived for a long time in a narrow snow-hut, and it was conscientiously stated that he became aware of digestive disturbances. No immorality angers me more than the foolish practice of ladies who in society neglect the satisfaction of their natural needs from misplaced motives of modesty. On a railway journey I suffer horribly from the thought that one of my fellow-travelers may be prevented from fulfilling some imperative natural necessity.
"I naturally devote the greatest attention to my own digestion. With painful conscientiousness I go to stool every day at the same hour; if the operation does not come off to my satisfaction I feel not so much physical as mental discomfort. To this quite useful hygienic interest became associated at puberty a sensual interest. Since my fourteenth year I have had no greater enjoyment than to defecate undressed (I do not do so now) after having first carefully examined the distension of my abdomen. In summer I would go into the woods, undress myself in a secluded spot and indulge in the voluptuous pleasures of defecation. I would sometimes combine with this a bath in a stream. I would exhaust my imagination in the effort to invent specially enjoyable variations, longed for a desert island where I could go about naked, fill my body with much nourishing food, hold in the excrement as long as possible and then discharge it in some subtly-thought-out spot. These practices and ideas often caused erections and later on emissions, but the genitals played no part in my conceptions; their movements were uncomfortable and gave no pleasure.
"I soon longed to be associated in these orgies with some boy of the same age, but I wanted not only a companion in my passion, but also a real friend. Since there could be no question of masturbation or pæderasty, our love would have been limited to kisses, embraces, and—as a compensation for coitus—defecation together. That would have been perfect bliss to me. I will spare you the unæsthetic contents of my voluptuous dreams. But I remained without a companion, and, therefore, without real enjoyment. [He has, however, on various occasions experienced erections, and even emissions, on seeing, by chance, men or boys defecate.] Hinc illæ lacrimæ; the excitement over my own defecation only took place faute de mieux.
"I knew very well that my thoughts and practices were impure and contemptible. Ah! how often, when the intoxication was over, have I thrown myself remorsefully on my knees, praying to God for pardon! For some weeks I repressed my longing; but at last it was too strong for me, I tried to justify myself and fell into my vice anew. That I was guilty of licentiousness and loved boys sexually first became clear to me later on, when I knew the significance of erection as a sign of sexual excitement.
"No one can imagine with what demoniacal joy I am possessed at the thought of a beautiful naked boy whose abdomen is filled as the result of long abstinence from stool. The thought powerfully excites me, a flood of passion goes through my blood and my limbs tremble. I would never grow tired of feeling that belly and looking at it. My passion would express itself in tempestuous caresses, and the boy would have to assume various positions in order to show off the beauty of his form, i.e., to bring the parts in question into better view. To observe defecation would still further increase this peculiar enjoyment. If the boy's bowels were not sufficiently filled I would feed him with all sorts of food which produces much excrement, such as potatoes, coarse bread, etc. If possible I would seek to delay defecation for two or three days, so that it might be as copious as possible. When at last it occurred it would be an unspeakable joy for me to watch the fæces—which would have to be fairly firm—emerging from the anus."
X. would like to be a teacher and thinks he could exert a beneficial influence on boys. In spite of the pain he has suffered he does not think he would like to be cured of his perverse inclinations, for they have given him joy as well as pain, and the pain has chiefly been owing to the fact that he could not gratify his inclinations. X. smokes and drinks in moderation, and has no feminine habits. (The foregoing is a condensed summary of the case which is fully reported by Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, pp. 295-305.)
The case of coprolagnia communicated to me is that of a married man, normal in all other respects, intellectually brilliant and filling successfully a very responsible position. When a child the women of his household were always indifferent as to his presence in their bedrooms, and would satisfy all natural calls without reserve before him. He would dream of this with erections. His sexual interests became slowly centered in the act of defecation, and this fetich throughout life never appealed to him so powerfully as when associated with the particular type of household furniture which was used for this purpose in his own house. The act of defecation in the opposite sex or anything pertaining to or suggesting the same caused uncontrollable sexual excitement; the nates also exerted a great attraction. The alvine excreta exerted this influence even in the absence of the woman; it was, however, necessary that she should be a sexually desirable person. The perversion in this case was not complete; that is to say, that the excitement produced by the act of defecation or the excretion itself was not actually preferred to coitus; the sexual idea was normal coitus in the normal manner, but preceded by the visual and olfactory enjoyment of the exciting fetich. When coitus was not possible the enjoyment of the fetich was accompanied by masturbation (as in the analogous case of urolagnia in a woman summarized on p. 62.) On one occasion he was discovered by a friend in a bedroom belonging to a woman, engaged in the act of masturbation over a vessel containing the desired fetich. In an agony of shame he begged the mercy of silence concerning this episode, at the same time revealing his life-history. He has constantly been haunted by the dread of detection, as well as by remorse and the consciousness of degradation, also by the fear that his unconquerable obsession may lead him to the asylum.
The scatalogic groups of sexual perversions, urolagnia and coprolagnia, as may be sufficiently seen in this brief summary, are not merely olfactory fetiches. They are, in a larger proportion of cases, dynamic symbols, a preoccupation with physiological acts which, by associations of contiguity and still more of resemblance, have gained the virtue of stimulating in slight cases, and replacing in more extreme cases, the normal preoccupation with the central physiological act itself. We have seen that there are various considerations which amply suffice to furnish a basis for such associations. And when we reflect that in the popular mind, and to some extent in actual fact, the sexual act itself is, like urination and defecation, an excretory act, we can understand that the true excretory acts may easily become symbols of the pseudo-excretory act. It is, indeed, in the muscular release of accumulated pressures and tensions, involved by the act of liberating the stored-up excretion, that we have the closest simulacrum of the tumescence and detumescence of the sexual process.[[32]]
In this way the erotic symbolism of urolagnia and coprolagnia is completely analogous with that dynamic symbolism of the clinging and swinging garments which Herrick has so accurately described, with the complex symbolism of flagellation and its play of the rod against the blushing and trembling nates, with the symbols of sexual strain and stress which are embodied in the foot and the act of treading.
Fuchs (Das Erotische Element In der Karikatur, p. 26), distinguishing sharply between the "erotic" and the "obscene," reserves the latter term exclusively for the representation of excretory organs and acts. He considers that this is etymologically the most exact usage. However that may be, it seems to me that, in any case, "obscene" has become so vague a term that it is now impracticable to give it a restricted and precise sense.
In this connection we may profitably contemplate the hand and recall the vast gamut of functions, sacred and profane, which that organ exercises. Many savages strictly reserve the left hand to the lowlier purposes of life; but in civilization that is not considered necessary, and it may be wholesome for some of us to meditate on the more humble uses of the same hand which is raised in the supreme gesture of benediction and which men have often counted it a privilege to kiss.
See, e.g., Morselli, Una Causa di Nullità del Matrimonio, 1902, p. 39.
Féré, Comptes-Rendus Société de Biologie, July 23, 1904.
Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow, vol. iv, p. 19. A similar symbolism may be traced in many of the cases in which the focus of modesty becomes in modest women centered in the excretory sphere and sometimes exaggerated to the extent of obsession. It must not be supposed, however, that every obsession in this sphere has a symbolical value of an erotic kind. In the case, for instance, which has been recorded by Raymond and Janet (Les Obsessions, vol. ii, p. 306) of a woman who spent much of her time in the endeavor to urinate perfectly, always feeling that she failed in some respect, the obsession seems to have risen fortuitously on a somewhat neurotic basis without reference to the sexual life.
Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I.
It may be remarked here that while the eating of excrement (apart from its former use as a magic charm and as a therapeutic agent) is in civilization now confined to sexual perverts and the insane, among some animals it is normal as a measure of hygiene in relation to their young. Thus, as, e.g., the Rev. Arthur East writes, the mistle thrush swallows the droppings of its young. (Knowledge, June 1, 1899, p. 133.) In the dog I have observed that the bitch licks her puppies shortly after birth as they urinate, absorbing the fluid.
See, e.g., the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man," pp. 165 et seq., and Dühren, Geschlechtsleben in England, bd. ii, pp. 258, et seq.
In the study of Love and Pain in a previous volume (p. 130) I have quoted the remarks of a lady who refers to the analogy between sexual tension and vesical tension—"Cette volupté que ressentent les bords de la mer, d'être toujours pleins sans jamais déborder"—and its erotic significance.
IV.
Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism—Mixoscopic Zoophilia—The Stuff-fetichisms—Hair-fetichism—The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile Base—Erotic Zoophilia—Zooerastia—Bestiality—The Conditions that Favor Bestiality—Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples and Among Peasants—The Primitive Conception of Animals—The Goat—The Influence of Familiarity with Animals—Congress Between Women and Animals—The Social Reaction Against Bestiality.
The erotic symbols with which we have so far been concerned have in every case been portions of the body, or its physiological processes, or at least the garments which it has endowed with life. The association on which the symbol has arisen has in every case been in large measure, although not entirely, an association of contiguity. It is now necessary to touch on a group of sexual symbols in which the association of contiguity with the human body is absent: the various methods by which animals or animal products or the sight of animal copulation may arouse sexual desire in human persons. Here we encounter a symbolism mainly founded on association by resemblance; the animal sexual act recalls the human sexual act; the animal becomes the symbol of the human being.
The group of phenomena we are here concerned with includes several subdivisions. There is first the more or less sexual pleasure sometimes experienced, especially by young persons, in the sight of copulating animals. This I would propose to call Mixoscopic Zoophilia; it falls within the range of normal variation. Then we have the cases in which the contact of animals, stroking, etc., produces sexual excitement or gratification; this is a sexual fetichism in the narrow sense, and is by Krafft-Ebing termed Zoophilia Erotica. We have, further, the class of cases in which a real or simulated sexual intercourse with animals is desired. Such cases are not regarded as fetichism by Krafft-Ebing,[[33]] but they come within the phenomena of erotic symbolism as here understood. This class falls into two divisions: one in which the individual is fairly normal, but belongs to a low grade of culture; the other in which he may belong to a more refined social class, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration. In the first case we may properly apply the term bestiality; in the second case it may perhaps be better to use the term zooerastia, proposed by Krafft-Ebing.[[34]]
Among children, both boys and girls, it is common to find that the copulation of animals is a mysteriously fascinating spectacle. It is inevitable that this should be so, for the spectacle is more or less clearly felt to be the revelation of a secret which has been concealed from them. It is, moreover, a secret of which they feel intimate reverberations within themselves, and even in perfectly innocent and ignorant children the sight may produce an obscure sexual excitement.[[35]] It would seem that this occurs more frequently in girls than in boys. Even in adult age, it may be added, women are liable to experience the same kind of emotion in the presence of such spectacles. One lady recalls, as a girl, that on several occasions an element of physical excitement entered into the feelings with which she watched the coquetry of cats. Another lady mentions that at the age of about 25, and when still quite ignorant of sexual matters, she saw from a window some boys tickling a dog and inducing sexual excitement in the animal; she vaguely divined what they were doing, and though feeling disgust at their conduct she at the same time experienced in a strong degree what she now knows was sexual excitement. The coupling of the larger animals is often an impressive and splendid spectacle which is far, indeed, from being obscene, and has commended itself to persons of intellectual distinction;[[36]] but in young or ill-balanced minds such sights tend to become both prurient and morbid. I have already referred to the curious case of a sexually hyperæsthetic nun who was always powerfully excited by the sight or even the recollection of flies in sexual connection, so that she was compelled to masturbate; this dated from childhood. After becoming a nun she recorded having had this experience, followed by masturbation, more than four hundred times.[[37]] Animal spectacles sometimes produce a sexual effect on children even when not specifically sexual; thus a correspondent, a clergyman, informs me that when a young and impressionable boy, he was much affected by seeing a veterinary surgeon insert his hand and arm into a horse's rectum, and dreamed of this several times afterward with emissions.
While the contemplation of animal coitus is an easily intelligible and in early life, perhaps, an almost normal symbol of sexual emotion, there is another subdivision of this group of animal fetichisms which forms a more natural transition from the fetichisms which have their center in the human body: the stuff-fetichisms, or the sexual attraction exerted by various tissues, perhaps always of animal origin. Here we are in the presence of a somewhat complicated phenomenon. In part we have, in a considerable number of such cases, the sexual attraction of feminine garments, for all such tissues are liable to enter into the dress. In part, also, we have a sexual perversion of tactile sensibility, for in a considerable proportion of these cases it is the touch sensations which are potent in arousing the erotic sensations. But in part, also, it would seem, we have here the conscious or subconscious presence of an animal fetich, and it is notable that perhaps all these stuffs, and especially fur, which is by far the commonest of the groups, are distinctively animal products. We may perhaps regard the fetich of feminine hair—a much more important and common fetich, indeed, than any of the stuff fetichisms—as a link of transition. Hair is at once an animal and a human product, while it may be separated from the body and possesses the qualities of a stuff. Krafft-Ebing remarks that the senses of touch, smell, and hearing, as well as sight, seem to enter into the attraction exerted by hair.
The natural fascination of hair, on which hair-fetichism is founded, begins at a very early age. "The hair is a special object of interest with infants," Stanley Hall concludes, "which begins often in the latter part of the first year.... The hair, no doubt, gives quite unique tactile sensations, both in its own roots and to hands, and is plastic and yielding to the motor sense, so that the earliest interest may be akin to that in fur, which is a marked object in infant experience. Some children develop an almost fetichistic propensity to pull or later to stroke the hair or beard of every one with whom they come in contact." (G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 359.)
It should be added that the fascination of hair for the infantile and childish mind is not necessarily one of attraction, but may be of repulsion. It happens here, as in the case of so many characteristics which are of sexual significance, that we are in the presence of an object which may exert a dynamic emotional force, a force which is capable of repelling with the same energy that it attracts. Féré records the instructive case of a child of 3, of psychopathic heredity, who when he could not sleep was sometimes taken by his mother into her bed. One night his hand came in contact with a hairy portion of his mother's body, and this, arousing the idea of an animal, caused him to leap out of the bed in terror. He became curious as to the cause of his terror and in time was able to observe "the animal," but the train of feelings which had been set up led to a life-long indifference to women and a tendency to homosexuality. It is noteworthy that he was attracted to men in whom the hair and other secondary sexual characters were well developed. (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, pp. 262-267.)
As a sexual fetich hair strictly belongs to the group of parts of the body; but since it can be removed from the body and is sexually effective as a fetich in the absence of the person to whom it belongs, it is on a level with the garments which may serve in a similar way, with shoes or handkerchiefs or gloves. Psychologically, hair-fetichism presents no special problem, but the wide attraction of hair—it is sexually the most generally noted part of the feminine body after the eyes—and the peculiar facility with which when plaited it may be removed, render hair-fetichism a sexual perversion of specially great medico-legal interest.
The frequency of hair-fetichism, as well as of the natural admiration on which it rests, is indicated by a case recorded by Laurent. "A few years ago," he states, "one constantly saw at the Bal Bullier, in Paris, a tall girl whose face was lean and bony, but whose black hair was of truly remarkable length. She wore it flowing down her shoulders and loins. Men often followed her in the street to touch or kiss the hair. Others would accompany her home and pay her for the mere pleasure of touching and kissing the long black tresses. One, in consideration of a relatively considerable sum, desired to pollute the silky hair. She was obliged to be always on her guard, and to take all sorts of precautions to prevent any one cutting off this ornament, which constituted her only beauty as well as her livelihood." (E. Laurent, L'Amour Morbide, 1891, p. 164; also the same author's Fétichistes et Erotomanes, p. 23.)
The hair despoiler (Coupeur des Nattes or Zopfabschneider) may be found in any civilized country, though the most carefully studied cases have occurred in Paris. (Several medico-legal histories of hair-despoilers are summarized by Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 329-334). Such persons are usually of nervous temperament and bad heredity; the attraction to hair occasionally develops in early life; sometimes the morbid impulse only appears in later life after fever. The fetich may be either flowing hair or braided hair, but is usually one or the other, and not both. Sexual excitement and ejaculation may be produced in the act of touching or cutting off the hair, which is subsequently, in many cases, used for masturbation. As a rule the hair-despoiler is a pure fetichist, no element of sadistic pleasure entering into his feelings. In the case of a "capillary kleptomaniac" in Chicago—a highly intelligent and athletic married young man of good family—the impulse to cut off girls' braids appeared after recovery from a severe fever. He would gaze admiringly at the long tresses and then clip them off with great rapidity; he did this in some fifty cases before he was caught and imprisoned. He usually threw the braids away before he reached home. (Alienist and Neurologist, April, 1889, p. 325.) In this case there is no history of sexual excitement, probably because no proper medico-legal examination was made. (It may be added that hair-despoilers have been specially studied by Motet, "Les Coupeurs de Nattes," Annales d'Hygiène, 1890.)
The stuff-fetiches are most usually fur and velvet; feathers, silk, and leathers also sometimes exert this influence; they are all, it will be noted, animal substances.[[38]] The most interesting is probably fur, the attraction of which is not uncommon in association with passive algolagnia. As Stanley Hall has shown, the fear of fur, as well as the love of it, is by no means uncommon in childhood; it may appear even in infancy and in children who have never come in contact with animals.[[39]] It is noteworthy that in most cases of uncomplicated stuff-fetichism the attraction apparently arises on a congenital basis, as it appears in persons of nervous or sensitive temperament at an early age and without being attached to any definite causative incident. The sexual excitation is nearly always produced by the touch rather than by the sight. As we found, when dealing with the sense of touch in the previous volume, the specific sexual sensations may be regarded as a special modification of ticklishness. The erotic symbolism in the case of these stuff-fetichisms would seem to be a more or less congenital perversion of ticklishness in relation to specific animal contacts.
A further degree of perversion in this direction is reached in a case of erotic zoophilia, recorded by Krafft-Ebing.[[40]] In this case a congenital neuropath, of good intelligence but delicate and anæmic, with feeble sexual powers, had a great love of domestic animals, especially dogs and cats, from an early age; when petting them he experienced sexual emotions, although he was innocent in sexual matters. At puberty he realized the nature of his feelings and tried to break himself of his habits. He succeeded, but then began erotic dreams accompanied by images of animals, and these led to masturbation associated with ideas of a similar kind. At the same time he had no wish for any sort of sexual intercourse with animals, and was indifferent as to the sex of the animals which attracted him; his sexual ideals were normal. Such a case seems to be fundamentally one of fetichism on a tactile basis, and thus forms a transition between the stuff-fetichisms and the complete perversions of sexual attraction toward animals.
In some cases sexually hyperæsthetic women have informed me that sexual feeling has been produced by casual contact with pet dogs and cats. In such cases there is usually no real perversion, but it seems probable that we may here have an occasional foundation for the somewhat morbid but scarcely vicious excesses of affection which women are apt to display towards their pet dogs or cats. In most cases of this affection there is certainly no sexual element; in the case of childless women, it may rather be regarded as a maternal than as an erotic symbolism. (The excesses of this non-erotic zoophilia have been discussed by Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, pp. 166-171.)
Krafft-Ebing considers that complete perversion of sexual attraction toward animals is radically distinct from erotic zoophilia. This view cannot be accepted. Bestiality and zooerastia merely present in a more marked and profoundly perverted form a further degree of the same phenomenon which we meet with in erotic zoophilia; the difference is that they occur either in more insensitive or in more markedly degenerate persons.
A fairly typical case of zooerastia has been recorded in America by Howard, of Baltimore. This was the case of a boy of 16, precociously mature and fairly bright. He was, however, indifferent to the opposite sex, though he had ample opportunity for gratifying normal passions. His parents lived in the city, but the youth had an inordinate desire for the country and was therefore sent to school in a village. On the second day after his arrival at school a farmer missed a sow which was found secreted in an outhouse on the school grounds. This was the first of many similar incidents in which a sow always took part. So strong was his passion that on one occasion force had to be used to take him away from the sow he was caressing. He did not masturbate, and even when restrained from approaching sows he had no sexual inclination for other animals. His nocturnal pollutions, which were frequent, were always accompanied by images of wallowing swine. Notwithstanding careful treatment no cure was effected; mental and physical vigor failed, and he died at the age of 23.[[41]]
It is, however, somewhat doubtful whether we can always or even usually distinguish between zooerastia and bestiality. Dr. G. F. Lydston, of Chicago, has communicated to me a case (in which he was consulted) which seems fairly typical and is instructive in this respect. The subject was a young man of 21, a farmer's son, not very bright intellectually, but very healthy and strong, of great assistance on the farm, very capable and industrious, such a good farm hand that his father was unwilling to send him away and to lose his services. There was no history of insanity or neurosis in the family, and no injury or illness in his own history. He had spells of moroseness and irritability, however, and had also been a masturbator. Women had no attraction for him, but he would copulate with the mares upon his father's farm, and this without regard to time, place, or spectators. Such a case would seem to stand midway between ordinary bestiality and pathological zooerastia as defined by Krafft-Ebing, yet it seems probable that in most cases of ordinary bestiality some slight traces of mental anomaly might be found, if such cases always were, as they should be, properly investigated.[[42]]
We have here reached the grossest and most frequent perversion in this group; bestiality, or the impulse to attain sexual gratification by intercourse, or other close contact, with animals. In seeking to comprehend this perversion it is necessary to divest ourselves of the attitude toward animals which is the inevitable outcome of refined civilization and urban life. Most sexual perversions, if not in large measure the actual outcome of civilized life, easily adjust themselves to it. Bestiality (except in one form to be noted later) is, on the other hand, the sexual perversion of dull, insensitive and unfastidious persons. It flourishes among primitive peoples and among peasants. It is the vice of the clodhopper, unattractive to women or inapt to court them.
Three conditions have favored the extreme prevalence of bestiality: (1) primitive conceptions of life which built up no great barrier between man and the other animals; (2) the extreme familiarity which necessarily exists between the peasant and his beasts, often combined with separation from women; (3) various folk-lore beliefs such as the efficacy of intercourse with animals as a cure for venereal disease, etc.[[43]]
The beliefs and customs of primitive peoples, as well as their mythology and legends, bring before us a community of man and animals altogether unlike anything we know in civilization. Men may become animals and animals may become men; animals and men may communicate with each other and live on terms of equality; animals may be the ancestors of human tribes; the sacred totems of savages are most usually animals. There is no shame or degradation in the notion of a sexual relationship between men and animals, because in primitive conceptions animals are not inferior beings separated from man by a great gulf. They are much more like men in disguise, and in some respects possess powers which make them superior to men. This is recognized in those plays, festivals, and religious dances, so common among primitive peoples, in which animal disguises are worn.[[44]] When men admire and emulate the qualities of animals and are proud to believe that they descend from them, it is not surprising that they should sometimes see nothing derogatory in sexual intercourse with them.[[45]]
A significant relic of primitive conceptions in this matter may perhaps be found in the religious rites connected with the sacred goat of Mendes described by Herodotus. After telling how the Mendesians reverence the goat, especially the he-goat, out of their veneration for Pan, whom they represent as a goat ("the real motive which they assign for this custom I do not choose to relate"), he adds: "It happened in this country, and within my remembrance, and was indeed universally notorious, that a goat had indecent and public communication with a woman."[[46]] The meaning of the passage evidently is that in the ordinary intercourse of women with the sacred goat, connection was only simulated or incomplete on account of the natural indifference of the goat to the human female, but that in rare cases the goat proved sexually excitable with the woman and capable of connection.[[47]] The goat has always been a kind of sacred emblem of lust. In the middle ages it became associated with the Devil as one of the favorite forms he assumed. It is significant of a primitively religious sexual association between men and animals, that witches constantly confessed, or were made to confess, that they had had intercourse with the Devil in the shape of an animal, very frequently a dog. The figures of human beings and animals in conjunction carved on temples in India, also seem to indicate the religious significance which this phenomenon sometimes presents. There is, indeed, no need to go beyond Europe even in her moments of highest culture to find a religious sanction for sexual union between human beings, or gods in human shape, and animals. The legends of Io and the bull, of Leda and the swan, are among the most familiar in Greek mythology, and in a later pictorial form they constitute some of the most cherished works of the painters of the Renaissance.
As regards the prevalence of occasional sexual intercourse between men or women and animals among primitive peoples at the present time, it is possible to find many scattered references by travelers in all parts of the world. Such references by no means indicate that such practices are, as a rule, common, but they usually show that they are accepted with a good-humored indifference.[[48]]
Bestiality is very rarely found in towns. In the country this vice of the clodhopper is far from infrequent. For the peasant, whose sensibilities are uncultivated and who makes but the most elementary demands from a woman, the difference between an animal and a human being in this respect scarcely seems to be very great. "My wife was away too long," a German peasant explained to the magistrate, "and so I went with my sow." It is certainly an explanation that to the uncultivated peasant, ignorant of theological and juridical conceptions, must often seem natural and sufficient.
Bestiality thus resembles masturbation and other abnormal manifestations of the sexual impulse which may be practiced merely faute de mieux and not as, in the strict sense, perversions of the impulse. Even necrophily may be thus practiced. A young man who when assisting the grave-digger conceived and carried out the idea of digging up the bodies of young girls to satisfy his passions with, and whose case has been recorded by Belletrud and Mercier, said: "I could find no young girl who would agree to yield to my desires; that is why I have done this. I should have preferred to have relations with living persons. I found it quite natural to do what I did: I saw no harm in it, and I did not think that any one else could. As living women felt nothing but repulsion for me, it was quite natural I should turn to the dead, who have never repulsed me. I used to say tender things to them like 'my beautiful, my love, I love you.'" (Belletrud and Mercier "Perversion de l'Instinct Genésique," Annales d'Hygiène Publique, June, 1903.) But when so highly abnormal an act is felt as natural we are dealing with a person who is congenitally defective so far as the finer developments of intelligence are concerned. It was so in this case of necrophily; he was the son of a weak-minded woman of unrestrainable sexual inclinations, and was himself somewhat feeble-minded; he was also, it is instructive to observe, anosmic.
But it is by no means only their dulled sensibility or the absence of women, which accounts for the frequency of bestiality among peasants. A highly important factor is their constant familiarity with animals. The peasant lives with animals, tends them, learns to know all their individual characters; he understands them far better than he understands men and women; they are his constant companions, his friends. He knows, moreover, the details of their sexual lives, he witnesses the often highly impressive spectacle of their coupling. It is scarcely surprising that peasants should sometimes regard animals as being not only as near to them as their fellow human beings, but even nearer.
The significance of the factor of familiarity is indicated by the great frequency of bestiality among shepherds, goatherds, and others whose occupation is exclusively the care of animals. Mirabeau, in the eighteenth century, stated, on the evidence of Basque priests, that all the shepherds in the Pyrenees practice bestiality. It is apparently much the same in Italy.[[49]] In South Italy and Sicily, especially, bestiality among goatherds and peasants is said to be almost a national custom.[[50]] In the extreme north of Europe, it is reported, the reindeer, in this respect, takes the place of the goat.
The importance of the same factor is also shown by the fact that when among women in civilization animal perversions appear, the animal is nearly always a pet dog. Usually in these cases the animal is taught to give gratification by cunnilinctus. In some cases, however, there is really sexual intercourse between the animal and the woman.
Moll mentions that in a case of cunnilinctus by a dog in Germany there was a difficulty as to whether the matter should be considered an unnatural offence or simply an offence against decency; the lower court considered it in the former light, while the higher court took the more merciful view. (Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 697.) In a case reported by Pfaff and mentioned by Moll, a country girl was accused of having sexual intercourse with a large dog. On examination Pfaff found in the girl's thick pubic hair a loose hair which under the microscope proved to belong to the dog. (Loc. cit., p. 698.) In such a case it must be noted that while this evidence may be held to show sexual contact with the dog, it scarcely suffices to show sexual intercourse. This has, however, undoubtedly occurred from time to time, even more or less openly. Bloch (Op. cit., pp. 277 and 282) remarks that this is not an infrequent exhibition given by prostitutes in certain brothels. Maschka has referred to such an exhibition between a woman and a bull-dog, which was given to select circles in Paris. Rosse refers to a case in which a young unmarried woman in Washington was surprised during intercourse with a large English mastiff, who in his efforts to get loose caused such severe injuries that the woman died from hæmorrhage in about an hour. Rosse also mentions that some years ago a performance of this kind between a prostitute and a Newfoundland dog could be witnessed in San Francisco by paying a small sum; the woman declared that a woman who had once copulated with a dog would ever afterwards prefer this animal to a man. Rosse adds that he was acquainted with a similar performance between a woman and a donkey, which used to take place in Europe (Irving Rosse, "Sexual Hypochondriasis and Perversion of the Genesic Instinct," Virginia Medical Monthly, October, 1892, p. 379). Juvenal mentions such relations between the donkey and woman (vi, 332). Krauss (quoted by Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 276) states that in Bosnia women sometimes carry on these practices with dogs and also—as he would not have believed had he not on one occasion observed it—with cats. "It seems to me," writes Dr. Kiernan, of Chicago, (private letter) "that what Rosse says of the animal exhibitions in San Francisco is true of all great cities. The animal employed in such exhibitions here has usually been a donkey, and in one instance death occurred from the animal trampling the girl partner. The practice described occurs in country regions quite frequently. Thus in a case reported in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, a sixteen-year-old boy engaged in rectal coitus with a large dog. In attempting to extricate his swollen penis from the boy's rectum the dog tore through the sphincter ani an inch into the gluteus muscles. (Omaha Clinic, March, 1893.) In a Missouri case, which I verified, a smart, pretty, well-educated country girl was found with a profuse offensive vaginal discharge which had been present for about a week, coming on suddenly. After washing the external genitals and opening the labia three rents were discovered, one through the fourchette and two through the left nymphæ. The vagina was excessively congested and covered with points bleeding on the slightest irritation. The patient confessed that one day while playing with the genitals of a large dog she became excited and thought she would have slight coitus. After the dog had made an entrance she was unable to free herself from him, as he clasped her so firmly with his fore legs. The penis became so swollen that the dog could not free himself, although for more than an hour she made persistent efforts to do so. (Medical Standard, June, 1903, p. 184). In an Indiana case, concerning which I was consulted, the girl was a hebephreniac who had resorted to this procedure with a Newfoundland dog at the instance of another girl, seemingly normal as regards mentality, and had been badly injured; a discharge resulted which resembled gonorrhœa, but contained no gonococci. These cases are probably more frequent than is usually assumed."
Women are known to have had intercourse with various other animals, occasionally or habitually, in various parts of the world. Monkeys have been mentioned in this connection. Moll remarks that it seems to be an indication of an abnormal interest in monkeys that some women are observed by the attendants in the monkey-house of zoölogical gardens to be very frequent visitors. Near the Amazon the traveler Castelnau saw an enormous Coati monkey belonging to an Indian woman and tried to purchase it; though he offered a large sum, the woman only laughed. "Your efforts are useless," remarked an Indian in the same cabin, "he is her husband." (So far as the early literature of this subject is concerned, a number of facts and fables regarding the congress of women with dogs, goats and other animals was brought together at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Schurig in his Gynæcologia, Section II, cap. VII; I have not drawn on this collection.)
In some cases women, and also men, find gratification in the sexual manipulation of animals without any kind of congress. This may be illustrated by an observation communicated to me by a correspondent, a clergyman. "In Ireland, my father's house adjoined the residence of an archdeacon of the established church. I was then about 20 and was still kept in religious awe of evil ways. The archdeacon had two daughters, both of whom he brought up in great strictness, resolved that they should grow up examples of virtue and piety. Our stables adjoined, and were separated only by a thin wall in which was a doorway closed up by some boards, as the two stables had formerly been one. One night I had occasion to go to our stable to search for a garden tool I had missed, and I heard a door open on the other side, and saw a light glimmer through the cracks of the boards. I looked through to ascertain who could be there at that late hour, and soon recognized the stately figure of one of the daughters, F. F. was tall, dark and handsome, but had never made any advances to me, nor had I to her. She was making love to her father's mare after a singular fashion. Stripping her right arm, she formed her fingers into a cone, and pressed on the mare's vulva. I was astonished to see the beast stretching her hind legs as if to accommodate the hand of her mistress, which she pushed in gradually and with seeming ease to the elbow. At the same time she seemed to experience the most voluptuous sensation, crisis after crisis arriving." My correspondent adds that, being exceedingly curious in the matter, he tried a somewhat similar experiment himself with one of his father's mares and experienced what he describes as "a most powerful sexual battery" which produced very exciting and exhausting effects. Näcke (Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen, 1899, No. 2) refers to an idiot who thus manipulated the vulva of mares in his charge. The case has been recorded by Guillereau (Journal de Médicine Véterinaire et de Zootechnie, January, 1899) of a youth who was accustomed to introduce his hand into the vulva of cows in order to obtain sexual excitement.
The possibility of sexual excitement between women and animals involves a certain degree of sexual excitability in animals from contact with women. Darwin stated that there could be no doubt that various quadrumanous animals could distinguish women from men—in the first place probably by smell and secondarily by sight—and be thus liable to sexual excitement. He quotes the opinions on this point of Youatt, Brehm, Sir Andrew Smith and Cuvier (Descent of Man, second edition, p. 8). Moll quotes the opinion of an experienced observer to the same effect (Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, Bd. i, p. 429). Hufeland reported the case of a little girl of three who was playing, seated on a stool, with a dog placed between her thighs and locked against her. Seemingly excited by this contact the animal attempted a sort of copulation, causing the genital parts of the child to become inflamed. Bloch (Op. cit., p. 280, et seq.) discusses the same point; he does not consider that animals will of their own motion sexually cohabit with women, but that they may be easily trained to it. There can be no doubt that dogs at all events are sometimes sexually excited by the presence of women, perhaps especially during menstruation, and many women are able to bear testimony to the embarrassing attentions they have sometimes received from strange dogs. There can be no difficulty in believing that, so far as cunnilinctus is concerned dogs would require no training. In a case recorded by Moll (Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 560) a lady states that this was done to her when a child, as also to other children, by dogs who, she said, showed signs of sexual excitement. In this case there was also sexual excitement thus produced in the child, and after puberty mutual cunnilinctus was practiced with girl friends. Guttceit (Dreissig Jahre Praxis, Theil I, p. 310) remarks that some Russian officers who were in the Turkish campaign of 1828 told him that from fear of veneral infection in Wallachia they refrained from women and often used female asses which appeared to show signs of sexual pleasure.
A very large number of animals have been recorded as having been employed in the gratification of sexual desire at some period or in some country, by men and sometimes by women. Domestic animals are naturally those which most frequently come into question, and there are few if any of these which can altogether be excepted. The sow is one of the animals most frequently abused in this manner.[[51]] Cases in which mares, cows, and donkeys figure constantly occur, as well as goats and sheep. Dogs, cats, and rabbits are heard of from time to time. Hens, ducks, and, especially in China, geese, are not uncommonly employed. The Roman ladies were said to have had an abnormal affection for snakes. The bear and even the crocodile are also mentioned.[[52]]
The social and legal attitude toward bestiality has reflected in part the frequency with which it has been practiced, and in part the disgust mixed with mystical and sacrilegious horror which it has aroused. It has sometimes been met merely by a fine, and sometimes the offender and his innocent partner have been burnt together. In the middle ages and later its frequency is attested by the fact that it formed a favorite topic with preachers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is significant that in the Penitentials,—which were criminal codes, half secular and half spiritual, in use before the thirteenth century, when penance was relegated to the judgment of the confessor,—it was thought necessary to fix the periods of penance which should be undergone respectively by bishops, priests and deacons who should be guilty of bestiality.
In Egbert's Penitential, a document of the ninth and tenth centuries, we read (V. 22): "Item Episcopus cum quadrupede fornicans VII annos, consuetudinem X, presbyter V, diaconus III, clerus II." There was a great range in the penances for bestiality, from ten years to (in the case of boys) one hundred days. The mare is specially mentioned (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii, p. 422). In Theodore's Penitential, another Anglo-Saxon document of about the same age, those who habitually fornicate with animals are adjudged ten years of penance. It would appear from the Penitentiale Pseudo-Romanum (which is earlier than the eleventh century) that one year's penance was adequate for fornication with a mare when committed by a layman (exactly the same as for simple fornication with a widow or virgin), and this was mercifully reduced to half a year if he had no wife. (Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche, p. 366). The Penitentiale Hubertense (emanating from the monastery of St. Hubert in the Ardennes) fixes ten years' penance for sodomy, while Fulbert's Penitential (about the eleventh century) fixes seven years for either sodomy or bestiality. Burchard's Penitential, which is always detailed and precise, specially mentions the mare, the cow and the ass, and assigns forty days bread and water and seven years penance, raised to ten years in the case of married men. A woman having intercourse with a horse is assigned seven years penance in Burchard's Penitential. (Wasserschleben, ib. pp. 651, 659.)
The extreme severity which was frequently exercised toward those guilty of this offense, was doubtless in large measure due to the fact that bestiality was regarded as a kind of sodomy, an offense which was frequently viewed with a mystical horror apart altogether from any actual social or personal injury it caused. The Jews seem to have felt this horror; it was ordered that the sinner and his victim should both be put to death (Exodus, Ch. 22, v. 19; Leviticus, Ch. 20, v. 15). In the middle ages, especially in France, the same rule often prevailed. Men and sows, men and cows, men and donkeys were burnt together. At Toulouse a woman was burnt for having intercourse with a dog. Even in the seventeenth century a learned French lawyer, Claude Lebrun de la Rochette, justified such sentences.[[53]] It seems probable that even to-day, in the social and legal attitude toward bestiality, sufficient regard is not paid to the fact that this offense is usually committed either by persons who are morbidly abnormal or who are of so low a degree of intelligence that they border on feeble-mindedness. To what extent, and on what grounds, it ought to be punished is a question calling for serious reconsideration.
For Krafft-Ebing's discussion of the subject see Op. cit., pp. 530-539.
In England it is not uncommon to use the term "unnatural offence;" this is an awkward and possibly misleading practice which should not be followed. In Germany a similar confusion is caused by applying the term "sodomy" to these cases as well as to pederasty. Krafft-Ebing considers that this error is due to the jurists, while the theologians have always distinguished correctly. In this matter, he adds, science must be ancilla theologiæ and return to the correct usage of words.
This childish interest, with later abnormal developments, may be seen in History I of the Appendix to this volume.
The Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, appears to have found sexual enjoyment in the contemplation of the sexual prowess of stallions. Aubrey writes that she "was very salacious and she had a contrivance that in the spring of the year ... the stallions ... were to be brought before such a part of the house where she had a vidette to look on them." (Short Lives, 1898, vol. i, p. 311.) Although the modern editor's modesty has caused the disappearance of several lines from this passage, the general sense is clear. In the same century Burchard, the faithful secretary of Pope Alexander VI, describes in his invaluable diary how four race horses were brought to two mares in a court of the Vatican, the horses clamorously fighting for the possession of the mares and eventually mounting them, while the Pope and his daughter Lucrezia looked on from a window "cum magno risu et delectatione." (Diarium, ed Thuasne, vol. III, p. 169.)
Archivio di Psichiatria, 1902, fasc. ii-iii, p. 338. In the case of pathological sexuality in a boy of 15, reported by A. MacDonald, and already summarized, the sight of copulating flies is also mentioned among many other causes of sexual excitation.
Krafft-Ebing presents or quotes typical cases of all these fetiches, Op. cit., pp. 255-266.
G. Stanley Hall, "A study of Fears," American Journal of Psychology, 1897, pp. 213-215.
Op. cit., p. 268.
W. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1896. Krafft-Ebing (op. cit., p. 532) quotes from Boeteau the somewhat similar case of a gardener's boy of 16—an illegitimate child of neuropathic heredity and markedly degenerate—who had a passion, of irresistible and impulsive character, for rabbits. He was declared irresponsible. Moll (Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, pp. 431-433) presents the case of a neurotic man who from the age of 15 had been sexually excited by the sight of animals or by contact with them. He had repeatedly had connection with cows and mares; he was also sexually excited by sheep, donkeys, and dogs, whether female or male; the normal sexual instinct was weak and he experienced very slight attraction to women.
Moll also remarks ("Perverse Sexualempfindung," in Senator's and Kaminer's Krankheiten und Ehe) that in this matter it is often hardly possible to draw a sharp line between vice and disease.
Instances of this widespread belief—found among the Tamils of Ceylon as well as in Europe—are quoted from various authors by Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 278, and Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 700. On the frequency of bestiality, from one cause or another, in the East, see, e.g., Stern, Medizin und Geschlechtsleben in der Türkei, bd. ii, p. 219.
Sometimes (as among the Aleuts) the animal pantomime dances of savages may represent the transformation of a captive bird into a lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter. (H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i, p. 93.) A system of beliefs which accepts the possibility that a human being may be latent in an animal obviously favors the practice of bestiality.
For an example of the primitive confusion between the intercourse of women with animals and with men see, e.g., Boas, "Sagen aus British-Columbia," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, heft V, p. 558.
Herodotus, Book II, Chapter 46.
Dulare (Des Divinités Génératrices, Chapter II) brings together the evidence showing that in Egypt women had connection with the sacred goat, apparently in order to secure fertility.
Various facts and references bearing on this subject are brought together by Blumenbach, Anthropological Memoirs, translated by Bendyshe, p. 80; Block, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 276-283; also Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, seventh edition, p. 520.
Mantegazza mentions (Gli Amori degli Uomini, cap V) that at Rimini a young goatherd of the Apennines, troubled with dyspepsia and nervous symptoms, told him this was due to excesses with the goats in his care. A finely executed marble group of a satyr having connection with a goat, found at Herculaneum and now in the Naples Museum (reproduced in Fuchs's Erotische Element in der Karikatur), perhaps symbolizes a traditional and primitive practice of the goatherd.
Bayle (Dictionary, Art, Bathyllus) quotes various authorities concerning the Italian auxiliaries in the south of France in the sixteenth century and their custom of bringing and using goats for this purpose. Warton in the eighteenth century was informed that in Sicily priests in confession habitually inquired of herdsmen if they had anything to do with their sows. In Normandy priests are advised to ask similar questions.
It is worth noting that in Greek the work χοιρος means both a sow and a woman's pudenda; in the Acharnians Aristophanes plays on this association at some length. The Romans also (as may be gathered from Varro's De Re Rustica) called the feminine pudenda porcus.
Schurig, Gynæcologia, pp. 280-387; Bloch, op. cit., 270-277. The Arabs, according to Kocher, chiefly practice bestiality with goats, sheep and mares. The Annamites, according to Mondière, commonly employ sows and (more especially the young women) dogs. Among the Tamils of Ceylon bestiality with goats and cows is said to be very prevalent.
Mantegazza (Gli Amori degli Uomini, cap. V) brings together some facts bearing on this matter.
V.
Exhibitionism—Illustrative Cases—A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship—The Impulse to Defile—The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude—The Sexual Organs as Fetichs—Phallus Worship—Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development—Exhibitionism of the Nates—The Classification of the Forms of Exhibitionism—Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy.
There is a remarkable form of erotic symbolism—very definite and standing clearly apart from all other forms—in which sexual gratification is experienced in the simple act of exhibiting the sexual organ to persons of the opposite sex, usually by preference to young and presumably innocent persons, very often children. This is termed exhibitionism.[[54]] It would appear to be a not very infrequent phenomenon, and most women, once or more in their lives, especially when young, have encountered a man who has thus deliberately exposed himself before them.
The exhibitionist, though often a young and apparently vigorous man, is always satisfied with the mere act of self-exhibition and the emotional reaction which that act produces; he makes no demands on the woman to whom he exposes himself; he seldom speaks, he makes no effort to approach her; as a rule, he fails even to display the signs of sexual excitation. His desires are completely gratified by the act of exhibition and by the emotional reaction it arouses in the woman. He departs satisfied and relieved.
A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the nature of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in which it may originate. It is the case of a business man of 49, of neurotic heredity, an affectionate husband and father of a family, who, to his own grief and shame, is compelled from time to time to exhibit his sexual organs to women in the street. As a boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to coitus; both had their sexual parts exposed. From that time sexual contacts, as of his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive, as well as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched before each other with their sexual parts exposed, and also imitation of the copulation of animals. Coitus was first practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the woman's sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement. It was also necessary—and this consideration is highly important as regards the development of the tendency to exhibition—that the woman should be excited by the sight of his organs. Even when he saw or touched a woman's parts orgasm often occurred. It was the naked sexual organs in an otherwise clothed body which chiefly excited him. He was not possessed of a high degree of potency. Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him, and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual matters. His self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration, and it was accompanied by the idea that other people felt as he did about the sexual effects of the naked organs, that he was shocking but at the same time sexually exciting a young girl. He was thus gratifying himself through the belief that he was causing sexual gratification to an innocent girl. This man was convicted several times, and was finally declared to be suffering from impulsive insanity. (Schrenck-Notzing, Kriminal-psychologische und Psycho-pathologische Studien, 1902, pp. 50-57.) In another case of Schrenck-Notzing's, an actor and portrait painter, aged 31, in youth masturbated and was fond of contemplating the images of the sexual organs of both sexes, finding little pleasure in coitus. At the age of 24, at a bathing establishment, he happened to occupy a compartment next to that occupied by a lady, and when naked he became aware that his neighbor was watching him through a chink in the partition. This caused him powerful excitement and he was obliged to masturbate. Ever since he has had an impulse to exhibit his organs and to masturbate in the presence of women. He believes that the sight of his organs excites the woman (Ib., pp. 57-68). The presence of masturbation in this case renders it untypical as a case of exhibitionism. Moll at one time went so far as to assert that when masturbation takes place we are not entitled to admit exhibitionism, (Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 661), but now accepts exhibitionism with masturbation ("Perverse Sexualempfindung," Krankheiten und Ehe). The act of exhibition itself gratifies the sexual impulse, and usually it suffices to replace both tumescence and detumescence.
A fairly typical case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing, is that of a German factory worker of 37, a good, sober and intelligent workman. His parents were healthy, but one of his mother's and also one of his father's sisters were insane; some of his relatives are eccentric in religion. He has a languishing expression and a smile of self-complacency. He never had any severe illness, but has always been eccentric and imaginative, much absorbed in romances (such as Dumas's novels) and fond of identifying himself with their heroes. No signs of epilepsy. In youth moderate masturbation, later moderate coitus. He lives a retired life, but is fond of elegant dress and of ornament. Though not a drinker, he sometimes makes himself a kind of punch which has a sexually exciting effect on him. The impulse to exhibitionism has only developed in recent years. When the impulse is upon him he becomes hot, his heart beats violently, the blood rushes to his head, and he is oblivious of everything around him that is not connected with his own act. Afterwards he regards himself as a fool and makes vain resolutions never to repeat the act. In exhibition the penis is only half erect and ejaculation never occurs. (He is only capable of coitus with a woman who shows great attraction to him.) He is satisfied with self-exhibition, and believes that he thus gives pleasure to the woman, since he himself receives pleasure in contemplating a woman's sexual parts. His erotic dreams are of self-exhibition to young and voluptuous women. He had been previously punished for an offense of this kind; medico-legal opinion now recognized the incriminated man's psychopathic condition. (Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 492-494.)
Trochon has reported the case of a married man of 33, a worker in a factory, who for several years had exhibited himself at intervals to shop-girls, etc., in a state of erection, but without speaking or making other advances. He was a hard-working, honest, sober man of quiet habits, a good father to his family and happy at home. He showed not the slightest sign of insanity. But he was taciturn, melancholic and nervous; a sister was an idiot. He was arrested, but on the report of the experts that he committed these acts from a morbid impulse he could not control he was released. (Trochon, Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1888, p. 256.)
In a case of Freyer's (Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte, third year, No. 8) the occasional connection of exhibitionism with epilepsy is well illustrated by a barber's assistant, aged 35, whose father suffered from chronic alcoholism and was also said to have committed the same kind of offense as his son. The mother and a sister suffered nervously. From ages of 7 to 18 the subject had epileptic convulsions. From 16 to 21 he indulged in normal sexual intercourse. At about that time he had often to pass a playground and at times would urinate there; it happened that the children watched him with curiosity. He noticed that when thus watched sexual excitement was caused, inducing erection and even ejaculation. He gradually found pleasure in this kind of sexual gratification; finally he became indifferent to coitus. His erotic dreams, though still usually about normal coitus, were now sometimes concerned with exhibition before little girls. When overcome by the impulse he could see and hear nothing around him, though he did not lose consciousness. After the act was over he was troubled by his deed. In all other respects he was entirely reasonable. He was imprisoned many times for exhibiting himself to young schoolgirls, sometimes vaunting the beauty of his organs and inviting inspection. On one occasion he underwent mental examination, but was considered to be mentally sound. He was finally held to be a hereditarily tainted individual with neuropathic constitution. The head was abnormally broad, penis small, patellar reflex absent, and there were many signs of neurasthenia. (Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 490-492.)
The prevalence of epilepsy among exhibitionists is shown by the observations of Pelanda in Verona. He has recorded six cases of this perversion, all of which eventually reached the asylum and were either epileptics or with epileptic relations. One had a brother who was also an exhibitionist. In some cases the penis was abnormally large, in others abnormally small. Several had very weak sexual impulse; one, at the age of 62, had never effected coitus, and was proud of the fact that he was still a virgin, considering, he would say, the epoch of demoralization in which we live. (Pelanda, "Pornopatici," Archivio di Psichiatria, fasc. ii-iv, 1889.)
In a very typical case of exhibitionism which Garnier has recorded, a certain X., a gentleman engaged in business in Paris, had a predilection for exhibiting himself in churches, more especially in Saint-Roch. He was arrested several times for exposing his sexual organs here before ladies in prayer. In this way he finally ruined his commercial position in Paris and was obliged to establish himself in a small provincial town. Here again he soon exposed himself in a church and was again sent to prison, but on his liberation immediately performed the same act in the same church in what was described as a most imperturbable manner. Compelled to leave the town, he returned to Paris, and in a few weeks' time was again arrested for repeating his old offense in Saint Roch. When examined by Garnier, the information he supplied was vague and incomplete, and he was very embarrassed in the attempt to explain himself. He was unable to say why he chose a church, but he felt that it was to a church that he must go. He had, however, no thought of profanation and no wish to give offense. "Quite the contrary!" he declared. He had the sad and tired air of a man who is dominated by a force stronger than his will. "I know," he added, "what repulsion my conduct must inspire. Why am I made thus? Who will cure me?" (P. Garnier, "Perversions Sexuelles," Comptes Rendus, International Congress of Medicine at Paris in 1900, Section de Psychiatrie, pp. 433-435.)
In some cases, it would appear, the impulse to exhibitionism may be overcome or may pass away. This result is the more likely to come about in those cases in which exhibitionism has been largely conditioned by chronic alcoholism or other influences tending to destroy the inhibiting and restraining action of the higher centers, which may be overcome by hygiene and treatment. In this connection I may bring forward a case which has been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in London. It is that of an actor, of high standing in his profession and extremely intelligent, 49 years of age, married and father of a large family. He is sexually vigorous and of erotic temperament. His general health has always been good, but he is a high-strung, neurotic man, with quick mental reactions. His habits had for a long time been decidedly alcoholic, but two years ago, a small quantity of albumen being found in the urine, he was persuaded to leave off alcohol, and has since been a teetotaller. Though ordinarily very reticent about sexual matters, he began four or five years ago to commit acts of exhibitionism, exposing himself to servants in the house and occasionally to women in the country. This continued after the alcohol had been abandoned and lasted for several years, though the attention of the police was never attracted to the matter, and so far as possible he was quietly supervised by his friends. Nine months after, the acts of exhibitionism ceased, apparently in a spontaneous manner, and there has so far been no relapse.
Exhibitionism is an act which, on the face of it, seems nonsensical and meaningless, and as such, as an inexplicable act of madness, it has frequently been treated both by writers on insanity and on sexual perversion. "These acts are so lacking in common sense and intelligent reflection that no other reason than insanity can be offered for the patient," Ball concluded.[[55]] Moll, also, who defines exhibitionism somewhat too narrowly as a condition in which "the charm of the exhibition lies for the subject in the display itself," not sufficiently taking into consideration the imagined effect on the spectator, concludes that "the psychological basis of exhibitionism is at present by no means cleared up."[[56]]
We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship. The exhibitionist displays the organ of sex to a feminine witness, and in the shock of modest sexual shame by which she reacts to that spectacle, he finds a gratifying similitude of the normal emotions of coitus.[[57]] He feels that he has effected a psychic defloration.
Exhibitionism is thus analogous, and, indeed, related, to the impulse felt by many persons to perform indecorous acts or tell indecent stories before young and innocent persons of the opposite sex. This is a kind of psychic exhibitionism, the gratification it causes lying exactly, as in physical exhibitionism, in the emotional confusion which it is felt to arouse. The two kinds of exhibitionism may be combined in the same person: Thus, in a case reported by Hoche (p. 97), the exhibitionist an intellectual and highly educated man, with a doctor's degree, also found pleasure in sending indecent poems and pictures to women, whom, however, he made no attempt to seduce; he was content with the thought of the emotions he aroused or believed that he aroused.
It is possible that within this group should come the agent in the following incident which was lately observed by a lady, a friend of my own. An elderly man in an overcoat was seen standing outside a large and well-known draper's shop in the outskirts of London; when able to attract the attention of any of the shop-girls or of any girl in the street he would fling back his coat and reveal that he was wearing over his own clothes a woman's chemise (or possibly bodice) and a woman's drawers; there was no exposure. The only intelligible explanation of this action would seem to be that pleasure was experienced in the mild shock of interested surprise and injured modesty which this vision was imagined to cause to a young girl. It would thus be a comparatively innocent form of psychic defloration.
It is of interest to point out that the sexual symbolism of active flagellation is very closely analogous to this symbolism of exhibitionism. The flagellant approaches a woman with the rod (itself a symbol of the penis and in some countries bearing names which are also applied to that organ) and inflicts on an intimate part of her body the signs of blushing and the spasmodic movements which are associated with sexual excitement, while at the same time she feels, or the flagellant imagines that she feels, the corresponding emotions of delicious shame.[[58]] This is an even closer mimicry of the sexual act than the exhibitionist attains, for the latter fails to secure the consent of the woman nor does he enjoy any intimate contact with her naked body. The difference is connected with the fact that the active flagellant is usually a more virile and normal person than the exhibitionist. In the majority of cases the exhibitionist's sexual impulse is very feeble, and as a rule he is either to some degree a degenerate, or else a person who is suffering from an early stage of general paralysis, dementia, or some other highly enfeebling cause of mental disorganization, such as chronic alcoholism. Sexual feebleness is further indicated by the fact that the individuals selected as witnesses are frequently mere children.
It seems probable that a form of erotic symbolism somewhat similar to exhibitionism is to be found in the rare cases in which sexual gratification is derived from throwing ink, acid or other defiling liquids on women's dresses. Thoinot has recorded a case of this kind (Attentats aux Moeurs, 1898, pp. 484, et seq.). An instructive case has been presented by Moll. In this case a young man of somewhat neuropathic heredity had as a youth of 16 or 17, when romping with his young sister's playfellows, experienced sexual sensations on chancing to see their white underlinen. From that time white underlinen and white dresses became to him a fetich and he was only attracted to women so attired. One day, at the age of 25, when crossing the street in wet weather with a young lady in a white dress, a passing vehicle splashed the dress with mud. This incident caused him strong sexual excitement, and from that time he had the impulse to throw ink, perchloride of iron, etc., on to ladies' white dresses, and sometimes to cut and tear them, sexual excitement and ejaculation taking place every time he effected this. (Moll, "Gutachten über einem Sexual Perversen [Besudelungstrieb]," Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte, Heft XIII, 1900). Such a case is of considerable psychological interest. Thoinot considers that in these cases the fleck is a fetich. That is an incorrect account of the matter. In this case the white garments constituted the primary fetich, but that fetich becomes more acutely realized, and at the same time both parties are thrown into an emotional state which to the fetichist becomes a mimicry of coitus, by the act of defilement. We may perhaps connect with this phenomenon the attraction which muddy shoes often exert over the shoe-fetichist, and the curious way in which, as we have seen (p. 18), Restif de la Bretonne associates his love of neatness in women with his attraction to the feet, the part, he remarks, least easy to keep clean.
Garnier applied the term sadi-fetichism to active flagellation and many similar manifestations such as we are here concerned with, on the grounds that they are hybrids which combine the morbid adoration for a definite object with the impulse to exercise a more or less degree of violence. From the standpoint of the conception of erotic symbolism I have adopted there is no need for this term. There is here no hybrid combination of two unlike mental states. We are simply concerned with states of erotic symbolism, more or less complete, more or less complex.
The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's mind to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is directed. He seeks to cause an emotion which, probably in most cases, he desires should be pleasurable. But from one cause or another his finer sensibilities are always inhibited or in abeyance, and he is unable to estimate accurately either the impression he is likely to produce or the general results of his action, or else he is moved by a strong impulsive obsession which overpowers his judgment. In many cases he has good reason for believing that his act will be pleasurable, and frequently he finds complacent witnesses among the low-class servant girls, etc.
It may be pointed out here that we are quite justified in speaking of a penis-fetichism and also of a vulva-fetichism. This might be questioned. We are obviously justified in recognizing a fetichism which attaches itself to the pubic hair, or, as in a case with which I am acquainted, to the clitoris, but it may seem that we cannot regard the central sexual organs as symbols of sex, symbols, as it were, of themselves. Properly regarded, however, it is the sexual act rather than the sexual organ which is craved in normal sexual desire; the organ is regarded merely as the means and not as the end. Regarded as a means the organ is indeed an object of desire, but it only becomes a fetich when it arrests and fixes the attention. An attention thus pleasurably fixed, a vulva-fetichism or a penis-fetichism, is within the normal range of sexual emotion (this point has been mentioned in the previous volume when discussing the part played by the primary sexual organs in sexual selection), and in coarse-grained natures of either sex it is a normal allurement in its generalized shape, apart from any attraction to the person to whom the organs belong. In some morbid cases, however, this penis-fetichism may become a fully developed sexual perversion. A typical case of this kind has been recorded by Howard in the United States. Mrs. W., aged 39, was married at 20 to a strong, healthy man, but derived no pleasure from coitus, though she received great pleasure from masturbation practiced immediately after coitus, and nine years after marriage she ceased actual coitus, compelling her husband to adopt mutual masturbation. She would introduce men into the house at all times of the day or night, and after persuading them to expose their persons would retire to her room to masturbate. The same man never aroused desire more than once. This desire became so violent and persistent that she would seek out men in all sorts of public places and, having induced them to expose themselves, rapidly retreat to the nearest convenient spot for self-gratification. She once abstracted a pair of trousers she had seen a man wear and after fondling them experienced the orgasm. Her husband finally left her, after vainly attempting to have her confined in an asylum. She was often arrested for her actions, but through the intervention of friends set free again. She was a highly intelligent woman, and apart from this perversion entirely normal. (W. L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1896.) It is on the existence of a more or less developed penis-fetichism of this kind that the exhibitionist, mostly by an ignorant instinct, relies for the effects he desires to produce.
The exhibitionist is not usually content to produce a mere titillated amusement; he seeks to produce a more powerful effect which must be emotional whether or not it is pleasurable. A professional man in Strassburg (in a case reported by Hoche[[59]]) would walk about in the evening in a long cloak, and when he met ladies would suddenly throw his cloak back under a street lamp, or igniting a red-fire match, and thus exhibit his organs. There was an evident effort—on the part of a weak, vain, and effeminate man—to produce a maximum of emotional effect. The attempt to heighten the emotional shock is also seen in the fact that the exhibitionist frequently chooses a church as the scene of his exploits, not during service, for he always avoids a concourse of people, but perhaps toward evening when there are only a few kneeling women scattered through the edifice. The church is chosen, often instinctively rather than deliberately, from no impulse to commit a sacrilegious outrage—which, as a rule, the exhibitionist does not feel his act to be—but because it really presents the conditions most favorable to the act and the effects desired. The exhibitionist's attitude of mind is well illustrated by one of Garnier's patients who declared that he never wished to be seen by more than two women at once, "just what is necessary," he added, "for an exchange of impressions." After each exhibition he would ask himself anxiously: "Did they see me? What are they thinking? What do they say to each other about me? Oh! how I should like to know!" Another patient of Garnier's, who haunted churches for this purpose, made this very significant statement: "Why do I like going to churches? I can scarcely say. But I know that it is only there that my act has its full importance. The woman is in a devout frame of mind, and she must see that such an act in such a place is not a joke in bad taste or a disgusting obscenity; that if I go there it is not to amuse myself; it is more serious than that! I watch the effect produced on the faces of the ladies to whom I show my organs. I wish to see them express a profound joy. I wish, in fact, that they may be forced to say to themselves: How impressive Nature is when thus seen!"
Here we trace the presence of a feeling which recalls the phenomena of the ancient and world-wide phallic worship, still liable to reappear sporadically. Women sometimes took part in these rites, and the osculation of the male sexual organ or its emblematic representation by women is easily traceable in the phallic rites of India and many other lands, not excluding Europe even in comparatively recent times. (Dulaure in his Divinités Génératices brings together much bearing on these points; cf.: Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i, Chapter XVII, and Bloch, Beiträge zur Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil I, pp. 115-117. Colin Scott has some interesting remarks on phallic worship and the part it has played in aiding human evolution, "Sex and Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 191-197. Irving Rosse describes some modern phallic rites in which both men and women took part, similar to those practiced in vaudouism, "Sexual Hypochondriasis," Virginia Medical Monthly, October, 1892.)
Putting aside any question of phallic worship, a certain pride and more or less private feeling of ostentation in the new expansion and development of the organs of virility seems to be almost normal at adolescence. "We have much reason to assume," Stanley Hall remarks, "that in a state of nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new local development. I think it will be found that exhibitionists are usually those who have excessive growth here, and that much that modern society stigmatizes as obscene is at bottom more or less spontaneous and perhaps in some cases not abnormal. Dr. Seerley tells me he has never examined a young man largely developed who had the usual strong instinctive tendency of modesty to cover himself with his hands, but he finds this instinct general with those whose development is less than the average." (G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 97.) This instinct of ostentation, however, so far as it is normal, is held in check by other considerations, and is not, in the strict sense, exhibitionism. I have observed a full-grown telegraph boy walking across Hampstead Heath with his sexual organs exposed, but immediately he realized that he was seen he concealed them. The solemnity of exhibitionism at this age finds expression in the climax of the sonnet, "Oraison du Soir," written at 16 by Rimbaud, whose verse generally is a splendid and insolent manifestation of rank adolescence:—
"Doux comme le Seigneur du cèdre et des hysopes,
Je pisse vers les cieux bruns très haut et très loin,
Avec l'assentiment des grands héliotropes."
(J. A. Rimbaud, Œuvres, p. 68.)
In women, also, there would appear to be traceable a somewhat similar ostentation, though in them it is complicated and largely inhibited by modesty, and at the same time diffused over the body owing to the absence of external sexual organs. "Primitive woman," remarks Madame Renooz, "proud of her womanhood, for a long time defended her nakedness which ancient art has always represented. And in the actual life of the young girl to-day there is a moment when by a secret atavism she feels the pride of her sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the customs of that human epoch." (Céline Renooz, Psychologie Comparée de l'Homme et de la Femme, p. 85.) It may be added that among primitive peoples, and even among some remote European populations to-day, the exhibition of feminine nudity has sometimes been regarded as a spectacle with religious or magic operation. (Ploss, Das Weib, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp. 663-680; Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition, p. 304.) It is stated by Gopcevic that in the long struggle between the Albanians and the Montenegrians the women of the former people would stand in the front rank and expose themselves by raising their skirts, believing that they would thus insure victory. As, however, they were shot down, and as, moreover, victory usually fell to the Montenegrians, this custom became discredited. (Quoted by Bloch, Op. cit., Teil II, p. 307.)
With regard to the association, suggested by Stanley Hall, between exhibitionism and an unusual degree of development of the sexual organs, it must be remarked that both extremes—a very large and a very small penis—are specially common in exhibitionists. The prevalence of the small organ is due to an association of exhibitionism with sexual feebleness. The prevalence of the large organ may be due to the cause suggested by Hall. Among Mahommedans the sexual organs are sometimes habitually exposed by religious penitents, and I note that Bernhard Stern, in his book on the medical and sexual aspects of life in Turkey, referring to a penitent of this sort whom he saw on the Stamboul bridge at Constantinople, remarks that the organ was very largely developed. It may well be in such a case that the penitent's religious attitude is reinforced by some lingering relic of a more fleshly ostentation.
It is by a pseudo-atavism that this phallicism is evoked in the exhibitionist. There is no true emergence of an ancestrally inherited instinct, but by the paralysis or inhibition of the finer and higher feelings current in civilization, the exhibitionist is placed on the same mental level as the man of a more primitive age, and he thus presents the basis on which the impulses belonging to a higher culture may naturally take root and develop.
Reference may here be made to a form of primitive exhibitionism, almost confined to women, which, although certainly symbolic, is absolutely non-sexual, and must not, therefore, be confused with the phenomena we are here occupied with. I refer to the exhibition of the buttocks as a mark of contempt. In its most primitive form, no doubt, this exhibitionism is a kind of exorcism, a method of putting evil spirits, primarily, and secondarily evil-disposed persons, to flight. It is the most effective way for a woman to display sexual centers, and it shares in the magical virtues which all unveiling of the sexual centers is believed by primitive peoples to possess. It is recorded that the women of some peoples in the Balkan peninsula formerly used this gesture against enemies in battle. In the sixteenth century so distinguished a theologian as Luther when assailed by the Evil One at night was able to put the adversary to flight by protruding his uncovered buttocks from the bed. But the spiritual significance of this attitude is lost with the decay of primitive beliefs. It survives, but merely as a gesture of insult. The symbolism comes to have reference to the nates as the excretory focus, the seat of the anus. In any case it ignores any sexual attractiveness in this part of the body. Exhibitionism of this kind, therefore, can scarcely arise in persons of any sensitiveness or æsthetic perception, even putting aside the question of modesty, and there seems to be little trace of it in classic antiquity when the nates were regarded as objects of beauty. Among the Egyptians, however, we gather from Herodotus (Bk. II, Chapter LX) that at a certain popular religious festival men and women would go in boats on the Nile, singing and playing, and when they approached a town the women on the boats would insult the women of the town by injurious language and by exposing themselves. Among the Arabs, however, the specific gesture we are concerned with is noted, and a man to whom vengeance is forbidden would express his feelings by exposing his posterior and strewing earth on his head (Wellhausen, Rests Arabischen Heidentums, 1897, p. 195). It is in Europe and in mediæval and later times that this emphatic gesture seems to have flourished as a violent method of expressing contempt. It was by no means confined to the lower classes, and Kleinpaul, in discussing this form of "speech without words," quotes examples of various noble persons, even princesses, who are recorded thus to have expressed their feelings. (Kleinpaul, Sprache ohne Worte, pp. 271-273.) In more recent times the gesture has become merely a rare and extreme expression of unrestrained feeling in coarse-grained peasants. Zola, in the figure of Mouquette in Germinal, may be said to have given a kind of classic expression to the gesture. In the more remote parts of Europe it appears to be still not altogether uncommon. This seems to be notably the case among the South Slavs, and Krauss states that "when a South Slav woman wishes to express her deepest contempt for anyone she bends forward, with left hand raising her skirts, and with the right slapping her posterior, at the same time exclaiming: 'This for you!'" (Κρυπτάδια, vol. vi, p. 200.)
A verbal survival of this gesture, consisting in the contemptuous invitation to kiss this region, still exists among us in remote parts of the country, especially as an insult offered by an angry woman who forgets herself. It is said to be commonly used in Wales. ("Welsh Ædœlogy," Κρυπτάδια, vol. ii, pp. 358, et seq.) In Cornwall, when addressed by a woman to a man it is sometimes regarded as a deadly insult, even if the woman is young and attractive, and may cause a life-long enmity between related families. From this point of view the nates are a symbol of contempt, and any sexual significance is excluded. (The distinction is brought out by Diderot in Le Neveu de Rameau: "Lui:—Il y a d'autres jours ou il ne m'en coûterait rien pour être vil tant qu'on voudrait; ces jours-là, pour un liard, je baiserais le cul à la petite Hus. Moi:—Eh! mais, l'ami, elle est blanche, jolie, douce, potelée, et c'est un acte d'humilité auquel un plus delicat que vous pourrait quelquefois s'abaisser. Lui:—Entendons-nous; c'est qu'il y a baiser le cul au simple, et baiser le cul au figuré.")
It must be added that a sexual form of exhibitionism of the nates must still be recognized. It occurs in masochism and expresses the desire for passive flagellation. Rousseau, whose emotional life was profoundly affected by the castigations which as a child he received from Mlle Lambercier, has in his Confessions told us how, when a youth, he would sometimes expose himself in this way in the presence of young women. Such masochistic exhibitionism seems, however, to be rare.
While the manifestations of exhibitionism are substantially the same in all cases, there are many degrees and varieties of the condition. We may find among exhibitionists, as Garnier remarks, dementia, states of unconsciousness, epilepsy, general paralysis, alcoholism, but the most typical cases, he adds, if not indeed the cases to which the term properly belongs, are those in which it is an impulsive obsession. Krafft-Ebing[[60]] divides exhibitionists into four clinical groups: (1) acquired states of mental weakness, with cerebral or spinal disease clouding consciousness and at the same time causing impotence; (2) epileptics, in whom the act is an abnormal organic impulse performed in a state of imperfect consciousness; (3) a somewhat allied group of neurasthenic cases; (4) periodical impulsive cases with deep hereditary taint. This classification is not altogether satisfactory. Garnier's classification, placing the group of obsessional cases in the foreground and leaving the other more vaguely defined groups in the background, is probably better. I am inclined to consider that most of the cases fall into one or other of two mixed groups. The first class includes cases in which there is more or less congenital abnormality, but otherwise a fair or even complete degree of mental integrity; they are usually young adults, they are more or less precisely conscious of the end they wish to attain, and it is often only with a severe struggle that they yield to their impulses. In the second class the beginnings of mental or nervous disease have diminished the sensibility of the higher centers; the subjects are usually old men whose lives have been absolutely correct; they are often only vaguely aware of the nature of the satisfaction they are seeking, and frequently no struggle precedes the manifestation; such was the case of the overworked clergyman described by Hughes,[[61]] who, after much study, became morose and absent-minded, and committed acts of exhibitionism which he could not explain but made no attempt to deny; with rest and restorative treatment his health improved and the acts ceased. It is in the first class of cases alone that there is a developed sexual perversion. In the cases of the second class there is a more or less definite sexual intention, but it is only just conscious, and the emergence of the impulse is due not to its strength but to the weakness, temporary or permanent, of the higher inhibiting centers.
Epileptic cases, with loss of consciousness during the act, can only be regarded as presenting a pseudo-exhibitionism. They should be excluded altogether. It is undoubtedly true that many cases of real or apparent exhibitionism occur in epileptics.[[62]] We must not, however, too hastily conclude that because these acts occur in epileptics they are necessarily unconscious acts. Epilepsy frequently occurs on a basis of hereditary degeneration, and the exhibitionism may be, and not infrequently is, a stigma of the degeneracy and not an indication of the occurrence of a minor epileptic fit. When the act of pseudo-exhibitionism is truly epileptic, it will usually have no psychic sexual content, and it will certainly be liable to occur under all sorts of circumstances, when the patient is alone or in a miscellaneous concourse of people. It will be on a level with the acts of the highly respectable young woman who, at the conclusion of an attack of petit mal, consisting chiefly of a sudden desire to pass urine, on one occasion lifted up her clothes and urinated at a public entertainment, so that it was with difficulty her friends prevented her from being handed over to the police.[[63]] Such an act is automatic, unconscious, and involuntary; the spectators are not even perceived; it cannot be an act of exhibitionism. Whenever, on the other hand, the place and the time are evidently chosen deliberately,—a quiet spot, the presence of only one or two young women or children,—it is difficult to admit that we are in the presence of a fit of epileptic unconsciousness, even when the subject is known to be epileptic.
Even, however, when we exclude those epileptic pseudo-exhibitionists who, from the legal point of view, are clearly irresponsible, it must still be remembered that in every case of exhibitionism there is a high degree of either mental abnormality on a neuropathic basis, or else of actual disease. This is true to a greater extent in exhibitionism than in almost any other form of sexual perversion. No subject of exhibitionism should be sent to prison without expert medical examination.
Lasège first drew attention to this sexual perversion and gave it its generally accepted name, "Les Exhibitionistes," L'Union Médicale, May, 1877. Magnan, on various occasions (for example, "Les Exhibitionistes," Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, vol. v, 1890, p. 456), has given further development and precision to the clinical picture of the exhibitionist.
B. Ball. La Folie Erotique, p. 86.
Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 661.
"Exhibitionism in its most typical form is," Garnier truly says, "a systematic act, manifesting itself as the strange equivalent of a sexual connection, or its substitution." The brief account of exhibitionism (pp. 433-437) in Garnier's discussion of "Perversions Sexuelles" at the International Medical Congress at Paris in 1900 (Section de Psychiatrie: Comptes-Rendus) is the most satisfactory statement of the psychological aspects of this perversion with which I am acquainted. Garnier's unrivalled clinical knowledge of these manifestations, due to his position during many years as physician at the Depôt of the Prefecture of Police in Paris, adds great weight to his conclusions.
The symbolism of coitus involved in flagellation has been touched on by Eulenburg (Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 121), and is more fully developed by Dühren (Geschlechtsleben in England, bd. ii, pp. 366, et seq.).
A. Hoche, Neurologische Centralblatt, 1896, No. 2.
Op. cit., pp. 478, et seq.
C. H. Hughes, "Morbid Exhibitionism," Alienist and Neurologist, August, 1904. Another somewhat similar American case, also preceded by overwork, and eventually adjudged insane by the courts, is recorded by D. S. Booth, Alienist and Neurologist, February, 1905.
Exhibitionism in epilepsy is briefly discussed by Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, pp. 194-195.
W. S. Colman, "Post-Epileptic Unconscious Automatic Actions," Lancet, July 5, 1890.
VI.
The Forms of Erotic Symbolism are Simulacra of Coitus—Wide Extension of Erotic Symbolism—Fetichism Not Covering the Whole Ground of Sexual Selection—It is Based on the Individual Factor in Selection—Crystallization—The Lover and the Artist—The Key to Erotic Symbolism to be Found in the Emotional Sphere—The Passage to Pathological Extremes.
We have now examined several very various and yet very typical manifestations in all of which it is not difficult to see how, in some strange and eccentric form—on a basis of association through resemblance or contiguity or both combined—there arises a definite mimicry of the normal sexual act together with the normal emotions which accompany that act. It has become clear in what sense we are justified in recognizing erotic symbolism.
The symbolic and, as it were, abstracted nature of these manifestations is shown by the remarkable way in which they are sometimes capable of transference from the object to the subject. That is to say that the fetichist may show a tendency to cultivate his fetich in his own person. A foot-fetichist may like to go barefoot himself; a man who admired lame women liked to halt himself; a man who was attracted by small waists in women found sexual gratification in tight-lacing himself; a man who was fascinated by fine white skin and wished to cut it found satisfaction in cutting his own skin; Moll's coprolagnic fetichist found a voluptuous pleasure in his own acts of defecation. (See, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., p. 221, 224, 226; Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 74; cf. ante, p. 68.) Such symbolic transference seems to have a profoundly natural basis, for we may see a somewhat similar phenomenon in the well-known tendency of cows to mount a cow in heat. This would appear to be, not so much a homosexual impulse, as the dynamic psychic action of an olfactory sexual symbol in a transformed form.
We seem to have here a psychic process which is a curious reversal of that process of Einfühlung—the projection of one's own activities into the object contemplated—which Lipps has so fruitfully developed as the essence of every æsthetic condition. (T. Lipps, Æsthetik, Teil I, 1903.) By Einfühlung our own interior activity becomes the activity of the object perceived, a thing being beautiful in proportion as it lends itself to our Einfühlung. But by this action of erotic symbolism, on the other hand, we transfer the activity of the object into ourselves.
When the idea of erotic symbolism as manifested in such definite and typical forms becomes realized, it further becomes clear that the vaguer manifestations of such symbolism are exceedingly widespread. When in a previous volume we were discussing and drawing together the various threads which unite "Love and Pain," it will now be understood that we were standing throughout on the threshold of erotic symbolism. Pain itself, in the sense in which we slowly learned to define it in this relationship—as a state of intense emotional excitement—may, under a great variety of special circumstances, become an erotic symbol and afford the same relief as the emotions normally accompanying the sexual act. Active algolagnia or sadism is thus a form of erotic symbolism; passive algolagnia or masochism is (in a man) an inverted form of erotic symbolism. Active flagellation or passive flagellation are, in exactly the same way, manifestations of erotic symbolism, the imaginative mimicry of coitus.
Binet and also Krafft-Ebing[[64]] have argued in effect that the whole of sexual selection is a matter of fetichism, that is to say, of erotic symbolism of object. "Normal love," Binet states, "appears as the result of a complicated fetichism." Tarde also seems to have regarded love as normally a kind of fetichism. "We are a long time before we fall in love with a woman," he remarks; "we must wait to see the detail which strikes and delights us, and causes us to overlook what displeases us. Only in normal love the details are many and always changing. Constancy in love is rarely anything else but a voyage around the beloved person, a voyage of exploration and ever new discoveries. The most faithful lover does not love the same woman in the same way for two days in succession."[[65]]
From that point of view normal sexual love is the sway of a fetich—more or less arbitrary, more or less (as Binet terms it) polytheistic—and it can have little objective basis. But, as we saw when considering "Sexual Selection in Man" in the previous volume, more especially when analyzing the notion of beauty, we are justified in believing that beauty has to a large extent an objective basis, and that love by no means depends simply on the capricious selection of some individual fetich. The individual factor, as we saw, is but one of many factors which constitute beauty. In the study of sexual selection that individual factor was passed over very lightly. We now see that it is often a factor of great importance, for in it are rooted all these outgrowths—normal in their germs, highly abnormal in their more extreme developments—which make up erotic symbolism.
Erotic symbolism is therefore concerned with all that is least generic, least specific, all that is most intimately personal and individual, in sexual selection. It is the final point in which the decreasing circle of sexual attractiveness is fixed. In the widest and most abstract form sexual selection in man is merely human, and we are attracted to that which bears most fully the marks of humanity; in a less abstract form it is sexual, and we are attracted to that which most vigorously presents the secondary sexual characteristics; still narrowing, it is the type of our own nation and people that appeals most strongly to us in matters of love; and still further concentrating we are affected by the ideal—in civilization most often the somewhat exotic ideal—of our own day, the fashion of our own city. But the individual factor still remains, and amid the infinite possibilities of erotic symbolism the individual may evolve an ideal which is often, as far as he knows and perhaps in actuality, an absolutely unique event in the history of the human soul.
Erotic symbolism works in its finer manifestations by means of the idealizing aptitudes; it is the field of sexual psychology in which that faculty of crystallization, on which Stendhal loved to dwell, achieves its most brilliant results. In the solitary passage in which we seem to see a smile on the face of the austere poet of the De Rerum Naturâ, Lucretius tells us how every lover, however he may be amused by the amorous extravagances of other men, is himself blinded by passion: if his mistress is black she is a fascinating brunette, if she squints she is the rival of Pallas, if too tall she is majestic, if too short she is one of the Graces, tota merum sal; if too lean it is her delicate refinement, if too fat then a Ceres, dirty and she disdains adornment, a chatterer and brilliantly vivacious, silent and it is her exquisite modesty.[[66]] Sixteen hundred years later Robert Burton, when describing the symptoms of love, made out a long and appalling list of the physical defects which the lover is prepared to admire.[[67]]
Yet we must not be too certain that the lover is wrong in this matter. We too hastily assume that the casual and hasty judgment of the world is necessarily more reliable, more conformed to what we call "truth," than the judgment of the lover which is founded on absorbed and patient study. In some cases where there is lack of intelligence in the lover and dissimulation in the object of his love, it may be so. But even a poem or a picture will often not reveal its beauty except by the expenditure of time and study. It is foolish to expect that the secret beauty of a human person will reveal itself more easily. The lover is an artist, an artist who constructs an image, it is true, but only by patient and concentrated attention to nature; he knows the defects of his image, probably better than anyone, but he knows also that art lies, not in the avoidance of defects, but in the realization of those traits which swallow up defects and so render them non-existent. A great artist, Rodin, after a life spent in the study of Nature, has declared that for art there is no ugliness in Nature. "I have arrived at this belief by the study of Nature," he said; "I can only grasp the beauty of the soul by the beauty of the body, but some day one will come who will explain what I only catch a glimpse of and will declare how the whole earth is beautiful, and all human beings beautiful. I have never been able to say this in sculpture so well as I wish and as I feel it affirmed within me. For poets Beauty has always been some particular landscape, some particular woman; but it should be all women, all landscapes. A negro or a Mongol has his beauty, however remote from ours, and it must be the same with their characters. There is no ugliness. When I was young I made that mistake, as others do; I could not undertake a woman's bust unless I thought her pretty, according to my particular idea of beauty; to-day I should do the bust of any woman, and it would be just as beautiful. And however ugly a woman may look, when she is with her lover she becomes beautiful; there is beauty in her character, in her passions, and beauty exists as soon as character or passion becomes visible, for the body is a casting on which passions are imprinted. And even without that, there is always the blood that flows in the veins and the air that fills the lungs."[[68]]
The saint, also, is here at one with the lover and the artist. The man who has so profoundly realized the worth of his fellow men that he is ready even to die in order to save them, feels that he has discovered a great secret. Cyples traces the "secret delights" that have thus risen in the hearts of holy men to the same source as the feelings generated between lovers, friends, parents, and children. "A few have at intervals walked in the world," he remarks, "who have, each in his own original way, found out this marvel.... Straightway man in general has become to them so sweet a thing that the infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a celestial madness. Beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing, because humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any menial acts, but only welcome services.... Remember by how much man is the subtlest circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach relationships; how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other things are dull, meager, tame beside him."[[69]]
It may be added that even if we still believe that lover and artist and saint are drawing the main elements of their conceptions from the depths of their own consciousness, there is a sense in which they are coming nearer to the truth of things than those for whom their conceptions are mere illusions. The aptitude for realizing beauty has involved an adjustment of the nerves and the associated brain centers through countless ages that began before man was. When the vision of supreme beauty is slowly or suddenly realized by anyone, with a reverberation that extends throughout his organism, he has attained to something which for his species, and for far more than his species, is truth, and can only be illusion to one who has artificially placed himself outside the stream of life.
In an essay on "The Gods as Apparitions of the Race-Life," Edward Carpenter, though in somewhat Platonic phraseology, thus well states the matter: "The youth sees the girl; it may be a chance face, a chance outline, amid the most banal surroundings. But it gives the cue. There is a memory, a confused reminiscence. The mortal figure without penetrates to the immortal figure within, and there rises into consciousness a shining form, glorious, not belonging to this world, but vibrating with the agelong life of humanity, and the memory of a thousand love-dreams. The waking of this vision intoxicates the man; it glows and burns within him; a goddess (it may be Venus herself) stands in the sacred place of his temple; a sense of awe-struck splendor fills him, and the world is changed." "He sees something" (the same writer continues in a subsequent essay, "Beauty and Duty") "which, in a sense, is more real than the figures in the street, for he sees something that has lived and moved for hundreds of years in the heart of the race; something which has been one of the great formative influences of his own life, and which has done as much to create those very figures in the street as qualities in the circulation of the blood may do to form a finger or other limb. He comes into touch with a very real Presence or Power—one of those organic centers of growth in the life of humanity—and feels this larger life within himself, subjective, if you like, and yet intensely objective. And more. For is it not also evident that the woman, the mortal woman who excites his Vision, has some closest relation to it, and is, indeed, far more than a mere mask or empty formula which reminds him of it? For she indeed has within her, just as much as the man has, deep subconscious Powers working; and the ideal which has dawned so entrancingly on the man is in all probability closely related to that which has been working most powerfully in the heredity of the woman, and which has most contributed to mold her form and outline. No wonder, then, that her form should remind him of it. Indeed, when he looks into her eyes he sees through to a far deeper life even than she herself may be aware of, and yet which is truly hers—a life perennial and wonderful. The more than mortal in him beholds the more than mortal in her; and the gods descend to meet." (Edward Carpenter, The Art of Creation, pp. 137, 186.)
It is this mighty force which lies behind and beneath the aberrations we have been concerned with, a great reservoir from which they draw the life-blood that vivifies even their most fantastic shapes. Fetichism and the other forms of erotic symbolism are but the development and the isolation of the crystallizations which normally arise on the basis of sexual selection. Normal in their basis, in their extreme forms they present the utmost pathological aberrations of the sexual instinct which can be attained or conceived. In the intermediate space all degrees are possible. In the slightest degree the symbol is merely a specially fascinating and beloved feature in a person who is, in all other respects, felt to be lovable; as such its recognition is a legitimate part of courtship, an effective aid to tumescence. In a further degree the symbol is the one arresting and attracting character of a person who must, however, still be felt as a sexually attractive individual. In a still further degree of perversion the symbol is effective, even though the person with whom it is associated is altogether unattractive. In the final stage the person and even all association with a person disappear altogether from the field of sexual consciousness; the abstract symbol rules supreme.
Long, however, before the symbol has reached that final climax of morbid intensity we may be said to have passed beyond the sphere of sexual love. A person, not an abstracted quality, must be the goal of love. So long as the fetich is subordinated to the person it serves to heighten love. But love must be based on a complexus of attractive qualities, or it has no stability.[[70]] As soon as the fetich becomes isolated and omnipotent, so that the person sinks into the background as an unimportant appendage of the fetich, all stability is lost. The fetichist now follows an impersonal and abstract symbol withersoever it may lead him.
It has been seen that there are an extraordinary number of forms in which erotic symbolism may be felt. It must be remembered, and it cannot be too distinctly emphasized, that the links that bind together the forms of erotic symbolism are not to be found in objects or even in acts, but in the underlying emotion. A feeling is the first condition of the symbol, a feeling which recalls, by a subtle and unconscious automatic association of resemblance or of contiguity, some former feeling. It is the similarity of emotion, instinctively apprehended, which links on a symbol only partially sexual, or even apparently not sexual at all, to the great central focus of sexual emotion, the great dominating force which brings the symbol its life-blood.[[71]]
The cases of sexual hyperæsthesia, quoted at the beginning of this study, do but present in a morbidly comprehensive and sensitive form those possibilities of erotic symbolism which, in some degree, or at some period, are latent in most persons. They are genuinely instinctive and automatic, and have nothing in common with that fanciful and deliberate play of the intelligence around sexual imagery—not infrequently seen in abnormal and insane persons—which has no significance for sexual psychology.
It is to the extreme individualization involved by the developments of erotic symbolism that the fetichist owes his morbid and perilous isolation. The lover who is influenced by all the elements of sexual selection is always supported by the fellow-feeling of a larger body of other human beings; he has behind him his species, his sex, his nation, or at the very least a fashion. Even the inverted lover in most cases is soon able to create around him an atmosphere constituted by persons whose ideals resemble his own. But it is not so with the erotic symbolist. He is nearly always alone. He is predisposed to isolation from the outset, for it would seem to be on a basis of excessive shyness and timidity that the manifestations of erotic symbolism are most likely to develop. When at length the symbolist realizes his own aspirations—which seem to him for the most part an altogether new phenomenon in the world—and at the same time realizes the wide degree in which they deviate from those of the rest of mankind, his natural secretiveness is still further reinforced. He stands alone. His most sacred ideals are for all those around him a childish absurdity, or a disgusting obscenity, possibly a matter calling for the intervention of the policeman. We have forgotten that all these impulses which to us seem so unnatural—this adoration of the foot and other despised parts of the body, this reverence for the excretory acts and products, the acceptance of congress with animals, the solemnity of self-exhibition—were all beliefs and practices which, to our remote forefathers, were bound up with the highest conceptions of life and the deepest ardors of religion.
A man cannot, however, deviate at once so widely and so spontaneously in his impulses from the rest of the world in which he himself lives without possessing an aboriginally abnormal temperament. At the very least he exhibits a neuropathic sensitiveness to abnormal impressions. Not infrequently there is more than this, the distinct stigmata of degeneration, sometimes a certain degree of congenital feeble-mindedness or a tendency to insanity.
Yet, regarded as a whole, and notwithstanding the frequency with which they witness to congenital morbidity, the phenomena of erotic symbolism can scarcely fail to be profoundly impressive to the patient and impartial student of the human soul. They often seem absurd, sometimes disgusting, occasionally criminal; they are always, when carried to an extreme degree, abnormal. But of all the manifestations of sexual psychology, normal and abnormal, they are the most specifically human. More than any others they involve the potently plastic force of the imagination. They bring before us the individual man, not only apart from his fellows, but in opposition, himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of human idealism.
Binet, Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale, esp., p. 84; Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., p. 18.
G. Tarde, "L'Amour Morbide," Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1890, p. 585.
Lucretius, Lib. IV, vv. 1150-1163.
Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I.
Judith Cladel, Auguste Rodin Pris sur la Vie, 1903, pp. 103-104. Some slight modifications have been made in the translation of this passage on account of the conversational form of the original.
W. Cyples, The Process of Human Experience, p. 462. Even if (as we have already seen, ante, p. 58) the saint cannot always feel actual physical pleasure in the intimate contact of humanity, the ardor of devoted service which his vision of humanity arouses remains unaffected.
"To love," as Stendhal defined it (De l'Amour, Chapter II), "is to have pleasure in seeing, touching, and feeling by all the senses, and as near as possible, a beloved object by whom one is oneself loved."
Pillon's study of "La Mémoire Affective" (Revue Philosophique, February, 1901) helps to explain the psychic mechanism of the process.