CHAPTER XXII
Like algolagnia, sexual fetichism rests upon a physiological basis, and is merely a more or less abnormal increase of fetichistic ideas and perceptions, which are rooted in the very nature of the sexual attraction.
By fetichism (derived from the Portuguese feitico Italian fetisso—magic, charm) we understand the limitation of love, its transference from the entire personality to a portion of this personality, or, it may be, to some lifeless physical object related to the personality.[627] This fascinating “portion” of the beloved personality, or the “object” associated with this personality, is the sexual “fetich.” Within physiological limits, the part concerned exercises a particular attraction, and is especially exciting, but in the ideas of the lover it remains associated with the entire personality to which it belongs. Fetichism first becomes abnormal, or pathological, when the partial representation becomes completely divorced from the general representation of the personality, so that, for example, a plait of hair or a pocket-handkerchief is loved alone and by itself, disconnected from the person to whom it belongs.
The development of love can always be referred to fetichistic ideas, for when we examine critically the first general impression which the beloved makes upon the lover, we always find that there are certain parts or functions which have made the greatest impression, and have exercised a greater erotic influence than other portions. To the former of these, therefore, the imagination and the sensibility more especially cleave. In my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis” (vol. ii., p. 311), I defined sexual fetiches as peculiar symbols of the essence of the beloved personality, with which the idea of the entire type is most readily associated. M. Hirschfeld later enunciated the same views.
As sexual fetiches we may have: (1) Portions of the body; (2) functions and emanations of the body; and (3) objects which have any kind of relation to the body.
Under (1) we may enumerate the hand, the foot, the nose, the ears, the eyes, the hair of the head, the hair of the beard, the throat and the back of the neck, the breasts, the hips, the genital organs, the buttocks, the calves. All these parts may constitute sexual fetiches.
The same is true of all the influences enumerated under (2)—viz., gait, movement, voice, glance, odour, complexion.
Under (3) we may enumerate the clothing as a whole (as costume) and in its individual parts, upper-clothing and underclothing, hat, eyeglasses, way of dressing the hair, necktie, bodice, corset, chemise, petticoat, stockings, shoes or boots, apron, handkerchief, clothing materials (fur, satin, silk), the colour of clothing (mourning, parti-coloured blouses, white clothing, uniform), fashion (cul de Paris, décolleté and retroussé, tricot); indeed, clothing fetichism goes so far that a particular shape of the heel of the shoe, a particular mode of ornamentation of some particular part of the clothing, and, finally, any striking part of the clothing, may become a sexual fetich.
This fetichistic influence is further increased by a peculiar characteristic of human love. This is its tendency towards idealization, beautification, and enlargement of those parts which especially affect the senses. This beautification and idealization extends from the body to the clothing, and to articles in general, used by the beloved person, but normally remains associated with the entire personality. It is first by means of the enlargement and accentuation of a distinct part that this becomes separated from the general idea, and thus its removal and conversion into a “fetich” is prepared for. In the chapter on clothing we drew attention to this general anthropological phenomenon of the enlargement and accentuation of many parts by means of such measures as painting, articles of clothing, exposure, way of doing the hair, etc.
Inasmuch as now, by the ideal and actual accentuation of the part under consideration, it is projected as a more independent structure, and separates itself from the personality as a whole, it is involuntarily isolated in idea by the fetichist, and becomes generalized to constitute an independent stimulus, which may now, temporarily or permanently, completely take the place of the personality as a whole.
This physiological process embraces both the “lesser” and the “greater” fetichism of Binet.
The lesser fetichism consists in this: that the lover, without going so far as to lose sight completely of the entire person of his beloved, still directs his attention to individual special charms, or is in general first attracted to the beloved woman by means of quite distinct qualities, such as the shape and smallness of the hand, the colour and sparkling of the eyes, the abundance and softness of the hair, the complexion, a distinct odour, a melodious voice, etc. In the “lesser” fetichism the partial representation plays, indeed, a very prominent part in the general picture, but does not entirely obliterate this picture.
In the “greater” fetichism, on the other hand, a particular portion, or function, or quality, or an article of clothing, or an object of customary use belonging to the beloved person, is isolated from this latter, and in a sense becomes transformed into the latter, and assumes wholly and completely the character of a being capable by itself of exercising a sexually exciting influence. This is genuine sexual fetichism.
Binet and von Schrenck-Notzing have referred the genesis of fetichism, as a rule, to some chance occurrence during childhood—to a fetichistic impression which chanced to coincide with sexual excitement, and thus obtained a permanently sexual coloration. The time of puberty and the first sexual relationships are especially dangerous for the formation of such associations of ideas. Von Schrenck-Notzing rightly draws attention to the fact that this perverse associative connexion, as a reaction to powerful external impressions, does not occur only, as Binet assumes, in predisposed individuals, but is also quite peculiarly characteristic of the childish mental life at the time when the brain is undergoing growth, as well as of the less-developed intellectual powers of savage races, among whom at the present time, in quite other provinces than the sexual, fetichism is cultivated in the most excessive manner; thus, fetichism is often manifested by persons with perfectly normal brains. Such chance occurrences for the origination of sexual fetichism occur in games, in reading, in solitary and mutual masturbation. Nearly always, in connexion with the genesis of fetichism, we can prove that there has been some such actual predisposing cause.
In numerous cases of the “greater” fetichism, especially in the category of the hair fetichists (“plait-cutters”), shoe fetichists, and handkerchief fetichists, there is also associated a more or less severe psychopathic constitution, on the foundation of which the fetichistic impulse has developed as a kind of “coercive idea” (obsession). These are the cases which have the greatest forensic importance, and which gain publicity.
We shall now proceed to give a brief account of the most important forms of sexual fetichism, and those most frequently encountered.
First of all, parts, functions, and qualities of the body may constitute sexual fetiches; the possibilities in this respect, extending from head to foot, have been enumerated above. Moreover, odd as it may sound, the entire human being may also become a sexual fetich, not as a whole personality—that would be normal love—but as a national or racial individual. In such a case we have the so-called “racial fetichism.” The European newspapers are full of interesting reports of the peculiar attractive force exercised by exotic individuals, female or male, such as negroes, Arabs, Abyssinians, Moors, Indians, Japanese, etc., upon European men and women respectively. Whenever members of such races come to stay in any European capital, we hear of remarkable love affairs between white girls and these strangers, of romantic abductions, and other mad adventures. The novelty, peculiarity, piquancy of the strange races has the effect of a fetich. The size, the figure, the physiognomy, tint of skin, smell, tattooing, adornment, costume, speech, dance, and song, of these savage men exercise a fascinating influence. White men have from very early times had a peculiar weakness for negroes and for mulatto women and girls. As early as the eighteenth century there existed in Paris negro brothels; and somewhat later, after Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition, negroes and negresses came in large numbers to Paris, and were utilized for the gratification of the lusts of both sexes.
Notwithstanding the deeply-rooted racial hatred, even in America racial fetichism gives rise to numerous connexions of this kind. The “coloured girl” exercises a powerful attractive force upon the American man; and even the proud American woman manifests, with an especial frequency in Chicago, a certain preference for the male negro.[628] But much greater is the alluring force exercised by the white upon the negro. More especially among civilized negroes does the white woman play the part of a fetich. This is the explanation of the frequent rape, or attempted rape, of white girls on the part of negroes—one of the principal causes of the Southern lynchings.
Among the parts of the body which act as fetiches, we have especially to mention the hair of woman’s head. “Hair fetichism” is widely diffused, both in the physiological “lesser” form and in the pathological “greater” form. The abundance and the colour of the hair have an equal influence in normal love also as a “fetich.” Hair, “of sweetest flesh, the tenderest, Sweetest growth,” as Eduard Grisebach terms it in his “Neue Tanhäuser,” has a profound sexual significance; with primitive man, also, it probably played the same rôle of a sexually stimulating “veil” which was later played by tattooing and clothing. The hair of the head, and special modes of arranging that hair, play an important part in sexual selection among the savage races. The odour of the hair also has a sexually stimulating influence, and remains persistent in the imagination. The softness also of the hair, the waving, curling movement of woman’s loosened hair, and the rustling of the hair, excite the imagination. But most important of all is the colour of the hair; and in this respect blonde or reddish-blonde hair unquestionably takes the first rank as a sexual fetich. Blonde hair exercised such an influence in the days of the Roman Empire. The demi-monde of all times has utilized this form of hair fetichism, felt by men, for its own purposes, either by dyeing the hair a fair colour, or by the wearing of fair-haired wigs. There exist, also, fetichistic impulses towards brown, black, and red hair respectively. Jon Lehmann tells (Breslauer Zeitung, August 24, 1906) of a great libertine who was happy with any or all pretty girls, as long as they had not red hair and were not the daughters of clergymen. Innumerable times had he made this assertion. Many years later Lehmann found him as the happy husband of—a red-haired clergyman’s daughter! “C’est l’amour qui a fait cela,” he answered laconically to the astonished question why he had been so unfaithful to the principles of his youth.
Hair fetichism manifests itself in various ways. Many people are, properly speaking, rather smell fetichists than hair fetichists; they content themselves simply with smelling the hair, and this constitutes their only, or their principal, sexual gratification. Other hair fetichists obtain sexual enjoyment by looking at the hair, or by passing the fingers through it. The following case, reported by Archenholtz (“England and Italy,” vol. i., p. 448; Leipzig, 1785), is typical:
“I was acquainted with an Englishman who was an honourable man; but he had a very peculiar taste, which, as he frequently assured me, was deeply rooted in his soul. His greatest pleasure, which alone could intoxicate his senses, was to comb the hair of a beautiful woman. He kept a very handsome mistress for this purpose only. Love and woman did not, in the ordinary sense, come under consideration; he had nothing to do except with her hair. In the hours that suited him, she must take down her hair and let him pass his hands through it. This operation produced in him the most intense degree of physical voluptuousness.”
The most remarkable class of hair-fetichists are the so-called “plait-cutters.” The transition to this morbid state depends upon the custom, widely diffused in earlier times, of cutting off and preserving locks of hair as erotic fetiches. This sexual reliquary cult flourished especially in the eighteenth century, during the period of “sentiment.” Friedrich S. Krauss reports (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. i., p. 163) that among the Southern Slavs young men and women gave one another tufts of pubic hair as sexual fetiches. The “wig-collectors” also belong to the category of harmless hair fetichists. More serious are the genuine “plait-cutters”—persons who are accustomed to cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls, who are happy in the possession of these plaits, and who obtain sexual gratification simply by looking at and touching them. These plait-cutters are almost unquestionably pathological individuals, who act under the influence of coercive impulses. Recently, in Berlin, two such cases attracted public attention. The judicial proceedings connected with the former of these cases elicited such interesting details regarding the development, psychology, and activity of plait fetichism that it is worth preserving, and is therefore given here at length, quoted from a report in the Berliner Tageblatt, No. 118, of March 6, 1906.
Perversities before the Law Courts.
The plait-cutter whose arrest attracted so much attention appeared yesterday in the Assessor’s Court, under the presidency of the judicial assessor Förster. The accused, Robert S., was a student of the Technical High School at Charlottenburg. The accused was prosecuted and defended by counsel. He was born at Valparaiso in the year 1883. The accusation was that, between the months of November and January last, he had, in sixteen cases, in the public streets, cut plaits of hair from the heads of young girls, taking also the ribbons with which their hair was tied; this charge was one of theft. In twelve cases also he was accused of bodily maltreatment and actual injury. Two medical experts were present to advise the court. During the inquiry the public was excluded from the court, but the representatives of the Press were admitted.
The accused replied to the inquiries of the President, that he had come to Germany in the year 1888, and that he had been at school in Thorn, Bergedorf, and Hamburg. In Hamburg he had passed his final examination, and had received a good report on leaving. He had always had a special fondness for mathematics; he had studied for one term at Munich. He had always worked very hard. He admitted that in sixteen cases he had cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls in the streets of Berlin. In his rooms thirty-one plaits had been found.—President: Had you such tendencies in earlier years?—Accused: Yes; at the age of sixteen years I secretly, one evening, cut some hair from the head of my sister, thirteen years of age, and kept it. I have always had a desire for beautiful long hair; finally, this desire became so strong that I was unable to resist it any longer. The first time that I cut some hair from the head of a girl was the day of the entrance of the Crown Princess. I do not know why I suddenly was unable to resist the impulse. It became more powerful after I returned from a journey to South America, which I made as a voluntary machinist. The voyage lasted five months. I had worked very hard while on board. During the whole voyage I was in a gloomy mood, and when I returned the impulse became continually greater.—President: In what way did the impulse affect you?—Accused: I frequently ran after little girls without being able to gratify the desire to possess their hair. Then I succeeded, amid the crowd at the entrance festivities Unter den Linden, to cut some loose hair from the head of a girl with a pair of scissors, without the girl becoming aware of it.—President: What did you do with the hair?—Accused: Nothing at all.—President: What did you think about while you where doing it?—Accused: Nothing. I simply put the hair into my pocket.—President: And afterwards?—Accused: Several times Unter den Linden I cut loose hair from girls’ heads.—President: When did you begin to cut off entire plaits?—Accused: In November, at the entrance of the King of Spain. Then, in the “Opernplatz,” I cut a plait from the head of a child; the girl did not notice it, and I remained quiet. The plait was fastened with ribbon.—President: What did you do with the plait?—Accused: I took it home, combed it, and put it in a box on my writing-table, on which was the inscription “Mementoes.” I afterwards frequently took the hair out and kissed it. Often I laid it on my pillow and rested my head on it.—President: Were you not fully aware that you were doing something wrong, and that you were interfering profoundly with the rights of another individual?—Accused: I did not think about it.—President: If the proceedings were now to come to an end, and if you were discharged, would you do the same thing again?—Accused: I do not think that I should do it again, now that I have experienced what the consequences are.—President: Can you give security that in the future your will will be stronger than the impulse?—Accused: I cannot give any guarantee.—President: Have you never read in the papers that the citizens of Berlin were very much agitated by this cutting off of girls’ hair?—Accused: I have read nothing of the kind.—President: When were you arrested?—Accused: On January 27. From a girl whose hair was plaited in two plaits I cut one plait; when she came near me again, I wanted to cut off the other plait, and then I was arrested.—President: Is it true that you put a ribbon round each plait of hair, and marked it with the date you had cut it off?—Accused: To some extent I did so.—President: Have you ever had sexual relations with woman?—Accused: No, never. I have only had a strong impulse to gain possession of beautiful long hair.—President: Would not long beautiful men’s hair have satisfied you as well?—Accused: Yes.—Counsel for the Defence: Did you not have this morbid impulse in quite early youth? You told me that you remembered the hair of many girls from the time that you were at school in Thorn. At that time you were eight years old. You said to me that you had thought no more about the persons to whom the hair belonged, but only, and all the more, about their hair.—Accused: That is correct. It is indifferent to me whether the person to whom the hair belonged is young and beautiful or old and ugly: my only interest is in the hair.—President: Have you the same interest in white hair?—Accused: My attraction is only to fair hair.—In reply to a further question on the part of the President, the accused declared that he had been a very active member of the academic gymnastic club, and that he belonged to a students’ purity alliance.—Counsel for the Defence: The accused has stated that, while he is at work, it often happens that suddenly plaits of hair seem to appear before his eyes. He often has reveries in which it seems to him that in all countries women and girls with beautiful hair are at his disposal, and that he is able to rob them of their hair. Among his colleagues the accused has always felt himself to be thrust into the background. He had the feeling that he was destined for great things, and that his comrades would not recognize this. The accused, whose father is dead, had received assistance for his studies; his brother is an officer at sea; one of his sisters is mentally disordered.—Of the witnesses who had been summoned to attend, three only were examined. Captain von W., whose daughter, when walking in the Leipzigerstrasse, had been robbed of part of her hair by the accused, gave evidence that the affair had had very disagreeable consequences to his daughter. Since that time the child had suffered from a terrible feeling of anxiety; she had experienced a nervous shock, and frequently cried out anxiously in the middle of the night, because she was dreaming of the plait-cutter.—The next witness, Frau Gall, an old acquaintance of the family of the accused, described his character as exceptionally good. All who knew him had been astonished to hear of his actions; no one who knew him had ever observed this passion for hair. Recently he had obviously been overstrained mentally, and very distrait; generally speaking, he was not high-spirited and happy, like other young fellows. According to further evidence given by this witness, regarding the family history, it appeared that the accused was affected with congenital taint.—Undergraduate Schmeding, President of “the Alliance for the Maintenance of Chastity,” had become intimately acquainted with the accused, in consequence of their holding similar views. He described him as having a good character, but as dreamy, melancholy, and reserved, and unfamiliar with harmless cheerfulness and joy.—Dr. Hoffmann, one of the medical advisers to the court, said: We have in this case to do with a peculiar mode of activity of the sexual impulse. Although such an impulse does not completely abrogate responsibility, still, in this case, normal responsibility is greatly limited from early youth onwards. The accused has an imaginative belief that he is not sufficiently esteemed; he believes that he could make himself invisible; he believes that he could build a great castle, and furnish the rooms of this castle with innumerable plaits of hair. Moreover, he is hereditarily tainted with insanity, and bodily examination shows that he has numerous stigmata of degeneration. § 51 of the Criminal Code should apply to this case. Since the accused can hardly be supposed to have the power of controlling his impulse, it would appear necessary that he should be treated in a lunatic asylum.—Dr. Leppmann, the other medical adviser, said: The case before us is one of extreme rarity. The accused suffers from severe congenital taint, and exhibits a number of stigmata of degeneration. At the time his offences were committed the accused was certainly emotionally disturbed, and at the present time is still ill. Von Krafft-Ebing reports only a few such cases, and the same is true of Dr. Moll. The accused was incapable of free voluntary determination; he is still unhealthy, and must be treated as a sick man.—Counsel for the Prosecution: If the accused had been in possession of normal mental health, it would have been necessary to punish him with exceptional severity, for such offences as his profoundly endangered public security; it would not be right for any gaps to exist in our Criminal Code which made the punishment of such an offence impossible. We may dispute in detail under which paragraph the offence comes, but there can be no question but that it is a punishable offence. The medical experts had, however, shown that the accused was not fully sane, and he must be dealt with from this standpoint.
The President summed up as follows: The public sense of justice naturally demands severe punishment for such an offence. The accused, however, is not criminally responsible. In view of the evidence given by the medical experts, the accused must be discharged, on the understanding that his family will immediately take steps to have him confined in an asylum. It was possible that this decision would not satisfy every one, but in view of the evidence before the court, no other course was possible.
This case appears to have had a suggestive influence, for shortly afterwards a cashier, Alfred L., was arrested, who had cut plaits of hair from the heads of two young girls. In his home were found, in addition, seventeen plaits of hair, which he had bought, among these the queue of a Chinese! Already when a schoolboy L. had been affected with this morbid impulse.
There exist also homosexual or pseudo-homosexual hair fetichists, especially among women, to whom the hair of another woman’s head becomes a fetich. Remarkable is the following passage in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s romance “Lust” (pp. 210-212; Berlin, 1902):
“‘Do you remember,’ asked Donna Francesca (of her friend Donna Maria), ‘at school, how we all wished to comb your hair? how we used to fight about it every day? Imagine, Andreas, that blood used actually to flow! Ah, I shall never forget the scenes between Carlotta Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni. It was maniacal! To comb the hair of Maria Bandinelli was the one ardent desire of all the girls, great and small alike. The infection spread through the whole school. There followed prohibitions, warnings, severe punishment; we were even threatened with having our own hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? All our heads were bewitched by the black snake which hung from your head to your heels. What passionate tears every evening! And when Gabriella Vanni, from jealousy, made that treacherous cut with a pair of scissors! Gabriella had really lost her wits. Do you remember?...’”
“Andreas remarked that none of his lady friends had had such a growth of hair, so thick, so dark a forest, in which she could conceal herself. The history of all these young girls, in love with a plait of hair, filled with passion and jealousy, who burned to lay comb and hands upon this living treasure, seemed to him a most stimulating and poetic episode of cloistral life.”
There exists also a negative hair fetichism. Hirschfeld reports the case of a prostitute who was a well-developed fetichist for baldness. Among many races, removal of the hair is a means of sexual stimulation.
Nose, lips, mouth (cf. Belot’s novel, “La Bouche de Madame X.”), and ears, can all become the objects of sexual fetichism, though in most cases only of the lesser fetichism; the eyes also, which as fetichistic charms play an important part, and are effective especially through their colour. It is uncertain if, in this relationship, clear blue eyes or sparkling black eyes have the greater importance. The female breast is a natural physiological fetich for the male sex. But over and above this there exists a remarkable variety of breast fetichists, who employ the isolated breast, separated from the body, for the binding of books. According to Witkowski (“Tetoniana,” p. 35; Paris, 1898), certain bibliomaniacs and erotomaniacs have books bound with women’s skin taken from the region of the breast, so that the nipple forms a characteristic swelling on the cover! A further account of these human skin fetichists is given by Dr. Picard in the Gazette Médicale de Paris, July 19, 1906.
Von Krafft-Ebing contests the existence of a special “genital fetichism”; but the universal diffusion of the phallus-cult contradicts his opinion; the phallus-cult is unquestionably connected with fetichistic ideas, which are embodied in the symbols of the lingam and the yoni. According to Weininger,[629] woman, speaking generally, is only a phallus fetichist; man exists for her only as a sexual organ.
“I think people have been unwilling to see—or they have been unwilling to say; they have hardly formed accurate idea for themselves—what the copulatory organ of a man is for a woman, as wife, even as virgin; what it psychologically signifies; how it dominates to the uttermost the entire life of woman, although she herself may be completely unconscious of the fact. I do not mean at all that woman regards the male penis as beautiful, or even pretty. She regards it as man regards the Gorgon’s head, as the bird regards the snake—it exercises upon her a hypnotizing, magical, fascinating influence.”
Goethe lays stress on the beauty which the male penis has in woman’s eyes, when, in the paralipomena to the first part of “Faust” (Weimar edition, vol. xiv., p. 307), he makes Satan say in his address to women:
“Für euch sind zwei Dinge
Von köstlichem Glanz,
Das leuchtende Gold
Und ein glänzender....”
Georg Hirth also (“Ways to Love,” pp. 566, 567) speaks of an instinctive belief on the part of woman in the “beauty and the paradisaical force of the phallus,” and he regrets “the unnatural depreciation and mendacious concealment of this portion of the male body” by the conventional morality discovered by the world of men.
The wide diffusion of the genital fetichistic tendencies in man and woman is clearly manifested by the extremely frequent occurrence of isolated adoration of the genital organs in the practices of cunnilinctus and fellatio, which in numerous individuals completely replace normal coitus.
Very rare is a case, which came under my own observation, of isolated penis-foreskin fetichism in a heterosexual man. He is thirty years of age, and a student of natural science, in whom at the age of four years the first manifestation of sexual excitement occurred; later, towards the age of puberty, sexual excitement became always associated with the mental representation of a male penis, and more especially of the foreskin of that organ, whilst he felt antipathy to the idea of actual sexual intercourse with men, and felt attracted to women. Still, from time to time the imaginative representation of the membrum virile takes possession of his mind as a sort of coercive idea, and when this happens the patient masturbates, at the same time often making sketches of a penis.
A singular case of exclusively genital fetichism is reported by P. Garnier (“Les Fetichistes,” pp. 170-174; Paris, 1896).
This case was that of a man, forty-eight years of age, who in normal sexual intercourse was almost completely impotent, and who could obtain sexual gratification only by the observation of the genital organs of human beings and animals, and who, as in the case just mentioned, was sexually excited by making sketches of genital organs. This person exhibited obvious symptoms of nervous disorder.
We might regard it as hardly possible that cases should exist in which the fetichism related to genital organs of a dubious character—“hermaphrodite fetichism”; and yet a veritable case of such hermaphrodite fetichism has come under my own observation.
The case is that of an officer, who is always searching for hermaphroditic formations of the genital organs. He is pretty well known in this respect among the prostitutes of Berlin, who make use of his inclination for their own advantage, by a demonstration to him of reputed hermaphrodites. He has had the good fortune to discover several real hermaphrodites; but notwithstanding all his endeavours, his affection has never been returned.
The hand, especially a woman’s hand, is not simply an object for cheiromancy, but is also the occasion of a sexual fetichism by which the hand is spiritualized. The beautiful, finely-formed hand is a powerful love-charm. Binet reports the case of a young man in whom sexual excitement was exclusively produced by a woman’s hand, and he was always on the look-out for opportunities of touching the beautiful hands of women. Isolated foot fetichism is rarer; it is generally associated with the very common shoe fetichism (vide [infra]). The buttocks, the kallipygian charms of women, have always been a sexual fetich for men. Among flagellants this may become isolated as a fetich, and completely divorced from the personality as a whole. For such individuals, in sexual relationships, only the posteriora exist.
Among the bodily functions which are capable of acting as fetiches, the smell, the emanation of the body, unquestionably takes the first place. Smell fetichism is a very frequent phenomenon. Regarding the intimate relationships between the sense of smell and the vita sexualis, and regarding the existence of certain specific sexual odours, I have already recorded the most important facts in the first chapter of the present work ([pp. 15]-[18]). As sexual odours, the emanation from the hair of the head, the emanation from the armpits, the smell of the genital region, and the general emanation from the skin, come under consideration.[630]
The fetichism for red hair is frequently no more than an apparent hair fetichism; much more often it is really a smell fetichism, because since early times red-haired individuals have been supposed to emit an emanation having a powerful sexually exciting influence. In the Romance countries, France and Italy, this belief is universally diffused. I quote another passage from d’ Annunzio’s “Lust” (p. 66):
“‘Have you noticed the armpits of Madame Chlysoloras?’ The Duke of Beffi indicated the dancer, upon whose alabaster forehead a firebrand of red hair was shining, like that which we see in the priestesses of Alma Tadema. Her bodice was fastened on the shoulders by very narrow straps, and in the armpits one could see two luxuriant tufts of red hair.
“Bomminaco begins to speak at large regarding the peculiar odour which is diffused by red-haired women.”
Binet tells of a student of medicine who one day, when sitting on a bench reading, suddenly had an erection of the penis, and on looking round he saw sitting on the same bench a red-haired woman, whom he had not before consciously observed, from whom a powerful odour emanated.
The odour of the armpits also appears in France to find fetichistic lovers. The French cocotte commonly assumes during coitus a position in which the man has his nose in one of her armpits, and sometimes spontaneously offers this position. At the unrestrained dances in the Parisian winter season, more especially at the very free bal des quat’z arts, held in the spring, we frequently see the men sniffing at the armpits of the girls.
It is unquestionable that the odour of the body at large may in certain circumstances act as a sexual fetich. Many peculiar love relationships prove this fact. From very early times among the common people the odour of sweat has been regarded as a powerful aphrodisiac. I may allude to the case, reported by von Krafft-Ebing, of King Henry III., who dried his face with the chemise of Maria of Cleves, dripping with sweat, and thereby was inspired with a passionate love for her. I may refer also to the case of a peasant who, when dancing, was accustomed to dry the face of his partner with his handkerchief, which he had carried in his own armpit, and thus produced in her voluptuous excitement. An Indian king, when choosing his beloved, did so simply by smelling the clothing moistened by their perspiration, and selected the woman whose clothing was most agreeable to his sense of smell.[631] Oscar A. H. Schmitz informed me that an English traveller in India related to him that in India lovers sometimes changed underclothing. Each wears the shirt impregnated with the perspiration of the other. The love of Princess Chimay for the gipsy Rigó is stated to have been a typical “smell-love” of this kind. It is said that the odour of negresses and mulattresses has an especially powerful exciting influence upon Frenchmen, of which the poet Baudelaire is mentioned as an example; this writer declared that smell was the third and highest degree of voluptuousness. Recently Peter Altenberg, in “Prodromos,” has described the sexual importance of the odour of the body at large. Such typical smell fetichists, luxuriating in the general emanation of the feminine body, are mentioned by Macé, the chief of the Parisian police. He describes very vividly how, in the larger shops, such men move about among the feminine customers, in order to intoxicate themselves with the odours proceeding from them.
In opposition to these general bodily odours, the specific genital odours play in the human species a subordinate part; they are for the most part perceived as unpleasant. Falck[632] is of opinion that this antipathy only becomes apparent after sexual intercourse, whilst before such intercourse the odour of the genital organs has a slight erotic stimulating influence. Many cases of cunnilinctus and fellatio are certainly referable to olfactory impressions. The following case is plainly indicative of the sexual influence of genital odours:
An Italian woman loved, after sexual intercourse, to retain on her hands the odour of the genital secretions, and on such occasions, although usually a scrupulously clean person, she avoided washing her hands. She was especially fond of mingling this odour with that of cigarette smoke. She was entirely free from stigmata of degeneration; on the contrary, she was an extremely robust, well-developed person.
One of the most remarkable and monstrous phenomena in the domain of sexual perversities is that by which the processes and products of the ultimate stages of metabolism become associated with libido sexualis, become true sexual fetiches, and can more especially give rise to a formal speciality of smell fetichism. The position of the orifices of the alimentary canal and of the urinary apparatus in the immediate neighbourhood of the genital organs gives rise to a certain associative conjunction between the functions of these parts, and this association is rendered more intimate by various circumstances (cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 224, 225). In addition, the idealizing influence of libido sexualis plays a part here; the identification of the desired individual with the lover’s own ego leads the disagreeable and disgusting character of those processes and parts to disappear, and ultimately brings about a comparison between the real æsthetic charm of the beloved person and the coarsely material processes in question, which takes the form of a sensually stimulating contrast. There is not in this case any quite unusual association of ideas on the part of a completely degenerate individual; we have rather to do with a general anthropological and ethnological phenomenon. I was myself the first to give an elaborate proof of this fact (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 223-240); and I illuminated more especially the remarkable rôle of the so-called “skatology”—that is, the sexual influence of the ultimate products of human metabolism, and of the processes associated therewith—in folk-lore, in mythology, in superstition, and in the literature of all nations and times. In this way do we first arrive at an understanding of the possibility of an erotic influence exercised by defæcation and micturition, which is so often observed at the present day; above all, in the so-called “muse latrinale”—in the widely diffused practice of scribbling obscene inscriptions on the walls of public lavatories[633]—which finds expression also in sexual “copralagnia and urolagnia.”
Compare, in this connexion, S. Soukhanoff, “Contribution à l’Étude des Perversions Sexuelles,” published in Annales Médico-Psycologiques, January and February, 1901—a case of urolagnia and copralagnia in a habitual masturbator, twenty-seven years of age. A remarkable case of sexual excitement produced by the odour of newly made hay, in a lawyer, twenty-five years of age, is reported by Amrain (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. iv., p. 237). This person took off all his clothes, and rolled as if intoxicated in the hay, until ejaculation occurred. He called his impulse a “vis major.”
It is clear that masochistic and sadistic elements play an important part in many cases of urolagnia and copralagnia. But there are pure forms of smell fetichism in this category, as we see in the case of those persons who become sexually excited in consequence of the smell of the urine and fæces of the beloved person; or, speaking generally, by the smell of those excrements, the person from whom they are derived being a matter of indifference. These are the renifleurs and épongeurs of the French observers, who haunt public lavatories in order to obtain sexual excitement from the smell of the excrements of persons of the opposite sex. There even exist individuals who have the acts of defæcation and micturition performed by others on to their own bodies; in this case the masochistic element is associated with the element of smell fetichism.
A greater rôle than that of the natural sexual odours is at the present day played by artificial perfumes, which, as a fact, are frequently employed as sexual fetiches. Their origin, and the cause of their use, has been already explained ([p. 17]). From early times prostitution and the demi-monde have made the most extensive use of these artificial scents for the sexual allurement of men. Men are, in general, more sensitive to sexual stimulation by means of perfumes than women are. These perfumes are partly derived from plants; in fact, the simple odour of certain flowers produces sexual excitement—a fact well known to many peasant girls.[634] Other sexually stimulating scents are derived from the animal kingdom, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. A French firm of perfumers advertises a perfume—“charme secret”—the local employment of which is clearly suggested in the advertisement. But in most cases only a portion of the clothing or underclothing is perfumed. There exist typical perfume fetichists, who can, as a rule, be sexually excited only by means of some definite perfume, in the absence of which they are impotent.
In comparison with smell, taste plays a very minor part. Still, a primevally old popular custom, the use of “priapistic flavouring agents,” rests upon fetichistic ideas of this kind. Cunnilinctus and fellatio are perhaps also committed with the desire to taste the genital organs; just as the same must be the case with those not very rare practices in which flavouring agents or beverages are brought into contact with the genital organs, are impregnated, as it were, with their essence, and then swallowed. To this belongs also the following original case:
A man obtains sexual gratification only in this way: by introducing a cigar, small end first, into the female genital passage, leaving it there a long time, and then smoking it, with the end thus impregnated in his mouth.
There exist many other forms of fetichism. It is impossible to enumerate all these varieties. I shall, for example, refer only to the not uncommon fetichism of women for athletes and acrobats, or for singers and actors; and to that of men for dancers, and especially for horsewomen, whose appearance has quite a fascinating influence on many men, more particularly when they are actually on horseback.
Analogous to the previously described hermaphrodite fetichism is fetichism for other bodily defects, as for obese, lame, and hunchbacked persons.
Von Krafft-Ebing reported the case of a man who loved only girls with a limp, which I can parallel by an observation of my own. A merchant, thirty-two years of age (with slight stigmata of degeneration—Darwinian pointed ears, slight asymmetry of the skull—but in other respects with a very powerful build of body, and having performed his year’s service in the cavalry), who since ten years of age has been addicted to excessive masturbation, is potent only in intercourse with a girl who limps. He cannot state when this perversion first manifested itself in him. In any case, it has developed into a typical fetichism.
To this category belong, also, the abnormal love towards elderly individuals, heterosexual “gerontophilia,” and the fetichistic influence of certain peculiarities of character. Thus, it is an old experience that a Don Juanesque, bold, and self-assertive appearance on the part of men, and even depravity and sexual lawlessness, exercise a fascinating influence upon many women. This is, as it were, homologous to the previously described influence of prostitutes and fast women upon men.
A peculiar fetich is constituted also by the human voice. A sympathetic voice has often been the cause of a violent love passion. Singers, both men and women, know something of this powerful fetichistic charm of the voice.
Finally, sexual fetichism can extend to objects in relationship with the beloved person, or with any human individual (“object fetichism”), and this is very readily accounted for by the personification and spiritualization of these objects of human use, and especially of clothing, which appears to be a part of the personality itself, and so quite naturally becomes a sexual fetich. (See the detailed description given on p. 140 et seq.)
Among the various forms of clothing fetichism, by far the commonest is shoe fetichism, or “retifism.” After the Marquis de Sade, who in his writings described the most important sexual perversions, active algolagnia has been termed “sadism”; and after Sacher-Masoch, passive algolagnia has been termed “masochism.” I consider, therefore, that with the same and even greater justification, as I have already suggested in my work on Rétif de la Bretonne,[635] foot and shoe fetichism may be denoted by the term “retifism,” for it is this sexual perversion which manifests itself most markedly in Rétif’s life (1734-1806), and in him, also, this perversion found its first literary interpreter and apostle, in exactly the same manner as sadism was made known in wider circles by de Sade and masochism by Sacher-Masoch. Rétif first described typical foot fetichism and shoe fetichism, and also wrote the first history of this subject. In him this tendency appeared at the early age of ten years, as he relates (vol. i., pp. 90-93) in his celebrated autobiography—a work greatly admired by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and other heroes of our classical literature. In this place, also, he gives a very good explanation of the genesis of foot fetichism and shoe fetichism:
“This fondness for beautiful feet, which in me is so strong that it unfailingly arouses my most powerful lust, and leads me to ignore any ugliness in other respects—does it arise from any physical or emotional predisposition? In all those who have this peculiarity it is very strong. Is it connected with any preference for an easy gait, for a gracious, voluptuous, dancing movement? The peculiar attraction which the foot-covering exercises is only the reflex of the preference for beautiful feet, which stimulate even an animal. Thus a man comes to prize the covering almost as much as the thing itself. The passion which, since childhood, I have felt for such beautiful foot-coverings was an acquired inclination, which, however, rested on a natural preference. But the love for a small foot has a physical basis, which finds expression in the Latin proverb, ‘Parvus pes, barathrum grande.’”
Rétif was a typical shoe fetichist. He trembled with desire on viewing a woman’s shoe; he blushed when he saw it, as if it were the girl herself. As a true fetichist, he collected the slippers and shoes of his mistresses; he kissed them, and smelled them, and sometimes masturbated into them. Especially fascinating to him were the high heels of women’s shoes, a sight of which sufficed to produce in him intense sexual excitement.
Shoe-fetichism existed in ancient times, and long ago it was assumed that there was a relationship between the foot and the vita sexualis. References to this matter will be found in my earlier work, “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 323-325. In modern shoe-fetichism masochistic ideas (ideas of being trodden on, of placing the beloved’s foot on the back of the neck) or sadistic ideas (ideas of treading upon the beloved’s feet, etc.) played a part; also there were associated sensations of smell proceeding from the leather; the colour of the shoes is likewise of importance. The “foot-wooers”—thus are the shoe fetichists named in the speech of prostitutes—have the most varied inclinations in respect of different shapes and fashions of shoes. One loves ladies’ boots, another riding-boots, a third dancing-shoes, a fourth slippers, a fifth actually loves coarse wooden peasants’ shoes. Also, in respect of ornamentation, colour, heels, etc., fancies vary. In one case known to me, a clergyman was purely a heel fetichist. Hirschfeld records (“The Nature of Love,” p. 148) the case of a man who was sexually excited only by means of the ankle-wrinkles in boots; also the case of a woman who was fascinated by the dusty boots of men, etc.[636]
Of other articles of clothing, the corset, petticoat, chemise, apron, and, more especially, stockings and handkerchiefs, form objects of sexual fetichism. Félicien Rops appears to have been at once a corset fetichist and a stocking fetichist, for he frequently draws feminine figures naked, except in respect of their wearing corset and stockings. There are many men who are able to complete intercourse with a woman only when she keeps on her stockings or shoes. Others are excited only by the articles of clothing; for instance, they represent in imagination corset shops, in order, by looking at the corsets, to produce orgasm and ejaculation; or they collect or steal[637] feminine underclothing, especially handkerchiefs, in order to obtain sexual excitement from smelling or looking at these, or to masturbate with them. Finally, there exist fetichists for particular materials, such as fur (loved especially by masochists), satin, silk, or even entire costumes, such as a woman’s riding-dress, tights, mourning, etc. D’Estoc describes, under the name “la course des araignées” (“the spider race”), the appearance of twenty women in a brothel, who were clothed only in long black gloves reaching to the shoulders and long black stockings. In the Berlin newspapers there recently appeared an account of the fetichism of a prince for long “gants de suède” on slender women’s arms. Unique in its kind would appear to be the case of the spectacle fetichist, of which Hirschfeld gives an account (op. cit., pp. 145, 146).
[627] M. Hirschfeld has therefore suggested the apt name “partial attraction” for fetichism; unfortunately, no adjective can be formed from this term, so that for practical purposes the foreign word is more applicable.
[628] Cf. Felix Baumann, “From Darkest America,” pp. 10, 41.
[629] “Sex and Character,” pp. 340, 341.
[630] In the second volume of “Anthropophyteia” (1905, pp. 445-447), under the title, “The Sense of Smell in Relation to the Vita Sexualis,” I have published a contribution to this interesting theme. I addressed questions regarding the matter to various authorities; and among the answers I obtained, I must mention more especially those of Dr. Th. Petermann and Oscar A. H. Schmitz, to whom I owe valuable accounts and observations, which are in part utilized in the present chapter.
[631] Witmalett, “Man and Woman in Conjugal Union,” p. 48 (Leipzig and Stuttgart); J. P. Frank, “System of a Complete Medicinal Polity,” vol. ii., pp. 78, 79 (Frankenthal, 1791).
[632] N. D. Falck, “Treatise on Venereal Diseases.”
[633] Martial alludes (“Epigrams,” xii. 61, verses 7-10) to the obscene “carmina quæ legunt cacantes.”
[634] Many women are sexually excited by the flowers of the garden chestnut-tree, the smell of which resembles that of the semen of the male. A correspondent has communicated to me several observations of this nature from the Taunus district. G. d’Anunzio (“Lust,” p. 10) also describes the awakening of libido sexualis in woman by the smelling of a bouquet of flowers.
[635] Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), “Rétif de la Bretonne: the Man, the Author, and the Reformer” (Berlin, 1906).
[636] Cf., regarding shoe fetichism, also the work of P. Näcke, “Un Cas de Fétichisme de Souliers, etc.,” published in the Bulletin de la Société de Médicine Mentale de Belgique, 1894.
[637] The Berlin newspapers, a few years ago, were full of accounts of such a thief, who stole underclothing (cf. Berliner Tageblatt, No. 465, September 13, 1903). He was the terror of all housewives in the western suburbs of Berlin. Ultimately he was caught, and proved to be a workman, K. W. by name. In his house the police found a varied assortment of underclothing.
CHAPTER XXIII
ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH CHILDREN, INCEST, ACTS OF FORNICATION WITH CORPSES AND ANIMALS (BESTIALITY), EXHIBITIONISM, AND OTHER SEXUAL PERVERSITIES.
APPENDIX: THE TREATMENT OF SEXUAL PERVERSITIES.
“But what a source of devastation is a public or private teacher of youth, when his heart is impure!... What a tragic example of misleading is he who, himself in a position imposing upon him the duty of leading others towards virtue, is animated by the most detestable of all passions.”—Johann Peter Frank.