1. Offense Against Morality in the Form of Exhibition.
(Austrian Statutes, § 516; Abridgment, § 195. German Statutes, § 183.)
In man’s present condition of civilization, modesty is a characteristic and motive so firmly fixed by centuries of education that presumption of a psycho-pathological element necessarily arises when public decency is coarsely offended.
The presumption is justifiable that an individual who in this way has offended public decency and his own self-respect was incapable of moral feeling (idiots); or that it has been lost (states of acquired mental weakness); or that he has acted while in a clouded state of consciousness (transitory insanity, states of partial consciousness).
A very distinctive act which belongs here is that of exhibition (exposure). The cases thus far recorded are exclusively those of men who ostentatiously expose their genitals to persons of the opposite sex, in some instances following them, without, however, becoming aggressive.
The silly manner of this sexual activity, or really sexual demonstration, points to intellectual and moral weakness; or, at least, to temporary inhibition of the intellectual and moral functions, with excitation of libido dependent upon a decided disturbance of consciousness (abnormal unconsciousness, mental confusion); and, at the same time, the virility of these individuals is called in question. Thus there are various categories of exhibitionists.
The first category includes states of mental weakness in which, owing to the causative cerebral (or spinal) disease, consciousness is clouded, and the ethical and intellectual functions are interfered with; and in which there can be no opposition made to a sexual desire that has either always been intense, or that has been intensified by the disease-process. At the same time, impotence exists, and no longer permits expression of the sexual instinct in violent acts (rape), but only in acts that are silly.
The majority of reported cases[[128]] fall in this category. They are those of individuals afflicted with senile dementia, paretic dementia, or mental defects due to alcoholism, epilepsy, etc.
Case 167. Z., high official, aged 60; widower; father of a family. He had excited offense in that, during fourteen days, he had repeatedly exposed his genitals at his window, to a girl of eight years who lived opposite him. After a few months, under like circumstances, this man repeated his indecent act. At his examination he acknowledged the depravity of his action, and could give no excuse for it. Death, a year later, due to cerebral disease. (Lasègue, op. cit.)
Case 168. Z., aged 78; seaman. He had repeatedly exhibited his genitals on children’s play-grounds, and in the neighborhood of girls’ schools. This was the only way in which he was active sexually. He was married, and the father of ten children. Twelve years before, he had suffered a severe head-injury, since which he had had a deep scar, which indented the bone. Pressure on this scar caused pain; at the same time his face would flush, his expression become fixed, and he would grow somnolent, with convulsive movements in the right upper extremity (apparently epileptoid state in connection with cortical disease). Besides, there was senile dementia and advanced senium. It is not reported whether the exhibition coincided with epileptoid attacks or not. Senile dementia proved; pardoned. (Dr. Schuchardt, op. cit.)
Pelanda (op. cit.) has reported a number of cases of this kind:—
1. Paralytic, aged 60. At the age of fifty-eight he began to exhibit himself to women and children. In the asylum at Verona, for a long time thereafter, he was lascivious and also attempted fellatio.
2. A drinker, aged 66, suffering with folie circulaire. His exhibition was first noticed in church during divine service. His brother was likewise an exhibitionist.
3. A drinker, predisposed, aged 49. He was always very excitable sexually; in an asylum on account of chronic alcoholism. He exhibited himself whenever he saw a woman.
4. A man, aged 64; married; father of fourteen children. Great predisposition. Rachitic, microcephalic head. For years he had been an exhibitionist, in spite of repeated punishment.
Case 169. X., merchant, born in 1833; single. He had repeatedly exhibited himself to children, or even urinated at the same time; once, under these circumstances, he had kissed a little girl, driving her away. Twenty years previously X. had had a severe attack of mental disease, lasting two years, in which he is said to have had an apoplectic attack. Later, after loss of his fortune, he gave himself to drink, and of late years had often appeared absent-minded. His condition was that of alcoholism, senium præcox, and mental weakness. Penis small; phimosis; testicles atrophic. Proof of mental disease; pardoned. (Dr. Schuchardt, op. cit.)
Such cases recall the lasciviousness of youthful, sexuallyexcited persons that are still more or less boyish; but also that of many mature cynics of low morality, who find pleasure in defiling the walls of public closets, etc., with drawings of male and female genitals,—a kind of ideal exhibition which, however, is still widely separated from actual exhibition.
Another category of exhibitionists is made up of epileptics. This category is essentially to be distinguished from the foregoing, in that a conscious motive for the exhibition is wanting; and it appears much more like an impulsive act which, without any consideration of external circumstances, is performed as if it were an abnormal organic necessity.
At the time of the act there is always a state of imperfect consciousness; and thus is explained the fact that the unfortunate individual, without consciousness of the meaning of his act, or, at least, without cynicism, does it in obedience to a blind impulse. On regaining consciousness, he regrets and abhors it if there is not permanent mental weakness.
The prime motive in this state of imperfect consciousness, as with other impulsive acts, is a feeling of apprehensive oppression. If a sexual feeling become associated with it, then the ideas are given a certain direction in the sense of a corresponding (sexual) act.
How sexual ideas very easily arise temporarily in epileptics may be understood from the discussion under “Epilepsy.”
If, however, such an association has once been formed; if a particular act has taken place in an attack,—it is the more easily repeated in every subsequent attack; for, so to speak, a known tract has been established in the path of motivity.
The feeling of anxiety, with the state of imperfect consciousness, causes the associated sexual impulse to appear as a command,—an inner force, which is acted upon in a purely impulsive manner and in a state of absolute irresponsibility.
Case 170. K., a subordinate official, aged 29; of neuropathic family; living in happy marriage, and the father of one child. He has repeatedly, especially at dusk, exhibited himself to servant-girls. K. is tall, slim, pale, nervous, and hasty in manner. There is imperfect memory of the crimes. Since childhood there have been frequent severe congestive attacks, with intense flushing of the face, a rapid, tense pulse, and a fixed, absent stare. At the same time there were, now and then, confusion and vertigo. In this (epileptic) exceptional state K. would answer only after repeated questioning, and then it was as if he were waking from a dream. K. states that he has always felt excited and restless for some hours before his criminal acts, and experienced a feeling of fear, with oppression, and congestion of the head. In this condition he had often been giddy, and experienced an indistinct feeling of sexual excitement. At the height of such states he had left the house, without any purpose in view, and exposed his genitals anywhere. When he had reached home again, he had had but a dreamy remembrance of what had occurred, and felt very weak and depressed. It is also remarkable that, while exhibiting his genitals, he had used lighted matches to make them visible. The opinion was to the effect that the criminal acts depended upon epilepsy, and were imperative impulses; but he was, nevertheless, sentenced, with the assumption of extenuating circumstances. (Dr. Schuchardt, op. cit.).
Case 171. L., aged 39; single; tailor. His father was probably a drinker; he had two epileptic brothers, one of whom was insane. The patient himself has slight epileptic attacks, and from time to time states of imperfect consciousness, in which he runs about aimlessly, and thereafter does not know where he has been. He was considered a moral man, but he is now accused of having exhibited and played with his genitals in a strange house five or six times. His memory of these acts was very imperfect.
On account of repeated desertion from the army (probably likewise in epileptic states of imperfect consciousness), L. had been severely punished. In imprisonment he became insane with “epileptic insanity,” was sent to the Charité, and from there discharged “cured.” As far as the criminal acts were concerned, cynicism and wantonness could be excluded. That they were committed in a state of imperfect consciousness is probable from the fact, among other things, that to the policeman who arrested him, the “imbecile,” who was then in a cloudy state of consciousness, was in a remarkable mental state. (Liman, Vierteljahrsschrift f. ger. Med., N. F. xxxviii, H. 2.)
Case 172. L., aged 37. From October 15th to November 2d, he had many times given offense, by exhibiting himself to girls in daylight on the open street, and even in schools, into which he forced himself. It happened occasionally that he wanted the girls to perform manustupration or allow coitus, and, when refused, he performed masturbation before them. In G., in a public-house, he rapped on the window, with his penis exposed, so that the children and servant-girl in the kitchen were forced to see it.
After his arrest it was ascertained that since 1876 L. had very frequently caused trouble by exhibitions, but had always escaped punishment, owing to the demonstration of mental disease by physicians. On the other hand, he had been punished for desertion and theft in the army, and, later, once, as a civilian, for stealing cigars. L. had repeatedly been in asylums on account of insanity (attacks of insanity). Besides, he was often remarkable on account of his changeable, quarrelsome character, occasional excitement, and inconstancy.
L.’s brother died of paralysis. He himself presents no degenerative signs; no epileptic antecedents. During the time of observation he is neither insane nor mentally weakened. He behaves himself very well, and expresses great regret for his sexual crimes. About himself he states that, though no drinker, he occasionally has an impulse to drink. Soon after beginning, congestion of the head, vertigo, restlessness, anxiety, and oppression come on. He then passes into a dreamy state. An irresistible impulse now forces him to expose himself; and he then experiences a feeling of relief and breathes more easily. When he has once exposed himself, he knows nothing more of what he does. As precursors of such attacks, he had often, a short time before, had flames before the eyes, and vertigo. For the time of his clouded state of consciousness, he had but a clouded, dreamy memory.
It was only after a time that sexual ideas and impulses had become associated with these apprehensive, cloudy states of consciousness. Years ago, in such states, without motive and with great danger, he had deserted; once he had jumped from a third-story window; on another occasion he had left a good position to wander about aimlessly in a neighboring country, where he was at once arrested for exhibition.
When, outside of his abnormal periods, L. once became intoxicated, there was no exhibition. In the lucid state his sexual feeling and intercourse are perfectly normal. (Dr. Hotzen, Friedreich’s Blätter, 1890, H. 6). For other instances, vide Cases 153, 155.
A clinical group that very nearly approaches the epileptic exhibitionists is made up of certain neurasthenic individuals, in whom, likewise, there may occur attacks (epileptoid?) of imperfect consciousness[[129]] in connection with a feeling of apprehensive oppression; and with this sexual impulses may be associated, resulting in acts of exhibition having an impulsive character.
Case 173. Dr. S., academic teacher, had aroused public indignation by being seen repeatedly running about in the Zoological Garden at Berlin, before ladies and children, with his genitals hanging out. S. admitted this, but denied all thought or consciousness of causing public offense, and excused himself by saying that his running about with exposed genitals afforded him relief from nervous excitement. Mother’s father was insane, and died by suicide; his mother was constitutionally neuropathic, a somnambulist, and had been temporarily insane. The culprit was neuropathic, had been a somnambulist, and had had continuous aversion to sexual intercourse with females. In his youth he practiced onanism. He was a neurasthenic man, shy, torpid, and easily became embarrassed and confused. He was sexually always much excited. Frequently he dreamed that he was running about with exposed genitals, or that, dressed only in a shirt, he hung from a fence with his head downward, so that the shirt fell down, exposing his erected penis. His dreams would induce pollution, and he would then have rest for a few days or an entire week.
Also, in his waking state, the impulse would often come upon him, just as in his dreams, to run about with exposed genitals. As he was about to expose himself, he would become very hot, and then he would run aimlessly about. The member would become moist with secretion, but pollution was never induced. Finally, when it had become flaccid, he would put it up, and then come to himself, glad if no one had seen him. In such conditions of excitement he seemed to be in a dream; as if intoxicated. He had never had the intention to offend women. S. was not epileptic. His declarations had the impress of truth. He had actually never followed or spoken to women while in this condition. Frivolity and coarseness were excluded. In agreement with Westphal, the author regards S. as belonging “to a class of individuals of peculiar hypochondriacal tendencies, in whom the attention is constantly directed, in an abnormal way, to certain bodily sensations and processes; who brood over these, connecting all kinds of peculiar conceptions with them, at last making use of quite as strange means to combat the bodily sensations and ideas.” At least, S.’s act was due to pathological sensation and idea, and S. was in a condition of pathological disturbance of mental action at the time of the commission of his acts. In the case of this exhibitionist, the manner of satisfaction of the sexual instinct may be considered as peculiar to the individual. (Liman, Vierteljahrsschrift für gerichtel. Med., N. F. xxxviii, Heft 2.)
Case 174. X., aged 38; married; father of one child. Always sullen and silent. Suffers frequently with headache. Very neurasthenic, though not insane. He is troubled much at night by pollutions. He has repeatedly followed shop-girls, for whom he had lain in wait, exposing and handling his genitals. In one case he even followed a girl into a shop. (Trochon, Arch. de l’anthropologie criminelle, iii, p. 256.)
In the following case the exhibition seems subsidiary to the impulsive desire to satisfy sudden, intense libido, by means of masturbation:—
Case 175. R., coachman, aged 49, Vienna; married since 1866; childless. Father neuropathic and given to sexual excesses; died of cerebral disease. He presents no degenerative signs.
At the age of twenty-nine he suffered a severe concussion by falling from a height. Up to that time the vita sexualis had been normal. Since that time, every three or four months, he has been seized with very painful sexual excitement, accompanied by an intense desire to masturbate. A feeling of weariness and discomfort, with a desire for alcoholic indulgence, precedes this. In the intervals he is sexually cold, and has but very infrequent desire for his wife, who, moreover, for five years has been sick, and incapable of cohabitation. He gives the assurance that, as a young man, he never masturbated, and that, in the intervals between his attacks, he has never thought of satisfying himself sexually in this way.
The impulse to masturbation during the attack is always excited by certain feminine charms,—short cloak, pretty foot and ankle, elegant appearance. Age makes no difference; even little girls excite him. The impulse is sudden and unconquerable. R. describes the situation and act as characteristically impulsive. He had often tried to resist it; but then he would grow hot, terribly frightened, his head would burn, and he would seem to be in a fog; but he never lost consciousness. At the same time he would have violent, darting pain in the testicles and spermatic cords. He regretted it, but had to confess that the impulse was stronger than his will. In such a situation it forced him to masturbate, no matter where he might be. After ejaculation he would become calm, and regain his self-control. He regarded it as a terrible affliction. Defense shows that R. has been punished six times for similar offenses—exhibition and masturbation in the open street.
On November 4, 1889, R., while in his worst condition, happened to be in the street as a crowd of school-girls went by. This awakened his unconquerable impulse. There was not time to run to a closet, he was so excited. There was immediate exhibition, masturbation in front of a house,—great scandal and immediate arrest. R. is not weak-minded, and has no ethical defect. He bemoans his fate, deeply regrets his act, and fears new attacks. He regards his condition as abnormal,—as a fate against which he is powerless.
He thinks himself still virile. Penis abnormally large. Cremasteric reflex present; patellar reflex increased. Weakness of the sphincter of the bladder, that has existed for some years. Various neurasthenic difficulties.
The opinion showed that R. was subject to the influence of abnormal conditions, and had acted impulsively. Patient was sent to an asylum, from which he was discharged after a few months.
In the foregoing case the important point, clinically, lies not in the neurosis that is present, but rather in the impulsive character of the act (exhibition dependent on masturbation).
With the enumeration of the categories of imbeciles, of mentally weakened individuals, and of the exhibitionists that are in a neurotic (epileptic or neurasthenic) state of imperfect consciousness, apparently the clinical and forensic side of this phenomenon is still unexhausted; in addition to these, there is another class, the representatives of which, owing to deep hereditary taint (hereditary degenerative neurosis?), are impelled to periodical and very impulsive exhibition.
With reference to these conditions of psychopathia sexualis periodica (comp. “Periodical Insanity”), in which the accidentally-awakened impulse to exhibition is but a partial manifestation of a clinical whole, like dipsomania periodica, Magnan, from whom I borrow the following instructive cases, justly lays the greatest stress upon the impulsive, periodical feature of these abnormal impulses; and no less upon the fact that they are often accompanied by terrible anxiety, which, after the realization of the impulse, gives place to a feeling of relief.
These facts, and no less, the clinical picture of degeneracy that, for the most part, is referable to injurious conditions that are hereditary, or that exercise an injurious effect on the development of brain in early years (rachitis, etc.), are, medicolegally, of decisive importance [with reference to the question of responsibility].
Case 176. G., aged 29, waiter in a café. In 1888, while standing under a church-door, he exhibited himself to several girls working opposite. He confessed the act, and also that, many times, in the same place and at the same time of day, he had been guilty of the same crime, having been punished for it, the year before, with imprisonment for one month.
G. has very nervous parents. His father is mentally unstable and very irascible. His mother is at times insane, and suffers with severe nervous disease.
G. has always had nervous twitching of the face, and constant alternation of causeless depression, with tædium vitæ, and periods of elation. At the ages of ten and fifteen, for slight cause, he wished to commit suicide. When excited, he has similar twitching of the extremities. He presents constant general analgesia. In prison he was at first beside himself with shame about the disgrace he had brought on his family, and said he was the worst of men, deserving the severest punishment.
Until his nineteenth year G. had satisfied himself with solitary and mutual masturbation, and, on one occasion, he had practiced onanism with a girl. From that time, working in a café, the female customers had excited him so intensely that ejaculation was often induced. He suffered with almost constant priapism, and, as his wife stated, in spite of coitus, it often disturbed his rest at night. For seven years he had repeatedly exhibited himself at his window, and also exposed himself naked to female neighbors living opposite.
In 1883 he married out of desire. Marital intercourse did not satisfy his needs. At times his sexual excitement was so intense that he had headache, and seemed confused, like one drunk, strange, and incapable of work.
Case 177. B., aged 27; of neuropathic mother and alcoholic father. He has one brother who is a drinker; and an hysterical sister.
After his eleventh year, onanism, solitary or mutual. After his fifteenth year, impulses to exhibition. He attempted it at a street-urinal; he felt pleasure in it, but also immediately twinges of conscience. If he attempted to oppose his impulse thereafter, he became apprehensive, and had a feeling of oppression in his chest. When a soldier, he was often impelled to expose himself, under various pretexts, to his comrades.
After his seventeenth year he had sexual congress with women. It gave him great pleasure to show himself naked before them. He continued his exhibition on the street. Since he could but infrequently count on female spectators at urinals, he changed his place to churches. In order to exhibit himself at such places, he always had to strengthen his courage by drinking. Under the influence of spirits, the impulse, at other times controllable with difficulty, became irresistible. He was not sentenced. He lost his position, and then drank more. Not long after, he was again arrested for exhibition and masturbation in a church.
Case 178. X., aged 35; barber’s assistant. Repeatedly punished for offense against decency, he is again arrested; for, during three weeks, he had been hanging around girls’ schools, trying to attract the attention of the pupils, and, when he had succeeded in this, had exhibited himself. Occasionally he had promised them money, with the words, “Habeo mentulam pulcherrimam, venite ad me ut eam lambatis.” At his examination X. confessed everything, but did not know how it had come about. He was the most reasonable of men in other respects, but had the impulse to commit this crime, and could not overcome it.
In 1879, when in the army, he was once out on leave, and had run around exhibiting himself to children: imprisonment for a year. The same crime in 1881. He chased the crying children, and “stared” at them: imprisonment of one year and three months. Two days after his discharge, he said to two little girls: “If you want to see my tail, come with me to this (market) booth.” He denied these words, and claimed drunkenness: imprisonment for three months.
In 1883, renewed exhibition; during the act he said nothing. At his examination he stated that, since a severe illness, eight years previously, he had suffered with such excitations: imprisonment for one month.
In 1884, exhibition before girls in a church-yard; again in 1885. He declared: “I understand my crime, but it is like a disease. When it comes over me, I cannot keep from such acts. It sometimes happens that, for quite a long time, I am free from these inclinations.” Imprisonment for six months.
Discharged on August 12, 1885, he had a relapse on August 15. The same excuse was given. This time he underwent medical examination. The examination revealed no mental disturbance. Sentenced to three years. After discharge, a series of new exhibitions. On this occasion, examination revealed the following:—
His father suffered with chronic alcoholism, and is said to have been guilty of the same crime. Mother and sister nervously ill, and the whole family of excitable temperament.
From his seventh to his eighteenth year X. suffered with epileptic convulsions. First cohabitation at sixteen; later, gonorrhœa and, it is stated, syphilis. After that, normal sexual intercourse until his twenty-first year. At that time he often had to pass a play-ground, and he occasionally had to urinate there; and it happened that the children looked at him, out of curiosity.
He noticed, occasionally, that this looking at him caused him sexual excitement, and induced erection, and even ejaculation. He now found more pleasure in this kind of sexual gratification, and became indifferent about coitus, satisfying himself only in this manner. He felt that all his thought was ruled by this, and he dreamed only of exhibitions, with pollutions. His attempts to control his impulse became more and more ineffectual. It came over him with such force that he noticed nothing around him, and saw and heard nothing, and was like one “devoid of reason,”—like “a bull trying to butt his head through a wall.”
X. has an abnormally broad head. Small penis; the left testicle deformed. Patellar reflex absent. Symptoms of neurasthenia, especially cerebral. Frequent pollutions. For the most part, his dreams are about normal coitus, only infrequently about exhibition before little girls.
With reference to his sexual acts, he states that the impulse to seek and approach little girls is primary; only when he has succeeded in attracting their attention to his exposed genitals do erection and ejaculation occur. He does not lose consciousness in the act. After it he is troubled about his deed, and, if undiscovered, says to himself, “Once more I have escaped the authorities.”
In prison he did not have the impulse; there, he was troubled only with dreams and pollutions. In freedom he had daily sought opportunity to satisfy himself with exhibition. He would give ten years of his life to be free from the thing; “this life of constant anxiety, this alternation between freedom and imprisonment, is unendurable.”
The opinion assumed a congenital (?) perversity of the sexual instinct, with unmistakable hereditary taint, neuropathic constitution, asymmetry of cranium, and defective development of the genitals.
It is also worthy of remark that the exhibition began when the epilepsy ceased; so that one might think of a vicarious phenomenon.
The sexual perversity developed, with predisposition, through accidental association of ideas of sexual content (children looking at him while urinating) with an act that, in itself, was purposeless.
The patient was not sentenced, but sent to an asylum. (Dr. Freyer, Zeitschr. f. Medicinalbeamte, 3 Jahrg., No. 8.)
Case 179. At 9 o’clock at night, in the spring of 1891, a lady, in great trepidation, came to the policeman in the city park of X., with the statement that a man, absolutely naked in front, had approached her from the bushes, and she had run away, frightened. The officer went at once to the place indicated, and found a man, who exposed ventrem et genitalia nuda. He attempted to escape, but was overtaken and arrested. He stated that he had been sexually excited by alcohol, and had been on the point of going to a prostitute. On his way through the park, however, he recalled the fact that exhibition gave him much greater pleasure than was afforded him by coitus, in which he seldom, and only faute de mieux, indulged. After drawing up his shirt, he posted himself in the bushes, and, when two women came up the path, he approached them with exposed genitals. In such exhibition he had a pleasurable feeling of warmth, and the blood mounted to his head.
The accused works in a manufactory, and his employer states that he is faithful, saving, sober, and intelligent.
In 1886 B. had been punished because he had twice exhibited himself publicly,—once in broad daylight, and once at night, under a lamp.
B., aged 37, single, makes a peculiar impression, owing to his dandified dress and affected manner. His eyes have a neuropathic, languishing expression; around his mouth plays a smile of self-satisfaction. He is said to come of healthy parents. A sister of his father, and one of his mother, were insane. Others of their relatives were thought religiously eccentric.
B. has never had any severe illness. From childhood he was eccentric and imaginative. He loved romances about knights and others, was entirely absorbed by them, and even went so far as to identify himself in fancy with the heroes. He always thought himself a little better than others, and thought much of elegant dress and ornament; and when he strutted about on Sundays, he imagined himself a high official.
B. has never had epileptic symptoms. In youth, moderate indulgence in masturbation; later, moderate indulgence in coitus. Previously, never any perverse sexual feelings or impulses. Retired manner of life; in leisure hours, reading (popular novels, heroic tales, Dumas, and others). B. was no drinker. Exceptionally he made himself a kind of punch, by which he was always excited sexually.
For some years, with marked decrease of libido, after such alcoholic indulgence, he had had “accursedly silly thoughts,” and developed the desire genitalia adspectui feminarum publice exhibere.
If he got into this state, he felt warm, his heart beat violently, blood rushed to his head, and he could then no longer resist his impulse. He heard and saw nothing more, and was absolutely absorbed in his lust. Afterward he had often pounded his crazy head with his fists, and firmly resolved never to do such a thing again; but the crazy ideas had always returned.
In his exhibition his penis became only half-erected, and ejaculation never occurred; even in coitus it was always tardy. In exhibition he was satisfied with genitalia sua adspicere, and he had the lustful thought that this sight must be very pleasant to women, since he liked so much to see genitalia feminarum. He was capable of coitus only when the puella showed herself very partial to him; without this, he preferred rather to pay and go without doing anything. In his dreams he exhibited himself to young, voluptuous women.
The medico-legal opinion recognized the hereditary psychopathic character of the culprit, and the perverse, impulsive desire to perform the incriminating acts; and pointed out, further, the remarkable fact that in B., who was otherwise sober and saving, the impulses to indulge in alcohol depended on abnormal conditions that recurred periodically, and forced him to indulge. That, during his attacks, B. was in an exceptional psychical state, in a kind of mental confusion, and absolutely absorbed in his perverse sexual fancy, is clearly shown by the species facti. Thus is explained the fact that he became aware of the approach of the police only when it was too late to try to escape. In this hereditary and degenerate impulsive exhibitionism, it is interesting to note how the perverse sexual impulse is awakened from its latency by the influence of alcohol.
A forensically important variety of exhibition, which, clinically, certainly rests upon a similar neurotic and degenerate foundation, and which expresses itself in a peculiar act, conditioned by violent libido (hyperæsthesia sexualis), associated with diminished virility, is made up of the so-called frotteurs.
The three following cases, borrowed from Magnan (op. cit.), are typical:—
Case 180. D., aged 44, hereditarily predisposed, drinker, and suffering with lead poisoning. Until the last year he had masturbated much, and often drawn pornographic pictures, and shown them to his acquaintances. He had repeatedly dressed himself as a woman in secret. For two years, since becoming impotent, he had felt desire, while in crowds at dusk, mentulam denudare eamque ad nates mulieris crassissimæ terere. Once, when discovered in the act, he had been sentenced to imprisonment for four months.
His wife kept a milk-shop. Iterum iterumque sibi temperare non potuit quin genitalia in ollam lacte completam mergeret. In the act he felt lustful pleasure, “as if touched with velvet.” He was cynical enough to use this milk for himself and the customers. During imprisonment alcoholic persecutory insanity developed in him.
Case 181. M., aged 31; married six years; father of four children; badly predisposed; subject to melancholia at times. Three years before, he was discovered by his wife with a silk dress on, masturbating. One day he was discovered, in a store, in the act of frottage on a lady. He was very repentant, and asked to be severely punished for his irresistible impulse.
Case 182. G., aged 33; badly predisposed hereditarily. At an omnibus-station he was discovered in the act of frottage with his penis on a lady. Deep repentance; but he stated that at the sight of a noticeable posteriora of a lady, he was irresistibly impelled to practice frottage, and that he became confused and knew not what he did. Sent to an asylum.
Case 183. A frotteur. Z., born in 1850; of blameless life previously; of good family; private official. He is well-to-do financially; untainted. After a short married life he became a widower, in 1873. For some time he had attracted attention in churches, because he crowded up behind women, both old and young indifferently, and toyed with their tournures. He was watched, and one day he was arrested in the act. Z. was terribly frightened, and in despair about his situation; and, in making a full confession, he begged for pardon, for nothing but suicide remained for him.
For two years he had been subject to the unhappy impulse to go in crowds of people,—in churches, at box-offices of theatres, etc,—and press up behind females and manipulate the prominent portion of their dresses, having orgasm and ejaculation during the act.
Z. states that he was never given to masturbation, and had never been in any way perverse sexually. Since the early death of his wife, he had gratified his great sexual desire in temporary love-affairs, having always had an aversion for prostitutes and brothels. The impulse to frottage had suddenly seized him, two years before, while he happened to be in church. Though he was conscious that it was wrong, he could not help yielding to it immediately. Since then he had been excitable to the posteriora of females, and had been actually impelled to seek opportunity for frottage. The only thing on women that excited him was the tournure; every other part of the body and attire was a matter of indifference to him; and it made no difference to him whether the woman was old or young, beautiful or ugly. Since this began, he had had no more inclination for natural gratification. Of late frottage scenes had appeared in his dreams. During his acts he was fully conscious of his situation and the act, and tried to perform it in such a way as to attract as little attention as possible. After his act he was always ashamed of what he had done.
The medical examination revealed no sign of mental disease or mental weakness, but symptoms of neurasthenia sexualis,—ex abstinentia libidinosi (?),—which was also proved by the circumstance that even simple touching of the fetich with the unexposed genitals sufficed to induce ejaculation. Apparently Z., weakened sexually and distrusting his virility, and yet libidinous, had come to practice frottage by having the sight of posteriora feminæ fall together accidentally with sexual excitement; and this associative combination of a perception with a feeling permitted the former to attain the significance of a fetich.
As an act which offends public morals, and which is, therefore, punishable, the violation of statues—a whole series of cases of which Moreau (op. cit.) has collected from ancient and modern times—may be enumerated here. They are, unfortunately, given too much like anecdotes to allow satisfactory judgment of them. They always give the impression of being pathological,—like the story of a young man (related by Lucianus and St. Clemens, of Alexandria) who made use of a Venus of Praxiteles for the gratification of his lust; and the case of Clisyphus, who violated the statue of a goddess in the Temple of Samos, after having placed a piece of meat on a certain part. In modern times, the Journal L’événement of March 4, 1877, relates the story of a gardener who fell in love with a statue of the Venus of Milo, and was discovered attempting coitus with it. At any rate, these cases stand in etiological relation with abnormally intense libido and defective virility or courage, or lack of opportunity for normal sexual gratification.
The same thing, must be assumed in the case of the so-called voyeurs,[[130]]—i.e., men who are so cynical that they seek to get sight of coitus, in order to assist their virility; or who seek to have orgasm and ejaculation at the sight of an excited woman. Concerning this moral aberration, which, for various reasons, cannot be further described here, it will suffice to refer to Coffignon’s book, “La Corruption à Paris.” The revelations, in the domain of sexual perversity, and also perversion, which this book makes, are horrible.