III
Diagnosis of Satyriasis—Priapism—A case of Satyriasis—A second case of Satyriasis—A case of Nymphomania—Proof that the cravings represented by this condition are traceable to the ungratified homosexual instinct.
Wenn man die letzten Funken einer Leidenschaft im Herzen trägt, wird man sich eher einer neuen hingeben, als wenn man gänzlich geheilt ist.
La Rochefoucauld.
III
So long as the last ember of a passion still glows in the heart it is easier to rouse a new passion than if the cure is complete.
La Rochefoucauld.
The last case has shown us that cryptic sexual goals which remain hidden make for unrest and in spite of frequent sexual experiences bring about a state of sexual insatiety, endless hunger, longing and unrest. Man’s unsatisfied instinct drives him like a motor to all sorts of symbolic acts; it induces him to taste all gratifications which are not under the sway of inhibition, robbing him of sleep and rest.
All the symptomatic acts we have mentioned, trying the doors,—looking under the bed, etc.—were due to the subject’s fear of homosexuality. The doors of his soul must be hermetically sealed so that the terrible enemy should find no entry.
The subject also displayed a number of other symptomatic acts which richly symbolized his inversion. He turned around certain objects from the left to the right. He felt more satisfied after doing so. Why did he do it? Because in consciousness the right side always stands for what is permitted, while the left symbolizes the forbidden. Some things he turned around and upside down to see whether they would keep their balance. If they tumbled it filled him with uneasiness, if they stood up, he felt satisfied. Occasionally he found a vessel that kept its balance when turned upside down. But he was satisfied if it did not break.
His phantasy played with the possibility of turning sexuality upside down. If the change involved no mishap it carried to him the meaning: even if you are homosexual, you need not lose your balance, you can keep up and stand on your feet. After such a symbolic act he experienced promptly erection and ran to his wife who only disappointed him because she did not gratify him enough. These men have a strong yearning for great heterosexual passion which shall make them forget their homosexuality. Usually imagination comes to their aid and they find women who give them so much spiritually, that they overlook the absence of physical attractiveness. They sublimate their homosexuality, heighten the meaning of sexuality by endowing it with spiritual erotism, and by means of spiritual ecstacy they make up for the lack of physical lure.
If this transposition does not take place, if the flame blazes only upon the physical sphere, a permanent love hunger becomes established known as satyriasis. This condition must be differentiated from priapism which is caused solely by organic conditions and consists of a more or less continuous state of erection.
Priapism is often brought about by diseases of the corpora cavernosa, by diabetes and diseases of the spinal cord, and is a condition very unpleasant to the sufferer. Here the instinct is not brought into play, the excited organ requires nothing,—it is merely unwell. The psychic impulse is entirely lacking. The subjects feel their condition as something painfully unpleasant, they cohabit merely to get rid of the troublesome erection. On the other hand, the victim of satyriasis is continually impelled to seek gratification and it often happens that he is unable to carry on intercourse because erection fails him. The impulse is psychic rather than physical. Satyriasis is an attempt to exhaust a psychic impulse through the physical channel. A transference of priapism into the psychical sphere, that is, the establishment of a disposition along this path on the basis of a priapistic excitation, is something I have not encountered.
Satyriasis may be produced in a number of ways. We have seen already that persons with sadistic fancies, necrophiliac tendencies and with all sorts of infantile misophilias may be addicted to masturbation. In all these cases, if onanism is given up, a condition develops resembling satyriasis. What these persons seek is a transference of their libido upon the normal path. At the same time my observations enable me to declare that the various conditions mentioned are overshadowed by the significance of latent homosexuality. The most important as well as the most powerful driving force is homosexuality. But I also know of a homosexual in whom the latent heterosexuality has broken forth as a satyriasis directed along homosexual channels.
We shall now turn our attention to a case which illustrates many of these points:
Mr. Alfred V., clerk, 26 years of age, complains of a long array of nervous symptoms. In the first place there is his inability to attend to his work. He is without employment, because he is unable to hold on to any place. He cannot concentrate his thoughts as his mind turns all the time to women.
In the morning, as soon as he wakes up, his first thought is: I could enjoy a woman now! He thinks this over and finds that, after all, it is too early in the day. He goes to the restaurant and there looks over the morning papers. It is almost too much for him to do even that. Usually he only glances over the news of the day and then turns to the want ads, particularly those marriage offers and “personals” with more or less pointed allusions. Several hours pass that way and meanwhile he looks at the women passing by the window. Then he takes a walk and tries to talk to the girls he meets and to strike up acquaintance with them. If he finds that they are after money he breaks up his talk with them. He would rather take a real prostitute than pay a half-prostitute. Occasionally he finds a girl who meets his wishes. Then he goes with her to a hotel, although it is still forenoon. For a short time after that he is more quiet and he even feels that he could work an hour or two. But soon his restlessness seizes him again which is always at first a purely psychic urge. It is not erections that trouble him, but craving and unrest. He attains erection only when he is with the puella. His potentia varies. Sometimes he is through very rapidly, sometimes he requires a half hour before he accomplishes erection and orgasm. Again he may indulge in coitus several times in succession, although he feels quieted down after the first.
This condition he naturally describes as painful and unpleasant. He tries to interest himself in art and science, as other men do; he would also like to carry on intellectual conversations. But he can only think of “obscenities” to talk about. The more foolish and cynical the better he likes them. He feels impelled to use the grossest expressions, especially before prostitutes and doing so brings him great pleasure.
He also has fits of anger during which he is almost beside himself. If something is not to his liking it makes him raving mad. At such times he is likely to break out with violence, for instance, destroy a chair, or hurl things through the window regardless of the danger of striking some passer-by, and he may say the most awful things to his landlady. He has had many quarrels and violent scenes have been caused on account of his uncontrollable temper.
For some months he kept a fairly good job but had to quit because he talked back to his office chief, using bad language. It always made him mad to have work piled up on him. Work is a red rag to him. He found on his desk twenty letters which had to be done. Instead of settling down to work he began swearing. What did the folks think anyway? How did they expect one man to do it all? The very impertinence! etc. After several hours of fuming that way he fell to his work. Then everything was all right and he got through fast enough for he always finished his work before all others in the office.
He wondered that he was not dismissed from that office long before. His chief had the patience of an angel. Finally even that man’s patience was exhausted and he was discharged. After that he could find no permanent employment. He kept a job a few days at a time; then the chip on his shoulder would cause him to be discharged.
He related his sexual life in great detail; of particular importance is his statement that he never had anything to do with homosexuals; though he well knew there are homosexuals. Such folks were “beasts” who inspired him only with disgust....
We allow here Alfred to speak for himself. In the account of his life there are a number of observations which are characteristic of the whole man:
“I remember nothing of my early childhood. What happened during that time I cannot recollect; my earliest memories date from the time when I was already in school. I only know that both parents were nervous. I lost one brother early, I know nothing of the circumstances. There were a number of insanities in our family, especially on father’s side.
“My sexual feelings asserted themselves at a very early age. I remember that when I was seven years old I played with myself before father, without any feeling of shame, because I did not know that it was wrong. Father scolded me and forbade me doing this. But his threats only had the effect of forcing me to continue under cover what I tried to do openly before him. I believe that my power of concentration and my ability to work were impaired already at that time. From playing I merged quickly into systematic masturbation, a habit in which I indulged excessively. At ten years of age we had at school a regular ring of masturbators and we carried on all sorts of things jointly. Nor did we limit ourselves to manual handling....
“At about that time I had terrible nightmares. I saw wild animals, was overcome or bitten by them, thieves wanted to kidnap me, and in my dreams I often saw my father coming after me with a great long stick. These nightly dreams tortured me considerably, every night I was feverish and bathed in sweat.
“In the morning I had an ‘all gone’ feeling. I gazed blankly before me at school always holding my hand on the penis,—in fact, I often masturbated during class. I became less and less able to concentrate on the work or to carry on my school tasks. In various ways I attempted first to keep up with the work and then I tried all sorts of makeshifts to avoid my school duties. As early as at that age it was characteristic of me that what interested me I had no difficulty in doing. I learned easily but only subjects which I was not taught in school. Thus, for instance, as a boy I became interested in mineralogy, astronomy and botany, and I acquired quite a fund of information on these topics. I should have never learned a hundredth part of what I knew about the subjects if they had been drilled into me at school.... Everything that was a duty seemed unbearable to me. Work was a hard duty and always unpleasant. Therefore I got along rather poorly in school. I reached the status of a one-yearling (the privilege to do but one year military duty) only with the aid of home coaching and by the use of influence. And I attained that privilege only at the last moment, during my twentieth year, when I faced the danger of having to serve three years. In a few weeks I prepared and crammed, so as to pass my examinations because I knew that, unless I did, I would be in trouble. I always went to extremes that way, the midway never appealed to me. I would pour over my astronomical books for five hours at a stretch or devote myself uninterruptedly to my plants and my collection of stones, but if I spent a half hour upon my school lessons it made me mad and in my fury I tore the note book.
“My memory for past events is poor. But some incidents, here and there, I recall very vividly. For instance, I remember nothing of a journey through Thuringen which I made with my uncle when I was ten years of age. I was like in a trance during that journey. I made that same journey a second time and then I recalled of one spot that I had already been there. There was a stone there where I had tripped and fallen during the first journey.
“As a boy I was often punished for my laziness and I was even strapped for my obstinacy. I thought I was treated unjustly for I considered my lack of concentration as something I could not help. I was always restless, perennially moody, sometimes very joyous and again very depressed.
“Masturbation I carried on excessively. I masturbated daily—seldom a day passed,—sometimes several times daily, up to the 21st year, when I first had intercourse. Then I decided to give up onanism. At first I had only normal intercourse and felt great satisfaction. But I had to do it very often or my nerves would be all to pieces. During my military service I felt excellently well. I endured easily all sorts of physical exertion and I was very proud of my uniform. As I am very tall and well built I attracted attention in my uniform and the girls looked at me and this made me very proud. But I continued masturbating at the time and avoided intercourse. During the service I was often nervous when I had to carry out an order or if I was kept at one station for any length of time. I pressed myself forward wherever I could, and finally a horse kicked me and I used that accident as a chance to be freed of the service and received for some time the accident pay granted under the circumstances.
“If I am able to get the best of some one, especially of some one in authority, it pleases me beyond measure.
“After the military service I took a position. As I had intercourse daily with women I was in good condition to keep up my work. But I could not endure to have two tasks piled up on me at the same time. I could do only one thing at a time. I was not easy to get along with and had to change positions because I quarreled with my chiefs and because I always avoided hard work. Then I came to Vienna and got a place which I kept for some time. The business interested me, because it dealt with an article which appealed to me. Here I began to grow restless and my uneasiness increased when we removed to Berlin. Normal intercourse no longer satisfied me. I became acquainted with a French woman who became my sweetheart and with whom I practiced all sorts of perversities. I became more and more unstable in my work, often neglecting it for hours at a stretch. I do not know whether that was on account of the Berlin air, which did not agree with me, or because of an accident I met with on the railway. I gave up my position, that is, my chief advised me to do so, although it was a responsible position of great trust, of which I was very proud, especially as my father had bonded me heavily. But I grew more and more restless, it drove me continually to women. I had nothing else on my mind and I wracked my brain to think of new, unheard of perversities to try out. I even tried podicem lambere and for a time this brought me great satisfaction, but it quieted me only for a few hours. Then I turned again to Friedrichstrasse looking for the other girls I kept on string besides my regular sweetheart. These adventures required a great deal of money, only a part of which I was able to earn at the time. It was to me always a pleasant thought that father had to pay for my indulgences.
“My unrest reached its highest point when my father came to Berlin to see me and I lived in Charlottenburg. I had a formidable anxiety about meeting him and so it happened that he was mostly alone and saw me but seldom. He did prevail upon me to see a specialist who promptly put me in a sanitarium. While there I was much more quiet, but only outwardly. Within me the old struggle kept on as usual. The physician ordered me to give up women for a time because I was super-excitable and indulgence would harm me. I was abstinent for a few weeks but thoughts troubled me every night and I was plainly afraid of losing my mind. Then I turned to my old remedy, onanism. I did this in spite of the fact that the physician and the specialist both declared that my condition was due to excessive masturbation. I was torn between conflicting thoughts at the time but noticed that I became more quiet after masturbating. At any rate after three months of sanitarium treatment I was still in no condition to work. I am depressed and life loses its zest the moment I turn to work. After the first few minutes my mind turns to women and I must interrupt whatever I am doing and run into the street. Leaving the sanitarium I returned to Vienna where the old vicious cycle began once more. I made the round of physicians and was given any quantity of bromides. Neither the medicines nor the various hydrotherapic courses helped me in any way. Only if I have intercourse about three times during the night do I feel a little quieted down in the morning. Then I am a little more alert and can work for a short while. But already on the following day, usually the first thing in the morning, the old trouble reasserts itself. I am irritable and depressed. After a coitus which does not gratify me I feel worse than ever. Then I am tremendously excited and want right away another woman who might satisfy me better. Sometimes I long for true love and for the companionship of a lovely being. I then feel the terror of loneliness fastening upon me. I literally pant for air and again rush to the street where temptations meet me. I feel as if something within me has taken possession of my soul driving me on from one adventure to another. Personally I am inwardly inclined towards everything that is noble; but something within me compels me to act as a bad and evil person.
“I believe I am like a man who is the victim of an insatiable hunger. I have often thought of poor Prometheus, condemned always to linger in hunger and thirst. In the same way I feel within me an unquenchable thirst for love and its pleasures and I have no other thought than to satisfy this thirst in some way. I feel like a mechanism destined only to serve the penis in its demand for gratification.
“I have often resolved to change. But I am unable to carry out any resolution, I cannot undertake a thing. I can only hunt after women. Ich kann nur coitieren, (I can only ——,) every other activity about me is in a state of suspension. I am uncertain and vaccilating about everything. Today I feel a little religious twinge, tomorrow I poke fun at church and priest. Today I decide to learn something new or to find a job, tomorrow I think something else entirely. I want to buy a new hat. I decide today to go to a certain store. I go to the place but linger before the windows, unable to make up my mind to step in. “No,” I say to myself, “I don’t want to buy a hat just yet.” And meanwhile I also think about women for that is a subject which never leaves my mind for a moment. I stroll up and down the street watching the hundreds of women before I make up my mind to speak to one.
“I draw no distinction between old and young, pretty or plain ones. I weigh the matter over considerably but in the end I pick up the first one that comes along. If it only quieted me! But it lasts only an hour, sometimes, at best, a whole day, then I must rush out again to the street and hunt. Sometimes I cohabit with three women in a day.
“My worst time was when I had gonorrhea (not yet completely healed). I was forbidden to have intercourse for a time. But I could not listen to the doctor, because I was afraid that I would go literally to pieces. I kept up intercourse right along and was inwardly glad to think that so many others will also have to suffer what I suffered. Then I felt remorse over my meanness, I felt myself a reprobate, a criminal, and resolved that I must change my ways. I fell into a deep depression and for a few hours I was free of my usual erotic thoughts. Then they started again and the same thoughts now plague me night and day as before.” ...
We have listened to the poor man’s terrible confession. His hunt after gratification has that tragical quality which the poet has so fittingly expressed: “Und im Genuss verschmacht’ ich nach Begierde.”—“And I starved with yearning even while I tasted.” The deep depressions indicate that this trouble is approaching a crisis. For the depressions occur at closer intervals and satisfying experiences are more rare. That is also the reason why he seeks professional advice. He feels that this cannot go on. He cannot and does not want to endure life under such conditions. He wants to work like other men and to be capable of turning his mind to other matters than sexual.
Two things stand out in the patient’s account. First, his complete amnesia regarding his first journey through Thuringen, as pointed out by himself—except for the slight accident of tripping—and next, the fact that his condition became so much more serious during his stay in Berlin, when he was already on the way to get well. He had given up masturbation of his own initiative, substituting for it intercourse with women, he was working, he held a responsible position, and kept up his work, according to the statement of his superiors in office, in spite of disturbances ... then suddenly his condition made a turn for the worse. Some strong impression or unusual experience in Berlin must have brought on this sudden change.
It is noteworthy that the subject denies having ever carried on any homosexual act. He claims such men only fill him with extreme disgust. The childhood experiences, of course, do not count. All children did the same things; one would conclude that all boys were homosexual. As a matter of fact they are married and happy, most of them heads of happy families. “I have a frightful passion,” he says, “exclusively for women. Men do not exist for me.”
At night he dreams:
I see a turbulent ocean before me. The waves are in continuous agitation. I think to myself: it were a pity if the waves ceased their agitation. A ship passes by, and the boat carries everything that I love. I believe my mother is also upon that ship. There is an orchestra playing on board: “Oh, how could I possibly leave you!” I awake feeling sad and depressed.
Such a dream is a resistance dream and indicates that the subject does not want to get well. His soul is an ocean, continuously in a state of agitation. “I think it a pity that the waves should cease,” means: I do not want to become quiet at all! The boat symbolizes the illness, the neurosis. His neurosis covers everything he loves, including his mother; and should he give up all that? Impossible! He cannot renounce his infantile sexuality. He wants to remain a child and be ill.
The analysis is carried out under very great resistance but satisfactory progress is made. I want to outline the results limiting myself to the most important points.
His sexual life comes more and more to light. It appears that in his free account he covered under silence a important form of pleasurable gratification because he was ashamed of it. He indulges in a very curious form of infantile sexuality. The habit must be widespread but in this form I have met it only twice.
Every two weeks he does as follows: he lies down in bed dressed in his underclothes and defecates. Then he lies in his stools for several hours. After that he takes great pains to remove every trace. He washes the drawers and the shirt or he burns them up. At the baths, where he is always very excited sexually he does the same thing. He does that there more readily because the means are at hand for cleaning himself afterwards. He usually takes along a package of clean linen. At the public baths every cabin has a couch. He lies down and allows his bowels to move. There he lies feeling very satisfied and masturbates or has a spontaneous ejaculation. Then he bathes to clean himself and the package of soiled linen he throws into a river or anywhere where it disappears quickly.
In these scenes he reproduces the infant in swaddling clothes. He even presses the covers tightly around him so that he cannot move, to give himself the illusion of being tied down. He repeats the infantile scenes of cleaning by the mother, during which in his fancy he plays the double role of mother and child.
He struggles with greatest anxiety against this remarkable paraphila but always submits to it in the end. The longest interval up to the time of the psychoanalysis was four weeks. After that “orgy of filth,”—as he calls it—he feels depressed and is ashamed of himself. He has not mentioned this to a living soul and even the physician at the sanitarium knew nothing about it. He went through this act several times not at the sanitarium, but in his room because the baths were not private. When discussing sexual infantilism we shall learn of several similar cases. His attitude towards his mother is very changeable but not so emotionally tense as his relations with his father. He carries on a quiet and occasionally affectionate exchange of letters with his mother, but with his father, never. He is to a certain extent fond of his mother. As he tried masturbation in front of his father as a child so now he keeps nothing of his sexual life secret before me. He relates frankly everything. As a child he loved his mother very much and often wished to be with her. His mother is now an old woman, partially paralysed. Nevertheless he noticed during his last visit home that she is still a pretty woman and repeatedly felt impelled to approach her.... At such times he treats her very roughly and scornfully, and is inclined to make fun of her and her age. He has had repeatedly affairs with old women. At his last lodging place there was an elderly woman, whose face was badly wrinkled, with whom he became intimate but after a short time he sought a quarrel with her and moved out. That is the way he behaves with everybody. He quarrels over some trifle, becomes very excited and makes a terrible scene. Then he is through with that person for good.
We shall see that this is his way of protecting himself against temptation. He quarrels only with persons with whom he has pleasant relations and who play some role in his sexual fancies. That is also how he parts from his mother, for he usually leaves her after a bitter quarrel. This is also why his parents let him dwell among strangers, although they think a great deal of him. His letters are sufficiently irritating but easier to endure than the scenes he creates when at home.
His attitude towards his father is worse. He is easily moved to anger when speaking of him. He makes copious use of vile terms when referring to him. Such expressions as “the old rascal,” the “miserable thief,” are customary with him when speaking of his father. He knows no reason why he should feel so bitter towards his father. That is, he gives a thousand reasons but all trivial and hardly relevant. The father brought him up badly; the father is responsible for his condition; the father is wealthy, nevertheless complains always that he has nothing; the father lives only for his mother and cares nothing for him. He wants to make himself independent and wants to get money from his father for that purpose. The very thought that his father may deny him the money makes him angry: “I shall go to him and kill him and shoot myself.” Such murder fancies are not infrequent about his father.
How close the neurotic is to the criminal! Against his father he raises all sorts of complaints, equally unreasonable. One day he called on me to say that, having passed a sleepless night he has figured out at last the reason for his illness: the father has murdered his brother! The brother was incurably ill and a burden to his father. He knew it well and had decided to go home and confront his father with the truth, then demand his share of the inheritance. Even as a boy it was clear to him that the father had deliberately put his brother out of the way. The father always felt uncomfortable when the talk turned to the boy and always tried to avoid the subject.
He judges his father according to his own inner self. He carries within himself the soul of a murderer, as the pathologic strength of his instinctive cravings already indicates. The suspicion directed against his father is determined psychically by the fact that during his own youth he wished his brother’s death because he did not want to have any competitor for household favors and he knew well that the fortune would have to be divided between them. But he was not the kind of man who would consent to dividing anything. He wanted everything for himself exclusively. He wanted his brother out of the way and had actually indulged in various fanciful dreams how to go about it. Now he shifted his fancies over to his father, while for himself he conjured up an attitude of sympathy and regret whenever his brother was mentioned. He is most unhappy because he has no brother, his father has robbed him of what was most precious in his life. Had his brother lived he would not be ill, only the realization of his father’s deed is what brought him to such a state. The father passes for a prominent person and enjoys a high position in his community, he has been mayor of the town, but should he start proceedings against him, the father would land in jail. He is filled with jealousy because his father has done so well; his own incapacity he explains away chiefly on the score of his illness.
It takes a long time for the original love of the father to come to the surface, back of this thick cover of hatred and jealousy. But the masking layer melts, surely though slowly, and meanwhile explanations for which the subject is as yet unprepared would do more harm than good. The art of analysis consists in showing up only so much as reveals itself from time to time. Our subject is not yet prepared to see that he is in love with his father. Nevertheless he begins to talk about his father’s preeminence and other favorable sides, the man’s knowledge, his great library, etc.
Gradually the father’s picture looms up in terms more and more favorable. The subject relates pleasant episodes from youth, when he botanized along with his father who introduced him to the science; he withdraws his murder notion, admitting at last that it was only part of his over-heated fancy. At this stage when he takes me for the locum tenens of his father, he assumes an aggressive attitude towards me and uses an expression which amounts to an insult. I had already made clear to him that he sees his father in me. Now he undertakes to treat me as he would his father. At once I break up the analysis. Three days later he returns remorsefully and begs forgiveness. It will not happen again, I must not leave him in the lurch, he cannot stand this condition any longer, and I must save him. That was the only conflict I ever had with him; after that he behaved well and to this day he shows himself appreciative and filled with gratitude. He was ready to recognize how strongly his homosexuality determined his attitude towards his superiors, towards his father, as well as towards me. He now sees it clearly. He admits he practically fell in love with his last chief and that is why he had to quit the place. He relates a dream which he had kept to himself till then, and which shows his homosexual attitude towards me, and admits that during childhood he had idealized his father and loved him deeply.
We learn more than that. We find out what brought on his turn for the worse at Berlin. At his lodging house there was a young boy 14 years of age, very attractive, whom he coached evenings. He began to play with that boy. He masturbated him and was masturbated by the boy in turn. The relationship kept up for about three months. These were the first three months of his stay in Berlin. Then he felt remorse, sought a quarrel with the landlady and moved out. From that moment began his insatiable craving for women. It was his last homosexual period. He had led astray other boys before that one and always gladly introduced them to the habit. A court case in which the defendant was sentenced for a similar offence decided him to give up the homosexual practices. He never repeated them after that Berlin episode.
His satyriasis developed on account of the repression of his homosexual tendencies. Back of his morbid passion for woman stood his ungratified longing for man.
The subject now sees clearly that he carried on with the boy the act which he expected of his father. His hatred of the father is reversed love. In the chapter devoted to sadism we will describe more fully this relationship between father and son.
Our subject expected his father to do with him what he did with the boy. It shows how little credence we should lend a patient’s first statements. Presently numerous similar episodes come to the forefront and soon we learn that his greatest desire at one time was to procure a pretty boy for himself and that boys roused him more than girls. He seeks the company of women to forget all about his inclination towards boys and hopes to overcome his homosexual tendencies through excessive heterosexual experiences. His craving for women, his obsessive thinking about them, serves only as a means to prevent his mind from reverting to the other sex. Compulsory thoughts often serve the purpose of preventing other thoughts from intruding. This is the law of resistance which plays such a tremendous role in the mental life of neurotics. In the course of treatment he transfers upon me all his passion—as was to be expected. He has some dreams,—which he relates with great difficulty,—during which he sees me naked and handles my penis or even carries out fellatio. He now recalls passionately watching his father, also how happy he was to go bathing with him, and how he liked to hide in order to see his father’s phallus. The dissolution of this transference and reference back to his father he does not like at first, but it becomes more and more pronounced as we proceed. He is now abstinent for a week at a stretch and no longer chases after women although I gave him no particular advice on this point. The consciously acknowledged homosexual leaning has no need for this cover. As leaning comes to surface openly it is openly overcome. He again experiences anxieties. His landlady tells that he is heard tossing and groaning and even crying out in his sleep. He is now sentimental and soft, becoming greatly changed in character, to his advantage. Again he goes to the theatre and reads books,—things he had not done for years. His letters to his father are more quiet in tone and sympathetic. He becomes economical and spends less than his father sends him.
Then something happens which promises to mark a new epoch in his life. It is a typical experience of these men during treatment. As the infantile ties are loosened in the course of the analysis they fall in love.[17]
Our subject is in a state of highest preparedness towards love. His homosexuality, which had been completely repressed—he no longer took any interest in boys—was again manifest. He now played his trump card. He fell in love with a girl who was to replace for him all other women as well as all thought of man. This happened in so remarkable and typical a manner that it is worth while to report fully the occurrence.
He was still in the habit of accosting girls on the street, even if for no other object than sheer amusement. One evening he came across a demure little girl who looked rather like a young boy, boldly spoke to her and fell deeply in love with her on the spot. In three days he declared himself her beau and six days later they became engaged. He thought of nothing else but his sweetheart. As if bent on revenging himself on me and on his father he spoke of nothing else but his love and his new found happiness. The satyriasis was replaced by a psychic intoxication even more powerful. He picked up a girl belonging to an ordinary family to punish his parents. He chose that girl although she was no longer virgo intacta (because this did not interest him). He told that to his parents and it was, he felt, the strongest revenge and punishment he could bring upon them. They thought a great deal of their social position; and now, their son was marrying the daughter of a motorman, a girl without any education and who served as clerk in some store. And he threatened his parents that he would take his life unless he could marry the girl. He would marry her without their consent. His love was so great,—such a love never had its equal in the world! The very thought that his father might try to prevent the marriage made him raving mad and he talked of violence and murder.
I advised the father to disarm the son by placing no opposition in his path. He should make but one condition: the son must support himself and his wife. Only a man capable of maintaining a wife has the right to marry. I took the same attitude explaining to the young man that he must make himself independent of his father through his own labor. He perceived plainly that the idea of maintaining himself through his own labor did not appeal to him. His greatest pleasure was the thought that his father had to pay every time he went out with a woman and that he was squandering his father’s money.
At this time he confesses to me that he was about to get married once before. It was in Berlin, shortly after the homosexual relations with the young boy. He became acquainted with a girl who kept up intercourse with him. This girl he wanted to marry and his father went through the same trial with him. He could not think of a greater revenge. Such subjects show this trait again and again. It is not the only case of the kind that I have met. The occurrence is common and every experienced nerve specialist is called in consultation over similar problems several times in the course of a year. That girl was the Frenchwoman who introduced him to all forms of paraphiliac practices. The father, naturally indignant, threatened to disinherit the son. That was precisely what our patient was looking for. He was afraid only of a soft-hearted father and he managed always to rouse his anger as a sort of protective screen between himself and his father. The patient also felt that his father scorned him. During the Berlin episode he clung to his Frenchwoman, did not rest until his father met her, wanted always to keep in her company and was afraid of being alone with his father.
At this point the subject’s journey to Thuringen with his father came up through numerous associations. He accompanied on that journey not his uncle, but his father, and he now recalls that during the trip he frequently occupied one bed with his father, and that it made him happy to think that his father took him along instead of his mother.
It will be recalled that previously he remembered only the incident of slipping on a stone. That is really a “Deckerinnerung.” The fall covers other incidents: It stands for a fall into sin. I must point out that the subject also links the return of the trouble and its aggravation to an alleged fall. The accident happened in a merry go round. He fell unconscious but after a short time came fully to himself and returned to the sport. The accident could hardly have been a serious one. At any rate the riddle of a fall belonged to the fancies with which he had beclouded his journey to Thuringen. The fiction established itself in his mind through his occupying one bed with his father in the course of that journey and his substituting the father for the mother. His dreamy mind conceived the companion as a woman, as the mother, and added the fiction of a fall into sin, symbolically represented by the trivial incident of an actual fall.
He now finds himself in a new homosexual danger. I see him daily and he tries by various tricks to induce me to give him a physical examination and to show me his penis. He thinks he has again gonorrhea, perhaps he has phthiriasis, I ought to examine him, it would be foolish for him to go to another physician for that. I explain these symptoms and the man confesses that he has indulged also openly in fancies in which I played a role. And now he takes revenge by telling me about his bride and dwelling on her tenderness for hours. He has no other theme for talk. He must always have her near him to feel quiet. She must not leave him for a moment. Day and night he wants to hold her hand ... thus he insures himself against homosexuality.
Finally I tell him I shall give up the psychoanalysis if there is nothing else to come up. Then, lo! his talk turns to other matters. He knows now that his engagement is a defence measure against his homosexuality and his filthy onanistic acts. But he also sees that in his bride he has found a surrogate for his mother. He surrounds her with tenderness like a man who truly loves, and presently his psychic intoxication turns into a deep and true affection. He still has serious quarrels with his bride. He still storms against his father and against all authority. He is an anarchist at war with all authority and assumes an obstinate attitude towards everybody. But his father, apprised by me of the true situation, keeps his temper and thus disarms his son. Thus the engagement no longer serves the object of worrying the parents. His parents apparently let him have his own way, insisting only that he should go to work. I doubt his ability to get to work and express to him my sympathy. He wants to show me that he can work. At every opportunity I sympathize with his bride, a quiet, brave little woman. He will surely abandon her. He cannot keep true. Not so! he declares. He is going to show me that he can be true.
In a few weeks he finds a position and does his work so carefully and diligently that his condition is greatly improved. Then he marries and in every sense of the word becomes a new man.
But there was a great deal more to do. His paranoiac notions of grandeur, his feeling that he could do anything which others may not, his obstinacy and his rebellion against all authority were gradually replaced by social tendencies. He became modest and agreeable....
His complete recovery, he learned early, depended on his keeping away from his parents. A short stay in the old home roused all the old antagonisms and he resolved to stay away so as to keep on friendly terms with his parents.
At first all his affection was centered on his bride and he did not wait for the marriage ceremony.... He attained unbelievable accomplishments.... But this did not continue for long and soon he quieted down and had intercourse with his wife at regular intervals.... Pregnancy and childbirth made it necessary for him to keep away from her for a time and he did so easily enough, without being untrue to her.
I do not know how long this improvement will last. He has kept his place for the past three years with dignity and honor, and is today a quiet, brave man who shudders when he thinks of his past. His parents have reconciled themselves to his marriage and the birth of two grandchildren has ratified in their eyes the inevitable fact.
The character of satyriasis is richly illustrated by this case. We see also why the Berlin air did not agree with the subject. There he was in danger of becoming overtly homosexual. In one Berlin office where he worked there was a homosexual who wanted to introduce him to his circle. He took a sudden liking for his chief of whom he grew daily more fond. The other men in the office made him jealous and he resorted to quarreling, using vile talk. Finally he broke with his chief as a defence against the pent-up feelings within himself.
It is interesting to note that during his relations with the young boy he identified himself with his father. He carried out the act of seduction which he vainly expected to be acted out by his father. His identification with the father went so far that he felt himself aged, tired, played out and he thought he might not live long. During his coprophiliac acts he played the role of a suckling.
It is interesting to observe what role he assumes now while in love with his wife. A few remarks on that point may not be out of place here:
During the first stage of his infatuation the subject identified himself with his mother, while the young woman stood for a boy, mostly himself. He acted out the love scenes between mother and son and he was surprised to find himself capable of such motherly feelings. He emphasized his strong femininity. He had, he thought, womanly hips, scant beard growth, gynecomasty (full breasts). Organically he was of that bisexual type which careful examination of the neurotic never fails to disclose. He was also attentive, gallant, dainty and mannerly. Sometimes the bride was the mother and he played the role of the child. He snuggled up in her arms saying: “I should like to crawl in and lie like a child in its mother’s bosom! That would be bliss.” During coitus he preferred succubus and once there occurred a strange incident. A fancy seemed to dawn on him that he was having intercourse with his mother. This was not a phantasy that I had in any way suggested. I let the subject relate everything that comes to his mind without influencing him in one direction or another.
As he improved the identification with his mother disappeared. He made up with his parents, exchanged friendly letters with his father, and felt he was making satisfactory progress. For the first time in his life he was himself.
He became aware of his own personality. Now he loved his wife as a husband, and felt that he was a father who had a mother of his own.
That may seem self-evident and an irrelevant remark. But the whole task which I aimed to achieve was to break up his identification with his parents, destroy his projection upon the old home. Previously the leading motive in all his conduct was the thought: what will my parents say? The knowledge that his father would be troubled made him happy. He wanted to punish the man whom he held responsible for his sufferings on account of his lack of proper responsiveness and to keep the father always in trouble. Now he abandoned his infantilism. He was a child no longer, he was a man. Overcoming all disguises and masks he came to himself.
His homosexuality persisted as formerly. But he saw this clearly before his eyes and recognized it openly in his relations with his superiors, his friends and his psychoanalytic adviser. He could meet the issue and overcome it. Perhaps he shifted a part of it over to his son. One thing is certain: he is through with the homosexual longing and so completely that it no longer troubles him. He is alert and active. Such result would not be attained without the art of analysis and without the physician’s educational skill. This man, in the absence of analysis, would have probably ended his misery in suicide.
I must also point out that his genuine affection for his wife developed out of an impulsive infatuation. He met the woman, spoke to her, and fell in love with her at once. Yet the marriage is happier as time passes. Trifling storms do occur—where do they not—but they blow lightly over and his home life is one of quiet happiness. The dream about his great historic mission is gone. He who had once the ambition to become a Napoleon or a Herostratos, a Satan or a Don Juan, a bomb-thrower, is now a reliable, efficient and satisfied bookkeeper; he now sits at his desk in the office dutifully adding long columns of figures, brings home little presents for his wife and children, and if his old folks send him a sum of money he is pleasantly surprised and puts it in the bank for his little daughter. This case illustrates also the relations of homosexuality to the family and to the problem of incest. More about that later....
Nymphomania shows the same homosexual basis as satyriasis. In the study of Sexual Frigidity in Women[18] we shall have occasion to point out types of women who are undoubtedly nymphomaniac in character, Messalinas. These women are usually anesthetic, a condition in itself of considerable significance and one which is often seen also in ordinary prostitutes. They have a hunger for man similar to Don Juan’s longing for woman. It is characteristic of them, too, that they never find satisfaction. These persons in perpetual quest, Ahasuerus, the Flying Dutchman, Faust and Don Juan, who are condemned to wander and search and who never find rest, portray the libido which does not find its proper sexual goal.[19]
There are also among women endless seekers continually dreaming of man,—some man who shall completely and lastingly gratify them. The conditions are even more complex in women than in men. For the present I want to report briefly one case, pointing out merely what may serve as an illustration of our present theme. We shall take up the whole subject more fully in connection with our discussion of dyspareunia.
A woman, strikingly beautiful,—we shall call her Adele—comes to me with a most unusual complaint. She is married to an excellent man with whom she had fallen in love and she still loves him. She has no inclination whatever to remain true to him. She lacks completely any resistance to temptation. She is easily the victim of any man who comes near her. She is a woman who does not know how to say “no.” Her husband who has no inkling of her doings worships her. Sometimes she is conscience stricken, as now, and wishes to find something that would quiet her so that she would not have to think from morning till night only of sexual matters. But, what I shall find unbelievable, she adds, is that she remains cold during a man’s embrace and must always follow it up with onanism. Only cunnilingus produces an adequate orgasm in her. She thinks that if a man satisfied her regularly in that way perhaps she could remain true to him.
From her life history I quote the following data. Already as a child Adele had gathered certain experiences on the subject of sex. She was about eight years of age when her brother began to carry out coitus with her. She was very sensual even at that time and claims that she experienced great pleasure in the act. The brother was two years older. All the children in the apartment building where they lived were introduced early to sexual acts. Often there took place regular orgies. She was loaned by her brother to other boys when he received their sisters in exchange. She remembers having been used once by four boys in succession. These doings went on for over a year. Then another girl’s mother discovered what was going on and matters came very near being aired in court. There were scenes and investigations but all the children lied themselves out of it.
From that time on she masturbated and to this day she cannot give up the habit. Even as a “flapper” she had no other thought than to attract men. She was very coquettish and easy going, improved for a time, becoming very devout as well as retired in her disposition and even thought of joining a nunnery and taking the vows of chastity.
But this pious attitude did not last long. Soon she flirted again and turned to all kinds of erotic books, the reading of which so excited her that she masturbated several times during the night. At 17 years of age, a pupil of her father’s who was teacher of piano at the musical high school, took advantage of her. She was alone with the young man for a few minutes. He kissed her and she accepted this without resistance. Then he dragged her on top of himself—there was no couch in that study room—and she lost her virginity. She did not know how it happened. It was over in a few minutes. She kept away from the young man after that, although he pursued her, and for a few weeks lived in terror, afraid that she might be pregnant. But fortunately that was not the case. She soon noticed that all men were interested in her. Young and old pursued her. The mother to whom, with tears in her eyes, she related the incident with the young man and who kept it from the father (fearing that he would murder the boy) kept careful watch over her, never left her alone, always saying to her: “Child, you must marry soon! Your blood is too hot.”
At 19 years of age she found her man, with whom she fell in love so desperately that she became the laughing stock of the town. During the very first days of courtship she fell into his arms and offered no resistance when he tried to possess her completely. He was so excited that he failed to observe that she was not a virgin. She enjoyed the experience but little, although she was tremendously excited at the time.
From the very beginning she was untrue to him. She carried on with a friend of his, going even to that man’s house. She was unhappy and wanted to do away with herself. But she soon got over that and again began flirting.
After the marriage ceremony—three days later—she recalled having heard that Dr. X., an attractive young single man, was a great Don Juan. She decided to look him up at once and seduce him. She complained to him of a red spot upon her privates, claiming it troubled her. Was that not a sign of some illness? In short, she attained her purpose, was his sweetheart for a time, and learned then of cunnilingus for the first time. That she regarded as the highest achievement in the art of love. Another man required of her the anal form of copulation. All such things amused her, although she never experienced the orgasm as satisfactorily as during masturbation.
Before long she felt painful remorse. She had the best of men for a husband. She tortured herself with the most severe reproaches, daily saying to herself: “This must be the last time; I must not do it again.” But the very next day she felt impelled again to go into the street or to telephone to one of the many men who were at her disposal. It is interesting to note that on her list of lovers there were physicians, lawyers, army officers, clerks, nobles and commoners. She never took payment and never accepted presents. That would put her in a class with the prostitutes. She also tried coachmen and chauffeurs, but her disgust afterwards was so great that she gave this up, although she always felt the temptation.
She acquired a gonorrheal infection and this compelled her to claim “female trouble” as an excuse to keep her husband away from her for a time. She was so provoked with the man who had infected her that she wanted to revenge herself on all men and in her anger thought of transferring the infection to every man in her circle. She did not carry out this plan because the gynecologist who treated her forbade all sexual congress. Nevertheless twice she could not control herself and she infected two men....
She wanted me to hypnotize her. There was no other thought in her mind than men and again men! Her mind revolved continually around sexual scenes; she has even thought of going for a time to a house of prostitution, and, like Agrippina, allow any number of men to use her until she shall have had enough. Perhaps then she would quiet down! If she meets a stranger that night she dreams of intercourse with him!
I ask her about the dreams; whether they lay stress on some special form of intercourse or portray merely the normal act.
Hesitatingly she answers: “Always the normal. Only I am regularly on top.... Why is that? I have often thought of it.”
“Did you have such a dream last night?”
“Let me see. Certainly; a foolish dream, though....”
“Please, let me hear it.”
“I am in bed with my brother-in-law. A man of whom I would not even dream.”
“But you did dream of him.”
“I cannot understand it. I have never given him one minute’s thought.”
“And never anything happened between you?”
“No ... with him, never. Although he is attentive to me and I know he likes me. I love my sister too dearly to treat her that way, although my sister is not faithful either, and things like that don’t matter with her. It seems to be in the family. Still, I would rather have nothing to do with my brother-in-law. The dream is nonsense, I have forgotten the most of it. It was much longer.”
Observing that she tries to avoid the dream I insist that she should try and recall it as nearly as possible. “Well, then,” she continues her narrative, “the dream was as follows:
”I am in bed with my brother-in-law. It seems I am the man and he the woman. He has no mustache and lies under me. Suddenly he changes and it is my sister and I kiss her passionately. ‘You see,’ she says to me, ‘you should have done this long ago and you would be well.’”
I inquire about her relations to the sister and learn that she has not been in touch with her for the past few months and that during this time she has grown more nervous and her craving for men also grew worse than ever. “When I am with my sister I seem to forget men more easily. She is a very spiritual person and extremely charming. If you should ever meet her you would fall in love with her.”
When one hears such talk, and one hears it rather often, the diagnosis is easy: the narrator is in love with that person and therefore thinks it natural that everybody should fall in love with the person in question.[20]
Further inquiries disclose that she was preoccupied with but one thought: her sister. She always looks upon her sister as the best dressed, most spirited and most charming person she had ever known.
Why was the woman no longer on friendly terms with her sister?
Because, she claims, her sister is egotistical and cares nothing for her. She was lying ill for a few weeks and her sister let her lie there and took no more notice of her than if she were a dog; she wanted her sister’s company when she went out, she could not do her shopping alone but she could not get her sister to go along. So she had to go around with a woman friend who was a disgusting and vulgar person. She ought to be ashamed to show herself in such company; if she were in her husband’s place, she would not tolerate it.... After all, it would not be so very sinful if she did become intimate with her brother-in-law; her sister was not true to him and kept up relations with an army lieutenant but the poor fool does not see it and thinks the army officer is his best friend....
She keeps up an incessant flow of talk. She wakes up thinking of her sister, she thinks of her all day and she dreams of her every night. I have studied her dreams over a period of weeks. There is not a dream in which her sister fails to figure and none but portrays her erotic attitude towards the sister.
In the course of the analysis her childhood experiences come to light and she recalls that for a long time she slept in one bed with her sister and they performed cunnilingus on one another. That was so long ago, she had forgotten all about it. That experience discloses her true nature. She is continually looking for woman; specifically she is looking for one woman, her sister. She wants to forget her, the traumatic experience with her she wants to drive out of memory, by covering it with new experiences.
We see that her latent homosexuality drives her into the arms of every man she meets. We also note the role of family relations in homosexuality, a subject which we shall take up specifically later and illustrate with proper data.