We have now to consider a matter which bears but indirectly on the sexual life of the child, and yet may be of the greatest importance in relation to that life; we have to consider cases in which the child is the object of sexual practices by others. I have previously referred to instances in which one child loves another. But the child may also be an object of sexual desire to adults; for in certain men and women, sexual inclination is directed towards children. By von Krafft-Ebing this state is termed pædophilia erotica.
Not all the cases in which sexual acts are performed on children belong to the province of pædophilia. It is well known that in certain countries—Germany is one of them—a superstition prevails among certain strata of the population to the effect that venereal diseases may be cured by means of sexual intercourse with children. Where this is the motive of the sexual act, the case does not belong to the class of pædophilia; and many other sexual acts in which children play a part must also be excepted from this class. It sometimes happens that debauchees, after having practised all kinds of venereal excesses, finally take to misusing children; nursemaids, again, and other servants, will carry out all sorts of sexual acts on the children entrusted to their care, sometimes merely in order to quiet the children, sometimes "for fun." Von Krafft-Ebing refers to a special group of young men who do not feel sufficient confidence in their sexual potency to attempt intercourse with grown women, also to masturbators affected with psychical impotence; such persons are apt to seek an equivalent for coitus in improper contacts with little girls.
One very large group of cases belongs to the sphere of psychiatry. In quite a number of congenital and acquired states of mental defect or disorder, sexual acts performed on children appear as symptoms of moral and intellectual degeneration. In this connexion may be mentioned, congenital imbecility, progressive paralysis (paralytic dementia), senile dementia, chronic alcoholism, cerebral syphilis, and post-epileptic dementia; with or without these conditions, epileptic disturbances of consciousness may lead to sexual offences against children.
None of these cases have anything to do with poedophilia erotica. And there are yet other cases which it is desirable to distinguish from this class, especially those cases in which a marked hyperæsthesia was the determining cause of the sexual act. In such a case, it is to the person thus affected almost a matter of indifference with whom the sexual act is performed. Anything warm and alive will do, and inasmuch as a child is often most readily available, a child often serves as victim, whilst in other cases an animal is utilised.
Fritz Leppmann,[114] to whom we are indebted for a full and excellent study of cases of this kind, distinguishes the influences which are subjective to the offender from those which operate from without. Among the latter he refers especially to the Schlafbursch or night-lodger;[115] it may be a young man in his prime, sleeping in the same room or even in the same bed with little girls; also to unemployment, which very readily gives occasion for sexual excesses; to the practice of allowing little girls to run about without proper supervision; to premature sexual development in children, which renders these latter especially liable to be the subjects of sexual misconduct; to child-prostitution, often at the instigation of the parents; to the lack of proper sexual reserve; to obscenity, dances, and popular festivals, whereby the sexual impulse may be stimulated; to unhappy marriage; and, above all, to the effects of alcohol. Occupation and position have also to be considered, for, in the case of many males, an authoritative position (that of schoolmaster, priest, doctor, employer, stepfather, tutor) gives extraordinary facilities for committing sexual offences against children.
Although children of all ages, and even infants in arms, may be the victims of sexual misconduct, in the majority of such cases we have to do with children who are no longer quite young; and this is true, more especially, of most cases of pædophilia erotica. This latter passion may be directed against children of the same sex as the offender, but more commonly it is directed towards children of the opposite sex. Not infrequently, however, the impulse in such persons lacks sharp differentiation, the pædophile showing inclination, now for immature boys, now again for immature girls. Occasionally, pædophilia is the only form in which sexual inclination exhibits itself in the persons concerned; but in other cases the pædophilic impulse alternates with normal sexual feelings, or with some other perverse sexual manifestation. A homosexual man, for instance, may one day be sexually attracted by children, the next by adult males. Less widely known, although, as I think, far commoner than is usually believed, are the cases in which women are sexually attracted by immature boys. Some of those cases of which mention has previously been made, in which nursemaids and other female servants seduce boys to the practice of masturbation, belong to this category; but this does not exhaust cases of such a nature. It is not necessary, when we see a woman caressing a boy, to assume at once and in every case that a sexual motive is at work; but unprejudiced observation will show that many of these cases are sexually determined. An interesting case of this nature has been published by Magnan.[116] It was that of a lady twenty-nine years of age, with strongly marked hereditary taint, and suffering from very various mental abnormalities, with five nephews, the eldest of whom was thirteen years of age. At first, this eldest nephew was the object of her desires. "The sight of him caused in her intense sexual excitement; she experienced voluptuous sensations, which she was quite unable to repress, sighed, rolled her eyes, and became flushed; sometimes she had spasmus vaginæ, with local secretion." When this boy grew older, the next brother took his place in her desires; and in succession these were transferred to the other three. At the time when Magnan saw the patient, her sexual inclinations were directed towards the youngest nephew, a boy three years of age.
In many cases, the sexual inclination towards children is primary, existing from the first appearance of the sexual impulse; or it may appear simultaneously with other inclinations without there having been, as far as can be learned, marked previous sexual excesses. There can be no doubt whatever that in such cases we have to a large extent to do with morbid personalities. No small part in these cases is played by a purely psychological factor, namely, the innocence of the child. We know that also in the case of the normal sexual inclination of the male, innocence on the part of the female exerts a notable stimulus, in which connexion the question whether we have to do here with a result of conventional opinions or with an inborn mental disposition, must naturally be left open.[117] But it is a fact that just as the knowledge of a woman's immoral past, or obscene remarks or gestures on her part, will in many men suffice to inhibit sexual desire; so, on the other hand, for many men, innocence in the woman heightens the stimulus. In many cases of desire for immature girls, the physical stimulus of the narrow vagina may also contribute to increase libido; but the part this plays is probably not considerable. Apart from the fact that in many cases in which men have sexual inclination towards such girls, immissio membri does not take place at all, this consideration would in no way explain those not very uncommon cases in which adult women experience sexual inclination for immature boys.
In connexion with this last point, it is of interest to recall the fact that in former days dwarfs, as well as fools, were kept at many courts. In view of the tender relationship which obtained between many ladies of position and such dwarfs, it has sometimes been inferred that the inclination was a sexual one, the small size and the undeveloped condition of the dwarf exercising a peculiar stimulus.
The depraver of children satisfies his desires in very various ways. It will readily be understood that the progressive paralytic (paralytic dement) will act in one way, and the true pædophile in another. I shall not, however, discuss these details here, but shall merely endeavour to give some general ideas on the subject. Often, and especially at first, the depraver of children merely seeks opportunities for seeing children; then he wants to touch the children with his hands, and often to handle their genital organs; and while attempting this, or while doing it, he has ejaculation. In other cases he presses the child more and more closely into contact with himself, and especially against his own genital organs. Finally, we may have more complete sexual acts; and, especially when the child is a girl, there may be attempts at intercourse, and even defloration; where the child is a boy, pseudo-coitus may take place. The depraver of children gains his opportunities by appeals to the child's peculiar weaknesses. He will, for instance, tempt the child by the offer of sweets, and in this way will obviously often gain his ends. Many such persons hang about in the neighbourhood of a school or a children's playground, simply with this end in view. Some years ago the police of a certain large town were informed that "child-lovers" haunted a particular place. It appears that here the children were in the habit of swinging on a chain suspended between two pillars, and that the watchers waited to catch a glimpse of the children's genital organs, or merely of their bare legs, when their petticoats flew up occasionally in the act of swinging. Many pædophiles become sexually excited at the mere sight of children sympathetic to them. In other cases, by no means rare, men experience sexual excitement whenever they see a little girl with short petticoats; these men will follow such little girls all over the place, without, as a rule, speaking to them or interfering with them in any way, being withheld from doing so either by the fear of punishment or by moral restraint. To many the mere sight of the child appears to afford sufficient sexual gratification; and to others the simple contact of their hands with the child suffices, and nothing more is attempted. But, in other cases, handling the child's genital organs plays the chief part, frequently because the offender can himself obtain sexual gratification only through inducing sexual excitement in the child and watching this excitement. Sometimes, however, the offender has no interest in the child's genital organs; far from being excited sexually by regarding or handling these organs, he may even find them repulsive; but in such cases the sight of general nakedness often induces sexual excitement. This is often associated with sadistic feelings, and this alike in men and in women. In other cases, a woman will make attempts at coitus with a little boy, having first induced erection of his penis by manipulating the organ, by tickling it, or in some other way. Finally, there are cases in which all kinds of other actions are performed. To the more complex perversions I shall return. Here I shall only point out that children may sometimes be utilised for the wildest orgies. A case was formerly published by Tardieu, in which servant-maids in conjunction with their lovers carried out with the children under their care all sorts of perverse acts: cunnilinctus, masturbation, the introduction of various objects into the vagina and the anus. Finally, it may be pointed out that in the lack of an object, the pædophile will naturally satisfy himself with the aid of imaginative ideas, masturbating the while, or he may be content with purely psychical onanism. We must not forget that the imagination usually suggests stimuli far stronger than those furnished by objective experience, and this applies in a most marked degree to pædophilia. Many pædophiles also satisfy themselves with the aid of erotic and obscene literature, containing descriptions of the acts in which they are interested, or with pictures of such acts. Among obscene pictures and photographs, not a few depict sexual acts performed with children; and there is no doubt that these are sometimes pictures taken from the life, children having actually been photographed in such obscene attitudes. The Latin countries appear to be the principal source of such pictures and photographs.
It will readily be understood that the performance upon children of sexual acts is a very serious matter for the children themselves, especially as affecting their sexual morality. It is true that in many instances pædophilia does not entail any consequences for the child, which completely fails to understand that it has been made use of for perverse purposes. The offender may know how to mask his actions, so that even a third person who is looking on may detect nothing more than tender caresses, and may remain altogether unaware of the existence of any sexual excitement. But in other cases the consequences for the children may be extremely grave. Not only is the child in this way prematurely introduced to sexual practices, but its moral corruption may result. The danger to the child is greater in view of the fact that the child depraver often fails to realise that he is trespassing against the child's rights. I remember a gentleman who had been punished with imprisonment on account of improper relations with a boy, and who continued to assure me that he had done nothing wrong in touching the boy's penis. In other cases, well-educated young men and women have no idea that unchaste conduct with children is an offence which may entail severe punishment, even in cases in which the child's genital organs are not touched.