The Sexual Life of the Child

by Albert Moll

Sexual inclinations towards children are especially apt to be associated with sadistic acts. In a comparatively large proportion of cases, children are the victims of lust-murder, if this term be used in its strictly limited signification, and not to include all possible sexual acts complicated with murder, but simply to signify cases in which the very act of murder provides a sexual stimulus, or when the corpse is utilised for a lustful act; that is to say, we must exclude from lust-murder proper, all the cases in which, for other reasons than a sadistic impulse, the sexual act is complicated with murder, as when the female witness of a previous sexual crime must be got out of the way. Children, too, are often the victims of other sexual acts, such as rape, which in a few instances only can be included in the category of sadism. In some cases force is employed only because the victim resists the act of violation, and here there is no question of sadism; but the rape is sadistic when the use of force is per se a sexual stimulus. Moreover, children are often endangered by "stabbers."

In the year 1899, there was much anxiety in the city of Cologne on account of such a stabber. Those injured were all schoolgirls, and ultimately no children were sent alone to school, but they were always accompanied by a servant or a relative. In 1901, there was a similar series of cases in Moscow, a number of half-grown girls being stabbed by a man with a dagger. In the year 1896, a stabber appeared in Berlin. He enticed schoolgirls into the vestibule of a house, under the pretence that he wanted to brush some mud from their clothing; then, drawing a knife, he would inflict on the child a long and deep incised wound. In the summer of 1901, the inhabitants of northern Berlin were terrorised by a man who stabbed one girl fatally, and wounded two others severely. A remarkable point about this case was that the stabber made three separate assaults in a single afternoon, at very brief intervals. Unless the offender is discovered, it is naturally impossible to ascertain whether he has acted under the influence of some ordinary mental disorder (such as mania or post-epileptic insanity), or if he is a sexual pervert. The act alone will not enable us to answer this question.

Boys also are liable to such attacks, as we learn from what happened in Breslau in the year 1889. A student of philosophy in that town enticed to his dwelling an eight-year-old boy whom he met in a public lavatory, and wounded the boy's penis with a sharp-pointed knife. It appeared that the offender had done the same thing before to other boys. Ultimately, having been examined by a committee of experts, he was on their recommendation adjudged to be insane. In the year 1869, Berlin was disturbed by the doings of a certain X. This man had made use of two boys for sexual purposes, and had inflicted on them horrible injuries: in one, he cut off the testicles, and inflicted other severe wounds, so that the boy died; in the other, he introduced a walking-stick through the anus, and pushed it roughly onwards until it had perforated the lung.

Far commoner than the acts of such stabbers are the cases in which the striking of children is to the sadist a source of sex-stimulation. Erotic literature is full of the description of such perversions. Thus, in a well-known pornographic eroticon, we find pictures of a girl who has to subserve the perverse lusts of a wealthy boyar (Russian territorial magnate), the latter mishandling the child most horribly with cane and knout. In the English erotic literature, it is remarkable how often and how fully the flagellation of children is described. Almost typical are the English educational works in which, with little variation, we find descriptions of the flogging of little girls in order to excite the perverse lusts of the schoolmistresses. Not very long ago, in a certain English newspaper, a special column was devoted to accounts of the chastisement of children, and especially of girls. Anyone who reads this column with care could not fail to recognise that for the most part these chastisements were the expression of perverse sexual sensibilities. The available material shows, indeed, that in England this sexually perverse whipping of children is no mere matter of imaginative literary expression, but that such perversities are a matter of actual experience. Such things are, however, by no means confined to England, as is shown by a large number of recorded observations.

In Paris, not long ago, the following case was noted. A woman entered into relations with the parents of girls of eleven and twelve years of age, in order to hire the children as the subjects of chastisement for perverse sexual purposes. The parents, who must have known for what their children were wanted, received payment. Apparently the woman did not do this for the satisfaction of any perversion of her own, but for her perverse husband or for other perverts, who watched the whippings through spy-holes. In Germany, some years ago, there was an important trial, in which I was called as an expert witness, of a man who had flogged his pupils (with one exception, they had all been boys) solely to obtain perverse sexual gratification.

Many of these cases obtain publicity through the columns of the daily press, although occasionally, in part from sensationalism, and in part from sheer ignorance, a case may be allotted to the category of sadism, which really has nothing to do with this perversion, or whose sadistic character is doubtful. This applies, for example, to the well-known Dippold case. Here, the sons of a wealthy Berlin family were mishandled by a private tutor to such an extent that one of the children died. Neither by the legal proceedings in this case, nor by any subsidiary evidence, was it established, in my opinion, that sexual motives existed for the maltreatment; and only when such motives exist have we any right to speak of sadism. As a rule, such cases are elucidated only when the mental life of the offender is very carefully analysed. Therefore, in a great many cases, while there may be grounds for suspecting the existence of sadism, adequate proof of this is not forthcoming. Some cases bearing on this matter will now be briefly recorded.

A furniture polisher, twenty-five years of age, induced two young fellows to enter his dwelling, and there, under the threat that if they resisted they would be severely punished by their parents, he made them submit to a thrashing with a cane. A similar case was reported in Paris some years ago. A man thirty-seven years of age, supposed to have formerly been a private tutor, took boarders into his house for love, and not because he made his living by doing so. He also had under his care an orphan boy, and it appeared that this child was grossly ill-treated. When the authorities entered the house, they found the boy entirely unclothed, but wrapped in rags; he was fastened to the crossbars of the window, and quite exposed to the cold winter air. To prevent the child from crying out, a gag had been placed in his mouth. Of dubious nature, also, was a case which occurred at Berlin in the year 1906, in which a girl twelve years of age was enticed away by another girl, and taken to a man who, at the suggestion of the second girl, drew two teeth from the first. In the case reported from Salzwedel some years ago, it is possible that the offender was insane; but he may have been sadistically inclined. An eleven-year-old fifth-form boy was enticed away by a young man of twenty, who took the lad to a hotel, gagged him, beat him unmercifully with a walking cane, threatening him with a revolver to prevent his calling for help. The boy suffered also two severe contused wounds of the head. The offender himself put cold compresses on these. When the police who were in search of the boy broke into the room, the young man shot himself.

In the year 1891, the following case occurred in Berlin. A young man, not yet eighteen years old, had in three cases undressed boys, and performed improper acts on them. Then he misused and bound the boys. The youth, who had previously been convicted of theft, was on this occasion sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for an offence against (sexual) morality. At Liegnitz, a few years ago, a pupil-teacher was sent to prison for three months, because he had lured little boys to a remote field, and there had mishandled them by beating them with a walking-stick. The court held that these acts had been performed under the influence of the sexual impulse, resulting from a sadistic tendency. About two years ago, a teacher of the pianoforte committed suicide in Berlin, because he had been accused of ill-treating children, apparently owing to a sadistic tendency. The children were nine or ten years old; he had undressed them and then flogged them. The matter had, it seemed, been kept secret for a long time, until the parents of some of the children discovered traces of the ill-treatment, and this led to the charge being brought. A case which attracted considerable attention occurred in Berlin in the year 1896. A man, supposed to be a Russian prince, entered a well-known saddler's shop in the Potsdamerstrasse, asked to be shown some dogwhips, and, on the pretext of wishing to try their quality, persuaded some boys employed in the establishment to allow him to try the whips on their persons. The boys were handsomely paid for this, and the practice went on until the head of the firm intervened and forbade it. Whilst some regarded the matter as a joke, others expressed the suspicion that it was a case in which the rein had been given to sadistic tendencies. A similar case was that of the author, X., which occurred in Hamburg a few years ago. X. was acquainted with a woman named Y., who lived in Berlin. The latter's son, eleven years of age, was sent to reside with X. for educational purposes; and without proper cause, but under the pretext of educational necessities, this lad was severely mishandled by X. The boy was frequently taken from his bed, stripped naked, and then struck with a switch. The boy's mother stated that her boy had been put under the care of X. because the lad needed severe discipline, being untruthful and dishonest. Further charges were made against X. of various indecent acts against the boy. Teachers and others, who were acquainted with this boy, deposed that he was well behaved and not untruthful, and that he had in no way merited such punishments as had been inflicted on him. A very remarkable case was reported six years ago, from one of the minor German principalities. Here, children who had been sentenced to imprisonment were pardoned by the Prince, on condition that they submitted to a whipping; and the remarkable feature in the case was that not only did the Prince make a point of seeing the whipping, but himself in part administered it. In some of the reports of this case it was added that the children were stripped naked.

It is a not infrequent reproach against Catholic priests, monks, nuns, &c., that they make use of the children entrusted to their care for perverse, sadistic acts. I may recall the Graubund scandal of September 1906, in which girls and women were whipped by an acolyte until the blood ran; also an affair which occurred in Christiania about fourteen years ago, where, at a home kept by an unmarried woman, for children from the age of two years until their confirmation, a horrible and elaborate system of punishments was in use, whippings and other tortures being the order of the day. In many biographies and other works giving descriptions of life in the cloister, we find additional details: for instance, in the memoirs of the Countess Kaunitz, mother of the well-known statesman Kaunitz, we find an account of the severe whippings which were administered to her during her childhood spent in a nunnery.

All kinds of subterfuges are employed by the sexual pervert to make the punishment appear harmless and legitimate. Schoolmasters find this comparatively easy, inasmuch as they are able to allege misconduct such as would ordinarily be visited with a verbal reprimand, if not completely overlooked, as the reason for a whipping. Obviously, some of the excuses will be remarkable. In one case the flagellant asserted that he wished to write a work on education, and had therefore to ascertain how many strokes a child could endure. In a case which came under my own notice the offender stated that he wished to make the children courageous.