These phenomena occur especially in individuals whose suggestibility is pathological or hysterical, or even simply exaggerated. But these individuals are numerous, and this fact gives us the explanation of a large proportion of acquired sexual anomalies, at the same time indicating the means of curing them. In such cases, it is not a question of moral depravity, nor necessarily of a latent hereditary predisposition, but simply of a single sudden suggestive action, sometimes repeated.
Among other cases, I may mention that of a well-educated man of very refined sentiments, deeply in love with his wife, but very suggestible, who became suddenly impotent and homosexual as the result of a simple idea-image which became fixed in his mind and subjected it by suggestion. His strong character enabled him to resist intercourse with males, but he fell into despair and became very unhappy. I am convinced that a careful study would reveal an increasing number of cases of psychopathia acquired by suggestion or auto-suggestion.
Cases of this kind may be spontaneously cured. Treatment by suggestion is indicated and may act directly or indirectly. Everything which is of a functional psychic nature may occur by suggestion, or be, on the contrary, eradicated by suggestion. The important point is to emphasize the fact that whenever a man, hitherto normal, is affected, without apparent cause, with a more or less sudden sexual anomaly, and which is consequently not the effect of long habit, suggestion or auto-suggestion should be borne in mind.
These two conceptions can, moreover, be hardly distinguished, for the things which cause suggestion are usually the sensory perceptions of sight, smell, touch and hearing, associated with certain situations, or with an intense affective state which fixes them in the brain. Sometimes it is a question of simple imaginative ideas. The cases where a hypnotizer intentionally suggests sexual perversion probably exist only in theory. We are, therefore, concerned with fortuitous suggestions, acting through persons, situations, objects or ideas, which excite the mind by the impression they produce on the sentiments and the sexual appetite.
SEXUAL PERVERSIONS DUE TO HABIT
Without being congenital and without depending on a special predisposition, all the perversions of the sexual appetite that we have just described may be acquired, by means of the artificial and continued excitation of a sexual appetite which seeks satisfaction in change and unusual situations: Moreover, perverse satisfaction of the sexual appetite is often resorted to—onanism, pederasty or oral coitus—either to avoid conception, or with the idea of escaping venereal disease, or in the case of onanism, to avoid publicity, trouble or expense. As we have seen above alcohol favors the development of sexual perversions.
It is evident that a commerce in women systematically tolerated by the state, as is the proxenetism of regulated prostitution, employs all means imaginable to attract and excite its clients. In this way prostitution becomes the high-school for all the refinements of sexual perversion. It not only offers special objects required by individuals tainted by heredity with various perversions, but it artificially develops perverse habits in the normal man. The manipulations of sadism or masochism are even utilized to revive a sexual appetite weakened by abuse. Individuals who have become impotent often try to excite themselves by observing the coitus of others. In fact a leaven of corruption and ignominy ferments on the dunghill of venal and artificial excitation of the sexual appetite.
The apostles of Mammon and Bacchus, the former by interest, the latter by the aid of a narcosis which paralyzes the higher sentiments and reflection, work in concert to maintain this foul swamp. The same individuals very commonly combine the two apostleships and become themselves the victims of their false gods, after sacrificing hundreds of their fellows.
To make matters more clear I will recapitulate as follows:
(1). We often meet with pederasty without a trace of inversion of the sexual appetite. It is also practiced on women by the psychopathic male. But the normal man hardly ever prefers it to normal coitus.