Prudery can be created or cured by education in childhood. It may be created by isolation, by covering all parts of the body, and especially by making children regard nudity as shameful. On the other hand, it may be cured by mixed bathing, by accustoming the child to consider the human body, in all its parts and functions, as something natural of which one need not be ashamed, lastly by giving instruction on the relations of the sexes, in due time and in a serious manner, instead of replying to ingenuous questions by pious falsehoods, by equivocation, or by an air of mystery.
The chapter on love is infinite, and its relations to the sexual appetite make it still more complex. We shall confine ourselves to indicating two more of its irradiations, peculiar to each sex, but having for each a physionomy corresponding to its own mentality.
FETICHISM AND ANTI-FETICHISM
"We understand by fetiches, objects, portions of objects, or even simply the qualities of objects which, from their association with a certain person or with the idea of this person, produce a kind of charm or at least a profound impression, which in no way corresponds to the nature of the object itself."—(Krafft-Ebing.) The fetich thus symbolizes a person in whom we have such a profound interest that everything connected with her disturbs our feelings. It is we ourselves who place in the fetich the charm arising from the person whom it symbolizes for us.
In many religions fetichism plays an important part, so much so that fetiches such as amulets or relics produce ecstasy in the faithful.
Binet, Krafft-Ebing and others give the name erotic fetichism to the charm which certain objects or certain parts of the body exercise in a similar way on the sexual desires or even on love, in the sense that their simple representation is powerfully associated with the erotic image of a person of the other sex, or with a particular variety of sexual excitation. In both man and woman certain portions of the clothes or the body, the hair, the foot and hand, or certain odors of the person desired, may take the character of fetiches. It is the same with certain intellectual peculiarities and certain expressions of the features. In man, the woman's hair, her hands or feet, her handkerchief, perfumes, etc., often play the part of erotic fetiches.
We may call anti-fetiches certain objects or certain qualities which, on the contrary, destroy eroticism. Certain odors, the tone of a voice, an ugly nose, a garment in bad taste, an awkward manner, often suffice to destroy eroticism by causing disgust for a person, and their simple representation is enough to make her unbearable. Symbolizing disgust, the anti-fetich paralyzes the sexual appetite and love.
In normal love, it is especially by association of ideas in calling to mind the image of the person loved that the fetich plays the part of an exciting agent. It often, however, becomes itself the more special object of the sexual appetite, while the anti-fetich produces the opposite effect. But, in degenerates (vide Chap. VIII) it is sometimes exclusively to the fetich itself that an irresistible sexual appetite is addressed, the irradiation of which becomes a ridiculous caricature of love.
We thus see that normal love is based on an extremely complex synthesis, on a symphony of harmonious sensations, sentiments and conceptions, combined in all kinds of tones and shades. The pathological aberrations of which we shall speak, demonstrate this by forcing one tone or another to the more or less marked exclusion of the rest.