Among women, especially young girls, hypochondriasis is not common and cases of sexual hypochondriacs who accuse themselves of masturbating are rare among them. Women who masturbate generally keep their secret and are apparently very little affected by it. However, onanism does them nearly as much harm as men; it is true they have no loss of semen, but the repetition and intensity of the nervous irritation are greater than in man, and it is this which causes most exhaustion. In spite of this, it is curious to observe that women who masturbate are generally less ashamed than men, and are apparently less depressed by it. We must bear in mind that the loss of semen by masturbation has in man a peculiarly depressing effect, for it lacks its object and represents an absolutely abnormal satisfaction of the sexual appetite.
It may be objected that this difference is due to another cause, that women who masturbate have less moral tone and are especially depraved individuals. I agree that this is often the case, but far from always. The intensity of the sexual excitability in women has nothing in common with their character; it may be associated with high intelligence, with high moral and æsthetic qualities, and even with a strong will. On the other hand, deficiency in moral sense and will may occur with sexual frigidity, and, as we have already seen, may lead to sexual excess without any voluptuous sensation, in accordance with the peculiarities of feminine sentiment. These facts show how complex are the causes of a given effect in the sexual domain.
PERVERSIONS OF THE SEXUAL APPETITE OR PARÆSTHESIA OF THE SEXUAL SENSATION
We are here concerned with sexual appetite provoked by inadequate objects. Krafft-Ebing having made a profound study of this question we shall follow his subdivisions in the main.
Perverted Sexual Appetite Directed Toward the Opposite Sex.—(A.) Sadism (association of sexual desire with cruelty and violence). History shows us a number of celebrated persons who satisfied their sexual desire by making martyrs of their victims, up to complete butchery. The most atrocious types of this kind are perhaps assassins such as "Jack the Ripper," who lie in wait for their victims like cats, pounce on them, revel in their terror, assassinate them by inches, and wallow voluptuously in their blood.
The term sadism is derived from the celebrated Marquis de Sade, a French author, whose obscene romances overflow with cruel voluptuousness. Certain reminiscences of sadism are common both in man and woman. At the moment of highest excitation in coitus it is not uncommon for one or other of the couple to bite or scratch in the ecstasy of their amorous embraces. Lombroso remarks on the brutal excesses of soldiers when excited after battle. This is so to speak an inversion of sadism as regards cause and effect. After the exaltation of combat, that of desire possesses the mind, as in the inverse direction exaltation of desire gives rise in certain cases to that of violence and thirst for blood.
Krafft-Ebing draws attention to the fact that love and anger are the two most violent effective conditions, and are at the same time the two powers which provoke the most motor discharges. This explains why they may be associated in the delirium of unbridled passions. To these facts is added an atavistic relic of the instinct of man's ancestors, the males of whom fought furiously to conquer the females by violence, which provoked desire in them, after the subjection of the object of their sexual appetite. True sadism can, however, only become effective by the combination of two causes: (1) by an exalted and absolutely pathological association of sexual desire with a sanguinary instinct, and with the desire to illtreat and overcome a victim; (2) by an almost absolute absence of moral sense and sympathy, combined with a violent and egoistic sexual passion. It is evident that the slight more or less sadic impulses which may involuntarily occur in the performance of normal coitus, are quite exempt from the second of these causes.
Krafft-Ebing maintains that sadism is usually, if not always, congenital and hereditary. Sadism is for a long time restrained by fear, education or moral sentiments. It is only gradually, when normal coitus cannot procure for the perverted sexual appetite the satisfaction it requires, that the sadist gives way to his passion; this gives the latter a false appearance of acquired vice.
The highest degree of sadism leads to assassination. In this way human tigers entice young girls into a wood and cut them to pieces. Some begin by forcing them to coitus, after frightening them, or half strangling them; others masturbate in their ripped up entrails. But some others have no desire for coitus, nor anything resembling it, their desire being satisfied only by the sight of the terror, suffering and blood of their victim, whom they torture before killing. Others again associate desire with the rage of a wild beast to such a point that they swallow parts of their victim's body and drink the blood.
Sadists become experts in the art of assassination without discovery. The cynicism with which some of them have described their sensations shows their cold indifference toward the tragic and the horrible. Krafft-Ebing describes a series of atrocious types of this kind, and unfortunately the press and the criminal law courts continually give us fresh examples. Some sadists assassinate children, others men, when their perversion is complicated with pederasty or sexual inversion. (The story of Bluebeard is probably based on the successive crimes of a sadic.)