Speaking generally, however, sexual perversion is rarer and less intense in women than in men. This fact is explained by Lombroso on the ground that the erotic element in women’s nature is less active, and that women are less often affected by epilepsy, the principal source of these anomalies. In cases in which the genital organs are healthy we must, with Westphal, conclude, with reference to contrary sexual sensation, that the abnormal sexual feelings have a cortical origin.
From von Maschka’s elaborate account of unnatural offences, in his Handbook of Forensic Medicine, we abstract the following passage relating to the female sex: “Lascivious procedures liable under certain circumstances to legal punishment may consist: 1. In handling or other manipulation of the genitals, without actual intercourse. If the genital organs of a female have merely been gently handled, without any more violent manipulations, we shall not, as a rule, either in the case of children or of adults, find any local changes as a result; contrariwise, if the handling has been rough and brutal, if the fingers have been forcibly thrust within the vulval cleft, or if the pudendum has been pulled and rent, we may expect to find excoriations, redness, swelling, laceration of the hymen, or even of the vagina and the perineum. 2. In licking the female genitals (cunnilingere). An analogous process also effected by members of the female sex, whether children or adults, is irrumare, id est, penem in os arrigere; fellare, id est, vel labiis vel lingua perfricandi atque exsugendi officium penis præstare. 3. In introduction of the membrum virile into the rectum, either of children or of adults, pæderasty.” That this form of sexual gratification is not infrequently practiced upon women has been pointed out especially by Parent-Duchatelet, and is asserted by von Maschka from personal knowledge of cases in which it has occurred.
Tribadism and Lesbian love, unnatural vice practiced by two individuals of the female sex, occur, according to von Maschka’s description in the following manner: a.) By masturbation, either one person gratifying the other by manipulation, or mutual masturbation. In a case of this kind recorded by Tardieu, a wife still young repeatedly, and by day as well as by night, introduced her finger deeply into the vagina or the rectum of her little girl, moving it about there sometimes for as long as an hour. According to the child’s account, the mother herself at these times was in a condition of excitement, no doubt sexual, which she gratified in this manner. In another case, several older girls engaged with their own fingers and tongues in lascivious practices with the genital organs of a little girl of seven. According to Krausold, among female prisoners such “forbidden friendships” are extremely common, formed for the purpose of mutual masturbation, and in connection with which the bitterest jealousy and the most ardent love are exhibited. b.) With the assistance of an enlarged clitoris, with which one woman performs the sexual act by introducing the organ within the vagina of another. In France in the nineteenth century a woman is said to have lived whose genital organs were so formed that, on the one hand, as a woman she played the passive part in intercourse with men, and, on the other hand, was able to give sexual gratification to women by assuming the active part of the male. c.) By the employment of an artificial membrum virile. This mode of obtaining satisfaction of sexual desire was known already to the ancients, and such a priapus was by the Greeks termed ὸλισθος. The fact that such articles are manufactured and sold, affords sufficient proof that their use is not unknown in our own day. Von Maschka describes such priapi as being made of india rubber, of the size and shape of an erect penis, perforated longitudinally and fitted at the lower end with a testicle-like attachment, to be filled with warm water or milk, so that by squeezing it an ejaculation can be counterfeited. This priapus is also so constructed that it can be attached to the body by means of a girdle and can thus be employed for the gratification of another individual.
We have already referred to sodomy, unnatural intercourse with the lower animals. Von Maschka gives several instances of this, which we have previously mentioned, and states also that some years before, during his stay in Paris, a female was accustomed to hold a secret exhibition, the entry to which cost ten francs, and at which she had sexual intercourse with a bulldog trained for the purpose.
According to Lombroso, even at the present day, the inmates of licensed brothels frequently hold exhibitions, for admission to which a fee is charged, of tribadistic couples in poses plastiques, and of another prostitute in coitus caninus.
In his widely-celebrated work on Psychopathia Sexualis, von Krafft-Ebing discusses these morbid sexual processes in women. We select certain data from his exposition. Regarding the congenital morbid phenomenon of the lack of sexual feeling in women, as contrasted with perversion of sexual feeling, and the sexual impulse toward an individual of the same sex (antipathic sexual feeling), von Krafft-Ebing writes: “The woman-loving woman feels herself sexually to be a man, she rejoices in the exhibition of courage, of masculine sentiments, since these characteristics make the man desirable to the woman. The female urning,[[35]] therefore, likes to have her hair cut short and her clothes of a masculine cut; and one of her greatest pleasures is when opportunity offers to appear in male attire. Her ideals are notable feminine personalities, distinguished by spirituality and energy; in the theatre and in the circus, it is only the female performers that attract her interest; and in the same way, in collections of pictures and statues, it is only the representations of women that awaken her æsthetic sense and her sensibility.” Von Krafft-Ebing insists that in nearly all cases of antipathic sexual feeling in which a family history was attainable, that history was found to exhibit instances of neuroses, psychoses, stigmata of degeneration, etc. In hysteria, according to this author, the sexual life is especially often abnormal; in cases with neuropathic inheritance, one may say always: “All possible anomalies of the sexual functions occur in such cases, with the utmost variety and the strangest commingling, based upon hereditary degenerative processes, and accompanied by moral imbecility in its most perverse manifestations. * * *. Frequently, in hysterical subjects, the sexual life is morbidly excitable. This excitement may be intermittent (? menstrual). Shameless prostitution may result, even in married women. In cases of a milder type, the sexual impulse is exhibited in the form of onanism, nude perambulations about the room, wearing of male attire, etc. In cases of hysterical mental disorder, the morbidly excited sexual life may manifest itself in the form of maniacal jealousy, baseless complaints against men of indecent assault, hallucinations of coitus, etc. Sometimes there may be frigidity, with lack of sexual pleasure, commonly due to genital anæsthesia.”
Incest in women, dependent upon psychopathic causes, is also alluded to by von Krafft-Ebing; it occurs in those in whom a partial imbecility that leaves the sense of modesty undeveloped is combined with eroticism. Thus, a case reported by Schürmayer is mentioned, in which a mother had, or attempted, intercourse with her son, aged five and one-half years; and again a case reported by Lafarque, in which a girl of seventeen laid her thirteen-year-old brother on herself for the gratification conjunctionis membrorum, while simultaneously masturbating her brother; Magnan’s case, an unmarried woman twenty-nine years of age, who could hardly resist the impulse toward copulation with her nephews as long as they were quite young; Legrand’s cases, in one of which a girl fifteen years of age seduced her brother to the performance of all possible sexual excesses on her body; another, a married woman aged thirty-five, who committed incest with her eighteen-year-old brother; and a third, a mother aged thirty-nine, who committed incest with her son.
According to Moll, women who suffer from antipathic sexual sensation are, in many cases, married; it appears, however, that for the most part they have no inclination to marry. In isolated cases there may exist a psychical hermaphroditism, the woman thus affected having sexual inclination both towards men and towards women. In the case of homosexual women, normal intercourse appears not to furnish complete satisfaction. As regards fetichistic, masochistic, and sadistic inclinations on the part of women with antipathic sexual sensation, Moll was unable to obtain any trustworthy information. Sometimes in women the perverse sexual impulse appears periodically, being then often associated with the appearance of other psychical abnormalities. In some women the perverse impulse is especially active at the menstrual periods; whilst at other times these subjects, even though not quite sexually normal, are still very much quieter. Antipathic sexual sensation in women may depend upon inherited predisposition, and may often be traced back to a very early age. In many cases an exciting cause may be demonstrated.
Mantegazza, who relates that homosexual practices are common among the inmates of harems, believes that antipathic sexual feeling is readily curable in women soon after marriage, but that later a cure is rare.
A perverse form of sexual gratification sometimes met with in women is flagellation. By chastisement with birches, straps, or whips on the bare buttocks, the nerves of the sexual apparatus are stimulated, and these organs become congested, with an effect resembling that of onanism. Such flagellation was practiced by the wanton ladies of ancient Rome. In the Middle Ages, hysterical women derived great pleasure from the stimulatory effect of whippings. It is reported of Catharine de Medici, that she had herself whipped, and that she delighted in seeing the ladies of her court undergoing similar treatment. In the present day many women derive intense sexual pleasure from being birched by their lovers on bared portions of their bodies. In Paris and other large towns there are special places of resort for those who pursue this form of perverse sexual gratification. Sometimes such women are only the active fouetteuses for worn-out, perversely-feeling men.