The influence of alcohol upon the sexual life and upon the psyche is a very peculiar one. Beer or wine, taken in very moderate quantities, unquestionably give rise, in addition to their general psychical stimulating influence, to sexual excitement of greater or less degree. This sexual excitement, if more alcohol is now taken, endures longer than the psychical excitement, which soon gives place to psychical paralysis, to a discontinuance of the inhibitory influences proceeding from the brain. It is in this unequal influence exercised upon the purely sensual-sexual and upon the psychical processes, that the peculiar danger of alcoholic excesses appears to me to depend. The sexual stimulation produced by the first draught of alcohol continues at a time when the man has already lost all control over reason and will, and thus he becomes an easy prey to sexual seduction.
It is only in this way that we can explain the momentous influence of alcohol, for we know, generally speaking, it is not a means for the increase of sexual power. On the contrary, it increases voluptuousness and sexual desire, but almost always hinders erection and delays the sexual orgasm.
Thus, a man under the influence of alcohol requires a longer time for the completion of the act of sexual intercourse than a sober man, and in this way the danger of venereal infection is notably increased, for the contact with the infecting person is considerably longer. I have inquired of many patients who were infected during intercourse with prostitutes after alcoholic excess, and was almost always informed that the act of intercourse, owing to the well-known relative impotence produced by alcohol, was exceptionally long in duration, and this naturally gave more opportunity for excessive contact, for mechanical injuries dependent upon increased friction, etc., and thus brought about infection.
In medical literature, numerous cases are reported in which two men have completed intercourse with an infected prostitute, shortly after one another, and, remarkable to relate, one only became infected, whilst the other remained healthy. More exact inquiry would show without doubt in many such cases that the uninfected man was sober, in comparison with the infected man, who must have been under the influence of alcohol.
In the case of women, with regard to whom there can be no question of any specific effect upon sexual “potency,” the influence of alcohol in exciting libido, in association with its withdrawal of all psychical inhibitions, makes itself all the more manifest. Thus, to woman, who, speaking generally, is far more intolerant of the drug than man, very moderate enjoyment of alcohol entails dangers.[239]
The seducer, the procuress, and the prostitute are all familiar with the above-described peculiar influence of alcohol upon the libido sexualis and upon the psyche, and it is precisely this discriminative duplex influence which is utilized by them. Not only in the so-called “Animierkneipen”—that is, the drinking-saloons with women attendants—and in the brothels does alcohol subserve this purpose, but the street-walkers also await their victims by preference outside the doors of the great restaurants, or after festival dinners, and keep an eye especially on drunken men, because in the case of these, in whom all self-command has been lost, they have, in every respect, an easy prey.[240]
A man under the influence of alcohol is as easily led and as devoid of will-power as a child. He is not particular in his choice: he generally fails to notice whether the prostitute who accosts him is young or old, pretty or ugly, clean or dirty; he follows her blindly, and in most cases with results disastrous to his pocket and to his health. The following case illustrates very clearly this loss of will produced in a man by indulgence in alcohol:
An officer of high rank, a married man, in general a man of solid repute, left the officers’ casino after a banquet late at night, very tipsy, to seek his house. Suddenly he felt an arm thrust into his; it was a prostitute who had noticed his condition, and she had turned it to her own advantage. Without reflection and without exercise of will, he allowed her to lead him to her dwelling, and there, still in a quite apathetic condition, had intercourse with her, without taking any precautions whatever. It was not until afterwards that he saw, being then somewhat sobered, that he was in the company of an elderly prostitute of the lowest class. His dread of venereal infection was justified a few days later by the appearance of a urethral discharge. In great alarm he consulted me. Microscopic examination of the urethral secretion, and the cure which ensued in a few days, showed me that he was suffering from a simple urethral catarrh, and not from gonorrhœa.
Such cases as this, however, do not always end so fortunately. It is notorious, and has been proved by the researches of leading physicians and medical statisticians, that the majority of venereal infections take place under the influence of alcohol.
For this reason, the continued increase in the consumption of alcohol leads to a further diffusion of venereal diseases. While our ancestors consumed alcoholic beverages to excess only on Sundays and festival days, at the present time spirits are freely consumed on weekdays—above all, during the evenings. Brandy and beer have become everyday beverages, especially beer, whose consumption increases year by year, so that in the year 1898 the beer drunk in Germany was valued at £100,000,000! Strümpell showed that labourers earning three marks a day are accustomed to spend eighty pfennige—that is, more than one-third of their income—on beer; these are by no means notorious drinkers, but steady fellows who only follow the general “custom.” The part played by beer in Germany is played by absinthe in France; the well-known “apéritif” to which prostitutes of Paris so often invite their male clients is in most cases absinthe. Wine, as the experienced Fiaux says, is merely an “ideal drink” in the dreams of the ordinary Parisian prostitute.