Of the same character is sexual kleptomania—theft from sexual motives. Lichtenberg was familiar with this, for he says “the sexual impulse very frequently leads to thefts,” and he alludes to the proposal which has been made in England to castrate thieves.[615]
The organic causation of the kleptomania so often seen at the present day in large shops is very frequently of a sexual nature, dependent upon puberty, the climacteric, menstrual anomalies, etc. Cases of this character have been reported by Worbe, Gönner, Schmidtlein, Unzer, Häussler, Lombroso, and Ferrero. The suspicion of sexual sadistic grounds for kleptomania may always be justifiably entertained when rich ladies repeatedly steal articles of small value of which they have no need.
A typical case of sexual kleptomania is reported by H. Zingerle (“Contributions to the Psychological Genesis of Sexual Perversities,” published in the Annual for Psychiatry and Neurology, 1900):
A woman, twenty-one years of age, who from childhood had been psychopathic, had from her school-days onwards had a definite desire to appropriate certain objects, especially such as were made of brown leather (brown shoes), umbrellas, money. Only the act of stealing gave her any gratification, not the keeping of the stolen objects, which she usually destroyed or gave away. During the act of theft she had a well-developed sense of voluptuousness, accompanied by a discharge of secretion from the genital organs. She performed these thefts as the result of an irresistible impulse, and after them she felt remorse. She preferred large objects such as were difficult to hide, and it was precisely when there were great hindrances to be overcome and dangers to be run, and when in the pursuit of her aim she was subjected to emotional disturbances, that the accompanying voluptuous sensations were most prominent. The psychopathic basis of this condition is unquestionable.
In addition to these two categories of sadism, which for the most part depend upon morbid conditions, we meet also with a symbolic form of sadism, where this manifests itself rather in idea than in reality, and where the person thus affected luxuriates in all possible fantasies of the infliction of pain and of abasement.[616] This mitigated sadism is certainly to some extent connected with physiological sadism. Thus the so-called verbal sadism is nothing more than an increase in, an emphatic instance of, the physiological voluptuous sighing and crying in coitu, whose influence in verbal sadism is increased, and exercises a stronger stimulus, by the accentuation of the animal, the brutal, the coarse, and the obscene. Verbal sadism is not a peculiar refinement of modern debauchees, but a phenomenon belonging to folk-lore and ethnology, an extraordinarily widely diffused mode of expression of the primitive sadistic instinct of the genus homo. In the popular speech of all countries we find that abusive terms and curses are intermingled with extraordinary frequency with sexual matters and ideas. The naïveté of this sexual depravity and cursing, with its thousandfold variations, shows its origin from the purely instinctive sources of the popular soul, as the celebrated brothers Grimm recognized when they devoted a careful, critical investigation in their well-known dictionary to the obscene verbal treasury of the Germans. A rich material for the study of the sources of verbal sadism is offered by the vocabularia erotica of Hesychios; also by the collections of local and provincial riddles and proverbs.[617] A typically developed verbal sadism is found among the Hindus, especially the women. The Indian erotist Vātsyāyana rightly deduces it from the various sounds which are uttered in normal coitus. In European brothels the verbal sadists and verbal masochists are well-known phenomena—men who find sexual enjoyment in the expression of the coarsest, commonest, obscene words, curses, and abusive language; in some cases by doing this themselves (verbal sadism), in other cases by listening to it when done by others (verbal masochism). Such verbal sadists, also, are the individuals described by A. Eulenburg (“Sexual Neuropathy,” p. 104) as “verbal exhibitionists,” people who gladly indulge in lascivious conversation in the presence of women, or who whisper obscene words in women’s ears. Many men visit prostitutes, not for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with them, but merely for the opportunity of such lecherous conversation. The following case, complicated by bisexual or masochistic features, is characteristic of this:
A leading merchant of middle age visits a cocotte from time to time, and puts on the girl’s silken clothing, whilst she must put on man’s dress; they then go out walking arm-in-arm in dark, unfrequented streets, and converse meanwhile in an extremely obscene, indecent manner; this alone suffices him for sexual gratification. During the whole time he does not touch the girl.
This sexual depravity and obscene language can also be conducted by correspondence. Thus we have a kind of “epistolary sadism” and “epistolary masochism.” The former, especially, is frequently employed in the circles of the “masseuses” and “strict governesses,” in relation to their masochistic clientèle, whilst the answers belong to the second category.
A remarkable symbolic form of sadism or masochism is represented by inunction and lathering, for the purpose of sexual gratification. Lathering with soap more especially is a phenomenon with which those who have to do with brothels are especially familiar. Either the man finds sexual pleasure in lathering the prostitute or he experiences gratification in the passive attitude when she lathers him. Some time ago, in a trial in which a man belonging to one of our leading mercantile houses was accused, I referred in my evidence to analogous occurrences in brothels and among prostitutes. This testimony was disputed by another physician, who stated that this “lathering” for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement was “unknown” to him. It is, however, a well-known phenomenon whose existence has been confirmed to me by colleagues in Berlin, and more especially in Hamburg. According as it is active or passive, it is respectively sadistic or masochistic. Whether, in such cases, a defilement of the woman’s person is effected, as in a case reported by von Krafft-Ebing, in which a man blackened his mistress with charcoal, is indifferent. The larval sadism consists in the act of manipulation, in the inunction or lathering.
As a last form of symbolic sadism may be mentioned blasphemy based on sexual motives, the so-called “satanism,” which played a great part more especially in the middle ages, and as the “black mass” constituted a peculiar cult, in which the Christian Mass was profaned by sexual practices, and was insulted to the uttermost. According to Schwaeblé, these obscene masses are still celebrated at the present day in two places in Paris. He gives a detailed description of such a black mass which was celebrated in a house in the Rue de Vaugirard.[618]
Passive algolagnia, masochism, the desire to endure pain and degradation and abasement of every kind, for the purpose of inducing sexual excitement, is perhaps to-day more widely diffused even than its converse.[619] The cause of this, which is to be found in the conventionality of our time, is a matter to which I have previously more than once alluded (vide supra, [pp. 322]-[324], [467]-[469]). This view is supported also by the remarkable fact that, above all, lawyers, leading State officials, and judges, constitute a disproportionately large contingent of masochists—that is to say, persons whose professional life gives them a certain unusual exercise of power, and whose profession imposes on them a strict official demeanour. Precisely these conditions, perhaps, arouse masochistic tendencies to activity, as a kind of liberation from conventional pressure and the professional mask.