The most remarkable class of hair-fetichists are the so-called “plait-cutters.” The transition to this morbid state depends upon the custom, widely diffused in earlier times, of cutting off and preserving locks of hair as erotic fetiches. This sexual reliquary cult flourished especially in the eighteenth century, during the period of “sentiment.” Friedrich S. Krauss reports (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. i., p. 163) that among the Southern Slavs young men and women gave one another tufts of pubic hair as sexual fetiches. The “wig-collectors” also belong to the category of harmless hair fetichists. More serious are the genuine “plait-cutters”—persons who are accustomed to cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls, who are happy in the possession of these plaits, and who obtain sexual gratification simply by looking at and touching them. These plait-cutters are almost unquestionably pathological individuals, who act under the influence of coercive impulses. Recently, in Berlin, two such cases attracted public attention. The judicial proceedings connected with the former of these cases elicited such interesting details regarding the development, psychology, and activity of plait fetichism that it is worth preserving, and is therefore given here at length, quoted from a report in the Berliner Tageblatt, No. 118, of March 6, 1906.
Perversities before the Law Courts.
The plait-cutter whose arrest attracted so much attention appeared yesterday in the Assessor’s Court, under the presidency of the judicial assessor Förster. The accused, Robert S., was a student of the Technical High School at Charlottenburg. The accused was prosecuted and defended by counsel. He was born at Valparaiso in the year 1883. The accusation was that, between the months of November and January last, he had, in sixteen cases, in the public streets, cut plaits of hair from the heads of young girls, taking also the ribbons with which their hair was tied; this charge was one of theft. In twelve cases also he was accused of bodily maltreatment and actual injury. Two medical experts were present to advise the court. During the inquiry the public was excluded from the court, but the representatives of the Press were admitted.
The accused replied to the inquiries of the President, that he had come to Germany in the year 1888, and that he had been at school in Thorn, Bergedorf, and Hamburg. In Hamburg he had passed his final examination, and had received a good report on leaving. He had always had a special fondness for mathematics; he had studied for one term at Munich. He had always worked very hard. He admitted that in sixteen cases he had cut plaits of hair from the heads of girls in the streets of Berlin. In his rooms thirty-one plaits had been found.—President: Had you such tendencies in earlier years?—Accused: Yes; at the age of sixteen years I secretly, one evening, cut some hair from the head of my sister, thirteen years of age, and kept it. I have always had a desire for beautiful long hair; finally, this desire became so strong that I was unable to resist it any longer. The first time that I cut some hair from the head of a girl was the day of the entrance of the Crown Princess. I do not know why I suddenly was unable to resist the impulse. It became more powerful after I returned from a journey to South America, which I made as a voluntary machinist. The voyage lasted five months. I had worked very hard while on board. During the whole voyage I was in a gloomy mood, and when I returned the impulse became continually greater.—President: In what way did the impulse affect you?—Accused: I frequently ran after little girls without being able to gratify the desire to possess their hair. Then I succeeded, amid the crowd at the entrance festivities Unter den Linden, to cut some loose hair from the head of a girl with a pair of scissors, without the girl becoming aware of it.—President: What did you do with the hair?—Accused: Nothing at all.—President: What did you think about while you where doing it?—Accused: Nothing. I simply put the hair into my pocket.—President: And afterwards?—Accused: Several times Unter den Linden I cut loose hair from girls’ heads.—President: When did you begin to cut off entire plaits?—Accused: In November, at the entrance of the King of Spain. Then, in the “Opernplatz,” I cut a plait from the head of a child; the girl did not notice it, and I remained quiet. The plait was fastened with ribbon.—President: What did you do with the plait?—Accused: I took it home, combed it, and put it in a box on my writing-table, on which was the inscription “Mementoes.” I afterwards frequently took the hair out and kissed it. Often I laid it on my pillow and rested my head on it.—President: Were you not fully aware that you were doing something wrong, and that you were interfering profoundly with the rights of another individual?—Accused: I did not think about it.—President: If the proceedings were now to come to an end, and if you were discharged, would you do the same thing again?—Accused: I do not think that I should do it again, now that I have experienced what the consequences are.—President: Can you give security that in the future your will will be stronger than the impulse?—Accused: I cannot give any guarantee.—President: Have you never read in the papers that the citizens of Berlin were very much agitated by this cutting off of girls’ hair?—Accused: I have read nothing of the kind.—President: When were you arrested?—Accused: On January 27. From a girl whose hair was plaited in two plaits I cut one plait; when she came near me again, I wanted to cut off the other plait, and then I was arrested.—President: Is it true that you put a ribbon round each plait of hair, and marked it with the date you had cut it off?—Accused: To some extent I did so.—President: Have you ever had sexual relations with woman?—Accused: No, never. I have only had a strong impulse to gain possession of beautiful long hair.—President: Would not long beautiful men’s hair have satisfied you as well?—Accused: Yes.—Counsel for the Defence: Did you not have this morbid impulse in quite early youth? You told me that you remembered the hair of many girls from the time that you were at school in Thorn. At that time you were eight years old. You said to me that you had thought no more about the persons to whom the hair belonged, but only, and all the more, about their hair.—Accused: That is correct. It is indifferent to me whether the person to whom the hair belonged is young and beautiful or old and ugly: my only interest is in the hair.—President: Have you the same interest in white hair?—Accused: My attraction is only to fair hair.—In reply to a further question on the part of the President, the accused declared that he had been a very active member of the academic gymnastic club, and that he belonged to a students’ purity alliance.—Counsel for the Defence: The accused has stated that, while he is at work, it often happens that suddenly plaits of hair seem to appear before his eyes. He often has reveries in which it seems to him that in all countries women and girls with beautiful hair are at his disposal, and that he is able to rob them of their hair. Among his colleagues the accused has always felt himself to be thrust into the background. He had the feeling that he was destined for great things, and that his comrades would not recognize this. The accused, whose father is dead, had received assistance for his studies; his brother is an officer at sea; one of his sisters is mentally disordered.—Of the witnesses who had been summoned to attend, three only were examined. Captain von W., whose daughter, when walking in the Leipzigerstrasse, had been robbed of part of her hair by the accused, gave evidence that the affair had had very disagreeable consequences to his daughter. Since that time the child had suffered from a terrible feeling of anxiety; she had experienced a nervous shock, and frequently cried out anxiously in the middle of the night, because she was dreaming of the plait-cutter.—The next witness, Frau Gall, an old acquaintance of the family of the accused, described his character as exceptionally good. All who knew him had been astonished to hear of his actions; no one who knew him had ever observed this passion for hair. Recently he had obviously been overstrained mentally, and very distrait; generally speaking, he was not high-spirited and happy, like other young fellows. According to further evidence given by this witness, regarding the family history, it appeared that the accused was affected with congenital taint.—Undergraduate Schmeding, President of “the Alliance for the Maintenance of Chastity,” had become intimately acquainted with the accused, in consequence of their holding similar views. He described him as having a good character, but as dreamy, melancholy, and reserved, and unfamiliar with harmless cheerfulness and joy.—Dr. Hoffmann, one of the medical advisers to the court, said: We have in this case to do with a peculiar mode of activity of the sexual impulse. Although such an impulse does not completely abrogate responsibility, still, in this case, normal responsibility is greatly limited from early youth onwards. The accused has an imaginative belief that he is not sufficiently esteemed; he believes that he could make himself invisible; he believes that he could build a great castle, and furnish the rooms of this castle with innumerable plaits of hair. Moreover, he is hereditarily tainted with insanity, and bodily examination shows that he has numerous stigmata of degeneration. § 51 of the Criminal Code should apply to this case. Since the accused can hardly be supposed to have the power of controlling his impulse, it would appear necessary that he should be treated in a lunatic asylum.—Dr. Leppmann, the other medical adviser, said: The case before us is one of extreme rarity. The accused suffers from severe congenital taint, and exhibits a number of stigmata of degeneration. At the time his offences were committed the accused was certainly emotionally disturbed, and at the present time is still ill. Von Krafft-Ebing reports only a few such cases, and the same is true of Dr. Moll. The accused was incapable of free voluntary determination; he is still unhealthy, and must be treated as a sick man.—Counsel for the Prosecution: If the accused had been in possession of normal mental health, it would have been necessary to punish him with exceptional severity, for such offences as his profoundly endangered public security; it would not be right for any gaps to exist in our Criminal Code which made the punishment of such an offence impossible. We may dispute in detail under which paragraph the offence comes, but there can be no question but that it is a punishable offence. The medical experts had, however, shown that the accused was not fully sane, and he must be dealt with from this standpoint.
The President summed up as follows: The public sense of justice naturally demands severe punishment for such an offence. The accused, however, is not criminally responsible. In view of the evidence given by the medical experts, the accused must be discharged, on the understanding that his family will immediately take steps to have him confined in an asylum. It was possible that this decision would not satisfy every one, but in view of the evidence before the court, no other course was possible.
This case appears to have had a suggestive influence, for shortly afterwards a cashier, Alfred L., was arrested, who had cut plaits of hair from the heads of two young girls. In his home were found, in addition, seventeen plaits of hair, which he had bought, among these the queue of a Chinese! Already when a schoolboy L. had been affected with this morbid impulse.
There exist also homosexual or pseudo-homosexual hair fetichists, especially among women, to whom the hair of another woman’s head becomes a fetich. Remarkable is the following passage in Gabriele d’Annunzio’s romance “Lust” (pp. 210-212; Berlin, 1902):
“‘Do you remember,’ asked Donna Francesca (of her friend Donna Maria), ‘at school, how we all wished to comb your hair? how we used to fight about it every day? Imagine, Andreas, that blood used actually to flow! Ah, I shall never forget the scenes between Carlotta Fiordelise and Gabriella Vanni. It was maniacal! To comb the hair of Maria Bandinelli was the one ardent desire of all the girls, great and small alike. The infection spread through the whole school. There followed prohibitions, warnings, severe punishment; we were even threatened with having our own hair cut off. Do you remember, Maria? All our heads were bewitched by the black snake which hung from your head to your heels. What passionate tears every evening! And when Gabriella Vanni, from jealousy, made that treacherous cut with a pair of scissors! Gabriella had really lost her wits. Do you remember?...’”
“Andreas remarked that none of his lady friends had had such a growth of hair, so thick, so dark a forest, in which she could conceal herself. The history of all these young girls, in love with a plait of hair, filled with passion and jealousy, who burned to lay comb and hands upon this living treasure, seemed to him a most stimulating and poetic episode of cloistral life.”
There exists also a negative hair fetichism. Hirschfeld reports the case of a prostitute who was a well-developed fetichist for baldness. Among many races, removal of the hair is a means of sexual stimulation.