In opposition to these general bodily odours, the specific genital odours play in the human species a subordinate part; they are for the most part perceived as unpleasant. Falck[632] is of opinion that this antipathy only becomes apparent after sexual intercourse, whilst before such intercourse the odour of the genital organs has a slight erotic stimulating influence. Many cases of cunnilinctus and fellatio are certainly referable to olfactory impressions. The following case is plainly indicative of the sexual influence of genital odours:
An Italian woman loved, after sexual intercourse, to retain on her hands the odour of the genital secretions, and on such occasions, although usually a scrupulously clean person, she avoided washing her hands. She was especially fond of mingling this odour with that of cigarette smoke. She was entirely free from stigmata of degeneration; on the contrary, she was an extremely robust, well-developed person.
One of the most remarkable and monstrous phenomena in the domain of sexual perversities is that by which the processes and products of the ultimate stages of metabolism become associated with libido sexualis, become true sexual fetiches, and can more especially give rise to a formal speciality of smell fetichism. The position of the orifices of the alimentary canal and of the urinary apparatus in the immediate neighbourhood of the genital organs gives rise to a certain associative conjunction between the functions of these parts, and this association is rendered more intimate by various circumstances (cf. my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 224, 225). In addition, the idealizing influence of libido sexualis plays a part here; the identification of the desired individual with the lover’s own ego leads the disagreeable and disgusting character of those processes and parts to disappear, and ultimately brings about a comparison between the real æsthetic charm of the beloved person and the coarsely material processes in question, which takes the form of a sensually stimulating contrast. There is not in this case any quite unusual association of ideas on the part of a completely degenerate individual; we have rather to do with a general anthropological and ethnological phenomenon. I was myself the first to give an elaborate proof of this fact (“Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. ii., pp. 223-240); and I illuminated more especially the remarkable rôle of the so-called “skatology”—that is, the sexual influence of the ultimate products of human metabolism, and of the processes associated therewith—in folk-lore, in mythology, in superstition, and in the literature of all nations and times. In this way do we first arrive at an understanding of the possibility of an erotic influence exercised by defæcation and micturition, which is so often observed at the present day; above all, in the so-called “muse latrinale”—in the widely diffused practice of scribbling obscene inscriptions on the walls of public lavatories[633]—which finds expression also in sexual “copralagnia and urolagnia.”
Compare, in this connexion, S. Soukhanoff, “Contribution à l’Étude des Perversions Sexuelles,” published in Annales Médico-Psycologiques, January and February, 1901—a case of urolagnia and copralagnia in a habitual masturbator, twenty-seven years of age. A remarkable case of sexual excitement produced by the odour of newly made hay, in a lawyer, twenty-five years of age, is reported by Amrain (“Anthropophyteia,” vol. iv., p. 237). This person took off all his clothes, and rolled as if intoxicated in the hay, until ejaculation occurred. He called his impulse a “vis major.”
It is clear that masochistic and sadistic elements play an important part in many cases of urolagnia and copralagnia. But there are pure forms of smell fetichism in this category, as we see in the case of those persons who become sexually excited in consequence of the smell of the urine and fæces of the beloved person; or, speaking generally, by the smell of those excrements, the person from whom they are derived being a matter of indifference. These are the renifleurs and épongeurs of the French observers, who haunt public lavatories in order to obtain sexual excitement from the smell of the excrements of persons of the opposite sex. There even exist individuals who have the acts of defæcation and micturition performed by others on to their own bodies; in this case the masochistic element is associated with the element of smell fetichism.
A greater rôle than that of the natural sexual odours is at the present day played by artificial perfumes, which, as a fact, are frequently employed as sexual fetiches. Their origin, and the cause of their use, has been already explained ([p. 17]). From early times prostitution and the demi-monde have made the most extensive use of these artificial scents for the sexual allurement of men. Men are, in general, more sensitive to sexual stimulation by means of perfumes than women are. These perfumes are partly derived from plants; in fact, the simple odour of certain flowers produces sexual excitement—a fact well known to many peasant girls.[634] Other sexually stimulating scents are derived from the animal kingdom, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. A French firm of perfumers advertises a perfume—“charme secret”—the local employment of which is clearly suggested in the advertisement. But in most cases only a portion of the clothing or underclothing is perfumed. There exist typical perfume fetichists, who can, as a rule, be sexually excited only by means of some definite perfume, in the absence of which they are impotent.
In comparison with smell, taste plays a very minor part. Still, a primevally old popular custom, the use of “priapistic flavouring agents,” rests upon fetichistic ideas of this kind. Cunnilinctus and fellatio are perhaps also committed with the desire to taste the genital organs; just as the same must be the case with those not very rare practices in which flavouring agents or beverages are brought into contact with the genital organs, are impregnated, as it were, with their essence, and then swallowed. To this belongs also the following original case:
A man obtains sexual gratification only in this way: by introducing a cigar, small end first, into the female genital passage, leaving it there a long time, and then smoking it, with the end thus impregnated in his mouth.
There exist many other forms of fetichism. It is impossible to enumerate all these varieties. I shall, for example, refer only to the not uncommon fetichism of women for athletes and acrobats, or for singers and actors; and to that of men for dancers, and especially for horsewomen, whose appearance has quite a fascinating influence on many men, more particularly when they are actually on horseback.
Analogous to the previously described hermaphrodite fetichism is fetichism for other bodily defects, as for obese, lame, and hunchbacked persons.