“When twenty-seven, I became engaged to a young lady. Her mind and æsthetic feeling, as well as financial considerations, induced me to think of marriage. At the same time, I am very fond of children, and, whenever I meet even the commonest day-laborer and his wife and a pretty child, I envy the man his good fortune. Thus I made a fool of myself. I managed to get through the time of courtship; when kissing my bride I felt more anxiety and fear than pleasure. On one or two occasions, however, after luxurious dinners, while kissing her passionately, I had erections. How happy I was at that! I saw myself already a father. I twice came near breaking off the engagement. On my marriage-day, when all the guests had assembled, I locked myself in a room, cried like a child, and felt that I could not proceed with the ceremony. At the persuasion of all the relatives, to whom I made the best excuses that occurred to me, I allowed myself to be taken, in ordinary street-costume, to the altar.
“As great good fortune would have it, at the time of the marriage, my wife was menstruating. Oh, how thankful I was for this excuse! I am now convinced that this circumstance is all that made later cohabitation possible. How it later became possible for me to cohabit with my wife, and have a lovely boy, I do not know. He is the comfort of my ruined life. I can only thank God for the happiness of having a child. I was a cheat, so to speak, in the marriage-bed. My wife, whom I respect for her high qualities of character, has no suspicion of my condition, but she often complains of my coldness. With her goodness of heart and simplicity, it was possible for me to make her think that the conjugal duty should be performed but once a month. Since she is in nowise sensual, and I can find excuse in my nervousness, I am successful in keeping up the swindle. Cohabitation is the greatest sacrifice for me. By taking considerable wine, and by making use of the erections which occur in the morning, as the result of an overfilled bladder, it is possible for me to perform coitus once a month; but it affords me no pleasurable feeling, and I am worried and experience an increase of my nervous difficulties all day long after it. The consciousness of having fulfilled my duty toward my wife, whom in all other respects I love, affords me moral consolation and satisfaction. With a man, it is otherwise. With him I can perform the act several times in a night, always taking the sexual rôle of a man. In this, I experience the greatest pleasure, the purest happiness. I feel myself refreshed and invigorated by it. Of late, my desire for men has somewhat decreased; in fact, I have courage even to avoid a handsome young man that approaches me. Will it last? I fear not. I am absolutely unable to do without male love; if I am compelled to forego it, I become depressed, feel weary and miserable, and have pain and pressure in my head. I have always regarded my pitiable peculiarity as something congenital, and I would feel happy if I had only not married. I pity my good wife. Often the fear seizes me that I cannot endure it with her longer; then thoughts about divorce, suicide, and flight to America come to me.”
No one seeing the patient to whom I owe this communication would suspect his condition. His outward appearance is, in all respects, masculine; he has a well-developed, full beard, strong and deep voice, and normal genitals. The cranium is normally formed; signs of degeneration are absolutely wanting, and only an exquisitely nervous eye makes one suspect a neuropathic condition. The vegetative organs perform their functions normally. The patient presents the usual symptoms of a neurasthenia, which may, in all essentials, be ascribed to sexual excesses with persons of his own sex, in a man abnormally passionate; and to the injurious influences of forced, though infrequent, coitus with the wife where horror feminæ exists.
The patient declares that he comes from healthy parents, and that he knows of no neuroses or mental disease in his ancestry. His elder brother was married three years. There was a separation, because the husband never had sexual intercourse with his wife. He married a second time. The second wife also complained of neglect on the part of the husband; but she had four children, concerning whose legitimacy no doubt was ever raised. A sister is hysteropathic.
The patient says that, when a young man, he suffered with momentary attacks of dizziness, during which it seemed to him as if he were about to die. He says that he has always been very excitable and emotional, and an enthusiast for the arts, especially poetry and music. He himself designates his character as enigmatical, abnormal, nervous, restless, extravagant, and undecided. He is often exalted without real reason, and then again depressed, even to thoughts of suicide. He may pass through quick and sudden changes,—“religious and frivolous, optimistic and cynical, cowardly and brave, credulous, amiable, and suspicious; inclined to do others harm, and sorrowful to tears over the misfortunes of others; and with this, generous to excess, and then again miserly à la Harpagon.” The patient is certainly a tainted individual. He seems to be very well endowed intellectually, and, as he says, to have learned easily, and been among the first at school.
The marriage of this man was not happy. Notwithstanding the fact that it was but very infrequently that he performed the inadequate and injurious sexual act with his wife, and that he sought and found a substitute in male lovers, he remained neurasthenic. His disease, at times, presents marked exacerbations, even manifesting itself in despairing depression about his matrimonial, sexual, and mental condition, which even extends to violent tædium vitæ.
His wife became hysteropathic and anæmic, and the patient attributed this to sexual abstinence. Try as he would to force himself, of late years he has not been able to perform coitus, erection failing completely; while, in intercourse with male lovers, he is very potent.
The son of these unfortunate parents, who is now over nine years old, develops well. The patient adds that formerly, in coitus with his wife, he was potent only when he thought of a beloved man. (From the author’s “Lehrb. der Psychiatrie.”)
Case 114. Autobiography. “The writer of this is a congenital urning. If I have not consorted with other urnings, nevertheless, I am fully informed of my condition; for it has been my lot to see almost all literature on the subject. A short time ago, your work, ‘Psychopathia Sexualis,’ was sent to me. I saw in it that you were working and studying without prejudice in the interest of science and humanity.
“If I cannot tell you much that is new, yet I will speak of a few things which I trust you will receive as one more stone to be used by you in your work; which, I am confident, will, in your hands, aid in saving us.