Case 164. Marian L., of Bordeaux. At night, while the household was asleep under the influence of narcotics she had administered, she had given the children of the house to her lover for sexual enjoyment, and had looked on at the immoral acts. It was found that L. was hysterical (hemianæsthesia and convulsive attacks), but before her illness she had been a moral, trustworthy person. Since her illness she had become a shameless prostitute, and lost all moral sense.
In the hysterical the sexual sphere is often abnormally excited. This excitement may be intermittent (menstrual?). Shameless prostitution, even in married women, may result. In a milder form the sexual impulse expresses itself in onanism, going about in a room naked, smearing the person with urine and other things, or wearing male attire, etc.
Schüle (Klin. Psychiatrie, 1886, p. 237) finds very frequently an abnormally intense sexual impulse “which disposes girls, and even women living in happy marriage, to become Messalinas.”
The author cited knows cases in which, on the wedding-journey, attempts at flight with men, who had been accidentally met, were made; and respected wives who entered into liaisons, and sacrificed everything to their insatiable impulse.
In hysterical insanity the abnormally intense sexual impulse may express itself in delusions of jealousy, unfounded accusations against men for immoral acts,[[125]] hallucinations of coitus,[[126]] etc.
Occasionally frigidity may occur, with absence of lustful feeling,—due, for the most part, to genital anæsthesia.
Paranoia.—Abnormal manifestations in the sexual sphere, in the various forms of paranoia, are not infrequent. Many of these cases are developed on sexual abuse (masturbatic paranoia) or sexual excitement; and, according to experience, in individuals psychically degenerate, with other functional signs of degeneracy, the sexual sphere is, for the most part, deeply implicated.
In paranoia religiosa and erotica the abnormally intense and, under certain circumstances, perverse sexual instinct is most clearly manifested. In the first variety, however, the condition of sexual excitation is expressed not so much in a direct method of satisfaction of the sexual desires as (there are exceptions) in platonic love,—in enthusiastic admiration of a person of the opposite sex who is pleasing æsthetically. Under certain circumstances, the enthusiasm is for a fanciful person, a portrait, or a statue.
A love for the opposite sex that is weak and purely mental, too, often has its basis in weakness of the genitals due to long-continued masturbation; and, under the guise of virtuous admiration of a beloved person, great lasciviousness and sexual perversion are often concealed. Episodically, especially in women, violent sexual excitement may occur as a nymphomania.
For the most part, paranoia religiosa rests upon sexuality which manifests itself in a sexual impulse that is abnormally early and intense. The libido finds satisfaction in masturbation or religious enthusiasm, the object of which may be a certain minister, saint, etc.