Case 180. D., aged 44, hereditarily predisposed, drinker, and suffering with lead poisoning. Until the last year he had masturbated much, and often drawn pornographic pictures, and shown them to his acquaintances. He had repeatedly dressed himself as a woman in secret. For two years, since becoming impotent, he had felt desire, while in crowds at dusk, mentulam denudare eamque ad nates mulieris crassissimæ terere. Once, when discovered in the act, he had been sentenced to imprisonment for four months.
His wife kept a milk-shop. Iterum iterumque sibi temperare non potuit quin genitalia in ollam lacte completam mergeret. In the act he felt lustful pleasure, “as if touched with velvet.” He was cynical enough to use this milk for himself and the customers. During imprisonment alcoholic persecutory insanity developed in him.
Case 181. M., aged 31; married six years; father of four children; badly predisposed; subject to melancholia at times. Three years before, he was discovered by his wife with a silk dress on, masturbating. One day he was discovered, in a store, in the act of frottage on a lady. He was very repentant, and asked to be severely punished for his irresistible impulse.
Case 182. G., aged 33; badly predisposed hereditarily. At an omnibus-station he was discovered in the act of frottage with his penis on a lady. Deep repentance; but he stated that at the sight of a noticeable posteriora of a lady, he was irresistibly impelled to practice frottage, and that he became confused and knew not what he did. Sent to an asylum.
Case 183. A frotteur. Z., born in 1850; of blameless life previously; of good family; private official. He is well-to-do financially; untainted. After a short married life he became a widower, in 1873. For some time he had attracted attention in churches, because he crowded up behind women, both old and young indifferently, and toyed with their tournures. He was watched, and one day he was arrested in the act. Z. was terribly frightened, and in despair about his situation; and, in making a full confession, he begged for pardon, for nothing but suicide remained for him.
For two years he had been subject to the unhappy impulse to go in crowds of people,—in churches, at box-offices of theatres, etc,—and press up behind females and manipulate the prominent portion of their dresses, having orgasm and ejaculation during the act.
Z. states that he was never given to masturbation, and had never been in any way perverse sexually. Since the early death of his wife, he had gratified his great sexual desire in temporary love-affairs, having always had an aversion for prostitutes and brothels. The impulse to frottage had suddenly seized him, two years before, while he happened to be in church. Though he was conscious that it was wrong, he could not help yielding to it immediately. Since then he had been excitable to the posteriora of females, and had been actually impelled to seek opportunity for frottage. The only thing on women that excited him was the tournure; every other part of the body and attire was a matter of indifference to him; and it made no difference to him whether the woman was old or young, beautiful or ugly. Since this began, he had had no more inclination for natural gratification. Of late frottage scenes had appeared in his dreams. During his acts he was fully conscious of his situation and the act, and tried to perform it in such a way as to attract as little attention as possible. After his act he was always ashamed of what he had done.
The medical examination revealed no sign of mental disease or mental weakness, but symptoms of neurasthenia sexualis,—ex abstinentia libidinosi (?),—which was also proved by the circumstance that even simple touching of the fetich with the unexposed genitals sufficed to induce ejaculation. Apparently Z., weakened sexually and distrusting his virility, and yet libidinous, had come to practice frottage by having the sight of posteriora feminæ fall together accidentally with sexual excitement; and this associative combination of a perception with a feeling permitted the former to attain the significance of a fetich.
As an act which offends public morals, and which is, therefore, punishable, the violation of statues—a whole series of cases of which Moreau (op. cit.) has collected from ancient and modern times—may be enumerated here. They are, unfortunately, given too much like anecdotes to allow satisfactory judgment of them. They always give the impression of being pathological,—like the story of a young man (related by Lucianus and St. Clemens, of Alexandria) who made use of a Venus of Praxiteles for the gratification of his lust; and the case of Clisyphus, who violated the statue of a goddess in the Temple of Samos, after having placed a piece of meat on a certain part. In modern times, the Journal L’événement of March 4, 1877, relates the story of a gardener who fell in love with a statue of the Venus of Milo, and was discovered attempting coitus with it. At any rate, these cases stand in etiological relation with abnormally intense libido and defective virility or courage, or lack of opportunity for normal sexual gratification.
The same thing, must be assumed in the case of the so-called voyeurs,[[130]]—i.e., men who are so cynical that they seek to get sight of coitus, in order to assist their virility; or who seek to have orgasm and ejaculation at the sight of an excited woman. Concerning this moral aberration, which, for various reasons, cannot be further described here, it will suffice to refer to Coffignon’s book, “La Corruption à Paris.” The revelations, in the domain of sexual perversity, and also perversion, which this book makes, are horrible.