6. Unnatural Abuse—Sodomy.[[140]]
(Austrian Statutes, § 129; Abridgment, § 190; German Statutes, § 175.)
(a) Violation of Animals—Bestiality.[[141]]
Violation of animals, monstrous and revolting as it seems to mankind, is by no means always due to psycho-pathological conditions. Low morality and great sexual desire, with lack of opportunity of natural indulgence, are the principal motives of this unnatural means of sexual satisfaction, which is resorted to by women as well as by men.
To Polak we owe the knowledge that in Persia bestiality is frequently practiced because of the delusion that it cures gonorrhœa; just as in Europe an idea is still prevalent that intercourse with children heals venereal disease.
Experience teaches that bestiality with cows and horses is none too infrequent. Occasionally the acts may be undertaken with goats, bitches, and, as a case of Tardieu’s and one by Schauenstein show (Lehrb., p. 125), with hens.
The action of Frederick the Great, in the case of a cavalryman who had committed bestiality with a mare, is well known: “The fellow is a beast, and shall be reduced to the infantry.”
The intercourse of females with beasts is limited to dogs. A monstrous example of the moral depravity in large cities is related by Maschka (“Handb.,” iii),—the case of a Parisian female who showed herself in the sexual act with a trained bull-dog, to a secret circle of roués, at 10 francs a head.
There has been, heretofore, but little legal consideration of the mental condition in those given to violation of animals. In several cases known to the writer, the individuals were weak-minded. In Schauenstein’s case there was insanity.
The following case of bestiality is one that was certainly conditioned by disease. He was an epileptic. In this case the desire for animals appeared as an equivalent of the normal sexual desire:—