On page 73 of this remarkable book, the author says further: “The celebrated Count of Mirindula, John Picus, relates of one of his intimate acquaintances that he was an insatiable fellow, but so lazy and incapable of love that he was practically impotent until he had been roughly handled. The more he tried to satisfy his desire, the heavier the blows he needed, and he could not attain his desire until he had been whipped until the blood came. For this purpose he had a suitable whip made, which was placed in vinegar the day before using it. He would give this to his companion and on bended knees beg her not to spare him, but to strike blows with it, the heavier the better. The good count thought this singular man found the pleasure of love in this punishment. While in other respects he was not a bad man, he understood and hated his weakness. Coelius Rhodigin relates a similar story, as does also the celebrated jurist, Andreas Tiraquell. In the time of the skillful physician, Otten Brunfelsen, there lived in Munich, then the Capital of the Bavarian Electorate, a debauchee who could never perform his [sexual] duties without a severe preparatory beating. Thomas Barthelin also knew a Venetian who had to be beaten and driven before he could have intercourse,—just as Cupid himself moved reluctantly driven by his followers with sprays of hyacinth. A few years ago there was in Lübeck a cheesemonger, living on Mill Street, who, on a complaint to the authorities of unfaithfulness, was ordered to leave the city. The prostitute with whom he had been went to the judges and begged in his behalf, telling how difficult all intercourse had become for him. He could do nothing until he had been mercilessly beaten. At first the fellow, from shame and to avoid disgrace, would not confess, but after earnest questioning he could not deny it. There is said to have been a man in the Netherlands who was similarly incapable, and could do nothing without blows. On the decree of the authorities, however, he was not only removed from his position, but also properly punished. A credible friend, a physician in an important city of the kingdom, told me, on July 14th, last year, how a woman of bad character had told a companion, who had been in the hospital a short time before, that she, with another woman of like character, had been sent to the woods by a man who followed them there, cut rods for them, and then exposed his nates, commanding them to belabor him well. This they did. It is easy to conclude what he then did with them. Not only men have been excited and inflamed to lasciviousness, but also women, that they too might experience greater intensity of pleasure. For this reason the Roman woman had herself whipped and beaten by the lupercis. Thus Juvenal writes:—
“‘Steriles moriuntur, et illis
Turgida non prodest condita psycido Lyde:
Nec prodest agili palmas præbere Luperco.’”
In men, as well as in women, erection and orgasm, or even ejaculation, may be induced by irritation of various other regions of the skin and mucous membrane. These “erogenous” zones in woman are, while she is a virgin, the clitoris, and, after defloration, the vagina and cervix uteri.
In woman the nipple particularly seems to possess this quality. Titillatio hujus regionis plays an important part in the ars erotica. In his “Topographical Anatomy,” 1865, Bd. i, p. 552, Hyrtl cites Val. Hildebrandt, who observed a peculiar anomaly of the sexual instinct in a girl, which he called suctusstupratio. She had her mammæ sucked by her lover, and finally, by gradually drawing on her nipples, she became able to suck them herself,—an act that gave her most intense pleasure. Hyrtl also calls attention to the fact that cows sometimes suck the milk from their own udders. L. Brunn (Zeitg. f. Literatur, etc., d. Hamburg. Correspondent, 1889, Nr. 21), in an interesting article on “Sensuality and Love of Kin,” points out how zealously the nursing mother gives herself to nursing the babe, “for love of the weak, undeveloped, helpless being.”
It is easy to assume that, by the side of the ethical motives, the fact that the sucking may be attended by feelings of physical pleasure plays a part. The remark of Brunn, which is correct in itself, but one-sided, that, according to Houzeau’s experience, among the majority of animals it is only during the time of nursing that the relations between mother and offspring are close, and thereafter indifferent, also speaks in favor of this assumption.
Bastian found the same thing (blunting of the feeling for the offspring after weaning) among savages.
Under pathological conditions, as is shown by Chambard, among others, in his thesis for the doctorate, other portions of the body (in hysterical persons) about the mammæ and genitals may attain the significance of “erogenous” zones.
In man, physiologically, the only “erogenous” zone is the glans penis, and, perhaps, the skin of the external genitals.