[96]. Magnan (Arch, de Neurologie, vol. xxxiii, No. 69, 1892) gives the details of a case of sexual perversion in a degenerate individual, where the elements of fetichism and sadism were combined, and faute de mieux the sadistic impulse found satisfaction in self-mutilation. The perverse impulse began at the age of six; the sight of a boy or girl with a delicate, white skin awakened in him sexual appetite, with a desire to bite and eat a piece of the skin. While caressing a horse, the impulse to bite the soft skin of its nostrils arose, and afterward the memory of this became associated with the act of onanism. Later, he began to prick himself with pins, knives, etc., while masturbating. The desire to bite and eat skin was also provoked by the sight of shining blades, like those of scissors. He was always able to resist the impulse to attack young girls; but the struggle was hard, and for eight months he hesitated before venting his passion on his own person. He was finally arrested in the act of cutting a large piece of skin from his arm with scissors. Asked the motive of his self-mutilation, he stated that for several hours he had been following a young girl who had a fine, white skin, and was burning with desire to cut out a piece of it and eat it. On his person there were many scars of previous mutilations. The impulse was devoid of natural sexual desire. Chewing the piece of skin provoked ejaculation.—Trans.
[97]. The frequent changes of style of dress which fashion dictates may be referred to a physiological law. The reaction of the nervous system to a constant stimulus diminishes in proportion to the duration of the action of the stimulus. Constant association with nudity removes its power to excite sexually. Owing to this, the savage endeavors to attract attention by changing his physical peculiarities; he dresses his hair in some remarkable way, or paints his body; then he tattooes his skin, or performs striking self-mutilation, such as half-castration and circumcision (comp. Westermarck, op. cit., p. 205). Finally, mutilation is replaced by movable appendages, upon which ornaments are worn; and thus there is afforded opportunity for change, in obedience to the unconscious physiological requirement, which is called a “taste for change.” Undoubtedly, woman’s desire for changes of fashion is primarily dependent upon man’s desire to be pleased; and her function in this direction has certainly been transferred from him to her by civilization (comp. p. 16).—Trans.
[98]. Comp: Goethe’s remarks about his adventure in Geneva (“Briefe aus der Schweiz,” 1. Abtheil., Schluss).
[99]. The fact that the partly-veiled form is often more charming than when it is perfectly nude, is, as far as object goes, similar, but quite different psychically. This depends upon the effect of contrast and expectation, which are common phenomena, and in no sense pathological.
[100]. On page 124 (op. cit.) Dr. Moll writes concerning this impulse in hetero-sexual individuals: “The passion for handkerchiefs may go so far that the man is entirely under their control. A woman tells me: ‘I know a certain gentleman, and when I see him at a distance I only need to draw out my handkerchief so that it peeps out of my pocket, and I am certain that he will follow me as a dog follows its master. Go where I please, this gentleman will follow me. He may be riding in a carriage or engaged in important business, and yet, when he sees my handkerchief he drops everything in order to follow me,—i.e., my handkerchief.’”
[101]. Garnier (Anomalies Sexuelles, Paris, pp. 508, 509) reports two cases (Cases 222 and 223) that are apparently opposed to this assumption, particularly the first, in which despair about the unfaithfulness of a lover led the individual to submit to the seductions of men. But the case itself clearly shows that this individual never found pleasure in homo-sexual acts. In Case 223, the individual was effeminated ab origine, or was at least a psychical hermaphrodite.
Those who hold to the opinion that the origin of homo-sexual feelings and instinct is found to be exclusively in defective education and other psychological influences are entirely in error.
An untainted male may be raised never so much like a female, and a female like a male, but they will not become homo-sexual. The natural disposition is the determining condition; not education and other accidental circumstances, like seduction. There can be no thought of contrary sexual instinct save when the person of the same sex exerts a psycho-sexual influence on the individual, and thus brings about libido and orgasm,—i.e., has a psychical attraction. Those cases are quite different in which, faute de mieux, with great sensuality and a defective æsthetic sense, the body of a person of the same sex is used for an onanistic act (not for coitus in a psychical sense).
In his excellent monograph, Moll shows very clearly and convincingly the importance of original predisposition in contrast with exciting causes (comp. op. cit., pp. 156–175). He knows “many cases where early sexual intercourse with men was not capable of inducing perversion.” Moll significantly says, further: “I know of such an epidemic (of mutual onanism) in a Berlin school, where a person who is now an actor shamelessly introduced mutual onanism. Though I now know the names of very many urnings in Berlin, yet I could not ascertain, even with anything like probability, that among all the scholars of that school at that time there was one that had become an urning; but, on the other hand, I have quite certain knowledge that many of those scholars are now normal sexually, in feeling and intercourse.”
[102]. Comp, author’s Experimental Study in the Domain of Hypnotism, 1889. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.