In the first place, the impulse to passive flagellation exists ab origine in the masochist. The desire is felt before there has been any experience of the reflex effect, often first in dreams; as, for example, in Case 48. Secondly, with the masochist, as a rule, the flagellation is only one of many and various punishments which come into his mind as fancies and are often realized. In these other punishments, and the frequent acts expressing purely symbolic humiliations, which occur by the side of flagellation, there can, of course, be no thought of a reflex physical irritative effect. Thirdly, it is significant that, in the masochist, when the desired flagellation is carried out, it need have no aphrodisiac effect at all. Very often, indeed, there is a more or less perfect disappointment; in fact, always, if the masochist is not successful in his desire to create, by means of the pre-arranged programme, the illusion of the desired situation (to be in the woman’s power), so that the woman ordered to carry out the act seems to be nothing more than the executive agent of his own will. If one cannot tickle one’s self, no more can one feel one’s self subject to a woman directed by one’s own will. In reference to this important point, compare the three foregoing cases and Case 50.
Between masochism and simple (reflex) flagellation, there is a relation somewhat analogous to that existing between contrary sexual instinct and acquired pederasty. It does not lessen the value of this opinion that, in the masochist, the flagellation may also have the known reflex effect; or that a whipping received in childhood may have aroused lust for the first time, and thus simultaneously excited the latent masochistically-constituted vita sexualis. In this event, the case must be characterized by the conditions mentioned above, under the heads of “secondly” and “thirdly,” in order to be masochistic. If the details of the origin of the case are not known, other circumstances, such as those mentioned above under “secondly,” would make it clearly masochistic. This is illustrated in the two following cases:—
Case 47. A patient of Tarnowsky’s had a person in his confidence rent a house during his attacks, and instruct its personnel (three prostitutes) in what was to be done with him. He would come there, and was there undressed, manustuprated, and flagellated, as ordered. He pretended to offer resistance, and begged for mercy; then, as ordered, he was allowed to eat and sleep. But in spite of protest he was kept there, and beaten if he did not submit. Thus the affair would go on for some days. When the attack was over, he was dismissed; and he returned to his wife and children, who had no suspicion of his disease. The attacks occurred once or twice a year. (Tarnowsky, op. cit.)
Case 48. X., aged 34, greatly predisposed, suffers with contrary sexual instinct. For various reasons he had no opportunity to satisfy himself with men, in spite of great sexual desire. Occasionally he dreamed that a woman whipped him, and then had a pollution.
Through this dream he came to have prostitutes beat him as a substitute for love with men. Occasionally he would obtain a prostitute, undress himself completely (while she was not to take off a thing), and have her tread upon him, whip, and beat him. Qua re summa libidine affectus pedem feminæ lambit quod solum eum libidinosum facere potest: tum ejaculationem assequitur. Then disgust at the morally-debasing situation occurred, and he retired as quickly as possible.
Cases occur, however, in which passive flagellation alone constitutes the entire content of the masochistic fancies, without other ideas of humiliation, etc., and without any clear consciousness of the real nature of this expression of submission. Such cases are difficult to differentiate from those of simple reflex flagellation. A knowledge of the primary origin of the desire, before any experience of reflex stimuli (v. supra, under “first”), is the only thing that makes the differential diagnosis certain; taken with the circumstance that genuine masochists are perverse in their youth, and that the realization of their desires usually comes late, or undeceives them (v. supra, under “thirdly”); for the whole thing, for the most part, belongs to the sphere of the imagination.
The following case is of this nature:—
Case 49. Autobiography.—In January, 1891, I received the following letter from a gentleman in Hungary: “In depression and despair of a life that shuts me out from all that makes human happiness, I come to you with the last gleam of hope of rescue from a condition which, if it continue, can end only tragically.
“I am thirty years old, and come of a mother who suffered with periodical insanity. As early as my fourteenth year abnormal sexual tendencies were noticeable in me. It always gave me a certain lustful pleasure to be whipped by boys of my own age, particularly when I was taken over the knee and spanked. It particularly delighted me when this was done by handsome young persons or boys having well formed legs and closely-fitting trousers. By means of such ideas I also came to masturbate; and I practiced onanism quite frequently,—almost daily, and, in fact, in absolute ignorance of the terrible results of the vice. Thus it continued until my eighteenth year, when, thus far absolutely unsuspecting, I was made aware of the vicious results of the practice.
“From this time began the terrible struggle with the desire to give it up, which I only too often abandoned. The fancies mentioned did not leave me; I longed to be whipped by handsome young persons aged from twenty to twenty-two years, wearing tight trousers. My fancy was filled especially with young soldiers and hussars. At times I was able to repress my imagination and avoid onanism; but I then had pollutions with dreams of the same nature.