Case 64. X., aged 34, married; of neuropathic parentage; suffered severely from convulsions as a child; remarkably precocious, but one-sided in development (could read at age of three); nervous from childhood. At the age of seven he manifested an inclination to handle shoes, especially the nails of women’s shoes. The mere sight, but still more the touching, of the shoe-nails and counting them, gave him indescribable pleasure.
At night he gave himself up to imagining how his cousins had their measures taken for shoes; how he nailed horse-shoes on to one of them or cut her feet off. In time the shoe-scenes came upon him during the day, and involuntarily induced erection and ejaculation. Frequently he took the shoes of female occupants of the house; and if he touched them with his penis he had an ejaculation. For a long time, when a student, it was possible for him to control his ideas and inclinations; but there came a time when he was compelled to listen to female footsteps on the pavements, which, like the sight of the nail-marks in ladies’ shoes, or the sight of shoes in the windows of the shoe-shops, always gave him a feeling of lustful pleasure. He married, and during the first months of his married life was free from these desires.
Gradually he became hysteropathic and neurasthenic. At this stage he began to have hysterical attacks when the shoemaker spoke to him of nails in ladies’ shoes or of driving nails in the same. The reaction was still greater if he chanced to see a pretty lady with shoes well beset with nails. In order to induce ejaculation it was only necessary for him to cut soles out of pasteboard and beset them with nails; or he would buy ladies’ shoes, have them beset with nails in the store, and at home scrape them on the ground, and finally touch the end of his penis with them. Moreover, lustful shoe-visions occurred spontaneously, in which he satisfied himself by masturbation.
X. is otherwise intelligent, skillful in his calling, but powerless in combating his perverse inclinations. He presents phimosis; penis short, expanded at the root, and incapable of complete erection. One day the patient allowed himself to masturbate when excited by the sight of ladies’ shoes beset with nails in the window of a shoe-shop, and thus became a criminal. (Blanche, Archiv. de Neurologie, 1882, Nr. 22.)
Reference may be made here to a case of contrary sexuality, to be described later, in which the principal sexual interest was in the boots of male servants. The desire was to be trod upon by them.
Case 65. (Dr. Pascal, “Igiene dell’ amore.”) X., merchant, from time to time (but particularly in bad weather) had the following desire: He would accost some prostitute and ask her to go to a shoe-shop with him, where he would buy her the handsomest pair of shoes of patent leather, under the condition that she would put them on immediately. After this took place, she had to go about in the street, walking in manure and mud as much as possible, in order to soil the shoes. After this, X. would lead the person to an hotel, and, almost before they had reached a room, he would cast himself on her feet, feeling an extraordinary pleasure in applying his lips to them. When he had cleansed the shoes in this manner, he paid her and went his way.
From these cases it may be plainly seen that the shoe is the fetich of the masochist, and apparently because of the relation of the dressed female foot to the idea of being trod upon and other acts of humiliation. When, therefore, in other cases of shoe-fetichism, the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of sexual desire, one is justified in presuming that masochistic motives have remained latent. The idea of being trod upon, etc., remains in the depths of unconscious life, and the idea of the shoe alone, the means for such acts, rises into consciousness. Cases that are otherwise wholly inexplicable are thus sufficiently explained. Here one has to do with larvated masochism; and this may always be assumed as the unconscious motive, when, as occurs not exceptionally, the origin of the fetichism, from an association of ideas on the occasion of some particular event, can be proved, as in Cases 87 and 88.
Such cases of desire for ladies’ shoes, without conscious motive and without demonstrable origin, are really innumerable.[[73]] Three cases are here given as examples:—
Case 66. Minister, aged 50. From time to time he goes to houses of prostitution and asks to rent a room. He enters it with a girl. Then he lustfully regards her shoes, takes one off and kisses and bites it. Finally, he puts it ad genitalia and ejaculat semen semineque ejaculato axillas pectusque terit; then he comes out of his sensual ecstasy. He begs the woman to allow him to keep the shoe for a few days, and always, at the appointed time, returns it with thanks (Cantarano, La Psichiatria, v, p. 205).
Case 67. Student, Z., aged 23; comes of a tainted family. Sister was insane; brother suffered with hysteria virilis. The patient, peculiar from childhood, has frequent attacks of hypochondriacal depression, tædium vitæ, and feels that he is persecuted. In a consultation on account of mental trouble, I find him a very perverse, hereditarily predisposed man, with neurasthenic and hypochondriacal symptoms. A suspicion of masturbation is confirmed. Patient makes interesting disclosures concerning his vita sexualis. At the age of ten he was powerfully attracted by the foot of one of his comrades. At twelve he became an enthusiast for ladies’ feet. It gave him a delightful sensation to revel in the sight of them. At fourteen he began to masturbate, thinking, at the same time, of the beautiful foot of a lady. From this time on he was taken with the feet of his three-year-old sister. The feet of other females that attracted him induced sexual excitement. Only women’s feet—no other part of them—interested him. The thought of sexual intercourse with women excited his disgust. He had never attempted coitus. After his twelfth year he had no interest in the feet of male individuals. The style of covering of the female foot is indifferent to him; it is only necessary that the person seem to be sympathetic. The thought of enjoying the feet of prostitutes was disgusting to him. For years he had been in love with his sister’s feet. If he could but obtain her shoes, the sight of them powerfully excited his sensuality. Kissing or embracing his sister did not have this effect. His greatest delight was to embrace and kiss the foot of a sympathetic woman, when ejaculation would result with a lively pleasurable sensation. Often he was impelled to touch his genitals with one of his sister’s shoes; but he had been able, thus far, to master this impulse, especially for the reason that for two years (owing to progressive irritable weakness of the genitals) the simple sight of the foot had induced ejaculation. From his relatives it is ascertained that the patient has a silly admiration for the feet of his sister; so that she avoids him and seeks to hide her feet from him. The patient looks upon his perverse sexual impulse as pathological, and is painfully affected by the fact that his vile fancy has for its object his sister’s foot. He avoided opportunity as much as he could, and sought to help the matter by masturbation when, as in dreams accompanied by pollution, ladies’ feet filled his imagination. However, when the impulse became too powerful he could not avoid gaining a partial sight of his sister’s foot. Immediately after ejaculation he would become angry with himself at having been weak again. His partiality for his sister’s foot had cost him many a sleepless night. He often wondered that he could still love his sister. Although it seemed right to him that she should conceal her feet from him, yet he was often irritated because the concealment caused him to have pollutions. The patient gives assurances of being moral in other respects, which are confirmed by his relatives.