Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct / A medico-legal study

by R. von Krafft-Ebing

If the original constitution is favorable and normal, and factors injurious to the psycho-sexual development exercise no influence, then a psycho-sexual personality is developed that is so unchangeable, and corresponds so completely and harmoniously with the sex the individual represents, that subsequent loss of the generative organs (as by castration), or the climacteric or senility, cannot essentially alter it. But this, of course, is not to declare that the castrated man or woman, the youth and the aged man, the maiden and matron, the impotent and the potent man, do not differ essentially from one another mentally.

An interesting and important question for what follows is, whether the peripheral influences of the generative glands (testes and ovaries), or central cerebral conditions, are the determining factors in psycho-sexual development. The fact that congenital deficiency of the generative glands, or removal of them before puberty, has a great influence on physical and psycho-sexual development, so that the latter is distorted and assumes a type more closely resembling the opposite sex (eunuchs, certain viragoes, etc.), betokens their great importance in this respect.

But that the physical processes taking place in the genital organs are only co-operative, and not the exclusive factors in the process of development of the psycho-sexual character, is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding a normal anatomical and physiological state of these organs, a sexual instinct may be developed which is the exact opposite of that characteristic of the sex to which the individual belongs.

In this case, the cause is to be sought only in an anomaly of central conditions,—in an abnormal psycho-sexual constitution. This constitution, as far as its anatomical and functional foundation is concerned, is absolutely unknown. Since, in almost all such cases, the individual subject to the perverse sexual instinct displays a neuropathic predisposition in several directions, and the latter may be brought into relation with hereditary degenerate conditions, this anomaly of psycho-sexual feeling may be called, clinically, a functional sign of degeneration. This perverse sexuality appears spontaneously, without external cause, with the development of sexual life, as an individual manifestation of an abnormal form of the vita sexualis, and then has the force of a congenital phenomenon; or it develops upon a sexuality the beginning of which was normal, as a result of very definite injurious influences, and thus appears as an acquired anomaly. Upon what this enigmatical phenomenon of acquired homo-sexual instinct depends is still inexplicable, and only a matter for hypothesis. Careful examination of the so-called acquired cases makes it probable that the predisposition also present here consists of a latent homo-sexuality, or, at least, bi-sexuality, which, for its manifestation, requires the influence of accidental exciting causes to rouse it from its slumber.

In so-called contrary sexual instinct there are degrees of the phenomenon which quite correspond with the degrees of predisposition of the individuals. Thus, in the milder cases, there is simple hermaphroditism; in more pronounced cases, only homo-sexual feeling and instinct, but limited to the vita sexualis; in still more complete cases, the whole psychical personality, and even the bodily sensations, are transformed to correspond with the sexual perversion; and, in the complete cases, the physical form is correspondingly altered.

The following division of the various phenomena of this psycho-sexual anomaly is made, therefore, in accordance with these clinical facts:—

A. Homo-sexual Feeling as an Acquired Manifestation.—The determining condition here is the demonstration of perverse feeling for the same sex; not the proof of sexual acts with the same sex. These two phenomena must not be confounded with each other; perversity must not be taken for perversion.

Perverse sexual acts, not dependent upon perversion, often come under observation. This is especially true with reference to sexual acts between persons of the same sex, particularly pederasty. Here paræsthesia sexualis is not necessarily at work; but hyperæsthesia, with physical or mental impossibility of natural sexual satisfaction. Thus we find homo-sexual intercourse in impotent masturbators or debauchees, or faute de mieux in sensual men and women in imprisonment, on ship-board, in garrisons, bagnios, boarding-schools, etc.

There is an immediate return to normal sexual intercourse as soon as obstacles to it are removed. Very frequently the cause of such temporary aberration is masturbation and its results in youthful individuals.

Nothing is so prone to contaminate—under certain circumstances, even to exhaust—the source of all noble and ideal sentiments, which arise of themselves from a normally developing sexual instinct, as the practice of masturbation in early years. It despoils the unfolding bud of perfume and beauty, and leaves behind only the coarse, animal desire for sexual satisfaction. If an individual, spoiled in this manner, reaches an age of maturity, there is wanting in him that æsthetic, ideal, pure, and free impulse which draws one toward the opposite sex. Thus the glow of sensual sensibility wanes, and the inclination toward the opposite sex becomes weakened. This defect influences the morals, character, fancy, feeling, and instinct of the youthful masturbator, male or female, in an unfavorable way, and, under certain circumstances, allows the desire for the opposite sex to sink to nil; so that masturbation is preferred to the natural mode of satisfaction.