H. O., 49 years of age, is undergoing a severe mental crisis. He relates that he was happily married, until an actress crossed his path. He fell so deeply in love he could not leave her, he neglected his home, was unable to follow his calling and was on the point of committing suicide. It was not his custom to cling for long to any one woman. Usually he changed sweethearts every few weeks.
“Did you say that your married life was happy?”
“Yes; that has never troubled me. I cannot be true to any woman. I must change all the time. I am a polygamous being. This woman is the first to whom I feel loyal and true right along, I did not feel so towards my wife and only a few weeks after marriage I preferred the embrace of other women, but this sweetheart of mine,—she has taken me off my balance entirely, to her I am loyal. Think of it! I stand for her going with other men, who support her. Who could have told me that I would come to this! Every little while I decide to break with her and never see her again. I have sworn it to my wife, who is heartbroken over the affair. But I am too weak.... Save me! Free me from this terrible plight! Restore me to my family.”
... This man’s life history is typical of the neurotic. He understood sexual matters and masturbated at a very early age. He began to masturbate as early as the sixth year at school and thinks that he can even trace the beginning of the habit to an earlier date. He had many play mates with whom he carried on the “usual childish games.” These “usual childish games” turned out to be fellatio, pederasty, manual onanism, and zoophily. The children pressed into service a dog who by licking the parts produced the highest orgasm in them. The last homosexual love he carried on at 14 years of age. He and a colleague performed mutual masturbation. Once the two were warned against the dangers of masturbation and they went together to a house of prostitution. This they kept up for a long time because it increased their satisfaction. Often they exchanged their sexual partners. (This is not an uncommon practice through which latent homosexuals achieve a heightening of their orgasm and cryptically reach after their male companion. In houses of prostitution this practice is common among friends.)
In a short time he developed into a genuine Don Juan. At 16 years of age he had already become a full-fledged woman hunter and succeeded in attracting his high school professor’s wife as his sweetheart. He went after every woman, young or old, pretty or plain. He claims that old women have yielded the highest pleasures and shows me a letter in which Franklin advises young men to cling to old women. But this pronounced gerontophiliac tendency does not prevent him from having relations with girls below age, almost children. His whole thought, night and day, was concentrated upon women. His first thought upon rising in the morning usually was: “What adventures await me today?” If he finds himself in a room with a woman alone invariably he thinks: “How can I get her?” Every woman he gets hold of he looks upon merely as a means for gratification and soon tires of her. With the exception of one elderly woman whom he occasionally visits he has not kept up with any woman longer than a few weeks. Often after the first intercourse he feels disgust for his new sexual partner and thinks to himself: “You are not any different than the others!” Since his 16th year he has had intercourse almost daily and often several times a day. He was 32 years of age when he first met his present wife. Her father was his superior at the office, a man for whom he had the very highest respect. (“There are not many such men as he.”) He married the man’s daughter, whom he held high in esteem high above all others of her sex, and it was a very happy marriage. His only fear was that his wife would find out about his amorous escapades. For no woman was safe near him and even during the early part of their married life he kept up sexual relations with their cook. Finally he managed to control himself at least to the extent of avoiding any escapades under his own roof so as to be more sure of keeping his wife in ignorance of his amorous proclivities. But he always kept on the string a lot of women and girls who were at his disposal whenever he wanted any of them.
He became acquainted with a young man whom he liked a great deal. But there was one thing about that young man which repelled him: he was homosexual and proud of it. This was something he could not understand and he endeavored very zealously to rouse in his friend a love for women. He failed completely; on the other hand his new friend introduced him to the local homosexual circle, in which he became interested merely as a “cultural problem.” He frequented a café where homosexuals were in the habit of congregating and noticed that many among them were of pronounced intellectual caliber. He was particularly impressed by the fact that their common peculiarity levelled so completely persons of different social standing. A Count met a waiter or post office clerk as cordially as he would a most intimate friend. A few weeks later he met the sister of his new friend and fell deeply in love with her at first sight. That was his tremendous attachment.
It was plain that contact with the homosexuals had released some of the inhibitions which had kept back his own latent homosexuality and the latter trait now threatened to overpower him. There was but one safeguard against that, namely: flight into love. The attachment to his friend became now a passionate love for his friend’s sister, who resembled her brother very closely. During coitus with his new sweetheart it occurred to him early to give up succubus, and to try the anal form of gratification, and this produced in him tremendous orgasm such as he had never before experienced.
His wife was informed through anonymous letters of the state of affairs. Moreover he had become very weak in his sexual relations with her and was able to carry on his marital duties only with greatest difficulty.
Psychoanalysis brought wonderful results in this case. He learned quickly to recognise his emotional fixations and only wondered that he was too blind not to have seen for himself that he really loved the brother through that woman. He broke with the actress in a dignified manner. He proposed that if she should give up her intimate relations with all other men he would keep his word and marry her. He still loved her but he was no longer in the dark. She laughed in his face. Did he really think that he could meet the cost of her wardrobe and other needs? That put an end to the attachment. He was ashamed afterwards to think that he should have preferred such a woman to his wife. The analysis of a remarkable dream brought about the complete severing of his infantile fixations.
The dream: I am with Otto—that was his friend’s name—in a room. He walks up to me and says: “Don’t you see that I love you and want you!” I try to avoid his love pats and draw a revolver out of my pocket. I hold it high and am ready to shoot my friend. But instead of my friend I see standing before me my son, and my boy’s sincere blue eyes look up at me imploringly: ‘Protect me!’ I throw down the revolver and run out of the room.