“He kept this up a couple of years. Suddenly the whole thing lost its charm for him. His phantasy cooled down. Finally he gave up the game altogether. At 18, the patient attempted for the second time normal coitus. He had an erection but premature ejaculation ante portas. A third attempt failed on account of drunkenness. Again he reverted to his masturbation habit, his thoughts during the act once more centered on the hips of a young boy; this was a fetich to him. Masochistic fancies he entertained no longer; but he dwelt profusely on homosexual phantasies. Later the patient thought of coitus inter femora with boys. He became very friendly with a 14-year-old boy, kissed him, and allowed the boy to touch his own genitals. But when he found that the boy had hairy hips his passion for the boy cooled off at once. During that time the patient (20 years old) entertained thoughts of suicide because he felt that his life was a failure. An attempt at analysis only excited him worse instead of quieting him. Again the patient linked himself in intimate friendship with a 14-year-old boy; as that boy resented any physical display of affection, his attachment remained purely platonic. Every now and then patient masturbated fancying he was carrying out coitus inter femora with his friend. His sadistic fancies again broke to the surface. He became more and more restless, enticed a boy (under a slight pretext) to visit him and devised most refined ways of abusing him; for instance, hanging over the boy’s back with the hands clasped around his neck, or beating him over hips and buttocks with a reed cane; for every stroke the boy was to receive a sum of money. As a consequence of this action the patient was brought to the clinic.”[[27]]
Fleischmann, in his psychologic examination of this case, lays stress particularly on the significance of trauma and ascribes to the masturbation a predominant rôle in the psychogenesis of the paraphilia: “This case proves clearly that the various sexual anomalies differ only in their sexual objective and aim,—their developmental interrelationship—but that the mechanism of their development must be looked upon as identical.”
But of particular significance in this case is the constant association of sadism and masochism, a condition with which but few sexologists thus far have been impressed as a bipolar expression of the same underlying tendency; next, the tremendous sense of guilt which no masochist lacks; further, the defense reaction against the homosexual tendencies: disgust of the immissio penis in anum, and the unpleasant feelings roused by the sight of the boy’s hairy thighs.
This patient also illustrates the overwhelming rôle of the father in the psychogenesis of homosexuality and the recurrence of the “specific scene.” At 11 years of age he requested his father to beat him because he felt guilty. At 25 years he carried out that very act on a boy under a very refined form. One must be a victim of psychic blindness not to see that he there played the rôle of the father who punishes the child. The development of this attitude may be surmised to have taken place approximately as follows: His primary phantasy was undoubtedly generated by the wish that his father be tender with him. He wanted to replace the mother in his father’s affection (coitus inter femora). Probably jealousy thoughts against the mother, revenge fancies against the father on account of unrequited love; these mental sins gave rise to his feeling of guilt, as displayed in his masochism. For as I shall prove in another work[[28]] in this Series, sadism is always the primary attitude and is transposed into masochism in consequence of the feeling of guilt, or else the two appear side by side.
I must comment on Fleischmann’s remark that psychoanalysis only disturbed the patient and did not cure him. It is not proper to ascribe all failures of psychoanalysis to the method. Psychoanalysis is a difficult art and will always be conducted expertly only by a relatively small number of specialists. Not everything that goes under the name of psychoanalysis is genuine. Often the patient submits for a few days to psychoanalysis then drops it (when a successful psychoanalysis may require several months) and claims it did him no good.[[29]] A thorough psychoanalysis of the above case would have certainly led to a deeper understanding of the mental mechanism involved and would have revealed much new light.
Undoubtedly various sexual repressed tendencies may become manifest during psychoanalytic treatment. That is even necessary,—they must be met and overcome with the consultant’s aid. The next case below is an illustration that latent homosexuality may become manifest after a few seances in the course of psychoanalysis.
83. Mr. Delta, medical student, 24 years of age, hereditary history negative, physically healthy in every respect, suffers of depressions and inability to concentrate on his work. The most important facts bearing on his anamnesis and his later history he relates in the following letter:
“From my earliest childhood I have been extraordinarily sensuous. It was the custom (an evil one) in our family for the children to crawl into the parents’ bed in the morning. I naturally always went to mother’s bed, while my sisters preferred to go to father’s bed. We children also went to one another’s bed and on such occasions I was in the habit of trying to crawl with my head under the covers with the intention, frankly, of carrying out cunnilingus especially on my sister N., who was already married. Why I preferred N., at the time I do not understand clearly, possibly because she was receptive towards me and such practices are possible only if the female partner is at least unconsciously agreeable to it. I was 5 years of age at the time. I have also carried on cunnilingus on my sister B., at 15 years of age, while she was asleep. These fancies later played a tremendous rôle in my mental life, causing also a profuse sweating of the palms of my hands which disappeared in part when I became consciously aware of them. The killing of the chickens by our cook produced an extraordinarily exciting effect upon me. When the cook gripped the chicken between her limbs near her genital region to kill it she excited me to the point of a true orgasm. I tried to imitate her by catching flies and squeezing them to death between my limbs, near my genitals, or by drowning them in urine. My attitude towards friends, colleagues, etc., was also extremely peculiar. I cultivated preferably the friendship of children of the proletarian class, while children of my own set never attracted me in particular, although I was friendly with them. Children of that class also submitted more willingly to various homosexual acts, something which I did not quite dare carry on with children of my own set. I remember one boy in particular, with whom I attempted coitus in os. I recall also a dream of my childhood years: An awful butchery is going on in our court yard and my sister W., and a certain man are in it. I am pursued by both, they throw me on the ground, and I am killed with a single blow on the forehead. I may add that killing invoked in my mind the picture of the aggressor sitting astride over the victim’s face and mouth, rider-fashion. That at any rate was the manner in which we boys killed one another. Girls of my age were a torture to me but to older girls and adult women I extended my greatest admiration,—a sentiment which was purely platonic with me at the time. At the public school I fell in love with every strict teacher, once I was in love with two of them at the same time. I wanted the two to punish me and that, in a very strange way. I wanted to be taken to bed and to be squeezed to death by them,[[30]]—naturally between their genitalia. The immictio in os by a woman was also a favorite form of torture in my day dreaming.
“Now comes puberty. I consider the starting point of my later neurosis the fact that I cared for contact only with persons who could offer me some sexual satisfaction and that even as a child. During puberty this peculiarity showed even more markedly. For a time I preserved my platonic admiration of women older than myself. Young girls were still repulsive to me until I fell passionately in love with one. I followed that little one for years like a shadow, but in spite of the encouragement she gave me I could not bring myself to speak to her. When I finally did so, I saw in a flash the reason for my remarkable hesitation, I did not say what I started to say, the whole charm was gone in an instant,—she seemed to me common and inferior,—although my objective judgment at other times told me precisely the reverse. In short, my affection reawakened in its earlier intensity only some time after I recovered from the shock of my personal acquaintance with her. At that time I became very friendly with a certain colleague, Joseph Z. The tie that linked us was that very bewitching dark girl. He also was in love with her (one would have thought that this would have broken our friendship). We never tired admiring her charms between us and our friendship came to an end only when I discovered that he was not true to our idol. At the same time nothing disgusted me during that period so much as the sight of a pair of lovers. I had the feeling that a man loses something of his manliness and dignity through intimacy with a woman.
“My next friend was Herbert. I had few sexual points of contact with him, except that we visited together the red light resorts for the first time and jointly made love to the various inmates. Herbert was so witty a fellow that I almost loved him, especially as he was slavishly devoted to me. But my neurosis made tremendous leaps for the worse even at that time and I became more and more timid and awkward in my ways and when finally he turned on me with his wit our friendship came to an end.