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Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia sexualis, 7. Auflage, 1892.



 
 

Preface to the seventh edition.

This seventh edition arose from the combination of the sixth edition of the same work and the second edition of the "New Researches in the Field of the Psychopathia Sexualis". It provides for the first time a thorough scientific presentation of the facts concerning "sadism", "masochism", and "fetishism", and should throw important light on this darkest, highly interesting, and forensically significant part of the sexual pathologies.

Happily, the author has for several years no longer been alone in his effort to clarify the psychological field of the pathology of sex life for educators, clinicians, forensic physicians, and judges. Conscientious consideration has been given to the research of domestic and foreign scholars, and there will be scarcely a section of the book in which those who are familiar with this research will not find numerous additions from the literature and from the author's own observation and research.

The sections on sadism, masochism, and fetishism have been completely revised. In the psychological introduction, significant additions are found concerning the relations between the religious and sexual spheres and concerning fetishism, and in the forensic section concerning exhibitionism. The latter also contains analysis of some court opinions, for the sharing of which I am obligated to thank State Forensic Physician Dr. Kautzner in Graz, my colleague in the legal forum for many years.

New case observations not contained in either the sixth edition of the "Psychopathia Sexualis" or in the second edition of the "New Researches" are Nos. 27, 36, 45, 57, 80, 87, 88, 90, 93, 109, 141, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 188, 190, 191 in this book.

I hope this edition also finds the friendly reception that the previous one enjoyed and brings benefits in the service of science, the law, and humanity!

Vienna, December 15, 1891.

The Author.
 
 
 



 
 

Contents
 

I. Fragments of a Psychology of the Sex Life (p. 1)

The power of sex drives 1. The sexual drive as a foundation of ethical feelings 1. Love as a passion 2. Cultural-historical development of the sex life 2. Modesty 2. Christianity. Monogamy 4. Position of woman in Islam 5. Sensuality and morality 6. The making of the sex life into a moral issue in culture 6. Episodes of sexual decline in the history of peoples 7. Development of sexual feelings in the individual. Puberty 7. Sensuality and religious fanaticism 9. Relations between the religious and sexual spheres 9. Sensuality and art 11. Idealizing tendency of first love 11. True love 12. Sentimentality 12. Platonic love 12. Love and friendship 12. Differences between men's love and women's love 13. Celibacy 15. Adultery 15. Marriage 15. Dressiness 16. Facts of physiological fetishism 17. Religious and erotic fetishism 27 [sic]. Hair, hand, foot of the woman as a fetish 21. Eye, smell, voice, psychological characteristics as a fetish 21.

II. Physiological Facts (p. 23)

Sexual maturity 23. Time limitation of the sex life 23. Sexual instinct 24. Localization? 24 . Physiological development of the sex life 24. Erection. Erection center 24. Sexual sphere and olfactory sense 26. Flagellation as an intervention that stimulates the sex life 28. Flagellant sects 28. Paullini's Flagellum salutis 29. Erogenous zones 31. Control of the sex drive 32. Cohabitation 32. Ejaculation 33.

III. General Neuro- and Psychopathology of the Sex Life (p. 34)

Frequency and significance of pathological symptoms 34. Outline of sexual neuroses 36. Agitated states of the erection center 35. Laming thereof 35. Inhibitory processes in the erection center 36. Irritable weakness thereof 37. Neuroses of the ejaculation center 37. Neuroses due to cerebral causes 38. Paradoxia, or a sex drive ouside the times of anatomical-physiological processes 38. Sex drive appearing during childhood 38. Reawakening drive during old age 39. Sexual aberrations in old men, explained by impotence and dementia 40. Anaesthesia sexualis, or absence of sex drive 42. As an innate anomaly 42. As an acquired anomaly 47. Hyperaesthesia, or morbidly heightened drive 48. Prerequisites and symptoms of this anomaly 49. Paraesthesia of the sexual feeling or perversion of the sex drive 56. Perversion and perversity 56. Sadism. Attempted explanation of sadism 57. Sadistic lust murder 62. Anthropophagia [cannibalism] 64. Necrophiliacs 68. Abuse of women, stabbing and flagellation of them 71. Defecation on female persons 79. Symbolic sadism or other exercise of violence of against female persons 81. Sadism with any object whatsoever 82. Scourgers of boys 83. Sadistic acts against animals 85. Female sadism 87. Kleist's Penthesilia 89. Masochism 89. Essence and clinical symptoms of masochism 90. Pursuit of abuse and humiliation for the purpose of sexual gratification 91. Passive flagellation and its relation to masochism 100. Frequency and practices of masochism 108. Ideal masochism 116. Symbolic masochism 117. Jean Jacques Rousseau 120. Masochism in scientific and belletristic literature 122. Disguised masochism 124. Shoe and foot fetishists 124. Disguised masochism, or disgusting acts for the purpose of self-humiliation and sexual gratification 136. Female masochism 138. Attempted explanation of masochism 141. Sexual bondage 143. Masochism and sadism 151. Fetishism. Explanation of fetishism 155. Cases in which the fetish is a part of the female body 160. Fetishism of braids. Braid-snippers 166. When the fetish is a piece of feminine clothing 170. Lovers or thieves of female handkerchiefs 182. Fur, silk, and satin fetishists 183. Contrary-sexual feeling as an acquired morbid manifestation 190. Stages of acquired degeneration 190. Simple reversal of the sexual feeling 194. Emasculation and defemination 200. Insanity of the Scythians 203. Mujerados 204. Transitional stage toward Metamorphosis sexualis 205. Metamorphosis sexualis paranoia 217. Innate contrary-sexual feeling 223. Various clinical forms thereof 224. General characteristics 224. Attempts to explain the anomaly 225. Psychological hermaphroditism 232. Homosexuals or Uranians 256. Effemination and viraginity 279. Androgynes and Gynandrians 304. Other symptoms of sexual perversion among contrary-sexuals 317. Diagnosis, prognosis and therapy for contrary-sexual feeling 318.

IV. Special Pathology  (p. 356)

The symptoms of a morbid sex life in the various forms and states of mental dsturbance 356. Psychological developmental inhibitions 356. Acquired mental states of weakness 359. Consecutive mental weakness after psychoses 359, after apoplexies 360, after head injury 360, due to Lues cerebralis 360. Dementia paralytica 361. Epilepsy 362. Periodic mental disturbance 368. Psychopathia sexualis periodica 369. Mania 370. Signs of sexual agitation among manics 371. Satyriasis 372. Nymphomania 372. Chronic satyriasis and nymphomania 372. Melancholia 373. Hysteria 373. Paranoia 374.

V. Morbid sex life in the criminal court forum  (p. 377)

Danger of sexual offenses for the general welfare 377. The increasing frequency of them 377. Putative causes 378. Clinical research 378. Inadequate consideration of it on the part of jurists 378. Starting points for the forensic assessment of sexual offenses 379. Prerequisites for the removal of accountability 380. Indications of the psychopathological significance of sexual offenses 381. The individual sexual offenses. Exhibitionism 381. Frotteurs ["dry-humpers"] 393. Defilers of statues 395. Rape and lust murder 399. Physical injury, property damage, animal cruelty due to sadism 399. Physical injury, robbery, burglary due to fetishism 400. Sexual inchastity with individuals under 14 years of age. Defilement 401. Sexual unchastity against nature 404. Defilement of animals 404. Sexual unchastity with persons of the same sex. Pederasty 407. Pederasty in the light of research into contrary-sexual feeling 408. Necessity of distinguishing between morbid and non-morbidly caused pederasty 408. Forensic assessment of predisposed contrary-sexual feeling, as well as of acquired morbid contrary-sexual feeling 409. Memoire of a Uranian 410. Cultivated, non-morbid pederasty 414. Causes of the vice 414. Social life of pederasts 415. A woman-haters' ball in Berlin 417. Type of sex drive direction among the various categories of contrary-sexual feeling 419. Anal sex on women 420. Lesbian love 428. Necrophilia 430. Incest 431. Immoral acts with wards 432.
 
 
 
 
 



 


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I. Fragments of a Psychology of the Sex Life

The propagation of the human race is not left to chance or the whims of individuals, but rather is guaranteed by a natural drive that all-powerfully, irresistibly demands fulfillment. The gratification of this natural urge brings not only sensual enjoyment and sources of physical well-being, but also higher feelings of satisfaction at continuing one's own ephemeral existence by the passing on of mental and physical characteristics to new beings across time and space. In coarsely sensual love, in the lustful urge to gratify the natural drive, human beings stand on the same level with animals, but the human being is given the ability to raise himself to a height at which the natural drive no longer makes him a will-less slave, and awakens the powerful feeling and urging of higher, more noble sentiments, that, notwithstanding their original sensual source, open up a world of the beautiful, the exalted, the moral.
On this level, the human being stands above the urge of nature, and generates, from the inexhaustible source, material and stimulus for higher enjoyment, serious action, and the achievement of ideal goals. Maudsley (Deutsche Klinik 1873, 2,3) correctly describes the sexual feeling as the basis for the development of all social sentiments. "If the human being were robbed of the propagative drive and of everything intellectual that springs from it, then practically all poetry and perhaps even the entire moral sense would be ripped out of his life."

In any case, the sex life forms the most important factor...
 
 


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... in the individual and social existence, the most powerful impulse for activity, for the acquisition of possessions, the establishment of a house and home, for the awakening altruistic feeling, first towards a person of the opposite sex, then towards the children, and in a larger sense towards the entire human society.

So, ultimately, all ethics, and perhaps even a good portion of aesthetics and religion, are rooted in the existence of sexual feelings.

Just as the sex life can be the source of the highest virtues, up to the sacrifice of one's own ego, there also lies in its sensual power the danger that it may degenerate into a powerful passion and develop into the greatest vices.

As an unleashed passion, love is like a volcano burning and consuming everything, an abyss swallowing up everything - honor, fortune, health.

It appears to be of great psychological interest to follow the developmental stages through which sexual life has gone in the course of the cultural development of humanity until the point of modern-day customs and civilization.[1] At a primitive stage, the gratification of the sexual needs of human beings appears to be like that of the animals. The sexual act is not hidden from public view, and men and women are not ashamed to be seen naked. We still see savage peoples at this stage today (cf. Ploss, Das Weib, 1884, pp. 196 ff.), such as the Australians, the Polynesians, and the Malays of the Philippines. The female is the common property of the men, the temporary spoils of the most powerful, the strongest. He strives for the most beautiful individuals of the opposite sex and in this way instinctively fulfills a sort of sexual selection.

The female is a movable good, a piece of merchandise, an object of sale, exchange, or giving, a tool of sensual pleasure and of work. The beginnings of moral development in sexual life consists of the appearance of a feeling of shame towards society regarding the disclosure and performance of the natural drive, and modesty in the interaction of the sexes. From that arose the effort to conceal the private parts ("they saw that they were naked") and to perform the sexual act in private.
 
 

[1] Cf. Lombroso, Der Verbrecher [The Criminal], translated [into German] by Fraenkel p. 38 and ff.

 
 
 
 
 

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The development of this stage of culture is favored by a cold climate and by the need thus generated for complete covering of the body. This explains in part why modesty is anthropologically demonstrated earlier among northern peoples than among southern ones.

A further step in the cultural development of sexual life arises when the female stops being a movable good. She becomes a person, and even though she long remains far below the man in social position, nonetheless the view develops that the woman has a right to dispose freely of herself and her favors of love.

At that point, she becomes the object of courting by the man. The coarsely sensual feeling of sexual needs is now joined by the beginnings of ethical sentiments. The drive is spiritualized. The communal sharing of women stops. The sexually different individual beings feel drawn toward one another by psychological and physical merits and only offer the favors of love to one another. At this stage, the woman has the feeling that her charms belong only to the man to whom she is inclined, and she has an interest in concealing them from others. In this way, along with modesty, the foundations of chastity and sexual fidelity are provided - for as long as the love bond persists.

Woman reaches this social stage all the earlier when human beings transition from a nomadic to a sedentary existence, so that they acquire a home, a house, and the need arises for the man to have in the woman a life companion for the household economy, a housewife.

Among the peoples of the Orient, this stage was reached early by the ancient Egyptians, the Israelites, and the Greeks, and among the peoples of the Occident by the Germanic peoples. Everywhere at this stage you find the appreciation of virginality, chastity, modesty, and sexual fidelity, in contrast to other peoples, who offer their female housemates to their guests for their sexual enjoyment.

That this is a rather high stage in the moral development of the sexual life, and much later than many other cultural forms of development, for example, aesthetic forms, is shown by the Japanese, among whom it is the custom to marry a woman only after she has lived for years in tea houses that fulfill the role of European houses of prostitution, and among whom the female sex's going naked is not offensive.
 
 




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In any case, among the Japanese any unmarried woman can prostitute herself without suffering any loss in her value as a future wife, which is likely a proof that in this remarkable people the woman has only a pleasure, procreation, and labor value in marriage, but no ethical value.

The moral development of sexual intercourse found its most powerful impulse in Christianity, in that it lifted the woman to an equal social level with the man and reshaped the love bond between man and woman as a religious-moral institution. [1]
 

[1]This general opinion, also presented by many cultural historians, requires a qualification, however, insofar as the symbolic and sacramental character of marriage was only clearly and unambiguously expressed by the Council of Trent, even though it had always been part of the spirit of Christianity to liberate and lift the woman out of the inferior status that she held in the ancient world and in the Old Testament.

That this actually occurred so late, is explained in part by the traditions in Genesis of the secondary creation of the woman from the rib of the man, by her role in the Fall, and by the curse that resulted therefrom: "your will shall be subject to the man." In that the Fall became the foundation stone of the edifice of the Church, and woman was made responsible for it by the holy scripture of the Old Testament, the social status of women was forced to languish until the spirit of Christianity won out over tradition and scholasticism.

It is remarkable that the gospels do not contain any verses in favor of women, with the exception of the prohibition against repudiation (Matthew 19:9). The leniency toward the adulteress and the repentant Mary Magdalene do not concern the status of women per se. The letters of Paul emphatically declare that no change should be made in the position of the female (II Corinthians 11:3-12; Ephesians 5:22 "let women be subject to their husbands" and 23 "let woman fear man").

How much the church fathers were preoccupied against woman by Eve's guilt is shown by passages in Tertullian: "Woman, you should always go around in mourning and rags, your eyes full of tears. You have caused the ruin of humanity!" Saint Jerome has nothing good to say about woman. He says: "Woman is the gate of the devil, the path of injustice, the sting of the scorpion" (de cultu feminarum 1.1).

Canon law declares: Only the male is created in the image of God, not the female; therefore the female shall serve him and be his handmaiden!

The provincial council of Macon in the 6th century seriously debated about whether the female even had a soul.

The effect of these views of the Church on the peoples who accepted Christianity was commensurate with that. Among the Germanics, the blood money for women - a naïve expression of their value - was lowered after the adoption of the new faith for the above reasons (J. Falke, Die ritterliche Gesellschaft. Berlin, 1862, p. 49). Regarding the estimation of the two sexes among the Jews, see Leviticus 27:3-4.

Even polygamy, which is expressly recognized in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 21:15), is never expressly abrogated in the New. In fact Christian princes (e.g. Merovingian kings like Chlotar I, Charibert I, Pippin I and many prominent Franks) lived in polygamy, and the Church never had any objection to it at the time (Weinhold, Die deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter II, p. 15); cf. also "Unger, Die Ehe" etc. and the excellent work by Louis Bridel "La femme et le droit", Paris 1884.


 
 
 
 
 

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This corresponded to the fact that human love at a higher stage of civilization can only be monogamous and must be based on a permanent contract. Although nature may only demand procreation, a communal entity (family or state) cannot survive without a guarantee that what is generated will flourish physically, morally, and intellectually. By the equalization of woman with man, by the establishment of monogamous marriage, and its reinforcement through legal, religious, and moral bonds, the Christian peoples developed an intellectual and material superiority over the polygamous peoples, specifically over Islam.

Even if Mohamed attempted to raise woman from her position as slave and tool of sensual enjoyment to a higher level socially and in marriage, she nonetheless remained in the Islamic world far below the man, who alone was able to obtain a divorce and for whom it was, moreover, quite easy.

Islam excluded woman from participation in public life under any circumstances and thereby hindered her intellectual and moral development. In this way, the Muslim woman remained essentially a means toward sensual pleasure and for preservation of the race, while the Christian woman's virtues and abilities as a housewife, raiser of the children, and equal companion of her husband were able to unfold splendidly. Thus Islam, with its polygamy and harem life, stands in glaring contrast to the monogamy and family life of the Christian world.

The same contrast can be seen in a comparison of the two religions with regard to their concepts of the hereafter, which the Christian believer sees as a paradise free of all earthly sensuality promising purely intellectual joys, while the imagination of the Muslim depicts the hereafter with images of a lascivious harem life with splendid houris.
 
 



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In spite of all the aids that religion, law, education, and morality provide to the cultured human being for the restraint of his sensual urges, he is always in danger of falling from the bright heights of pure and chaste love into the swamp of base lust.

To remain on that height requires a constant battle between the natural drive and good morals, between sensuality and morality. Only strong-willed characters are given the grace to emancipate themselves entirely from sensuality and to share in that pure love from which the most noble joys of human existence bloom.

It can be debated whether humanity has become more moral in the course of recent centuries. Without doubt it has become more modest, and this civilizing phenomenon of concealing sensual-animalistic needs is at least one concession that vice has made to virtue.

From reading the work of Scherr (Deutsche Culturgeschichte), anyone will gain the impression that our moral views have become purer compared to those of the middle ages, even if it must be admitted that in many ways the earlier obscenity and coarseness of expression has merely been replaced with more refined customs without any greater morality.

If one compares eras and cultural periods that are further apart, then there can be no doubt that, in spite of episodic backslides, public morality has followed an irresistible upswing within cultural development and that one of the most powerful levers on the path of moral progress has been Christianity.

Nowadays we are far above those sexual conditions that characterized the sodomitical belief in gods, the popular life, the legislation, and the religious practices of the ancient Greeks, to say nothing of the phallic and priapic cults of the Athenians and Babylonians, the bacchanalia of ancient Rome, and the preferential public status held by courtesans among these peoples.

Within the slow, often unnoticed upswing that human morals and civilization have taken, there are deviations and fluctuations, just as in the individual life the sexual aspect has its ebbs and flows.
 
 




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Episodes of moral decline in the life of peoples always coincide with times of effemination, opulence, and luxury. These manifestations are only conceivable with an increased strain on the nervous system that has to handle an extra burden of needs. In consequence of spreading nervousness, a heightening of sensuality appears, and insofar as it leads to dissipation among the masses of the people, it undermines the foundation pillars of society, namely morality and the purity of family life. Once these are sapped by debauchery, adultery, and luxury, then the disintegration of the life of the state, and the material, moral, and political ruin thereof, become inevitable. Admonishing examples in this regard are the Roman state, Greece, and France under Louis XIV and XV.[1] In such periods of state and moral decline, many downright monstrous abberations of the sexual drive life appear, that can be partly attributed, however, to psychological or at least neuropathological conditions in the population.

That large cities are the incubators of nervousness and degenerate sensuality is shown by the history of Babylon, Niniveh, Rome, just as by the mysteries of modern urban life. A remarkable fact emerges from the reading of Ploss's work, namely that abberations of the sexual drive do not occur among uncivilized or semi-civilized peoples (except among the Aleuts, and in the form of masturbation among Oriental [i.e. Middle-Eastern] women and the female Nama Hottentots).[2]

Research on the sexual life of the individual must begin with his development in puberty and must follow him in his or her various stages until the extinguishing of sexual feelings.

Mantegazza, in his "Physiologie der Liebe" ["Physiology of Love"], describes well the longing and urging of the awakening sexual life, of which presentiments, unclear feelings, and urges reach back far beyond the time of pubertal development...
 

[1] Cf. Friedlaender, Sittengeschichte Roms. Wiedemeister, Der Caesarenwahnsinn. Suetonius. Moreau, Des aberrations du sens génesique.

[2] However, this information contradicts Friedreich (Handbuch der gerichtsaerztlichen Praxis 1643 [sic], I p. 271), according to whom pederasty supposedly occurs very frequently among the savages of America, and it also contradicts Lombroso (op. cit., p. 42).


 
 
 
 
 
 

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This period is probably the most significant, psychologically speaking. The significance of the sexual factor for psychological life can be measured by the rich increase of feelings and ideas that it awakens.

Those initially dark, obscure urges, arising from the feelings awakened by previously undeveloped organs in the consciousness, go along with a powerful stimulation of the emotional life. The psychological reaction of the sex drive in puberty reveals itself in a variety of manifestations that share in common only the emotional condition of the psyche and the urge to express or objectivize the unfamiliar mental content in some form or another. Nearby fields are religion and poetry, which themselves receive powerful encouragements from the sexual world once the time of sexual development is over and those originally uncomprehended moods and urges have cleared up. If anyone would doubt this, he should consider how often religious fanaticism occurs in the age of puberty, how frequent are sexual temptations in the life of the saints[1], and into what disgusting scenes - true orgies - the religious festivals of the ancient world, as well as the meetings of certain sects in the modern day, have degenerated...
 
 

[1] Cf. Friedreich, Gerichtliche Psychologie, p. 389, who gathered numerous examples. Thus the nun Blanbekin was tormented incessantly by the thought of what might have happened to the part that was removed in the circumcision of Christ.
Veronica Juliani, pronounced blessed by Pope Pius II, out of devotion to the divine Lamb, took an earthly lamb to bed, kissed it, let it nurse at her breasts, and gave it a few drops of milk.

Saint Catherine of Genua frequently suffered from such an inner heat that, in order to cool off, she laid down on the ground and cried: "Love, love, I can't take it anymore!" Meanwhile, she felt a special affection for her confessor. One day she drew his hand to her nose and perceived an aroma that moved her heart, "a heavenly aroma, the sweetness of which could awaken the dead."

Saint Armelle and Saint Elizabeth were tormented by a similar ardor for the baby Jesus. The temptations of Saint Antony of Padua are familiar. An old [rhyming] prayer is typical:

"Oh, that I had found you,
Most blessed Emmanuel -
Oh, if only I had you in my bed,
It would give joy to my body and soul.
Come in willingly to me - come;
My heart will be your little room!"


 
 
 
 
 

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to say nothing of the lustful mysticism found in the cults of the ancient peoples. Conversely, we see that unsatisfied sensuality quite often seeks and finds an equivalent in religious fanaticism.[1]

But this relationship between religious and sexual feeling also manifests itself on indisputably psychopathological territory. Let it suffice to point to the powerfully active sensuality in the case histories of many religious maniacs, to the colorful mixture of religious and sexual deliria, that is observed so often in psychoses (e.g. among maniacal females who think they are the mother of God and the bearer of God), but most especially in psychoses with a masturbatory basis; finally, let us point to the lustful, gruesome self-flagellation, wounds, self-emasculations, even crucifixions on the basis of a morbid sexual-religious feeling.

An attempt to explain the psychological connections between religion and love encounters difficulties. A large number of analogies offer themselves.

The feeling of sexual affection and the religious feeling (viewed as a psychological factum) both consist of 2 elements each.

In the religious area, the primary one is the feeling of dependency, a fact that Schleiermacher recognized long before the more recent anthropological and ethnographic research came to the same conclusion on the basis of observing primitive conditions. Only at a higher level of culture does the second and actually ethical element - the love of the Divinity - enter into the religious feeling. In place of the evil spirits of the natural peoples came the double-sided, now kind, now angry shapes of more complicated mythologies, until finally the all-benevolent God is revered as the giver of eternal salvation, regardless of whether this is hoped for from Jehovah as a form of well-being on earth, from Allah as a physical well-being provided in Paradise, by the Christian as eternal blessedness in heaven, or by the Buddhist as Nirvana.

In the sexual inclination, love, the expectation of rhapsodic bliss, is the primary element. Secondarily, the feeling of dependence is added in. The seed of this feeling exists for both partners, to be sure, but inasmuch as the other partner can falter, it is generally more clearly manifested only in the woman, as result of her passive role both in reproduction and in social situations; by exception this is also the case with men who have a physical type that tends toward the feminine.

Love is mystical and transcendent in both fields, the religious and the sexual, that is, in sexual love the actual aim of the drive, propagation of the species, does not enter into consciousness, and the strength of the impulse is stronger than any gratification that enters into consciousness could justify ...
 

1) See Friedreich, Diagnostik der psychischen Krankheiten, p. 247 et seqq.; Neumann, Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, p. 80.

 
 
 
 
 

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In the religious field, the desired good and the loved being is characterized in a way that it cannot enter into empirical knowledge. Both psychological processes therefore leave the farthest possible space for imagination.

But both also have an "infinite" object, insofar as bliss, which the sexual drive mimics, appears incomparable and immeasurable compared to all other feelings of desire, and the same is true of the promised bliss of faith, which is imagined as infinite, temporally and qualitatively.

From the similarity of the two states of consciousness regarding the magnitude of their object, it follows that they both often grow into an irresistible force and cast down before them all counter-motivations. From their similarity with regard to the incomprehensibility of their actual object, it follows that they both can easily transfer into a vague enthusiasm, in which the vivacity of the feeling far outweighs the clarity and consistency of the ideas. In both cases, along with the expectation of unfathomable happiness, the need for a limitless subjugation plays a role in this enthusiasm.

The manifold similarity between the two enthusiasms explains the fact that in cases of high degrees of intensity, one of them can stand in for the other vicariously, or one will arise alongside the other, since every strong lifting of one element in the soul life will also lift the surrounding [elements]. The identical feeling therefore calls into consciouness first one, then the other of the two idea groups with which it is connected. Both psychological arousals can, however, shift into a drive toward cruelty (actively practiced or passively suffered).

Within the religious life, this is manifested by the sacrifice. The sacrifice is initially brought with the idea that it is materially enjoyed by the divinity, and then that it is brought to honor it, as a sign of submission, as a tribute, and finally that sin and guilt towards the divinity is erased and bliss is obtained.

But if the sacrifice consists of self-flagellation, as occurs in all religions, then it serves among religiously very excitable natures not only as a symbol of subjugation and as an equivalent value in the exchange of present sorrow for future desire, but rather everything that is thought to come from the infinitely loved divinity, and that happens at its command or in its honor, is perceived immediately as a desire. Religious enthusiasm leads then to ecstasy, to a condition in which the consciousness is so preoccupied by psychological feelings of desire, that the idea of suffered maltreatment can only be perceived without its painful quality.

In the active role as well, the exaltation of religious enthusiasm can lead to joy in the sacrifice of others, if the compassion felt for the pain of others is outweighed by religious feelings of desire.

That similar manifestations can occur in the field of sexual life is shown by sadism and especially masochism (see below).
 
 






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Thus the oft confirmed relationship between religion, lust, and cruelty[1] can be formulated as follows: The religious and sexual affect conditions at the climax of their development exhibit similarity in the level and quality of the excitement and therefore can take the place of one another under suitable conditions. Both of them can transform into cruelty under pathological conditions.

The sexual factor proves to be no less influential in the awakening of aesthetic feelings. What would the visual arts and poetry be without a sexual basis! In (sensual) love it gains that warmth of imagination without which true artistic creativity is not possible, and in the flame of sensual feelings its glow and heat is maintained. This makes it understandable that the great poets and artists are sensual natures.

This world of ideals opens up with the appearance of the processes of sexual development. A person who is unable to become enthused for the great, the noble, the beautiful in this period of life will remain a philistine his whole life long. After all, even the person who is not suited to be a poet writes verses in this period!

Processes in pubertal development stand at the limits of healthy physiological response, where those cloudy, longing moods turn into pained and melancholy transformations to the point of boredom with life, and are often accompanied by the desire to harm others (weak analogies of a psychological connection between lust and cruelty).

The love of earliest youth has a romantic idealizing character. It transfigures the love object to the point of apotheosis. In the beginning it is platonic and likes to turn itself toward figures from poetry and history. With the awakening of sensuality, it runs the danger of transferring its idealizing power to persons of the other sex who are the opposite of excellent in intellectual, physical and social respects. This can lead to misalliances, seductions, mistakes, with the whole tragedy of passionate love that comes in conflict with rules of morality and background and sometimes finds its gloomy conclusion in suicide or double suicide.
 

[1] This clichée is expressed not only in the manifestations of real life described above, but also in pietistic literature and even in the visual arts of declining eras. Notorious in this connection is, for example, the group of Saint Theresa of Bernini, who "swoons hysterically on a marble cloud, while a wanton angel speeds the arrow (of divine love) into her heart" (Luebke).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The all-too sensual love can never be a lasting and proper love. Therefore, the first love is generally a very fleeting one, because it is nothing other than the flaring of a passion, a straw fire.

Only that love that is based on knowledge of the moral advantages of the beloved person, that does not merely provide joys, but is also willing to bear sorrows for his sake and is able to sacrifice everything for him, this is true love. The love of the strong-natured person does not shrink from difficulty and danger, when it comes to winning possession of the beloved person and protecting it.

Acts of heroism, disdain for death, are its accomplishments. But such a love runs the risk, under certain circumstances, of turning to crime, if the moral foundation is not solid. An ugly blemish on this love is jealousy. The love of the weak-natured person is sentimental. It leads under certain circumtances to suicide, if it is not returned or encounters obstacles, while in the same situation the strong-natured person might become a criminal.

Sentimental love runs the risk of becoming a caricature, when the sensual element is not strong (the Toggenburg knights, Don Quixote, many medieval minna-singers and troubadours).

Such love has a bland, sweetish aftertaste. It can become downright ridiculous, while otherwise the expressions of this most powerful of emotions awaken compassion, respect, or horror in the human heart, depending.

In many cases this weak love is driven toward equivalent areas - poetry, which is very sweet in that case, aesthetics, which proves to be tasteless, religion, which falls for mysticism and religious enthusiasm, and in a more strongly sensual substrate to cultism and to the point of religious mania. The immature love of the age of puberty has something of all this in it. Of that period of poetizing and rhyming, only the verses of the poet are readable by God's grace.

Regardless of all the ethics that love needs in order to rise to its true and pure form, its strongest root remains sensuality nonetheless.

Platonic love is an absurdity, a self-deception, a false name for related feelings.
 
 





- 13 -

Insofar as love is based on a sensual longing, it is normally conceivable only between persons of different sex who are capable of sexual intercourse. If these conditions are lacking, or if they are lost, then friendship takes the place of love.

In the creation and preservation of the self-esteem of the male, the situation of his sexual function plays a remarkable role. The significance of this factor can be measured by the losses in masculinity and self-confidence exhibited by the weak-nerved masturbator and the man who has become impotent.

Gyurkovechky says quite rightly (Maennliche Impotenz, Vienna 1889) that old and young men differ significantly in psychological terms due to the situation of their potency, and that impotence severely damages the joy of life, mental freshness, energy, self-confidence, and the vibrancy of the imagination. This loss is all the more significant the younger the man is when he loses potency and the more sensual his nature was.

A sudden loss of potency can lead to severe depression and even to suicide, because for such natures a life without love is unbearable.

But even when the response is not so acute, the man whose potency is impaired appears morose, irritable, egotistical, jealous, crude, lackluster, low in self-esteem and self-worth, cowardly.

Something similar can be seen among the Skoptzy, whose character changes for the worse after their emasculation.

Even more significant is the manifestation of a loss of potency in certain persons afflicted in terms of physical effemination (see below).

Less psychologically acute, yet still remarkable, is the situation in the woman who has played out her sexual role and has become a matron. If the now expired period of sexual life was satisfying, if children enliven the heart of the aging mother, then the change in her biological personality barely reaches her consciousness. The situation is different when sterility, or an abstinence from the natural occupation of woman, imposed by circumstances, deny this happiness.

These facts are suited to throw a bright light on the differences that exist between man and woman in the psychology of the sexual life, the difference in sexual feeling and desire between the two of them.

Without doubt, the male has a more vigorous sexual need than the female. Obeying a powerful natural drive, from a certain age onward he desires a female ...
 
 




- 14 -

He loves sensually, and is dominated in his selection by physical advantages. Following the powerful urge of nature, he is aggressive and ardent in his wooing. Nonetheless, the command of nature does not fill up his entire psychological existence. Once his desire has been fulfilled, his love temporarily recedes behind other vital and social interests.

The female is different. If she has developed mentally in a normal way, then her sensual longing is minor. If this were not the case, then the whole world would be a brothel and marriage and family would be inconceivable. In any case, the man who flees the woman and the woman who pursues sexual pleasure are abnormal phenomena.

The woman is wooed for her favors. She behaves passively. This has to do with her sexual organization and is not grounded merely in the commands of good morality which are based on it.

Nonetheless, the sexual field takes up more room in the consciousness of the woman than in that of the man. The need for love is greater in her than in him, it is continual, not episodic, but this love is more spiritual than sensual. While the man loves his wife first as a woman and secondarily as the mother of his children, in the mind of the woman her husband is first the father of her child and only after that a spouse. In her choice of a life partner, the woman is guided much more by mental than by physical advantages. After she has become a mother, she divides her love between her child and her husband. Sensuality fades in the face of motherly love. In future marital intercourse, the wife enjoys the sensual gratification to a lesser degree than the proof of her husband's love and affection.

The woman loves with her entire soul. Love is life to her, while to the man it is a pleasure of life. Unhappy love wounds the latter. It costs the woman her life or at least her life's happiness. It would be a psychological debate question worthy of consideration whether a woman can truly love twice in her life. In any case, the psychological orientation of the woman is monogamous, while that of the man tends toward polygamy.

The weakness of man vis-à-vis woman lies in the power of the sexual needs. He becomes dependent on the woman, all the more so the weaker and more sensual he becomes ...
 
 



- 15 -

He becomes so to the point that he becomes neuropathic. This explains the fact that in periods of relaxation and addiction to pleasure sensuality flourishes. But then the danger arises for society that mistresses and their retinue will rule the state, and the state will collapse. (Compare the mistress economy at the courts of Louis XIV and XV, and the hetaires of ancient Greece.)

The biography of many a stateman from ancient and modern times teaches that they were slaves of women as a result of their great sensuality, which was grounded in turn in their neuropathic constitution.

It is evidence of a sophisticated psychological knowledge of the human being that the Catholic church obliges its priests to practice chastity (celibacy) and therefore aims to emancipate them from sensuality in order to preserve them wholly for the purposes of their profession.

It is a shame only that the priest living in celibacy foregoes the ennobling effect that love and thus marriage have on the development of character.

Since by nature the male is given the role of the aggressive partner, he runs the risk of overstepping the bounds that morals and the law set for him.

Adultery by the female is morally much more grave and should be considered much more significant under law than that committed by the male. The adulteress dishonors not only herself, but also her husband and her family, besides the fact that the child is marked: "father uncertain." Natural drive and social position easily cause the man to fall, while there is much to protect the woman.

For the unmarried woman as well, sexual intercourse is a completely different thing than for the man. Society demands modesty of the man, while of the woman it also demands chastity. At the cultural height of modern social life, the only conceivable sexual position for the woman that serves social and moral interests is that of the wedded wife.

The goal and ideal of the female, even of the one who has fallen into filth and vice, is and remains marriage. The female, as Mantegazza correctly remarks, desires not only the gratification of sensual drives, but also protection and support for herself and her children. The male of a better sensibility, no matter how sensual he may be, demands a female for marriage who has been and is chaste.
 
 






- 16 -

The shield and ornament of the female in the pursuit of this, her only worthy goal, is modesty. Mantegazza describes it nicely as "one of the forms of physical self-respect" in the female.

This is not place for an anthropological-historical study of the development of this most beautiful jewel of the female. Probably female chastity is a hereditary, cultivated fruit of cultural development.

An astonishing contrast to it is an occasional surrender of physical charms that is sanctioned under the law of fashion and by convention, and even the most well-behaved virgin submits to it in the ballroom. The exhibitory reasons for it are obvious: Fortunately, they rise to the awareness of the chaste girl as little as the reasons for the fashion that recurs from time to time of causing certain body parts to show forth more plastically ("bustles"), to say nothing of corsets and the like.

At all times and among all peoples, the women's world displays the aim of decorating itself and developing its charms. In the animal world, nature has always crowned the male with greater beauty. The world of men describes women as the beautiful sex. This gallantry obviously springs from the sensual needs of men. As long as this self-decoration is a purpose of its own, or the true psychological reason for wanting to please remains unconscious in the woman, there is no reason to object to this. When it is consciously performed, this aim is called a "craving to be liked".

The made-up man is ridiculous under all circumstances. In woman, people are used to this minor weakness and have nothing against it, as long as it is not a partial symptom of a whole problem for which the French have invented the word coquetterie.

Women are far superior to men in the natural psychology of love, in part due to heredity and upbringing, since the field of love is their real element, in part because they are more sensitive (Mantegazza).

Even at the height of moral development, the man cannot be blamed for seeing woman first as the object for the gratification of his natural drive. But he incurs the obligation to belong only to the woman of his choice. In the state of laws, this gives rise to a binding moral contract, marriage, and insofar as the woman needs protection and support for herself and her progeny, marital rights.
 
 







- 17 -

It is of great psychological value, and indispensable for certain pathological phenomena that are to be discussed later, to deal with the psychological processes that lead man and woman toward one another and bind them together, so that out of all other persons of the same sex only the beloved appears desirable.

If one could prove intent in the processes of nature - there is no denying their expediency - then the fact of fascination by a single person of the other sex with indifference toward all others, as it exists in fact among those truly and happily in love, appears to be an admirable arrangement of creation in order to safeguard the monogamous bonds that promote its purposes.

For the researcher, this "being in love" or "harmony of souls", this "bond of hearts" proves to be by no means a "mystery of souls", but rather in most cases it is attributable to certain physical, and in certain circumstances psychological characteristics that determine the attractive power of the person who is loved through them.

Then we speak of the so-called fetish and fetishism. People usually take fetish to mean objects or parts or mere qualities of objects that create a kind of enchantment (Portuguese "fetisso") as a result of associative relations to a total idea that calls forth vivid feelings or strong interest, or at least that create an impression that is very deep because it is uniquely accentuated in the individual, that is not attributable to the external symbol (fetish) in and of itself[1].

The individual appreciation of the fetish to the point of enthusiasm by a personality affected by it is called fetishism. This psychologically interesting phenomenon - explainable from an empirical associative law, i.e. the relation of a partial idea to the total idea, whereby what is essential is the individually unique emotional accentuation of the partial idea in the sense of feelings of desire - is found primarily in two related psychological fields: that of religious and that of erotic feelings and ideas. Religious fetishism has a different relation and significance from sexual, insofar as it has found and does find its original motivation in the illusion that the object that impresses as a fetish, or the idol, possesses divine qualities and is not just a sensory image, or insofar as special miraculous (relics) or protective (amulets) qualities are superstitiously attributed to the fetish.

Erotic fetishism is different; it finds its psychological motivation in the fact that physical or even psychological qualities of a person, indeed even mere objects that he uses and the like, become a fetish, in that they awaken powerful associative ideas to the total personality and in addition are always accentuated with a vivid sexual feeling of desire. Analogies with religious fetishism arise nonetheless, insofar as here too under certain circumstances very insignificant objects (bones, nails, hair, etc.) are the fetish and are associated with feelings of desire to the point of ecstasy.
 

[1] See Max Mueller, who derives the word "fetish" etymologically from factitius (artificial, insignificant thing).

 
 
 
 
 
 

- 18 -

Regarding the development of healthy physiological love, it is likely that its seed can always be sought and found in a very individual fetish enchantment that the person of one sex exerts on one of the other sex.

The simplest is the case that the sight of a person of the other sex coincides in time with sensual arousal and this sight heightens the sensual arousal.

The emotional and optical impression join in an associative connection and this connection is solidified insofar as the recurring feeling awakens the optical memory image or the image (seeing it again) once again causes sexual arousal, perhaps to the point of orgasm and ejaculation (dream image).

In this case the total physical appearance acts as a fetish.

As Binet among others stresses, however, it can be even parts of the whole, mere qualities, both physical and even merely psychological qualities, that influence the person of the other sex as a fetish, in that the perception of them coincides with a (random) sexual arousal (or provokes one).

The fact that chance determines this psychological association, that the object of the fetish can be individually extremely unique, that the strangest sympathies (and conversely antipathies) arise from it, is a generally known fact of experience.

This physiological fact of fetishism explains the individual sympathies between men and women, the preferencing of a certain person above all others of the same sex. Since the fetish represents a very individual local symbol, it is understandable that it has only an individual effect. Since it is accentuated by extremely powerful feelings of desire, it leads to the overlooking of any defects of the love object ("love blinds") and causes an exaltation that appears justified only individually, while appearing incomprehensible to other persons, in some circumstances even ridiculous. This explains the fact that the sober person cannot understand his infatuated fellow human being, while the latter worships his idol, make a true cult of him, inventing qualities for him that the love object himself does not possess, objectively speaking ...
 
 






- 19 -

This explains the fact that loves appears sometimes as a passion, sometimes as a real psychological aberration, in which the unattainable seems attainable, the ugly beautiful, the profane exalted, and any other interest, any other duty seems to have disappeared.

Tarde (Archives de l'anthropologie criminelle, Vol. 5, No. 30) is right to assert that a fetish can be different not only for individuals but also for nations, however, the ideal of overall beauty remains the same for cultured peoples of the same era.

Binet deserves the great credit for having studied and analyzed this fetishism of love in greater detail.

The particular sympathies arise from it. Thus one person is attracted to thin beauties, another to fat ones, another to brunettes, and another to blondes. For one person, a particular expression of the eyes, for another a particular sound of the voice or the unique smell, even an artificial one (perfume), or the hand, the foot, the ear, is the individual fetish enchantment, the starting point for a complex chain of psychological processes, whose total expression is love, i.e. the longing for the physical and psychological possession of the love object.

Thus we have mentioned an important condition for the establishment of what is still a healthy physiological fetishism.

The fetish may retain its significance in a lasting manner, without being pathological, but only if it moves forward from the partial idea to the total idea, if the love that is initiated by it encompasses the entire psychological and physical personality as its object.

Normal love can only be a synthesis, a generalization. Ludwig Brunn[1] says quite intelligently in an essay called "Fetishism in Love":

"Normal love thus appears to us as a symphony composed of all kinds of notes. It results from the most varied stimuli. It is, so to speak, polytheistic. Fetishism knows only the timbre of a single instrument; it arises from a definite stimulus; it is monotheistic."

Anyone who gives even a little thought to the subject will recognize that one can only speak of real love (a word too often misused) if the entire person, both physically and psychologically, is the object of adoration.
 

[1] Deutsches Montagsblatt, Berlin, August 8, 1888.

 
 
 
 
 
 

- 20 -

Every love must have a sensual element, i.e. the urge to possess the love object and, joined to him, to serve the laws of nature.

But to the person for whom only the body of the person of the other sex is the love object, who wants only sensual pleasure without possessing the soul and taking pleasure of the soul together, that person's love is not genuine, any more than that of the Platonist who loves only the soul and despises sensual pleasure (many contrary-sexuals). For one, the body alone, for the other the soul alone is a fetish, and his love is mere fetishism.

These types of persons in any case represent transitional cases towards pathological fetishism.

This assumption is all the more accurate since psychological[1] gratification from the sexual act must be required as a further criterion of real love.

Among the healthy physiological manifestations of fetishism, the interesting fact remains to be explained that among the large number of things that can become a fetish there are a few that gain this significance with a large number of persons.
 
 

[1] Magnan's "spinal cérébral postérieur", who feels pleasure with every woman and for whom any woman is all right, is able only to gratify his lust. Purchased or scrounged love is not real love. (Mantegazza.) Whoever coined the saying "sublata lucerna nullum discrimen inter feminas" [with the lights out all women are the same] must have been an awful cynic. The potency of the man to perform the love act is no guarantee that this act will really provide the highest enjoyment of love.

After all, there are Uranians who are potent with women, men who do not love their women and still are able to perform their marital "duty." In most cases even the feeling of lust will be missed in such a situation; after all it is basically a kind of masturbatory act, often made possible only with the aid of the imagination, which substitutes a different love object. Through this deception a feeling of lust can even be achieved, but this rudimentary psychological gratification arises from a psychological trick, just as in solitary masturbation, which requires the aid of the imagination in order to achieve a feeling of lust. In general, that degree of orgasm by aid of which a feeling of lust arises appears to be achievable only when the psyche intervenes.

Where psychological impediments stand in the way (indifference, aversion, disgust, fear of infection, pregnancy, etc.) the feeling of lust seems to be completely absent.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

- 21 -

Deserving of mention as such for the man are the hair, the hand, the foot of the woman, and the expression of her eye. A few of these achieve a remarkable significance in the pathology of fetishism. These facts obviously play a role in the soul of the female, even an unconscious to conscious role.

A major concern of the female is the care of her hair, to which she often devotes an inordinate amount of time and money. What concern mothers show in their care for the hair of even little girls! What a role the stylist plays! Loss of hair causes desperation in young women, I remember one vain woman who became emotionally disturbed for that reason and committed suicide. Young women love to talk about hairdos, and envy one another their beautiful hair growth.

Beautiful hair is a powerful fetish for many men. Even in the legend of Loreley, who tempts men to their ruin, the "golden hair" that she combs with a golden comb appears as a fetish. The attractive force possessed by hands and feet is often no less, although often (not by no means always) masochistic and sadistic feelings help to determine the particular form of the fetish.

In the metaphorical sense, through idea association, the glove or the shoe can take on fetish meaning.

Brunn (op cit) is right to point to the fact that in medieval customs drinking from the shoe of a beautiful woman (a practice still found today in Poland) played a remarkable role as a form of gallantry, or homage. Also in the fairy tale of Cinderella the shoe plays a prominent role.

Particularly important in igniting the sparks of love is the expression of the eyes. A neuropathic eye often affects persons of both sexes as a fetish. "Madame, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour " (passage in Molière).

There is an abundance of examples that the aroma of the body can become a fetish.

This fact is also exploited consciously or unconsciously in the ars amandi of the female. Already in the Old Testament, Ruth tried to bind Booz [sic] to herself by perfuming herself. The demi-monde of modern and ancient times consumed and uses lots of fragrances...
 
 






- 22 -

Jaeger in his "Entdeckung der Seele" makes many references to olfactory sympathies.

Cases are known in which someone married an ugly woman only because her smell was infinitely sympathetic to him.

Binet makes it appear likely that even the voice can become a fetish. He reports a relevant observation by Dumas who used it in his novella (La Maison du Vent). It concerned a woman who fell in love with the voice of a tenor and was unfaithful to her husband as a result.

Also Belot's novel "Les Baigneuses de Trouville" supports this assumption. Binet supposes that many marriages made with female singers were based on the fetish enchantment of their voice.

He calls attention to the interesting fact that among songbirds the voice has the same sexual significance as aroma among quadripeds.

Thus the birds entice by their singing, and at night the attracted female flies to the bird that sings most beautifully.

The fact that psychological qualities can have the effect of a fetish in a broader sense is demonstrated by the pathological facts of masochism and sadism.

This explains the fact of idiosyncrasies and justifies the old saying "de gustibus non est disputandum" ["there's no accounting for taste"].
 
 






- 407 -

[...]
 

b) With persons of the same sex (pederasty, sodomia sensu strictiori).

Germany has only unnatural unchastity between male persons. Austria has it between persons of the same sex, so that even unchastity between a woman and a woman would be subject to criminal prosecution.

Among the unchaste actions between male individuals, pederasty (insertion of the penis into the anus) claims the main interest. The legislator was probably thinking exclusively of this perversity of sexual activity, and, according to the arguments of excellent interpreters of criminal legislation (Oppenhoff, Strafgesetzbuch, Berlin 1872, p. 324 and Rudolf and Stenglein, Das Strafgesetzbuch fuer das Deutsche Reich 1881, p. 423), insertion of the penis into a living body is one of the necessary constituent facts of the crime provided for by € 175.

According to this view, criminal prosecution of other types of unchaste actions between male persons was dropped, as long as they were not complicated by violation of public modesty, the use of force, or performance on boys under 14 years of age...
 
 






- 408 -

This view has changed again in recent times and now the crime of unnatural unchastity between men is deemed present even if only acts resembling coitus have taken place.[1]

The studies on contrary-sexual feeling have shed a totally different light on male-male love from the way the crimes of chastity arising from it, especially pederasty, were looked at at the time of drafting of the law codes. The fact of a psychopathological basis in many cases of contrary-sexual feeling leaves no doubt that pederasty too can be the action of a person not accountable, and makes it mandatory to consider in future in the court not simply the act alone, but also the mental condition of the perpetrator.

The aspects mentioned at the beginning of this section must be determining here as well. Not the act, but solely and exclusively the anthropological-clinical assessment of the perpetrator can give rise to the decision of whether it is a case of criminal perversity, or a case of morbid perversion of the mental and drive life - which under some circumstances rules out punishment.

The next question for the court must be whether the sexual inclination toward persons of the same sex is an innate or an acquired phenomenon, and in the latter case, whether it represents a morbid perversion or merely a moral aberration (perversity).

Innate contrary-sexual feeling occurs only in morbidly constituted (handicapped) individuals, as a partial manifestation of a handicap that is characterized by anatomical or functional abnormalities or both. The case becomes all the clearer and the diagnosis all the more certain if the individual appears to coincide with his sexual peculiarity, both in his character and in his entire sentiment, and totally lacks any inclination toward persons of the other sex or even feels a horror of sexual intercourse with them, if in the urge toward gratification of the contrary-sexual feeling the person concerned shows traits of other anomalies of the sexual life as well as deeper degeneration in the form of periodic recurrence of the urge and impulsive action and if the person is a neuro- and psychopathological personality.
 

[1] How hair-splitting, disgusting, and unsettling the assessment of these acts "resembling coitus" may be for the judge in establishing the objective constituent facts of the crime, is shown well by a paper on the criminality of male-male intercourse in the Zeitschrift fuer die gesammte Strafrechtswissenschaft, Vol. VII, No. 1, and one in Friedreich's Blaetter fuer gerichtliche Medicin, Year 1891, No. 6. - See also Moll's book "Contraere Sexualempfindung" p. 223 and following, and Bernhardi "Der Uranismus", Berlin 1882.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

- 409 -

The next question concerns the mental state of the Uranian. If this state is such that the conditions for accountability are lacking in general, then the pederast is not a criminal, but rather an unaccountable mentally ill person.

But this case is obviously more rare among born Uranians. Usually, they exhibit no more than very elementary psychological problems that do not cancel out their accountability in and of themselves.

But this does not exhaust the forensic issue of the responsibility of the Uranian. The sexual drive is one of the most powerful organic needs. No legislation finds extramarital gratification of the sexual drive to be criminal in and of itself; the fact that the Uranian feels in a perverse manner is not his fault, but rather that of an abnormal natural constitution. His sexual desire may be extremely repulsive from an aesthetic standpoint, but from his morbid point of view it is natural. In addition, in the majority of these unfortunates the perverse sexual drive asserts itself with abnormal strength and their consciousness often does not recognize the perverse drive as anything unnatural. Thus they lack the moral, aesthetic counterbalance to combat the urge.

Countless normally constituted persons are able to forgo the gratification of their libido, without being damaged in their health due to this forced abstinence. On the other hand, many neuropathics - and Uranians definitely belong in this category - become severely nervously ill if they do not satisfy the natural drive or if they gratify it in a way that for them is perverse.

Most Uranians are in a difficult situation. On the one side, there is an abnormally strong drive toward their own sex, that when gratified is felt as beneficial and as a natural law - and on the other side there is public opinion that stigmatizes their activity and the law that threatens them with dishonorable punishment. On the one side, tormenting psychological conditions reaching to the point of emotional illness and suicide, or at least nervous illness, - on the other side, disgrace, loss of status, etc. It is beyond doubt that urgent and compulsive situations can be created by a pitiable morbid disposition and natural constitution...
 
 






- 410 -

In any case, society and the courts must do justice to these facts; society, by having pity on these unfortunates rather than condemning them, and the courts, by leaving them unpunished as long as they move within the limits that are set for the practice of the sexual drive in general.

As a confirmation of these views and expectations that must result with respect to these stepchildren of nature, let it be permitted to print here a memoire of a Uranian provided to the author. The person writing the following lines is a highly placed man in London.

"You have no idea what continual heavy battles we all - and especially the thinkers and the sensitive among us - still have to fight today and how much we suffer from the false view of us and our so-called 'immorality' that still prevails today.

Your view that the ultimate cause of the phenomenon in question can be attributed in most cases to an innate 'morbid' disposition will probably be most likely to make it possible to overcome the existing prejudices and awaken compassion for us poor 'sick' people instead of revulsion and contempt.

As much as I believe that the view that you represent is as beneficial as possible for us, yet I cannot in the interest of science accept the word 'morbid' without objection and I would like to take the liberty to provide you with a few arguments in this regard.

The phenomenon is anomalous in any case, but the word morbid has an additional meaning that I cannot affirm to be accurate, at least in many cases that I have had the opportunity to observe. I will admit a priori that one can observe cases of mental problems, nervous overexcitement etc. in far higher proportions among Uranians than among other normal human beings. But is this increased nervosity necessarily associated with the essence of Uranism, or is it not attributable in the majority of cases by far to the fact that the Uranian cannot obtain the gratification of his innate sexual inclination in a simple and easy manner like other people, as a result of the currently prevailing legislation and social prejudices?

The Uranian youth, as soon as he feels the first sexual impulses and expresses them naively to his comrade, soon discovers that he finds no understanding among others; and he closes himself up within himself. If he tells a teacher or his parents about what moves him, then the impulse that is as natural to him as swimming is to a fish is portrayed to him as decadent and sinful, and it is preached to him that it must be fought and suppressed at any cost. Now begins an inner struggle, a violent suppression of the sexual impulse, and the more the sexual gratification of it is suppressed, the more vigorously the imagination begins to work and conjures up again and again precisely those images that one wishes to banish...
 
 





- 411 -

The more energetic the character who is fighting this battle is, the more the entire nervous system must suffer from it. This kind of violent suppression of a drive planted so deeply within us, in my humble opinion, develops the morbid manifestations that we can observe in many Uranians, but it is not necessarily associated with the respective Uranian dispositions themselves.

Some continue this constant inner battle for a more or less prolonged period of time and burn themselves out, while others finally come to the realization that such a powerful innate drive cannot possible be sinful and so they stop trying to do the impossible - that is, they stop trying to suppress it. But this is when the series of sorrows and constant aggravations only begins to unfold! The Dionian who seeks gratification for his sexual impulses always knows where to find it easily; not so the Uranian! He sees men who excite him, but he cannot say anything, nor even let on about what moves him. He thinks that he is the only one in the whole world who has such abnormal feelings. Naturally he seeks interaction with young men, but he does not dare to confide in them. Thus he falls into the habit of obtaining by himself the gratification that he cannot achieve any other way. Masturbation is practiced extensively, and all the consequences of this vice make their appearance. If after a certain amount of time a derangement of the nervous system occurs, then once again the morbid manifestation is caused not by the Uranism, but rather is due to the fact that, as a result of the the general prevailing view today, the Uranian cannot find any gratification of his sexual drive that would be natural and normal for him, and so he falls into masturbation.

Or let us assume that the Uranian had the rare good fortune to quickly find a soul who felt like him, or that he was quickly enlightened by an experienced friend about how things work in the Uranian world; then perhaps he will be spared many internal conflicts, but a long series of aggravating worries and fears follow his every step. Now he knows that he is no longer the only one in the world with such abnormal feelings; he opens his eyes and is astonished at how many comrades he finds in all social circles and in all occupational classes; he also learns that there is prostitution in Uranism just as in Dionism, and that men can be had for a price just like female prostitutes. So he no longer lacks opportunity to gratify his sexual drive. But how different matters develop in this case from that of the Dionians!

Let us assume the most fortunate case! He has found the friend who feels like him, for whom he has longed his entire life. But he cannot surrender himself to him, as a boy to a girl whom he loves. In constant fear, the two of them must continually conceal their relationship; indeed even any possible excessive intimacy that might easily raise suspicion - especially when the two of them are not the same age or do not belong to the same social class - must be hidden from the outside world. Thus along with the relationship itself there begins a chain of aggravations, and the fear that the secret might yet be betrayed, or guessed, no longer permits the poor boys to arrive at a relaxed enjoyment...
 
 






- 412 -

An occurrence that would be totally insignificant to any other person makes him tremble, because it might awaken a suspicion and bring his secret to light, which would undermine his entire social position and cause him to lose his job and his profession. And this constant aggravation, this continual fear and worry, is supposed to pass without a trace and not exert a reactive influence on the entire nervous system?

Another one, not so fortunate, did not find a friend who felt the same way, but rather fell into the hands of a good-looking man who at first was willing to indulge him, until his innermost secrets had been revealed to him. But then a most sophisticated form of blackmailing takes place. The miserably persecuted man, faced with the alternative of either paying up or becoming a social pariah, losing his respected status, seeing disgrace descend upon himself and his family, pays up, and the more he pays, the greedier becomes the vampire who sucks him dry, until finally his only remaining choice is between total financial ruin or dishonor. Who should be surprised that not everyone's nerves are up to this terrible struggle?

One person's nerves fail completely, a mental disorder manifests itself, and the poor man finally finds in the insane asylum the peace that he could not find in life. Another person, in desperation, puts an end to this unbearable condition by suicide. It is impossible to say how many of the often unexplained suicides of young men must be counted in this group!

I believe that I am not mistaken when I say that at least half of all suicides of young men are attributable to such circumstances. Even in cases when it is not a merciless blackmailer who persecutes a Uranian, but rather a relationship exists between two men that in itself develops satisfactorily, the discovery of it, or even just the fear of discovery, often leads to suicide. How many officers who had a relationship with one of their subordinates, how many soldiers who had a relationship with a comrade, in the moment when they thought they had been discovered, have tried to put an end to the dishonor threatening them by means of a bullet! And the same in all other professions!

So if it must definitely be admitted that more mental abnormalities and also more real mental disturbances can be observed in Uranians than in other people, that is still not proof that this mental disturbance is necessarily connected to the Uranism and that one thing is caused by the other. In my firm opinion, by far the greatest portion of mental disturbances or morbid dispositions observed among Uranians cannot be put down to their sexual abnormality, but rather are caused by the currently prevailing false view about Uranism, and in connection with this, by the existing legislation and the prevailing opinion about this matter. Anyone who has even an approximate understanding of the multitude of mental and moral sufferings, of the fears and worries that a Uranian must bear, of the incessant lies and concealments that he must practice, in order to hide his inner drive, of the interminable difficulties that block him from a gratification of his sexual drive that would be natural to him - can only be astonished that even more serious mental disturbances and nervous illnesses do not occur among Uranians...
 
 






- 413 -

The majority of these morbid conditions would not even develop, if the Uranian could find sexual gratification in a simple and easy manner like the Dionian, if he were not subjected to these continual tormenting fears!"

On the basis of current law, investigations of Uranians under the relevant paragraph should only be conducted when it is a question of actual pederasty [anal penetration], and at the same time any psychosomatic abnormality should be taken into consideration in a careful expert opinion with individual consideration of the issue of culpability.

Under future law, Uranians wish nothing more ardently than the repeal of this paragraph. The legislator will not agree to this if he considers that pederasty is much more frequently an abominable vice than the result of a physical-mental defect, and that in addition many Uranians, even though they are compelled to perform sexual acts with their own sex, are still not compelled to indulge in actual pederasty, a sexual act that throughout all ages will stand as a cynical, disgusting, and, for the passive, in any case harmful one. But it must be a matter for the future legislator to consider carefully, whether it might not be opportune for reasons of utility (difficulty of deciding the question of guilt, fostering of the most revolting forms of extortion, blackmail, etc.) to remove criminal prosecution of male-male love from the law codes and to deem youth to be sufficiently protected by the unchastity paragraphs.

What has been said regarding current law with respect to innate contrary-sexual feeling may in essence also be deemed applicable to the acquired form. The accompanying neurosis or psychosis will weigh heavily in terms of diagnotics and forensics.

It remains only to discuss cultivated, non-morbid pederasty, probably one of the most regrettable pages in the history of human debauchery.
 
 





- 414 -



Cultivated, non-morbid pederasty.[1]

The reasons that bring a sexually originally normal-feeling, mentally healthy man to pederasty can be various. It may appear temporarily as a means of sexual gratification for lack of a better option - the same as in rare cases of bestiality - in cases of forced abstinence from normal sexual enjoyment.[2] Such occurs on ships on lengthy voyages, in prisons, in baths, etc. Most likely the respective society includes individuals with low morals and a powerful sensuality, or else real Uranians, who become the seducers of the others. Lust, the drive to imitation, and covetousness all contribute their parts.

It remains very characteristic for the strength of the sexual drive, in any case, that such triggers are sufficient to overcome the aversion to the unnatural act.

Another category of pederasts are represented by old lechers, who have become over-satiated in normal sexual enjoyment, and find a means herein to tickle their lust, in that the act represents a new kind of stimulation. In this way they temporarily bolster their psychological and somatic potency that has dropped very low. The new kind of sexual situation makes them, so to say, relatively potent and makes pleasures possible that sexual intercourse with women is no longer capable of offering them. With time the potency for the pederastic act is lamed as well. Then the respective person may turn to passive pederasty as a means of stimulation to make the active form possible temporarily; flagellation and voyeuristic observance of obscene scenes (Maschka's case of bestiality!) are also resorted to.
 

[1] For interesting historical notes, see Krauss, Psychologie des Verbrechens [Psychology of Crime], p. 174; Tardieu, Attentats; Maschka, Handbuch III, p. 174. The vice in question appears to have come from Asia via Crete to Greece and to have been generally widespread at the time of classical Hellas. From there it came to Rome, where it flourished lushly. In Persia, China (where it is even tolerated) it is very widespread, but also in Europe (see Tardieu, Tarnowsky, and others).

[2] That sexual intercourse with their own sex also occurs among animals under conditions of forced abstinence, is shown in the compilations of Lombroso (Der Verbrecher [The Criminal], translated by Fraenkel, p. 20 and following pages).


 
 
 
 
 
 

- 415 -

The sexual activity ultimately ends in unchastity with children of all types, cunnilingus, fellation, and other disgusting practices.

This type of pederasty is the most basely dangerous, because they go after boys first and foremost, and ruin them in body and soul.

Terrible things were learned in this regard by Tarnowsky in St. Petersburg society (op. cit., p. 53 and following pages). The setting for such incubators of cultivated pederasty are institutions. Old lechers and Uranians play the role of seducers. The seduced partner finds it difficult at first to carry out the disgusting act. At first he uses his imagination as an aid, by conjuring up the image of a woman. Gradually he gets accustomed to the disgusting practice. Finally, like the person sexually ruined by masturbation, he becomes relatively impotent toward the female and lustful enough to get enjoyment from the perverse act. In some circumstances, the respective person becomes a "cynaedus" selling himself for money.

Such cases are not rare in large cities, as Tardieu's, Hofmann's, Simon's, and Taylor's experiences have shown. It is also shown by numerous reports that I have received from Uranians that professional prostitution for male-male love exists there, as well as actual houses of prostitution. Remarkable arts of coquetry are employed by such male meretrices, in the form of make-up, perfume, clothing with a feminine cut, etc., in order to attract pederasts and Uranians. This intentional mimicking of female characteristics is also found spontaneously and unconsciously among innate and many acquired cases of (morbid) contrary-sexual feeling.

Interesting information valuable to the psychologist and, in particular, the police officer, about the social life and activities of pederasts, is offered by the following lines.

Coffignon, La corruption à Paris, p. 327, divides active pederasts into amateurs, entreteneurs and souteneurs.

The amateurs ("rivettes") are certainly debauched, but at the same time often innately contrary-sexual persons of status and wealth, who must protect themselves from exposure in the gratification of their homosexual lusts. For this purpose they go to brothels, maisons de passe, or private residences of female prostitutes who are usually on good terms with the male prostitutes. In this way they escape blackmail.

Some of these amateurs are bold enough to indulge in their disgusting lusts in public places. They risk arrest thereby, but less easily blackmail (in the big city). The risk allegedly heightens their secret pleasure.

The entreteneurs are old sinners who cannot help keeping a (male) mistress, even at the risk of falling into the hands of a blackmailer.

The souteneurs are convicted pederasts, who keep a "jesus" around and even send him out to entice customers ("faire chanter les rivettes") and, if possible, show up at the proper moment to pluck the victim.
 
 






- 416 -

They not infrequently live in gangs together, the individual members [playing the role of] man or woman depending on their active or passive lusts. Among such gangs, there are actual weddings, ceremonies, banquets, and escorting of the newlyweds to their rooms.

These souteneurs groom their jesuses.

The passive pederasts are "petits jesus", ""jesus", or "queens".

The petits jesus are lost, ruined children that fate has led into the hands of an active pederast who seduces them and then introduces them to their disgusting career, whether as kept boys, or as male street whores with or without a souteneur.

Through the instruction of those who train these children in the art of feminine clothing and posture, the most clever and sought-after petit jesus are cultivated.

Gradually, they attempt to emancipate themselves from the teacher and exploiter in order to become a femme entretenue ["kept woman"], not infrequently by anonymously denouncing the souteneur to the police.

The concern of the souteneur and of the petit jesus is that the latter should appear boyish for as long as possible by all kinds of arts of toiletry.

The highest possible limit is probably the age of 25. Then he becomes a jesus and a femme entretenue, and is usually kept by several persons at once. The jesuses fall into the categories of "filles galantes", i.e. those who have returned to the possession of a souteneur, and then the "pierreuses" (common streetwalkers like their female colleagues) and the "domestiques".

The latter hire themselves out to active pederasts, either to indulge their lusts or to get petits jesus for them.

A subgroup of these domestiques is formed by those who provide their services to petits jesus as chambermaids. A primary goal of these domestiques is to obtain compromising material in the course of their position by means of which they can later practice blackmail and acquire a secure livelihood for their older years through such extortion.

The most disgusting category among the passive pederasts is likely the "queens", i.e. the souteneurs of some prostitute, who, as sexually normal persons, but moral monsters, pursue pederasty (passively) only out of a desire for profit or for purposes of blackmail.

The rich amateurs have their reunions, business establishments, where the passives appear in female dress and disgusting orgies are celebrated. The waiters, musicians, etc. at such parties are all pederasts. The filles galantes do not dare to show themselves in female dress on the street, except at Carneval, but they know how to give their exterior something indicating their shameful profession by a somewhat feminine cut of the clothes, etc.

They entice through facial expressions, hand gestures, etc. and lead their conquests to hotels, baths, or brothels.

What the author says about blackmail is commonly known. There are cases in which pederasts have had their entire fortunes extorted from them.
 
 





- 417 -

The following notice from a Berlin (national?) newspaper of February 1884, that happened to fall into my hands, seems suited to characterize the life and activities of the Uranians.

"The Woman-Hater's Ball. Nearly all social elements in Berlin have their mutual associations: fat people, bald-heads, journeymen, widowers - why not woman-haters too? This psychologically strange and socially not-all-that-edifying species of human being held a ball in recent days. "Great Vienna Masked Ball" - was how it was billed; a great amount of stringency was exercised in the distribution or sale of tickets, since the gentlemen wanted to be among themselves. Their place of rendezvous is a well-known large dance hall. We enter the hall around midnight. People are dancing in lively fashion to the sounds of a well-manned orchestra. The heavy tobacco smoke that enveils the gas lamps prevents the details of the undulating action from emerging right way. In the dance break, we first get a chance to check things out a little bit more closely. The majority by far are in masks; only a few are in black tails or ball gowns.

But, what is going on? The lady who just hurried past us in a pink tarlatan has a glowing cigar in the corner of her mouth and is puffing like a dragoon. She has a little blond beard, too, only slightly covered over by make-up. Now she is talking with an "angel" in tricots with a plunging neckline, who stands there with her naked arms crossed behind her and is likewise smoking. Those are two male voices and the conversation is very masculine, too; it has to do with the "da-- tobacco that has no air." So that's it: they are two men in women's clothing.

A run-of-the-mill clown stands there at a pillar in whispered conversation with a ballerina and has wound his arm around her flawless waist. She has a blond Titus hairdo, a sharp-cut profile, and apparently lush shape. The shimmering earring, the choker with the medallion around her neck, the full rounded shoulders and arms give no cause to doubt her "genuineness", until with a sudden turn she tears herself loose from the enveloping arm and turns away with a yawn and a sigh emitted in the lowest bass voice: "Emil, you are too boring tonight!" The uninitiated scarcely believes his eyes; the ballerina, too, is a member of the male sex!

We observe further, skeptically. We almost imagine that a game of topsy-turvy is being played here; because now we see walking, or rather skipping, past us, a man - no, certainly not a man, although he wears a carefully groomed mustache. The well-styled head of curls, the powdered and painted face with the heavily "touched-up" eyebrows, the golden earrings, the corsage of fresh flowers running from the left shoulder to the chest, that decorates the elegant black dress, the golden armbands on the wrists and the delicate fan in her white-gloved hand - these are not the attributes of a man. And how coquettishly he manipulates the fan, how he dances and turns, how he skips and lisps! And yet! And yet generous nature has created this doll as a man...
 
 





- 418 -

He is a salesman in a large local ready-to-wear clothes shop, and the ballerina from before is his "colleague".

At the corner table, a large circle seems to have formed. Several older gentlemen are crowding around a group of ladies with low necklines, who are sitting with glasses of wine and - merely out of joviality - making none-too-delicate jokes. Who are these three ladies? "Ladies!" my expert companion chuckles. Well, yes: the one on the right with brown hair and a half-length fancy costume is "Butterrica", a hair-stylist by trade; the second, blond in a chansonnette costume with a pearl choker is here under the name "Miss Ella on the Rope" and a women's tailor by trade, and the third, well that is the far-renowned "Lotte."

.... But that cannot possibly be a man! This waist, this bosom, these classical arms, the entire air and essence is decidedly feminine!

I am informed that "Lotte" was once a bookkeeper. Nowadays, though, she, or rather he, is simply "Lotte", and gets pleasure from deceiving the world of men for as long as possible about his sex. "Lotte" has just been singing a not-quite-respectable song, developing an alto voice, acquired through many years of training, for which many a female singer might envy her. "Lotte" has also worked as a female impersonator. By now the former bookkeeper has adapted so well to the role of lady, that he is seen on the street almost exclusively in ladies' clothes, and, as the landlord and his wife report, he even uses a ladies' lace bedroom negligé.

On closer inspection of those in attendance, I also discovered to my astonishment all kinds of acquaintances of mine: my shoemaker, who I considered to be anything but a "woman-hater"; tonight he is a troubadour with a dagger and a feathered hat, and his "Leonore", wearing a bride's costume, usually offers me Bocks and Uppmanns for sale at the cigar store. I now recognize "Leonore," who removed her gloves during the break, quite precisely by her large, frostbitten hands. Right! There is my tie-supplier too. He is running around in a remarkable costume as Bacchus and is the Seladon of a repulsively outfitted Diana, who otherwise works as a waiter in a weissbier bar. The sort of genuine "ladies" who were present at the ball cannot be described to the public. In any case they circulate only among themselves and avoid any contact with the woman-hating men, while the latter consistently remain and amuse themselves among themselves, while entirely ignoring the fair sex."

These facts merit the full attention of the police authorities, who should thereby be enabled to gain a foothold in the fight against male prostitution in the same way that they have one against the female version.

In any case, male prostitution is much more dangerous for society than female, and is the greatest mark of shame in the history of humanity.
 
 







- 419 -

I have been informed by a high police official in Berlin that the Berlin police have precise knowledge of the male demi-monde of the German capital and, using every available means, make every effort to combat the extorters of pederasts who often do not shrink even from murder.

The above facts justify the wish that future legislators would forego the prosecution of pederasty, if for no other reason than that of utility.

It is worth noting in this respect is that the Code francais leaves it unpunished, as long as it does not create an outrage public à la pudeur [public outrage against modesty] at the same time. Likely for reasons of legal policy, the new Italian penal code also passes over in silence the crime of unnatural unchastity, just like the legislation of Holland and, as far as I know, Belgium and Spain.

To what extent cultivated pederasts can be viewed as still physically and morally healthy may be left undetermined. Probably the majority of them suffer from congenital neuroses. In any case, there are fluid transitional boundaries between that and acquired morbid contrary-sexual feeling. Generally speaking, it cannot be denied that these persons, who in any case stand far below the self-prostituting woman, are accountable for their actions.

The various categories of male-male loving individuals can be characterized, with regard to the type of sexual gratification, by and large in such a way as to say that the born Uranian only becomes a pederast by exception and, if he does come to that, he does so after having performed and exhausted other possible acts of unchastity between male individuals.

In conceptual and practical terms, the type of sexual act that suits him is passive pederasty. He will perform active pederasty as a courtesy. The crucial thing is the innate and unchangeable perversion of the sexual feeling. It is different with the cultivated pederast. He has performed or at least felt in a sexually normal way, and episodically or incidentally he has intercourse with the other sex.

His sexual perversity is neither original nor unchangeable. He begins with pederasty and ends up with other sexual practices that are consistent with a weakness of the erectile and ejaculatory center. At the height of his performance capacity, his sexual longing is not for passive, but for active pederasty.

He likewise agrees to passive pederasty as a courtesy, or out of greed in the role of the male whore, or as a means to achieve active pederasty on occasion when afflicted with failing potency.
 
 






- 420 -

An ugly phenomenon, that will be considered here as an appendix, is paedicatio mulierum [anal sex performed on women] [1], under some circumstances even practiced by women! Lechers sometimes perform it on serviceable prostitutes or even on their wives, for a particular titillation. Tardieu gives examples in which men sometimes anally penetrated their wives in addition to coitus! Sometimes fear of a new pregnancy motivates the man to this act and induces the woman to tolerate it!

Observation 192. Imputed, but unproven pederasty. Results from the files.

On May 30, 1888, Dr. S, a doctor of chemistry in the city of H, was accused in an anonymous letter to his father-in-law of conducting an immoral relationship with the 19-year-old butcher's son G. Dr. S received the letter and, furious at its content, rushed to his supervisor, who promised to investigate the matter discreetly and to inquire with the police as to whether anything, and if so what, had been said about this matter among the public.

On the morning of May 31, the police arrested G, who was lying sick with gonorrhea and orchiditis in the home of Dr. S. Dr. S attempted to secure the release of G with the state's attorney, and offered bail, which was refused. In his statement to the regional court, Dr. S states that he met the young G on the street 3 years before, and then lost contact with him, meeting him again in the fall of 1887 in his father's store. From November 1887 onwards, G supplied meat for Dr. S's kitchen, coming in the evening to take the order and in the morning to bring the merchandise. In this way, Dr. S became more closely acquainted with G and gradually they became friends. When S became ill and was mostly sick in bed until the middle of May 1888, G paid him so much attention that S and his wife became very fond of him for his innocent, childlike, cheerful nature. Dr. S showed and explained to him his collections of antiquities, and the two of them spent their evenings together sociably, with Mrs. S also usually participating. In addition, S claims to have undertaken some attempts with G at making sausage and aspic, etc. At the end of February 1888, G fell ill with gonorrhea. Since Dr. S cherished him as a friend, loved caring for the sick, and had studied medicine for several semesters, he took on G's care, gave him a medication, etc. Since G was still sick in May and for various reasons it was desirable that he leave his parent's home, Dr. and Mrs. S took him into their own home to care for him further.
 

[1] See Tardieu, Attentats, p. 198. Martineau, Deutsche medizinische Zeitung, 1882, p. 9. Virchow's Jahrbuch, 1881, p. 533. Coutagne, Lyon médical, No. 35, 36.

 
 
 
 
 
 

- 421 -

S indignantly denies all of the suspicions flowing from this, and points to his honorable record, his good upbringing, and the circumstance that G was afflicted by a repulsive, infectious disease at the time, and that S himself was suffering from a painful disease (kidney stones with occasional colic).

In contrast to this innocent-sounding account by S, however, the following facts, confirmed by the court and evaluated in the first rendering of judgment, must be considered.

The relationship of S to G had given rise to comments both among private persons and in restaurants, due to its impropriety. G usually spent evenings in the family circle of S, and finally became a member of the household. The two of them took walks together. On one such walk, S once told G that he was a good-looking boy, and that he was fond of him. At the time they also talked about sexual debauchery, including pederasty. S claims to have brought up this topic only in order to warn G about it. With regard to the interaction in the house, it is a proven fact that, while sitting on the sofa, S sometimes took G by the neck and kissed him. This happened both in the presence of S's wife and of the maid. When G was sick from gonorrhea, S instructed him in the use of the injections and, in doing so, took his member into his hand. G states that when he asked S why he was so fond of him, he replied: "I do not know myself why." When G was absent for a few days, S complained about it with tears in his eyes when he returned. S also told him that his marriage was not a happy one, and, weeping, he asked G not to leave him, saying he had to provide him a substitute for his wife.

From all that, the prosecution concluded with justification that the relationship between the two defendants had a sexual direction. The fact that everything happened in the open, recognizable by everyone, does not speak for the innocence of the relationship, according to the prosecution, but rather for the level of passion of S. The blameless record of the defendant, his honorable behavior, and his gentle nature, are conceded. The unhappy marital relationship of S and the fact that he has a sensually-oriented nature are shown to be plausible.

G was examined by a forensic doctor repeatedly during the course of the investigation. He is of barely average height, pale facial coloring, and a strong build. His penis and testicles were very powerfully developed.

It was unanimously found that the anus had been morbidly altered by lack of wrinkles surrounding it, and relaxation of the sphincter, and that these alterations allowed the conclusion of likely passive pederasty.

Judgment was rendered based on these facts. It acknowledged that the relationship that existed between the defendants did not necessarily point to unnatural unchastity, and that the physical findings on the body of G did not supply such proof on their own.

However, from the conjunction of those two aspects, the court was convinced of the guilt of the two defendants and deemed it proven - "that the abnormal condition of the anus of G was brought about by the insertion into it of the member of defendant S over an extended period of time, and that G voluntarily submitted to it, tolerating the performance of these unchaste acts on his body."
 
 






- 422 -

With that, the constituent facts of Paragraph 175 of the National Penal Code seemed to be confirmed. In assessing the punishment, the educational level of S and the fact that he was apparently the seducer of G (as well as G's young age) were taken into account in G's favor, and finally the clean records of both were considered on their behalf, so that Dr. S was sentenced accordingly to 8 months in prison and G to 4 months.

The convicts filed appeals to the National Court in Leipzig and, in case of a rejection of their appeal for review, prepared themselves to obtain materials in order to initiate a reopening of the proceeding.

They submitted to an examination and observation by outstanding experts. The latter declared that, according to the findings on the anus of G, there were no indications of passive pederasty having taken place.

Since it appeared worthwhile to the parties to clarify the psychological side of the case, which the trial had not addressed, this author was hired to do an examination and observation of Dr. S and G.

Results of my personal investigation from December 11 to 13, 1888 in Graz.

Dr. S, 37 years old, married for 2 years, childless, former director of the city laboratory in H, offspring of father who is said to have been neurotic due to excessive work, to have suffered a stroke at 57, and to have died of a renewed apoplexy at 67. Mother living, described as a lively personality, but suffering from nerves for years. Her mother died at a rather advanced age, reportedly from a tumor in the cerebellum. A brother of the maternal grandfather is said to have been a drinker. The father's father died young of encephalomalacia.

Dr. S has 2 brothers who are in perfect health.

He himself declares that he was of a nervous temperament, and a strong constitution. After an acute joint rheumatism, that he went through at age 14, he claims to have suffered from great nervousness for several months. Thereafter, he often suffered from rheumatic complaints, as well as heart palpitations and shortness of breath. These complaints gradually disappeared with the use of sea bathing. Seven years ago, he contracted gonorrhea. This case of the clap became chronic and caused bladder problems over a long time.

In 1887, Dr. S suffered his first case of kidney stone colic. Such attacks were repeated several times in the winter of 1887-1888, until finally on May 16, 1888 a rather large kidney stone was passed. Since then his health has been fairly satisfactory. For as long as he was suffering from the stone, he claims to have felt a severe pain in the urethra during coitus at the moment of ejaculation, and the same when he urinated.

Regarding his curriculum vitae, S states that he attended university-preparatory high school until the age of 14, and from then on he studied at home due to his severe disease. After that, he worked in a drugstore for 4 years, then completed 6 semesters of medical studies at university, and served as a volunteer male nurse in the war of 1870 ...
 
 





- 423 -

Because he did not have a college-prep high school graduation certification, he gave up his medical studies, earned a Ph.D., then served in K doing mineral collection, and later in H as an assistant to the Mineralogical Institute, and then did a special study program in the area of the chemistry of foodstuffs, and took over the position of a director in the city laboratory 5 years ago.

The subject offers all of this information in a prompt and precise manner and does not reflect on his answers, so that one gets the impression more and more that one is dealing with a truth-loving and truth-telling human being, all the more so since his statements in examinations on the following days were absolutely identical. With regard to his sexual life, Dr. S states in a modest, decent, and open way that he began to understand the difference of the sexes at the age of 11, was devoted to masturbation for a period until age 14, and performed coitus for the first time at 18 and thereafter to a moderate degree. His sensual appetite has never been very great, the sexual act has been normal in every respect up to recent times, with a satisfactory feeling of lust and potency. Since his marriage, that he entered into 2 years ago, he says he has had coitus at least several times a week only with his wife, whom he married out of affection and still loves dearly.

Mrs. S, whom this expert was able to interview, confirmed these statements in their entirety.

In repeated examinations, Dr. S answered all cross-examination questions aimed at a perverse sexual feeling toward men in the negative, fully consistently, and without ever reflecting on his answers. Even when one attempted to trap him, by telling him that a finding of a perverse sexual feeling would be very beneficial for the purpose of the expert opinion, he held to his statements. One gains the valuable impression that S has not the slightest idea about the facts of the science of male-male love. Thus one hears that his wet dreams never included men, that only female nudes interested him, that he enjoyed dancing with ladies at balls, etc. No traces of any sexual inclination toward his own sex could be discovered in any way in S. Regarding the relationship with G, S expresses himself in exactly the way he stated in the investigation before the judge. He can explain his affection for G only by saying that he is a nervous human being, an emotional and affective person, and very susceptible to friendly treatment. During his illness, he felt lonely and moody; his wife was often at her parents' house and so it happened that he became friends with the good-natured, well-behaved G. He still felt a weakness for him, and felt noticeably calm and content in his company.

He had had such intimate friendships twice before, when he was still a student, with a corps brother, one Dr. A, whom he had also embraced and kissed; and later with a Baron M. If he was not able to see the latter for a few days, he was quite disconsolate to the point of crying.

He felt such emotional tenderness and devotion to animals as well...
 
 




- 424 -

Thus he had mourned a poodle, that died a while ago, like a family member, and often kissed the animal. (When mentioning these memories, the subject gets tears in his eyes.) These statements are confirmed by the subject's brother, with the comment that regarding the remarkable friendship of his brother with A and M, even the slightest suspicion of a sexual taint, to say nothing of a sexual relationship, seemed impossible. Even the most careful and thorough examination of Dr. S does not provide the slightest basis for such suppositions.

He claims not to have had the slightest sensual arousal toward G, either, to say nothing of an erection or sensual longing. The fondness toward G, bordering on jealousy, S simply explains based on his sentimental temperament and his exuberant friendship. G is still as close to him as if he were his son.

It is notable that S declares that when G told him about his gallant adventures with women, he was bothered only because G was running the risk of injuring himself with his debaucheries, and ruining his health. He never felt any personal annoyance at it. If today he knew of a good girl for G, he would be glad for him to be with her and would do what he could toward getting them married.

S claims to have understood only during the course of the court investigation that he was acting in an imprudent manner in his social interaction with G, by letting himself become a subject of popular gossip. He explains the publicness of this friendship by pointing to its innocence.

It is worth noting that Mrs. S never noticed anything suspicious in the interaction between her husband and G, while even the most simple-minded woman would notice something like that quite instinctively. Mrs. S also never objected to G being taken into the S house. She argues in this regard that the guest room, where G lay ill, is on the first floor and the family apartments on the third floor; and that S never spent time alone with G while he was in the house. She declares that she is convinced of the innocence of her husband and that she loves him as before.

Dr. S admits without reservation that earlier he often kissed G and spoke with him about sexual situations. G was very much after women, and out of friendship he warned him against sexual debaucheries, especially when G looked bad as a result of sexual debaucheries, as often happened.

He did once make the statement that G was a good-looking person, but in a very innocent context.

Kissing G happened out of exuberant friendship, when G had just shown him a special attention or done him a special favor. He had never experienced any sexual feeling in it. Even when he dreamed of G now and then, it was in a very innocent manner.

It appeared to the author to be of great value to acquire a judgment of the personality of G as well. Extensive use was made of the opportunity offered on December 12 of this year.

G is a rather delicately built young man, developed in accordance with his age - 20 years, and appearing neuropathic and sensual. His genitals are developed normally and powerfully...
 
 





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The author feels that he may bypass the examination of the anus, since he does not feel qualified to make a judgment about it. During lengthy interaction with G, one gets the impression of a harmless, good-natured, not underhanded person, who is frivolous, but by no means morally ruined. Nothing in his clothing or behavior points toward perverse sexual feeling. Not the slightest suspicion can arise in the sense of his being a male courtesan.

When brought to the heart of the matter, G says that he and S, with a feeling of their own innocence, had described things exactly as they were and that the entire trial had been played up out of that.

At the beginning, S's friendship, and especially the kissing, seemed unusual to him as well. Later he became convinced that it was only friendship and he no longer wondered about it.

G saw S as a fatherly friend and liked him, since he treated him so unselfishly.

The expression "good-looking boy" had been made when G had a love interest and expressed to S his fears about a happy outcome. S consoled him and said that he had a pleasant appearance and would certainly find a partner.

Once S complained to him, G, that his wife had a tendency to drink, and broke out in tears in making this disclosure. Then G was moved by his friend's unhappiness. On this occasion, S kissed him and asked him for his friendship and frequent visitation.

S never turned the conversation spontaneously to sexual matters. Once when G asked him what pederasty was, something G claims to have heard a lot about in England, S explained it to him.

G admits to being a sensually oriented person. At 12 years he was initiated into sexual life by the talk of the apprentices. He never masturbated, performed coitus for the first time at 18, and since then was a frequent visitor to the brothel. He never felt any inclination toward his own sex, and never felt any sexual arousal when S kissed him. He always performed coitus with enjoyment and in a very normal manner. His wet dreams were always accompanied by lascivious images involving women. He indignantly rejects the insinuation of his having indulged in passive pederasty, pointing to his descent from a healthy and upstanding family. Until the rumors to this effect came up, he had been innocent and clueless. He attempts to explain the anomalies found on his anus in the way one can see in the files. He denies any anal self-masturbation.

It should be noted that Mr. J. S. claims to have been no less astonished about the male-male love alleged of his brother than other persons close to his brother. However, he was not able to understand what bound his brother to G, or the fact that all of the statements made to Dr. S by his brother about the relationship with G were in vain.

The investigator made an effort to observe Dr. S and G inconspicuously at dinner in the company of S's brother and Mrs. S in Graz...
 
 






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This observation resulted in not the slightest finding in the sense of a forbidden friendship.

The overall impression that Dr. S made on me was of a nervous, sanguine, somewhat eccentric individual, and yet a good-natured, open-hearted, and above all emotional person.

Dr. S is physically strong, a bit corpulent with a slightly brachycephalic, symmetrical skull. The genitals are strongly developed, the penis somewhat bulgy, and the foreskin somewhat hypertrophic.

Opinion.

Pederasty is a type of sexual gratification that is unfortunately not rare in the modern existence of human beings, but is nonetheless one that among the peoples of Europe should be called unusual, perverse, even monstrous. It presumes an innate or acquired perversion of the sexual feeling, as well as a defect in the moral feelings that is either original or acquired by the effects of illness.

Forensic medical science knows the precise physical and psychological conditions on the basis of which this aberration in the sexual life occurs, and in the concrete and especially in the doubtful case it appears to be necessary to investigate whether these empirical, subjective conditions for pederasty are present.

In doing so, it is in turn necessary to distinguish between active and passive pederasty.

Active pederasty occurs:

I. as a non-morbid phenomenon:

1) As a means of sexual gratification in case of great sexual need and forced abstention from natural sexual enjoyment.

2) In the case of old lechers, who, being oversatiated in normal sexual enjoyment and having become more or less impotent, and in addition morally depraved, turn to pederasty in order to titillate their lust and to bolster their psychologically and somatically low potency by means of this new form of stimulation.

3) Traditionally among certain nations at a low level of culture with undeveloped civilization and morality.

II. as a morbid phenomenon:

1) On the basis of innate contrary-sexual feeling, with aversion toward sexual intercourse with the female, to the point of absolute incapacity for it. As Casper already realized, however, pederasty is very rare in this case. The so-called Uranian gratifies himself with the man by means of passive or mutual masturbation or acts resembling coitus (e.g. coitus between the legs) and arrives at pederasty only in rare exceptions out of sexual heat or out of a desire to please in the case of a low or fallen moral sense.

2) On the basis of acquired morbid sexual feeling.

a) Through many years of masturbation, that finally made the person impotent with women, while the vigorous sexual lust continued.
 
 




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b) Through severe psychological illness (senility, encephalomalacia in the insane, etc.), in which experience shows that an inversion of the sexual feeling can occur.

Passive pederasty occurs:

I. as a non-morbid phenomenon:

1) Among individuals from the dregs of society, who had the misfortune of being seduced as boys by lechers, whose pain and disgust was outweighed by money, who were morally ruined and had sunk so low by the time they grew up that they took on the role of male whores.

2) Under analogous situations as in I. 1) in exchange for permitted active pederasty.

II. as a morbid phenomenon:

1) Among persons afflicted with contrary-sexual feeling, as a reward to men for their signs of love, with the necessity of overcoming the pain and disgust.

2) Among Uranians who feel like women vis-à-vis men, out of an urge and lust. Among such women-men, there is a horror of the female and an absolute incapacity for sexual intercourse with the woman. Their character and inclinations are feminine.

This are the experiences gathered by forensic medicine and psychiatry. In the forum of medical science, proof that a man belongs in one of the above categories is required in order to make it plausible that he is a pederast.

One searches in vain in the prior life and appearance of Dr. S for signs that would allow him to be assigned to one of the scientifically established categories for active pederasty. He is neither the personality forced toward sexual abstinence, nor the one who has become impotent with women due to debaucheries, neither the one born as a lover of men, nor the one alienated from women by masturbation and driven by continued sexual lust toward the man, nor is he the personality that has become sexually perverse due to a severe mental illness.

He even lacks the general preconditions for pederasty - moral imbecility or moral depravity, on the one hand, and excessive sexual lust, on the other hand.

It is just as impossible to assign the accomplice G to one of the empirical categories of passive pederasty, because he possesses neither the characteristics of the male whore, nor the clinical symptoms of the effeminate, nor even the anthropological and clinical stigmata of the woman-man. He is the opposite of all that.

If one wanted to make a pederastic relationship between the two of them plausible in a medical-scientific sense, then Dr. S would have to show the properties and characteristics of the active pederast under I. 2) and G would have to show those of the passive under II. 1) or 2)!

From a forensic psychology standpoint, the assumption on which the verdict is based is untenable.

On the same grounds, one could consider anybody a pederast. It remains to be considered whether the statements given by Dr. S and G regarding their nonetheless unusual friendship are valid.
 
 








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Psychologically, it is not unparalleled that such an emotionally soft and eccentric man as S would enter into a transcendental friendship even without any sexual arousal.

It suffices to recall the intimate friendships in girls' boarding schools, the sacrificing friendship love between sentimental young people in general, the tenderness which a sensitive person sometimes shows even to a household pet - where no one would ever think of sodomy. Given the psychological peculiarity of S, an exuberant friendship toward the young G is very conceivable. The openness of this friendship much rather indicates innocence than any sensual passion.

The convicts were able to achieve a reopening of the proceeding. On March 7, 1890, the new hearing was held. It offered significantly exonerating facts for the accused with regard to the witness testimony.

The earlier moral way of life of S was generally acknowledged. The compassionate nurse, who cared for the sick G in the house of the S's, never found anything troublesome about the interaction between S and G. The earlier friends of S testified to his morality, his intimate friendship, and his habit of kissing them at hello and goodbye. The alterations found earlier in the anus of G were no longer found. One of the experts subpoenaed by the court conceded the possibility that they had occurred due to mere finger manipulation. Their diagnostic value was disputed in general by the expert subpoenaed by the defense.

The court found that the proof of the imputed crime had not been provided, and ruled for acquittal.
 

Amor lesbicus [Lesbian love].[1]

The legal significance [of Lesbian love] is very minor when it comes to sexual intercourse among adults. In practice, it can be an issue only in Austria. As an analogy to Uranism, this phenomenon has some value in clinical anthropology. The situation is the same as among men, mutatis mutandis. In terms of frequency, Lesbian love does not appear to fall short of Uranism. The great majority of female Uranians do not follow an innate drive, but rather they develop under analogous conditions as the cultivated Uranian.
 

[1] See Mayer, Friedreich's Blaetter 1875, p 41. - Krausold, Melancholie und Schuld 1884, p 20. - Andronico, Archivo di psichologia, scienze penali ed anthropologia criminale Vol III p 145.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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This "forbidden friendship" flourishes especially in women's penal institutions.

Krausold (op. cit.) reports: "The female prisoners often enter into such friendships, in which, however, it usually comes down to mutual masturbation, when that is possible.

However, not only temporary manual gratification is the purpose of such friendships. They are also entered into for a longer period, systematically, so to speak, and a horrendous jealousy and glow of love develops, such as can hardly occur more intensely among persons of different sex. If the girlfriend of an inmate is only smiled at by another, often the most vehement scenes of jealousy occur, including fistfights.

If, according to the house rules, the violent inmate is then handcuffed, then she says that she has 'had a baby' by her girlfriend."

We are also indebted to Parent-Duchatelet (De la prostitution 1857, Vol. I, p. 159) for interesting reports on cultivated Lesbian love.

Disgust for the most repulsive and perverse acts (coitus in the armpit, between the breasts, etc.) that men perform on prostitutes is supposed to drive these unfortunate creatures to Lesbian love, according to this experienced author. It is shown from his indications that it is usually prostitutes of great sensuality who arrive at this aberration, dissatisfied by interaction with impotent or perverse men and repulsed by their practices.

In addition, prostitutes who become conspicuous as tribads are usually persons who have spent many years as prison inmates and accustomed themselves to this aberration due to abstinence, in these incubators of Lesbian love.

It is interesting that prostitutes despise tribads, like men despise pederasts, while female inmates do not view this vice as revolting.

Parent cites the case of a prostitute who, while drunk, intended to commit an act of [sexual] violence against another. The other brothel girls became so indignant about this that they denounced the immoral woman to the police.

Similar experiences are reported by Taxil (op. cit., p. 166, 170).

Mantegazza (Anthropologische culturhistorische Studien, p. 97) also finds that sexual intercourse between women mainly happens in the form of a vice that develops based on unsatisfied hyperaesthesia sexualis.

In numerous such cases - quite distinct from innate contrary-sexual feeling - one gains the impression, however, that just as with men (see above) the cultivated vice gradually led to acquired contrary-sexual feeling, with an aversion to sexual interaction with the other sex.
 
 







- 430 -

This may be what is going on in the cases presented by Parent, in which the letters sent to and from the beloved were just as enthusiastic and exuberant as between lovers of different sex, and infidelity and separation drove the abandoned partner out of her mind, while jealousy was limitless and led to bloody revenge. The following cases of Lesbian love presented by Mantegazza on p. 98 are decidedly morbid, and may represent cases of innate contrary-sexual feeling:

1) On July 5, 1777, in London, a woman was brought before the court who, while disguised as a man, had gotten married three times to different women. She was recognized as a woman before the whole world and sentenced to 6 months in jail.

2) In 1773 another woman disguised as a man courted a girl and asked for her hand, but the daring venture did not succeed.

3) Two women lived for 30 years as man and wife. Only on her deathbed did the "wife" reveal the secret to those standing by.

More recent noteworthy reports are provided by Coffignon (op. cit., p. 301).

He reports that this aberration has recently been very much "in fashion" - partly due to novels on the subject, partly due to arousal of the genitals as a result of excessive work at sewing machines, sharing of beds by female servants, seduction in boarding schools by depraved pupils, or seduction of daughters in private homes by perverse maids!

The author asserts that this vice ("Sapphism") has been primarily encountered among the ladies of the aristocracy and among prostitutes.

He does not distinguish between physiological and pathological cases, or between acquired and innate cases among the latter. A few details concerning decidedly pathological cases correspond entirely to the experiences known with regard to contrary-sexual men.

Sapphists have their places of rendezvous in Paris, and recognize one another by a glance, facial expressions, etc. Sapphist couples love to dress entirely alike, wear the same jewelry, etc. Then they are called "petites soeurs" [little sisters].