Читать книгу Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct - R. von Krafft-Ebing - Страница 18
Оглавление1. Sexual Inclination toward Persons of the Opposite Sex, with Perverse Activity of the Instinct.
1. Association of Active Cruelty and Violence with Lust—Sadism.[40]—That lust and cruelty frequently occur together is a fact that has long been recognized and not infrequently observed. Writers of all kinds have called attention to this phenomenon.[41] The not infrequent cases where individuals of very excitable sexual natures bite or scratch the companion in intercourse fall within physiological limits.[42] The older authors have called attention to the relation between lust and cruelty.
Blumröder (“Ueber Irresein,” Leipzig, 1836, p. 51) saw a man who had several wounds bitten into the pectoral muscle, which a woman, in great sexual excitement, had given him at the acme of lustful feeling during coitus. Blumröder (“Ueber Lust und Schmerz,” Friedreich’s Magazin für Seelenkunde, 1830, ii, 5) calls especial attention to the psychological connection between lust and murder. In relation to this, he especially refers to the Indian myths of Siva and Durga (Death and Lust); to human sacrifice with sensual mysteries; and to sexual instinct at puberty with a lustful impulse to suicide, with whipping, pinching, and pricking of the genitals, in the blind impulse to satisfy sexual desire. Lombroso (“Verzeni e Agnoletti,” Rome, 1874) also cites numerous examples of the occurrence of a desire to murder with greatly increased lust.
On the other hand, when murderous lust has been excited, lust itself often follows. Lombroso (op. cit.) alludes to the fact, mentioned by Mantegazza, that, with fear of being plundered by bandits, there was always a dread of brutal lust.[43] These examples form transitions to the pronounced pathological cases.
The examples of the degenerate Cæsars (Nero, Tiberius) are also instructive. They took delight in having youths and maidens slaughtered before their eyes. Not less so is the history of that monster, Marschalls Gilles de Rays (Jacob, “Curiosités de l’histoire de France,” Paris, 1858), who was executed in 1440, on account of mutilation and murder, which he had practiced for eight years on more than eight hundred children. As the monster confessed it, it was from reading Suetonius and the descriptions of the orgies of Tiberius, Caracalla, etc., that the idea was gained of locking children in his castles, torturing them, and then killing them. This inhuman wretch confessed that in the commission of these acts he enjoyed inexpressible pleasure. He had two assistants. The bodies of the unfortunate children were burned, and only a number of heads of particularly beautiful children were preserved—as memorials.
In an attempt to explain the association of lust and cruelty, it is necessary to return to a consideration of the quasi-physiological cases, in which, at the moment of most intense lust, very excitable individuals, who are otherwise normal, commit such acts as biting and scratching, which are usually the result of anger. It must further be remembered that love and anger are not only the most intense emotions, but also the only two forms of active (sthenic) emotion. Both seek their object, try to possess themselves of it, and naturally exhaust themselves in a physical effect on it; both throw the psycho-motor sphere into the most intense excitement, and thus, by means of this excitation, reach their normal expression.
From this stand-point it is clear how lust impels to acts that otherwise are expressive of anger.[44] The one, like the other, is a state of exaltation, an intense excitation of the whole psycho-motor sphere. Thus there arises an impulse to react on the object that induces the stimulus, in every possible way, and with the greatest intensity. Just as maniacal exaltation easily passes to furibund destructiveness, exaltation of the sexual emotion often induces an impulse to expend itself in senseless and apparently harmful acts. To a certain extent these are psychical accompaniments; but it is not simply an unconscious excitation of innervation of muscles (which also sometimes occurs as blind violence); it is a true hyperbulia, a desire to exert the most intense effect on the individual giving rise to the stimulus. The most intense means, however, is the infliction of pain.
Through such cases of infliction of pain, during the most intense emotion of lust, we approach the cases in which a real injury, wound, or death, is inflicted on the victim.[45] In these cases, the impulse to cruelty, which may accompany the emotion of lust, becomes unbounded in a psychopathic individual; and, at the same time, owing to defect of moral feeling, all normal inhibitory ideas are absent or weakened. Such monstrous, sadistic acts have, however, in men, in whom they are much more frequent than in women, another source in physiological conditions. In the intercourse of the sexes, the active or aggressive rôle belongs to man; woman remains passive, defensive.[46] It affords a man great pleasure to win a woman, to conquer her; and in the ars amandi, the modesty of a woman who keeps herself on the defensive until the moment of surrender, is an element of great psychological significance and importance. Under normal conditions a man meets obstacles which it is his part to overcome, and for which nature has given him an aggressive character. This aggressive character, however, under pathological conditions, may likewise be excessively developed, and express itself in an impulse to subdue absolutely the object of desire, even to destroy or kill it.[47][48]
If both these constituent elements occur together,—the abnormally intensified impulse to a violent reaction toward the object of the stimulus, and the abnormally intensified desire to conquer the woman,—then the most violent outbreaks of sadism occur.
Sadism is thus nothing else than an excessive and monstrous pathological intensification of phenomena,—possible, too, in normal conditions in rudimental forms,—which accompany the psychical vita sexualis, particularly in males. It is, of course, not at all necessary, and not even the rule, that the sadistic individual should be conscious of his instinct. What he feels is, as a rule, only the impulse to cruel and violent treatment of the opposite sex, and the coloring of the idea of such acts with lustful feelings. Thus arises a powerful impulse to commit the imagined deeds. When the actual motive of this instinct is not comprehended by the individual, the sadistic acts have the character of impulsive deeds.
When the association of lust and cruelty is present, not only does the lustful emotion awaken the impulse to cruelty, but vice versâ; cruel ideas and acts cause sexual excitement, and in this way are used by perverse individuals.[49]
A differentiation of original and acquired cases of sadism is scarcely possible. Many individuals, tainted ab origine, for a long time do everything to conquer the perverse instinct. If they are potent, at first they are able to lead a normal vita sexualis, often with the assistance of subjective ideas of a perverse nature. Later, after the opposing motives of an ethical and æsthetic kind have been gradually overcome, and after the constantly repeated experience that the natural act does not bring complete satisfaction, the abnormal instinct bursts forth. Owing to this late expression, in acts, of an originally perverse disposition, the appearances are those of an acquired perversion. As a rule, it may be safely assumed that this psychopathic state exists ab origine.
Sadistic acts vary in monstrousness with variation in the power of the perverse instinct over the individual afflicted, and with variation in the strength of opposing ideas that may be present, which almost always are more or less weakened by original ethical defect, hereditary degeneracy, or moral insanity. Thus there arises a long series of forms which begins with capital crime and ends with silly acts which afford the perverse desires of the sadistic individual merely symbolic satisfaction.
Sadistic acts may be further differentiated with reference to their nature: either as they are indulged in after consummated coitus by which the libido nimia remains unsatisfied; or, with diminished virility, as they are used to stimulate the diminished power; or, finally, where virility is absolutely wanting, as they become an equivalent for the impossible coitus, for the induction of ejaculation. In the last two cases, notwithstanding the impotence, there is still intense libido; or there was, at least, intense libido in the individual at the time when the sadistic acts became habitual. Sexual hyperæsthesia is always to be regarded as the basis of sadistic inclinations. The impotence which occurs so frequently in the psychopathic and neuropathic individuals here considered, as a result of excesses indulged in from early youth, is usually dependent upon spinal weakness. Often, too, there is a kind of psychical impotence, induced by concentration of thought on the perverse act with simultaneous fading of the idea of normal satisfaction. No matter what the external form of the act may be, the mentally perverse predisposition and instinct of the individual are essential to an understanding of it.
(a) Lust-Murder[50] (Lust Potentiated as Cruelty, Murderous Lust Extending to Anthropophagy).—The most horrible example, and one which most pointedly shows the connection between lust and a desire to kill, is the case of Andreas Bichel, which Feuerbach published in his “aktenmässige Darstellung merkwürdiger Verbrechen.”
B. puellas stupratas necavit et dissecuit. With reference to one of his victims, at his examination he expressed himself as follows: “I opened her breast and with a knife cut through the fleshy parts of the body. Then I arranged the body as a butcher does a beef, and hacked it with an axe into pieces of a size to fit the hole which I had prepared up in the mountain for burying it. I may say that while opening the body I was so greedy that I trembled, and could have cut out a piece and eaten it.”
Lombroso, too (“Geschlechtstrieb und Verbrechen in ihren gegenseitigen Beziehungen.” Goltdammer’s Archiv, Bd. xxx), mentions cases falling in the same category. A certain Phillipe indulged in choking prostitutes, post-actum, and said: “I am fond of women, but it is sport for me to choke them after having enjoyed them.”
A certain Grassi (Lombroso, op. cit., p. 12) was one night seized with sexual desire for a relative. Irritated by her remonstrance, he stabbed her several times in the abdomen with a knife, and also stabbed her father and uncle who attempted to hold him back. Immediately thereafter he hastened to visit a prostitute in order to cool his sexual passion in her arms. But this was not sufficient. He then murdered his father and slaughtered several oxen in the stable.
It cannot be doubted, from what has gone before, that a great number of so-called lust-murders depend upon a combination of hyperæsthesia and paræsthesia sexualis. As a result of this perverse coloring of the feelings, further acts of bestiality with the body may result,—e.g., cutting it up and wallowing in the intestines. The case of Bichel points to this possibility.
A modern example is that of Menesclou (Annales d’hygiène publique), who was examined by Lasègue, Brouardel, and Motet, declared to be mentally sound, and executed.
Case 17. A four-year-old girl was missing from her parents’ home, April 15, 1880. On April 16th, Menesclou, one of the occupants of the house, was arrested. The forearm of the child was found in his pocket, and the head and entrails, in a half-burned condition, were taken from the stove. Parts of the body were found in the water-closet. The genitals could not be found. M., when asked their whereabouts, became embarrassed. The circumstances, as well as an obscene poem found on his person, left no doubt that he had violated the child and then murdered her. M. expressed no remorse, asserting that his deed was an accident. His intelligence is limited. He presents no anatomical signs of degeneration; is somewhat deaf, and scrofulous.
M., aged 20; convulsions at the age of nine months. Later, he suffered from poor sleep (enuresis nocturna); was nervous, and developed tardily and imperfectly. From the time of puberty he was irritable, showed evil inclinations; was lazy; could not be taught, and in all trades proved, to be of no use. He grew no better even in the House of Correction. He was made a marine, but there, too, he proved useless. When he returned home he stole from his parents, and spent his time in bad company. He did not run after women, but gave himself up passionately to masturbation, and occasionally indulged in sodomy with bitches. His mother suffered with mania menstrualis periodica. An uncle was insane, and another an inebriate. The examination of M.’s brain showed morbid changes of the frontal lobes, of the first and second temporal convolutions, and of a part of the occipital convolutions.
Case 18. Alton, a clerk in England, goes out of town for a walk. He lures a child into a thicket, and returns after a time to his office, where he makes this entry in his note-book: “Killed to-day a young girl; it was fine and hot.” The child was missed, searched for, and found cut into pieces. Many parts, and among them the genitals, could not be found. A. did not show the slightest trace of emotion, and gave no explanation of the motive or circumstances of his horrible deed. He was a psychopathic individual, and occasionally subject to states of depression with tædium vitæ. His father had had one attack of acute mania. A near relative suffered from mania with homicidal impulses. A. was executed.
In such cases it may even happen that appetite for the flesh of the murdered victim arises, and, in consequence of this perverse coloring of the idea, parts of the body may be eaten.
Case 19. Leger, vine-dresser, aged 24. From youth moody, silent, shy of people. He starts out in search of a situation. He wanders about eight days in the forest, there catches a girl twelve years old, violates her, mutilates her genitals, tears out her heart, eats of it, drinks the blood, and buries the remains. Arrested, at first he lied, but finally confessed his crime with cynical cold-bloodedness. He listened to his sentence of death with indifference, and was executed. At the post-mortem examination, Esquirol found morbid adhesions between the cerebral membranes and the brain (Gorget, “Darstellung der Prozesse Leger, Feldtmann,” etc., Darmstadt, 1827).
Case 20. Tirsch, hospital beneficiary of Prag, aged 55, always silent, peculiar, coarse, very irritable, grumbling, revengeful, was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment, on account of violating a girl ten years old. He had attracted attention on account of outbursts of anger from insignificant causes, and also on account of tædium vitæ. In 1864, on account of the refusal of an offer of marriage which he made to a widow, he developed a hatred toward women, and on July 8th he went about with the intention of killing one of this hated sex. Vetulam occurentem in silvam allexit, coitum poposcit, renitentem prostravit, jugulum feminæ compressit “furore captus.” Cadaver virga betulæ desecta verberare voluit neque tamen id perfecit, quia conscientia sua hæc fieri vetuit, cultello mammae et genitalia desecta domi cocta proximis diebus cum globis comedit. On September 12th, when he was arrested, the remains of this meal were found. He gave as the motive of this act “inner impulse.” He himself wished to be executed because he had always been persecuted. In confinement there were great emotional irritability and occasional outbursts of fury, preceded by refusal of food, which made isolation, lasting several days, necessary. It was authoritatively established that the most of his earlier excesses were coincident with outbreaks of excitement and fury (Maschka, Prager Vierteljahrsschrift, 1866, i, p. 79).
The Whitechapel murderer, who still eludes the vigilance of the police, probably belongs in this category of psycho-sexual monsters.[51] The constant absence of uterus, ovaries, and labia, in the victims (ten) of this modern Bluebeard, allows the presumption that he seeks and finds still further satisfaction in anthropophagy.
In other cases of lust-murder, for physical and mental reasons (vide supra), violation is omitted, and the sadistic crime alone becomes the equivalent of coitus. The prototype of such cases is the following one of Verzeni. The life of his victim hung on the rapid or retarded occurrence of ejaculation. Since this remarkable case presents all the peculiarities which modern science knows concerning the relation of lust to lust-murder with anthropophagy, and especially since it was carefully studied, it receives detailed description here:—
Case 21. Vincenz Verzeni, born in 1849; since January 11, 1872, in prison; is accused (1) of an attempt to strangle his nurse Marianne, four years ago, while she lay sick in bed; (2) of a similar attempt on a married woman, Arsuffi, aged 27; (3) of an attempt to strangle a married woman, Gala, by grasping her throat while kneeling on her body; (4) on suspicion of the following murders:—
In December a fourteen-year-old girl, Johanna Motta, set out for a neighboring village between seven and eight o’clock in the morning. Since she did not return, her master set out to find her, and discovered her body near the village, lying by a path in the fields. The corpse was frightfully mutilated with numerous wounds. The intestines and genitals had been torn from the opened body, and were found near by. The nakedness of the body and erosions on the thighs made it seem probable that there had been an attempt at rape; the mouth filled with earth pointed to suffocation. In the neighborhood of the body, under a pile of straw, were found a portion of flesh torn from the right calf, and pieces of clothing. The perpetrator of the deed remained undiscovered.
On August 28, 1871, a married woman, Frigeni, aged 28, set out in the fields early in the morning. Since she did not return by eight o’clock, her husband started out to fetch her. He found her a corpse, lying naked in the field, with the mark of a thong around her neck, with which she had been strangled, and with numerous wounds. The abdomen had been slit open, and the intestines were hanging out.
On August 29, at noon, as Maria Previtali, aged 19, went through a field, she was followed by her cousin, Verzeni. He dragged her into a field of grain, threw her to the ground, and began to choke her. As he let go of her for a moment to ascertain whether there were any one near, the girl got up and, by her supplicating entreaty, induced Verzeni to let her go, after he had pressed her hands together for some time.
Verzeni was brought before a court. He is twenty-two years old. His cranium is of more than average size, but asymmetrical. The right frontal bone is narrower and lower than the left, the right frontal prominence being less developed, and the right ear smaller than the left (by 1 centimetre in length and 3 centimetres in breadth); both ears are defective in the inferior half of the helix; the right temporal artery is somewhat atheromatous. Bull-necked; enormous development of the zygomæ and inferior maxilla; penis greatly developed, frænum wanting; slight divergent alternating strabismus (insufficiency of the internal rectus muscle, and myopia). Lombroso concludes, from these signs of degeneration, that there is a congenital arrest of development of the right frontal lobe. As seemed probable, Verzeni has a bad ancestry,—two uncles are cretins; a third, microcephalic, beardless, one testicle wanting, the other atrophic. The father shows traces of pellagrous degeneration, and had an attack of hypochondria pellagrosa. A cousin suffered from cerebral hyperæmia; another is a confirmed thief.
Verzeni’s family is bigoted and low-minded. He himself has ordinary intelligence; knows how to defend himself well; seeks to prove an alibi and cast suspicion on others. There is nothing in his past that points to mental disease, but his character is peculiar. He is silent and inclined to be solitary. In prison he is cynical. He masturbates, and makes every effort to gain sight of women.
Verzeni finally confessed his deeds and their motive. The commission of them gave him an indescribably pleasant (lustful) feeling, which was accompanied by erection and ejaculation. As soon as he had grasped his victim by the neck, sexual sensations were experienced. It was entirely the same to him, with reference to these sensations, whether the women were old, young, ugly, or beautiful. Usually, simply choking them had satisfied him, and he then had allowed his victims to live; in the two cases mentioned, the sexual satisfaction was delayed, and he had continued to choke them until they died. His satisfaction in this garroting was greater than in masturbation. The abrasions of the skin on Motta’s thighs were produced by his teeth, while sucking her blood in most intense lustful pleasure. He had torn out a piece of flesh from her calf and taken it with him to roast at home; but on the way he hid it under the straw-stack, for fear his mother would suspect him. He also carried pieces of the clothing and intestines some distance, because it gave him great pleasure to smell and touch them. The strength which he possessed in these moments of intense lustful pleasure, was enormous. He had never been a fool; while committing his deeds he saw nothing around him (apparently as a result of intense sexual excitement, annihilation of apperception—instinctive action). After such acts he was always very happy, enjoying a feeling of great satisfaction. He had never had pangs of conscience. It had never occurred to him to touch the genitals of the martyred women, or to violate his victims. It had satisfied him to throttle them and suck their blood. These statements of this modern vampire seem to rest on truth. Normal sexual impulses seem to have remained foreign to him. Two sweethearts that he had, he was satisfied to look at; it was very strange to him that he had no inclinations to strangle them or press their hands; but he had not had the same pleasure with them as with his victims. There was no trace of moral sense,—remorse and the like.
Verzeni said himself that it would be a good thing if he were to be kept in prison, because with freedom he could not resist his impulses. Verzeni was sentenced to imprisonment for life (Lombroso, “Verzeni e Agnoletti,” Rome, 1873). The confessions which Verzeni made after, his sentence, are interesting:—
“I had an unspeakable delight in strangling women, experiencing during the act erections and real sexual pleasure. It was even a pleasure only to smell female clothing. The feeling of pleasure while strangling them was much greater than that which I experienced while masturbating. I took great delight in drinking Motta’s blood. It also gave me the greatest pleasure to pull the hair-pins out of the hair of my victims.
“I took the clothing and intestines, because of the pleasure it gave me to smell and touch them. At last my mother came to suspect me, because she noticed spots of semen on my shirt after each murder or attempt at one. I am not crazy, but in the moment of strangling my victims I saw nothing else. After the commission of the deeds I was satisfied and felt well. It never occurred to me to touch or look at the genitals or such things. It satisfied me to seize the women by the neck and suck their blood. To this very day I am ignorant of how a woman is formed. During the strangling and after it, I pressed myself on the entire body without thinking of one part more than another.”
Verzeni arrived at his perverse acts entirely independently, after having noticed, when he was twelve years old, that he experienced a peculiar feeling of pleasure while wringing the necks of chickens. After this he had often killed great numbers of them, and then said that a weasel had been in the hen-coop (Lombroso, Goltdammer’s Archiv, Bd. xxx, p. 13).
Lombroso mentions an analogous case (Goldtdammer’s Archiv) which occurred in Vittoria (Spain):—
Case 22. A certain Gruyo, aged 41, with a blameless past life, having been three times married, strangled six women in the course of ten years. They were almost all public prostitutes and quite old. After the strangling he tore out their intestines and kidneys per vaginam. Some of his victims he violated before killing, others, on account of the occurrence of impotence, he did not. He set about his horrible deeds with such care that he remained undetected for ten years.
(b) Mutilation of Corpses.—Following the preceding horrible group of perversions of the sexual instinct, which arise from hyperæsthesia and paræsthesia sexualis with retained virility, come naturally the necrophiles; for in these cases, just as with lustful murderers and analogous cases, an idea which in itself awakens a feeling of horror, and before which a healthy person would shudder, is accompanied by lustful feelings, and thus leads to the impulse to indulge in acts of necrophilia.
The cases of mutilation of bodies mentioned in literature seem to be pathological; but, with the exception of the celebrated one of Sergeant Bertrand (v. infra), they come far from being described and observed with exactness. In certain cases there may be nothing more than the possibility that unbridled desire sees in the idea of death no obstacle to its satisfaction. The seventh case mentioned by Moreau is perhaps such a one:—
A man, aged 23, attempted to rape a woman, aged 53. Struggling, he killed her and then violated her, threw her in the water, and fished her out again for renewed violation. The murderer was executed. The meninges of the anterior lobes were thickened and adherent to the cortex.
French writers have recorded numerous examples of necrophilia. Two cases concerned monks, where they were performing the watch for the dead. In a third case the subject was an idiot, who also suffered from periodical mania, and after commission of rape was sent to an insane asylum, and there mutilated female bodies in the mortuary.
In other cases, however, there is undoubtedly direct preference of a corpse to the living woman. When no other act of cruelty—cutting into pieces, etc.—is practiced on the cadaver, it is probable that the lifeless condition itself forms the stimulus for the perverse individual. It is possible that the corpse—a human form absolutely without will—satisfies an abnormal desire, in that the object of desire is seen to be capable of absolute subjugation, without possibility of resistance.
Brierre de Boismont (Gazette médicale, July 21, 1859) relates the history of a corpse-violator who, after bribing the watchman, had gained entrance to the corpse of a girl of sixteen, who belonged to a family of high social position. At night a noise was heard in the death-chamber, as if a piece of furniture had fallen over. The mother of the dead girl effected an entrance, and saw a man dressed in his night-shirt springing from the bed where the body lay. It was at first thought that the man was a thief, but the real explanation was soon discovered. It was afterward ascertained that the culprit, a man of good family, had often violated the bodies of young women. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
The story of a prelate, reported by Taxil (“La prostitution contemporaine,” p. 171), is of great interest as an example of necrophilia. From time to time he would visit houses of prostitution in Paris and order a prostitute, dressed in white like a corpse, to be laid out on a bed. At the appointed hour he would appear in the room, which, in the meantime, had been elaborately prepared as a room of mourning; then he would act as if reading a mass for the soul, and finally throw himself on the girl, who, during the whole time, was compelled to play the rôle of a corpse.[52]
The cases in which the perpetrator injures and cuts up the corpse are clearer. Such cases come next to those of lust-murder, in that, in these individuals, cruelty, or at least an impulse to attack the female body, is connected with lust. It is possible that a remnant of moral sense deters from the cruel act on a living woman, and possibly the fancy passes beyond lust-murder and rests on its result, the corpse. Here, also, it is possible that the idea of defenselessness of the body plays a rôle.
Case 23. Sergeant Bertrand, a man of delicate physical constitution and of peculiar character; from childhood silent and inclined to solitude.
The details of the health of his family are not satisfactorily known; but the occurrence of mental diseases in his ancestry is ascertained. It is said that while he was a child he was affected with destructive impulses, which he himself could not explain. He would break whatever was at hand. In early childhood, without teaching, he learned to masturbate. At nine he began to feel inclinations toward persons of the opposite sex. At thirteen the impulse to sexual intercourse became powerfully awakened in him. He now masturbated excessively. When he did this his fancy always created a room filled with women. He would imagine that he carried out the sexual act with them, and then killed them. Immediately thereafter he would think of them as corpses, and of how he defiled them. Occasionally, in such situations, the thought of carrying out a similar act with male corpses would come up, but it was always attended with a feeling of disgust.
In time he felt the impulse to carry out such acts with actual corpses. For want of human bodies, he obtained those of animals. He would cut open the abdomen, tear out the entrails, and masturbate during the act. He declares that in this way he experienced inexpressible pleasure. In 1846 these bodies no longer satisfied him. He now killed dogs, and proceeded with them as before. Toward the end of 1846 he first felt the desire to make use of human bodies. At first he had a horror of it. In 1847, being by accident in a grave-yard, he ran across the grave of a newly-buried corpse. Then this impulse, with headache and palpitation of the heart, became so powerful that, although there were people near by, and he was in danger of detection, he dug up the body. In the absence of a convenient instrument for cutting it up, he satisfied himself by hacking it with a shovel.
In 1847 and 1848, during two weeks, as reported, the impulse, accompanied by violent headache, to commit brutalities on corpses, actuated him. Amidst the greatest dangers and difficulties, he satisfied this impulse some fifteen times. He dug up the bodies with his hands, in nowise sensible, in his excitement, to the injuries he thus inflicted on himself. When he had obtained the body, he cut it up with a sword or pocket-knife, tore out the entrails, and then masturbated. The sex of the bodies is said to have been a matter of indifference to him, though it was ascertained that this modern vampire had dug up more female than male corpses. During these acts he declares himself to have been in an indescribable state of sexual excitement. After having cut them up, he had sometimes reinterred the bodies.
In July, 1848, he accidentally came across the body of a girl of sixteen. Then, for the first time, he experienced a desire to carry out coitus on a cadaver. “I covered it with kisses and pressed it wildly to my heart. All that one could enjoy with a living woman is nothing in comparison with the pleasure I experienced. After I had enjoyed it for about a quarter of an hour, I cut the body up, as usual, and tore out the entrails. Then I buried the cadaver again.” Only after this, as B. declares, had he felt the impulse to use the bodies sexually before cutting them up, and thereafter he had done it in three instances. The actual motive of the exhuming of the bodies, however, was then, as before, to cut them up; and the enjoyment in so doing was greater than in using the bodies sexually. The latter act had always been nothing more than an episode of the principal one, and had never quieted his desires; therefore, he had always cut up the body afterward or mutilated another body. The medico-legal examiners gave an opinion of “monomania.” Court-martial sentence to one year’s imprisonment. (Michéa, Union méd., 1849; Lunier, Annal. méd.-psychol., 1849, p. 153; Tardieu, “Attentats aux moeurs,” 1878, p. 114; Legrand, “La folie devant les tribun.,” p. 524.)
(c) Injury of Women (Stabbing, Flagellation, etc.).—Following lust-murder and violation of corpses, come cases closely allied to the former, in which injury of the victim of lust and sight of the victim’s blood are a delight and pleasure for degenerate men. The notorious Marquis de Sade,[53] after whom the combination of lust and cruelty has been named, was such a monster. Coitus only excited him when he could prick the object of his desire until the blood came. His greatest pleasure was to injure prostitutes and then bind their wounds.
Here also belongs the case of a captain mentioned by Brierre de Boismont, who always compelled the object of his affection to place leeches ad pudenda before coitus, which was very frequent. Finally this woman became very anæmic and, as a result of this, insane.
The following case, borrowed from my own clientele, very clearly shows the connection between lust and cruelty, with desire to shed and see blood:—
Case 24. Mr. X., aged 25; father syphilitic, died of paretic dementia; mother hysterical and neurasthenic. He is a weak individual, constitutionally neuropathic, and presents several anatomical signs of degeneration. When a child, hypochondria and imperative conceptions; later, constant alternation of exaltation and depression. While yet a child of ten, the patient felt a peculiar lustful desire to see blood flow from his fingers. Thereafter he often cut or pricked himself in the fingers, and took great delight in it. Very early, erections were added to this, and also if he saw the blood of others; for example, when he saw a servant-girl cut her finger it gave him an intense lustful feeling. From this time his vita sexualis became more and more powerful. Without any teaching he began to masturbate, and always during the act there were memory-pictures of bleeding girls. It now no longer sufficed him to see his own blood flow; he longed to see the blood of young females, especially those that were attractive to him. Often he could scarcely overcome the impulse to injure two cousins and a certain servant. But also young women that were in themselves not attractive induced this impulse when they excited him by some peculiarity of dress or adornment, especially coral jewelry. It was necessary for him to overcome these desires; but in his imagination bloody thoughts were constantly present, and induced lustful excitement. There was an inner relation existing between both thoughts and feelings. Often there were other cruel fancies. He imagined himself in the rôle of a tyrant who had the people shot in crowds with grape-shot. He was compelled to fancy a scene as it would be if enemies were to take a city and mutilate, torture, kill, and rape the young women. In times of quiet this patient, who had a mild disposition and was not morally defective, was shamed and horrified by such cruel, lustful fancies, and they always became immediately latent as soon as his sexual excitement had been satisfied by masturbation.
After a few years the patient became neurasthenic. Then simple imaginary representation of blood and scenes of blood was sufficient to induce ejaculation. In order to free himself from his vice and his cruel imagination, he began to indulge in sexual intercourse with females. Coitus was possible, but only when the patient called up the idea that the girl’s fingers were bleeding. Without the assistance of this idea no erection was possible. The cruel thought of cutting was limited to the woman’s hand. At times of greatest sexual excitement, simply the sight of the hand of an attractive woman was sufficient to induce violent erections. Frightened by the popular stories about the injurious results of onanism, he abstained and fell into a condition of severe general neurasthenia, with hypochondriacal dysthymia and tædium vitæ. Careful and watchful medical treatment cured the patient after a few months. He has remained mentally well three years; but now, as before, he is very sensual, though it is very seldom that he is troubled by his earlier bloody ideas. X. has given up masturbation entirely. He finds satisfaction in natural sexual indulgence, is virile, and it is no longer necessary for him to call up ideas of blood.
The following case, reported by Tarnowsky (op. cit., p. 61), shows that such lustful, cruel impulses may be simply episodical, and occur in certain exceptional states of mind in neurotic individuals:—
Case 25. Z., physician; neuropathic constitution, reacting badly to alcohol. Under ordinary circumstances capable of normal coitus, as soon as he has indulged in wine he finds that his increased libido is no longer satisfied by simple coitus. In this condition he is compelled to prick the nates puellæ or to make stabs with the lancet, to see blood, and feel the entrance of the blade into the living body, in order to have ejaculation and experience complete satiety of his lust.
The majority of those afflicted with this form of the perversion seem insensible to the normal stimulus of woman. In the first case (24), the assistance of the idea of blood was necessary in order to obtain erection. The following case is that of a man who, by masturbation, etc., in early youth, had diminished his power of erection so that the sadistic act took the place of coitus:
Case 26. The girl-stabber of Bozen (reported by Demme, “Buch der Verbrechen,” Bd. ii, p. 341). In 1829, H., aged 30, soldier, became the subject of legal investigation. At different times and in different places, he had wounded girls with bread-knives or pocket-knives, by stabbing them in the abdomen, probably in the region of the genitals. He gave, as a motive for these acts, heightened sexual impulse, increasing to the intensity of fury, which found satisfaction only in the thought and act of stabbing persons of the female sex. This impulse would pursue him for days at a time. He would then pass into a confused mental state, which would clear away only when the impulse had been satisfied by the deed. In the act of stabbing he had a satisfaction like that of completed coitus, which was increased by the sight of the blood that ran from the knife. In his tenth year the sexual instinct became powerfully manifest. At first he gave himself up to masturbation, and felt physically and mentally weakened by it. Before he became a girl-stabber he had satisfied his sexual lust in violation of immature girls, by causing them to practice masturbation on him, and by sodomy. Gradually the thought came to him of how pleasurable it would be to stab a young and pretty girl in the region of the genitals, and take delight in the sight of the blood running from the knife.
Among his effects were found copies of objects of art and obscene pictures, painted by himself, of Mary’s conception, and of the “congealed thought of God” in the lap of the Virgin. He was considered a peculiar, very irritable man, shy of people, given to women, moody, and glum. He was apparently a person[54] that had become impotent through earlier sexual excesses, and who was thus predisposed, by the continuance of intense libido sexualis, and heredity, to perversion of the sexual life.
Case 27. In the “sixties” the inhabitants of Leipzig were frightened by a man who was accustomed to attack young girls on the street and stab them in the upper-arm with a dagger. Finally arrested, he was recognized as a sadist, who, at the instant of stabbing, had an ejaculation, and with whom the wounding of the girls was an equivalent for coitus. (Wharton, “A Treatise on Mental Unsoundness,” § 623. Philadelphia, 1873.)[55]
Impotence exists, likewise, in the next three cases. It may be psychical, however, in that the principal tone of the vita sexualis lies in the sadistic inclination, and the normal elements are distorted:—
Case 28. The girl-cutter of Augsburg (reported by Demme, “Buch der Verbrechen,” vii, p. 281). Bartle, wine-merchant. He was subject to lively sexual excitement at the age of fourteen, though decidedly opposed to its satisfaction by coitus, his aversion going so far as disgust for the female sex. At that time he already had the idea to cut girls, and thus satisfy his sexual desire. He refrained from it, however, on account of lack of opportunity and courage. He practiced masturbation, and now and then had pollutions with erotic dreams of girls that had been cut. At the age of nineteen he first cut a girl. During the act he had a seminal emission, and experienced intense pleasure. From that time the impulse became constantly more powerful. He chose only young and pretty girls, and, as a rule, asked them before the deed whether they were still single. The ejaculation or sexual satisfaction occurred only when he was sure that he had actually wounded the girls. After such an act he always felt tired and bad, and was also troubled with qualms of conscience. Until thirty-two years old he carried on this process of cutting, but always with care not to wound the girls dangerously. From that time until his thirty-sixth year he was able to control his impulse. Then he sought to satisfy himself by simply pressing the girls on the arm or neck; but this gave rise to erections and not to ejaculation. Then he sought to attain his object by pricking the girls with a knife in its sheath; but this did not suffice. Finally, he stabbed with the open knife and had complete success, for he thought that a girl when stabbed bled more and had more pain than one that was merely, cut. In his thirty-seventh year he was detected and arrested. In his dwelling was found a collection of daggers, sword-canes, and knives. He said that the mere sight of these weapons, and still more the grasping of them, gave him an intense feeling of sensual pleasure, with violent excitement. According to his confession he had injured, in all, fifty girls. His external appearance was rather pleasing. He lived in very good circumstances, but was peculiar and shy.
Case 29. J. H., aged 25, in 1883 came for consultation concerning severe neurasthenia and hypochondria. Patient confesses that he has practiced onanism since his fourteenth year, infrequently up to his eighteenth year; but since that time he has been unable to resist the impulse. Up to that time he had no opportunity to approach females, for he had been anxiously cared for and never left alone, on account of his invalidism. He had had no real desire for this unknown pleasure; but he accidentally learned what it was when one of his mother’s maids cut her hand severely on a pane of glass she had broken while washing windows. While helping to stop the blood he could not keep from sucking up the blood that flowed from the wound, and in the act he experienced extreme erotic excitement, with complete orgasm and ejaculation.
From this time, in every possible way, he sought to see, and if possible to taste, the fresh blood of females. That of young girls was preferred by him. He spared no pains or expense to obtain this pleasure. At first he availed himself of a young servant who allowed her finger to be pricked with a needle or lancet at his request. When his mother discovered this, she discharged the girl. Then he was driven to prostitutes as a substitute, with success frequently enough, though with some difficulty. In the intervals he practiced onanism and manustupration per feminam, which, however, never afforded him complete satisfaction, but, on the contrary, caused listlessness and self-reproach. On account of his nervous difficulties he visited many sanitariums, and he was twice a voluntary patient in institutions. He used hydrotherapy, electricity, and strengthening cures, without particular success. For a time it was possible, by means of cold sitz-baths, monobromate of camphor, and bromides, to diminish his sexual excitability and onanistic impulse. However, when the patient felt himself free again, he would immediately fall into his old passions and spare no pains or money in order to satisfy his sexual desire in the abnormal manner described.
Case 30 (communicated by Dr. A. Moll, Berlin). L. T., aged 21; merchant in a Rhenish city. He belongs to a family in which there are several nervous and psychopathic members. A sister suffers with hysteria and melancholia.
The patient was always of quiet disposition and timid. At school he frequently kept apart from other pupils, particularly when they talked about girls. In the presence of ladies he thought every expression he made was an offense against decency. Thus, for example, he thought it very improper, in the presence of ladies, married or unmarried, to speak of going to bed, rising, etc. In the elementary classes the patient learned well. Later he became more indolent and did not make good progress.
August 17, 1890, the patient visited Dr. Moll on account of abnormal symptoms of a sexual kind. He did this on the advice of a physician, X., a relative, in whom he had previously confided. The patient conveys the impression of being very apprehensive and shy, and in answer to questions says that he is very timorous, and that particularly in the presence of others all his self-confidence and assurance leave him. Dr. X. confirmed this statement.
The beginning of his sexual life the patient was able to refer to his seventh year. At that age he frequently played with his genitals, and was often punished for it. In this onanism, in which he said he had erection, he constantly thought of whipping a woman on the naked nates with a rod until the skin raised in weals. “It delighted me,” said the patient, “when I thought that she was a proud, beautiful lady, and that I performed the act in the presence of others, especially women, particularly with the idea that she might feel the power I had over her. For this reason I early sought reading about punishment, e.g., about the abuse of Roman slaves. However, I had erections only when the conceived abuse consisted of blows delivered on the back or nates. At first I thought this kind of excitement would disappear in time, and said nothing about it to any one.”
Masturbation, early indulged in, the patient continued to practice, and always with the same thought. After his thirteenth or fourteenth year he had ejaculation with the act. Decimum septimum annum agens primum feminam adiit coëundi causa neque coitum perficere potuit libidine et erectione deficientibus. Mox autem iterum apud alteram coitum conatus est nullo succesu. Tum feminam per vim verberavit. Tantopere erat excitatus ut mulierem dolore clamantem atque lamentantem verberare non desierit. He never thought of any legal punishment for his acts, and, in fact, escaped it. In this procedure erection, orgasm, and ejaculation occurred. The patient performed the act in such a way that he took the woman between his knees, with the penis in contact with her body, but without emissio penis in vaginam, which seemed entirely superfluous to him.
But the patient afterward experienced such a feeling of shame about the beating, and was overcome with such great depression, that he often contemplated suicide. In the following three years he still visited women occasionally. But he never again asked one to allow him to beat her. He sought to obtain erection by thinking of the beating; but this was without result, and manustupration by the woman did not induce erection. Finally, after an unsuccessful attempt of this kind, the patient determined to give his confidence to a physician.
The patient made several other statements concerning his vita sexualis. His abnormal sexual desire had troubled him by its intensity. He went to sleep with sexual thoughts; they troubled him through the night and were still with him when he awoke. He was never safe for any length of time from the impulsion of the abnormal ideas that excited him; to which, indeed, he gave himself up willingly, and from which he could free himself for a short time only by onanism.
In response to my question, the patient stated that any other means of punishment of women than beating the back, and nates particularly, had no charm for him. Neither binding them, walking on them, nor striking them, gives him such pleasure. This is to be emphasized the more, since the whipping given the woman affords him sexual pleasures because its effect on her is “humiliating, mortifying,” and because she should “feel that she is completely in his power.” Too, it would give the patient no pleasure to beat a woman on any other part of her body than those mentioned, or to cause her pain in any other way than by blows. Multum minorem ei affert voluptatem si nates suæ a muliere verberantur; tamen ea res sæpe ejaculationem seminis effecit, sed hæc fieri putat erectione deficienti. Inter verbera autem penem in vaginam immittendo nullam voluptatem se habere ratus qualibet parte corporis feminæ pene tacte semen ejaculat. Just as in beating the woman his pleasure lay in humiliating her, so with the relations reversed he was sexually excited by the fact that the beating humiliated him and he felt himself to be completely in the woman’s power. No other personal humiliation than a beating on his nates could excite him. To allow himself to be bound or walked on by a woman is repugnant to him.
The patient’s dreams, as far as they were of an erotic nature, were directed in the same way as his sexual inclinations while awake; actual ejaculation also often took place in dreams. Whether the perverse sexual thoughts first occurred in dreams or the waking state, the patient is not able to state, owing to the fact that his memory goes back so far,—to his seventh year. But he thinks that these thoughts first occurred to him while awake. In his dreams it frequently seemed to him that he was striking a man, which also caused ejaculation. In the waking state it excited him but very little to think of striking a man. The nude form of a man had no attraction whatever for him, while the nude form of a woman had a decided charm for him, though his libido found its real satisfaction only when the acts previously described took place; and, as he states, he feels no desire for coitus in vaginam.
The treatment of the patient is directed to the attainment of normal coitus with normal desire, where possible; for it may be assumed that, with success in making his sexual life normal, the patient’s shyness and apprehensiveness, which cause him great annoyance, may be much easier removed. The treatment followed by me (Dr. Moll) during three months and a half was as follows:—
1. The patient, who had a great desire to be cured, was most strictly forbidden to give himself up to the perverse thoughts. Of course, I did not give him the foolish advice not to think of blows at all. The patient could not follow such advice, since the thoughts come to him without any act of his own, even when he accidentally reads the word “blow” (schlagen). I forbade him only ever to voluntarily give himself to such thoughts. I advised him more particularly to do everything in order to turn his ideas in another direction.
2. I allowed him, commanded him even, to think of nude women, because many nude females interested him, even though, as he thought, they did not excite him sexually.
3. I sought, by means of hypnosis—which was hard to induce—and suggestion, to fortify the patient in this as far as possible. All attempts at coitus were forbidden in order to save the patient from a discouraging result.
Within two months and a half this treatment led to the result that, as the patient stated, the perverse ideas occurred much less frequently and were constantly retreating to the background; indeed, according to the patient’s statement, erections occurred with the thoughts of nude women, became more frequent, and often induced him to masturbate with the thought of coitus without the occurrence of any idea of blows. Erotic dreams occurred but infrequently. These were concerned sometimes with normal coitus, sometimes with blows.
After two months and a half of the treatment I advised the patient to attempt coitus. Since then he has tried four times. I advised him to choose always a woman who pleased him, and sought to increase his sexual excitement before coitus by means of tincture of cantharides. The four attempts, the last of which took place on November 29, 1890, resulted as follows: At the first, prolonged manipulation of the penis by the woman was necessary in order to induce erection. Then immisio in vaginam and ejaculation with orgasm took place. During the whole act there occurred no thought of beating the woman or being beaten, but the woman in herself excited him sufficiently for the performance of coitus. At the second attempt the result was better and more quickly attained; manipulation ad genitalia by the woman was not long required. In the third attempt coitus was attained only after the patient had thought of beating for a long time, and had thus induced erection; but beating was not indulged in. At the fourth attempt coitus was attained without any thought of beating and without any manipulation ad genitalia.
Of course, the case described cannot yet be regarded in any way as cured. Though the patient were able to perform coitus in a normal or nearly normal way, that does not mean that he will always be able to do it in the future; moreover, the thought of beating still affords him great pleasure, even though it occurs much less frequently than formerly. Yet there is a possibility that the abnormal desire, which has been weakened, will remain weakened in the future, and perhaps disappear.
This carefully observed case is, for several reasons, particularly interesting. It discloses clearly one of the hidden roots of sadism,—the impulse to complete subjugation of the woman, which here became consciously entertained. This is the more remarkable since it occurred in an individual decidedly timid, and in other respects modest and even apprehensive. The case also shows clearly that powerful libido, which even impels the individual to overcome all obstacles, may be present, while at the same time coitus is not desired, because the principal intensity of feeling is, ab origine, connected with the cruel part of the sadistic (lustful and cruel) circle of ideas. This case also contains weak elements of masochism (v. infra).
Cases are by no means infrequent in which men with perverse inclinations induce prostitutes, by paying them high prices, to allow themselves to be whipped and even wounded by them. Works on prostitution contain reports of them (vide Coffignon, “La Corruption à Paris,” etc.).
(d) Defilement of Women.—The perverse sadistic impulse, to injure women and put contempt and humiliation upon them, is also expressed in the desire to defile them with disgusting or, at least, foul things.
The following case, published by Arndt (Vierteljahrsschr. f. ger. Medicin, N. F. xvii, H. 1), belongs here:—
Case 31. A., medical student at Greifswald, accusatus quod iterum iterumque puellis honestis parentibus natis in publico genitalia sua e bracis dependentia plane nudata quæ antia summo amiculo (overcoat) tecta erant, ostenderat. Nonnunquam puellas fugientes secutus easque ad se attractas urina oblivit. Hæc luce clara facta sunt; nunquam aliquid hæc faciens locutus est.
A. is twenty-three years old, powerfully built, neat in dress, and decent in manners. Indication of cranium progeneum; chronic pneumonia of the apex of the right lung; emphysema. Pulse, 60; in excitement, not more than 70 to 80. Genitals normal. Complaints of occasional disturbances of digestion and hardness of the abdomen, vertigo; excessive excitement of the sexual desires, which early led to onanism. The sexual desire has never been directed toward a natural method of satisfaction. Complaints of occasional attacks of depression, or thoughts of deprecation of self, and of perverse impulses, for which he could find no motive; such as laughing at serious things, throwing his money in the water, and running about in the pouring rain. The father of the culprit is of a nervous temperament; his mother is subject to nervous headache. A brother suffered with epileptic convulsions.
From his youth the culprit presented a nervous temperament, was inclined to convulsions and attacks of syncope, and when he was severely scolded would fall into a state of momentary stiffness. In 1869 he studied medicine in Berlin. In 1870 he went to the war as a hospital-assistant. His letters at this time betray a peculiar torpidity and weakness. On his return home, in 1871, his emotional irritability was noticed by those about him. Thereafter frequent complaints of bodily ailments; unpleasantness resulting from a love affair. In November, 1871, he pursued his studies diligently in Greifswald. He was considered very gentlemanly. In confinement he is quiet, calm, and sometimes self-absorbed. His acts he attributes to painful sexual excitement, which of late had become excessive. He declared that he had been fully conscious of his perverse acts, and had afterward been ashamed of them. He had not experienced actual sexual satisfaction in their commission. He obtained no correct insight into his position. He considered himself a kind of martyr,—fallen a victim to an evil power. Presumption of irresponsibility, as a result of absence of free will.
The impulse to defile occurs also, paradoxically, in the aged, when there is a re-appearance of sexual instinct, which, under such circumstances, is so often expressed in perverse acts. Thus Tarnowsky reports (p. 76) the following case:—
Case 32. I knew such a patient, who had a woman dressed in a décolleté ball-dress lie down on a low sofa in a brightly lighted room. Ipse apud januam alius cubiculi obscurati constitit adspiciendo aliquantulum feminam, excitatus in eam insiluit excrementa in sinus ejus deposuit. Hæc faciens ejaculationem quandam se sentire confessus est.
An officer of Vienna informs me that men, by means of large sums of money, induce prostitutes to suffer ut illi viri in ora earum spuerent et fæces et urinas in ora explerent.[56]
The following case by Dr. Pascal (“Igiene dell’amore”) seems also to belong here:—
Case 33. A man had an inamorata. His relation with her was that he had her allow him to blacken her hands with coal or soot, and then she had to sit before a mirror in such a way that he could see her hands in it. While conversing with her, which was often for a long time, he looked constantly at her mirrored hands, and finally, after a time, he would take his leave, fully satisfied.
The following case, communicated by a physician, may be of interest in relation to this subject:—
An officer was known in a brothel in K. only by the name of “Oil.” “Oil” induced erection and ejaculation only by having puell. publ. nudam step into a tub filled with oil, while he rubbed the oil all over her body.
These acts lead to the presumption that certain cases of injury of females (e.g., sprinkling with sulphuric acid, ink, etc.) depend upon a perverse sexual impulse; at least, here it is a kind of injury, and those injured are always females, and the perpetrators males. At least in the future, in crimes of this kind, pains should be taken to examine the vita sexualis of the culprits.
The case of Bachmann, given below, throws a clear light on the sexual nature of such crimes; for, in this case, the sexual motive in the deed is proven.
(e) Other Attacks on Females—Symbolic Sadism.—The foregoing groups do not exhaust the forms in which the sadistic impulse toward women is expressed. If the impulse is not overmastering, or there is yet sufficient moral resistance, it may happen that the perverse inclination is satisfied by an act that is apparently quite senseless and silly, but which has a symbolic meaning for the perpetrator. This seems to be the meaning of the two following cases:—
Case 34. (Dr. Pascal, “Igiene dell’amore.”) A man was accustomed to go, on a certain day once a month, to an inamorata and cut her “bang.” This gave him the greatest pleasure. He made no other demands on the girl.
Case 35. A man in Vienna regularly visits several prostitutes only to lather their faces and then to remove the lather with a razor, as if he were shaving them. He never hurts the girls, but becomes sexually excited and ejaculates during the procedure.
The significance of the following cases, in which a sadistic comedy is played, is clearer:—
Case 36. A man always announces to a puella publica his intended visits. She must stand at the window, awaiting him, with her face done up, and, on his entrance into the room, complain of severe toothache. He is sorry for her, asks particularly about the pain, takes the cloth off and puts it on again; but he never has coitus, and finds his satisfaction simply in this act.[57]
The following case, which, unfortunately, was not carefully examined scientifically, is peculiar to itself:—
In an examination before a criminal court in Vienna, the following facts were brought to light: Count N., accompanied by a young girl, appeared in the public garden of an hotel, and, by his actions there, gave public offense. He demanded of his companion that she kneel down before him and implore him with folded hands. Then she was compelled to lick his boots. Finally, he demanded of her, publicly, “an unheard-of thing” (osculum ad nates, or the like), and only desisted after she had sworn to do it at home.
In this case, the most remarkable thing was the desire of the perverse individual to humiliate the woman before witnesses (comp. the fancies of sadists, Case 29); further, that the desire to humiliate the woman came entirely into the foreground, and acts of a purely symbolic nature were undertaken. Of course, with these, in this imperfectly-observed case, acts of cruelty were probable.
(f) Sadism with Other Objects—Whipping of Boys.—Besides the sadistic acts with females described, others occur with other living, sensitive objects,—children and animals. There may be a full consciousness that the impulse is really directed toward women, and that only faute de mieux the next attainable objects (pupils) are abused. But the condition of the perpetrator may be such that the impulse to cruel acts enters consciousness accompanied only by lustful excitement, while its real object (which alone can explain the lustful coloring of such acts) remains in the dark.
The first alternative suffices as an explanation of the cases which Dr. Albert describes (Friedreich’s Blätter f. ger. Med., p. 77, 1859),—cases in which lustful teachers whipped their pupils on the naked nates without cause. We must think of the second alternative, the sadistic impulse with unconsciousness of its object, when boys are immediately excited sexually at the sight of punishment of their companions, and are thus determined in their later vita sexualis, as in the following cases:—
Case 37. K., aged 37, merchant, applied to me in the fall of 1889 for advice concerning an anomaly of his vita sexualis, which made him fear invalidism and impossibility of future happiness in marriage.
Patient came of a nervous family. As a child he was delicate, weak, and nervous. Healthy except for measles; he later became strong.
At the age of eight, while at school, he saw how the teacher punished the boys taking their heads between his thighs and spanking them with a ferule. This sight caused the patient lustful excitement. “Without any idea of the danger and enormity of onanism,” he satisfied himself with it, and from that time often masturbated, during which he always called up the memory-picture of a boy being punished.
Thus it continued until his twentieth year. Then he learned the significance of onanism, was terribly frightened, and tried to overcome his impulse to masturbate; but he fell into the practice of psychical onanism, which he regarded as innocuous and morally defensible, and for which he made use of the memory-pictures of boys being whipped, previously mentioned.
Patient now became neurasthenic, suffered with pollutions, and tried to cure himself by visiting brothels; but he could not induce erection. Then he sought to obtain normal sexual feelings by means of social intercourse with ladies; but he recognized that he was entirely insensible to the charms of the fair sex.
The patient is an intelligent man, normally developed, and of æsthetic taste. There is no inclination to persons of his own sex. My advice consisted of means to combat the neurasthenia and pollutions; interdiction of psychical and manual onanism; avoidance of all sexual excitants; and, possibly, hypnotic treatment to ultimately induce a return of the vita sexualis to its normal condition.
Case 38. Abortive sadism. N., student, came under observation in December, 1890. He had practiced masturbation from early youth. According to his statements, he became sexually excited when he saw his father whip the children, and, later, when he saw the teacher whip his companions. When a spectator of such scenes, he always experienced lustful feelings. He could not say exactly when this first occurred, but it may have been at about the age of six. He could not tell exactly when he began to masturbate, but he stated with certainty that his sexual instinct was first awakened by the punishment of others, and thus he unconsciously came to practice onanism. The patient remembered clearly that from the age of four to the age of eight he was frequently spanked, and that this caused him pain, never lustful pleasure.
Since he did not always have opportunity to see others whipped, he began to imagine how others were punished. This excited his lust, and he would then masturbate. Whenever he could, he managed to see others punished at school. Now and then he also felt desire to whip others. At the age of twelve he induced a comrade to allow him to whip him. He found great sexual pleasure in it. When, however, his companion beat him in return, he experienced nothing but pain.
The impulse to beat others was never very strong. The patient experienced more satisfaction in filling his imagination with scenes of whipping. He never indulged in any other sadistic acts, and never had any desire to see blood, etc. Until his fifteenth year his sexual indulgence consisted of onanism, indulged in after such fancies. After that (dancing lessons, association with girls), the early fancies disappeared almost entirely, and were accompanied by but weak lustful feelings; so that the patient gave them up entirely. In their place came thoughts of coitus in a natural way, without anything sadistic.
The patient indulged in coitus for the first time “on account of his health.” He then tried to abstain from onanism, but was not successful, though he often indulged in coitus, and with more pleasure than he had in onanism. He wished to be freed from onanism as something vicious. He had coitus once a month, but masturbated once or twice every night. He was normal sexually, with the exception of the onanism. There was no neurasthenia; genitals normal.
Case 39. P., aged 15, of high social position, came of an hysterical mother, whose brother and father died in an asylum. Two children of the family died, in early childhood, of convulsions. The patient is talented, virtuous, and quiet; but at times he is very disobedient, stubborn, and passionate. He has epilepsy, and practices onanism. One day it was learned that P., with money, induced a comrade of fourteen, B., to allow himself to be pinched on the arm, back, and thigh. When B. cried, P. became excited and struck at B. with his right hand, while with his left he made manipulations in the left pocket of his trousers. P. confessed that to maltreat his friend, of whom he was very fond, gave him peculiar delight; and that ejaculation while hurting his friend gave him much more pleasure than when he masturbated alone, (v. Gyurkovechky, “Pathol. und Therapie der männl. Impotenz.,” p. 80, 1889.)
