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Title: Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5

Author: Havelock Ellis

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY
OF SEX, VOLUME 5 ***

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6), by
Havelock Ellis

STUDIES

IN THE

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX

VOLUME V

EROTIC SYMBOLISM
THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE
THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY

BY

HAVELOCK ELLIS

1927

PREFACE.

In this volume the terminal phenomena of the sexual process are discussed, before an attempt
is finally made, in the concluding volume, to consider the bearings of the psychology of sex
on that part of morals which may be called "social hygiene."
Under "Erotic Symbolism" I include practically all the aberrations of the sexual instinct,
although some of these have seemed of sufficient importance for separate discussion in
previous volumes. It is highly probable that many readers will consider that the name scarcely
suffices to cover manifestations so numerous and so varied. The term "sexual equivalents" will
seem preferable to some. While, however, it may be fully admitted that these perversions are
"sexual equivalents"—or at all events equivalents of the normal sexual impulse—that term is
merely a descriptive label which tells us nothing of the phenomena. "Sexual Symbolism" gives
us the key to the process, the key that makes all these perversions intelligible. In all of them—
very clearly in some, as in shoe-fetichism; more obscurely in others, as in exhibitionism—it
has come about by causes congenital, acquired, or both, that some object or class of objects,
some act or group of acts, has acquired a dynamic power over the psycho-physical mechanism
of the sexual process, deflecting it from its normal adjustment to the whole of a beloved
person of the opposite sex. There has been a transmutation of values, and certain objects,
certain acts, have acquired an emotional value which for the normal person they do not
possess. Such objects and acts are properly, it seems to me, termed symbols, and that term
embodies the only justification that in most cases these manifestations can legitimately claim.
"The Mechanism of Detumescence" brings us at last to the final climax for which the earlier
and more prolonged stage of tumescence, which has occupied us so often in these Studies, is
the elaborate preliminary. "The art of love," a clever woman novelist has written, "is the art of
preparation." That "preparation" is, on the physiological side, the production of tumescence,
and all courtship is concerned in building up tumescence. But the final conjugation of two
individuals in an explosion of detumescence, thus slowly brought about, though it is largely an
involuntary act, is still not without its psychological implications and consequences; and it is
therefore a matter for regret that so little is yet known about it. The one physiological act in
which two individuals are lifted out of all ends that center in self and become the instrument of
those higher forces which fashion the species, can never be an act to be slurred over as trivial
or unworthy of study.
In the brief study of "The Psychic State in Pregnancy" we at last touch the point at which the
whole complex process of sex reaches its goal. A woman with a child in her womb is the
everlasting miracle which all the romance of love, all the cunning devices of tumescence and
detumescence, have been invented to make manifest. The psychic state of the woman who
thus occupies the supreme position which life has to offer cannot fail to be of exceeding
interest from many points of view, and not least because the maternal instinct is one of the
elements even of love between the sexes. But the psychology of pregnancy is full of involved

problems, and here again, as so often in the wide field we have traversed, we stand at the
threshold of a door it is not yet given us to pass.
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Carbis Water, Lelant, Cornwall.

CONTENTS.
PREFACE.

EROTIC SYMBOLISM.

I.

The Definition of Erotic Symbolism. Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object. Erotic
Fetichism. Wide Extension of the Symbols of Sex. The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic
Fetiches. The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism. Classification of the Phenomena. The
Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person. Stendhal's "Crystallization"

II.

Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism. Wide Prevalence and Normal Basis. Restif de la Bretonne.
The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction Among Some Peoples. The Chinese, Greeks,
Romans, Spaniards, etc. The Congenital Predisposition in Erotic Symbolism. The Influence of
Early Association and Emotional Shock. Shoe-fetichism in Relation to Masochism. The Two
Phenomena Independent Though Allied. The Desire to be Trodden On. The Fascination of
Physical Constraint. The Symbolism of Self-inflicted Pain. The Dynamic Element in Erotic
Symbolism. The Symbolism of Garments.

III.

Scatalogic Symbolism. Urolagnia. Coprolagnia. The Ascetic Attitude Towards the Flesh.
Normal Basis of Scatalogic Symbolism. Scatalogic Conceptions Among Primitive Peoples.
Urine as a Primitive Holy Water. Sacredness of Animal Excreta. Scatalogy in Folk-lore. The
Obscene as Derived from the Mythological. The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to Manifest
Itself in Scatalogic Forms. The Basis of Physiological Connection Between the Urinary and
Genital Spheres. Urinary Fetichism Sometimes Normal in Animals. The Urolagnia of
Masochists. The Scatalogy of Saints. Urolagnia More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a
Symbolism of Object. Only Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism. Comparative Rarity of
Coprolagnia. Influence of Nates Fetichism as a Transition to Coprolagnia, Ideal Coprolagnia.
Olfactory Coprolagnia. Urolagnia and Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus.

IV.

Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism. Mixoscopic Zoophilia. The Stuff-fetichisms. Hair-
fetichism. The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile Base. Erotic Zoophilia. Zooerastia.
Bestiality. The Conditions that Favor Bestiality. Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples

and Among Peasants. The Primitive Conception of Animals. The Goat. The Influence of
Familiarity With Animals. Congress Between Women and Animals. The Social Reaction
Against Bestiality.

V.

Exhibitionism. Illustrative Cases. A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship. The Impulse to Defile.
The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude. The Sexual Organs as Fetiches. Phallus Worship.
Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development. Exhibitionism of the Nates. The Classification of
the Forms of Exhibitionism. Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy.

VI.

The Forms of Erotic Symbolism are Simulacra of Coitus. Wide Extension of Erotic
Symbolism. Fetichism Not Covering the Whole Ground of Sexual Selection. It is Based on the
Individual Factor in Selection. Crystallization. The Lover and the Artist. The Key to Erotic
Symbolism is to be Found in the Emotional Sphere. The Passage to Pathological Extremes.

THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE.

I.

The Psychological Significance of Detumescence. The Testis and the Ovary. Sperm Cell and
Germ Cell. Development of the Embryo. The External Sexual Organs. Their Wide Range of
Variation. Their Nervous Supply. The Penis. Its Racial Variations. The Influence of Exercise.
The Scrotum and Testicles. The Mons Veneris. The Vulva. The Labia Majora and their
Varieties. The Public Hair and Its Characters. The Clitoris and Its Functions. The Anus as an
Erogenous Zone. The Nymphæ and their Function. The Vagina. The Hymen. Virginity. The
Biological Significance of the Hymen.

II

The Object of Detumescence. Erogenous Zones. The Lips. The Vascular Characters of
Detumescence. Erectile Tissue. Erection in Woman. Mucous Emission in Women. Sexual
Connection. The Human Mode of Intercourse. Normal Variations. The Motor Characters of
Detumescence. Ejaculation. The Virile Reflex. The General Phenomena of Detumescence. The
Circulatory and Respiratory Phenomena. Blood Pressure. Cardiac Disturbance. Glandular
Activity. Distillatio. The Essentially Motor Character of Detumescence. Involuntary Muscular
Irradiation to Bladder, etc. Erotic Intoxication. Analogy of Sexual Detumescence and Vesical
Tension. The Specifically Sexual Movements of Detumescence in Man. In Woman. The
Spontaneous Movements of the Genital Canal in Woman. Their Function in Conception. Part
Played by Active Movement of the Spermatozoa. The Artificial Injection of Semen. The Facial
Expression During Detumescence. The Expression of Joy. The Occasional Serious Effects of
Coitus.

III.

The Constituents of Semen. Function of the Prostate. The Properties of Semen. Aphrodisiacs.
Alcohol, Opium, etc. Anaphrodisiacs. The Stimulant Influence of Semen in Coitus. The
Internal Effects of Testicular Secretions. The Influence of Ovarian Secretion.

IV.

The Aptitude for Detumescence. Is There an Erotic Temperament? The Available Standards of
Comparison. Characteristics of the Castrated. Characteristics of Puberty. Characteristics of the
State of Detumescence. Shortness of Stature. Development of the Secondary Sexual
Characters. Deep Voice. Bright Eyes. Glandular Activity. Everted Lips. Pigmentation. Profuse
Hair. Dubious Significance of Many of These Characters.

THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY.

The Relationship of Maternal and Sexual Emotion. Conception and Loss of Virginity. The
Anciently Accepted Signs of This Condition. The Pervading Effects of Pregnancy on the
Organism. Pigmentation. The Blood and Circulation. The Thyroid. Changes in the Nervous
System. The Vomiting of Pregnancy. The Longings of Pregnant Women. Mental Impressions.
Evidence for and Against Their Validity. The Question Still Open. Imperfection of Our
Knowledge. The Significance of Pregnancy.

APPENDIX.

Histories of Sexual Development.

INDEX OF AUTHORS.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

EROTIC SYMBOLISM.
I.

The Definition of Erotic Symbolism—Symbolism of Act and Symbolism of Object—Erotic
Fetichism—Wide extension of the symbols of Sex—The Immense Variety of Possible Erotic
Fetiches—The Normal Foundations of Erotic Symbolism—Classification of the Phenomena—
The Tendency to Idealize the Defects of a Beloved Person—Stendhal's "Crystallization."

By "erotic symbolism" I mean that tendency whereby the lover's attention is diverted from the
central focus of sexual attraction to some object or process which is on the periphery of that
focus, or is even outside of it altogether, though recalling it by association of contiguity or of
similarity. It thus happens that tumescence, or even in extreme cases detumescence, may be
provoked by the contemplation of acts or objects which are away from the end of sexual
conjugation.[1]

In considering the phenomena of sexual selection in a previous volume,[2] it was found that
there are four or five main factors in the constitution of beauty in so far as beauty determines
sexual selection. Erotic symbolism is founded on the factor of individual taste in beauty; it
arises as a specialized development of that factor, but it is, nevertheless, incorrect to merge it
in sexual selection. The attractive characteristics of a beloved woman or man, from the point
of view of sexual selection, are a complex but harmonious whole leading up to a desire for the
complete possession of the person who displays them. There is no tendency to isolate and
dissociate any single character from the individual and to concentrate attention upon that
character at the expense of the attention bestowed upon the individual generally. As soon as
such a tendency begins to show itself, even though only in a slight or temporary form, we may
say that there is erotic symbolism.
Erotic symbolism is, however, by no means confined to the individualizing tendency to
concentrate amorous attention upon some single characteristic of the adult woman or man who
is normally the object of sexual love. The adult human being may not be concerned at all, the
attractive object or act may not even be human, not even animal, and we may still be
concerned with a symbol which has parasitically rooted itself on the fruitful site of sexual
emotion and absorbed to itself the energy which normally goes into the channels of healthy
human love having for its final end the procreation of the species. Thus understood in its
widest sense, it may be said that every sexual perversion, even homosexuality, is a form of
erotic symbolism, for we shall find that in every case some object or act that for the normal
human being has little or no erotic value, has assumed such value in a supreme degree; that is
to say, it has become a symbol of the normal object of love. Certain perversions are, however,
of such great importance on account of their wide relationships, that they cannot be adequately
discussed merely as forms of erotic symbolism. This is notably the case as regards
homosexuality, auto-erotism, and algolagnia, all of which phenomena have therefore been

separately discussed in previous studies. We are now mainly concerned with manifestations
which are more narrowly and exclusively symbolical.
A portion of the field of erotic symbolism is covered by what Binet (followed by Lombroso,
Krafft-Ebing, and others) has termed "erotic fetichism," or the tendency whereby sexual
attraction is unduly exerted by some special part or peculiarity of the body, or by some
inanimate object which has become associated with it. Such erotic symbolism of object
cannot, however, be dissociated from the even more important erotic symbolism of process,
and the two are so closely bound together that we cannot attain a truly scientific view of them
until we regard them broadly as related parts of a common psychic tendency. If, as Groos
asserts,[3] a symbol has two chief meanings, one in which it indicates a physical process which
stands for a psychic process, and another in which it indicates a part which represents the
whole, erotic symbolism of act corresponds to the first of these chief meanings, and erotic
symbolism of object to the other.
Although it is not impossible to find some germs of erotic symbolism in animals, in its more
pronounced manifestations it is only found in the human species. It could not be otherwise, for
such symbolism involves not only the play of fancy and imagination, the idealizing aptitude,
but also a certain amount of power of concentrating the attention on a point outside the natural
path of instinct and the ability to form new mental constructions around that point. There are,
indeed, as we shall see, elementary forms of erotic symbolism which are not uncommonly
associated with feeble-mindedness, but even these are still peculiarly human, and in its less
crude manifestations erotic symbolism easily lends itself to every degree of human refinement
and intelligence.
"It depends primarily upon an increase of the psychological process of representation," Colin
Scott remarks of sexual symbolism generally, "involving greater powers of comparison and
analysis as compared with the lower animals. The outer impressions come to be clearly
distinguished as such, but at the same time are often treated as symbols of inner experiences,
and a meaning read into them which they would not otherwise possess. Symbolism or
fetichism is, indeed, just the capacity to see meaning, to emphasize something for the sake of
other things which do not appear. In brain terms it indicates an activity of the higher centers, a
sort of side-tracking or long-circuiting of the primitive energy; ... Rosetti's poem, 'The
Woodspurge,' gives a concrete example of the formation of such a symbol. Here the otherwise
insignificant presentation of the three-cupped woodspurge, representing originally a mere
side-current of the stream of consciousness, becomes the intellectual symbol or fetich of the
whole psychosis forever after. It seems, indeed, as if the stronger the emotion the more likely
will become the formation of an overlying symbolism, which serves to focus and stand in the
place of something greater than itself; nowhere at least is symbolism a more characteristic
feature than as an expression of the sexual instinct. The passion of sex, with its immense
hereditary background, in early man became centered often upon the most trivial and
unimportant features.... This symbolism, now become fetichistic, or symbolic in a bad sense, is
at least an exercise of the increasing representative power of man, upon which so much of his
advancement has depended, while it also served to express and help to purify his most
perennial emotion." (Colin Scott, "Sex and Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii,
No. 2, p. 189.)

In the study of "Love and Pain" in a previous volume, the analysis of the large and complex
mass of sexual phenomena which are associated with pain, gradually resolved them to a
considerable extent into a special case of erotic symbolism; pain or restraint, whether inflicted
on or by the loved person, becomes, by a psychic process that is usually unconscious, the
symbol of the sexual mechanism, and hence arouses the same emotions as that mechanism
normally arouses. We may now attempt to deal more broadly and comprehensively with the
normal and abnormal aspects of erotic symbolism in some of their most typical and least
mixed forms.
"When our human imagination seeks to animate artificial things," Huysmans writes in Là-bas,
"it is compelled to reproduce the movements of animals in the act of propagation. Look at
machines, at the play of pistons in the cylinders; they are Romeos of steel in Juliets of cast-
iron." And not only in the work of man's hands but throughout Nature we find sexual symbols
which are the less deniable since, for the most part, they make not the slightest appeal to even
the most morbid human imagination. Language is full of metaphorical symbols of sex which
constantly tend to lose their poetic symbolism and to become commonplace. Semen is but
seed, and for the Latins especially the whole process of human sex, as well as the male and
female organs, constantly presented itself in symbols derived from agricultural and
horticultural life. The testicles were beans (fabæ) and fruit or apples (poma and mala); the
penis was a tree (arbor), or a stalk (thyrsus), or a root (radix), or a sickle (falx), or a
ploughshare (vomer). The semen, again, was dew (ros). The labia majora or minora were
wings (alæ); the vulva and vagina were a field (ager and campus), or a ploughed furrow
(sulcus), or a vineyard (vinea), or a fountain (fons), while the pudendal hair was herbage
(plantaria).[4] In other languages it is not difficult to trace similar and even identical imagery
applied to sexual organs and sexual acts. Thus it is noteworthy that Shakespeare more than
once applies the term "ploughed" to a woman who has had sexual intercourse. The Talmud
calls the labia minora the doors, the labia majora hinges, and the clitoris the key. The Greeks
appear not only to have found in the myrtle-berry, the fruit of a plant sacred to Venus, the
image of the clitoris, but also in the rose an image of the feminine labia; in the poetic literature
of many countries, indeed, this imagery of the rose may be traced in a more or less veiled
manner.[5]
The widespread symbolism of sex arose in the theories and conceptions of primitive peoples
concerning the function of generation and its nearest analogies in Nature; it was continued for
the sake of the vigorous and expressive terminology which it furnished both for daily life and
for literature; its final survivals were cultivated because they furnished a delicately æsthetic
method of approaching matters which a growing refinement of sentiment made it difficult for
lovers and poets to approach in a more crude and direct manner. Its existence is of interest to
us now because it shows the objective validity of the basis on which erotic symbolism, as we
have here to understand it, develops. But from first to last it is a distinct phenomenon, having
a more or less reasoned and intellectual basis, and it scarcely serves in any degree to feed the
sexual impulse. Erotic symbolism is not intellectual but emotional in its origin; it starts into
being, obscurely, with but a dim consciousness or for the most part none at all, either suddenly
from the shock of some usually youthful experience, or more gradually through an instinctive
brooding on those things which are most intimately associated with a sexually desirable
person.

The kind of soil on which the germs of erotic symbolism may develop is well seen in cases of
sexual hyperæsthesia. In such cases all the emotionally sexual analogies and resemblances,
which in erotic symbolism are fixed and organized, may be traced in vague and passing forms,
a single hyperæsthetic individual perhaps presenting a great variety of germinal symbolisms.
Thus it has been recorded of an Italian nun (whose sister became a prostitute) that from the
age of 8 she had desire for coitus, from the age of 10 masturbated, and later had homosexual
feelings, that the same feelings and practices continued after she had taken the veil, though
from time to time they assumed religious equivalents. The mere contact, indeed, of a priest's
hand, the news of the presentation of an ecclesiastic she had known to a bishopric, the sight of
an ape, the contemplation of the crucified Christ, the figure of a toy, the picture of a demon,
the act of defecation in the children entrusted to her care (whom, on this account, and against
the regulations, she would accompany to the closets), especially the sight and the mere
recollection of flies in sexual connection—all these things sufficed to produce in her a
powerful orgasm. (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1902, fasc. II-III, p. 338.)
A boy of 15 (given to masturbation), studied by Macdonald in America, was similarly
hyperæsthetic to the symbols of sexual emotion. "I like amusing myself with my comrades,"
he told Macdonald, "rolling ourselves into a ball, which gives one a funny kind of warmth. I
have a special pleasure in talking about some things. It is the same when the governess kisses
me on saying good night or when I lean against her breast. I have that sensation, too, when I
see some of the pictures in the comic papers, but only in those representing a woman, as when
a young man skating trips up a girl so that her clothes are raised a little. When I read how a
man saved a young girl from drowning, so that they swam together, I had the same sensation.
Looking at the statues of women in the museum produces the same effect, or when I see naked
babies, or when a mother suckles a child. I have often had that sensation when reading novels
I ought not to read, or when looking at a new-born calf, or seeing dogs and cows and horses
mounting on each other. When I see a girl flirting with a boy, or leaning on his shoulder or
with his arm round her waist, I have an erection. It is the same when I see women and little
girls in bathing costume, or when boys talk of what their fathers and mothers do together. In
the Natural History Museum I often see things which give me that sensation. One day when I
read how a man killed a young girl and carried her into a wood and undressed her I had a
feeling of enjoyment. When I read of men who were bastards the idea of a woman having a
child in that way gives me this sensation. Some dances, and seeing young girls astride a horse,
excited me, too, and so in a circus when a woman was shot out of a cannon and her skirts flew
in the air. It has no effect on me when I see men naked. Sometimes I enjoy seeing women's
underclothes in a shop, or when I see a lady or a girl buying them, especially if they are
drawers. When I saw a lady in a dress which buttoned from top to bottom it had more effect on
me than seeing underclothes. Seeing dogs coupling gives me more pleasure than looking at
pretty women, but less than looking at pretty little girls." In order of increasing intensity he
placed the phenomena that affected him thus: The coupling of flies, then of horses, then the
sight of women's undergarments, then a boy and a girl flirting, then cows mounting on each
other, the statues of women with naked breasts, then contact with the governess's body and
breasts, finally coitus. (Arthur Macdonald, Le Criminel-Type, pp. 126 et seq.)
It is worthy of remark that the instinct of nutrition, when restrained, may exhibit something of
an analogous symbolism, though in a minor degree, to that of sex. The ways in which a

hyperæsthetic hunger may seek its symbols are illustrated in the case of a young woman called
Nadia, who during several years was carefully studied by Janet. It is a case of obsession
("maladie du scrupule"), simulating hysterical anorexia, in which the patient, for fear of
getting fat, reduced her nourishment to the smallest possible amount. "Nadia is generally
hungry, even very hungry. One can tell this by her actions; from time to time she forgets
herself to such an extent as to devour greedily anything she can put her hands on. At other
times, when she cannot resist the desire to eat, she secretly takes a biscuit. She feels horrible
remorse for the action, but, all the same, she does it again. Her confidences are very curious.
She recognizes that a great effort is needed to avoid eating, and considers she is a heroine to
resist so long. 'Sometimes I spent whole hours in thinking about food, I was so hungry; I
swallowed my saliva, I bit my handkerchief, I rolled on the floor, I wanted to eat so badly. I
would look in books for descriptions of meals and feasts, and tried to deceive my hunger by
imagining that I was sharing all these good things,'" (P. Janet, "La Maladie du Scrupule,"
Revue Philosophique, May, 1901, p. 502.) The deviations of the instinct of nutrition are,
however, confined within narrow limits, and, in the nature of things, hunger, unlike sexual
desire, cannot easily accept a fetich.
"There is almost no feature, article of dress, attitude, act," Stanley Hall declares, "or even
animal or perhaps object in nature, that may not have to some morbid soul specialized
erogenic and erethic power."[6] Even a mere shadow may become a fetich. Goron tells of a
merchant in Paris—a man with a reputation for ability, happily married and the father of a
family, altogether irreproachable in his private life—who was returning home one evening
after a game of billiards with a friend, when, on chancing to raise his eyes, he saw against a
lighted window the shadow of a woman changing her chemise. He fell in love with that
shadow and returned to the spot every evening for many months to gaze at the window. Yet—
and herein lies the fetichism—he made no attempt to see the woman or to find out who she
was; the shadow sufficed; he had no need of the realty.[7] It is even possible to have a negative
fetich, the absence of some character being alone demanded, and the case has been recorded in
Chicago of an American gentleman of average intelligence, education, and good habits who,
having as a boy cherished a pure affection for a girl whose leg had been amputated,
throughout life was relatively impotent with normal women, but experienced passion and
affection for women who had lost a leg; he was found by his wife to be in extensive
correspondence with one-legged women all over the country, expending no little money on the
purchase of artificial legs for his various protegées.[8]
It is important to remember, however, that while erotic symbolism becomes fantastic and
abnormal in its extreme manifestations, it is in its essence absolutely normal. It is only in the
very grossest forms of sexual desire that it is altogether absent. Stendhal described the mental
side of the process of tumescence as a crystallization, a process whereby certain features of the
beloved person present points around which the emotions held in solution in the lover's mind
may concentrate and deposit themselves in dazzling brilliance. This process inevitably tends to
take place around all those features and objects associated with the beloved person which have
most deeply impressed the lover's mind, and the more sensitive and imaginative and emotional
he is the more certainly will such features and objects crystallize into erotic symbols.
"Devotion and love," wrote Mary Wollstonecraft, "may be allowed to hallow the garments as
well as the person, for the lover must want fancy who has not a sort of sacred respect for the

glove or slipper of his mistress. He would not confound them with vulgar things of the same
kind." And nearly two centuries earlier Burton, who had gathered together so much of the
ancient lore of love, clearly asserted the entirely normal character of erotic symbolism. "Not
one of a thousand falls in love," he declares, "but there is some peculiar part or other which
pleaseth most, and inflames him above the rest.... If he gets any remnant of hers, a busk-point,
a feather of her fan, a shoe-tie, a lace, a ring, a bracelet of hair, he wears it for a favor on his
arm, in his hat, finger, or next his heart; as Laodamia did by Protesilaus, when he went to war,
sit at home with his picture before her: a garter or a bracelet of hers is more precious than any
Saint's Relique, he lays it up in his casket (O blessed Relique) and every day will kiss it: if in
her presence his eye is never off her, and drink he will where she drank, if it be possible, in
that very place," etc.[9]
Burton's accuracy in describing the ways of lovers in his century is shown by a passage in
Hamilton's Mémoires de Gramont. Miss Price, one of the beauties of Charles II's court, and
Dongan were tenderly attached to each other; when the latter died he left behind a casket full
of all possible sorts of love-tokens pertaining to his mistress, including, among other things,
"all kinds of hair." And as regards France, Burton's contemporary, Howell, wrote in 1627 in
his Familiar Letters concerning the repulse of the English at Rhé: "A captain told me that
when they were rifling the dead bodies of the French gentlemen after the first invasion they
found that many of them had their mistresses' favors tied about their genitories."
Schurig (Spermatologia, p. 357) at the beginning of the eighteenth century knew a Belgian
lady who, when her dearly loved husband died, secretly cut off his penis and treasured it as a
sacred relic in a silver casket. She eventually powdered it, he adds, and found it an efficacious
medicine for herself and others. An earlier example, of a lady at the French court who
embalmed and perfumed the genital organs of her dead husband, always preserving them in a
gold casket, is mentioned by Brantôme. Mantegazza knew a man who kept for many years on
his desk the skull of his dead mistress, making it his dearest companion. "Some," he remarks,
"have slept for months and years with a book, a garment, a trifle. I once had a friend who
would spend long hours of joy and emotion kissing a thread of silk which she had held
between her fingers, now the only relic of love." (Mantegazza, Fisiologia dell' Amore, cap. X.)
In the same way I knew a lady who in old age still treasured in her desk, as the one relic of the
only man she had ever been attracted to, a fragment of paper he had casually twisted up in a
conversation with her half a century before.
The tendency to treasure the relics of a beloved person, more especially the garments, is the
simplest and commonest foundation of erotic symbolism. It is without doubt absolutely
normal. It is inevitable that those objects which have been in close contact with the beloved
person's body, and are intimately associated with that person in the lover's mind, should
possess a little of the same virtue, the same emotional potency. It is a phenomenon closely
analogous to that by which the relics of saints are held to possess a singular virtue. But it
becomes somewhat less normal when the garment is regarded as essential even in the presence
of the beloved person.[10]
While an extremely large number of objects and acts may be found to possess occasionally the
value of erotic symbols, such symbols most frequently fall into certain well-defined groups. A

vast number of isolated objects or acts may be exceptionally the focus of erotic contemplation,
but the objects and acts which frequently become thus symbolic are comparatively few.
It seems to me that the phenomena of erotic symbolism may be most conveniently grouped in
three great classes, on the basis of the objects or acts which arouse them.

I. PARTS OF THE BODY.—
A. Normal: Hand, foot, breasts, nates, hair, secretions and excretions, etc.
B. Abnormal: Lameness, squinting, pitting of smallpox, etc. Paidophilia or the love of
children, presbyophilia or the love of the aged, and necrophilia or the attraction for corpses,
may be included under this head, as well as the excitement caused by various animals.

II. INANIMATE OBJECTS.[11]—
A. Garments: Gloves, shoes and stockings and garters, caps, aprons, handkerchiefs,
underlinen.
B. Impersonal Objects: Here may be included all the various objects that may accidentally
acquire the power of exciting sexual feeling in auto-erotism. Pygmalionism may also be
included.

III. ACTS AND ATTITUDES.—
A. Active: Whipping, cruelty, exhibitionism.
B. Passive: Being whipped, experiencing cruelty. Personal odors and the sound of the voice
may be included under this head.
C. Mixoscopic: The vision of climbing, swinging, etc. The acts of urination and defecation.
The coitus of animals.
Although the three main groups into which the phenomena of erotic symbolism are here
divided may seem fairly distinct, they are yet very closely allied, and indeed overlap, so that it
is possible, as we shall see, for a single complex symbol to fall into all three groups.
A very complete kind of erotic symbolism is furnished by Pygmalionism or the love of statues.
[12]
It is exactly analogous to the child's love of a doll, which is also a form of sexual (though
not erotic) symbolism. In a somewhat less abnormal form, erotic symbolism probably shows
itself in its simplest shape in the tendency to idealize unbeautiful peculiarities in a beloved
person, so that such peculiarities are ever afterward almost or quite essential in order to arouse
sexual attraction. In this way men have become attracted to limping women. Even the most
normal man may idealize a trifling defect in a beloved woman. The attention is inevitably
concentrated on any such slight deviation from regular beauty, and the natural result of such

concentration is that a complexus of associated thoughts and emotions becomes attached to
something that in itself is unbeautiful. A defect becomes an admired focus of attention, the
embodied symbol of the lover's emotion.
Thus a mole is not in itself beautiful, but by the tendency to erotic symbolism it becomes so.
Persian poets especially have lavished the richest imagery on moles (Anis El-Ochchâq in
Bibliothèque des Hautes Etudes, fasc, 25, 1875); the Arabs, as Lane remarks (Arabian Society
in the Middle Ages, p. 214), are equally extravagant in their admiration of a mole.
Stendhal long since well described the process by which a defect becomes a sexual symbol.
"Even little defects in a woman's face," he remarked, "such as a smallpox pit, may arouse the
tenderness of a man who loves her, and throw him into deep reverie when he sees them in
another woman. It is because he has experienced a thousand feelings in the presence of that
smallpox mark, that these feelings have been for the most part delicious, all of the highest
interest, and that, whatever they may have been, they are renewed with incredible vivacity on
the sight of this sign, even when perceived on the face of another woman. If in such a case we
come to prefer and love ugliness, it is only because in such a case ugliness is beauty. A man
loved a woman who was very thin and marked by smallpox; he lost her by death. Three years
later, in Rome, he became acquainted with two women, one very beautiful, the other thin and
marked by smallpox, on that account, if you will, rather ugly. I saw him in love with this plain
one at the end of a week, which he had employed in effacing her plainness by his memories."
(De l'Amour, Chapter XVII.)
In the tendency to idealize the unbeautiful features of a beloved person erotic symbolism
shows itself in a simple and normal form. In a less simple and more morbid form it appears in
persons in whom the normal paths of sexual gratification are for some reasons inhibited, and
who are thus led to find the symbols of natural love in unnatural perversions. It is for this
reason that so many erotic symbolisms take root in childhood and puberty, before the sexual
instincts have reached full development. It is for the same reason also, that, at the other end of
life, when the sexual energies are failing, erotic symbols sometimes tend to be substituted for
the normal pleasures of sex. It is for this reason, again, that both men and women whose
normal energies are inhibited sometimes find the symbols of sexual gratification in the
caresses of children.
The case of a schoolmistress recorded by Penta instructively shows how an erotic symbolism
of this last kind may develop by no means as a refinement of vice, but as the one form in
which sexual gratification becomes possible when normal gratification has been
pathologically inhibited. F. R., aged 48, schoolmistress; she was some years ago in an asylum
with religious mania, but came out well in a few months. At the age of 12 she had first
experienced sexual excitement in a railway train from the jolting of the carriage. Soon after
she fell in love with a youth who represented her ideal and who returned her affection. When,
however, she gave herself to him, great was her disillusion and surprise to find that the sexual
act which she had looked forward to could not be accomplished, for at the first contact there
was great pain and spasmodic resistance of the vagina. There was a condition of vaginismus.
After repeated attempts on subsequent occasions her lover desisted. Her desire for intercourse
increased, however, rather than diminished, and at last she was able to tolerate coitus, but the
pain was so great that she acquired a horror of the sexual embrace and no longer sought it.

Having much will power, she restrained all erotic impulses during many years. It was not until
the period of the menopause that the long repressed desires broke out, and at last found a
symbolical outlet that was no longer normal, but was felt to supply a complete gratification.
She sought the close physical contact of the young children in her care. She would lie on her
bed naked, with two or three naked children, make them suck her breasts and press them to
every part of her body. Her conduct was discovered by means of other children who peeped
through the keyhole, and she was placed under Penta for treatment. In this case the loss of
moral and mental inhibition, due probably to troubles of the climacteric, led to indulgence,
under abnormal conditions, in those primitive contacts which are normally the beginning of
love, and these, supported by the ideal image of the early lover, constituted a complete and
adequate symbol of natural love in a morbidly perverted individual. (P. Penta, Archivio delle
Psicopatie Sessuali, January, 1896.)

[1]
The term "erotic symbolism" has already been employed by Eulenburg (Sexuale
Neuropathie, 1895, p. 101). It must be borne in mind that this term, implying the
specific emotion, is much narrower than the term "sexual symbolism," which may
be used to designate a great variety of ritual and social practices which have played
a part in the evolution of civilization.

[2]
Sexual Selection in Man, iv, "Vision."

[3]
K. Groos, Der Æsthetische Genuss, p. 122. The psychology of the associations of
contiguity and resemblance through which erotic symbolism operates its
transference is briefly discussed by Ribot in the Psychology of the Emotions, Part 1,
Chapter XII; the early chapters of the same author's Logique des Sentiments may
also be said to deal with the emotional basis on which erotic symbolism arises.

[4]
A number of synonyms for the female pudenda are brought together by Schurig—
cunnus, hortus, concha, navis, fovea, larva, canis, annulus, focus, cymba, antrum,
delta, myrtus, etc.—and he discusses many of them. (Muliebria, Section I, cap. I.)

[5]
Kleinpaul, Sprache Ohne Worte, pp. 24-29; cf. K. Pearson, on the general and
special words for sex, Chances of Death, vol. ii, pp. 112-245; a selection of the
literature of the rose will be found in a volume of translations entitled Ros Rosarum.

[6]
G. S. Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 470.

[7]
Goron, Les Parias de l'Amour, p. 45.

[8]
A. R. Reynolds, Medical Standard, vol. x, cited by Kiernan, "Responsibility in
Sexual Perversion," American Journal of Neurology and Psychiatry, 1882.

[9]
R. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II, and Mem.
III, Subs. I.

[10]
Numerous examples are given by Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition,
pp. 265-268.

[11]
Chevalier (De l'Inversion, 1885; id., L'Inversion Sexuelle, 1892, p. 52), followed by
E. Laurent (L'Amour Morbide, 1891, Chapter X), separates this group from other
fetichistic perversions, under the head of "azoöphilie." I see no adequate ground for
this step. The various forms of fetichism are too intimately associated to permit of
any group of them being violently separated from the others.

[12]
This has already been considered as a perversion founded on vision, in discussing
Sexual Selection in Man. IV.

II.

Foot-fetichism and Shoe-fetichism—Wide Prevalence and Normal Basis—Restif de la
Bretonne—The Foot a Normal Focus of Sexual Attraction Among Some Peoples—The
Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, etc.—The Congenital Predisposition in Erotic
Symbolism—The Influence of Early Association and Emotional Shock—Shoe-fetichism in
Relation to Masochism—The Two Phenomena Independent Though Allied—The Desire to be
Trodden On—The Fascination of Physical Constraint—The Symbolism of Self-inflicted Pain
—The Dynamic Element in Erotic Symbolism—The Symbolism of Garments.

Of all forms of erotic symbolism the most frequent is that which idealizes the foot and the
shoe. The phenomena we here encounter are sometimes so complex and raise so many
interesting questions that it is necessary to discuss them somewhat fully.

It would seem that even for the normal lover the foot is one of the most attractive parts of the
body. Stanley Hall found that among the parts specified as most admired in the other sex by
young men and women who answered a questionnaire the feet came fourth (after the eyes,
hair, stature and size).[13] Casanova, an acute student and lover of women who was in no
degree a foot fetichist, remarks that all men who share his interest in women are attracted by
their feet; they offer the same interest, he considers, as the question of the particular edition
offers to the book-lover.[14]
In a report of the results of a questionnaire concerning children's sense of self, to which over
500 replies were received, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the main facts ascertained with
reference to the feet: "A special period of noticing the feet comes somewhat later than that in
which the hands are discovered to consciousness. Our records afford nearly twice as many
cases for feet as for hands. The former are more remote from the primary psychic focus or
position, and are also more often covered, so that the sight of them is a more marked and
exceptional event. Some children become greatly excited whenever their feet are exposed.
Some infants show signs of fear at the movement of their own knees and feet covered, and still
more often fright is the first sensation which signalizes the child's discovery of its feet.... Many
are described as playing with them as if fascinated by strange, newly-discovered toys. They
pick them up and try to throw them away, or out of the cradle, or bring them to the mouth,
where all things tend to go.... Children often handle their feet, pat and stroke them, offer them
toys and the bottle, as if they, too, had an independent hunger to gratify, an ego of their own....
Children often develop [later] a special interest in the feet of others, and examine, feel them,
etc., sometimes expressing surprise that the pinch of the mother's toe hurts her and not the
child, or comparing their own and the feet of others point by point. Curious, too, are the
intensifications of foot-consciousness throughout the early years of childhood, whenever
children have the exceptional privilege of going barefoot, or have new shoes. The feet are
often apostrophized, punished, beaten sometimes to the point of pain for breaking things,
throwing the child down, etc. Several children have habits, which reach great intensity, and
then vanish, of touching or tickling the feet, with gales of laughter, and a few are described as
showing an almost morbid reluctance to wear anything upon the feet, or even to having them
touched by others.... Several almost fall in love with the great toe or the little one, especially
admiring some crease or dimple in it, dressing it in some rag of silk or bit of ribbon, or cut-off
glove fingers, winding it with string, prolonging it by tying on bits of wood. Stroking the feet
of others, especially if they are shapely, often becomes almost a passion with young children,
and several adults confess a survival of the same impulse which it is an exquisite pleasure to
gratify. The interest of some mothers in babies' toes, the expressions of which are ecstatic and
almost incredible, is a factor of great importance." (G. Stanley Hall, "Some Aspects of the
Early Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898.) In childhood, Stanley
Hall remarks elsewhere (Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 104), "a form of courtship may consist solely
in touching feet under the desk." It would seem that even animals have a certain amount of
sexual consciousness in the feet; I have noticed a male donkey, just before coitus, bite the feet
of his partner.
At the same time it is scarcely usual for the normal lover, in most civilized countries to-day, to
attach primary importance to the foot, such as he very frequently attaches to the eyes, though
the feet play a very conspicuous part in the work of certain novelists.[15]

In a small but not inconsiderable minority of persons, however, the foot or the boot becomes
the most attractive part of a woman, and in some morbid cases the woman herself is regarded
as a comparatively unimportant appendage to her feet or her boots. The boots under civilized
conditions much more frequently constitute the sexual symbol than do the feet themselves;
this is not surprising since in ordinary life the feet are not often seen.
It is usually only under exceptionally favoring conditions that foot-fetichism occurs, as in the
case recorded by Marandon de Montyel of a doctor who had been brought up in the West
Indies. His mother had been insane and he himself was subject to obsessions, especially of
being incapable of urinating; he had had nocturnal incontinence of urine in childhood. All the
women of the people in the West Indies go about with naked feet, which are often beautiful.
His puberty evolved under this influence, and foot-fetichism developed. He especially admired
large, fat, arched feet, with delicate skin and large, regular toes. He masturbated with images
of feet. At 15 he had relations with a colored chambermaid, but feared to mention his
fetichism, though it was the touch of her feet that chiefly excited him. He now gave up
masturbation, and had a succession of mistresses, but was always ashamed to confess his
fancies until, at the age of 33, in Paris, a very intelligent woman who had become his mistress
discovered his mania and skillfully enabled him to yield to it without shock to his modesty. He
was devoted to this mistress, who had very beautiful feet (he had been horrified by the feet of
Europeans generally), until she finally left him. (Archives de Neurologie, October, 1904.)
Probably the first case of shoe-fetichism ever recorded in any detail is that of Restif de la
Bretonne (1734-1806), publicist and novelist, one of the most remarkable literary figures of
the later eighteenth century in France. Restif was a neurotic subject, though not to an extreme
degree, and his shoe-fetichism, though distinctly pronounced, was not pathological; that is to
say, that the shoe was not itself an adequate gratification of the sexual impulse, but simply a
highly important aid to tumescence, a prelude to the natural climax of detumescence; only
occasionally, and faute de mieux, in the absence of the beloved person, was the shoe used as an
adjunct to masturbation. In Restif's stories and elsewhere the attraction of the shoe is
frequently discussed or used as a motive. His first decided literary success, Le Pied de
Fanchette, was suggested by a vision of a girl with a charming foot, casually seen in the street.
While all such passages in his books are really founded on his own personal feelings and
experiences, in his elaborate autobiography, Monsieur Nicolas, he has frankly set forth the
gradual evolution and cause of his idiosyncrasy. The first remembered trace dated from the
age of 4, when he was able to recall having remarked the feet of a young girl in his native
place. Restif was a sexually precocious youth, and at the age of 9, though both delicate in
health and shy in manners, his thoughts were already absorbed in the girls around him. "While
little Monsieur Nicolas," he tells us, "passed for a Narcissus, his thoughts, as soon as he was
alone, by night or by day, had no other object than that sex he seemed to flee from. The girls
most careful of their persons were naturally those who pleased him most, and as the part least
easy to keep clean is that which touches the earth it was to the foot-gear that he mechanically
gave his chief attention. Agathe, Reine, and especially Madeleine, were the most elegant of the
girls at that time; their carefully selected and kept shoes, instead of laces or buckles, which
were not yet worn at Sacy, had blue or rose ribbon, according to the color of the skirt. I
thought of these girls with emotion; I desired—I knew not what; but I desired something, if it
were only to subdue them." The origin Restif here assigns to his shoe-fetichism may seem
paradoxical; he admired the girls who were most clean and neat in their dress, he tells us, and,

therefore, paid most attention to that part of their clothing which was least clean and neat. But,
however paradoxical the remark may seem, it is psychologically sound. All fetichism is a kind
of not necessarily morbid obsession, and as the careful work of Janet and others in that field
has shown, an obsession is a fascinated attraction to some object or idea which gives the
subject a kind of emotional shock by its contrast to his habitual moods or ideas. The ordinary
morbid obsession cannot usually be harmoniously co-ordinated with the other experiences of
the subject's daily life, and shows, therefore, no tendency to become pleasurable. Sexual
fetichisms, on the other hand, have a reservoir of agreeable emotion to draw on, and are thus
able to acquire both stability and harmony. It will also be seen that no element of masochism is
involved in Restif's fetichism, though the mistake has been frequently made of supposing that
these two manifestations are usually or even necessarily allied. Restif wishes to subject the girl
who attracts him, he has no wish to be subjected by her. He was especially dazzled by a young
girl from another town, whose shoes were of a fashionable cut, with buckles, "and who was a
charming person besides." She was delicate as a fairy, and rendered his thoughts unfaithful to
the robust beauties of his native Sacy. "No doubt," he remarks, "because, being frail and weak
myself, it seemed to me that it would be easier to subdue her." "This taste for the beauty of the
feet," he continues, "was so powerful in me that it unfailingly aroused desire and would have
made me overlook ugliness. It is excessive in all those who have it." He admired the foot as
well as the shoe: "The factitious taste for the shoe is only a reflection of that for pretty feet.
When I entered a house and saw the boots arranged in a row, as is the custom, I would tremble
with pleasure; I blushed and lowered my eyes as if in the presence of the girls themselves.
With this vivacity of feeling and a voluptuousness of ideas inconceivable at the age of 10 I still
fled, with an involuntary impulse of modesty, from the girls I adored."
We may clearly see how this combination of sensitive and precocious sexual ardor with
extreme shyness, furnished the soil on which the germ of shoe-fetichism was able to gain a
firm root and persist in some degree throughout a long life very largely given up to a pursuit of
women, abnormal rather by its excessiveness than its perversity. A few years later, he tells us,
he happened to see a pretty pair of shoes in a bootmaker's shop, and on hearing that they
belonged to a girl whom at that time he reverently adored at a distance he blushed and nearly
fainted.
In 1749 he was for a time attracted to a young woman very much older than himself; he
secretly carried away one of her slippers and kept it for a day; a little later he again took away
a shoe of the same woman which had fascinated him when on her foot, and, he seems to
imply, he used it to masturbate with.
Perhaps the chief passion of Restif's life was his love for Colette Parangon. He was still a boy
(1752), she was the young and virtuous wife of the printer whose apprentice Restif was and in
whose house he lived. Madame Parangon, a charming woman, as she is described, was not
happily married, and she evidently felt a tender affection for the boy whose excessive love and
reverence for her were not always successfully concealed. "Madonna Parangon," he tells us,
"possessed a charm which I could never resist, a pretty little foot; it is a charm which arouses
more than tenderness. Her shoes, made in Paris, had that voluptuous elegance which seems to
communicate soul and life. Sometimes Colette wore shoes of simple white drugget or with
silver flowers; sometimes rose-colored slippers with green heels, or green with rose heels; her
supple feet, far from deforming her shoes, increased their grace and rendered the form more

exciting." One day, on entering the house, he saw Madame Parangon elegantly dressed and
wearing rose-colored shoes with tongues, and with green heels and a pretty rosette. They were
new and she took them off to put on green slippers with rose heels and borders which he
thought equally exciting. As soon as she had left the room, he continues, "carried away by the
most impetuous passion and idolizing Colette, I seemed to see her and touch her in handling
what she had just worn; my lips pressed one of these jewels, while the other, deceiving the
sacred end of nature, from excess of exaltation replaced the object of sex (I cannot express
myself more clearly). The warmth which she had communicated to the insensible object which
had touched her still remained and gave a soul to it; a voluptuous cloud covered my eyes." He
adds that he would kiss with rage and transport whatever had come in close contact with the
woman he adored, and on one occasion eagerly pressed his lips to her cast-off underlinen, vela
secretiora penetralium.
At this period Restif's foot-fetichism reached its highest point of development. It was the
aberration of a highly sensitive and very precocious boy. While the preoccupation with feet
and shoes persisted throughout life, it never became a complete perversion and never replaced
the normal end of sexual desire. His love for Madam Parangon, one of the deepest emotions in
his whole life, was also the climax of his shoe-fetichism. She represented his ideal woman, an
ethereal sylph with wasp-waist and a child's feet; it was always his highest praise for a woman
that she resembled Madame Parangon, and he desired that her slipper should be buried with
him. (Restif de la Bretonne, Monsieur Nicolas, vols. i-iv, vol. xiii, p. 5; id., Mes Inscriptions,
pp. ci-cv.)
Shoe-fetichism, more especially if we include under this term all the cases of real or pseudo-
masochism in which an attraction to the boots or slippers is the chief feature, is a not
infrequent phenomenon, and is certainly the most frequently occurring form of fetichism.
Many cases are brought together by Krafft-Ebing in his Psychopathia Sexualis. Every
prostitute of any experience has known men who merely desire to gaze at her shoes, or
possibly to lick them, and who are quite willing to pay for this privilege. In London such a
person is known as a "bootman," in Germany as a "Stiefelfrier."
The predominance of the foot as a focus of sexual attraction, while among us to-day it is a not
uncommon phenomenon, is still not sufficiently common to be called normal; the majority of
even ardent lovers do not experience this attraction in any marked degree. But these
manifestations of foot-fetichism which with us to-day are abnormal, even when they are not so
extreme as to be morbid, may perhaps become more intelligible to us when we realize that in
earlier periods of civilization, and even to-day in some parts of the world, the foot is generally
recognized as a focus of sexual attraction, so that some degree of foot-fetichism becomes a
normal phenomenon.
The most pronounced and the best known example of such normal foot-fetichism at the
present day is certainly to be found among the Southern Chinese. For a Chinese husband his
wife's foot is more interesting than her face. A Chinese woman is as shy of showing her feet to
a man as a European woman her breasts; they are reserved for her husband's eyes alone, and to
look at a woman's feet in the street is highly improper and indelicate. Chinese foot-fetichism is
connected with the custom of compressing the feet. This custom appears to rest on the fact that
Chinese women naturally possess a very small foot and is thus an example of the universal

tendency in the search for beauty to accentuate, even by deformation, the racial characteristics.
But there is more than this. Beauty is largely a name for sexual attractiveness, and the energy
expended in the effort to make the Chinese woman's small foot still smaller is a measure of the
sexual fascination which it exerts. The practice arose on the basis of the sexual attractiveness
of the foot, though it has doubtless served to heighten that attractiveness, just as the small
waist, which (if we may follow Stratz) is a characteristic beauty of the European woman,
becomes to the average European man still more attractive when accentuated, even to the
extent of deformity, by the compression of the corset.
Referring to the sexual fascination exerted by the foot in China, Matignon writes: "My
attention has been drawn to this point by a large number of pornographic engravings, of which
the Chinese are very fond. In all these lascivious scenes we see the male voluptuously
fondling the woman's foot. When a Celestial takes into his hand a woman's foot, especially if
it is very small, the effect upon him is precisely the same as is provoked in a European by the
palpation of a young and firm bosom. All the Celestials whom I have interrogated on this point
have replied unanimously: 'Oh, a little foot! You Europeans cannot understand how exquisite,
how sweet, how exciting it is!' The contact of the genital organ with the little foot produces in
the male an indescribable degree of voluptuous feeling, and women skilled in love know that
to arouse the ardor of their lovers a better method than all Chinese aphrodisiacs—including
'giusen' and swallows' nests—is to take the penis between their feet. It is not rare to find
Chinese Christians accusing themselves at confession of having had 'evil thoughts on looking
at a woman's foot.'" (Dr. J. Matignon, "A propos d'un Pied de Chinoise," Archives
d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1898.)
It is said that a Chinese Empress, noted for her vice and having a congenital club foot, about
the year 1100 B.C., desired all women to resemble her, and that the practice of compressing
the foot thus arose. But this is only tradition, since, in 300 B.C., Chinese books were destroyed
(Morache, Art. "Chine," Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales, p. 191). It is
also said that the practice owes its origin to the wish to keep women indoors. But women are
not secluded in China, nor does foot compression usually render a woman unable to walk.
Many intelligent Chinese are of opinion that its object is to promote the development of the
sexual parts and of the thighs, and so to aid both intercourse and parturition. There is no
ground for believing that it has any such influence, though Morache found that the mons
veneris and labia are largely developed in Chinese women, and not in Tartar women living in
Pekin (who do not compress the foot). If there is any correlation between the feet and the
pelvic regions, it is more probably congenital than due to the artificial compression of the feet.
The ancients seem to have believed that a small foot indicated a small vagina. Restif de la
Bretonne, who had ample opportunities for forming an opinion on a matter in which he took
so great an interest, believed that a small foot, round and short, indicated a large vagina
(Monsieur Nicolas, vol. i, reprint of 1883, p. 92). Even, however, if we admit that there is a
real correlation between the foot and the vagina, that would by no means suffice to render the
foot a focus of sexual attraction.
It remains the most reasonable view that the foot bandage must be regarded as strictly
analogous to the waist bandage or corset which also tends to produce deformity of the
constricted region. Stratz has ingeniously remarked (Frauenkleidung, third edition, p. 101)
that the success of the Chinese in dwarfing trees may have suggested a similar attempt in

regard to women's feet, and adds that in any case both dwarfed trees and bound feet bear
witness in the Mongolian to the same love for small and elegant, not to say deformed, things.
For a Chinaman the deformed foot is a "golden water-lily."
Many facts (together with illustrations) bearing on Chinese deformation of the foot will be
found in Ploss, Das Weib, vol. i, Section IV.
The significance of the sexual emotion aroused by the female foot in China and the origin of
its compression begin to become clear when we realize that this foot-fetichism is merely an
extreme development of a tendency which is fairly well marked among nearly all the peoples
of yellow race. Jacoby, who has brought together a number of interesting facts bearing on the
sexual significance of the foot, states that a similar tendency is to be found among the Mongol
and Turk peoples of Siberia, and in the east and central parts of European Russia, among the
Permiaks, the Wotiaks, etc. Here the woman, at all events when young, has always her feet, as
well as head, covered, however little clothing she may otherwise wear.
"On hot nights or on baking days," Jacoby states, "you may see these women with uncovered
breasts, or even entirely naked without embarrassment, but you will never see them with bare
feet, and no male relations, except the husband, will ever see the feet and lower part of the legs
of the women in the house. These women have their modesty in their feet, and also their
coquetry; to unbind the feet of a woman is for a man a voluptuous act, and the touch of the
bands produces the same effect as a corset still warm from a woman's body on a European
man. A woman's beauty, that which attracts and excites a man, lies in her foot; in Mordvin
love poems celebrating the beauty of women there is much about her attire, especially her
embroidered chemise, but as regards the charms of her person the poet is content to state that
'her feet are beautiful;' with that everything is said. The young peasant woman of the central
provinces as part of her holiday raiment puts on great woolen stockings which come up to the
groin and are then folded over to below the knee. To uncover the feet of a person of the
opposite sex is a sexual act, and has thus become the symbol of sexual possession, so that the
stocking or foot-gear became the emblem of marriage, as later the ring. (It was so among the
Jews, as we see in the book of Ruth, Chapter III, v. 4, and Chapter IV, vv. 7 and 8). St.
Vladimir the Great asked in marriage the daughter of Prince Rogvold; as Vladimir's mother
had been a serf, the princess proudly replied that she 'would not uncover the feet of a slave.' At
the present time in the east of Russia when a young girl tries to find out by divination whom
she will have as a husband the traditional formula is 'Come and take my stockings off.' Among
the populations of the north and east, it is sometimes the bride who must do this for her
husband on the wedding night, and sometimes the bridegroom for his wife, not as a token of
love, but as a nuptial ceremony. Among the professional classes and small nobility in Russia
parents place money in the stocking of their child at marriage as a present for the other partner,
it being supposed that the couple mutually remove each other's foot raiment, as an act of
sexual possession, the emblem of coitus." (Paul Jacoby, Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle,
December, 1903, p. 793.) The practice among ourselves of children hanging up their stockings
at night for presents would seem to be a relic of the last-mentioned custom.
While we may witness the sexual symbolism of the foot, with or without an associated foot-
fetichism, most highly developed in Asia and Eastern Europe, it has by no means been
altogether unknown in some stages of western civilization, and traces of it may be found here

and there even yet. Schinz refers to the connection between the feet and sexual pleasure as
existing not only among the Egyptians and the Arabs, but among the ancient Germans and the
modern Spaniards,[16] while Jacoby points out that among the Greeks, the Romans, and
especially the Etruscans, it was usual to represent chaste and virgin goddesses with their feet
covered, even though they might be otherwise nude. Ovid, again, is never weary of dwelling
on the sexual charm of the feminine foot. He represents the chaste matron as wearing a
weighted stola which always fell so as to cover her feet; it was only the courtesan, or the
nymph who is taking part in an erotic festival, who appears with raised robes, revealing her
feet.[17] So grave a historian as Strabo, as well as Ælian, refers to the story of the courtesan
Rhodope whose sandal was carried off by an eagle and dropped in the King of Egypt's lap as
he was administering justice, so that he could not rest until he had discovered to whom this
delicately small sandal belonged, and finally made her his queen. Kleinpaul, who repeats this
story, has collected many European sayings and customs (including Turkish), indicating that
the slipper is a very ancient symbol of a woman's sexual parts.[18]
In Rome, Dufour remarks, "Matrons having appropriated the use of the shoe (soccus)
prostitutes were not allowed to use it, and were obliged to have their feet always naked in
sandals or slippers (crepida and solea), which they fastened over the instep with gilt bands.
Tibullus delights to describe his mistress's little foot, compressed by the band that imprisoned
it: Ansaque compressos colligat arcta pedes. Nudity of the foot in woman was a sign of
prostitution, and their brilliant whiteness acted afar as a pimp to attract looks and desires."
(Dufour, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. II., ch. xviii.)
This feeling seems to have survived in a more or less vague and unconscious form in
mediæval Europe. "In the tenth century," according to Dufour (Histoire de la Prostitution, vol.
VI., p. 11), "shoes a la poulaine, with a claw or beak, pursued for more than four centuries by
the anathemas of popes and the invectives of preachers, were always regarded by mediæval
casuists as the most abominable emblems of immodesty. At a first glance it is not easy to see
why these shoes—terminating in a lion's claw, an eagle's beak, the prow of a ship, or other
metal appendage—should be so scandalous. The excommunication inflicted on this kind of
foot-gear preceded the impudent invention of some libertine, who wore poulaines in the shape
of the phallus, a custom adopted also by women. This kind of poulaine was denounced as
mandite de Dicu (Ducange's Glossary, at the word Poulainia) and prohibited by royal
ordinances (see letter of Charles V., 17 October, 1367, regarding the garments of the women of
Montpellier). Great lords and ladies continued, however, to wear poulaines." In Louis XL's
court they were still worn of a quarter of an ell in length.
Spain, ever tenacious of ancient ideas, appears to have preserved longer than other countries
the ancient classic traditions in regard to the foot as a focus of modesty and an object of sexual
attraction. In Spanish religious pictures it was always necessary that the Virgin's feet should be
concealed, the clergy ordaining that her robe should be long and flowing, so that the feet might
be covered with decent folds. Pacheco, the master and father-in-law of Velasquez, writes in
1649 in his Arte de la Pintura: "What can be more foreign from the respect which we owe to
the purity of Our Lady the Virgin than to paint her sitting down with one of her knees placed
over the other, and often with her sacred feet uncovered and naked. Let thanks be given to the
Holy Inquisition which commands that this liberty should be corrected!" It was Pacheco's duty
in Seville to see that these commands were obeyed. At the court of Philip IV. at this time the

princesses never showed their feet, as we may see in the pictures of Velasquez. When a local
manufacturer desired to present that monarch's second bride, Mariana of Austria, with some
silk stockings the offer was indignantly rejected by the Court Chamberlain: "The Queen of
Spain has no legs!" Philip V.'s, queen was thrown from her horse and dragged by the feet; no
one ventured to interfere until two gentlemen bravely rescued her and then fled, dreading
punishment by the king: they were, however, graciously pardoned. Reinach ("Pieds Pudiques,"
Cultes, Mythes et Religions, pp. 105-110) brings together several passages from the Countess
D'Aulnoy's account of the Madrid Court in the seventeenth century and from other sources,
showing how careful Spanish ladies were as regards their feet, and how jealous Spanish
husbands were in this matter. At this time, when Spanish influence was considerable, the
fashion of Spain seems to have spread to other countries. One may note that in Vandyck's
pictures of English beauties the feet are not visible, though in the more characteristically
English painters of a somewhat later age it became usual to display them conspicuously, while
the French custom in this matter is the farthest removed from the Spanish. At the present day a
well-bred Spanish woman shows as little as possible of her feet in walking, and even in some
of the most characteristic Spanish dances there is little or no kicking, and the feet may even be
invisible throughout. It is noteworthy that in numerous figures of Spanish women (probably
artists' models) reproduced in Ploss's Das Weib the stockings are worn, although the women
are otherwise, in most cases, quite naked. Max Dessoir mentions ("Psychologie der Vita
Sexualis," Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1894, p. 954) that in Spanish pornographic photographs
women always have their shoes on, and he considers this an indication of perversity. I have
seen the statement (attributed to Gautier's Voyage en Espagne, where, however, it does not
occur) that Spanish prostitutes uncover their feet in sign of assent, and Madame d'Aulnoy
stated that in her time to show her lover her feet was a Spanish woman's final favor.
The tendency, which we thus find to be normal at some earlier periods of civilization, to insist
on the sexual symbolism of the feminine foot or its coverings, and to regard them as a special
sexual fascination, is not without significance for the interpretation of the sporadic
manifestations of foot-fetichism among ourselves. Eccentric as foot-fetichism may appear to
us, it is simply the re-emergence, by a pseudo-atavism or arrest of development, of a mental or
emotional impulse which was probably experienced by our forefathers, and is often traceable
among young children to-day.[19] The occasional reappearance of this bygone impulse and the
stability which it may acquire are thus conditioned by the sensitive reaction of an abnormally
nervous and usually precocious organism to influences which, among the average and
ordinary population of Europe to-day, are either never felt, or quickly outgrown, or very
strictly subordinated in the highly complex crystallizations which the course of love and the
process of tumescence create within us.
It may be added that this is by no means true of foot-fetichism only. In some other fetichisms a
seemingly congenital predisposition is even more marked. This is not only the case as regards
hair-fetichism and fur-fetichism (see, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, English
translation of tenth edition, pp. 233, 255, 262). In many cases of fetichisms of all kinds not
only is there no record of any commencement in a definite episode (an absence which may be
accounted for by the supposition that the original incident has been forgotten), but it would
seem in some cases that the fetichism developed very slowly.

In this sense, it will be seen, although it is hazardous to speak of foot-fetichism as strictly an
atavism, it may certainly be said to arise on a congenital basis. It represents the rare
development of an inborn germ, usually latent among ourselves, which in earlier stages of
civilization frequently reached a normal and general fruition.
It is of interest to emphasize this congenital element of foot symbolism, because more than
any other forms of sexual perversion the fetichisms are those which are most vaguely
conditioned by inborn states of the organism and most definitely aroused by seemingly
accidental associations or shocks in early life. Inversion is sometimes so fundamentally
ingrained in the individual's constitution that it arises and develops in spite of the very
strongest influence in a contrary direction. But a fetichism, while it tends to occur in sensitive,
nervous, timid, precocious individuals—that is to say, individuals of more or less neuropathic
heredity—can usually, though not always, be traced to a definite starting point in the shock of
some sexually emotional episode in early life.
A few examples of the influences of such association may here be given, referring
miscellaneously to various forms of erotic symbolism. Magnan has recorded the case of a hair-
fetichist, living in a district where the women wore their hair done up, who at the age of 15
experienced pleasurable feelings with erection at the sight of a village beauty combing her
hair; from that time flowing hair became his fetich, and he could not resist the temptation to
touch it and if possible sever it, thus becoming a hair-despoiler, for which he was arrested but
not sentenced. (Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, vol. v, No. 28.)
I have elsewhere recorded the history of a boy of 14, having already had imperfect connection
with a grown-up woman, who associated much with a young married lady; he had no sexual
relations with her, but one day she urinated in his presence, and he saw that her mons veneris
was covered by very thick hair; from that time he worshiped this woman in secret and
acquired a life-long fetichistic attraction to women whose pubic hair was similarly abundant
(Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. iii, Appendix B, History V).
Roubaud reported the case of a general's son, sexually initiated at the age of 14 by a blonde
young lady of 21 who, in order to avoid detection, always retained her clothing: gaiters, a
corset and a silk dress; when the boy's studies were completed and he was sent to a garrison
where he could enjoy freedom he found that his sexual desires could only be aroused by
blonde women dressed like the lady who had first aroused his sexual desires; consequently he
gave up all thoughts of matrimony, as a woman in nightclothes produced impotence (Traité de
l'Impuissance, p. 439). Krafft-Ebing records the somewhat similar case of a nervous Polish
boy of old family seduced at the age of 17 by a French governess, who during several months
practiced mutual masturbation with him; in this way his attention became attracted by her very
elegant boots, and in the end he became a confirmed boot-fetichist (Psychopathia Sexualis,
English translation, p. 249).
A boy of 7, of bad heredity, was taught to masturbate by a servant girl; on one occasion she
practiced this on him with her foot without taking off her shoe; it was the first time the
manœuvre gave him any pleasure, and an association was thus established which led to shoe-
fetichism (Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 44). A government official whose first coitus in
youth took place on a staircase; the sound of his partner's creaking shoes against the stairs,
produced by her efforts to accelerate orgasm, formed an association which developed into an

auditory shoe-fetichism; in the streets he was compelled to follow ladies whose shoes creaked,
ejaculation being thus produced, while to obtain complete satisfaction he would make a
prostitute, otherwise naked, sit in front of him in her shoes, moving her feet so that the shoes
creaked. (Moraglia, Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xiii, p. 568.)
Bechterew, in St. Petersburg, has recorded the case of a man who when a child used to fall
asleep at the knees of his nurse with his head buried in the folds of her apron; in this position
he first experienced erection and voluptuous sensations; when a youth he had no attraction to
naked women, and in real life and in dreams was only excited sexually under conditions
recalling his early experience; in his relations with women he preferred them dressed, and was
excited by the rustling sound of their skirts; in this case there was no traceable neuropathic
taint nor any other personal peculiarity. (Summarized in Journal de Psychologie Normale et
Pathologique, January-February, 1904, p. 72.)
In a curious case recorded in detail by Moll, a philologist of sensitive temperament but sound
heredity, who had always been fond of flowers, at the age of 21 became engaged to a young
lady who wore large roses fastened in her jacket; from this time roses became to him a sexual
fetich, to kiss them caused erection, and his erotic dreams were accompanied by visions of
roses and the hallucination of their odor; the engagement was finally broken off and the rose-
fetichism disappeared (Untersuchungen über Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 540).
Such associations may naturally occur in the early experiences of even the most normal
persons. The degree to which they will influence the subsequent life and thought and feeling
depends on the degree of the individual's morbid emotional receptivity, on the extent to which
he is hereditarily susceptible of abnormal deviation. Precocity is undoubtedly a condition
which favors such deviation; a child who is precociously and abnormally sensitive to persons
of the opposite sex before puberty has established the normal channels of sexual desire, is
peculiarly liable to become the prey of a chance symbolism. All degrees of such symbolism
are possible. While the average insensitive person may fail to perceive them at all, for the
more alert and imaginative lover they are a fascinating part of the highly charged
crystallization of passion. A more nervously exceptional person, when once such a symbolism
has become firmly implanted, may find it an absolutely essential element in the charm of a
beloved and charming person. Finally, for the individual who is thoroughly unsound the
symbol becomes generalized; a person is no longer desired at all, being merely regarded as an
appendage of the symbol, or being dispensed with altogether; the symbol is alone desired, and
is fully adequate to impart by itself complete sexual gratification. While it must be considered
a morbid state to demand a symbol as an almost essential part of the charm of a desired
person, it is only in the final condition, in which the symbol becomes all-sufficing, that we
have a true and complete perversion. In the less complete forms of symbolism it is still the
woman who is desired, and the ends of procreation may be served; when the woman is ignored
and the mere symbol is an adequate and even preferred stimulus to detumescence the
pathological condition becomes complete.
Krafft-Ebing regarded shoe-fetichism as, in large measure, a more or less latent form of
masochism, the foot or the shoe being the symbol of the subjection and humiliation which the
masochist feels in the presence of the beloved object. Moll is also inclined to accept such a
connection.

"The very numerous class of boot-and-shoe-fetichists," Krafft-Ebing wrote, "forms the
transition to the manifestations of another independent perversion, i.e., fetichism itself; but it
stands in closer relationship to the former.... It is highly probable, and shown by a correct
classification of the observed cases, that the majority, and perhaps all of the cases of shoe-
fetichism, rest upon a basis of more or less conscious masochistic desire for self-humiliation....
The majority or all may be looked upon as instances of latent masochism (the motive
remaining unconscious) in which the female foot or shoe, as the masochist's fetich, has
acquired an independent significance." (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation of tenth
edition, pp. 159, et seq.) "Though Krafft-Ebing may not have cleared up the whole matter,"
Moll remarks, "I regard his deductions concerning the connection of foot-and-shoe fetichism
to masochism as the most important progress that has been made in the theoretic study of
sexual perversions.... In any case, the connection is very frequent." (Konträre
Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 306.)
It is quite easy to see that this supposed identity of masochism and foot-fetichism forms a
seductive theory. It is also undoubtedly true that a masochist may very easily be inclined to
find in his mistress's foot an aid to the ecstatic self-abnegation which he desires to attain.[20]
But only confusion is attained by any general attempt to amalgamate masochism and foot-
fetichism. In the broad sense in which erotic symbolism is here understood, both masochism
and foot-fetichism may be coördinated as symbolisms; for the masochist his self-humiliating
impulses are the symbol of ecstatic adoration; for the foot-fetichist his mistress's foot or shoe
is the concentrated symbol of all that is most beautiful and elegant and feminine in her
personality. But if in this sense they are coördinated, they remain entirely distinct and have not
even any necessary tendency to become merged. Masochism merely simulates foot-fetichism;
for the masochist the boot is not strictly a symbol, it is only an instrument which enables him
to carry out his impulse; the true sexual symbol for him is not the boot, but the emotion of
self-subjection. For the foot-fetichist, on the other hand, the foot or the shoe is not a mere
instrument, but a true symbol; the focus of his worship, an idealized object which he is content
to contemplate or reverently touch. He has no necessary impulse to any self-degrading action,
nor any constant emotion of subjection. It may be noted that in the very typical case of foot-
fetichism which is presented to us in the person of Restif de la Bretonne (ante, p. 18), he
repeatedly speaks of "subjecting" the woman for whom he feels this fetichistic adoration, and
mentions that even when still a child he especially admired a delicate and fairy-like girl in this
respect because she seemed to him easier to subjugate. Throughout life Restif's attitude toward
women was active and masculine, without the slightest trace of masochism.[21]
To suppose that a fetichistic admiration of his mistress's foot is due to a lover's latent desire to
be kicked, is as unreasonable as it would be to suppose that a fetichistic admiration for her
hand indicated a latent desire to have his ears boxed. In determining whether we are concerned
with a case of foot-fetichism or of masochism we must take into consideration the whole of
the subject's mental and emotional attitude. An act, however definite, will not suffice as a
criterion, for the same act in different persons may have altogether different implications. To
amalgamate the two is the result of inadequate psychological analysis and only leads to
confusion.
It is, however, often very difficult to decide whether we are dealing with a case which is
predominantly one of masochism or of foot-fetichism. The nature of the action desired, as we

have seen, will not suffice to determine the psychological character of the perversion. Krafft-
Ebing believed that the desire to be trodden on, very frequently experienced by masochists, is
absolutely symptomatic of masochism.[22] This is scarcely the case. The desire to be trodden
on may be fundamentally an erotic symbolism, closely approaching foot-fetichism, and such
slight indications of masochism as appear may be merely a parasitic growth on the symbolism,
a growth perhaps more suggested by the circumstances involved in the gratification of the
abnormal desire than inherent in the innate impulse of the subject. This may be illustrated by
the interesting case of a very intelligent man with whom I am well acquainted.
C. P., aged 38. Heredity good. Parents both healthy and normal. Several children of the
marriage, all sexually normal so far as is known. C. P. is the youngest of the family and
separated from the others by an interval of many years. He was a seven-months' child. He has
always enjoyed good health and is active and vigorous, both mentally and physically.
From the age of 9 or 10 to 14 he masturbated occasionally for the sake of physical relief,
having discovered the act for himself. He was, however, quite innocent and knew nothing of
sexual matters, never having been initiated either by servants or by other boys.
"When I encounter a woman who very strongly attracts me and whom I very greatly admire,"
he writes, "my desire is never that I may have sexual connection with her in the ordinary
sense, but that I may lie down upon the floor on my back and be trampled upon by her. This
curious desire is seldom present unless the object of my admiration is really a lady, and of fine
proportions. She must be richly dressed—preferably in an evening gown, and wear dainty
high-heeled slippers, either quite open so as to show the curve of the instep, or with only one
strap or 'bar' across. The skirts should be raised sufficiently to afford me the pleasure of seeing
her feet and a liberal amount of ankle, but in no case above the knee, or the effect is greatly
reduced. Although I often greatly admire a woman's intellect and even person, sexually no
other part of her has any serious attraction for me except the leg, from the knee downwards,
and the foot, and these must be exquisitely clothed. Given this condition, my desire amounts
to a wish to gratify my sexual sense by contact with the (to me) attractive part of the woman.
Comparatively few women have a leg or foot sufficiently beautiful to my mind to excite any
serious or compelling desire, but when this is so, or I suspect it, I am willing to spend any time
or trouble to get her to tread upon me and am anxious to be trampled on with the greatest
severity.
"The treading should be inflicted for a few minutes all over the chest, abdomen and groin, and
lastly on the penis, which is, of course, lying along the belly in a violent state of erection, and
consequently too hard for the treading to damage it. I also enjoy being nearly strangled by a
woman's foot.
"If the lady finally stands facing my head and places her slipper upon my penis so that the
high heel falls about where the penis leaves the scrotum, the sole covering most of the rest of
it and with the other foot upon the abdomen, into which I can see as well as feel it sink as she
shifts her weight from one foot to the other, orgasm takes place almost at once. Emission
under these conditions is to me an agony of delight, during which practically the lady's whole
weight should rest upon the penis.

"One reason for my special pleasure in this method seems to be that first the heel and
afterwards the sole of the slipper as it treads upon the penis greatly check the passage of the
semen and consequently the pleasure is considerably prolonged. There is also a curious mental
side to the affair. I love to imagine that the lady who is treading upon me is my mistress and I
her slave, and that she is doing it to punish me for some fault, or to give herself (not me)
pleasure.
"It follows that the greater the contempt and severity with which I am 'punished,' the greater
becomes my pleasure. The idea of 'punishment' or 'slavery' is seldom aroused except when I
have great difficulty in accomplishing my desire and the treader is more than usually
handsome and heavy and the trampling mercilessly inflicted. I have been trampled so long and
so mercilessly several times, that I have flinched each time the slipper pressed its way into my
aching body and have been black and blue for days afterwards. I take the greatest interest in
leading ladies on to do this for me where I think I will not offend, and have been surprisingly
successful. I must have lain beneath the feet of quite a hundred women, many of them of good
social position, who would never dream of permitting any ordinary sexual intercourse, but
who have been so interested or amused by the idea as to do it for me—many of them over and
over again. It is perhaps needless to say that none of my own or the ladies' clothing is ever
removed, or disarranged, for the accomplishment of orgasm in this manner. After a long and
varied experience, I may say that my favorite weight is 10 to 11 stone, and that black, very
high-heeled slippers, in combination with tan silk stockings, seem to give me the greatest
pleasure and create in me the strongest desires.
"Boots, or outdoor shoes, do not attract me to anything like the same degree, although I have,
upon several occasions, enjoyed myself fairly well by their use. Nude women repel me, and I
find no pleasure in seeing a woman in tights. I am not averse to normal sexual connection and
occasionally employ it. To me, however, the pleasure is far inferior to that of being trampled
upon. I also derive keen pleasure—and usually have a strong erection—from seeing a woman,
dressed as I have described, tread upon anything which yields under her foot—such as the seat
of a carriage, the cushions of a punt, a footstool, etc., and I enjoy seeing her crush flowers by
treading upon them. I have often strolled along in the wake of some handsome lady at a picnic
or garden party, for the pleasure of seeing the grass upon which she has trodden rise slowly
again after her foot has pressed it. I delight also to see a carriage sway as a woman leaves or
enters it—anything which needs the pressure of the foot.
"To pass now to the origin of this direction of my feelings.
"Even in early childhood I admired pretty feminine foot-gear, and in the contemplation of it
experienced vague sensations which I now recognize as sexual. When a lad of 14 or so, I
stayed a good deal at the house of some intimate friends of my parents, the daughter of the
house—an only child—a beautiful and powerful girl, about six years my senior, being my
special chum. This girl was always daintily dressed, and having most lovely feet and ankles
not unnaturally knew it. Whenever possible she dressed so as to show off their beauty to the
best advantage—rather short skirts and usually little high-heeled slippers—and was not averse
to showing them in a most distractingly coquettish manner. She seemed to have a passion for
treading upon things which would scrunch or yield under her foot, such as flowers, little
windfallen apples and pears, acorns, etc., or heaps of hay, straw or cut grass. As we wandered

about the gardens—for we were left to do exactly as we liked—I got quite accustomed to
seeing her hunt out and tread upon such things, and used to chaff her about it. At that time I
was—as I am still—fond of lying at full length on a thick hearthrug before a good fire. One
evening as I was lying in this way and we were alone, A. crossed the room to reach a bangle
from the mantelpiece. Instead of reaching over me, she playfully stepped upon my body,
saying that she would show me how the hay and straw felt. Naturally I fell in with the joke
and laughed. After standing upon me a few moments she raised her skirt slightly and, holding
on to the mantelpiece for support, stretched out one dainty foot in its brown silk stocking and
high-heeled slipper to the blaze to warm, while looking down and laughing at my scarlet,
excited face. She was a perfectly frank and charming girl, and I feel pretty certain that,
although she evidently enjoyed my excitement and the feeling of my body yielding under her
feet, she did not on this first occasion clearly understand my condition; nor can I remember
that, though the desire for sexual gratification drove me nearly mad, it appeared to awaken in
her any reciprocal feeling. I took hold of her raised foot and, after kissing it, guided it by an
absolutely irresistible impulse on to my penis, which was as hard as wood and seemed almost
bursting. Almost at the moment that her weight was thrown upon it, orgasm took place for the
first time in my life thoroughly and effectively. No description can give any idea of what I felt
—I only know that from that moment my distorted sexual focus was fixed forever.
Numberless times, after that evening, I felt the weight of her dainty slippers, and nothing will
ever cause the memory of the pleasure she thus gave me to fade. I know that A. came to enjoy
treading upon me, as much as I enjoyed having her do it. She had a liberal dress allowance
and, seeing the pleasure they gave me, she was always buying pretty stockings and ravishing
slippers with the highest and most slender Louis heels she could find and would show them to
me with the greatest glee, urging me to lie down that she might try them on me. She confessed
that she loved to see and feel them sink into my body as she trod upon me and enjoyed the
crunch of the muscles under her heel as she moved about. After some minutes of this, I always
guided her slipper on to my penis, and she would tread carefully, but with her whole weight—
probably about 9 stone—and watch me with flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, and quivering lips,
as she felt—as she must have done plainly—the throbbing and swelling of my penis under her
foot as emission took place. I have not the smallest doubt that orgasm took place
simultaneously with her, though we never at any time spoke openly of it. This went on for
several years on almost every favorable opportunity we had, and after a month or two of
separation sometimes four or five times during a single day. Several times during A.'s absence
I masturbated by getting her slipper and pressing it with all my strength against the penis
while imagining that she was treading upon me. The pleasure was, of course, very inferior to
her attentions. There was never at any time between us any question of normal sexual
intercourse, and we were both well content to let things drift as they were.
"A little after 20 I went abroad, and on my return about three years later I found her married.
Although we met often, the subject was never alluded to, though we remained firm friends. I
confess I often, when I could do so without being seen, looked longingly at her feet and would
have gladly accepted the pleasure she could have given me by an occasional resumption of our
strange practice—but it never came.
"I went abroad again, and now neither she nor her husband are alive and leave no issue. From
time to time I have had occasional relations with prostitutes, but always in this manner, though

I much prefer to find some lady of or above my own social position who will do the treading
for me. This is, however, interestingly difficult.
"Out of say a hundred women (which at home and abroad is what I should estimate must have
stood upon my body) I should say quite 80 or 85 were not prostitutes. Certainly not more than
10 to 12 shared any sexual excitement, but while they were evidently excited they were not
gratified. A. alone, so far as I know, had complete sexual satisfaction of it. I have never asked
a woman in so many words to tread upon me for the purpose of gratifying my sexual desires
(prostitutes excepted), but have always tempted them to do it in a jocular or teasing manner,
and it is very doubtful if more than a few (married) women really understood, even after they
had given me the extreme pleasure, that they had done so, because any flushing and movement
on my part under their feet was not unnaturally put down to the trampling to which they were
subjecting me, and it was easy for me to guide the foot as often as was necessary on to the
penis till orgasm took place, and even to keep it there by laying hold of the other one to kiss it
or on some other pretext during emission. Of course many understood after once doing it
(most have done it only once) what I was at, and, although they did not ever discuss it nor did
I, they were not unwilling to give me as many treadings as I cared to playfully suggest. I don't
think they got any pleasure sexually out of it themselves, though they could see plainly that I
did, and they did not object to give it me. I have spent as long as twelve months with some
women working gradually nearer and nearer to my desire—often getting what I want in the
end, but more often failing. I never risk it till I am certain it would be safe to ask it, and have
never had a serious rebuff. In very many cases I should say the doing of what I want has
simply been regarded by the woman as gratifying a silly and perhaps amusing whim, in which,
beyond the novelty of treading on a man's body, she has taken but little interest.
"As in normal seduction, the endeavor to win the woman over to do what I want without
arousing her antagonism is a great part of the charm to me, and naturally the better her social
position the more difficult this becomes—and the more attractive. I have found that in three
instances prostitutes have performed the same office for other men and knew all about it. It is
not uninteresting to note that these three women were all of fine, massive build—one standing
about 5 feet 10 inches and weighing nearly 14 stone—but with comparatively uninteresting
faces. The weight, build and clothing count for a good deal in exciting me. I find that a sudden
check to a man at the supreme moment of sexual pleasure tends to heighten and prolong the
pleasure. My physical satisfaction is due to the fact that by getting the lady to stand with all
her weight upon my penis (as it lies between her foot and the soft bed of my own body into
which it is deeply pressed) the act of emission is enormously prolonged, with corresponding
enjoyment. For this reason also I prefer a very high-heeled slipper. The seminal fluid has to be
forced past two separate obstacles—the pressure of the heel close at the root of the penis and
afterwards the ball of the foot which compresses the outer half, leaving a free portion between
them under the arched sole of the slipper. I may add that the pleasure is greatly increased by
the retention of the urine, and I always try to retain as much water as I dare. I have an
unconquerable aversion to red in slippers or stockings; it will even cause impotence. Why, I
know not. Strange as it may seem, although pain and bruising are often inflicted by a severe
treading, I have never been in any way injured by the practice, and my pleasure in it seems not
to diminish by constant repetition. The comparative difficulty of obtaining the pleasure from
just the woman I want has a never-ending, if inexplicable, charm for me."

It will be observed that in this case special importance is attached to shoes with high heels,
and the subject considers that the pressure of such shoes is for mechanical reasons most
favorable for procuring ejaculation. Nearly all heterosexual shoe-fetichists seem, however, to
be equally attracted by high heels. Restif de la Bretonne frequently referred to this point, and
he gave a number of reasons for the attractiveness of high heels: (1) They are unlike men's
boots and, therefore, have a sexual fascination; (2) they make the leg and foot look more
charming; (3) they give a less bold and more sylph-like character to the walk; (4) they keep
the feet clean. (Restif de la Bretonne, Nuits de Paris, vol. v, quoted in Preface to his Mes
Inscriptions, p. ciii.) It is doubtless the first reason—the fact that high heels are a kind of
secondary sexual character—which is most generally potent in this attraction.
The foregoing history, while it very distinctly brings before us a case of erotic symbolism, is
not strictly an example of shoe-fetichism. The symbolism is more complex. The focus of
beauty in a desirable woman is transferred and concentrated in the region below the knee; in
that sense we have foot-fetichism. But the act of coitus itself is also symbolically transferred.
Not only has the foot become the symbol of the vulva, but trampling has become the symbol
of coitus; intercourse takes place symbolically per pedem. It is a result of this symbolization of
the foot and of trampling that all acts of treading take on a new and symbolical sexual charm.
The element of masochism—of pleasure in being a woman's slave—is a parasitic growth; that
is to say, it is not founded in the subject's constitution, but chances to have found a favorable
soil in the special circumstances under which his sexual life developed. It is not primary, but
secondary, and remains an unimportant and merely occasional element.
It may be instructive to bring forward for comparison a case in which also we have a
symbolism involving boot-fetichism, but extending beyond it. In this case there is a basis of
inversion (as is not infrequent in erotic symbolisms), but from the present point of view the
psychological significance of the case remains the same.
A. N., aged 29, unmarried, healthy, though not robust, and without any known hereditary taint.
Has followed various avocations without taking great interest in them, but has shown some
literary ability.
"I am an Englishman," his own narrative runs, "the third of three children. At my birth my
father was 41 and my mother 34. My mother died of cancer when I was 15. My father is still
alive, a reserved man, who still nurses his sorrow for his wife's death. I have no reason to
believe my parents anything but normal and useful members of society. My sister is normal
and happily married. My brother I have reason to believe to be an invert.
"A horoscope cast for me describes me in a way I think correct, and so do my friends: 'A mild,
obliging, gentle, amiable person, with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of
society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close friendships. There is much
that is firm, steadfast and industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little that is
subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with those you dislike. There is a serious and
sad side to your character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative when in these moods.
But you are not pessimistic. You have superior abilities, for they are intuitively intellectual.
There is a cold reticence which restrains generous impulses and which inclines to
acquisitiveness; it will make you deliberate, inventive, adding self-esteem, some vanity.'

"At an early age I was left much alone in the nursery and there contracted the habit of
masturbation long before the age of puberty. I use the word 'masturbation' for want of a better,
though it may not quite describe my case. I have never used my hand to the penis. As far back
as I can remember I have had what a Frenchman has described as 'le fetichisme de la
chaussure,' and in those early days, before I was 6 years old, I would put on my father's boots,
taken from a cupboard at hand, and then tying or strapping my legs together would produce an
erection, and all the pleasurable feelings experienced, I suppose, by means of masturbation. I
always did this secretly, but couldn't tell why. I continued this practice on and off all my
boyhood and youth. When I discovered the first emission I was much surprised. I always did
this thing without loosening my trousers. As to how these feelings arose I am totally unable to
say. I can't remember being without such feelings, and they seem to me perfectly normal. The
sight, or even thought, of high boots, or leggings, especially if well polished or in patent
leather, would set all my sexual passions aflame, and does yet. As a boy my great desire was to
wear these things. A soldier in boots and spurs, a groom in tops, or even an errand-boy in
patent leather leggings, fascinated me, and to this day, despite reason and everything else. The
sight of such things produced an erection. An emission I could always produce by tightly tying
my legs together, but only when wearing boots, and preferably leggings, which when I had
pocket money I bought for this purpose. (At the present moment I have five pairs in the house
and two pairs of high boots, quite unjustified by ordinary use.) This habit I lapse into yet at
times. The smell of leather affects me, but I never know how far this may be due to association
with boots; the smell suggests the image. Restraint by a leather strap is more exciting than by
cords. Erotic dreams always take the form of restraint on the limbs when booted.
"Uniforms and liveries have a great temptation for me, but only when of a tight-fitting nature
and smart, as soldiers', grooms', etc., but not sailors'; most powerfully when the person is in
boots or leggings and breeches.
"I was a quiet, sensitive boy, taking no part in games or sports. Have always been indifferent
to them. I made few friends, but didn't want them. The craving for friendship came much later,
after I was 21. I was a day boy at a private school, and never had any conversation with any
boy on sexual matters, though I was dimly aware of much 'nastiness' about the school. I knew
nothing of sodomy. But all these things were repulsive to me, notwithstanding my secret
practices. I was a 'good boy.'
"Up to the age of 21 I was perfectly satisfied with my own society, something of a prig, fond
of books and reading, etc. I was and ever have been absolutely insensible to the influence of
the other sex. I am not a woman hater, and take intellectual pleasure in the society of certain
ladies, but they are nearly all much older than myself. I have a strong repulsion from sexual
relations with women. I should not mind being married for the sake of companionship and for
the sake of having boys of my own. But the sexual act would frighten me. I could not in my
present frame of mind go to bed with a woman. Yet I feel an immense envy of my married
friends in that they are able to give out, and find satisfaction for, their affection in a way that is
quite impossible for me. I picture certain boys in the place of the wife.
"I am now only happy in the society of men younger than myself, age 17 to (say) 23 or 24,
youths with smooth faces, or first sign of hair on lip, well groomed, slightly effeminate in

feature, of sympathetic, perhaps weak nature. I feel I want to help them, do something for
them, devote myself entirely to their welfare.
"With such there is no fixed line between friendship and love. I yearn for intimacy with
particular friends, but never dare express it. I find so many people object to any strong
expression of feeling that I dare not run the risk of appearing ridiculous in the eyes of these
desired intimates.
"I have no desire for pædicatio, but the idea itself does not repulse me or seem unnatural,
though personally it repels me a little. But I think this to be mere prejudice on my part, which
might be broken down if the loved person showed a willingness to act a passive part. I should
never dare to make an advance, however.
"I am restrained by moral and religious considerations from making my real feelings known,
and I feel I should sink in my own estimation if I gave way, though my natural desire is to do
so. In the face of opportunities (not I mean of pædicatio, but of expression of excessive
affection, etc.), or what might be such, I always fail to speak lest I should forfeit the esteem of
the other person. I have a feeling of surprise when any one I like evinces a liking for me. I feel
that those I love are immeasurably my superiors, though my reason may tell me it is not so. I
would grovel at their feet, do anything to win a smile from them, or to make them give me
their company.
"Ordinary bodily contact with the boy I love gives me most exquisite pleasure, and I never
lose an opportunity of bringing such contact about when it can be done naturally. I feel an
immense desire to embrace, kiss, squeeze, etc., the person, to generally maul him, and say nice
things—the kind of things a man usually says to a woman. A handshake, the mere presence of
the person, makes me happy and content.
"I can say with the Albanian: 'If I find myself in the presence of the beloved, I rest absorbed in
gazing on him. Absent, I think of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears I fall
into confusion. My heart beats faster. I have eyes and ears only for the beloved.'
"I feel that my capacity of affection is finer and more spiritual than that which commonly
subsists between persons of different sexes. And so, while trying to fight my instincts by
religion, I find my natural feeling to be part of my religion, and its highest expression. In this
sense I can speak from experience in my own case, and more especially in that of my brother,
that what you have said about philanthropic activity resulting from repressed homosexuality is
very true indeed. I can say with one of your female cases: 'Love is to me a religion. The very
nature of my affection for my friends precludes the possibility of any element entering into it
which is not absolutely pure and sacred.' I am, however, madly jealous. I want entire
possession, and I can't bear for a moment that any one I do not care for should know the
person I love.
"I am never attracted by men older than myself. The youths who attract me may be of any
class, though preferably, I think, of a class a little lower than myself. I am not quite sure of
this, however, as circumstances may have contributed more than deliberate choice to bring
certain youths under my notice. Those who have exercised the most powerful influence on me
have been an Oxford undergraduate, a barber's assistant, and a plumber's apprentice. Though

naturally fond of intellectual society, I do not ask for intellect in those I love. It goes for
nothing. I always prefer their company to that of the most educated persons. This preference
has alienated me to some extent from more refined and educated circles that formerly I was
intimate with.
"I have been led entirely out of my old habits by association with younger friends, and now do
things which before I should never have dreamed of doing. My thoughts now are always with
certain youths, and if they speak of leaving the town, or in any way talk of a future that I
cannot share, I suffer horrid sinkings of the heart and depression of spirits."
This case, while it concerns a person of quite different temperament, with a more innate
predisposition to specific perversions, is yet in many respects analogous to the previous case.
There is boot-fetichism; nothing is felt to be so attractive as the foot-gear, and there is also at
the same time more than this; there is the attraction of repression and constraint developed into
a sexual symbol. In C. P.'s case that symbolism arises from the experience of an abnormal
heterosexual relationship; in A. N.'s case it is founded on auto-erotic experiences associated
with inversion; in both alike the entire symbolism has become diffused and generalized.
In the two cases just brought forward we have an erotic symbolism of act founded on, and
closely associated with, an erotic symbolism of object. It may be instructive to bring forward
another case in which no fetichistic feeling toward an object can be traced, but an erotic
symbolism still clearly exists. In this case pain, even when self-inflicted, has acquired a
symbolic value as a stimulus to tumescence, without any element of masochism. Such a case
serves to indicate how the sexual attraction of pain is really a special case of the erotic
symbolism with which we are here concerned.
A. W., aged 50, a writer and lecturer, physically and mentally energetic and enjoying good
health. He is, however, very emotional and of nervous temperament, but self-controlled.
Though physically well developed, the sexual organs are small. He is married to an attractive
woman, to whom he is much attached, and has two healthy children.
At 10 or 12 years of age he had a frequent desire to be whipped, his parents never having
struck him, and on one occasion he asked a brother to go with him to the closet to get him to
whip him on the posterior; but on arrival he was too shy to make the request. He did not
recognize the cause of these desires, knowing nothing of such things except from the
misinformation of his school-fellows' talk. As far as he can remember, he was an entirely
normal, healthy boy up to the age of about 15, when his attention was arrested by an
advertisement of a quack medicine for the results of "youthful excesses."
Being a city boy, he was unfamiliar with the coupling even of animals, had never had a
conscious erection and did not know of frictional excitement. Experiment, however, resulted
in an orgasm, and, though believing that it was wicked or at least weak and degrading, he
indulged in masturbation at intervals, usually about six times a month, and has continued even
up to the present.
He had an abnormally small opening in the prepuce, making the uncovering of the glans
almost impossible. (At the age of about 37, he himself slit the prepuce by three or four cuts of
a scissors at intervals of about ten days. This was followed by a marked decrease in desire,

especially as he shortly afterwards learned the importance of local cleanliness.) While in
college at about the age of 19 he began to have nocturnal emissions occasionally and once or
twice a week when at stool. Alarmed by these, he consulted a physician, who warned him of
the danger, gave him bromide and prescribed cold bathing of the parts, with a hard, cool bed.
These stopped the emissions.
He never had connection with women until the age of about 25, and then only three times until
his marriage at 30 years of age, being deterred partly by conscientious scruples, but more by
shyness and convention, and deriving very little pleasure from these instances. Even since
marriage he has derived more pleasure from sexual excitement than from coitus, and can
maintain erection for as long as two hours.
He has always been accustomed to torture himself in various ingenious ways, nearly always
connected with sex. He would burn his skin deeply with red hot wire in inconspicuous places.
These and similar acts were generally followed by manual excitation nearly always brought to
a climax.
He considers that he is attracted to refined and intellectual women. But he is without very
ardent desires, having several times gone to bed with attractive women who stripped
themselves naked, but without attempting any sexual intercourse with them. He became
interested in the "Karezza" theory and has tried to practice it with his wife, but could never
entirely control the emission.
He has hired a masseur to whip him, as children are whipped, with a heavy dog whip, which
caused pleasurable excitement. During this time he had relations with his wife generally about
once a week without any great ecstasy. She was cold and sexually slow, owing to conventional
sex repression and to an idea that the whole thing was "like animals" and to fear of child-
bearing, usually necessitating the use of a cover or withdrawal. It was only eight years after
their marriage that she desired and obtained a child. During these years he would often stick
pins through his mammæ and tie them together by a string round the pins drawn so short as to
cause great pain and then indulge himself in the sexual act. He used strong wooden clips with
a tack fixed in them, so as to pierce and pinch the mammæ, and once he drove a pin entirely
through the penis itself, then obtaining orgasm by friction. He was never able to get an
automatic emission in this way, though he often tried, not even by walking briskly during an
erection.
In another class of cases a purely ideal symbolism may be present by means of a fetich which
acts as a powerful stimulus without itself being felt to possess any attraction. A good
illustration of this condition is furnished by a case which has been communicated to me by a
medical correspondent in New Zealand.
"The patient went out to South Africa as a trooper with the contingent from New Zealand,
throwing up a good position in an office to do so. He had never had any trouble as regards
connection with women before going out to South Africa. While in active service at the front
he sustained a nasty fall from his horse, breaking his leg. He was unconscious for four days,
and was then invalided down to Cape Town. Here he rapidly got well, and his accustomed
health returning to him he started having what he terms 'a good time.' He repeatedly went to
brothels, but was unable to have more than a temporary erection, and no ejaculation would

take place. In one of these places he was in company with a drunken trooper, who suggested
that they should perform the sexual act with their boots and spurs (only) on. My patient, who
was also drunk, readily assented, and to his surprise was enabled to perform the act of
copulation without any difficulty at all. He has repeatedly tried since to perform the act
without any spurs, but is quite unable to do so; with the spurs he has no difficulty at all in
obtaining all the gratification he desires. His general health is good. His mother was an
extremely nervous woman, and so is his sister. His father died when he was quite young. His
only other relation in the colony is a married sister, who seems to enjoy vigorous health."
The consideration of the cases here brought forward may suffice to show that beyond those
fetichisms which find their satisfaction in the contemplation of a part of the body or a garment,
there is a more subtle symbolism. The foot is a center of force, an agent for exerting pressure,
and thus it furnishes a point of departure not alone for the merely static sexual fetich, but for a
dynamic erotic symbolization. The energy of its movements becomes a substitute for the
energy of the sexual organs themselves in coitus, and exerts the same kind of fascination. The
young girl (page 35) "who seemed to have a passion for treading upon things which would
scrunch or yield under her foot," already possessed the germs of an erotic symbolism which,
under the influence of circumstances in which she herself took an active part, developed into
an adequate method of sexual gratification.[23] The youth who was her partner learned, in the
same way, to find an erotic symbolism in all the pressure reactions of attractive feminine feet,
the swaying of a carriage beneath their weight, the crushing of the flowers on which they
tread, the slow rising of the grass which they have pressed. Here we have a symbolism which
is altogether different from that fetichism which adores a definite object; it is a dynamic
symbolism finding its gratification in the spectacle of movements which ideally recall the
fundamental rhythm and pressure reactions of the sexual process.
We may trace a very similar erotic symbolism in an absolutely normal form. The fascination
of clothes in the lover's eyes is no doubt a complex phenomenon, but in part it rests on the
aptitudes of a woman's garments to express vaguely a dynamic symbolism which must always
remain indefinite and elusive, and on that account always possess fascination. No one has so
acutely described this symbolism as Herrick, often an admirable psychologist in matters of
sexual attractiveness. Especially instructive in this respect are his poems, "Delight in
Disorder," "Upon Julia's Clothes," and notably "Julia's Petticoat." "A sweet disorder in the
dress," he tells us, "kindles in clothes a wantonness;" it is not on the garment itself, but on the
character of its movement that he insists; on the "erring lace," the "winning wave" of the
"tempestuous petticoat;" he speaks of the "liquefaction" of clothes, their "brave vibration each
way free," and of Julia's petticoat he remarks with a more specific symbolism still,

"Sometimes 'twould pant and sigh and heave,
As if to stir it scarce had leave;
But having got it, thereupon,
'Twould make a brave expansion."

In the play of the beloved woman's garment, he sees the whole process of
the central act of sex, with its repressions and expansions, and at the sight is
himself ready to "fall into a swoon."

[13]
G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 113. It will be noted that
the hand does not appear among the parts of the body which are
normally of supreme interest. An interest in the hand is by no
means uncommon (it may be noted, for instance, in the course of
History XII in Appendix B to vol. iii of these Studies), but the
hand does not possess the mystery which envelops the foot, and
hand-fetichism is very much less frequent than foot-fetichism,
while glove-fetichism is remarkably rare. An interesting case of
hand-fetichism, scarcely reaching morbid intensity, is recorded by
Binet, Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale, pp. 13-19; and see
Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 214 et seq.

[14]
Mémoires, vol. i, Chapter VII.

[15]
Among leading English novelists Hardy shows an unusual but by
no means predominant interest in the feet and shoes of his
heroines; see, e.g., the observations of the cobbler in Under the
Greenwood Tree, Chapter III. A chapter in Goethe's
Wahlverwandtschaften (Part I, Chapter II) contains an episode
involving the charm of the foot and the kissing of the beloved's
shoe.

[16]

Schinz, "Philosophie des Conventions Sociales," Revue
Philosophique, June, 1903, p. 626. Mirabeau mentions in his
Erotika Biblion that modern Greek women sometimes use their
feet to provoke orgasm in their lovers. I may add that
simultaneous mutual masturbation by means of the feet is not
unknown to-day, and I have been told by an English shoe-fetichist
that he at one time was accustomed to practice this with a married
lady (Brazilian)—she with slippers on and he without—who
derived gratification equal to his own.

[17]
Jacoby (loc. cit. pp. 796-7) gives a large number of references to
Ovid's works bearing on this point. "In reading him," he remarks,
"one is inclined to say that the psychology of the Romans was
closely allied to that of the Chinese."

[18]
R. Kleinpaul, Sprache ohne Worte, p. 308. See also Moll,
Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, pp. 306-308. Bloch
brings together many interesting references bearing on the ancient
sexual and religious symbolism of the shoe, Beiträge zur
Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 324.

[19]
Jacoby (loc. cit. p. 797) appears to regard shoe-fetichism as a true
atavism: "The sexual adoration of feminine foot-gear," he
concludes, "perhaps the most enigmatic and certainly the most
singular of degenerative insanities, is thus merely a form of
atavism, the return of the degenerate to the very ancient and
primitive psychology which we no longer understand and are no
longer capable of feeling."

[20]
Moll has reported in detail (Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis, bd. i, Teil II, pp. 320-324) a case which both he and

Krafft-Ebing regard as illustrative of the connection between
boot-fetichism and masochism. It is essentially a case of
masochism, though manifesting itself almost exclusively in the
desire to perform humiliating acts in connection with the
attractive person's boots.

[21]
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia Sexualis,
English translation of tenth edition, p. 174) that "when in cases of
shoe-fetichism the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of
sexual desire one is justified in presuming that masochistic
motives have remained latent.... Latent masochism may always be
assumed as the unconscious motive." In this way he hopelessly
misinterprets some of his own cases.

[22]
Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (Psychopathia Sexualis,
English translation, pp. 159 and 174). Yet some of the cases he
brings forward (e.g., Coxe's as quoted by Hammond) show no
sign of masochism, since, according to Krafft-Ebing's own
definition (p. 116), the idea of subjugation by the opposite sex is
of the essence of masochism.

[23]
Her actions suggest that there is often a latent sexual
consciousness in regard to the feet in women, atavistic or pseudo-
atavistic, and corresponding to the sexual attraction which the feet
formerly aroused, almost normally, in men. This is also suggested
by the case, referred to by Shufeldt, of an unmarried woman,
belonging to a family exhibiting in a high degree both erotic and
neurotic traits, who had "a certain uncontrollable fascination for
shoes. She delights in new shoes, and changes her shoes all day
long at regular intervals of three hours each. She keeps this row of
shoes out in plain sight in her apartment." (R. W. Shufeldt, "On a
Case of Female Impotency," 1896, p. 10.)

III.

Scatalogic Symbolism—Urolagnia—Coprolagnia—The Ascetic Attitude
Towards the Flesh—Normal basis of Scatalogic Symbolism—Scatalogic
Conceptions Among Primitive Peoples—Urine as a Primitive Holy Water—
Sacredness of Animal Excreta—Scatalogy in Folk-lore—The Obscene as
Derived from the Mythological—The Immature Sexual Impulse Tends to
Manifest Itself in Scatalogic Forms—The basis of Physiological
Connection Between the Urinary and Genital Spheres—Urinary Fetichism
Sometimes Normal in Animals—The Urolagnia of Masochists—The
Scatalogy of Saints—Urolagnia More Often a Symbolism of Act Than a
Symbolism of Object—Only Occasionally an Olfactory Fetichism—
Comparative Rarity of Coprolagnia—Influence of Nates Fetichism as a
Transition to Coprolagnia—Ideal Coprolagnia—Olfactory Coprolagnia—
Urolagnia and Coprolagnia as Symbols of Coitus.

We meet with another group of erotic symbolisms—alike symbolisms of
object and of act—in connection with the two functions adjoining the
anatomical sexual focus: the urinary and alvine excretory functions. These
are sometimes termed the scatalogical group, with the two subdivisions of
urolagnia and Coprolagnia.[24] Inter fæces et urinam nascimur is an ancient
text which has served the ascetic preachers of old for many discourses on
the littleness of man and the meanness of that reproductive power which
plays so large a part in man's life. "The stupid bungle of Nature," a
correspondent writes, "whereby the generative organs serve as a means of
relieving the bladder, is doubtless responsible for much of the disgust which
those organs excite in some minds."
At the same time, it is necessary to point out, such reflex influence may act
not in one direction only, but also in the reverse direction. From the
standpoint of ascetic contemplation eager to belittle humanity, the excretory
centers may cast dishonor upon the genital center which they adjoin. From
the more ecstatic standpoint of the impassioned lover, eager to magnify the
charm of the woman he worships, it is not impossible for the excretory

centers to take on some charm from the irradiating center of sex which they
enclose.
Even normally such a process is traceable. The normal lover may not
idealize the excretory functions of his mistress, but the fact that he finds no
repulsion in the most intimate contacts and feels no disgust at the proximity
of the excretory orifices or the existence of their functions, indicates that the
idealization of love has exerted at all events a neutralizing influence;
indeed, the presence of an acute sensibility to the disturbing influence of
this proximity of the excretory orifices and their functions must be
considered abnormal; Swift's "Strephon and Chloe"—with the conviction
underlying it that it is an easy matter for the excretory functions to drown
the possibilities of love—could only have proceeded from a morbidly
sensitive brain.[25]
A more than mere neutralizing influence, a positively idealizing influence
of the sexual focus on the excretory processes adjoining it, may take place
in the lover's mind without the normal variations of sexual attraction being
over-passed, and even without the creation of an excretory fetichism.
Reflections of this attitude may be found in the poets. In the Song of Songs
the lover says of his mistress, "Thy navel is like a round goblet, wherein no
mingled wine is wanting;" in his lyric "To Dianeme," Herrick says with
clear reference to the mons veneris:—

"Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit,
Having a living fountain under it;"

and in the very numerous poems in various languages which have more or
less obscurely dealt with the rose as the emblem of the feminine pudenda
there are occasional references to the stream which guards or presides over
the rose. It may, indeed, be recalled that even in the name nymphæ
anatomists commonly apply to the labia minora there is generally believed
to be a poetic allusion to the Nymphs who presided over streams, since the
labia minora exert an influence on the direction of the urinary stream.
In Wilhelm Meister (Part I, Chapter XV), Goethe, on the basis of his own
personal experiences, describes his hero's emotions in the humble
surroundings of Marianne's little room as compared with the stateliness and

order of his own home. "It seemed to him when he had here to remove her
stays in order to reach the harpsichord, there to lay her skirt on the bed
before he could seat himself, when she herself with unembarrassed
frankness would make no attempt to conceal from him many natural acts
which people are accustomed to hide from others out of decency—it
seemed to him, I say, that he became bound to her by invisible bands." We
are told of Wordsworth (Findlay's Recollections of De Quincey, p. 36) that
he read Wilhelm Meister till "he came to the scene where the hero, in his
mistress's bedroom, becomes sentimental over her dirty towels, etc., which
struck him with such disgust that he flung the book out of his hand, would
never look at it again, and declared that surely no English lady would ever
read such a work." I have, however, heard a woman of high intellectual
distinction refer to the peculiar truth and beauty of this very passage.
In one of his latest novels, Les Rencontres de M. de Bréot, Henri de
Régnier, one of the most notable of recent French novelists, narrates an
episode bearing on the matter before us. A personage of the story is sitting
for a moment in a dark grotto during a night fête in a nobleman's park,
when two ladies enter and laughingly proceed to raise their garments and
accomplish a natural necessity. The man in the background, suddenly
overcome by a sexual impulse, starts forward; one lady runs away, the
other, whom he detains, offers little resistance to his advances. To M. de
Bréot, whom he shortly after encounters, he exclaims, abashed at his own
actions: "Why did I not flee? But could I imagine that the spectacle of so
disgusting a function would have any other effect than to give me a humble
opinion of human nature?" M. de Bréot, however, in proceeding to reproach
his interlocutor for his inconsiderate temerity, observes: "What you tell me,
sir, does not entirely surprise me. Nature has placed very various instincts
within us, and the impulse that led you to what you have just now done is
not so peculiar as you think. One may be a very estimable man and yet love
women even in what is lowliest in their bodies." In harmony with this
passage from Régnier's novel are the remarks of a correspondent who writes
to me of the function of urination that it "appeals sexually to most normal
individuals. My own observations and inquiries prove this. Women
themselves instinctively feel it. The secrecy surrounding the matter lends,
too, I think, a sexual interest."

The fact that scatalogic processes may in some degree exert an attraction
even in normal love has been especially emphasized by Bloch (Beiträge zur
Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 222, et seq.): "The man
whose intellect and æsthetic sense has been 'clouded by the sexual impulse'
sees these things in an entirely different light from him who has not been
overcome by the intoxication of love. For him they are idealized (sit venia
verbo) since they are a part of the beloved person, and in consequence
associated with love." Bloch quotes the Memoiren einer Sängerin (a book
which is said to be, though this seems doubtful, genuinely autobiographical)
in the same sense: "A man who falls in love with a girl is not dragged out of
his poetic sphere by the thought that his beloved must relieve certain natural
necessities every day. It seems, indeed, to him to be just the opposite. If one
loves a person one finds nothing obscene or disgusting in the object that
pleases me." The opposite attitude is probably in extreme cases due to the
influence of a neurotic or morbidly sensitive temperament. Swift possessed
such a temperament. The possession of a similar temperament is doubtless
responsible for the little prose poem, "L'Extase," in which Huysmans in his
first book, Le Drageloir á Epices, has written an attenuated version of
"Strephon and Chloe" to express the disillusionment of love; the lover lies
in a wood clasping the hand of the beloved with rapturous emotion;
"suddenly she rose, disengaged her hand, disappeared in the bushes, and I
heard as it were the rustling of rain on the leaves." His dream has fled.
In estimating the significance of the lover's attitude in this matter, it is
important to realize the position which scatologic conceptions took in
primitive belief. At certain stages of early culture, when all the emanations
of the body are liable to possess mysterious magic properties and become
apt for sacred uses, the excretions, and especially the urine, are found to
form part of religious ritual and ceremonial function. Even among savages
the excreta are frequently regarded as disgusting, but under the influence of
these conceptions such disgust is inhibited, and those emanations of the
body which are usually least honored become religious symbols.
Urine has been regarded as the original holy water, and many customs
which still survive in Italy and various parts of Europe, involving the use of
a fluid which must often be yellow and sometimes salt, possibly indicate the
earlier use of urine. (The Greek water of aspersion, according to Theocritus,
was mixed with salt, as is sometimes the modern Italian holy water. J. J.

Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Manners and Customs, p. 173.) Among the
Hottentots, as Kolbein and others have recorded, the medicine man urinated
alternately on bride and bridegroom, and a successful young warrior was
sprinkled in the same way. Mungo Park mentions that in Africa on one
occasion a bride sent a bowl of her urine which was thrown over him as a
special mark of honor to a distinguished guest. Pennant remarked that the
Highlanders sprinkled their cattle with urine, as a kind of holy water, on the
first Monday in every quarter. (Bourke, Scatalogic Rites, pp. 228, 239;
Brand, Popular Antiquities, "Bride-Ales.")
Even the excreta of animals have sometimes been counted sacred. This is
notably so in the case of the cow, of all animals the most venerated by
primitive peoples, and especially in India. Jules Bois (Visions de l'Inde, p.
86) describes the spectacle presented in the temple of the cows at Benares:
"I put my head into the opening of the holy stables. It was the largest of
temples, a splendor of precious stones and marble, where the venerated
heifers passed backwards and forwards. A whole people adored them. They
take no notice, plunged in their divine and obscure unconsciousness. And
they fulfil with serenity their animal functions; they chew the offerings,
drink water from copper vessels, and when they are filled they relieve
themselves. Then a stercoraceous and religious insanity overcomes these
starry-faced women and venerable men; they fall on their knees, prostrate
themselves, eat the droppings, greedily drink the liquid, which for them is
miraculous and sacred." (Cf. Bourke, Scatalogic Rites, Chapter XVII.)
Among the Chevsurs of the Caucasus, perhaps an Iranian people, a woman
after her confinement, for which she lives apart, purifies herself by washing
in the urine of a cow and then returns home. This mode of purification is
recommended in the Avesta, and is said to be used by the few remaining
followers of this creed.
We have not only to take into account the frequency with which among
primitive peoples the excretions possess a religious significance. It is
further to be noted that in the folk-lore of modern Europe we everywhere
find plentiful evidence of the earlier prevalence of legends and practices of
a scatalogical character. It is significant that in the majority of cases it is
easy to see a sexual reference in these stories and customs. The legends
have lost their earlier and often mythical significance, and frequently take

on a suggestion of obscenity, while the scatalogical practices have become
the magical devices of lovelorn maidens or forsaken wives practiced in
secrecy. It has happened to scatalogical rites to be regarded as we may
gather from the Clouds of Aristophanes, that the sacred leathern phallus
borne by the women in the Bacchanalia was becoming in his time, an object
to arouse the amusement of little boys.
Among many primitive peoples throughout the world, and among the lower
social classes of civilized peoples, urine possesses magic properties, more
especially, it would seem, the urine of women and that of people who stand,
or wish to stand, in sexual relationship to each other. In a legend of the
Indians of the northwest coast of America, recorded by Boas, a woman
gives her lover some of her urine and says: "You can wake the dead if you
drop some of my urine in their ears and nose." (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,
1894, Heft IV, p. 293.) Among the same Indians there is a legend of a
woman with a beautiful white skin who found on bathing every morning in
the river that the fish were attracted to her skin and could not be driven off
even by magical solutions. At last she said to herself: "I will make water on
them and then they will leave me alone." She did so, and henceforth the fish
left her. But shortly after fire came from Heaven and killed her. (Ib., 1891,
Heft V, p. 640.) Among both Christians and Mohammedans a wife can
attach an unfaithful husband by privately putting some of her urine in his
drink. (B. Stern, Medizin in der Türkei, vol. ii, p. 11.) This practice is
world-wide; thus among the aborigines of Brazil, according to Martius, the
urine and other excretions and secretions are potent for aphrodisiacal
objects. (Bourke's Scatalogic Rites of All Nations contains many references
to the folk-lore practices in this matter; a study of popular beliefs in the
magic power of urine, published in Bombay by Professor Eugen Wilhelm in
1889, I have not seen.)
The legends which narrate scatalogic exploits are numerous in the literature
of all countries. Among primitive peoples they often have a purely
theological character, for in the popular mythologies of all countries (even,
as we learn from Aristophanes, among the Greeks) natural phenomena such
as the rain, are apt to be regarded as divine excretions, but in course of time
the legends take on a more erotic or a more obscene character. In the Irish
Book of Leinster (written down somewhere about the twelfth century, but
containing material of very much older date) we are told how a number of

princesses in Emain Macha, the seat of the Ulster Kings, resolved to find
out which of them could by urinating on it melt a snow pillar which the men
had made, the woman who succeeded to be regarded as the best among
them. None of them succeeded, and they sent for Derbforgaill, who was in
love with Cuchullain, and she was able to melt the pillar; whereupon the
other women, jealous of the superiority she had thus shown, tore out her
eyes. (Zimmer, "Keltische Beiträge," Zeitschrift für Deutsche Alterthum,
vol. xxxii, Heft II, pp. 216-219.) Rhys considers that Derbforgaill was really
a goddess of dawn and dusk, "the drop glistening in the sun's rays," as
indicated by her name, which means a drop or tear. (J. Rhys, Lectures on
the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom, p.
466.) It is interesting to compare the legend of Derbforgaill with a
somewhat more modern Picardy folk-lore conte which is clearly analogous
but no longer seems to show any mythologic element, "La Princesse qui
pisse par dessus les Meules." This princess had a habit of urinating over
hay-cocks; the king, her father, in order to break her of the habit, offered her
in marriage to anyone who could make a hay-cock so high that she could
not urinate over it. The young men came, but the princess would merely
laugh and at once achieve the task. At last there came a young man who
argued with himself that she would not be able to perform this feat after she
had lost her virginity. He therefore seduced her first and she then failed
ignobly, merely wetting her stockings. Accordingly, she became his bride.
(Κρυπτάδια, vol. i. p. 333.) Such legends, which have lost any mythologic
elements they may originally have possessed and have become merely
contes, are not uncommon in the folk-lore of many countries. But in their
earlier more religious forms and in their later more obscene forms, they
alike bear witness to the large place which scatalogic conceptions play in
the primitive mind.
It is a notable fact in evidence of the close and seemingly normal
association with the sexual impulse of the scatalogic processes, that an
interest in them, arising naturally and spontaneously, is one of the most
frequent channels by which the sexual impulse first manifests itself in
young boys and girls.
Stanley Hall, who has made special inquiries into the matter, remarks that in
childhood the products of excretion by bladder and bowels are often objects
of interest hardly less intense for a time than eating and drinking. ("Early

Sense of Self," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 361.)
"Micturitional obscenities," the same writer observes again, "which our
returns show to be so common before adolescence, culminate at 10 or 12,
and seem to retreat into the background as sex phenomena appear." They
are, he remarks, of two classes: "Fouling persons or things, secretly from
adults, but openly with each other," and less often "ceremonial acts
connected with the act or the product that almost suggest the scatalogical
rites of savages, unfit for description here, but of great interest and
importance." (G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 116.) The nature of
such scatalogical phenomena in childhood—which are often clearly the
instinctive manifestations of an erotic symbolism—and their wide
prevalence among both boys and girls, are very well illustrated in a
narrative which I include in Appendix B, History II.
In boys as they approach the age of puberty, this attraction to the scatalogic,
when it exists, tends to die out, giving place to more normal sexual
conceptions, or at all events it takes a subordinate and less serious place in
the mind. In girls, on the other hand, it often tends to persist. Edmond de
Goncourt, a minute observer of the feminine mind, refers in Chérie to
"those innocent and triumphant gaieties which scatalogic stories have the
privilege of arousing in women who have remained still children, even the
most distinguished women." The extent to which innocent young women,
who would frequently be uninterested or repelled in presence of the
sexually obscene are sometimes attracted by the scatalogically obscene,
becomes intelligible, however, if we realize that a symbolism comes here
into play. In women the more specifically sexual knowledge and experience
of life frequently develop much later than in men or even remains in
abeyance, and the specifically sexual phenomena cannot therefore easily
lend themselves to wit, or humor, or imagination. But the scatalogic sphere,
by the very fact that in women it is a specially intimate and secret region
which is yet always liable to be unexpectedly protruded into consciousness,
furnishes an inexhaustible field for situations which have the same
character as those furnished by the sexually obscene. It thus happens that
the sexually obscene which in men tends to overshadow the scatalogically
obscene, in women—partly from inexperience and partly, it is probable,
from their almost physiological modesty—plays a part subordinate to the
scatalogical. In a somewhat analogous way scatalogical wit and humor play

a considerable part in the work of various eminent authors who were
clergymen or priests.
In addition to the anatomical and psychological associations which
contribute to furnish a basis on which erotic symbolisms may spring up,
there are also physiological connections between the genital and urinary
spheres which directly favor such symbolisms. In discussing the analysis of
the sexual impulse in a previous volume of these Studies, I have pointed out
the remarkable relationship—sometimes of transference, sometimes of
compensation—which exists between genital tension and vesical tension,
both in men and women. In the histories of normal sexual development
brought together at the end of that and subsequent volumes the relationship
may frequently be traced, as also in the case of C. P. in the present study (p.
37). Vesical power is also commonly believed to be in relation with sexual
potency, and the inability to project the urinary stream in a normal manner
is one of the accepted signs of sexual impotency.[26] Féré, again, has
recorded the history of a man with periodic crises of sexual desire, and
subsequently sexual obsession without desire, which were always
accompanied by the impulse to urinate and by increased urination.[27] In the
case, recorded by Pitres and Régis, of a young girl who, having once at the
sight of a young man she liked in a theater been overcome by sexual feeling
accompanied by a strong desire to urinate, was afterward tormented by a
groundless fear of experiencing an irresistible desire to urinate at
inconvenient times,[28] we have an example of what may be called a
physiological scatalogic symbolism of sex, an emotion which was primarily
erotic becoming transferred to the bladder and then remaining persistent.
From such a physiological symbolism it is but a step to the psychological
symbolisms of scatalogic fetichism.
It is worthy of note, as an indication that such phenomena are scarcely
abnormal, that a urinary symbolism, and even a strictly sexual fetichism,
are normal among many animals.
The most familiar example of this kind is furnished by the dog, who is
sexually excited in this manner by traces of the bitch and himself takes
every opportunity of making his own path recognizable. "This custom,"
Espinas remarks (Des Sociétés Animales, p. 228), "has no other aim than to
spread along the road recognizable traces of their presence for the benefit of

individuals of the other sex, the odor of these traces doubtless causing
excitement."
It is noteworthy, also, that in animals as well as in man, sexual excitement
may manifest itself in the bladder. Thus Daumas states (Chevaux de Sahara,
p. 49) that if the mare urinates when she hears the stallion neigh it is a sign
that she is ready for connection.
It is in masochism, or passive algolagnia, that we may most frequently find
scatalogic symbolism in its fully developed form. The man whose
predominant impulse is to subjugate himself to his mistress and to receive
at her hands the utmost humiliation, frequently finds the climax of his
gratification in being urinated on by her, whether in actual fact or only in
imagination.
In many such cases, however, it is evident that we have a mixed
phenomenon; the symbolism is double. The act becomes desirable because
it is the outward and visible sign of an inwardly experienced abject slavery
to an adored person. But it is also desirable because of intimately sexual
associations in the act itself, as a symbolical detumescence, a simulacrum of
the sexual act, and one which proceeds from the sexual focus itself.
Krafft-Ebing records various cases of masochism in which the emission of
urine on to the body or into the mouth formed the climax of sexual
gratification, as, for instance (Psychopathia Sexualis, English translation, p.
183) in the case of a Russian official who as a boy had fancies of being
bound between the thighs of a woman, compelled to sleep beneath her nates
and to drink her urine, and in later life experienced the greatest excitement
when practicing the last part of this early imagination.
In another case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing and by him termed "ideal
masochism" (Op. cit., pp. 127-130), the subject from childhood indulged in
voluptuous day-dreams in which he was the slave of a beautiful mistress
who would compel him to obey all her caprices, stand over him with one
foot on his breast, sit on his face and body, make him wait on her in her
bath, or when she urinated, and sometimes insist on doing this on his face;
though a highly intellectual man, he was always too timid to attempt to
carry any of his ideas into execution; he had been troubled by nocturnal
enuresis up to the age of 20.

Neri, again (Archivio delle Psicopatie Sessuali, vol. i, fasc. 7 and 8, 1896),
records the case of an Italian masochist who experienced the greatest
pleasure when both urination and defecation were practiced in this manner
by the woman he was attached to.
In a previous volume of these Studies ("Sexual Inversion," History XXVI) I
have recorded the masochistic day-dreams of a boy whose impulses were at
the same time inverted; in his reveries "the central fact," he states, "became
the discharge of urine from my lover over my body and limbs, or, if I were
very fond of him, I let it be in my face." In actual life the act of urination
casually witnessed in childhood became the symbol, even the reality, of the
central secret of sex: "I stood rooted and flushing with downcast eyes till
the act was over, and was conscious for a considerable time of stammering
speech and bewildered faculties.... I was overwhelmed with emotion and
could barely drag my feet from the spot or my eyes from the damp herbage
where he had deposited the waters of secrecy. Even to-day I cannot
dissociate myself from the shuddering charm that moment had for me."
It is not only the urine and the fæces which may thus acquire a symbolic
fascination and attractiveness under the influence of masochistic deviations
of sexual idealization. In some cases extreme rapture has been experienced
in licking sweating feet. There is, indeed, no excretion or product of the
body which has not been a source of ecstasy: the sweat from every part of
the body, the saliva and menstrual fluid, even the wax from the ears.
Krafft-Ebing very truly points out (Psychopathia Sexualis, English
translation, p. 178) that this sexual scatalogic symbolism is precisely
paralleled by a religious scatalogic symbolism. In the excesses of devout
enthusiasm the ascetic performs exactly the same acts as are performed in
these excesses of erotic enthusiasm. To mix excreta with the food, to lick up
excrement, to suck festering sores—all these and the like are acts which
holy and venerated women have performed.
Not only the saint, but also the prophet and medicine-man have been
frequently eaters of human excrement; it is only necessary to refer to the
instance of the prophet Ezekiel, who declared that he was commanded to
bake his bread with human dung, and to the practices of medicine-men at
Torres Straits, in whose training the eating of human excrement takes a

recognized part. (Deities, notably Baal-Phegor, were sometimes supposed to
eat excrement, so that it was natural that their messengers and
representatives among men should do so. As regards Baal-Phegor, see
Dulaure, Des Divinités Génératrices, Chapter IV, and J. G. Bourke,
Scatalogic Rites of All Nations, p. 241. See also Ezekiel, Chapter IV, v. 12,
and Reports Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 321.)
It must be added, however, that while the masochist is overcome by sexual
rapture, so that he sees nothing disgusting in his act, the medicine-man and
the ascetic are not so invariably overcome by religious rapture, and several
ascetic writers have referred to the horror and disgust they experienced, at
all events at first, in accomplishing such acts, while the medicine-men when
novices sometimes find the ordeal too severe and have to abandon their
career. Brénier de Montmorand, while remarking, not without some
exaggeration, that "the Christian ascetics are almost all eaters of excrement"
("Ascétisme et Mysticisme," Revue Philosophique, March, 1904, p. 245),
quotes the testimonies of Marguerite-Marie and Madame Guyon as to the
extreme repugnance which they had to overcome. They were impelled by a
merely intellectual symbolism of self-mortification rather than by the
profoundly felt emotional symbolism which moves the masochist.
Coprophagic acts, whether under the influences of religious exaltation or of
sexual rapture, inevitably excite our disgust. We regard them as almost
insane, fortified in that belief by the undoubted fact that coprophagia is not
uncommon among the insane. It may, therefore, be proper to point out that
it is not so very long since the ingestion of human excrement was carried
out by our own forefathers in the most sane and deliberate manner. It was
administered by medical practitioners for a great number of ailments,
apparently with entirely satisfactory results. Less than two centuries ago,
Schurig, who so admirably gathered together and arranged the medical lore
of his own and the immediately preceding ages, wrote a very long and
detailed chapter, "De Stercoris Humani Usu Medico" (Chylologia, 1725,
cap. XIII; in the Paris Journal de Médecine for February 19, 1905, there
appeared an article, which I have not seen, entitled "Médicaments oubliées:
l'urine et la fiente humaine.") The classes of cases in which the drug was
found beneficial would seem to have been extremely various. It must not be
supposed that it was usually ingested in the crude form. A common method
was to take the fæces of boys, dry them, mix them with the best honey, and

administer an electuary. (At an earlier period such drugs appear to have met
with some opposition from the Church, which seems to have seen in them
only an application of magic; thus I note that in Burchard's remarkable
Penitential of the fourteenth century, as reproduced by Wasserschleben, 40
days' penance is prescribed for the use of human urine or excrement as a
medicine. Wasserschleben Die Bussordnungen der Abendländlichen Kirche,
p. 651.)
The urolagnia of masochism is not a simple phenomenon; it embodies a
double symbolism: on the one hand a symbolism of self-abnegation, such as
the ascetic feels, on the other hand a symbolism of transferred sexual
emotion. Krafft-Ebing was disposed to regard all cases in which a
scatalogical sexual attraction existed as due to "latent masochism." Such a
point of view is quite untenable. Certainly the connection is common, but in
the majority of cases of slightly marked scatalogical fetichism no
masochism is evident. And when we bear in mind the various
considerations, already brought forward, which show how widespread and
clearly realized is the natural and normal basis furnished for such
symbolism, it becomes quite unnecessary to invoke any aid from
masochism. There is ample evidence to show that, either as a habitual or
more usually an occasional act, the impulse to bestow a symbolic value on
the act of urination in a beloved person, is not extremely uncommon; it has
been noted of men of high intellectual distinction; it occurs in women as
well as men; when existing in only a slight degree, it must be regarded as
within the normal limits of variation of sexual emotion.
The occasional cases in which the urine is drunk may possibly suggest that
the motive lies in the properties of the fluid acting on the system. Support
for this supposition might be found in the fact that urine actually does
possess, apart altogether from its magic virtues embodied in folk-lore, the
properties of a general stimulant. In composition (as Masterman first
pointed out) "beef-tea differs little from healthy urine," containing exactly
the same constituents, except that in beef-tea there is less urea and uric acid.
Fresh urine—more especially that of children and young women—is taken
as a medicine in nearly all parts of the world for various disorders, such as
epistaxis, malaria and hysteria, with benefit, this benefit being almost
certainly due to its qualities as a general stimulant and restorative. William
Salmon's Dispensatory, 1678 (quoted in British Medical Journal, April 21,

1900, p. 974), shows that in the seventeenth century urine still occupied an
important place as a medicine, and it frequently entered largely into the
composition of Aqua Divina.
Its use has been known even in England in the nineteenth century.
(Masterman, Lancet, October 2, 1880; R. Neale, "Urine as a Medicine,"
Practitioner, November, 1881; Bourke brings together a great deal of
evidence as to the therapeutic uses of urine in his Scatalogic Rites,
especially pp. 331-335; Lusini has shown that normal urine invariably
increases the frequency of the heart beats, Archivio di Farmacologia, fascs.
19-21, 1893.)
But it is an error to suppose that these facts account for the urolagnic
drinking of urine. As in the gratification of a normal sexual impulse, the
intense excitement of gratifying a scatalogic sexual impulse itself produces
a degree of emotional stimulation far greater than the ingestion of a small
amount of animal extractives would be adequate to effect. In such cases, as
much as in normal sexuality, the stimulation is clearly psychic.
When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not
the urine itself which is attractive, we are clearly concerned with a
symbolism of act and not with the fetichistic attraction of an excretion.
When the excretion, apart from the act, provides the attraction, we seem
usually to be in the presence of an olfactory fetichism. These fetichisms
connected with the excreta appear to be experienced chiefly by individuals
who are somewhat weak-minded, which is not necessarily the case in
regard to those persons for whom the act, rather than its product apart from
the beloved person, is the attractive symbol.
The sexually symbolic nature of the act of urination for many people is
indicated by the existence, according to Bloch, who enumerates various
kinds of indecent photographs, of a group which he terms "the notorious
pisseuses." It is further indicated by several of the reproductions in Fuch's
Erotsiche Element in der Karikatur, such as Delorme's "La Necessitê n'a
point de Loi." (It should be added that such a scene by no means necessarily
possesses any erotic symbolism, as we may see in Rembrandt's etching
commonly called "Le Femme qui Pisse," in which the reflected lights on the
partly shadowed stream furnish an artistic motive which is obviously free

from any trace of obscenity.) In the case which Krafft-Ebing quotes from
Maschka of a young man who would induce young girls to dance naked in
his room, to leap, and to urinate in his presence, whereupon seminal
ejaculation would take place, we have a typical example of urolagnic
symbolism in a form adequate to produce complete gratification. A case in
which the urolagnic form of scatalogic symbolism reached its fullest
development as a sexual perversion has been described in Russia by
Sukhanoff (summarized in Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, November,
1900, and Annales Medico-psychologiques, February, 1901), that of a
young man of 27, of neuropathic temperament, who when he once chanced
to witness a woman urinating experienced voluptuous sensations. From that
moment he sought close contact with women urinating, the maximum of
gratification being reached when he could place himself in such a position
that a woman, in all innocence, would urinate into his mouth. All his
amorous adventures were concerned with the search for opportunities for
procuring this difficult gratification. Closets in which he was able to hide,
winter weather and dull days he found most favorable to success. (A
somewhat similar case is recorded in the Archives de Neurologie, 1902, p.
462.)
In the case of a robust man of neuropathic heredity recorded by Pelanda
some light is shed on the psychic attitude in these manifestations; there was
masturbation up to the age of 16, when he abandoned the practice, and up to
the age of 30 found complete satisfaction in drinking the still hot urine of
women. When a lady or girl in the house went to her room to satisfy a need
of this kind, she had hardly left it but he hastened in, overcome by extreme
excitement, culminating in spontaneous ejaculation. The younger the
woman the greater the transport he experienced. It is noteworthy that in
this, as possibly in all similar cases, there was no sensory perversion and no
morbid attraction of taste or smell; he stated that the action of his senses
was suspended by his excitement, and that he was quite unable to perceive
the odor or taste of the fluid. (Pelanda, "Pornopatice," Archivio di
Psichiatria, facs. iii-iv, 1889, p. 356.) It is in the emotional symbolism that
the fascination lies and not in any sensory perversion.
Magnan records the spontaneous development of this sexual symbolism in a
girl of 11, of good intellectual development but alcoholic heredity, who
seduced a boy younger than herself to mutual masturbation, and on one

occasion, lying on the ground and raising her clothes, asked him to urinate
on her. (International Congress of Criminal Anthropology, 1889.) This case
(except for the early age of the subject) illustrates sporadically occurring
urolagnic symbolism in a woman, to whom such symbolism is fairly
obvious on account of the close resemblance between the emission of urine
and the ejaculation of semen in the man, and the fact that the same conduit
serves for both fluids. (A urolagnic day-dream of this kind is recorded in the
history of a lady contained in the third volume of these Studies, Appendix
B, History VIII.) The natural and inevitable character of this symbolism is
shown by the fact that among primitive peoples urine is sometimes
supposed to possess the fertilizing virtues of semen. J. G. Frazer in his
edition of Pausanias (vol. iv, p. 139) brings together various stories of
women impregnated by urine. Hartland also (Legend of Perseus, vol. i, pp.
76, 92) records legends of women who were impregnated by accidentally or
intentionally drinking urine.
The symbolic sexual significance of urolagnia has hitherto usually been
confused with the fetichistic and mainly olfactory perversion by which the
excretion itself becomes a source of sexual excitement. Long since Tardieu
referred, under the name of "renifleurs," to persons who were said to haunt
the neighborhood of quiet passages, more especially in the neighborhood of
theatres, and who when they perceived a woman emerge after urination,
would hasten to excite themselves by the odor of the excretion. Possibly a
fetichism of this kind existed in a case recorded by Belletrud and Mercier
(Annales d'Hygiène Publique, June, 1904, p. 48). A weak-minded, timid
youth, who was very sexual but not attractive to women, would watch for
women who were about to urinate and immediately they had passed on
would go and lick the spot they had moistened, at the same time
masturbating. Such a fetichistic perversion is strictly analogous to the
fetichism by which women's handkerchiefs, aprons or underlinen become
capable of affording sexual gratification. A very complete case of such
urolagnic fetichism—complete because separated from association with the
person accomplishing the act of urination—has been recorded by Moraglia
in a woman. It is the case of a beautiful and attractive young woman of 18,
with thick black hair, and expressive vivacious eyes, but sallow
complexion. Married a year previously, but childless, she experienced a
certain amount of pleasure in coitus, but she preferred masturbation, and

frankly acknowledged that she was highly excited by the odor of fermented
urine. So strong was this fetichism that when, for instance, she passed a
street urinal she was often obliged to go aside and masturbate; once she
went for this purpose into the urinal itself and was almost discovered in the
act, and on another occasion into a church. Her perversion caused her much
worry because of the fear of detection. She preferred, when she could, to
obtain a bottle of urine—which must be stale and a man's (this, she said, she
could detect by the smell)—and to shut herself up in her own room, holding
the bottle in one hand and repeatedly masturbating with the other.
(Moraglia, "Psicopatie Sessuali," Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xiii, fasc. 6,
p. 267, 1892.) This case is of especial interest because of the great rarity of
fully developed fetichism in women. In a slight and germinal degree I
believe that cases of fetichism are not uncommon in women, but they are
certainly rare in a well-marked form, and Krafft-Ebing declared, even in the
late editions of his Psychopathia Sexualis, that he knew of no cases in
women.
So far we have been concerned with the urolagnic rather than the
coprolagnic variety of scatalogical symbolism. Although the two are
sometimes associated there is no necessary connection, and most usually
there is no tendency for the one to involve the other. Urolagnia is certainly
much the more frequently found; the act of urination is far more apt to
suggest erotically symbolical ideas than the idea of defecation. It is not
difficult to understand why this should be so. The act of urination lends
itself more easily to sexual symbolism; it is more intimately associated with
the genital function; its repetition is necessary at more frequent intervals so
that it is more in evidence; moreover, its product, unlike that of the act of
defecation, is not offensive to the senses. Still coprolagnia occurs and not so
very infrequently. Burton remarked that even the normal lover is affected by
this feeling: "immo nec ipsum amicæ stercus foctet."[29]
Of Caligula who, however, was scarcely sane, it was said "et quidem
stercus uxoris degustavit."[30] In Parisian brothels (according to Taxil and
others) provision is made for those who are sexually excited by the
spectacle of the act of defecation (without reference to contact or odor) by
means of a "tabouret de verre," from under the glass floor of which the
spectacle of the defecating women may be closely observed. It may be

added that the erotic nature of such a spectacle is referred to in the Marquis
de Sade's novels.
There is one motive for the existence of coprolagnia which must not be
passed over, because it has doubtless frequently served as a mode of
transition to what, taken by itself, may well seem the least æsthetically
attractive of erotic symbols. I refer to the tendency of the nates to become a
sexual fetich. The nates have in all ages and in all parts of the world been
frequently regarded as one of the most æsthetically beautiful parts of the
feminine body.[31] It is probable that on the basis of this entirely normal
attraction more than one form of erotic symbolism is at all events in part
supported. Dühren and others have considered that the æsthetic charm of
the nates is one of the motives which prompt the desire to inflict flagellation
on women. In the same way—certainly in some and probably in many cases
—the sexual charm of the nates progressively extends to the anal region, to
the act of defecation, and finally to the feces.
In a case of Krafft-Ebing's (Op. cit., p. 183) the subject, when a child of 6,
accidentally placed his hand in contact with the nates of the little girl who
sat next to him in school, and experienced so great a pleasure in this contact
that he frequently repeated it; when he was 10 a nursery governess, to
gratify her own desires, placed his finger in her vagina; in adult life he
developed urolagnic tendencies.
In a case of Moll's the development of a youthful admiration for the nates in
a coprolagnic direction may be clearly traced. In this case a young man, a
merchant, in a good position, sought to come in contact with women
defecating; and with this object would seek to conceal himself in closets;
the excretal odor was pleasurable to him, but was not essential to
gratification, and the sight of the nates was also exciting and at the same
time not essential to gratification; the act of defecation appears, however, to
have been regarded as essential. He never sought to witness prostitutes in
this situation; he was only attracted to young, pretty and innocent women.
The coprolagnia here, however, had its source in a childish impression of
admiration for the nates. When 5 or 6 years old he crawled under the
clothes of a servant girl, his face coming in contact with her nates, an
impression that remained associated in his mind with pleasure. Three or
four years later he used to experience much pleasure when a young girl

cousin sat on his face; thus was strengthened an association which
developed naturally into coprolagnia. (Moll, Untersuchungen über die
Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 837.)
It is scarcely necessary to remark that an admiration for the nates, even
when reaching a fetichistic degree, by no means necessarily involves, even
after many years, any attraction to the excreta. A correspondent for whom
the nates have constituted a fetich for many years writes: "I find my craving
for women with profuse pelvic or posterior development is growing and I
wish to copulate from behind; but I would feel a sickening feeling if any
part of my person came in contact with the female anus. It is more pleasing
to me to see the nates than the mons, yet I loathe everything associated with
the anal region."
Moll has recorded in detail a case of what may be described as "ideal
coprolagnia"—that is to say, where the symbolism, though fully developed
in imagination, was not carried into real life—which is of great interest
because it shows how, in a very intelligent subject, the deviated symbolism
may become highly developed and irradiate all the views of life in the same
way as the normal impulse. (The subject's desires were also inverted, but
from the present point of view the psychological interest of the case is not
thereby impaired.) Moll's case was one of symbolism of act, the excreta
offering no attraction apart from the process of defecation. In a case which
has been communicated to me there was, on the other hand, an olfactory
fetichistic attraction to the excreta even in the absence of the person.
In Moll's case, the patient, X., 23 years of age, belongs to a family which he
himself describes as nervous. His mother, who is anæmic, has long suffered
from almost periodical attacks of excitement, weakness, syncope and
palpitation. A brother of the mother died in a lunatic asylum, and several
other brothers complain much of their nerves. The mother's sisters are very
good-natured, but liable to break out in furious passions; this they inherit
from their father. There appears to be no nervous disease on the patient's
father's side. X.'s sisters are also healthy.
X. himself is of powerful undersized build and enjoys good health, injured
by no excesses. He considers himself nervous. He worked hard at school
and was always the first in his class; he adds, however, that this is due less

to his own abilities than the laziness of his school-fellows. He is, as he
remarks, very religious and prays frequently, but seldom goes to church.
In regard to his psychic characters he says that he has no specially
prominent talent, but is much interested in languages, mathematics, physics
and philosophy, in fact, in abstract subjects generally. "While I take a lively
interest in every kind of intellectual work," he says, "it is only recently that
I have been attracted to real life and its requirements. I have never had
much skill in physical exercises. For external things until recently I have
only had contempt. I have a delicately constituted nature, loving solitude,
and only associating with a few select persons. I have a decided taste for
fiction, poetry and music; my temperament is idealistic and religious, with
strict conceptions of duty and morality, and aspirations towards the good
and beautiful. I detest all that is common and coarse, and yet I can think and
act in the way you will learn from the following pages."
Regarding his sexual life, X. made the following communication: "During
the last two years I have become convinced of the perversion of my sexual
instinct. I had often previously thought that in me the impulse was not quite
normal, but it is only lately that I have become convinced of my complete
perversion. I have never read or heard of any case in which the sexual
feelings were of the same kind. Although I can feel a lively inclination
towards superior representatives of the female sex, and have twice felt
something like love, the sight or the recollection even of a beautiful woman
have never caused sexual excitement." In the two exceptional instances
mentioned it appears that X. had an inclination to kiss the women in
question, but that the thought of coitus had no attraction. "In my voluptuous
dreams, connected with the emission of semen, women in seductive
situations have never appeared. I have never had any desire to visit a puella
publica. The love-stories of my fellow-students seemed very silly, dances
and balls were a horror to me, and only on very rare occasions could I be
persuaded to go into society. It will be easy to guess the diagnosis in my
case: I suffer from the sexual attraction of my own sex, I am a lover of
boys.
"You cannot imagine what a world of thoughts, wishes, feelings and
impulses the words 'knabe,' 'παις,' 'garcon,' 'boy,' 'ragazzo' have for me; one
of these words, even in an unmeaning clause of a translation-book, calls

before me the whole sum of associations which in course of time have
become bound up with this idea, and it is only with an effort that I can scare
away the wild band. This group of thoughts shows a wonderful mixture of
warm sensuality and ideal love, it unites my lowest and highest impulses,
the strength and the weakness of my nature, my curse and my blessing. My
inclination is especially towards boys of the age of 12 to 15; though they
may be rather younger or older. That I should prefer beautiful and
intelligent boys is comprehensible. I do not want a prostitute, but a friend or
a son, whose soul I love, whom I can help to become a more perfect man,
such as I myself would willingly be.
"When I myself belonged to that happy age (i.e., below 15) I had no dearer
wish than to possess a friend of similar tastes. I have sought, hoped, waited,
grieved, and been at last disillusioned, overcome by desire and despair, and
have not found that friend. Even later the hope often reappeared, but always
in vain, and I cannot boast of that sure recognition which one reads of in the
autobiographies of Urnings. I do not know personally a single fellow-
sufferer. It is also doubtful whether such an acquaintanceship would greatly
help me, for I have a very peculiar conception of homosexuality. As you
will see, I have little more in common with what are called pæderasts than
sexual indifference to the female sex, and I often ask myself: 'Does any
other man in the whole world feel like you? Are you alone in the earth with
your morbid desires? Are you a pariah of pariahs, or is there, perhaps,
another soul with similar longings living near you? How often in summer
have I gone to the lakes and streams outside cities to seek boys bathing; but
I always came back unsatisfied, whether I found any or not. And in winter I
have been irresistibly impelled to return to the same spots, as if it were
sanctified by the boys, but my darlings had vanished and cold winds blew
over the icy floods, so that I would return feeling as though I had buried all
my happiness.
"It must be borne in mind, therefore, that what I have to say regarding my
sexual impulses only refers to fancies and never to their practical
realization. My sensual impulses are not connected with the sexual organs;
all my voluptuous ideas are not in the least connected with these parts. For
this reason I have never practiced onanism and immissio membri in anum is
as repulsive to me as to a normal man. Even every imitation of coitus is, for
me, without attraction. In a boy's body two things specially excite me: his

belly and his nates, the first as containing the digestive tract, the second as
holding the opening of the bowels. Of the vegetable processes of life in the
boy none interest me nearly so much as the progress of his digestion and the
process of defecation. It is incredible to what an extent this part of
physiology has occupied me from youth. If as a boy I wanted to read
something of a piquantly exciting character I sought in my father's
encyclopædia for articles like: Obstruction, Constipation, Hæmorrhoids,
Fæces, etc. No function of the body seemed to be so significant as this, and
I regarded its disturbances as the most important in the whole mechanism of
life. The description of other disorders I could read in cold blood, but
intussusception of the bowels makes me ill even to-day. I am always
extremely pleased to hear that the digestion of the people around me is in
good condition. A man who did not sufficiently watch over his digestion
aroused distrust in me, and I imagined that wicked men must be horribly
indifferent regarding this weighty matter. Even more than in ordinary
persons was I interested in the digestion of more mysterious beings, like
magicians in legends, or men of other nations. I would willingly have made
an anthropological study of my favorite subject, only to my annoyance
books nearly always pass over the matter in silence. In history and fiction I
regretted the absence of information concerning the state of my heroes'
digestion when they languished in prison or in some unaccustomed or
unhealthy spot. For this reason I held no book more precious than one
which describes how a young man after being shipwrecked lived for a long
time in a narrow snow-hut, and it was conscientiously stated that he became
aware of digestive disturbances. No immorality angers me more than the
foolish practice of ladies who in society neglect the satisfaction of their
natural needs from misplaced motives of modesty. On a railway journey I
suffer horribly from the thought that one of my fellow-travelers may be
prevented from fulfilling some imperative natural necessity.
"I naturally devote the greatest attention to my own digestion. With painful
conscientiousness I go to stool every day at the same hour; if the operation
does not come off to my satisfaction I feel not so much physical as mental
discomfort. To this quite useful hygienic interest became associated at
puberty a sensual interest. Since my fourteenth year I have had no greater
enjoyment than to defecate undressed (I do not do so now) after having first
carefully examined the distension of my abdomen. In summer I would go

into the woods, undress myself in a secluded spot and indulge in the
voluptuous pleasures of defecation. I would sometimes combine with this a
bath in a stream. I would exhaust my imagination in the effort to invent
specially enjoyable variations, longed for a desert island where I could go
about naked, fill my body with much nourishing food, hold in the
excrement as long as possible and then discharge it in some subtly-thought-
out spot. These practices and ideas often caused erections and later on
emissions, but the genitals played no part in my conceptions; their
movements were uncomfortable and gave no pleasure.
"I soon longed to be associated in these orgies with some boy of the same
age, but I wanted not only a companion in my passion, but also a real
friend. Since there could be no question of masturbation or pæderasty, our
love would have been limited to kisses, embraces, and—as a compensation
for coitus—defecation together. That would have been perfect bliss to me. I
will spare you the unæsthetic contents of my voluptuous dreams. But I
remained without a companion, and, therefore, without real enjoyment. [He
has, however, on various occasions experienced erections, and even
emissions, on seeing, by chance, men or boys defecate.] Hinc illæ lacrimæ;
the excitement over my own defecation only took place faute de mieux.
"I knew very well that my thoughts and practices were impure and
contemptible. Ah! how often, when the intoxication was over, have I thrown
myself remorsefully on my knees, praying to God for pardon! For some
weeks I repressed my longing; but at last it was too strong for me, I tried to
justify myself and fell into my vice anew. That I was guilty of
licentiousness and loved boys sexually first became clear to me later on,
when I knew the significance of erection as a sign of sexual excitement.
"No one can imagine with what demoniacal joy I am possessed at the
thought of a beautiful naked boy whose abdomen is filled as the result of
long abstinence from stool. The thought powerfully excites me, a flood of
passion goes through my blood and my limbs tremble. I would never grow
tired of feeling that belly and looking at it. My passion would express itself
in tempestuous caresses, and the boy would have to assume various
positions in order to show off the beauty of his form, i.e., to bring the parts
in question into better view. To observe defecation would still further
increase this peculiar enjoyment. If the boy's bowels were not sufficiently

filled I would feed him with all sorts of food which produces much
excrement, such as potatoes, coarse bread, etc. If possible I would seek to
delay defecation for two or three days, so that it might be as copious as
possible. When at last it occurred it would be an unspeakable joy for me to
watch the fæces—which would have to be fairly firm—emerging from the
anus."
X. would like to be a teacher and thinks he could exert a beneficial
influence on boys. In spite of the pain he has suffered he does not think he
would like to be cured of his perverse inclinations, for they have given him
joy as well as pain, and the pain has chiefly been owing to the fact that he
could not gratify his inclinations. X. smokes and drinks in moderation, and
has no feminine habits. (The foregoing is a condensed summary of the case
which is fully reported by Moll, Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition,
pp. 295-305.)
The case of coprolagnia communicated to me is that of a married man,
normal in all other respects, intellectually brilliant and filling successfully a
very responsible position. When a child the women of his household were
always indifferent as to his presence in their bedrooms, and would satisfy
all natural calls without reserve before him. He would dream of this with
erections. His sexual interests became slowly centered in the act of
defecation, and this fetich throughout life never appealed to him so
powerfully as when associated with the particular type of household
furniture which was used for this purpose in his own house. The act of
defecation in the opposite sex or anything pertaining to or suggesting the
same caused uncontrollable sexual excitement; the nates also exerted a
great attraction. The alvine excreta exerted this influence even in the
absence of the woman; it was, however, necessary that she should be a
sexually desirable person. The perversion in this case was not complete;
that is to say, that the excitement produced by the act of defecation or the
excretion itself was not actually preferred to coitus; the sexual idea was
normal coitus in the normal manner, but preceded by the visual and
olfactory enjoyment of the exciting fetich. When coitus was not possible the
enjoyment of the fetich was accompanied by masturbation (as in the
analogous case of urolagnia in a woman summarized on p. 62.) On one
occasion he was discovered by a friend in a bedroom belonging to a
woman, engaged in the act of masturbation over a vessel containing the

desired fetich. In an agony of shame he begged the mercy of silence
concerning this episode, at the same time revealing his life-history. He has
constantly been haunted by the dread of detection, as well as by remorse
and the consciousness of degradation, also by the fear that his
unconquerable obsession may lead him to the asylum.
The scatalogic groups of sexual perversions, urolagnia and coprolagnia, as
may be sufficiently seen in this brief summary, are not merely olfactory
fetiches. They are, in a larger proportion of cases, dynamic symbols, a
preoccupation with physiological acts which, by associations of contiguity
and still more of resemblance, have gained the virtue of stimulating in slight
cases, and replacing in more extreme cases, the normal preoccupation with
the central physiological act itself. We have seen that there are various
considerations which amply suffice to furnish a basis for such associations.
And when we reflect that in the popular mind, and to some extent in actual
fact, the sexual act itself is, like urination and defecation, an excretory act,
we can understand that the true excretory acts may easily become symbols
of the pseudo-excretory act. It is, indeed, in the muscular release of
accumulated pressures and tensions, involved by the act of liberating the
stored-up excretion, that we have the closest simulacrum of the tumescence
and detumescence of the sexual process.[32]
In this way the erotic symbolism of urolagnia and coprolagnia is completely
analogous with that dynamic symbolism of the clinging and swinging
garments which Herrick has so accurately described, with the complex
symbolism of flagellation and its play of the rod against the blushing and
trembling nates, with the symbols of sexual strain and stress which are
embodied in the foot and the act of treading.

[24]
Fuchs (Das Erotische Element In der Karikatur, p. 26),
distinguishing sharply between the "erotic" and the "obscene,"
reserves the latter term exclusively for the representation of
excretory organs and acts. He considers that this is etymologically
the most exact usage. However that may be, it seems to me that,
in any case, "obscene" has become so vague a term that it is now
impracticable to give it a restricted and precise sense.

[25]
In this connection we may profitably contemplate the hand and
recall the vast gamut of functions, sacred and profane, which that
organ exercises. Many savages strictly reserve the left hand to the
lowlier purposes of life; but in civilization that is not considered
necessary, and it may be wholesome for some of us to meditate on
the more humble uses of the same hand which is raised in the
supreme gesture of benediction and which men have often
counted it a privilege to kiss.

[26]
See, e.g., Morselli, Una Causa di Nullità del Matrimonio, 1902,
p. 39.

[27]
Féré, Comptes-Rendus Société de Biologie, July 23, 1904.

[28]
Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow, vol.
iv, p. 19. A similar symbolism may be traced in many of the cases
in which the focus of modesty becomes in modest women
centered in the excretory sphere and sometimes exaggerated to
the extent of obsession. It must not be supposed, however, that
every obsession in this sphere has a symbolical value of an erotic
kind. In the case, for instance, which has been recorded by
Raymond and Janet (Les Obsessions, vol. ii, p. 306) of a woman
who spent much of her time in the endeavor to urinate perfectly,
always feeling that she failed in some respect, the obsession
seems to have risen fortuitously on a somewhat neurotic basis
without reference to the sexual life.

[29]
Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. III, Subs. I.

[30]
It may be remarked here that while the eating of excrement (apart
from its former use as a magic charm and as a therapeutic agent)
is in civilization now confined to sexual perverts and the insane,
among some animals it is normal as a measure of hygiene in
relation to their young. Thus, as, e.g., the Rev. Arthur East writes,
the mistle thrush swallows the droppings of its young.
(Knowledge, June 1, 1899, p. 133.) In the dog I have observed
that the bitch licks her puppies shortly after birth as they urinate,
absorbing the fluid.

[31]
See, e.g., the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection
in Man," pp. 165 et seq., and Dühren, Geschlechtsleben in
England, bd. ii, pp. 258, et seq.

[32]
In the study of Love and Pain in a previous volume (p. 130) I
have quoted the remarks of a lady who refers to the analogy
between sexual tension and vesical tension—"Cette volupté que
ressentent les bords de la mer, d'être toujours pleins sans jamais
déborder"—and its erotic significance.

IV.

Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism—Mixoscopic Zoophilia—The
Stuff-fetichisms—Hair-fetichism—The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile
Base—Erotic Zoophilia—Zooerastia—Bestiality—The Conditions that
Favor Bestiality—Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples and
Among Peasants—The Primitive Conception of Animals—The Goat—The
Influence of Familiarity with Animals—Congress Between Women and
Animals—The Social Reaction Against Bestiality.

The erotic symbols with which we have so far been concerned have in
every case been portions of the body, or its physiological processes, or at
least the garments which it has endowed with life. The association on which
the symbol has arisen has in every case been in large measure, although not
entirely, an association of contiguity. It is now necessary to touch on a
group of sexual symbols in which the association of contiguity with the
human body is absent: the various methods by which animals or animal
products or the sight of animal copulation may arouse sexual desire in
human persons. Here we encounter a symbolism mainly founded on
association by resemblance; the animal sexual act recalls the human sexual
act; the animal becomes the symbol of the human being.
The group of phenomena we are here concerned with includes several
subdivisions. There is first the more or less sexual pleasure sometimes
experienced, especially by young persons, in the sight of copulating
animals. This I would propose to call Mixoscopic Zoophilia; it falls within
the range of normal variation. Then we have the cases in which the contact
of animals, stroking, etc., produces sexual excitement or gratification; this
is a sexual fetichism in the narrow sense, and is by Krafft-Ebing termed
Zoophilia Erotica. We have, further, the class of cases in which a real or
simulated sexual intercourse with animals is desired. Such cases are not
regarded as fetichism by Krafft-Ebing,[33] but they come within the
phenomena of erotic symbolism as here understood. This class falls into
two divisions: one in which the individual is fairly normal, but belongs to a
low grade of culture; the other in which he may belong to a more refined
social class, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration. In the first
case we may properly apply the term bestiality; in the second case it may
perhaps be better to use the term zooerastia, proposed by Krafft-Ebing.[34]
Among children, both boys and girls, it is common to find that the
copulation of animals is a mysteriously fascinating spectacle. It is inevitable
that this should be so, for the spectacle is more or less clearly felt to be the
revelation of a secret which has been concealed from them. It is, moreover,
a secret of which they feel intimate reverberations within themselves, and
even in perfectly innocent and ignorant children the sight may produce an
obscure sexual excitement.[35] It would seem that this occurs more
frequently in girls than in boys. Even in adult age, it may be added, women

are liable to experience the same kind of emotion in the presence of such
spectacles. One lady recalls, as a girl, that on several occasions an element
of physical excitement entered into the feelings with which she watched the
coquetry of cats. Another lady mentions that at the age of about 25, and
when still quite ignorant of sexual matters, she saw from a window some
boys tickling a dog and inducing sexual excitement in the animal; she
vaguely divined what they were doing, and though feeling disgust at their
conduct she at the same time experienced in a strong degree what she now
knows was sexual excitement. The coupling of the larger animals is often
an impressive and splendid spectacle which is far, indeed, from being
obscene, and has commended itself to persons of intellectual distinction;[36]
but in young or ill-balanced minds such sights tend to become both prurient
and morbid. I have already referred to the curious case of a sexually
hyperæsthetic nun who was always powerfully excited by the sight or even
the recollection of flies in sexual connection, so that she was compelled to
masturbate; this dated from childhood. After becoming a nun she recorded
having had this experience, followed by masturbation, more than four
hundred times.[37] Animal spectacles sometimes produce a sexual effect on
children even when not specifically sexual; thus a correspondent, a
clergyman, informs me that when a young and impressionable boy, he was
much affected by seeing a veterinary surgeon insert his hand and arm into a
horse's rectum, and dreamed of this several times afterward with emissions.
While the contemplation of animal coitus is an easily intelligible and in
early life, perhaps, an almost normal symbol of sexual emotion, there is
another subdivision of this group of animal fetichisms which forms a more
natural transition from the fetichisms which have their center in the human
body: the stuff-fetichisms, or the sexual attraction exerted by various
tissues, perhaps always of animal origin. Here we are in the presence of a
somewhat complicated phenomenon. In part we have, in a considerable
number of such cases, the sexual attraction of feminine garments, for all
such tissues are liable to enter into the dress. In part, also, we have a sexual
perversion of tactile sensibility, for in a considerable proportion of these
cases it is the touch sensations which are potent in arousing the erotic
sensations. But in part, also, it would seem, we have here the conscious or
subconscious presence of an animal fetich, and it is notable that perhaps all
these stuffs, and especially fur, which is by far the commonest of the

groups, are distinctively animal products. We may perhaps regard the fetich
of feminine hair—a much more important and common fetich, indeed, than
any of the stuff fetichisms—as a link of transition. Hair is at once an animal
and a human product, while it may be separated from the body and
possesses the qualities of a stuff. Krafft-Ebing remarks that the senses of
touch, smell, and hearing, as well as sight, seem to enter into the attraction
exerted by hair.
The natural fascination of hair, on which hair-fetichism is founded, begins
at a very early age. "The hair is a special object of interest with infants,"
Stanley Hall concludes, "which begins often in the latter part of the first
year.... The hair, no doubt, gives quite unique tactile sensations, both in its
own roots and to hands, and is plastic and yielding to the motor sense, so
that the earliest interest may be akin to that in fur, which is a marked object
in infant experience. Some children develop an almost fetichistic propensity
to pull or later to stroke the hair or beard of every one with whom they
come in contact." (G. Stanley Hall, "The Early Sense of Self," American
Journal of Psychology, April, 1898, p. 359.)
It should be added that the fascination of hair for the infantile and childish
mind is not necessarily one of attraction, but may be of repulsion. It
happens here, as in the case of so many characteristics which are of sexual
significance, that we are in the presence of an object which may exert a
dynamic emotional force, a force which is capable of repelling with the
same energy that it attracts. Féré records the instructive case of a child of 3,
of psychopathic heredity, who when he could not sleep was sometimes
taken by his mother into her bed. One night his hand came in contact with a
hairy portion of his mother's body, and this, arousing the idea of an animal,
caused him to leap out of the bed in terror. He became curious as to the
cause of his terror and in time was able to observe "the animal," but the
train of feelings which had been set up led to a life-long indifference to
women and a tendency to homosexuality. It is noteworthy that he was
attracted to men in whom the hair and other secondary sexual characters
were well developed. (Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, pp. 262-267.)
As a sexual fetich hair strictly belongs to the group of parts of the body; but
since it can be removed from the body and is sexually effective as a fetich
in the absence of the person to whom it belongs, it is on a level with the

garments which may serve in a similar way, with shoes or handkerchiefs or
gloves. Psychologically, hair-fetichism presents no special problem, but the
wide attraction of hair—it is sexually the most generally noted part of the
feminine body after the eyes—and the peculiar facility with which when
plaited it may be removed, render hair-fetichism a sexual perversion of
specially great medico-legal interest.
The frequency of hair-fetichism, as well as of the natural admiration on
which it rests, is indicated by a case recorded by Laurent. "A few years
ago," he states, "one constantly saw at the Bal Bullier, in Paris, a tall girl
whose face was lean and bony, but whose black hair was of truly
remarkable length. She wore it flowing down her shoulders and loins. Men
often followed her in the street to touch or kiss the hair. Others would
accompany her home and pay her for the mere pleasure of touching and
kissing the long black tresses. One, in consideration of a relatively
considerable sum, desired to pollute the silky hair. She was obliged to be
always on her guard, and to take all sorts of precautions to prevent any one
cutting off this ornament, which constituted her only beauty as well as her
livelihood." (E. Laurent, L'Amour Morbide, 1891, p. 164; also the same
author's Fétichistes et Erotomanes, p. 23.)
The hair despoiler (Coupeur des Nattes or Zopfabschneider) may be found
in any civilized country, though the most carefully studied cases have
occurred in Paris. (Several medico-legal histories of hair-despoilers are
summarized by Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp. 329-334). Such persons are
usually of nervous temperament and bad heredity; the attraction to hair
occasionally develops in early life; sometimes the morbid impulse only
appears in later life after fever. The fetich may be either flowing hair or
braided hair, but is usually one or the other, and not both. Sexual excitement
and ejaculation may be produced in the act of touching or cutting off the
hair, which is subsequently, in many cases, used for masturbation. As a rule
the hair-despoiler is a pure fetichist, no element of sadistic pleasure entering
into his feelings. In the case of a "capillary kleptomaniac" in Chicago—a
highly intelligent and athletic married young man of good family—the
impulse to cut off girls' braids appeared after recovery from a severe fever.
He would gaze admiringly at the long tresses and then clip them off with
great rapidity; he did this in some fifty cases before he was caught and
imprisoned. He usually threw the braids away before he reached home.

(Alienist and Neurologist, April, 1889, p. 325.) In this case there is no
history of sexual excitement, probably because no proper medico-legal
examination was made. (It may be added that hair-despoilers have been
specially studied by Motet, "Les Coupeurs de Nattes," Annales d'Hygiène,
1890.)
The stuff-fetiches are most usually fur and velvet; feathers, silk, and
leathers also sometimes exert this influence; they are all, it will be noted,
animal substances.[38] The most interesting is probably fur, the attraction of
which is not uncommon in association with passive algolagnia. As Stanley
Hall has shown, the fear of fur, as well as the love of it, is by no means
uncommon in childhood; it may appear even in infancy and in children who
have never come in contact with animals.[39] It is noteworthy that in most
cases of uncomplicated stuff-fetichism the attraction apparently arises on a
congenital basis, as it appears in persons of nervous or sensitive
temperament at an early age and without being attached to any definite
causative incident. The sexual excitation is nearly always produced by the
touch rather than by the sight. As we found, when dealing with the sense of
touch in the previous volume, the specific sexual sensations may be
regarded as a special modification of ticklishness. The erotic symbolism in
the case of these stuff-fetichisms would seem to be a more or less
congenital perversion of ticklishness in relation to specific animal contacts.
A further degree of perversion in this direction is reached in a case of erotic
zoophilia, recorded by Krafft-Ebing.[40] In this case a congenital neuropath,
of good intelligence but delicate and anæmic, with feeble sexual powers,
had a great love of domestic animals, especially dogs and cats, from an
early age; when petting them he experienced sexual emotions, although he
was innocent in sexual matters. At puberty he realized the nature of his
feelings and tried to break himself of his habits. He succeeded, but then
began erotic dreams accompanied by images of animals, and these led to
masturbation associated with ideas of a similar kind. At the same time he
had no wish for any sort of sexual intercourse with animals, and was
indifferent as to the sex of the animals which attracted him; his sexual
ideals were normal. Such a case seems to be fundamentally one of fetichism
on a tactile basis, and thus forms a transition between the stuff-fetichisms
and the complete perversions of sexual attraction toward animals.

In some cases sexually hyperæsthetic women have informed me that sexual
feeling has been produced by casual contact with pet dogs and cats. In such
cases there is usually no real perversion, but it seems probable that we may
here have an occasional foundation for the somewhat morbid but scarcely
vicious excesses of affection which women are apt to display towards their
pet dogs or cats. In most cases of this affection there is certainly no sexual
element; in the case of childless women, it may rather be regarded as a
maternal than as an erotic symbolism. (The excesses of this non-erotic
zoophilia have been discussed by Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition,
pp. 166-171.)
Krafft-Ebing considers that complete perversion of sexual attraction toward
animals is radically distinct from erotic zoophilia. This view cannot be
accepted. Bestiality and zooerastia merely present in a more marked and
profoundly perverted form a further degree of the same phenomenon which
we meet with in erotic zoophilia; the difference is that they occur either in
more insensitive or in more markedly degenerate persons.
A fairly typical case of zooerastia has been recorded in America by
Howard, of Baltimore. This was the case of a boy of 16, precociously
mature and fairly bright. He was, however, indifferent to the opposite sex,
though he had ample opportunity for gratifying normal passions. His
parents lived in the city, but the youth had an inordinate desire for the
country and was therefore sent to school in a village. On the second day
after his arrival at school a farmer missed a sow which was found secreted
in an outhouse on the school grounds. This was the first of many similar
incidents in which a sow always took part. So strong was his passion that on
one occasion force had to be used to take him away from the sow he was
caressing. He did not masturbate, and even when restrained from
approaching sows he had no sexual inclination for other animals. His
nocturnal pollutions, which were frequent, were always accompanied by
images of wallowing swine. Notwithstanding careful treatment no cure was
effected; mental and physical vigor failed, and he died at the age of 23.[41]
It is, however, somewhat doubtful whether we can always or even usually
distinguish between zooerastia and bestiality. Dr. G. F. Lydston, of Chicago,
has communicated to me a case (in which he was consulted) which seems
fairly typical and is instructive in this respect. The subject was a young man

of 21, a farmer's son, not very bright intellectually, but very healthy and
strong, of great assistance on the farm, very capable and industrious, such a
good farm hand that his father was unwilling to send him away and to lose
his services. There was no history of insanity or neurosis in the family, and
no injury or illness in his own history. He had spells of moroseness and
irritability, however, and had also been a masturbator. Women had no
attraction for him, but he would copulate with the mares upon his father's
farm, and this without regard to time, place, or spectators. Such a case
would seem to stand midway between ordinary bestiality and pathological
zooerastia as defined by Krafft-Ebing, yet it seems probable that in most
cases of ordinary bestiality some slight traces of mental anomaly might be
found, if such cases always were, as they should be, properly investigated.
[42]

We have here reached the grossest and most frequent perversion in this
group; bestiality, or the impulse to attain sexual gratification by intercourse,
or other close contact, with animals. In seeking to comprehend this
perversion it is necessary to divest ourselves of the attitude toward animals
which is the inevitable outcome of refined civilization and urban life. Most
sexual perversions, if not in large measure the actual outcome of civilized
life, easily adjust themselves to it. Bestiality (except in one form to be noted
later) is, on the other hand, the sexual perversion of dull, insensitive and
unfastidious persons. It flourishes among primitive peoples and among
peasants. It is the vice of the clodhopper, unattractive to women or inapt to
court them.
Three conditions have favored the extreme prevalence of bestiality: (1)
primitive conceptions of life which built up no great barrier between man
and the other animals; (2) the extreme familiarity which necessarily exists
between the peasant and his beasts, often combined with separation from
women; (3) various folk-lore beliefs such as the efficacy of intercourse with
animals as a cure for venereal disease, etc.[43]
The beliefs and customs of primitive peoples, as well as their mythology
and legends, bring before us a community of man and animals altogether
unlike anything we know in civilization. Men may become animals and
animals may become men; animals and men may communicate with each
other and live on terms of equality; animals may be the ancestors of human

tribes; the sacred totems of savages are most usually animals. There is no
shame or degradation in the notion of a sexual relationship between men
and animals, because in primitive conceptions animals are not inferior
beings separated from man by a great gulf. They are much more like men in
disguise, and in some respects possess powers which make them superior to
men. This is recognized in those plays, festivals, and religious dances, so
common among primitive peoples, in which animal disguises are worn.[44]
When men admire and emulate the qualities of animals and are proud to
believe that they descend from them, it is not surprising that they should
sometimes see nothing derogatory in sexual intercourse with them.[45]
A significant relic of primitive conceptions in this matter may perhaps be
found in the religious rites connected with the sacred goat of Mendes
described by Herodotus. After telling how the Mendesians reverence the
goat, especially the he-goat, out of their veneration for Pan, whom they
represent as a goat ("the real motive which they assign for this custom I do
not choose to relate"), he adds: "It happened in this country, and within my
remembrance, and was indeed universally notorious, that a goat had
indecent and public communication with a woman."[46] The meaning of the
passage evidently is that in the ordinary intercourse of women with the
sacred goat, connection was only simulated or incomplete on account of the
natural indifference of the goat to the human female, but that in rare cases
the goat proved sexually excitable with the woman and capable of
connection.[47] The goat has always been a kind of sacred emblem of lust.
In the middle ages it became associated with the Devil as one of the favorite
forms he assumed. It is significant of a primitively religious sexual
association between men and animals, that witches constantly confessed, or
were made to confess, that they had had intercourse with the Devil in the
shape of an animal, very frequently a dog. The figures of human beings and
animals in conjunction carved on temples in India, also seem to indicate the
religious significance which this phenomenon sometimes presents. There is,
indeed, no need to go beyond Europe even in her moments of highest
culture to find a religious sanction for sexual union between human beings,
or gods in human shape, and animals. The legends of Io and the bull, of
Leda and the swan, are among the most familiar in Greek mythology, and in
a later pictorial form they constitute some of the most cherished works of
the painters of the Renaissance.

As regards the prevalence of occasional sexual intercourse between men or
women and animals among primitive peoples at the present time, it is
possible to find many scattered references by travelers in all parts of the
world. Such references by no means indicate that such practices are, as a
rule, common, but they usually show that they are accepted with a good-
humored indifference.[48]
Bestiality is very rarely found in towns. In the country this vice of the
clodhopper is far from infrequent. For the peasant, whose sensibilities are
uncultivated and who makes but the most elementary demands from a
woman, the difference between an animal and a human being in this respect
scarcely seems to be very great. "My wife was away too long," a German
peasant explained to the magistrate, "and so I went with my sow." It is
certainly an explanation that to the uncultivated peasant, ignorant of
theological and juridical conceptions, must often seem natural and
sufficient.
Bestiality thus resembles masturbation and other abnormal manifestations
of the sexual impulse which may be practiced merely faute de mieux and
not as, in the strict sense, perversions of the impulse. Even necrophily may
be thus practiced. A young man who when assisting the grave-digger
conceived and carried out the idea of digging up the bodies of young girls
to satisfy his passions with, and whose case has been recorded by Belletrud
and Mercier, said: "I could find no young girl who would agree to yield to
my desires; that is why I have done this. I should have preferred to have
relations with living persons. I found it quite natural to do what I did: I saw
no harm in it, and I did not think that any one else could. As living women
felt nothing but repulsion for me, it was quite natural I should turn to the
dead, who have never repulsed me. I used to say tender things to them like
'my beautiful, my love, I love you.'" (Belletrud and Mercier "Perversion de
l'Instinct Genésique," Annales d'Hygiène Publique, June, 1903.) But when
so highly abnormal an act is felt as natural we are dealing with a person
who is congenitally defective so far as the finer developments of
intelligence are concerned. It was so in this case of necrophily; he was the
son of a weak-minded woman of unrestrainable sexual inclinations, and was
himself somewhat feeble-minded; he was also, it is instructive to observe,
anosmic.

But it is by no means only their dulled sensibility or the absence of women,
which accounts for the frequency of bestiality among peasants. A highly
important factor is their constant familiarity with animals. The peasant lives
with animals, tends them, learns to know all their individual characters; he
understands them far better than he understands men and women; they are
his constant companions, his friends. He knows, moreover, the details of
their sexual lives, he witnesses the often highly impressive spectacle of
their coupling. It is scarcely surprising that peasants should sometimes
regard animals as being not only as near to them as their fellow human
beings, but even nearer.
The significance of the factor of familiarity is indicated by the great
frequency of bestiality among shepherds, goatherds, and others whose
occupation is exclusively the care of animals. Mirabeau, in the eighteenth
century, stated, on the evidence of Basque priests, that all the shepherds in
the Pyrenees practice bestiality. It is apparently much the same in Italy.[49]
In South Italy and Sicily, especially, bestiality among goatherds and
peasants is said to be almost a national custom.[50] In the extreme north of
Europe, it is reported, the reindeer, in this respect, takes the place of the
goat.
The importance of the same factor is also shown by the fact that when
among women in civilization animal perversions appear, the animal is
nearly always a pet dog. Usually in these cases the animal is taught to give
gratification by cunnilinctus. In some cases, however, there is really sexual
intercourse between the animal and the woman.
Moll mentions that in a case of cunnilinctus by a dog in Germany there was
a difficulty as to whether the matter should be considered an unnatural
offence or simply an offence against decency; the lower court considered it
in the former light, while the higher court took the more merciful view.
(Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 697.) In a case
reported by Pfaff and mentioned by Moll, a country girl was accused of
having sexual intercourse with a large dog. On examination Pfaff found in
the girl's thick pubic hair a loose hair which under the microscope proved to
belong to the dog. (Loc. cit., p. 698.) In such a case it must be noted that
while this evidence may be held to show sexual contact with the dog, it
scarcely suffices to show sexual intercourse. This has, however,

undoubtedly occurred from time to time, even more or less openly. Bloch
(Op. cit., pp. 277 and 282) remarks that this is not an infrequent exhibition
given by prostitutes in certain brothels. Maschka has referred to such an
exhibition between a woman and a bull-dog, which was given to select
circles in Paris. Rosse refers to a case in which a young unmarried woman
in Washington was surprised during intercourse with a large English
mastiff, who in his efforts to get loose caused such severe injuries that the
woman died from hæmorrhage in about an hour. Rosse also mentions that
some years ago a performance of this kind between a prostitute and a
Newfoundland dog could be witnessed in San Francisco by paying a small
sum; the woman declared that a woman who had once copulated with a dog
would ever afterwards prefer this animal to a man. Rosse adds that he was
acquainted with a similar performance between a woman and a donkey,
which used to take place in Europe (Irving Rosse, "Sexual Hypochondriasis
and Perversion of the Genesic Instinct," Virginia Medical Monthly, October,
1892, p. 379). Juvenal mentions such relations between the donkey and
woman (vi, 332). Krauss (quoted by Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der
Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II, p. 276) states that in Bosnia women
sometimes carry on these practices with dogs and also—as he would not
have believed had he not on one occasion observed it—with cats. "It seems
to me," writes Dr. Kiernan, of Chicago, (private letter) "that what Rosse
says of the animal exhibitions in San Francisco is true of all great cities.
The animal employed in such exhibitions here has usually been a donkey,
and in one instance death occurred from the animal trampling the girl
partner. The practice described occurs in country regions quite frequently.
Thus in a case reported in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, a sixteen-year-
old boy engaged in rectal coitus with a large dog. In attempting to extricate
his swollen penis from the boy's rectum the dog tore through the sphincter
ani an inch into the gluteus muscles. (Omaha Clinic, March, 1893.) In a
Missouri case, which I verified, a smart, pretty, well-educated country girl
was found with a profuse offensive vaginal discharge which had been
present for about a week, coming on suddenly. After washing the external
genitals and opening the labia three rents were discovered, one through the
fourchette and two through the left nymphæ. The vagina was excessively
congested and covered with points bleeding on the slightest irritation. The
patient confessed that one day while playing with the genitals of a large dog
she became excited and thought she would have slight coitus. After the dog

had made an entrance she was unable to free herself from him, as he
clasped her so firmly with his fore legs. The penis became so swollen that
the dog could not free himself, although for more than an hour she made
persistent efforts to do so. (Medical Standard, June, 1903, p. 184). In an
Indiana case, concerning which I was consulted, the girl was a hebephreniac
who had resorted to this procedure with a Newfoundland dog at the instance
of another girl, seemingly normal as regards mentality, and had been badly
injured; a discharge resulted which resembled gonorrhœa, but contained no
gonococci. These cases are probably more frequent than is usually
assumed."
Women are known to have had intercourse with various other animals,
occasionally or habitually, in various parts of the world. Monkeys have
been mentioned in this connection. Moll remarks that it seems to be an
indication of an abnormal interest in monkeys that some women are
observed by the attendants in the monkey-house of zoölogical gardens to be
very frequent visitors. Near the Amazon the traveler Castelnau saw an
enormous Coati monkey belonging to an Indian woman and tried to
purchase it; though he offered a large sum, the woman only laughed. "Your
efforts are useless," remarked an Indian in the same cabin, "he is her
husband." (So far as the early literature of this subject is concerned, a
number of facts and fables regarding the congress of women with dogs,
goats and other animals was brought together at the beginning of the
eighteenth century by Schurig in his Gynæcologia, Section II, cap. VII; I
have not drawn on this collection.)
In some cases women, and also men, find gratification in the sexual
manipulation of animals without any kind of congress. This may be
illustrated by an observation communicated to me by a correspondent, a
clergyman. "In Ireland, my father's house adjoined the residence of an
archdeacon of the established church. I was then about 20 and was still kept
in religious awe of evil ways. The archdeacon had two daughters, both of
whom he brought up in great strictness, resolved that they should grow up
examples of virtue and piety. Our stables adjoined, and were separated only
by a thin wall in which was a doorway closed up by some boards, as the
two stables had formerly been one. One night I had occasion to go to our
stable to search for a garden tool I had missed, and I heard a door open on
the other side, and saw a light glimmer through the cracks of the boards. I

looked through to ascertain who could be there at that late hour, and soon
recognized the stately figure of one of the daughters, F. F. was tall, dark and
handsome, but had never made any advances to me, nor had I to her. She
was making love to her father's mare after a singular fashion. Stripping her
right arm, she formed her fingers into a cone, and pressed on the mare's
vulva. I was astonished to see the beast stretching her hind legs as if to
accommodate the hand of her mistress, which she pushed in gradually and
with seeming ease to the elbow. At the same time she seemed to experience
the most voluptuous sensation, crisis after crisis arriving." My
correspondent adds that, being exceedingly curious in the matter, he tried a
somewhat similar experiment himself with one of his father's mares and
experienced what he describes as "a most powerful sexual battery" which
produced very exciting and exhausting effects. Näcke (Psychiatrische en
Neurologische Bladen, 1899, No. 2) refers to an idiot who thus manipulated
the vulva of mares in his charge. The case has been recorded by Guillereau
(Journal de Médicine Véterinaire et de Zootechnie, January, 1899) of a
youth who was accustomed to introduce his hand into the vulva of cows in
order to obtain sexual excitement.
The possibility of sexual excitement between women and animals involves
a certain degree of sexual excitability in animals from contact with women.
Darwin stated that there could be no doubt that various quadrumanous
animals could distinguish women from men—in the first place probably by
smell and secondarily by sight—and be thus liable to sexual excitement. He
quotes the opinions on this point of Youatt, Brehm, Sir Andrew Smith and
Cuvier (Descent of Man, second edition, p. 8). Moll quotes the opinion of
an experienced observer to the same effect (Untersuchungen über die
Libido Sexualis, Bd. i, p. 429). Hufeland reported the case of a little girl of
three who was playing, seated on a stool, with a dog placed between her
thighs and locked against her. Seemingly excited by this contact the animal
attempted a sort of copulation, causing the genital parts of the child to
become inflamed. Bloch (Op. cit., p. 280, et seq.) discusses the same point;
he does not consider that animals will of their own motion sexually cohabit
with women, but that they may be easily trained to it. There can be no doubt
that dogs at all events are sometimes sexually excited by the presence of
women, perhaps especially during menstruation, and many women are able
to bear testimony to the embarrassing attentions they have sometimes

received from strange dogs. There can be no difficulty in believing that, so
far as cunnilinctus is concerned dogs would require no training. In a case
recorded by Moll (Konträre Sexualempfindung, third edition, p. 560) a lady
states that this was done to her when a child, as also to other children, by
dogs who, she said, showed signs of sexual excitement. In this case there
was also sexual excitement thus produced in the child, and after puberty
mutual cunnilinctus was practiced with girl friends. Guttceit (Dreissig Jahre
Praxis, Theil I, p. 310) remarks that some Russian officers who were in the
Turkish campaign of 1828 told him that from fear of veneral infection in
Wallachia they refrained from women and often used female asses which
appeared to show signs of sexual pleasure.
A very large number of animals have been recorded as having been
employed in the gratification of sexual desire at some period or in some
country, by men and sometimes by women. Domestic animals are naturally
those which most frequently come into question, and there are few if any of
these which can altogether be excepted. The sow is one of the animals most
frequently abused in this manner.[51] Cases in which mares, cows, and
donkeys figure constantly occur, as well as goats and sheep. Dogs, cats, and
rabbits are heard of from time to time. Hens, ducks, and, especially in
China, geese, are not uncommonly employed. The Roman ladies were said
to have had an abnormal affection for snakes. The bear and even the
crocodile are also mentioned.[52]
The social and legal attitude toward bestiality has reflected in part the
frequency with which it has been practiced, and in part the disgust mixed
with mystical and sacrilegious horror which it has aroused. It has
sometimes been met merely by a fine, and sometimes the offender and his
innocent partner have been burnt together. In the middle ages and later its
frequency is attested by the fact that it formed a favorite topic with
preachers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is significant that in the
Penitentials,—which were criminal codes, half secular and half spiritual, in
use before the thirteenth century, when penance was relegated to the
judgment of the confessor,—it was thought necessary to fix the periods of
penance which should be undergone respectively by bishops, priests and
deacons who should be guilty of bestiality.

In Egbert's Penitential, a document of the ninth and tenth centuries, we read
(V. 22): "Item Episcopus cum quadrupede fornicans VII annos,
consuetudinem X, presbyter V, diaconus III, clerus II." There was a great
range in the penances for bestiality, from ten years to (in the case of boys)
one hundred days. The mare is specially mentioned (Haddon and Stubbs,
Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii, p. 422). In Theodore's
Penitential, another Anglo-Saxon document of about the same age, those
who habitually fornicate with animals are adjudged ten years of penance. It
would appear from the Penitentiale Pseudo-Romanum (which is earlier than
the eleventh century) that one year's penance was adequate for fornication
with a mare when committed by a layman (exactly the same as for simple
fornication with a widow or virgin), and this was mercifully reduced to half
a year if he had no wife. (Wasserschleben, Die Bussordnungen der
Abendländlichen Kirche, p. 366). The Penitentiale Hubertense (emanating
from the monastery of St. Hubert in the Ardennes) fixes ten years' penance
for sodomy, while Fulbert's Penitential (about the eleventh century) fixes
seven years for either sodomy or bestiality. Burchard's Penitential, which is
always detailed and precise, specially mentions the mare, the cow and the
ass, and assigns forty days bread and water and seven years penance, raised
to ten years in the case of married men. A woman having intercourse with a
horse is assigned seven years penance in Burchard's Penitential.
(Wasserschleben, ib. pp. 651, 659.)
The extreme severity which was frequently exercised toward those guilty of
this offense, was doubtless in large measure due to the fact that bestiality
was regarded as a kind of sodomy, an offense which was frequently viewed
with a mystical horror apart altogether from any actual social or personal
injury it caused. The Jews seem to have felt this horror; it was ordered that
the sinner and his victim should both be put to death (Exodus, Ch. 22, v. 19;
Leviticus, Ch. 20, v. 15). In the middle ages, especially in France, the same
rule often prevailed. Men and sows, men and cows, men and donkeys were
burnt together. At Toulouse a woman was burnt for having intercourse with
a dog. Even in the seventeenth century a learned French lawyer, Claude
Lebrun de la Rochette, justified such sentences.[53] It seems probable that
even to-day, in the social and legal attitude toward bestiality, sufficient
regard is not paid to the fact that this offense is usually committed either by
persons who are morbidly abnormal or who are of so low a degree of

intelligence that they border on feeble-mindedness. To what extent, and on
what grounds, it ought to be punished is a question calling for serious
reconsideration.

[33]
For Krafft-Ebing's discussion of the subject see Op. cit., pp. 530-
539.

[34]
In England it is not uncommon to use the term "unnatural
offence;" this is an awkward and possibly misleading practice
which should not be followed. In Germany a similar confusion is
caused by applying the term "sodomy" to these cases as well as to
pederasty. Krafft-Ebing considers that this error is due to the
jurists, while the theologians have always distinguished correctly.
In this matter, he adds, science must be ancilla theologiæ and
return to the correct usage of words.

[35]
This childish interest, with later abnormal developments, may be
seen in History I of the Appendix to this volume.

[36]
The Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney's sister, appears to
have found sexual enjoyment in the contemplation of the sexual
prowess of stallions. Aubrey writes that she "was very salacious
and she had a contrivance that in the spring of the year ... the
stallions ... were to be brought before such a part of the house
where she had a vidette to look on them." (Short Lives, 1898, vol.
i, p. 311.) Although the modern editor's modesty has caused the
disappearance of several lines from this passage, the general
sense is clear. In the same century Burchard, the faithful secretary
of Pope Alexander VI, describes in his invaluable diary how four
race horses were brought to two mares in a court of the Vatican,
the horses clamorously fighting for the possession of the mares

and eventually mounting them, while the Pope and his daughter
Lucrezia looked on from a window "cum magno risu et
delectatione." (Diarium, ed Thuasne, vol. III, p. 169.)

[37]
Archivio di Psichiatria, 1902, fasc. ii-iii, p. 338. In the case of
pathological sexuality in a boy of 15, reported by A. MacDonald,
and already summarized, the sight of copulating flies is also
mentioned among many other causes of sexual excitation.

[38]
Krafft-Ebing presents or quotes typical cases of all these fetiches,
Op. cit., pp. 255-266.

[39]
G. Stanley Hall, "A study of Fears," American Journal of
Psychology, 1897, pp. 213-215.

[40]
Op. cit., p. 268.

[41]
W. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist,
January, 1896. Krafft-Ebing (op. cit., p. 532) quotes from Boeteau
the somewhat similar case of a gardener's boy of 16—an
illegitimate child of neuropathic heredity and markedly
degenerate—who had a passion, of irresistible and impulsive
character, for rabbits. He was declared irresponsible. Moll
(Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, pp. 431-433)
presents the case of a neurotic man who from the age of 15 had
been sexually excited by the sight of animals or by contact with
them. He had repeatedly had connection with cows and mares; he
was also sexually excited by sheep, donkeys, and dogs, whether

female or male; the normal sexual instinct was weak and he
experienced very slight attraction to women.

[42]
Moll also remarks ("Perverse Sexualempfindung," in Senator's
and Kaminer's Krankheiten und Ehe) that in this matter it is often
hardly possible to draw a sharp line between vice and disease.

[43]
Instances of this widespread belief—found among the Tamils of
Ceylon as well as in Europe—are quoted from various authors by
Bloch, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia Sexualis, Teil II,
p. 278, and Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i,
p. 700. On the frequency of bestiality, from one cause or another,
in the East, see, e.g., Stern, Medizin und Geschlechtsleben in der
Türkei, bd. ii, p. 219.

[44]
Sometimes (as among the Aleuts) the animal pantomime dances
of savages may represent the transformation of a captive bird into
a lovely woman who falls exhausted into the arms of the hunter.
(H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific, vol. i, p. 93.) A
system of beliefs which accepts the possibility that a human being
may be latent in an animal obviously favors the practice of
bestiality.

[45]
For an example of the primitive confusion between the
intercourse of women with animals and with men see, e.g., Boas,
"Sagen aus British-Columbia," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, heft V,
p. 558.

[46]
Herodotus, Book II, Chapter 46.

[47]
Dulare (Des Divinités Génératrices, Chapter II) brings together
the evidence showing that in Egypt women had connection with
the sacred goat, apparently in order to secure fertility.

[48]
Various facts and references bearing on this subject are brought
together by Blumenbach, Anthropological Memoirs, translated by
Bendyshe, p. 80; Block, Beiträge zur Ætiologie der Psychopathia
Sexualis, Teil II, pp. 276-283; also Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib,
seventh edition, p. 520.

[49]
Mantegazza mentions (Gli Amori degli Uomini, cap V) that at
Rimini a young goatherd of the Apennines, troubled with
dyspepsia and nervous symptoms, told him this was due to
excesses with the goats in his care. A finely executed marble
group of a satyr having connection with a goat, found at
Herculaneum and now in the Naples Museum (reproduced in
Fuchs's Erotische Element in der Karikatur), perhaps symbolizes
a traditional and primitive practice of the goatherd.

[50]
Bayle (Dictionary, Art, Bathyllus) quotes various authorities
concerning the Italian auxiliaries in the south of France in the
sixteenth century and their custom of bringing and using goats for
this purpose. Warton in the eighteenth century was informed that
in Sicily priests in confession habitually inquired of herdsmen if
they had anything to do with their sows. In Normandy priests are
advised to ask similar questions.

[51]
It is worth noting that in Greek the work χοιρος means both a sow
and a woman's pudenda; in the Acharnians Aristophanes plays on

this association at some length. The Romans also (as may be
gathered from Varro's De Re Rustica) called the feminine pudenda
porcus.

[52]
Schurig, Gynæcologia, pp. 280-387; Bloch, op. cit., 270-277. The
Arabs, according to Kocher, chiefly practice bestiality with goats,
sheep and mares. The Annamites, according to Mondière,
commonly employ sows and (more especially the young women)
dogs. Among the Tamils of Ceylon bestiality with goats and cows
is said to be very prevalent.

[53]
Mantegazza (Gli Amori degli Uomini, cap. V) brings together
some facts bearing on this matter.

V.

Exhibitionism—Illustrative Cases—A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship—
The Impulse to Defile—The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude—The Sexual
Organs as Fetichs—Phallus Worship—Adolescent Pride in Sexual
Development—Exhibitionism of the Nates—The Classification of the
Forms of Exhibitionism—Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to
Epilepsy.

There is a remarkable form of erotic symbolism—very definite and
standing clearly apart from all other forms—in which sexual gratification is
experienced in the simple act of exhibiting the sexual organ to persons of
the opposite sex, usually by preference to young and presumably innocent
persons, very often children. This is termed exhibitionism.[54] It would
appear to be a not very infrequent phenomenon, and most women, once or
more in their lives, especially when young, have encountered a man who
has thus deliberately exposed himself before them.
The exhibitionist, though often a young and apparently vigorous man, is
always satisfied with the mere act of self-exhibition and the emotional
reaction which that act produces; he makes no demands on the woman to
whom he exposes himself; he seldom speaks, he makes no effort to
approach her; as a rule, he fails even to display the signs of sexual
excitation. His desires are completely gratified by the act of exhibition and
by the emotional reaction it arouses in the woman. He departs satisfied and
relieved.
A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the nature
of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in which it may
originate. It is the case of a business man of 49, of neurotic heredity, an
affectionate husband and father of a family, who, to his own grief and
shame, is compelled from time to time to exhibit his sexual organs to
women in the street. As a boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to
coitus; both had their sexual parts exposed. From that time sexual contacts,
as of his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive, as well
as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched before each other with
their sexual parts exposed, and also imitation of the copulation of animals.
Coitus was first practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the
woman's sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement.
It was also necessary—and this consideration is highly important as regards
the development of the tendency to exhibition—that the woman should be
excited by the sight of his organs. Even when he saw or touched a woman's
parts orgasm often occurred. It was the naked sexual organs in an otherwise
clothed body which chiefly excited him. He was not possessed of a high
degree of potency. Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him,

and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual matters. His
self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration, and it was accompanied by
the idea that other people felt as he did about the sexual effects of the naked
organs, that he was shocking but at the same time sexually exciting a young
girl. He was thus gratifying himself through the belief that he was causing
sexual gratification to an innocent girl. This man was convicted several
times, and was finally declared to be suffering from impulsive insanity.
(Schrenck-Notzing, Kriminal-psychologische und Psycho-pathologische
Studien, 1902, pp. 50-57.) In another case of Schrenck-Notzing's, an actor
and portrait painter, aged 31, in youth masturbated and was fond of
contemplating the images of the sexual organs of both sexes, finding little
pleasure in coitus. At the age of 24, at a bathing establishment, he happened
to occupy a compartment next to that occupied by a lady, and when naked
he became aware that his neighbor was watching him through a chink in the
partition. This caused him powerful excitement and he was obliged to
masturbate. Ever since he has had an impulse to exhibit his organs and to
masturbate in the presence of women. He believes that the sight of his
organs excites the woman (Ib., pp. 57-68). The presence of masturbation in
this case renders it untypical as a case of exhibitionism. Moll at one time
went so far as to assert that when masturbation takes place we are not
entitled to admit exhibitionism, (Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis,
bd. i, p. 661), but now accepts exhibitionism with masturbation ("Perverse
Sexualempfindung," Krankheiten und Ehe). The act of exhibition itself
gratifies the sexual impulse, and usually it suffices to replace both
tumescence and detumescence.
A fairly typical case, recorded by Krafft-Ebing, is that of a German factory
worker of 37, a good, sober and intelligent workman. His parents were
healthy, but one of his mother's and also one of his father's sisters were
insane; some of his relatives are eccentric in religion. He has a languishing
expression and a smile of self-complacency. He never had any severe
illness, but has always been eccentric and imaginative, much absorbed in
romances (such as Dumas's novels) and fond of identifying himself with
their heroes. No signs of epilepsy. In youth moderate masturbation, later
moderate coitus. He lives a retired life, but is fond of elegant dress and of
ornament. Though not a drinker, he sometimes makes himself a kind of
punch which has a sexually exciting effect on him. The impulse to

exhibitionism has only developed in recent years. When the impulse is upon
him he becomes hot, his heart beats violently, the blood rushes to his head,
and he is oblivious of everything around him that is not connected with his
own act. Afterwards he regards himself as a fool and makes vain resolutions
never to repeat the act. In exhibition the penis is only half erect and
ejaculation never occurs. (He is only capable of coitus with a woman who
shows great attraction to him.) He is satisfied with self-exhibition, and
believes that he thus gives pleasure to the woman, since he himself receives
pleasure in contemplating a woman's sexual parts. His erotic dreams are of
self-exhibition to young and voluptuous women. He had been previously
punished for an offense of this kind; medico-legal opinion now recognized
the incriminated man's psychopathic condition. (Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., pp.
492-494.)
Trochon has reported the case of a married man of 33, a worker in a factory,
who for several years had exhibited himself at intervals to shop-girls, etc.,
in a state of erection, but without speaking or making other advances. He
was a hard-working, honest, sober man of quiet habits, a good father to his
family and happy at home. He showed not the slightest sign of insanity. But
he was taciturn, melancholic and nervous; a sister was an idiot. He was
arrested, but on the report of the experts that he committed these acts from a
morbid impulse he could not control he was released. (Trochon, Archives de
l'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1888, p. 256.)
In a case of Freyer's (Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte, third year, No. 8) the
occasional connection of exhibitionism with epilepsy is well illustrated by a
barber's assistant, aged 35, whose father suffered from chronic alcoholism
and was also said to have committed the same kind of offense as his son.
The mother and a sister suffered nervously. From ages of 7 to 18 the subject
had epileptic convulsions. From 16 to 21 he indulged in normal sexual
intercourse. At about that time he had often to pass a playground and at
times would urinate there; it happened that the children watched him with
curiosity. He noticed that when thus watched sexual excitement was caused,
inducing erection and even ejaculation. He gradually found pleasure in this
kind of sexual gratification; finally he became indifferent to coitus. His
erotic dreams, though still usually about normal coitus, were now
sometimes concerned with exhibition before little girls. When overcome by
the impulse he could see and hear nothing around him, though he did not

lose consciousness. After the act was over he was troubled by his deed. In
all other respects he was entirely reasonable. He was imprisoned many
times for exhibiting himself to young schoolgirls, sometimes vaunting the
beauty of his organs and inviting inspection. On one occasion he underwent
mental examination, but was considered to be mentally sound. He was
finally held to be a hereditarily tainted individual with neuropathic
constitution. The head was abnormally broad, penis small, patellar reflex
absent, and there were many signs of neurasthenia. (Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit.,
pp. 490-492.)
The prevalence of epilepsy among exhibitionists is shown by the
observations of Pelanda in Verona. He has recorded six cases of this
perversion, all of which eventually reached the asylum and were either
epileptics or with epileptic relations. One had a brother who was also an
exhibitionist. In some cases the penis was abnormally large, in others
abnormally small. Several had very weak sexual impulse; one, at the age of
62, had never effected coitus, and was proud of the fact that he was still a
virgin, considering, he would say, the epoch of demoralization in which we
live. (Pelanda, "Pornopatici," Archivio di Psichiatria, fasc. ii-iv, 1889.)
In a very typical case of exhibitionism which Garnier has recorded, a
certain X., a gentleman engaged in business in Paris, had a predilection for
exhibiting himself in churches, more especially in Saint-Roch. He was
arrested several times for exposing his sexual organs here before ladies in
prayer. In this way he finally ruined his commercial position in Paris and
was obliged to establish himself in a small provincial town. Here again he
soon exposed himself in a church and was again sent to prison, but on his
liberation immediately performed the same act in the same church in what
was described as a most imperturbable manner. Compelled to leave the
town, he returned to Paris, and in a few weeks' time was again arrested for
repeating his old offense in Saint Roch. When examined by Garnier, the
information he supplied was vague and incomplete, and he was very
embarrassed in the attempt to explain himself. He was unable to say why he
chose a church, but he felt that it was to a church that he must go. He had,
however, no thought of profanation and no wish to give offense. "Quite the
contrary!" he declared. He had the sad and tired air of a man who is
dominated by a force stronger than his will. "I know," he added, "what
repulsion my conduct must inspire. Why am I made thus? Who will cure

me?" (P. Garnier, "Perversions Sexuelles," Comptes Rendus, International
Congress of Medicine at Paris in 1900, Section de Psychiatrie, pp. 433-
435.)
In some cases, it would appear, the impulse to exhibitionism may be
overcome or may pass away. This result is the more likely to come about in
those cases in which exhibitionism has been largely conditioned by chronic
alcoholism or other influences tending to destroy the inhibiting and
restraining action of the higher centers, which may be overcome by hygiene
and treatment. In this connection I may bring forward a case which has
been communicated to me by a medical correspondent in London. It is that
of an actor, of high standing in his profession and extremely intelligent, 49
years of age, married and father of a large family. He is sexually vigorous
and of erotic temperament. His general health has always been good, but he
is a high-strung, neurotic man, with quick mental reactions. His habits had
for a long time been decidedly alcoholic, but two years ago, a small
quantity of albumen being found in the urine, he was persuaded to leave off
alcohol, and has since been a teetotaller. Though ordinarily very reticent
about sexual matters, he began four or five years ago to commit acts of
exhibitionism, exposing himself to servants in the house and occasionally to
women in the country. This continued after the alcohol had been abandoned
and lasted for several years, though the attention of the police was never
attracted to the matter, and so far as possible he was quietly supervised by
his friends. Nine months after, the acts of exhibitionism ceased, apparently
in a spontaneous manner, and there has so far been no relapse.
Exhibitionism is an act which, on the face of it, seems nonsensical and
meaningless, and as such, as an inexplicable act of madness, it has
frequently been treated both by writers on insanity and on sexual
perversion. "These acts are so lacking in common sense and intelligent
reflection that no other reason than insanity can be offered for the patient,"
Ball concluded.[55] Moll, also, who defines exhibitionism somewhat too
narrowly as a condition in which "the charm of the exhibition lies for the
subject in the display itself," not sufficiently taking into consideration the
imagined effect on the spectator, concludes that "the psychological basis of
exhibitionism is at present by no means cleared up."[56]

We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as
fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship. The
exhibitionist displays the organ of sex to a feminine witness, and in the
shock of modest sexual shame by which she reacts to that spectacle, he
finds a gratifying similitude of the normal emotions of coitus.[57] He feels
that he has effected a psychic defloration.
Exhibitionism is thus analogous, and, indeed, related, to the impulse felt by
many persons to perform indecorous acts or tell indecent stories before
young and innocent persons of the opposite sex. This is a kind of psychic
exhibitionism, the gratification it causes lying exactly, as in physical
exhibitionism, in the emotional confusion which it is felt to arouse. The two
kinds of exhibitionism may be combined in the same person: Thus, in a case
reported by Hoche (p. 97), the exhibitionist an intellectual and highly
educated man, with a doctor's degree, also found pleasure in sending
indecent poems and pictures to women, whom, however, he made no
attempt to seduce; he was content with the thought of the emotions he
aroused or believed that he aroused.
It is possible that within this group should come the agent in the following
incident which was lately observed by a lady, a friend of my own. An
elderly man in an overcoat was seen standing outside a large and well-
known draper's shop in the outskirts of London; when able to attract the
attention of any of the shop-girls or of any girl in the street he would fling
back his coat and reveal that he was wearing over his own clothes a
woman's chemise (or possibly bodice) and a woman's drawers; there was no
exposure. The only intelligible explanation of this action would seem to be
that pleasure was experienced in the mild shock of interested surprise and
injured modesty which this vision was imagined to cause to a young girl. It
would thus be a comparatively innocent form of psychic defloration.
It is of interest to point out that the sexual symbolism of active flagellation
is very closely analogous to this symbolism of exhibitionism. The flagellant
approaches a woman with the rod (itself a symbol of the penis and in some
countries bearing names which are also applied to that organ) and inflicts on
an intimate part of her body the signs of blushing and the spasmodic
movements which are associated with sexual excitement, while at the same
time she feels, or the flagellant imagines that she feels, the corresponding

emotions of delicious shame.[58] This is an even closer mimicry of the
sexual act than the exhibitionist attains, for the latter fails to secure the
consent of the woman nor does he enjoy any intimate contact with her
naked body. The difference is connected with the fact that the active
flagellant is usually a more virile and normal person than the exhibitionist.
In the majority of cases the exhibitionist's sexual impulse is very feeble, and
as a rule he is either to some degree a degenerate, or else a person who is
suffering from an early stage of general paralysis, dementia, or some other
highly enfeebling cause of mental disorganization, such as chronic
alcoholism. Sexual feebleness is further indicated by the fact that the
individuals selected as witnesses are frequently mere children.
It seems probable that a form of erotic symbolism somewhat similar to
exhibitionism is to be found in the rare cases in which sexual gratification is
derived from throwing ink, acid or other defiling liquids on women's
dresses. Thoinot has recorded a case of this kind (Attentats aux Moeurs,
1898, pp. 484, et seq.). An instructive case has been presented by Moll. In
this case a young man of somewhat neuropathic heredity had as a youth of
16 or 17, when romping with his young sister's playfellows, experienced
sexual sensations on chancing to see their white underlinen. From that time
white underlinen and white dresses became to him a fetich and he was only
attracted to women so attired. One day, at the age of 25, when crossing the
street in wet weather with a young lady in a white dress, a passing vehicle
splashed the dress with mud. This incident caused him strong sexual
excitement, and from that time he had the impulse to throw ink, perchloride
of iron, etc., on to ladies' white dresses, and sometimes to cut and tear them,
sexual excitement and ejaculation taking place every time he effected this.
(Moll, "Gutachten über einem Sexual Perversen [Besudelungstrieb],"
Zeitschrift für Medizinalbeamte, Heft XIII, 1900). Such a case is of
considerable psychological interest. Thoinot considers that in these cases
the fleck is a fetich. That is an incorrect account of the matter. In this case
the white garments constituted the primary fetich, but that fetich becomes
more acutely realized, and at the same time both parties are thrown into an
emotional state which to the fetichist becomes a mimicry of coitus, by the
act of defilement. We may perhaps connect with this phenomenon the
attraction which muddy shoes often exert over the shoe-fetichist, and the
curious way in which, as we have seen (p. 18), Restif de la Bretonne

associates his love of neatness in women with his attraction to the feet, the
part, he remarks, least easy to keep clean.
Garnier applied the term sadi-fetichism to active flagellation and many
similar manifestations such as we are here concerned with, on the grounds
that they are hybrids which combine the morbid adoration for a definite
object with the impulse to exercise a more or less degree of violence. From
the standpoint of the conception of erotic symbolism I have adopted there is
no need for this term. There is here no hybrid combination of two unlike
mental states. We are simply concerned with states of erotic symbolism,
more or less complete, more or less complex.
The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves
a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's mind
to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is directed.
He seeks to cause an emotion which, probably in most cases, he desires
should be pleasurable. But from one cause or another his finer sensibilities
are always inhibited or in abeyance, and he is unable to estimate accurately
either the impression he is likely to produce or the general results of his
action, or else he is moved by a strong impulsive obsession which
overpowers his judgment. In many cases he has good reason for believing
that his act will be pleasurable, and frequently he finds complacent
witnesses among the low-class servant girls, etc.
It may be pointed out here that we are quite justified in speaking of a penis-
fetichism and also of a vulva-fetichism. This might be questioned. We are
obviously justified in recognizing a fetichism which attaches itself to the
pubic hair, or, as in a case with which I am acquainted, to the clitoris, but it
may seem that we cannot regard the central sexual organs as symbols of
sex, symbols, as it were, of themselves. Properly regarded, however, it is
the sexual act rather than the sexual organ which is craved in normal sexual
desire; the organ is regarded merely as the means and not as the end.
Regarded as a means the organ is indeed an object of desire, but it only
becomes a fetich when it arrests and fixes the attention. An attention thus
pleasurably fixed, a vulva-fetichism or a penis-fetichism, is within the
normal range of sexual emotion (this point has been mentioned in the
previous volume when discussing the part played by the primary sexual
organs in sexual selection), and in coarse-grained natures of either sex it is a

normal allurement in its generalized shape, apart from any attraction to the
person to whom the organs belong. In some morbid cases, however, this
penis-fetichism may become a fully developed sexual perversion. A typical
case of this kind has been recorded by Howard in the United States. Mrs.
W., aged 39, was married at 20 to a strong, healthy man, but derived no
pleasure from coitus, though she received great pleasure from masturbation
practiced immediately after coitus, and nine years after marriage she ceased
actual coitus, compelling her husband to adopt mutual masturbation. She
would introduce men into the house at all times of the day or night, and
after persuading them to expose their persons would retire to her room to
masturbate. The same man never aroused desire more than once. This desire
became so violent and persistent that she would seek out men in all sorts of
public places and, having induced them to expose themselves, rapidly
retreat to the nearest convenient spot for self-gratification. She once
abstracted a pair of trousers she had seen a man wear and after fondling
them experienced the orgasm. Her husband finally left her, after vainly
attempting to have her confined in an asylum. She was often arrested for
her actions, but through the intervention of friends set free again. She was a
highly intelligent woman, and apart from this perversion entirely normal.
(W. L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist, January,
1896.) It is on the existence of a more or less developed penis-fetichism of
this kind that the exhibitionist, mostly by an ignorant instinct, relies for the
effects he desires to produce.
The exhibitionist is not usually content to produce a mere titillated
amusement; he seeks to produce a more powerful effect which must be
emotional whether or not it is pleasurable. A professional man in Strassburg
(in a case reported by Hoche[59]) would walk about in the evening in a long
cloak, and when he met ladies would suddenly throw his cloak back under a
street lamp, or igniting a red-fire match, and thus exhibit his organs. There
was an evident effort—on the part of a weak, vain, and effeminate man—to
produce a maximum of emotional effect. The attempt to heighten the
emotional shock is also seen in the fact that the exhibitionist frequently
chooses a church as the scene of his exploits, not during service, for he
always avoids a concourse of people, but perhaps toward evening when
there are only a few kneeling women scattered through the edifice. The
church is chosen, often instinctively rather than deliberately, from no

impulse to commit a sacrilegious outrage—which, as a rule, the
exhibitionist does not feel his act to be—but because it really presents the
conditions most favorable to the act and the effects desired. The
exhibitionist's attitude of mind is well illustrated by one of Garnier's
patients who declared that he never wished to be seen by more than two
women at once, "just what is necessary," he added, "for an exchange of
impressions." After each exhibition he would ask himself anxiously: "Did
they see me? What are they thinking? What do they say to each other about
me? Oh! how I should like to know!" Another patient of Garnier's, who
haunted churches for this purpose, made this very significant statement:
"Why do I like going to churches? I can scarcely say. But I know that it is
only there that my act has its full importance. The woman is in a devout
frame of mind, and she must see that such an act in such a place is not a
joke in bad taste or a disgusting obscenity; that if I go there it is not to
amuse myself; it is more serious than that! I watch the effect produced on
the faces of the ladies to whom I show my organs. I wish to see them
express a profound joy. I wish, in fact, that they may be forced to say to
themselves: How impressive Nature is when thus seen!"
Here we trace the presence of a feeling which recalls the phenomena of the
ancient and world-wide phallic worship, still liable to reappear sporadically.
Women sometimes took part in these rites, and the osculation of the male
sexual organ or its emblematic representation by women is easily traceable
in the phallic rites of India and many other lands, not excluding Europe
even in comparatively recent times. (Dulaure in his Divinités Génératices
brings together much bearing on these points; cf.: Ploss and Bartels, Das
Weib, vol. i, Chapter XVII, and Bloch, Beiträge zur Psychopathia Sexualis,
Teil I, pp. 115-117. Colin Scott has some interesting remarks on phallic
worship and the part it has played in aiding human evolution, "Sex and
Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 191-197. Irving
Rosse describes some modern phallic rites in which both men and women
took part, similar to those practiced in vaudouism, "Sexual
Hypochondriasis," Virginia Medical Monthly, October, 1892.)
Putting aside any question of phallic worship, a certain pride and more or
less private feeling of ostentation in the new expansion and development of
the organs of virility seems to be almost normal at adolescence. "We have
much reason to assume," Stanley Hall remarks, "that in a state of nature

there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that accompanies the new
local development. I think it will be found that exhibitionists are usually
those who have excessive growth here, and that much that modern society
stigmatizes as obscene is at bottom more or less spontaneous and perhaps in
some cases not abnormal. Dr. Seerley tells me he has never examined a
young man largely developed who had the usual strong instinctive tendency
of modesty to cover himself with his hands, but he finds this instinct
general with those whose development is less than the average." (G. Stanley
Hall, Adolescence, vol. ii, p. 97.) This instinct of ostentation, however, so
far as it is normal, is held in check by other considerations, and is not, in the
strict sense, exhibitionism. I have observed a full-grown telegraph boy
walking across Hampstead Heath with his sexual organs exposed, but
immediately he realized that he was seen he concealed them. The solemnity
of exhibitionism at this age finds expression in the climax of the sonnet,
"Oraison du Soir," written at 16 by Rimbaud, whose verse generally is a
splendid and insolent manifestation of rank adolescence:—

"Doux comme le Seigneur du cèdre et des
hysopes,
Je pisse vers les cieux bruns très haut et très loin,
Avec l'assentiment des grands héliotropes."

(J. A. Rimbaud, Œuvres, p. 68.)

In women, also, there would appear to be traceable a somewhat similar
ostentation, though in them it is complicated and largely inhibited by
modesty, and at the same time diffused over the body owing to the absence
of external sexual organs. "Primitive woman," remarks Madame Renooz,
"proud of her womanhood, for a long time defended her nakedness which
ancient art has always represented. And in the actual life of the young girl
to-day there is a moment when by a secret atavism she feels the pride of her
sex, the intuition of her moral superiority, and cannot understand why she
must hide its cause. At this moment, wavering between the laws of Nature
and social conventions, she scarcely knows if nakedness should or should
not affright her. A sort of confused atavistic memory recalls to her a period
before clothing was known, and reveals to her as a paradisaical ideal the
customs of that human epoch." (Céline Renooz, Psychologie Comparée de

l'Homme et de la Femme, p. 85.) It may be added that among primitive
peoples, and even among some remote European populations to-day, the
exhibition of feminine nudity has sometimes been regarded as a spectacle
with religious or magic operation. (Ploss, Das Weib, seventh edition, vol. ii,
pp. 663-680; Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition, p. 304.) It is
stated by Gopcevic that in the long struggle between the Albanians and the
Montenegrians the women of the former people would stand in the front
rank and expose themselves by raising their skirts, believing that they
would thus insure victory. As, however, they were shot down, and as,
moreover, victory usually fell to the Montenegrians, this custom became
discredited. (Quoted by Bloch, Op. cit., Teil II, p. 307.)
With regard to the association, suggested by Stanley Hall, between
exhibitionism and an unusual degree of development of the sexual organs, it
must be remarked that both extremes—a very large and a very small penis
—are specially common in exhibitionists. The prevalence of the small
organ is due to an association of exhibitionism with sexual feebleness. The
prevalence of the large organ may be due to the cause suggested by Hall.
Among Mahommedans the sexual organs are sometimes habitually exposed
by religious penitents, and I note that Bernhard Stern, in his book on the
medical and sexual aspects of life in Turkey, referring to a penitent of this
sort whom he saw on the Stamboul bridge at Constantinople, remarks that
the organ was very largely developed. It may well be in such a case that the
penitent's religious attitude is reinforced by some lingering relic of a more
fleshly ostentation.
It is by a pseudo-atavism that this phallicism is evoked in the exhibitionist.
There is no true emergence of an ancestrally inherited instinct, but by the
paralysis or inhibition of the finer and higher feelings current in civilization,
the exhibitionist is placed on the same mental level as the man of a more
primitive age, and he thus presents the basis on which the impulses
belonging to a higher culture may naturally take root and develop.
Reference may here be made to a form of primitive exhibitionism, almost
confined to women, which, although certainly symbolic, is absolutely non-
sexual, and must not, therefore, be confused with the phenomena we are
here occupied with. I refer to the exhibition of the buttocks as a mark of
contempt. In its most primitive form, no doubt, this exhibitionism is a kind

of exorcism, a method of putting evil spirits, primarily, and secondarily
evil-disposed persons, to flight. It is the most effective way for a woman to
display sexual centers, and it shares in the magical virtues which all
unveiling of the sexual centers is believed by primitive peoples to possess.
It is recorded that the women of some peoples in the Balkan peninsula
formerly used this gesture against enemies in battle. In the sixteenth century
so distinguished a theologian as Luther when assailed by the Evil One at
night was able to put the adversary to flight by protruding his uncovered
buttocks from the bed. But the spiritual significance of this attitude is lost
with the decay of primitive beliefs. It survives, but merely as a gesture of
insult. The symbolism comes to have reference to the nates as the excretory
focus, the seat of the anus. In any case it ignores any sexual attractiveness
in this part of the body. Exhibitionism of this kind, therefore, can scarcely
arise in persons of any sensitiveness or æsthetic perception, even putting
aside the question of modesty, and there seems to be little trace of it in
classic antiquity when the nates were regarded as objects of beauty. Among
the Egyptians, however, we gather from Herodotus (Bk. II, Chapter LX)
that at a certain popular religious festival men and women would go in
boats on the Nile, singing and playing, and when they approached a town
the women on the boats would insult the women of the town by injurious
language and by exposing themselves. Among the Arabs, however, the
specific gesture we are concerned with is noted, and a man to whom
vengeance is forbidden would express his feelings by exposing his posterior
and strewing earth on his head (Wellhausen, Rests Arabischen Heidentums,
1897, p. 195). It is in Europe and in mediæval and later times that this
emphatic gesture seems to have flourished as a violent method of
expressing contempt. It was by no means confined to the lower classes, and
Kleinpaul, in discussing this form of "speech without words," quotes
examples of various noble persons, even princesses, who are recorded thus
to have expressed their feelings. (Kleinpaul, Sprache ohne Worte, pp. 271-
273.) In more recent times the gesture has become merely a rare and
extreme expression of unrestrained feeling in coarse-grained peasants. Zola,
in the figure of Mouquette in Germinal, may be said to have given a kind of
classic expression to the gesture. In the more remote parts of Europe it
appears to be still not altogether uncommon. This seems to be notably the
case among the South Slavs, and Krauss states that "when a South Slav
woman wishes to express her deepest contempt for anyone she bends

forward, with left hand raising her skirts, and with the right slapping her
posterior, at the same time exclaiming: 'This for you!'" (Κρυπτάδια, vol. vi,
p. 200.)
A verbal survival of this gesture, consisting in the contemptuous invitation
to kiss this region, still exists among us in remote parts of the country,
especially as an insult offered by an angry woman who forgets herself. It is
said to be commonly used in Wales. ("Welsh Ædœlogy," Κρυπτάδια, vol. ii,
pp. 358, et seq.) In Cornwall, when addressed by a woman to a man it is
sometimes regarded as a deadly insult, even if the woman is young and
attractive, and may cause a life-long enmity between related families. From
this point of view the nates are a symbol of contempt, and any sexual
significance is excluded. (The distinction is brought out by Diderot in Le
Neveu de Rameau: "Lui:—Il y a d'autres jours ou il ne m'en coûterait rien
pour être vil tant qu'on voudrait; ces jours-là, pour un liard, je baiserais le
cul à la petite Hus. Moi:—Eh! mais, l'ami, elle est blanche, jolie, douce,
potelée, et c'est un acte d'humilité auquel un plus delicat que vous pourrait
quelquefois s'abaisser. Lui:—Entendons-nous; c'est qu'il y a baiser le cul au
simple, et baiser le cul au figuré.")
It must be added that a sexual form of exhibitionism of the nates must still
be recognized. It occurs in masochism and expresses the desire for passive
flagellation. Rousseau, whose emotional life was profoundly affected by the
castigations which as a child he received from Mlle Lambercier, has in his
Confessions told us how, when a youth, he would sometimes expose
himself in this way in the presence of young women. Such masochistic
exhibitionism seems, however, to be rare.
While the manifestations of exhibitionism are substantially the same in all
cases, there are many degrees and varieties of the condition. We may find
among exhibitionists, as Garnier remarks, dementia, states of
unconsciousness, epilepsy, general paralysis, alcoholism, but the most
typical cases, he adds, if not indeed the cases to which the term properly
belongs, are those in which it is an impulsive obsession. Krafft-Ebing[60]
divides exhibitionists into four clinical groups: (1) acquired states of mental
weakness, with cerebral or spinal disease clouding consciousness and at the
same time causing impotence; (2) epileptics, in whom the act is an
abnormal organic impulse performed in a state of imperfect consciousness;

(3) a somewhat allied group of neurasthenic cases; (4) periodical impulsive
cases with deep hereditary taint. This classification is not altogether
satisfactory. Garnier's classification, placing the group of obsessional cases
in the foreground and leaving the other more vaguely defined groups in the
background, is probably better. I am inclined to consider that most of the
cases fall into one or other of two mixed groups. The first class includes
cases in which there is more or less congenital abnormality, but otherwise a
fair or even complete degree of mental integrity; they are usually young
adults, they are more or less precisely conscious of the end they wish to
attain, and it is often only with a severe struggle that they yield to their
impulses. In the second class the beginnings of mental or nervous disease
have diminished the sensibility of the higher centers; the subjects are
usually old men whose lives have been absolutely correct; they are often
only vaguely aware of the nature of the satisfaction they are seeking, and
frequently no struggle precedes the manifestation; such was the case of the
overworked clergyman described by Hughes,[61] who, after much study,
became morose and absent-minded, and committed acts of exhibitionism
which he could not explain but made no attempt to deny; with rest and
restorative treatment his health improved and the acts ceased. It is in the
first class of cases alone that there is a developed sexual perversion. In the
cases of the second class there is a more or less definite sexual intention,
but it is only just conscious, and the emergence of the impulse is due not to
its strength but to the weakness, temporary or permanent, of the higher
inhibiting centers.
Epileptic cases, with loss of consciousness during the act, can only be
regarded as presenting a pseudo-exhibitionism. They should be excluded
altogether. It is undoubtedly true that many cases of real or apparent
exhibitionism occur in epileptics.[62] We must not, however, too hastily
conclude that because these acts occur in epileptics they are necessarily
unconscious acts. Epilepsy frequently occurs on a basis of hereditary
degeneration, and the exhibitionism may be, and not infrequently is, a
stigma of the degeneracy and not an indication of the occurrence of a minor
epileptic fit. When the act of pseudo-exhibitionism is truly epileptic, it will
usually have no psychic sexual content, and it will certainly be liable to
occur under all sorts of circumstances, when the patient is alone or in a
miscellaneous concourse of people. It will be on a level with the acts of the

highly respectable young woman who, at the conclusion of an attack of petit
mal, consisting chiefly of a sudden desire to pass urine, on one occasion
lifted up her clothes and urinated at a public entertainment, so that it was
with difficulty her friends prevented her from being handed over to the
police.[63] Such an act is automatic, unconscious, and involuntary; the
spectators are not even perceived; it cannot be an act of exhibitionism.
Whenever, on the other hand, the place and the time are evidently chosen
deliberately,—a quiet spot, the presence of only one or two young women
or children,—it is difficult to admit that we are in the presence of a fit of
epileptic unconsciousness, even when the subject is known to be epileptic.
Even, however, when we exclude those epileptic pseudo-exhibitionists who,
from the legal point of view, are clearly irresponsible, it must still be
remembered that in every case of exhibitionism there is a high degree of
either mental abnormality on a neuropathic basis, or else of actual disease.
This is true to a greater extent in exhibitionism than in almost any other
form of sexual perversion. No subject of exhibitionism should be sent to
prison without expert medical examination.

[54]
Lasège first drew attention to this sexual perversion and gave it its
generally accepted name, "Les Exhibitionistes," L'Union
Médicale, May, 1877. Magnan, on various occasions (for
example, "Les Exhibitionistes," Archives de l'Anthropologie
Criminelle, vol. v, 1890, p. 456), has given further development
and precision to the clinical picture of the exhibitionist.

[55]
B. Ball. La Folie Erotique, p. 86.

[56]
Moll, Untersuchungen über die Libido Sexualis, bd. i, p. 661.

[57]

"Exhibitionism in its most typical form is," Garnier truly says, "a
systematic act, manifesting itself as the strange equivalent of a
sexual connection, or its substitution." The brief account of
exhibitionism (pp. 433-437) in Garnier's discussion of
"Perversions Sexuelles" at the International Medical Congress at
Paris in 1900 (Section de Psychiatrie: Comptes-Rendus) is the
most satisfactory statement of the psychological aspects of this
perversion with which I am acquainted. Garnier's unrivalled
clinical knowledge of these manifestations, due to his position
during many years as physician at the Depôt of the Prefecture of
Police in Paris, adds great weight to his conclusions.

[58]
The symbolism of coitus involved in flagellation has been
touched on by Eulenburg (Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 121), and is
more fully developed by Dühren (Geschlechtsleben in England,
bd. ii, pp. 366, et seq.).

[59]
A. Hoche, Neurologische Centralblatt, 1896, No. 2.

[60]
Op. cit., pp. 478, et seq.

[61]
C. H. Hughes, "Morbid Exhibitionism," Alienist and Neurologist,
August, 1904. Another somewhat similar American case, also
preceded by overwork, and eventually adjudged insane by the
courts, is recorded by D. S. Booth, Alienist and Neurologist,
February, 1905.

[62]
Exhibitionism in epilepsy is briefly discussed by Féré, L'Instinct
Sexuel, second edition, pp. 194-195.

[63]
W. S. Colman, "Post-Epileptic Unconscious Automatic Actions,"
Lancet, July 5, 1890.

VI.

The Forms of Erotic Symbolism are Simulacra of Coitus—Wide Extension
of Erotic Symbolism—Fetichism Not Covering the Whole Ground of
Sexual Selection—It is Based on the Individual Factor in Selection—
Crystallization—The Lover and the Artist—The Key to Erotic Symbolism
to be Found in the Emotional Sphere—The Passage to Pathological
Extremes.

We have now examined several very various and yet very typical
manifestations in all of which it is not difficult to see how, in some strange
and eccentric form—on a basis of association through resemblance or
contiguity or both combined—there arises a definite mimicry of the normal
sexual act together with the normal emotions which accompany that act. It
has become clear in what sense we are justified in recognizing erotic
symbolism.
The symbolic and, as it were, abstracted nature of these manifestations is
shown by the remarkable way in which they are sometimes capable of
transference from the object to the subject. That is to say that the fetichist
may show a tendency to cultivate his fetich in his own person. A foot-
fetichist may like to go barefoot himself; a man who admired lame women
liked to halt himself; a man who was attracted by small waists in women
found sexual gratification in tight-lacing himself; a man who was fascinated
by fine white skin and wished to cut it found satisfaction in cutting his own
skin; Moll's coprolagnic fetichist found a voluptuous pleasure in his own
acts of defecation. (See, e.g., Krafft-Ebing, Op. cit., p. 221, 224, 226;
Hammond, Sexual Impotence, p. 74; cf. ante, p. 68.) Such symbolic
transference seems to have a profoundly natural basis, for we may see a
somewhat similar phenomenon in the well-known tendency of cows to

mount a cow in heat. This would appear to be, not so much a homosexual
impulse, as the dynamic psychic action of an olfactory sexual symbol in a
transformed form.
We seem to have here a psychic process which is a curious reversal of that
process of Einfühlung—the projection of one's own activities into the object
contemplated—which Lipps has so fruitfully developed as the essence of
every æsthetic condition. (T. Lipps, Æsthetik, Teil I, 1903.) By Einfühlung
our own interior activity becomes the activity of the object perceived, a
thing being beautiful in proportion as it lends itself to our Einfühlung. But
by this action of erotic symbolism, on the other hand, we transfer the
activity of the object into ourselves.
When the idea of erotic symbolism as manifested in such definite and
typical forms becomes realized, it further becomes clear that the vaguer
manifestations of such symbolism are exceedingly widespread. When in a
previous volume we were discussing and drawing together the various
threads which unite "Love and Pain," it will now be understood that we
were standing throughout on the threshold of erotic symbolism. Pain itself,
in the sense in which we slowly learned to define it in this relationship—as
a state of intense emotional excitement—may, under a great variety of
special circumstances, become an erotic symbol and afford the same relief
as the emotions normally accompanying the sexual act. Active algolagnia or
sadism is thus a form of erotic symbolism; passive algolagnia or masochism
is (in a man) an inverted form of erotic symbolism. Active flagellation or
passive flagellation are, in exactly the same way, manifestations of erotic
symbolism, the imaginative mimicry of coitus.

Binet and also Krafft-Ebing[64] have argued in effect that the whole of
sexual selection is a matter of fetichism, that is to say, of erotic symbolism
of object. "Normal love," Binet states, "appears as the result of a
complicated fetichism." Tarde also seems to have regarded love as normally
a kind of fetichism. "We are a long time before we fall in love with a
woman," he remarks; "we must wait to see the detail which strikes and
delights us, and causes us to overlook what displeases us. Only in normal
love the details are many and always changing. Constancy in love is rarely
anything else but a voyage around the beloved person, a voyage of

exploration and ever new discoveries. The most faithful lover does not love
the same woman in the same way for two days in succession."[65]
From that point of view normal sexual love is the sway of a fetich—more or
less arbitrary, more or less (as Binet terms it) polytheistic—and it can have
little objective basis. But, as we saw when considering "Sexual Selection in
Man" in the previous volume, more especially when analyzing the notion of
beauty, we are justified in believing that beauty has to a large extent an
objective basis, and that love by no means depends simply on the capricious
selection of some individual fetich. The individual factor, as we saw, is but
one of many factors which constitute beauty. In the study of sexual
selection that individual factor was passed over very lightly. We now see
that it is often a factor of great importance, for in it are rooted all these
outgrowths—normal in their germs, highly abnormal in their more extreme
developments—which make up erotic symbolism.
Erotic symbolism is therefore concerned with all that is least generic, least
specific, all that is most intimately personal and individual, in sexual
selection. It is the final point in which the decreasing circle of sexual
attractiveness is fixed. In the widest and most abstract form sexual selection
in man is merely human, and we are attracted to that which bears most fully
the marks of humanity; in a less abstract form it is sexual, and we are
attracted to that which most vigorously presents the secondary sexual
characteristics; still narrowing, it is the type of our own nation and people
that appeals most strongly to us in matters of love; and still further
concentrating we are affected by the ideal—in civilization most often the
somewhat exotic ideal—of our own day, the fashion of our own city. But
the individual factor still remains, and amid the infinite possibilities of
erotic symbolism the individual may evolve an ideal which is often, as far
as he knows and perhaps in actuality, an absolutely unique event in the
history of the human soul.
Erotic symbolism works in its finer manifestations by means of the
idealizing aptitudes; it is the field of sexual psychology in which that
faculty of crystallization, on which Stendhal loved to dwell, achieves its
most brilliant results. In the solitary passage in which we seem to see a
smile on the face of the austere poet of the De Rerum Naturâ, Lucretius
tells us how every lover, however he may be amused by the amorous

extravagances of other men, is himself blinded by passion: if his mistress is
black she is a fascinating brunette, if she squints she is the rival of Pallas, if
too tall she is majestic, if too short she is one of the Graces, tota merum sal;
if too lean it is her delicate refinement, if too fat then a Ceres, dirty and she
disdains adornment, a chatterer and brilliantly vivacious, silent and it is her
exquisite modesty.[66] Sixteen hundred years later Robert Burton, when
describing the symptoms of love, made out a long and appalling list of the
physical defects which the lover is prepared to admire.[67]
Yet we must not be too certain that the lover is wrong in this matter. We too
hastily assume that the casual and hasty judgment of the world is
necessarily more reliable, more conformed to what we call "truth," than the
judgment of the lover which is founded on absorbed and patient study. In
some cases where there is lack of intelligence in the lover and dissimulation
in the object of his love, it may be so. But even a poem or a picture will
often not reveal its beauty except by the expenditure of time and study. It is
foolish to expect that the secret beauty of a human person will reveal itself
more easily. The lover is an artist, an artist who constructs an image, it is
true, but only by patient and concentrated attention to nature; he knows the
defects of his image, probably better than anyone, but he knows also that art
lies, not in the avoidance of defects, but in the realization of those traits
which swallow up defects and so render them non-existent. A great artist,
Rodin, after a life spent in the study of Nature, has declared that for art
there is no ugliness in Nature. "I have arrived at this belief by the study of
Nature," he said; "I can only grasp the beauty of the soul by the beauty of
the body, but some day one will come who will explain what I only catch a
glimpse of and will declare how the whole earth is beautiful, and all human
beings beautiful. I have never been able to say this in sculpture so well as I
wish and as I feel it affirmed within me. For poets Beauty has always been
some particular landscape, some particular woman; but it should be all
women, all landscapes. A negro or a Mongol has his beauty, however
remote from ours, and it must be the same with their characters. There is no
ugliness. When I was young I made that mistake, as others do; I could not
undertake a woman's bust unless I thought her pretty, according to my
particular idea of beauty; to-day I should do the bust of any woman, and it
would be just as beautiful. And however ugly a woman may look, when she
is with her lover she becomes beautiful; there is beauty in her character, in

her passions, and beauty exists as soon as character or passion becomes
visible, for the body is a casting on which passions are imprinted. And even
without that, there is always the blood that flows in the veins and the air
that fills the lungs."[68]
The saint, also, is here at one with the lover and the artist. The man who has
so profoundly realized the worth of his fellow men that he is ready even to
die in order to save them, feels that he has discovered a great secret. Cyples
traces the "secret delights" that have thus risen in the hearts of holy men to
the same source as the feelings generated between lovers, friends, parents,
and children. "A few have at intervals walked in the world," he remarks,
"who have, each in his own original way, found out this marvel....
Straightway man in general has become to them so sweet a thing that the
infatuation has seemed to the rest of their fellows to be a celestial madness.
Beggars' rags to their unhesitating lips grew fit for kissing, because
humanity had touched the garb; there were no longer any menial acts, but
only welcome services.... Remember by how much man is the subtlest
circumstance in the world; at how many points he can attach relationships;
how manifold and perennial he is in his results. All other things are dull,
meager, tame beside him."[69]
It may be added that even if we still believe that lover and artist and saint
are drawing the main elements of their conceptions from the depths of their
own consciousness, there is a sense in which they are coming nearer to the
truth of things than those for whom their conceptions are mere illusions.
The aptitude for realizing beauty has involved an adjustment of the nerves
and the associated brain centers through countless ages that began before
man was. When the vision of supreme beauty is slowly or suddenly realized
by anyone, with a reverberation that extends throughout his organism, he
has attained to something which for his species, and for far more than his
species, is truth, and can only be illusion to one who has artificially placed
himself outside the stream of life.
In an essay on "The Gods as Apparitions of the Race-Life," Edward
Carpenter, though in somewhat Platonic phraseology, thus well states the
matter: "The youth sees the girl; it may be a chance face, a chance outline,
amid the most banal surroundings. But it gives the cue. There is a memory,
a confused reminiscence. The mortal figure without penetrates to the

immortal figure within, and there rises into consciousness a shining form,
glorious, not belonging to this world, but vibrating with the agelong life of
humanity, and the memory of a thousand love-dreams. The waking of this
vision intoxicates the man; it glows and burns within him; a goddess (it may
be Venus herself) stands in the sacred place of his temple; a sense of awe-
struck splendor fills him, and the world is changed." "He sees something"
(the same writer continues in a subsequent essay, "Beauty and Duty")
"which, in a sense, is more real than the figures in the street, for he sees
something that has lived and moved for hundreds of years in the heart of the
race; something which has been one of the great formative influences of his
own life, and which has done as much to create those very figures in the
street as qualities in the circulation of the blood may do to form a finger or
other limb. He comes into touch with a very real Presence or Power—one
of those organic centers of growth in the life of humanity—and feels this
larger life within himself, subjective, if you like, and yet intensely
objective. And more. For is it not also evident that the woman, the mortal
woman who excites his Vision, has some closest relation to it, and is,
indeed, far more than a mere mask or empty formula which reminds him of
it? For she indeed has within her, just as much as the man has, deep
subconscious Powers working; and the ideal which has dawned so
entrancingly on the man is in all probability closely related to that which
has been working most powerfully in the heredity of the woman, and which
has most contributed to mold her form and outline. No wonder, then, that
her form should remind him of it. Indeed, when he looks into her eyes he
sees through to a far deeper life even than she herself may be aware of, and
yet which is truly hers—a life perennial and wonderful. The more than
mortal in him beholds the more than mortal in her; and the gods descend to
meet." (Edward Carpenter, The Art of Creation, pp. 137, 186.)
It is this mighty force which lies behind and beneath the aberrations we
have been concerned with, a great reservoir from which they draw the life-
blood that vivifies even their most fantastic shapes. Fetichism and the other
forms of erotic symbolism are but the development and the isolation of the
crystallizations which normally arise on the basis of sexual selection.
Normal in their basis, in their extreme forms they present the utmost
pathological aberrations of the sexual instinct which can be attained or
conceived. In the intermediate space all degrees are possible. In the slightest

degree the symbol is merely a specially fascinating and beloved feature in a
person who is, in all other respects, felt to be lovable; as such its
recognition is a legitimate part of courtship, an effective aid to tumescence.
In a further degree the symbol is the one arresting and attracting character
of a person who must, however, still be felt as a sexually attractive
individual. In a still further degree of perversion the symbol is effective,
even though the person with whom it is associated is altogether
unattractive. In the final stage the person and even all association with a
person disappear altogether from the field of sexual consciousness; the
abstract symbol rules supreme.
Long, however, before the symbol has reached that final climax of morbid
intensity we may be said to have passed beyond the sphere of sexual love. A
person, not an abstracted quality, must be the goal of love. So long as the
fetich is subordinated to the person it serves to heighten love. But love must
be based on a complexus of attractive qualities, or it has no stability.[70] As
soon as the fetich becomes isolated and omnipotent, so that the person sinks
into the background as an unimportant appendage of the fetich, all stability
is lost. The fetichist now follows an impersonal and abstract symbol
withersoever it may lead him.
It has been seen that there are an extraordinary number of forms in which
erotic symbolism may be felt. It must be remembered, and it cannot be too
distinctly emphasized, that the links that bind together the forms of erotic
symbolism are not to be found in objects or even in acts, but in the
underlying emotion. A feeling is the first condition of the symbol, a feeling
which recalls, by a subtle and unconscious automatic association of
resemblance or of contiguity, some former feeling. It is the similarity of
emotion, instinctively apprehended, which links on a symbol only partially
sexual, or even apparently not sexual at all, to the great central focus of
sexual emotion, the great dominating force which brings the symbol its life-
blood.[71]
The cases of sexual hyperæsthesia, quoted at the beginning of this study, do
but present in a morbidly comprehensive and sensitive form those
possibilities of erotic symbolism which, in some degree, or at some period,
are latent in most persons. They are genuinely instinctive and automatic,
and have nothing in common with that fanciful and deliberate play of the

intelligence around sexual imagery—not infrequently seen in abnormal and
insane persons—which has no significance for sexual psychology.
It is to the extreme individualization involved by the developments of erotic
symbolism that the fetichist owes his morbid and perilous isolation. The
lover who is influenced by all the elements of sexual selection is always
supported by the fellow-feeling of a larger body of other human beings; he
has behind him his species, his sex, his nation, or at the very least a fashion.
Even the inverted lover in most cases is soon able to create around him an
atmosphere constituted by persons whose ideals resemble his own. But it is
not so with the erotic symbolist. He is nearly always alone. He is
predisposed to isolation from the outset, for it would seem to be on a basis
of excessive shyness and timidity that the manifestations of erotic
symbolism are most likely to develop. When at length the symbolist realizes
his own aspirations—which seem to him for the most part an altogether
new phenomenon in the world—and at the same time realizes the wide
degree in which they deviate from those of the rest of mankind, his natural
secretiveness is still further reinforced. He stands alone. His most sacred
ideals are for all those around him a childish absurdity, or a disgusting
obscenity, possibly a matter calling for the intervention of the policeman.
We have forgotten that all these impulses which to us seem so unnatural—
this adoration of the foot and other despised parts of the body, this
reverence for the excretory acts and products, the acceptance of congress
with animals, the solemnity of self-exhibition—were all beliefs and
practices which, to our remote forefathers, were bound up with the highest
conceptions of life and the deepest ardors of religion.
A man cannot, however, deviate at once so widely and so spontaneously in
his impulses from the rest of the world in which he himself lives without
possessing an aboriginally abnormal temperament. At the very least he
exhibits a neuropathic sensitiveness to abnormal impressions. Not
infrequently there is more than this, the distinct stigmata of degeneration,
sometimes a certain degree of congenital feeble-mindedness or a tendency
to insanity.
Yet, regarded as a whole, and notwithstanding the frequency with which
they witness to congenital morbidity, the phenomena of erotic symbolism
can scarcely fail to be profoundly impressive to the patient and impartial

student of the human soul. They often seem absurd, sometimes disgusting,
occasionally criminal; they are always, when carried to an extreme degree,
abnormal. But of all the manifestations of sexual psychology, normal and
abnormal, they are the most specifically human. More than any others they
involve the potently plastic force of the imagination. They bring before us
the individual man, not only apart from his fellows, but in opposition,
himself creating his own paradise. They constitute the supreme triumph of
human idealism.

[64]
Binet, Etudes de Psychologie Expérimentale, esp., p. 84; Krafft-
Ebing, Op. cit., p. 18.

[65]
G. Tarde, "L'Amour Morbide," Archives de l'Anthropologie
Criminelle, 1890, p. 585.

[66]
Lucretius, Lib. IV, vv. 1150-1163.

[67]
Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. III,
Subs. I.

[68]
Judith Cladel, Auguste Rodin Pris sur la Vie, 1903, pp. 103-104.
Some slight modifications have been made in the translation of
this passage on account of the conversational form of the original.

[69]
W. Cyples, The Process of Human Experience, p. 462. Even if (as
we have already seen, ante, p. 58) the saint cannot always feel
actual physical pleasure in the intimate contact of humanity, the

ardor of devoted service which his vision of humanity arouses
remains unaffected.

[70]
"To love," as Stendhal defined it (De l'Amour, Chapter II), "is to
have pleasure in seeing, touching, and feeling by all the senses,
and as near as possible, a beloved object by whom one is oneself
loved."

[71]
Pillon's study of "La Mémoire Affective" (Revue Philosophique,
February, 1901) helps to explain the psychic mechanism of the
process.

THE MECHANISM OF DETUMESCENCE.
I.

The Psychological Significance of Detumescence—The Testis and the
Ovary—Sperm Cell and Germ Cell—Development of the Embryo—The
External Sexual Organs—Their Wide Range of Variation—Their Nervous
Supply—The Penis—Its Racial Variations—The Influence of Exercise—
The Scrotum and Testicles—The Mons Veneris—The Vulva—The Labia
Majora and their Varieties—The Pubic Hair and Its Characters—The
Clitoris and Its Functions—The Anus as an Erogenous Zone—The
Nymphæ and their Function—The Vagina—The Hymen—Virginity—The
Biological Significance of the Hymen.

In analyzing the sexual impulse we have seen that the process whereby the
conjunction of the sexes is achieved falls naturally into two phases: the first
phase, of tumescence, during which force is generated in the organism, and
the second phase, of detumescence, in which that force is discharged during
conjugation.[72] Hitherto we have been occupied mainly with the first phase,
that of tumescence, and with its associated psychic phenomena. It was
inevitable that this should be so, for it is during the slow process of
tumescence that sexual selection is decided, the crystallizations of love
elaborated, and, to a large extent, the individual erotic symbols determined.
But we can by no means altogether pass over the final phase of
detumescence. Its consideration, it is true, brings us directly into the field of
anatomy and physiology; while tumescence is largely under control of the
will, when the moment of detumescence arrives the reins slip from the
control of the will; the more fundamental and uncontrollable impulses of
the organism gallop on unchecked; the chariot of Phaëthon dashes blindly
down into a sea of emotion.
Yet detumescence is the end and climax of the whole drama; it is an
anatomico-physiological process, certainly, but one that inevitably touches

psychology at every point.[73] It is, indeed, the very key to the process of
tumescence, and unless we understand and realize very precisely what it is
that happens during detumescence, our psychological analysis of the sexual
impulse must remain vague and inadequate.
From the point of view we now occupy, a man and a woman are no longer
two highly sensitive organisms vibrating, voluptuously it may indeed be,
but vaguely and indefinitely, to all kinds of influences and with fluctuating
impulses capable of being directed into any channel, even in the highest
degree divergent from the proper ends of procreation. They are now two
genital organisms who exist to propagate the race, and whatever else they
may be, they must be adequately constituted to effect the act by which the
future of the race is ensured. We have to consider what are the material
conditions which ensure the most satisfactory and complete fulfillment of
this act, and how those conditions may be correlated with other
circumstances in the organism. In thus approaching the subject we shall find
that we have not really abandoned the study of the psychic aspects of sex.
The two most primary sexual organs are the testis and the ovary; it is the
object of conjugation to bring into contact the sperm from the testis with the
germ from the ovary. There is no reason to suppose that the germ-cell and
the sperm-cell are essentially different from each other. Sexual conjugation
thus remains a process which is radically the same as the non-sexual mode
of propagation which preceded it. The fusion of the nuclei of the two cells
was regarded by Van Beneden, who in 1875 first accurately described it, as
a process of conjugation comparable to that of the protozoa and the
protophyta. Boveri, who has further extended our knowledge of the process,
considers that the spermatozoon removes an inhibitory influence preventing
the commencement of development in the ovum; the spermatozoon replaces
a portion of the ovum which has already undergone degeneration, so that
the object of conjugation is chiefly to effect the union of the properties of
two cells in one, sexual fertilization achieving a division of labor with
reciprocal inhibition; the two cells have renounced their original faculty of
separate development in order to attain a fusion of qualities and thus render
possible that production of new forms and qualities which has involved the
progress of the organized world.[74]

While in fishes this conjugation of the male and female elements is usually
ensured by the female casting her spawn into an artificial nest outside the
body, on to which the male sheds his milt, in all animals (and, to some
extent, birds, who occupy an intermediate position) there is an organic nest,
or incubation chamber as Bland Sutton terms it, the womb, in the female
body, wherein the fertilized egg may develop to a high degree of maturity
sheltered from those manifold risks of the external world which make it
necessary for the spawn of fishes to be so enormous in amount. Since,
however, men and women have descended from remote ancestors who, in
the manner of aquatic creatures, exercised functions of sperm-extrusion and
germ-extrusion that were exactly analogous in the two sexes, without any
specialized female uterine organization, the early stages of human male and
female fœtal development still display the comparatively undifferentiated
sexual organization of those remote ancestors, and during the first months
of fœtal life it is practically impossible to tell by the inspection of the
genital regions whether the embryo would have developed into a man or
into a woman. If we examine the embryo at an early stage of development
we see that the hind end is the body stalk, this stalk in later stages becoming
part of the umbilical cord. The urogenital region, formed by the rapid
extension of the hind end beyond its original limit, which corresponds to
what is later the umbilicus, develops mainly by the gradual differentiation
of structures (the Wolffian and Müllerian bodies) which originally exist
identically in both sexes. This process of sexual differentiation is highly
complex, so that it cannot yet be said that there is complete agreement
among investigators as to its details. When some irregularity or arrest of
development occurs in the process we have one or other of the numerous
malformations which may affect this region. If the arrest occurs at a very
early stage we may even find a condition of things which seems to
approximate to that which normally exists in the adult reptilia.[75] Owing to
the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive
structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in
the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one
sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the
ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the scrotum
of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so throughout, although
it is not always possible at present to be quite certain in regard to these
homologics.

Since the object to be attained by the sexual organs in the human species is
identical with that which they subserve in their pre-human ancestors, it is
not surprising to find that these structures have a clear resemblance to the
corresponding structures in the apes, although on the whole there would
appear to be in man a higher degree of sexual differentiation. Thus the
uterus of various species of semnopithecus seems to show a noteworthy
correspondence with the same organ in woman.[76] The somewhat less
degree of sexual differentiation is well shown in the gorilla; in the male the
external organs are in the passive state covered by the wrinkled skin of the
abdomen, while in the female, on the contrary, they are very apparent, and
in sexual excitement the large clitoris and nymphæ become markedly
prominent. The penis of the gorilla, however, more nearly resembles that of
man, according to Hartmann, than does that of the other anthropoid apes,
which diverge from the human type in this respect more than do the
cynocephalic apes and some species of baboon.
From the psychological point of view we are less interested in the internal
sexual organs, which are most fundamentally concerned with the production
and reception of the sexual elements, than with the more external parts of
the genital apparatus which serve as the instruments of sexual excitation,
and the channels for the intromission and passage of the seminal fluid. It is
these only which can play any part at all in sexual selection; they are the
only part of the sexual apparatus which can enter into the formation of
either normal or abnormal erotic conceptions; they are the organs most
prominently concerned with detumescence; they alone enter normally into
the conscious process of sex at any time. It seems desirable, therefore, to
discuss them briefly at this point.
Our knowledge of the individual and racial variations of the external sexual
organs is still extremely imperfect. A few monographs and collections of
data on isolated points may be found in more or less inaccessible
publications. As regards women, Ploss and Bartels have devoted a chapter
to the sexual organs of women which extends to a hundred pages, but
remains scanty and fragmentary. (Das Weib, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The most
systematic series of observations have been made in the case of the various
kinds of degenerates—idiots, the insane, criminals, etc.—but it would be
obviously unsafe to rely too absolutely on such investigations for our
knowledge of the sexual organs of the ordinary population.

There can be no doubt, however, that the external sexual organs in normal
men and women exhibit a peculiarly wide range of variation. This is
indicated not only by the unsystematic results attained by experienced
observers, but also by more systematic studies. Thus Herman has shown by
detailed measurements that there are great normal variations in the
conformation of the parts that form the floor of the female pelvis. He found
that the projection of the pelvic floor varied from nothing to as much as two
inches, and that in healthy women who had borne no children the distance
between the coccyx and anus, the length of the perineum, the distance
between the fourchette and the symphysis pubis, and the length of the
vagina are subject to wide variations. (Lancet, October 12, 1889.) Even the
female urethral opening varies very greatly, as has been shown by Bergh,
who investigated it in nearly 700 women and reproduces the various shapes
found; while most usually (in about a third of the cases observed), a
longitudinal slit, it may be cross-shaped, star-shaped, crescentic, etc.; and
while sometimes very small, in about 6 per cent. of the cases it admitted the
tip of the little finger. (Bergh, Monatsheft für Praktische Dermatologie, 15
Sept., 1897.)
As regards both sexes, Stanley Hall states that "Dr. F. N. Seerley, who has
examined over 2000 normal young men as well as many young women,
tells me that in his opinion individual variations in these parts are much
greater even than those of face and form, and that the range of adult and
apparently normal size and proportion, as well as function, and of both the
age and order of development, not only of each of the several parts
themselves, but of all their immediate annexes, and in females as well as
males, is far greater than has been recognized by any writer. This fact is the
basis of the anxieties and fears of morphological abnormality so frequent
during adolescence." (G. S. Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 414).
In accordance with the supreme importance of the part they play, and the
intimately psychic nature of that part, the sexual organs, both internal and
external, are very richly supplied with nerves. While the internal organs are
very abundantly furnished with sympathetic nerves and ganglia, the
external organs show the highest possible degree of specialization of the
various peripheral nervous devices which the organism has developed for
receiving, accumulating, and transmitting stimuli to the brain.[77]

"The number of conducting cords which attach the genitals to the nervous
centers is simply enormous," writes Bryan Robinson; "the pudic nerve is
composed of nearly all the third sacral and branches from the second and
fourth sacral. As one examines this nerve he is forced to the conclusion that
it is an enormous supply for a small organ. The periphery of the pudic nerve
spreads itself like a fan over the genitals." The lesser sciatic nerve supplies
only one muscle—the gluteus maximus—and then sends the large pudendal
branch to the side of the penis, and hence the friction of coitus induces
active contraction of the gluteus maximus, "the main muscle of coition."
The large pudic and the pudendal constitute the main supply of the external
genitals. In women the pudic nerve is equally large, but the pudendal much
smaller, possibly, Bryan Robinson suggests, because women take a less
active part in coitus. The nerve supply of the clitoris, however, is three or
four times as large as that of the penis in proportion to size. (F. B.
Robinson, "The Intimate Nervous Connection of the Genito-Urinary Organs
With the Cerebro-Spinal and Sympathetic Systems," New York Medical
Journal, March 11, 1893; id., The Abdominal Brain, 1899.)
Of all the sexual organs the penis is without doubt that which has most
powerfully impressed the human imagination. It is the very emblem of
generation, and everywhere men have contemplated it with a mixture of
reverence and shuddering awe that has sometimes, even among civilized
peoples, amounted to horror and disgust. Its image is worn as an amulet to
ward off evil and invoked as a charm to call forth blessing. The sexual
organs were once the most sacred object on which a man could place his
hands to swear an inviolate oath, just as now he takes up the Testament.
Even in the traditions of the great classic civilization which we inherit the
penis is fascinus, the symbol of all fascination. In the history of human
culture it has had far more than a merely human significance; it has been
the symbol of all the generative force of Nature, the embodiment of creative
energy in the animal and vegetable worlds alike, an image to be held aloft
for worship, the sign of all unconscious ecstasy. As a symbol, the sacred
phallus, it has been woven in and out of all the highest and deepest human
conceptions, so intimately that it is possible to see it everywhere, that it is
possible to fail to see it anywhere.
In correspondence with the importance of the penis is the large number of
names which men have everywhere bestowed upon it. In French literature

many hundred synonyms may be found. They were also numerous in Latin.
In English the literary terms for the penis seem to be comparatively few, but
a large number of non-literary synonyms exist in colloquial and perhaps
merely local usage. The Latin term penis, which has established itself
among us as the most correct designation, is generally considered to be
associated with pendere and to be connected therefore with the usually
pendent position of the organ. In the middle ages the general literary term
throughout Europe was coles (or colis) from caulis, a stalk, and virga, a rod.
The only serious English literary term, yard (exactly equivalent to virga), as
used by Chaucer—almost the last great English writer whose vocabulary
was adequate to the central facts of life—has now fallen out of literary and
even colloquial usage.
Pierer and Chaulant, in their anatomical and physiological Real-Lexicon
(vol. vi, p. 134), give nearly a hundred synonyms for the penis. Hyrtl
(Topographisches Anatomie, seventh edition, vol. ii, pp. 67-69), adds
others. Schurig, in his Spermatologia (1720, pp. 89-91), also presents a
number of names for the penis; in Chapter III (pp. 189-192) of the same
book he discusses the penis generally with more fullness than most authors.
Louis de Landes, in his Glossaire Erotique of the French language (pp. 239-
242), enumerates several hundred literary synonyms for the penis, though
many of them probably only occur once.
There is no thorough and comprehensive modern study of the penis on an
anthropological basis (though I should mention a valuable and fully
illustrated study of anthropological and pathological variations of the penis
in a series of articles by Marandon de Montyel, "Des Anomalies des Organs
Génitaux Externes Chez les Aliénées," etc., Archives d'Anthropologie
Criminelle, 1895), and it would be out of place here to attempt to collect the
scattered notices regarding racial and other variations. It may suffice to note
some of the evidence showing that such variations seem to be numerous
and important. The Arab penis (according to Kocher) is slender and long (a
third longer than the average European penis) and with a club-shaped glans.
It undergoes little change when it enters the erect state. The clothes leaves it
quite free, and the Arab practices manual excitement at an early age to favor
its development.

Among the Fuegians, also, according to Hyades and Deniker (Cap Horn,
vol. vii, p. 153), the average length of the penis is 77 millimeters, which is
longer than in Europeans.
In men of black race, also, the penis is decidedly large. Thus Sir H. H.
Johnston (British Central Africa, p. 399) states this to be a universal rule.
Among the Wankenda of Northern Nyassa, for instance, he remarks that,
while the body is of medium size, the penis is generally large. He gives the
usual length as about six inches, reaching nine or ten in erection. The
prepuce, it is added, is often very long, and circumcision is practiced by
many tribes.
Among the American negroes Hrdlicka has found, also (Proceedings
American Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. xlvii, p. 475),
that the penis in black boys is larger than in white boys.
The passages cited above suggest the question whether the penis becomes
larger by exercise of its generative functions. Most old authors assert that
frequent erection makes the penis large and long (Schurig, Spermatologia,
p. 107). Galen noted that in singers and athletes, who were chaste in order
to preserve their strength, the sexual parts were small and rugrose, like
those of old men, and that exercise of the organs from youth develops them;
Roubaud, quoting this observation (Traité de l'Impuissance, p. 373), agrees
with the statement. It seems probable that there is an element of truth in this
ancient belief. At the same time it must be remembered that the penis is
only to small extent a muscular organ, and that the increase of size
produced by frequent congestion of erectile tissues cannot be either rapid or
pronounced. Variations in the size of the sexual organs are probably on the
whole mainly inherited, though it is impossible to speak decisively on this
point until more systematic observations become customary.
The scrotum has usually, in the human imagination, been regarded merely
as an appendage of the penis, of secondary importance, although it is the
garment of the primary and essential organs of sex, and the fact that it is not
the seat of any voluptuous sensation has doubtless helped to confirm this
position. Even the name is merely a mediæval perversion of scortum, skin
or hide. In classic times it was usually called the pouch or purse. The
importance of the testicles has not, however, been altogether ignored, as the

very word testis itself shows, for the testis is simply the witness of virility.
[78]

It is easy to understand why the penis should occupy this special place in
man's thoughts as the supreme sexual organ. It is the one conspicuous and
prominent portion of the sexual apparatus, while its aptitude for swelling
and erecting itself involuntarily, under the influence of sexual emotion,
gives it a peculiar and almost unique position in the body. At the same time
it is the point at which, in the male body, all voluptuous sensation is
concentrated, the only normal masculine center of sex.[79]
It is not easy to find any correspondingly conspicuous symbol of sex in the
sexual region of women. In the normal position nothing is visible but the
peculiarly human cushion of fat picturesquely termed the Mons Veneris
(because, as Palfyn said, all those who enroll themselves under the banner
of Venus must necessarily scale it), and even that is veiled from view in the
adult by the more or less bushy plantation of hair which grows upon it. A
triangle of varyingly precise definition is thus formed at the lower apex of
the trunk, and this would sometimes appear to have been regarded as a
feminine symbol.[80] But the more usual and typical symbol of femininity is
the idealized ring (by some savages drawn as a lozenge) of the vulvar
opening—the yoni corresponding to the masculine lingam—which is
normally closed from view by the larger lips arising from beneath the
shadow of the mons. It is a symbol that, like the masculine phallus, has a
double meaning among primitive peoples and is sometimes used to call
down a blessing and sometimes to invoke a curse.[81]
This external opening of the feminine genital passage with its two enclosing
lips is now generally called the vulva. It would appear that originally (as by
Celsus and Pliny) this term included the womb, also, but when the term
"uterus" came into use "vulva" was confined (as its sense of folding doors
suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The classic term cunnus
for the external genitals was chiefly used by the poets; it has been the
etymological source of various European names for this region, such as the
old French con, which has now, however, disappeared from literature while
even in popular usage it has given place to lapin and similar terms. But
there is always a tendency, marked in most parts of the world, for the names
of the external female parts to become indecorous. Even in classic antiquity

this part was the pudendum, the part to be ashamed of, and among ourselves
the mass of the population, still preserving the traditions of primitive times,
continue to cherish the same notion.
The anatomy, anthropology, folk-lore, and terminology of the external and
to some extent the internal feminine sexual region may be studied in the
following publications, among others: Ploss, Das Weib, vol. i, Chapter VI;
Hyrtl, Topographisches Anatomie, vol. ii, and other publications by the
same scholarly anatomist; W. J. Stewart Mackay, History of Ancient
Gynæcology, especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolæ ad Cognitionem
Genitalium Externorum Fœminearum" (in Danish), Hospitalstidende,
August, 1894; and also in Monatshefte für Praktische Dermatologie, 1897.
D. S. Lamb, "The Female External Genital Organs," New York Journal of
Gynæcology, August, 1894; R. L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia
Minora and Their Significance," American Gynecology, September, 1902;
Κρυπτάδια (in various languages), vol. viii, pp. 3-11, 11-13, and many other
passages. Several of Schurig's works (especially Gynæcologia, Muliebria,
and Parthenologia) contain full summaries of the statements of the early
writers.
The external or larger lips, like the mons veneris, are specifically human in
their full development, for in the anthropoid apes they are small as is the
mons, and in the lower apes absent altogether; they are, moreover, larger in
the white than in the other human races. Thus in the negro, and to a less
degree in the Japanese (Wernich) and the Javanese (Scherzer) they are less
developed than in women of white race. The greater lips develop in the
fœtus later than the lesser lips, which are thus at first uncovered; this
condition thus constitutes an infantile state which occasionally (in less than
2 per cent. of cases, according to Bergh) persists in the adult. Their
generally accepted name, labia majora, is comparatively modern.[82]
The outer sides of the labia majora are covered with hair, and on the inner
sides, which are smooth and moist, but are not true mucous membrane,
there are a few sweat glands and numerous large sebaceous glands. Bergh
considers that there is little or no hair on the inner sides of the labia majora,
but Lamb states that careful examination shows that from one- to two-thirds
of the inner surface in adult women show hairs like those of the external
surface. In brunettes and women of dark races this surface is pigmented; in

dark races it is usually a slate gray. From an examination of 2200 young
Danish prostitutes Bergh has found that there are two main varieties in the
shape of the labia majora, with transitional forms. In the first and most
frequent form the labia tend to be less marked and more effaced and
separated at the upper and anterior part, often being lost in the sides of the
mons and presenting a fissure which is broader in its upper part and
showing the inner lips more or less bare. In the second form the labia are
thicker and more outstanding and the inner edges lie in contact throughout
their whole length, showing the rima pudendi as a long narrow fissure.
Whatever the form, the labia close more tightly together in virgins and in
young individuals generally than in the deflowered and the elderly. In
children, as Martineau pointed out, the vulva appears to look directly
forward and the clitoris and urinary meatus easily appear, while in adult
women, and especially after attempts at coitus have been made, the vulva
appears directed more below and behind, and the clitoris and meatus more
covered by the labia majora; so that the child urinates forward, while the
adult woman is usually able to urinate almost directly downwards in the
erect position, though in some cases (as may occasionally be observed in
the street) she can only do so when bending slightly forwards. This
difference in the direction of the stream formerly furnished one of the
methods of diagnosing virginity, an uncertain one, since the difference is
largely due to age and individual variation. The main factor in the position
and aspect of the vulva is pelvic inclination. (See Havelock Ellis, Man and
Woman, fourth edition, p. 64; Stratz, Die Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers,
Chapter XII.) In the European woman, according to Stratz, a considerable
degree of pelvic inclination is essential to beauty, concealing all but the
anterior third of the vulva. In negresses and other women of lower race the
vulva, however, usually lies further back, being more conspicuous from
behind than in European women; in this respect lower races resemble the
apes. Those women of dark race, therefore, whose modesty is focused
behind rather than in front thus have sound anatomical considerations on
their side.
As Ploss and Bartels remark, a very common variation among European
women consists in an unusually posterior position of the vulva and vaginal
entrance, so that unless a cushion is placed under the buttocks it is difficult
for the man to effect coitus in the usual position without giving much pain

to the woman. They add that another anomaly, less easy to remedy, consists
in an abnormally anterior position of the vaginal entrance close beneath the
pelvic bone, so that, although intromission is easy, the spasmodic
contraction of the vagina at the culmination of orgasm presses the penis
against the bone and causes intolerable pain to the man.
The mons veneris and the labia majora are, after the age of puberty, always
normally covered by a more or less profuse growth of hair. It is notable that
the apes, notwithstanding their general tendency to hairiness, show no such
special development of hair in this region. We thus see that all the external
and more conspicuous portions of the sexual sphere in woman—the mons
veneris, the labia majora, and the hair—represent not so much an animal
inheritance, such as we commonly misrepresent them to be, but a higher
and genuinely human development. As none of these structures subserve
any clear practical use, it would appear that they must have developed by
sexual selection to satisfy the æsthetic demands of the eye.[83]
The character and arrangement of the pubic hair, investigated by Eschricht
and Voigt more than half a century ago, have been more recently studied by
Bergh. As these observers have pointed out, there are various converging
hair streams from above and below, the clitoris seeming to be the center
towards which they are directed. The hair-covering thus formed is usually
ample and, as a rule, is more so in brunettes than in blondes. It is nearly
always bent, curly and more or less spirally twisted.[84] There are frequently
one or two curls at the commencement of the fissure, rolled outwards, and
occasionally a well marked tuft in the middle line. In abundance the pubic
hair corresponds with the axillary hair; when one region is defective in hair
the other is usually so also. Strong eyebrows also usually indicate a strong
development of pubic hair. But the hair of the head usually varies
independently, and Bergh found that of 154 women with spare pubic hair 72
had good and often profuse hair on the head. Complete or almost complete
absence of pubic hair is in Bergh's experience only found in about 3 per
cent. of women; these were all young and blonde.
Rothe, in his investigation of the pubic hair of 1000 Berlin women, found
that no two women were really alike in this respect, but there was a
tendency to two main types of arrangement, with minor subdivisions,
according as the hair tended to grow chiefly in the middle line extending

laterally from that line, or to grow equally over the whole extent of the
pubic region; these two groups included half the cases investigated.
In men the pubic hair normally ascends anteriorly in a faint line up to the
navel, with tendency to form a triangle with the apex above, and posteriorly
extends backwards to the anus. In women these anterior and posterior
extensions are comparatively rare, or at all events are only represented by a
few stray hairs. Rothe found this variation in 4 per cent. of North German
women, though a triangle of hair was only found in 2 per cent.; Lombroso
found it in 5 per cent, of Italian women; Bergh found it in only 1.6 per cent.
among 1000 Danish prostitutes, all sixteen of whom with three exceptions
were brunettes. In Vienna, among 600 women, Coe found only 1 per cent,
with this distribution of hair, and states that they were women of decidedly
masculine type, though Ploss and Bartels, as well as Rothe, find, however,
that heterogeny, as they term the masculine distribution, is more common in
blondes. The anterior extension of hair is usually accompanied by the
posterior extension around the anus, usually very slight, but occasionally as
pronounce as in men. (According to Rothe, however, anterior heterogeny
comparatively rare.) These masculine variations in the extension of the
pubic hair appear to be not uncommonly associated with other physical and
psychic anomalies; it is on this account that they have sometimes been
regarded as indications of a vicious or a criminal temperament; they are,
however, found in quite normal women.
The pubic hair of women is usually shorter than that of men, but thick, and
the individual hairs stronger and larger in diameter than those of men, as
Pfaff first showed; dark hair is usually stronger than light. In both length
and size the individual variations are considerable. The usual length is about
2 inches, or 3-5 centimeters, occasionally reaching about 4 inches, or 9-10
centimeters, in the larger curls. In a series of 100 women attended during
confinement in London and the north of England I have only once (in a
rather blonde Lancashire woman) found the hair on labia reaching a
conspicuous length of several inches and forming an obstruction to the
manipulations involved in delivery. But Jahn delivered a woman whose
pubic hair was longer than that of her head, reaching below her knee;
Paulini also knew a woman whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and
was sold to make wigs; Bartholin mentions a soldier's wife who plaited her
pubic hair behind her back; while Brantôme has several references to

abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the sixteenth
century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic hair forming a large
curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The individual hairs have
occasionally been found so stiff and brush-like as to render coitus difficult.
In color the pubic hair, while generally approximating to that of the head, is
sometimes (according to Rothe, in Germany, in one-third cases) lighter, and
sometimes somewhat darker, as is found to be the case by Coe, especially in
brunettes, and also by Bergh, in Denmark. Bergh remarks that it is generally
intermediate in color between the eyebrows and the axillary hair, the latter
being more or less decolorized by sweat, and that, owing to the influence of
the urine and vaginal discharges, the labial hair is paler than that on the
mons; blondes with dark eyebrows usually have dark hair on the mons. The
hair on this spot, as Aristotle observed, is usually the last to turn gray.
The key to the genital apparatus in women from the psychic point of view,
and, indeed, to some extent, its anatomical center, is to be found in the
clitoris. Anatomically and developmentally the clitoris is the rudimentary
analogue of the masculine penis. Functionally, however, its scope is very
much smaller. While the penis both receives and imparts specific
voluptuous sensations, and is at the same time both the intromittent organ
for the semen and the conduit for the urine, the sole function of the clitoris
is to enter into erection under the stress of sexual emotion and receive and
transmit the stimulatory voluptuous sensations imparted to it by friction
with the masculine genital apparatus. It is so insignificant an organ that it is
only within recent times that its homology with the penis has been realized.
In 1844 Kobelt wrote in his important book, Die Mannlichen und
Weiblichen Wollust-Organe, that in his attempt to show that the female
organs are exactly analogous to the male the reader will probably be unable
to follow him, while even Johannes Müller, the father of scientific
physiology, declared at about the same period that the clitoris is essentially
different from the penis. It is indeed but three centuries since the clitoris
was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus Columbus actually claimed the
honor of discovering it. Columbus was not its discoverer, for Fallopius
speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis had referred to it.[85] The
Arabs appear to have been very familiar with it, and, from the various
names they gave it, clearly understood the important part it plays in
generating voluptuous emotion.[86] But it was known in classic antiquity;

the Greeks called it μύρτον, the myrtle-berry; Galen and Soranus called it
νύμφη because it is covered as a bride is veiled, while the old Latin name
was tentigo, from its power of entering into erection, and columella, the
little pillar, from its shape. The modern term, which is Greek and refers to
the sensitiveness of the part to voluptuous titillation, is said to have
originated with Suidas and Pollux.[87] It was mentioned, though not
adopted, by Rufus.
"The clitoris," declared Haller, "is a part extremely sensible and
wonderfully prurient." It is certainly the chief though by no means the only
point through which the immediate call to detumescence is conveyed to the
female organism. It is, indeed, as Bryan Robinson remarks, "a veritable
electrical bell button which, being pressed or irritated, rings up the whole
nervous system."
The nervous supply of this little organ is very large, and the dorsal nerve of
the clitoris is relatively three or four times larger than that of the penis. Yet
the sensitive point of this organ is only 5 to 7 millimeters in extent. The
length of the clitoris is usually rather over 2 centimeters (or about an inch)
and 3 centimeters when erect; a length of 4 centimeters or more was
regarded by Martineau as within the normal range of variation. It is not
usual to find the clitoris longer than this in Europe (for among some races
like the negro the clitoris is generally large), but all degrees of magnitude
may be found as rare exceptions. (See, e.g., Sir J. Y. Simpson,
"Hermaphrodites," Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions, vol. ii, pp. 217-
226; also Dickinson, loc. cit.) It was formerly thought that the clitoris is
easily enlarged by masturbation, and Martineau believed that in this way it
might be doubled in length. It is probable that slight enlargement of the
clitoris may be caused by very frequent masturbation, but only to an
insignificant extent, and it is impossible to diagnose masturbation from the
size of the clitoris. Among the women of Lake Nyassa, as well as in the
Caroline Islands, special methods are practiced for elongating the clitoris,
but in Europe, at all events, it is probable that the variations in the size of
the organ are mainly congenital. It may well be that a congenitally large
clitoris is associated with an abnormally developed excitability of the
sexual apparatus. Tilt stated (On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation, p. 37)
that in his experience there was a frequent though not invariable connection
between a large clitoris and sexual proclivity. (Schurig referred to a case of

intense and life-long sexual obsession associated with an extremely large
clitoris, Gynæcologia, pp. 16-17.) Of recent years considerable importance
has been attached by some gynecologists (e.g., R. T. Morris, "Is Evolution
Trying to Do Away With the Clitoris?" Transactions American Association
of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, vol. v, 1893) to preputial adhesions
around the clitoris as a source of nervous disturbance and invalidism in
young women.
While the clitoris is anatomically analogous to the penis, its actual
mechanism under the stress of sexual excitement is somewhat different. As
Liétaud long since pointed out, it cannot rise freely in erection as the penis
can; it is apparently bound down by its prepuce and its frenulum. Waldeyer,
in his book on the pelvis, states more precisely that, unlike the penis, when
erect it retains its angle, only this becomes somewhat rounded so that the
organ is to some slight extent lifted and protruded. Waldeyer considered
that the clitoris was thus perfectly fitted to fulfill its part as the recipient of
erotic stimulation from friction by the penis. Adler, however, has pointed
out with considerable justice, that this is not altogether the case. The clitoris
was developed in mammals who practiced the posterior mode of coitus; in
this position the clitoris was beneath the penis, which was thus easily able
in coitus to press it against the pubic bone close beneath which it is situated,
and thus impart the compression and friction which the feminine organ
craves. But in the human anterior mode of coitus it is not necessarily
brought into close contact with the penis during the act of coitus, and thus
fails to receive powerful stimulation. Its restricted position, which is an
advantage in posterior coitus, is a disadvantage in anterior coitus. Adler
observes that it thus comes about that the human method of coitus, while by
bringing breast to breast and face to face it has added a new dignity and
refinement, a fresh source of enjoyment, to the embrace of the sexes, has
not been an unmixed advantage to woman, for while man has lost nothing
by the change, woman has now to contend with an increased difficulty in
attaining an adequate amount of pressure on that "electric button" which
normally sets the whole mechanism in operation.[88]
We may well bring into connection with the changed conditions brought
about by anterior coitus the interesting fact that while the clitoris remains
the most exquisitely sensitive of the sexual centers in woman, voluptuous
sensitivity is much more widely diffused in woman than in man. Over the

whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than is usually the
case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the genital region, while in
man that portion of the penis which enters the vagina, and especially the
glans, is normally the only portion which, even during turgescence, is
sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the whole of the region
comprised within the larger lips, including even the anus and internally the
vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb,[89] become sensitive to
voluptuous contacts. Deprived of the penis the ability of a man to
experience specifically sexual sensations becomes very limited indeed. But
the loss of the clitoris or of any other structure involves no correspondingly
serious disability on women. Ablation of the clitoris for sexual
hyperæsthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under special
circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually
amputate the clitoris, nymphæ, and breasts, yet many young Skoptzy
women told the Russian physician, Guttceit, that they were perfectly well
able to enjoy coitus.
Freud believes that in very young girls the clitoris is the exclusive seat of
sexual sensation, masturbation at this age being directed to the clitoris
alone, and spontaneous sexual excitement being confined to twitchings and
erection of this organ, so that young girls are able, from their own
experience, to recognize without instruction the signs of sexual excitement
in boys. At a later age sexual excitability spreads from the clitoris to other
regions—just as the easy inflammability of wood sets light to coal—though
in the male the penis remains from first to last normally the almost
exclusive seat of specific excitability. (S. Freud, Drei Abhandlungen zur
Sexualtheorie, p. 62.)
The anus would, however, seem to be sometimes an erogenous zone even at
an early age. Titillation of the anus appears to be frequently pleasurable in
women; and this is not surprising considering the high degree of erotic
sensitivity which is easily developed at the body orifices where skin meets
mucous membrane. (Thus the meatus of the urethra is a highly erogenous
zone, as is sufficiently shown by the frequency with which hair-pins and
other articles used in masturbation find their way into the bladder.) It is in
this germinal sensitivity, undoubtedly, that we find a chief key to the
practice of pedicatio. Freud attaches great importance to the anus as a
sexually erogenous zone at a very early age, and considers that it very

frequently makes its influence felt in this respect. He believes that intestinal
catarrhs in very early life and hæmorrhoids later tend to develop sensibility
in the anus. He finds an indication that the anus has become a sexually
erogenous zone when children wish to allow the contents of the rectum to
accumulate so that defecation may by its increased difficulty involve
voluptuous sensations, and adds that masturbatory excitation of the anus
with the fingers is by no means rare in older children. (S. Freud, Op. cit.,
pp. 40-42.) A medical correspondent in India tells me of a European lady
who derived, she said, "quite as much, indeed more," pleasure from
digitally titillating her rectum as from vulvo-vaginal titillation; she had
several times submitted to pedicatio and enjoyed it, though it was painful
during penetration. The anus may retain this erogenous irritability even in
old age, and Routh mentions the case of a lady of over 70, the reverse of
lustful, who was so excited by the act of defecation that she was invariably
compelled to masturbate, although this state of things was a source of great
mental misery to her. (C. H. F. Routh, British Gynæcological Journal,
February, 1887, p. 48.)
Bölsche has sought the explanation of the erogenous nature of the anus, and
the key to pedicatio, in an atavistic return to the very remote amphibian
days when the anus was combined with the sexual parts in a common
cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke any vestigial inheritance from a
vastly remote past when we bear in mind that the innervation of these two
adjoining regions is inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body
exit with its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can scarcely
fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely active center of
nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the phenomenon in question.
The inner lips, the nymphæ or labia minora, running parallel with the
greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and extend
backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the vaginal
entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name, alæ, and
from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius termed crista
galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance of the nymphæ
suggests that they are mucous membrane and not integumentary; it is,
however, now considered that even on the inner surface they are covered by
skin and separated from the mucous membrane by a line.[90] In structure, as
described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine connective tissue rich in elastic

fibers as well as some muscular tissue, and full of large veins, so that they
are capable of a considerable degree of turgescence resembling erection
during sexual excitement, while Ballantyne finds that the nymphæ are
supplied to a notable extent with nervous end-organs.
More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser
lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are
capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and
elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its
dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphæ, commonly found
among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon.
In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters is
commonly found. But such elongated nymphæ are by no means confined to
one part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women
of European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably
recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this
question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynæcological cases
the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 per cent., or more than 1
in 3; while among 150 of these cases who were neurasthenic, the proportion
reached 56 per cent., even when minor or doubtful enlargements were
disregarded. Bergh, in about 16 per cent. cases, found very enlarged
nymphæ, the height reached in about 5 per cent. of the cases of enlargement
being nearly six centimeters. Ploss and Bartels, in a full discussion: of the
"Hottentot apron," come to the conclusion that this condition is perhaps in
most cases artificially produced. It is known that among the Basutos it is the
custom for the elder girls to manipulate the nymphæ of younger children,
when alone with them, almost from birth, and on account of the elastic
nature of these structures such manipulation quite adequately accounts for
the elongation. It is not necessary to suppose that the custom is practiced for
the sake of producing sexual stimulation—though this may frequently occur
—since there are numerous similar primitive customs involving
deformation of the sexual organs without the production of sexual
excitement. Dickinson has come to a similar conclusion as regards the
corresponding elongation of the nymphæ in civilized European women. In
361 out of 1000 women of good social class he found elongation or
thickening, often with a notable degree of wrinkling and pigmentation, and
believes that this is always the result of frequently repeated masturbation

practiced with the separation of the nymphæ; in 30 per cent. of the cases
admission of masturbation was made.[91] While this conclusion is probably
correct in the main, it requires some qualification. To assert that whenever
in women who have not been pregnant the marked protrusion of the inner
lips beyond the outer lips means that at some period manipulation has been
practiced with or without the production of sexual excitement is to make
too absolute a statement. It is highly probable that the nymphæ, like the
clitoris, are congenitally more prominent in some of the lower human races,
as they are also in the apes; among the Fuegians, for instance, according to
Hyades and Deniker, the labia minora descend lower than in Europeans,
although there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these women
practice any manipulations. Among European women, again, the nymphæ
sometimes protrude very prominently beyond the labia majora in women
who are organically of somewhat infantile type; this occurs in cases in
which we may be convinced that no manipulations have ever been
practiced.[92]
It is difficult to speak very decisively as to the function of the labia minora.
They doubtless exert some amount of protective influence over the entrance
to the vagina, and in this way correspond to the lips of the mouth after
which they are called. They fulfill, however, one very definite though not
obviously important function which is indicated by the mythologic name
they have received. There is, indeed, some obscurity in the origin of this
term, nymphæ, which has not, I believe, been satisfactorily cleared up. It
has been stated that the Greek name νύμφη has been transferred from the
clitoris to the labia minora. Any such transfer could only have taken place
when the meaning of the word had been forgotten, and νύμφη had become
the totally different word nymphæ, the goddesses who presided over
streams. The old anatomists were much exercised in their minds as to the
meaning of the name, but on the whole were inclined to believe that it
referred to the action of the labia minora in directing the urinary stream.
The term nymphæ was first applied in the modern sense, according to
Bergh, in 1599, by Pinæus, mainly from the influence of these structures on
the urinary stream, and he dilated in his De Virginitate on the suitability of
the term to designate so poetic a spot.[93] In more modern times Luschka
and Sir Charles Bell considered that it is one of the uses of the nymphæ to
direct the stream of urine, and Lamb from his own observation thinks the

same conclusion probable. In reality there cannot be the slightest doubt
about the function of the nymphæ, as, in Hyrtl's phrase, "the naiads of the
urinary source," and it can be demonstrated by the simplest experiment.[94]
The nymphæ form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which
conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by
De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal lined by
what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have regarded
it as integument of the same character as that of the external genitals; it
certainly resembles such integument more than, for instance, the mucous
membrane of the rectum. In the woman who has never had sexual
intercourse and has been subjected to no manipulations or accidents
affecting this region, the vagina is closed by a last and final gate of delicate
membrane—scarcely admitting more than a slender finger—called the
hymen.
The poets called the hymen "fios virginitatis," the flower of virginity,
whence the medico-legal term defloratio. Notwithstanding the great
significance which has long been attached to the phenomena connected
with it, the hymen was not accurately known until Vesalius, Fallopius, and
Spigelius described and named it. It was, however, recognized by the Arab
authors, Avicenna and Averroes. The early literature concerning it is
summarized by Schurig, Muliebria, 1729, Section II, cap. V. The same
author's Parthenologia is devoted to the various ancient problems
connected with the question of virginity.
To say that this delicate piece of membrane is from the non-physical point
of view a more important structure than any other part of the body is to
convey but a feeble idea of the immense importance of the hymen in the
eyes of the men of many past ages and even of our own times and among
our own people.[96] For the uses of the feminine body, or for its beauty,
there is no part which is more absolutely insignificant. But in human
estimation it has acquired a spiritual value which has made it far more than
a part of the body. It has taken the place of the soul, that whose presence
gives all her worth and dignity, even her name, to the unmarried woman,
her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without it—though in
all physical and mental respects she might remain the same person—she has
sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless outcast.[97]

So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which should be
possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has often meant so
much. Its absence by no means necessarily signifies that a woman has had
intercourse with a man. Its presence by no means signifies that she has
never had such intercourse.
There are many ways in which the hymen may be destroyed apart from
coitus. Among the Chinese (and also, it would appear, in India and some
other parts of the East) the female parts are from infancy kept so
scrupulously clean by daily washing, the finger being introduced into the
vagina, that the hymen rapidly disappears, and its existence is unknown
even to Chinese doctors. Among some Brazilian Indians a similar practice
exists among mothers as regards their young children, less, however, for the
sake of cleanliness than in order to facilitate sexual intercourse in future
years. (Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The manipulations
of vaginal masturbation will, of course, similarly destroy the hymen. It is
also quite possible for the hymen to be ruptured by falls and other
accidents. (See, e.g., a lengthy study by Nina-Rodrigues, "Des Ruptures de
l'Hymen dans les Chutes," Annales d'Hygiène Publique, September, 1903.)
On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of virginity, apart
from the obvious fact that there may be intercourse without penetration.
(The case has even been recorded of a prostitute with syphilitic
condylomata, a somewhat masculine type of pubic arch, and vulva rather
posteriorly placed, whose hymen had never been penetrated.) The hymen
may be of a yielding or folding type, so that complete penetration may take
place and yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally
happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy. In some,
though not all, of these cases there has been conception without
intromission of the penis. This has occurred even when the entrance was
very minute. The possibility of such conception has long been recognized,
and Schurig (Syllepsilogia, 1731, Section I, cap. VIII, p. 2) quotes ancient
authors who have recorded cases. For some typical modern cases see
Guérard (Centralblatt für Gynäkologie, No. 15, 1895), in one of whose
cases the hymen of the pregnant woman scarcely admitted a hair; also
Braun (ib., No. 23, 1895).

The hymen has played a very definite and pronounced part in the social and
moral life of humanity. Until recently it has been more difficult to decide
what precise biological function it has exercised to ensure its development
and preservation. Sexual selection, no doubt, has worked in its favor, but
that influence has been very limited and comparatively very recent.
Virginity is not usually of any value among peoples who are entirely
primitive. Indeed, even in the classic civilization which we inherit, it is easy
to show that the virgin and the admiration for virginity are of late growth;
the virgin goddesses were not originally virgins in our modern sense. Diana
was the many-breasted patroness of childbirth before she became the chaste
and solitary huntress, for the earliest distinction would appear to have been
simply between the woman who was attached to a man and the woman who
followed an earlier rule of freedom and independence; it was a later notion
to suppose that the latter woman was debarred from sexual intercourse. We
certainly must not seek the origin of the hymen in sexual selection; we must
find it in natural selection. And here it might seem at first sight that we
come upon a contradiction in Nature, for Nature is always devising
contrivances to secure the maximum amount of fertilization. "Increase and
multiply" is so obviously the command of Nature that the Hebrews, with
their usual insight, unhesitatingly dared to place it in the mouth of Jehovah.
But the hymen is a barrier to fertilization. It has, however, always to be
remembered that as we rise in the zoölogical scale, and as the period of
gestation lengthens and the possible number of offspring is fewer, it
becomes constantly more essential that fertilization shall be effective rather
than easy; the fewer the progeny the more necessary it is that they shall be
vigorous enough to survive. There can be little doubt that, as one or two
writers have already suggested, the hymen owes its development to the fact
that its influence is on the side of effective fertilization. It is an obstacle to
the impregnation of the young female by immature, aged, or feeble males.
The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that admiration of force
which marks the female in her choice of a mate. So regarded, it is an
interesting example of the intimate manner in which sexual selection is
really based on natural selection. Sexual selection is but the translation into
psychic terms of a process which has already found expression in the
physical texture of the body.

It may be added that this interpretation of the biological function of the
hymen is supported by the facts of its evolution. It is unknown among the
lower mammals, with whom fertilization is easy, gestation short and
offspring numerous. It only begins to appear among the higher mammals in
whom reproduction is already beginning to take on the characters which
become fully developed in man. Various authors have found traces of a
rudimentary hymen, not only in apes, but in elephants, horses, donkeys,
bitches, bears, pigs, hyenas, and giraffes. (Hyrtl, Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 189; G.
Gellhoen, "Anatomy and Development of the Hymen," American Journal
Obstetrics, August, 1904.) It is in the human species that the tendency to
limitation of offspring is most marked, combined at the same time with a
greater aptitude for impregnation than exists among any lower mammals. It
is here, therefore, that a physical check is of most value, and accordingly
we find that in woman alone, of all animals, is the hymen fully developed.

[72]
"Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in vol. iii of these Studies.

[73]
"The accomplishment of no other function," Hyrtl remarks, "is so
intimately connected with the mind and yet so independent of it."

[74]
The process is still, however, but imperfectly understood; see Art.
"Fécondation," by Ed. Retterer, in Richet's Dictionnaire de
Physiologie, vol. vi, 1905.

[75]
Thus a male fœtus showing reptilian characters in sexual ducts
was exhibited by Shattock at the Pathological Society of London,
February 19, 1895.

[76]
J. Kohlbrugge, "Die Umgestaltung des Uterus der Affen nach den
Geburt," Zeitschrift für Morphologie, bd. iv, p. 1, 1901.

[77]
There are, however, no special nerve endings (Krause corpuscles),
as was formerly supposed. The nerve endings in the genital region
are the same as elsewhere. The difference lies in the abundance of
superposed arboreal ramifications. See, e.g., Ed. Retterer, Art.
"Ejaculation," Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie, vol. v.

[78]
Hyrtl, Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 39.

[79]
Sensations of pleasure without those of touch appear to be normal
at the tip of the penis, as pointed out by Scripture, quoted in
Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1898.

[80]
See the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in
Man," p. 161.

[81]
See, e.g., Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i, beginning of chapter
VI.

[82]
Hyrtl states that the name labia was first used by Haller in the
middle of the eighteenth century in his Elements of Physiology,
being adopted by him from the Greek poet Erotion, who gave
these structures the very obvious name χειλεα, lips. But this
seems to be a mistake, for the seventeenth century anatomists
certainly used the name "labia" for these parts.

[83]
Bergh tentatively suggests, as regards the pubic hair, that its
appearance may be due to the upright walk in man and the human
position during coitus, the hair preventing irritation of the genitals
from the sweat pouring down from the body and protecting the
skin from direct friction in coitus. (In both these suggestions he
was, however, long previously anticipated by Fabricius ab
Aquapendente.) The fanciful suggestion of Louis Robinson that
the pubic hair has developed in order to enable the human infant
to cling securely to his mother is very poorly supported by facts,
and has not met with acceptance. It may be mentioned that (as
stated by Ploss and Bartels) the women of the Bismarck
Archipelago, whose pubic hair is very abundant, use it as a kind
of handkerchief on which to clean their hands.

[84]
Routh and Heywood Smith have noted that the pubic hair tends to
lose its curliness and become straight in women who masturbate.
(British Gynæcological Journal, February, 1887, p. 505.)

[85]

Schurig, Muliebria, p. 75. Plazzon in 1621 said that in Italian it
had a popular name, il besneegio.

[86]
Schurig brought together in his Gynæcologia (pp. 2-4) various
early opinions concerning the clitoris as the seat of voluptuous
feeling.

[87]
Hyrtl, Op. cit., vol. ii, p. 193.

[88]
Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes,
1904, pp. 117-119.

[89]
The voluptuous sensations caused by sexual contacts producing
movements of the womb are probably normal and usual. They
may even occur under circumstances unconnected with sexual
emotion, and Mundé (International Journal of Surgery, March,
1893) mentions incidentally that in one case while titillating the
cervix with a sound the woman very plainly showed voluptuous
manifestations.

[90]
Henle stated that fine hairs are frequently visible on the nymphæ;
Stieda (Zeitschrift für Morphologie, 1902, p. 458) remarks that he
has never been able to see them with the naked eye.

[91]
R. L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their
Significance," American Gynæcologist, September, 1902. It is
perhaps noteworthy that Bergh found that in 302 cases in which

the nymphæ were of unequal length, in all but 24 the left was
longer.

[92]
It may be remarked that Bergh believes that the nymphæ, and
indeed the external genitals generally, are congenitally more
strongly developed in libidinous persons, and at the same time in
brunettes, while in public prostitutes this is not usually the case,
which confirms the belief that exalted sexual sensibility does not
usually lead to prostitution. He adds that prostitution, unless
carried on for many years, has little effect on the shape of the
external genitals.

[93]
Schurig (Muliebria, 1729, Section II, cap. II) gives numerous
quotations on this point; thus De Graaf wrote in his book on the
sexual organs of women: "Tales protuberantiæ nymphæ
appellantur ea propter quod aquis e vesica prosilientibus proxime
adstare reperiantur, quandoquidem inter illas, tanquam duos
parietes, urina magno impetu cum sibilo sæpe et absque labiorum
irrigatione erumpit, vel quod sint castitatis præsides, aut sponsam
primo intromittant."

[94]
Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," American
Journal of Dermatology, May, 1902. If a woman who has never
been pregnant, standing in the erect position before commencing
the act of urination presses apart the labia minora with index and
middle fingers the stream will be projected forward so as to fall
usually at a considerable distance in front of a vertical line from
the meatus; if when the act is half completed the fingers are
removed, the labia close together and the stream, though
maintained at a constant pressure, at once changes its character
and direction.

[95]

In poetry this term was employed by Plautus, Pseudolus, Act IV,
Sc. 7. The Greek αιδοιον sometimes meant vagina and sometimes
the external sexual parts; κολπος was used for the vagina alone.

[96]
It is curious, however, that the European physicians of the
seventeenth and even eighteenth centuries were doubtful of its
value as a sign of virginity and considered it often absent.

[97]
For a summary of the beliefs and practices of various peoples
with regard to the hymen and virginity see Ploss and Bartels, Das
Weib, vol. i, Chapter XVI.

II

The Object of Detumescence—Erogenous Zones—The Lips—The Vascular
Characters of Detumescence—Erectile Tissue—Erection in Woman—
Mucous Emission in Women—Sexual Connection—The Human Mode of
Intercourse—Normal Variations—The Motor Characters of Detumescence
—Ejaculation—The Virile Reflex—The General Phenomena of
Detumescence—The Circulatory and Respiratory Phenomena—Blood
Pressure—Cardiac Disturbance—Glandular Activity—Distillatio—The
Essentially Motor Character of Detumescence—Involuntary Muscular
Irradiation to Bladder, etc.—Erotic Intoxication—Analogy of Sexual
Detumescence and Vesical Tension—The Specifically Sexual Movements
of Detumescence in Man—In Woman—The Spontaneous Movements of
the Genital Canal in Woman—Their Function in Conception—Part Played
by Active Movement of the Spermatozoa—The Artificial Injection of
Semen—The Facial Expression During Detumescence—The Expression of
Joy—The Occasional Serious Effects of Coitus.

We have seen what the object of detumescence is, and we have briefly
considered the organs and structures which are chiefly concerned in the

process. We have now to inquire what are the actual phenomena which take
place during the act of detumescence.
Detumescence is normally linked closely to tumescence. Tumescence is the
piling on of the fuel; detumescence is the leaping out of the devouring
flame whence is lighted the torch of life to be handed on from generation to
generation. The whole process is double and yet single; it is exactly
analogous to that by which a pile is driven into the earth by the raising and
then the letting go of a heavy weight which falls on to the head of the pile.
In tumescence the organism is slowly wound up and force accumulated; in
the act of detumescence the accumulated force is let go and by its liberation
the sperm-bearing instrument is driven home. Courtship, as we commonly
term the process of tumescence which takes place when a woman is first
sexually approached by a man, is usually a highly prolonged process. But it
is always necessary to remember that every repetition of the act of coitus, to
be normally and effectively carried out on both sides, demands a similar
double process; detumescence must be preceded by an abbreviated
courtship.
This abbreviated courtship by which tumescence is secured or heightened in
the repetition of acts of coitus which have become familiar, is mainly
tactile.[98] Since the part of the man in coitus is more active and that of the
woman more passive, the sexual sensitivity of the skin seems to be more
pronounced in women. There are, moreover, regions of the surface of a
woman's body where contact, when sympathetic, seems specially liable to
arouse erotic excitement. Such erogenous zones are often specially marked
in the breasts, occasionally in the palm of the hand, the nape of the neck,
the lobule of the ear, the little finger; there is, indeed, perhaps no part of the
surface of the body which may not, in some individuals at some time,
become normally an erogenous zone. In hysteria the erotic excitability of
these zones is sometimes very intense. The lips are, however, without
doubt, the most persistently and poignantly sensitive region of the whole
body outside the sphere of the sexual organs themselves. Hence the
significance of the kiss as a preliminary of detumescence.[99]
The importance of the lips as a normal erogenous zone is shown by the
experiments of Gualino. He applied a thread, folded on itself several times,
to the lips, thus stimulating them in a simple mechanical manner. Of 20

women, between the ages of 18 and 35, only 8 felt this as a merely
mechanical operation, 4 felt a vaguely erotic element in the proceeding, 3
experienced a desire for coitus and in 5 there was actual sexual excitement
with emission of mucus. Of 25 men, between the ages of 20 and 30, in 15
all sexual feeling was absent, in 7 erotic ideas were suggested with
congestion of the sexual organs without erection, and in 3 there was the
beginning of erection. It should be added that both the women and the men
in whom this sexual reflex was more especially marked were of somewhat
nervous temperament; in such persons erotic reactions of all kinds generally
occur most easily. (Gualino, "Il Rifflesso Sessuale nell' eccitamento alle
labbre," Archivio di Psichiatria, 1904, p. 341.)
As tumescence, under the influence of sensory stimulation, proceeds toward
the climax when it gives place to detumescence, the physical phenomena
become more and more acutely localized in the sexual organs. The process
which was at first predominantly nervous and psychic now becomes more
prominently vascular. The ancient sexual relationship of the skin asserts
itself; there is marked surface congestion showing itself in various ways.
The face tends to become red, and exactly the same phenomenon is taking
place in the genital organs; "an erection," it has been said, "is a blushing of
the penis." The difference is that in the genital organs this heightened
vascularity has a definite and specific function to accomplish—the erection
of the male organ which fits it to enter the female parts—and that
consequently there has been developed in the penis that special kind of
vascular mechanism, consisting of veins in connective tissue with unstriped
muscular fibers, termed erectile tissue.[100]
It is not only the man who is supplied with erectile tissue which in the
process of tumescence becomes congested and swollen. The woman also, in
the corresponding external genital region, is likewise supplied with erectile
tissue now also charged with blood, and exhibits the same changes as have
taken place in her partner, though less conspicuously visible. In the
anthropoid apes, as the gorilla, the large clitoris and the nymphæ become
prominent in sexual excitement, but the less development of the clitoris in
women, together with the specifically human evolution of the mons veneris
and larger lips, renders this sexual turgescence practically invisible, though
it is perceptible to touch in an increased degree of spongy and elastic
tension. The whole feminine genital canal, including the uterus, indeed, is

richly supplied with blood-vessels, and is capable during sexual excitement
of a very high degree of turgescence, a kind of erection.
The process of erection in woman is accompanied by the pouring out of
fluid which copiously bathes all parts of the vulva around the entrance to
the vagina. This is a bland, more or less odorless mucus which, under
ordinary circumstances, slowly and imperceptibly suffuses the parts. When,
however, the entrance to the vagina is exposed and extended, as during a
gynæcological examination which occasionally produces sexual excitement,
there may be seen a real ejaculation of the fluid which, as usually described,
comes largely from the glands of Bartholin, situated at the mouth of the
vagina. Under these circumstances it is sometimes described as being
emitted in a jet which is thrown to a distance.[101] This mucous ejaculation
was in former days regarded as analogous to the seminal ejaculation in man,
and hence essential to conception. Although this belief was erroneous the
fluid poured out in this manner whenever a high degree of tumescence is
attained, and before the onset of detumescence, certainly performs an
important function in lubricating the entrance to the genital canal and so
facilitating the intromission of the male organ.[102] Menstruation has a
similar influence in facilitating coitus, as Schurig long since pointed out.
[103] A like process takes place during parturition when the same parts are

being lubricated and stretched in preparation for the protrusion of the fœtal
head. The occurrence of the mucous flow in tumescence always indicates
that that process is actively affecting the central sexual organs, and that
voluptuous emotions are present.[104]
The secretions of the genital canal and outlet in women are somewhat
numerous. We have the odoriferous glands of sebaceous origin, and with
them the prepuce of the clitoris which has been described as a kind of
gigantic sebaceous follicle with the clitoris occupying its interior. (Hyrtl.)
There is the secretion from the glands of Bartholin. There is again the
vaginal secretion, opaque and albuminous, which appears to be alkaline
when secreted, but becomes acid under the decomposing influence of
bacteria, which are, however, harmless and not pathogenic. (Gow,
Obstetrical Society of London, January 3, 1894.) There is, finally, the
mucous uterine secretion, which is alkaline, and, being poured out during

orgasm, is believed to protect the spermatozoa from destruction by the acid
vaginal secretion.
The belief that the mucus poured out in women during sexual excitement is
feminine semen and therefore essential to conception had many remarkable
consequences and was widespread until the seventeenth century. Thus, in
the chapter "De Modo coeundi et de regimine eorum qui coeunt" of De
Secretis Mulierum, there is insistence on the importance of the proper
mixture of the male semen with the female semen and of arranging that it
shall not escape from the vagina. The woman must lie quiet for several
hours at least, not rising even to urinate, and when she gets up, be very
temperate in eating and drinking, and not run or jump, pretending that she
has a headache. It was the belief in feminine semen which led some
theologians to lay down that a woman might masturbate if she had not
experienced orgasm in coitus. Schurig in his Muliebria (1729, pp. 159, et
seq.) discusses the opinions of old authors regarding the nature, source, and
uses of the female genital secretions, and quotes authorities against the old
view that it was female semen. In a subsequent work (Syllepsilogia, 1731,
pp. 3, et seq.) he returns to the same question, quotes authors who accept a
feminine semen, shows that Harvey denied it any significance, and himself
decides against it. It has not seriously been brought forward since.
When erection is completed in both the man and the woman the conditions
necessary for conjugation have at last been fulfilled. In all animals, even
those most nearly allied to man, coitus is effected by the male approaching
the female posteriorly. In man the normal method of male approach is
anteriorly, face to face. Leonardo da Vinci, in a well-known drawing
representing a sagittal section of a man and a woman connected in this
position of so-called Venus obversa; has shown how well adapted the
position is to the normal position of the organs in the human species.[105]
Among monkeys, it is stated, congress is sometimes performed when the
female is on all fours; at other times the male brings the female between his
thighs when he is sitting, holding her with his forepaws. Froriep informed
Lawrence that the male sometimes supported his feet on the female's calves.
(Sir W. Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, 1823, p. 186.) A summary of the
methods of congress practiced by the various animals below mammals will

be found in the article "Copulation" by H. de Varigny in Richet's
Dictionnaire de Physiologie, vol. iv.
The anterior position in coitus, with the female partner lying supine, is so
widespread throughout the world that it may fairly be termed the most
typically human attitude in sexual congress. It is found represented in
Egyptian graves at Benihassan, belonging to the Twelfth Dynasty; it is
regarded by Mohammedans as the normal position, although other positions
are permitted by the Prophet: "Your wives are your tillage: go in unto your
tillage in what manner soever you will;" it is that adopted in Malacca; it
appears, from Peruvian antiquities, to have been the position generally,
though not exclusively, adopted in ancient Peru; it is found in many parts of
Africa, and seems also to have been the most usual position among the
American aborigines.
Various modifications of this position are, however, found. Thus, in some
parts of the world, as among the Suahelis in Zanzibar, the male partner
adopts the supine position. In Loango, according to Pechuel-Loesche, coitus
is performed lying on the side. Sometimes, as on the west coast of Africa,
the woman is supine and the man more or less erect; or, as among the
Queenslanders (as described by Roth) the woman is supine and the man
squats on his heels with her thighs clasping his flanks, while he raises her
buttocks with his hands.
The position of coitus in which the man is supine is without doubt a natural
and frequent variation of the specifically human obverse method of coitus.
It was evidently familiar to the Romans. Ovid mentions it (Ars Amatoria,
III, 777-8), recommending it to little women, and saying that Andromache
was too tall to practice it with Hector. Aristophanes refers to it, and there
are Greek epigrams in which women boast of their skill in riding their
lovers. It has sometimes been viewed with a certain disfavor because it
seems to confer a superiority on the woman. "Cursed be he," according to a
Mohammedan saying, "who maketh woman heaven and man earth."
Of special interest is the wide prevalence of an attitude in coitus recalling
that which prevails among quadrupeds. The frequency with which on the
walls of Pompeii coitus is represented with the woman bending forward and
her partner approaching her posteriorly has led to the belief that this attitude

was formerly very common in Southern Italy. However that may be, it is
certainly normal at the present day among various more or less primitive
peoples in whom the vulva is often placed somewhat posteriorly. It is thus
among the Soudanese, as also, in an altogether different part of the world,
among the Eskimo Innuit and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to
Foley, cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New
Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also found in
Australia, where, however other postures are also adopted. In Europe the
quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail among some of the South Slavs,
notably the Dalmatians. (The different methods of coitus practiced by the
South Slavs are described in Κρυπτάδια vol. vi, pp. 220, et seq.)
This method of coitus was recommended by Lucretius (lib. iv) and also
advised by Paulus Æginetus as favorable to conception. (The opinions of
various early physicians are quoted by Schurig, Spermatologia, 1720, pp.
232, et seq.). It seems to be a position that is not infrequently agreeable to
women, a fact which may be brought into connection with the remarks of
Adler already quoted (p. 131) concerning the comparative lack of
adjustment of the feminine organs to the obverse position. It is noteworthy
that in the days of witchcraft hysterical women constantly believed that they
had had intercourse with the Devil in this manner. This circumstance,
indeed, probably aided in the very marked disfavor in which coitus a
posteriori fell after the decay of classic influences. The mediæval
physicians described it as mos diabolicus and mistakenly supposed that it
produced abortion (Hyrtl, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 87). The theologians, needless
to say, were opposed to the mos diabolicus, and already in the Anglo-Saxon
Penitential of Theodore, at the end of the seventh century, 40 days' penance
is prescribed for this method of coitus.
From the frequency with which they have been adopted by various peoples
as national customs, most of the postures in coitus here referred to must be
said to come within the normal range of variation. It is a mistake to regard
them as vicious perversions.
Up to the point to which we have so far considered it, the process of
detumescence has been mainly nervous and vascular in character; it has, in
fact, been but the more acute stage of a process which has been going on
throughout tumescence. But now we reach the point at which a new element

comes in: muscular action. With the onset of muscular action, which is
mainly involuntary, even when it affects the voluntary muscles,
detumescence proper begins to take place. Henceforward purposeful
psychic action, except by an effort, is virtually abolished. The individual, as
a separate person, tends to disappear. He has become one with another
person, as nearly one as the conditions of existence ever permit; he and she
are now merely an instrument in the hands of a higher power—by whatever
name we may choose to call that Power—which is using them for an end
not themselves.
The decisive moment in the production of the instinctive and involuntary
orgasm occurs when, under the influence of the stimulus applied to the
penis by friction with the vagina, the tension of the seminal fluid poured
into the urethra arouses the ejaculatory center in the spinal cord and the
bulbo-cavernosus muscle surrounding the urethra responsively contracts in
rhythmic spasms. Then it is that ejaculation occurs.[106]
"The circulation quickens, the arteries beat strongly," wrote Roubaud in a
description of the physical state during coitus which may almost be termed
classic; "the venous blood, arrested by muscular contraction, increases the
general heat, and this stagnation, more pronounced in the brain by the
contraction of the muscles of the neck and the throwing of the head
backward, causes a momentary cerebral congestion, during which
intelligence is lost and the faculties abolished. The eyes, violently injected,
become haggard, and the look uncertain, or, in the majority of cases, the
eyes are closed spasmodically to avoid the contact of the light. The
respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be suspended by the
spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a time compressed, is at
last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The congested nervous
centers only communicate confused sensations and volitions; mobility and
sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are seized by convulsions and
sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about or become stiff like iron
bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the teeth, and in some persons the
delirium is carried so far that they bite to bleeding the shoulders their
companions have imprudently abandoned to them. This frantic state of
epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it suffices to exhaust the forces of the
organism, especially in man. It is, I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal
post coitum triste præter mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements

that make up this typical picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely
essential to that state, but they all come within the normal range of
variation. There can be no doubt that this range is considerable. There
would appear to be not only individual, but also racial, differences; there is
a remarkable passage in Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra describing the varying
behavior of the women of different races in India under the stress of sexual
excitement—Dravidian women with difficulty attaining erethism, women of
the Punjaub fond of being caressed with the tongue, women of Oude with
impetuous desire and profuse flow of mucus, etc.—and it is highly
probable, Ploss and Bartels remark, that these characterizations are founded
on exact observations.[108]
The various phenomena included in Roubaud's description of the condition
during coitus may all be directly or indirectly reduced to two groups: the
first circulatory and respiratory, the second motor. It is necessary to
consider both these aspects of the process of detumescence in somewhat
greater detail, although while it is most convenient to discuss them
separately, it must be borne in mind that they are not really separable; the
circulatory phenomena are in large measure a by-product of the involuntary
motor process.
With the approach of detumescence the respiration becomes shallow, rapid,
and to some extent arrested. This characteristic of the breathing during
sexual excitement is well recognized; so that in, for instance, the Arabian
Nights, it is commonly noted of women when gazing at beautiful youths
whose love they desired, that they ceased breathing.[109] It may be added
that exactly the same tendency to superficial and arrested respiration takes
place whenever there is any intense mental concentration, as in severe
intellectual work.[110]
The arrest of respiration tends to render the blood venous, and thus aids in
stimulating the vasomotor centers, raising the blood-pressure in the body
generally, and especially in the erectile tissues. High blood-pressure is one
of the most marked features of the state of detumescence. The heart beats
are stronger and quicker, the surface arteries are more visible, the
conjunctivæ become red. The precise degree of blood-pressure attained
during coitus has been most accurately ascertained in the dog. In
Bechterew's laboratory in St. Petersburg a manometer was introduced into

the central end of the carotid artery of a bitch; a male dog was then
introduced, and during coitus observations were made on the blood-
pressure at the peripheral and central ends of the artery. It was found that
there was a great general elevation of blood-pressure, intense hyperæmia of
the brain, rapid alternations, during the act, of vasoconstriction and
vasodilatation of the brain, with increase and diminution of the general
arterial tension in relation with the various phases of the act, the greatest
cerebral vasodilatation and hyperæmia coinciding with the moment
following the intromission of the penis; the end of the act is followed by a
considerable fall in the blood-pressure.[111] I am not acquainted with any
precise observations on the blood-pressure in human subjects during
detumescence, and there are obvious difficulties in the way of such
observations. It is probable, however, that the conditions found would be
substantially the same. This is indicated, so far as the very marked increase
of blood-pressure is concerned, by some observations made by Vaschide
and Vurpas with the sphygmanometer on a lady under the influence of
sexual excitement. In this case there was a relationship of sympathy and
friendly tenderness between the experimenter and the subject, Madame X,
aged 25. Experimenter and subject talked sympathetically, and finally, we
are told, while the latter still had her hands in the sphygmanometer, the
former almost made a declaration of love. Madame X was greatly
impressed, and afterward admitted that her emotions had been genuine and
strong. The blood-pressure, which was in this subject habitually 65
millimeters, rose to 150 and even 160, indicating a very high pressure,
which rarely occurs; at the same time Madame X looked very emotional
and troubled.[112]
Some authorities are of opinion that irregularities in the accomplishment of
the sexual act are specially liable to cause disturbances in the circulation.
Thus Kisch, of Prague, refers to the case of a couple practising coitus
interruptus—the husband withdrawing before ejaculation—in which the
wife, a vigorous woman, became liable after some years to attacks termed
by Kisch neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria, in which there was at daily or
longer intervals palpitation, with feelings of anxiety, headache, dizziness,
muscular weakness and tendency to faint. He regards coitus as a cause of
various heart troubles in women: (1) Attacks of tachycardia in very
excitable and sexually inclined women; (2) attacks of tachycardia with

dyspnœa in young women, with vaginismus; (3) cardiac symptoms with
lowered vascular tone in women who for a long time have practised coitus
interruptus without complete sexual gratification (Kisch, "Herzbeschwerden
der Frauen verursacht durch den Cohabitationsact," Münchener
Medizinisches Wochenschrift, 1897, p. 617). In this connection, also,
reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety which Freud
associates with psychic sexual lesions of an emotional character.
Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general
tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly.
Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the cutaneous
and sexual systems seems to evoke a general activity of the skin and its
odoriferous secretions. Salivation, which also occurs, is very conspicuous in
many lower animals, as for instance in the donkey, notably the female, who
just before coitus stands with mouth open, jaws moving, and saliva
dribbling. In men, corresponding to the more copious secretion in women,
there is, during the latter stages of tumescence, a slight secretion of mucus
—Fürbringer's urethrorrhœa ex libidine—which appears in drops at the
urethral orifice. It comes from the small glands of Littré and Cowper which
open into the urethra. This phenomenon was well known to the old
theologians, who called it distillatio, and realized its significance as at once
distinct from semen and an indication that the mind was dwelling on
voluptuous images; it was also known in classic times[113]; more recently it
has often been confused with semen and has thus sometimes caused
needless anxiety to nervous persons. There is also an increased secretion of
urine, and it is probable that if the viscera were more accessible to
observation we might be able to demonstrate that the glands throughout the
body share in this increased activity.
The phenomena of detumescence culminate, however, and have their most
obvious manifestation in motor activity. The genital act, as Vaschide and
Vurpas remark, consists essentially in "a more and more marked tension of
the motor state which, reaching its maximum, presents a short tonic phase,
followed by a clonic phase, and terminates in a period of adynamia and
repose." This motor activity is of the essence of the impulse of
detumescence, because without it the sperm cells could not be brought into
the neighborhood of the germ cell and be propelled into the organic nest
which is assigned for their conjunction and incubation.

The motor activity is general as well as specifically sexual. There is a
general tendency to more or less involuntary movement, without any
increase of voluntary muscular power, which is, indeed, decreased, and
Vaschide and Vurpas state that dynamometric results are somewhat lower
than normal during sexual excitement, and the variations greater.[114] The
tendency to diffused activity of involuntary muscle is well illustrated by the
contraction of the bladder associated with detumescence. While this occurs
in both sexes, in men erection produces a mechanical impediment to any
evacuation of the bladder. In women there is not only a desire to urinate but,
occasionally, actual urination. Many quite healthy and normal women have,
as a rare accident supervening on the coincidence of an unusually full
bladder with an unusual degree of sexual excitement, experienced a
powerful and quite involuntary evacuation of the bladder at the moment of
orgasm. In women with less normal nervous systems this has, more rarely,
been almost habitual. Brantôme has perhaps recorded the earliest case of
this kind in referring to a lady he knew who "quand on lui faisait cela elle se
compissait à bon escient."[115] The tendency to trembling, constriction of
throat, sneezing, emission of internal gas, and the other similar phenomena
occasionally associated with detumescence, are likewise due to diffusion of
the motor disturbance. Even in infancy the motor signs of sexual excitement
are the most obvious indications of orgasm; thus West, describing
masturbation in a child of six or nine months who practiced thigh-rubbing,
states that when sitting in her high chair she would grasp the handles, stiffen
herself, and stare, rubbing her thighs quickly together several times, and
then come to herself with a sigh, tired, relaxed, and sweating, these
seizures, which lasted one or two minutes, being mistaken by the relations
for epileptic fits.[116]
The essentially motor character of detumescence is well shown by the
extreme forms of erotic intoxication which sometimes appear as the result
of sexual excitement. Féré, who has especially called attention to the
various manifestations of this condition, presents an instructive case of a
man of neurotic heredity and antecedents, in whom it occasionally
happened that sexual excitement, instead of culminating in the normal
orgasm, attained its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement.
He would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner, break the
objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and stupefied. (Féré,

L'Instinct Sexuel, Chapter X.) In such a case a diffused and general
detumescence has taken the place of the normal detumescence which has its
main focus in the sexual sphere.
The same relationship is shown in a case of impotence accompanied by
cramps in the calves and elsewhere, which has been recorded by
Brügelmann ("Zur Lehre vom Perversen Sexualismus," Zeitschrift für
Hypnotismus, 1900, Heft I). These muscular conditions ceased for several
days whenever coitus was effected.
An instructive analogy to the motor irradiations preceding the moment of
sexual detumescence may be found in the somewhat similar motor
irradiations which follow the delayed expulsion of a highly distended
bladder. These sometimes become very marked in a child or young woman
unable to control the motor system absolutely. The legs are crossed, the foot
swung, the thighs tightly pressed together, the toes curled. The fingers are
flexed in rhythmic succession. The whole body slowly twists as though the
seat had become uncomfortable. It is difficult to concentrate the mind; the
same remark may be automatically repeated; the eyes search restlessly, and
there is a tendency to count surrounding objects or patterns. When the
extreme degree of tension is reached it is only by executing a kind of dance
that the explosive contraction of the bladder is restrained.
The picture of muscular irradiation presented under these circumstances
differs but slightly from that of the onset of detumescence. In one case the
explosion is sought, in the other case it is dreaded; but in both cases there is
a retarded muscular tension,—in the one case involuntary, in the other case
voluntary—maintained at a point of acute intensity, and in both cases the
muscular irradiations of this tension spread over the whole body.
The increased motor irritability of the state of detumescence somewhat
resembles the conditions produced by a weak anæsthetic and there is some
interest in noting the sexual excitement liable to occur in anæsthesia. I am
indebted to Dr. J. F. W. Silk for some remarks on this point:—
"I. Sexual emotions may apparently be aroused during the stage of
excitement preceding or following the administration of any anæsthetic;
these emotions may take the form of mere delirious utterances, or may be
associated with what is apparently a sexual orgasm. Or reflex phenomena

connected with the sexual organs may occasionally be observed under
special circumstances; or, to put it in another way, such reflex possibilities
are not always abolished by the condition of narcosis or anæsthesia.
"II. Of the particular anæsthetics employed I am inclined to think that the
possibility of such conditions arising is inversely proportionate to their
strength, e.g., they are more frequently observed with a weak anæsthetic
like nitrous oxide than with chloroform.
"III. Sexual emotions I believe to be rarely observable in men, and this is
remarkable, or, I should say, particularly noticeable, for the presence of
nurses, female students, etc., might almost have led one to expect that the
contrary would have been the case. On the other hand, it is among men that
I have frequently observed a reflex phenomenon which has usually taken
the shape of an erection of the penis when the structures in the
neighborhood of the spermatic cord have been handled.
"IV. Among females the emotional sexual phenomena most frequently
obtrude themselves, and I believe that if it were possible to induce people to
relate their dreams they would very often be found to be of a sexual
character."
Much more important than the general motor phenomena, more purposive
though involuntary, are the specifically sexual muscular movements. From
the very beginning of detumescence, indeed, muscular activity makes itself
felt, and the peripheral muscles of sex act, according to Kobelt's expression,
as a peripheral sexual heart. In the male these movements are fairly obvious
and fairly simple. It is required that the semen should be expressed from the
vesiculæ seminales, propelled along the urethra, in combination with the
prostatic fluid which is equally essential, and finally ejected with a certain
amount of force from the urethral orifice. Under the influence of the
stimulation furnished by the contact and friction of the vagina, this process
is effectively carried out, mainly by the rhythmic contractions of the bulbo-
cavernosus muscle, and the semen is emitted in a jet which may be
ejaculated to a distance varying from a few centimeters to a meter or more.
With regard to the details of the psychic sides of this process a
correspondent, a psychologist, writes as follows:—

"I have never noticed in my reading any attempt to analyze the sensations
which accompany the orgasm, and, as I have made a good many attempts to
make such an analysis myself, I will append the results on the chance that
they may be of some value. I have checked my results so far as possible by
comparing them with the experience of such of my friends as had coitus
frequently and were willing to tell me as much as they could of the
psychology of the process.
"The first fact that I hit upon was the importance of pressure. As one of my
informants picturesquely phrases it—'the tighter the fit the greater the
pleasure.' This agrees, too, with their unanimous testimony that the
pleasurable sensations were much greater when the orgasm occurred
simultaneously in the man and woman. Their analysis seldom went further
than this, but a few remarked that the distinctive sensations accompanying
the orgasm seem to begin near the root of the penis or in the testes, and that
they are qualitatively different from the tickling sensations which precede
them.
"These tickling sensations are caused, I think, by the friction of the glands
against the vaginal walls, and are supplemented by other sensations from
the urethra, whose nerves are stimulated by pressure of the vaginal walls
and sphincter. The specific sensation of the orgasm begins, I believe, with a
strong contraction of the muscles of the urethral walls along the entire
length of the canal, and is felt as a peculiar ache starting from the base of
the penis and quickly becoming diffused through the whole organ. This
sensation reaches its climax with the expulsion of the semen into the urethra
and the consequent feeling of distention, which is instantly followed by the
rhythmic peristaltic contractions of the urethral muscles which mark the
climax of the orgasm.
"The most careful introspection possible under the circumstances seems to
show that these sensations arise almost wholly from the urethra and in a far
less degree from the corona. During periods of great sexual excitement the
nerves of the urethra and corona seem to possess a peculiar sensitivity and
are powerfully stimulated by the violent peristaltic contractions of the
muscles in the urethral walls during ejaculation. It seems possible that the
intensity and volume of sensation felt at the glans may be due in part to the
greater area of sensitive surface presented in the fossa as well as to the

sensitivity of the corona, and in part to the fact that during the orgasm the
glans is more highly congested than at any other time, and the nerve
endings thus subjected to additional pressure.
"If the foregoing statements are true, it is easy to see why the pleasure of
the man is much increased when the orgasm occurs at the same time in his
partner and himself, for the contractions of the vagina upon the penis would
increase the stimulation of all the nerve endings in that organ for which a
mechanical stimulus is adequate, and the prominence of the corpus
spongiosum and corona would ensure them the greatest stimulation. It
seems not improbable that the specific sensation of orgasm rises from the
stimulation of the peculiar form of nerve end-bulbs which Krause found in
the corpus spongiosum and in the glans.
"The characteristic massiveness of the experience is probably due largely to
the great number of sensations of strain and pressure caused by the
powerful reflex contraction of so many of the voluntary muscles.
"Of course, the foregoing analysis is purely tentative, and I offer it only on
the chance that it may suggest some line of inquiry which may lead to
results of value to the student of sexual psychology."
In man the whole process of detumescence, when it has once really begun,
only occupies a few moments. It is so likewise in many animals; in the
genera Bos, Ovis, etc., it is very short, almost instantaneous, and rather
short also in the Equidæ (in a vigorous stallion, according to Colin, ten to
twelve seconds). As Disselhorst has pointed out, this is dependent on the
fact that these animals, like man, possess a vas deferens which broadens
into an ampulla serving as a receptacle which holds the semen ready for
instant emission when required. On the other hand, in the dog, cat, boar, and
the Canidæ, Felidæ, and Suidæ generally, there is no receptacle of this kind,
and coitus is slow, since a longer time is required for the peristaltic action of
the vas to bring the semen to the urogenital sinus. (R. Disselhorst, Die
Accessorischen Geschlechtsdrusen der Wirbelthiere, 1897, p. 212.)
In man there can be little doubt that detumescence is more rapidly
accomplished in the European than in the East, in India, among the yellow
races, or in Polynesia. This is probably in part due to a deliberate attempt to

prolong the act in the East, and in part to a greater nervous erethism among
Westerns.
In the woman the specifically sexual muscular process is less visible, more
obscure, more complex, and uncertain. Before detumescence actually
begins there are at intervals involuntary rhythmic contractions of the walls
of the vagina, seeming to have the object of at once stimulating and
harmonizing with those that are about to begin in the male organ. It would
appear that these rhythmic contractions are the exaggeration of a
phenomenon which is normal, just as slight contraction is normal and
constant in the bladder. Jastreboff has shown, in the rabbit, that the vagina is
in constant spontaneous rhythmic contraction from above downward, not
peristaltic, but in segments, the intensity of the contractions increasing with
age and especially with sexual development. This vaginal contraction which
in women only becomes well marked just before detumescence, and is due
mainly to the action of the sphincter cunni (analogous to the bulbo-
cavernosus in the male), is only a part of the localized muscular process. At
first there would appear to be a reflex peristaltic movement of the Fallopian
tubes and uterus. Dembo observed that in animals stimulation of the upper
anterior wall of the vagina caused gradual contraction of the uterus, which
is erected by powerful contraction of its muscular fiber and round ligaments
while at the same time it descends toward the vagina, its cavity becoming
more and more diminished and mucus being forced out. In relaxing,
Aristotle long ago remarked, it aspirates the seminal fluid.
Although the active participation of the sexual organs in woman, to the end
of directing the semen into the womb at the moment of detumescence, is
thus a very ancient belief, and harmonizes with the Greek view of the
womb as an animal in the body endowed with a considerable amount of
activity,[117] precise observation in modern times has offered but little
confirmation of the reality of this participation. Such observations as have
been made have usually been the accidental result of sexual excitement and
orgasm occurring during a gynæcological examination. As, however, such a
result is liable to occur in erotic subjects, a certain number of precise
observations have accumulated during the past century. So far as the
evidence goes, it would seem that in women, as in mares, bitches, and other
animals, the uterus becomes shorter, broader, and softer during the orgasm,
at the same time descending lower into the pelvis, with its mouth open

intermittently, so that, as one writer remarks, spontaneously recurring to the
simile which commended itself to the Greeks, "the uterus might be likened
to an animal gasping for breath."[118] This sensitive, responsive mobility of
the uterus is, indeed, not confined to the moment of detumescence, but may
occur at other times under the influence of sexual emotion.
It would seem probable that in this erection, contraction, and descent of the
uterus, and its simultaneous expulsion of mucus, we have the decisive
moment in the completion of detumescence in woman, and it is probable
that the thick mucus, unlike the earlier more limpid secretion, which women
are sometimes aware of after orgasm, is emitted from the womb at this time.
This is, however, not absolutely certain. Some authorities regard
detumescence in women as accomplished in the pouring out of secretions,
others in the rhythmic genital contractions; the sexual parts may, however,
be copiously bathed in mucus for an indefinitely long period before the
final stage of detumescence is achieved, and the rhythmic contractions are
also taking place at a somewhat early period; in neither respect is there any
obvious increase at the final moment of orgasm. In women this would seem
to be more conspicuously a nervous manifestation than in men. On the
subjective side it is very pronounced, with its feeling of relieved tension and
agreeable repose—a moment when, as one woman expresses it, together
with intense pleasure, there is, as it were, a floating up into a higher sphere,
like the beginning of chloroform narcosis—but on the objective side this
culminating moment is less easy to define.
Various observations and remarks made during the past two or three
centuries by Bond, Valisneri, Dionis, Haller, Günther, and Bischoff, tending
to show a sucking action of the uterus in both women and other female
animals, have been brought together by Litzmann in R. Wagner's
Handwörterbuch der Physiologie (1846, vol. iii, p. 53). Litzmann added an
experience of his own: "I had an opportunity lately, while examining a
young and very erethic woman, to observe how suddenly the uterus
assumed a more erect position, and descended deeper in the pelvis; the lips
of the womb became equal in length, the cervix rounded, softer, and more
easily reached by the finger, and at the same time a high state of sexual
excitement was revealed by the respiration and voice."

The general belief still remained, however, that the woman's part in
conjugation is passive, and that it is entirely by the energy of the male organ
and of the male sexual elements, the spermatozoa, that conjunction with the
germ cell is attained. According to this theory, it was believed that the
spermatozoa were, as Wilkinson expresses it, in a history of opinion on this
question, "endowed with some sort of intuition or instinct; that they would
turn in the direction of the os uteri, wading through the acid mucus of the
vagina; travel patiently upward and around the vaginal portion of the uterus;
enter the uterus and proceed onward in search of the waiting ovum." (A. D.
Wilkinson, "Sterility in the Female," Transactions of the Lincoln Medical
Society, Nebraska, 1896.)
About the year 1859 Fichstedt seems to have done something to overthrow
this theory by declaring his belief that the uterus was not, as commonly
supposed, a passive organ in coitus, but was capable of sucking in the
semen during the brief period of detumescence. Various authorities then
began to bring forward arguments and observations in the same sense.
Wernich, especially, directed attention to this point in 1872 in a paper on the
erectile properties of the lower segment of the uterus ("Die
Erectionsfahigkeit des untern Uterus-Abschnitts," Beiträge zur
Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie, vol. i, p. 296). He made precise
observations and came to the conclusion that owing to erectile properties in
the neck of the uterus, this part of the womb elongates during congress and
reaches down into the pelvis with an aspiratory movement, as if to meet the
glans of the male. A little later, in a case of partial prolapse, Beck, in
ignorance of Wernich's theory, was enabled to make a very precise
observation of the action of the uterus during excitement. In this case the
woman was sexually very excitable even under ordinary examination, and
Beck carefully noted the phenomena that took place during the orgasm.
"The os and cervix uteri," he states, "had been about as firm as usual,
moderately hard and, generally speaking, in a natural and normal condition,
with the external os closed to such an extent as to admit of the uterine probe
with difficulty; but the instant that the height of excitement was at hand, the
os opened itself to the extent of fully an inch, as nearly as my eye can
judge, made five or six successive gasps as if it were drawing the external
os into the cervix, each time powerfully, and, it seemed to me, with a
regular rhythmical action, at the same time losing its former density and

hardness and becoming quite soft to the touch. Upon the cessation of the
action, as related, the os suddenly closed, the cervix again hardened itself,
and the intense congestion was dissipated." (J. R. Beck, "How do the
Spermatozoa Enter the Uterus?" American Journal of Obstetrics, 1874.) It
would appear that in the early part of this final process of detumescence the
action of the uterus is mainly one of contraction and ejaculation of any
mucus that may be contained; Dr. Paul Mundé has described "the gushing,
almost in jets," of this mucus which he has observed in an erotic woman
under a rather long digital and specular examination. (American Journal of
Obstetrics, 1893.) It is during the latter part of detumescence, it would
seem, and perhaps for a short time after the orgasm is over, that the action
of the uterus is mainly aspiratory.
While the active part played by the womb in detumescence can no longer be
questioned, it need not too hastily be assumed that the belief in the active
movements of the spermatozoa must therefore be denied. The vigorous
motility of the tadpole-like organisms is obvious to anyone who has ever
seen fresh semen under the microscope; and if it is correct, as Clifton Edgar
states, that the spermatozoa may retain their full activity in the female
organs for at least seventeen days, they have ample time to exert their
energies. The fact that impregnation sometimes occurs without rupture of
the hymen is not decisive evidence that there has been no penetration, as the
hymen may dilate without rupturing; but there seems no reason to doubt
that conception has sometimes taken place when ejaculation has occurred
without penetration; this is indicated in a fairly objective manner when, as
has been occasionally observed, conception has occurred in women whose
vaginas were so narrow as scarcely to admit the entrance of a goose-quill;
such was the condition in the case of a pregnant woman brought forward by
Roubaud. The stories, repeated in various books, of women who have
conceived after homosexual relations with partners who had just left their
husbands' beds are not therefore inherently impossible.[119] Janke quotes
numerous cases in which there has been impregnation in virgins who have
merely allowed the penis to be placed in contact with the vulva, the hymen
remaining unruptured until delivery.[120]
It must be added, however, that even if the semen is effused merely at the
mouth of the vagina, without actual penetration, the spermatozoa are still
not entirely without any resource save their own motility in the task of

reaching the ovum. As we have seen, it is not only the uterus which takes an
active part in detumescence; the vagina also is in active movement, and it
seems highly probable that, at all events in some women and under some
circumstances, such movement favoring aspiration toward the womb may
be communicated to the external mouth of the vagina.
Riolan (Anthropographia, 1626, p. 294) referred to the constriction and
dilation of the vulva under the influence of sexual excitement. It is said that
in Abyssinia women can, when adopting the straddling posture of coitus, by
the movements of their own vaginal muscles alone, grasp the male organ
and cause ejaculation, although the man remains passive. According to
Lorion the Annamites, adopting the normal posture of coitus, introduce the
penis when flaccid or only half erect, the contraction of the vaginal walls
completing the process; the penis is very small in this people. It is
recognized by gynæcologists that the condition of vaginismus, in which
there is spasmodic contraction of the vagina, making intercourse painful or
impossible, is but a morbid exaggeration of the normal contraction which
occurs in sexual excitement. Even in the absence of sexual excitement there
is a vague affection, occurring in both married and unmarried women, and
not, it would seem, necessarily hysterical, characterized by quivering or
twitching of the vulva; I am told that this is popularly termed "flackering of
the shape" in Yorkshire and "taittering of the lips" in Ireland. It may be
added that quivering of the gluteal muscles also takes place during
detumescence, and that in Indian medicine this is likewise regarded as a
sign of sexual desire in women, apart from coitus.
A non-medical correspondent in Australia, W. J. Chidley, from whom I have
received many communications on this subject, is strongly of opinion from
his own observations that not only does the uterus take an active part in
coitus, but that under natural conditions the vagina also plays an active part
in the process. He was led to suspect such an action many years ago, as well
by an experience of his own, as also by hearing from a young woman who
met her lover after a long absence that by the excitement thus aroused a
tape attached to the underclothes had been drawn into the vagina. Since
then the confidences of various friends, together with observations of
animals, have confirmed him in the view that the general belief that coitus
must be effected by forcible entry of the male organ into a passive vagina is
incorrect. He considers that under normal circumstances coitus should take

place but rarely, and then only under the most favorable circumstances,
perhaps exclusively in spring, and, most especially, only when the woman
is ready for it. Then, when in the arms of the man she loves, the vagina, in
sympathy with the active movements of the womb, becomes distended at
the touch of the turgescent, but not fully erect, penis, "flashes open and
draws in the male organ." "All animals," he adds, "have sexual intercourse
by the male organ being drawn, not forced, into the female. I have been
borne out in this by friends who have seen horses, camels, mules and other
large animals in the coupling season. What is more absurd, for instance,
than to say that an entire penetrates the mare? His penis is a sensitive,
beautiful piece of mechanism, which brings its light head here and there till
it touches the right spot, when the mare, if ready, takes it in. An entire's
penis could not penetrate anything; it is a curve, a beautiful curve which
would easily bend. A bull's, again, is turned down at the end and, more
palpably still, would fold on itself if pressed with force. The womb and
vagina of a beautiful and healthy woman constitute a living, vital, moving
organ, sensitive to a look, a word, a thought, a hand on the waist."
A well-known American author thus writes in confirmation of the foregoing
view: "In nature the woman wooes. When impassioned her vagina becomes
erect and dilated, and so lubricated with abundant mucus to the lips that
entrance is easy. This dilatation and erectile expansion of vagina withdraws
the hymen so close to the walls that penetration need not tear it or cause
pain. The more muscular, primitive and healthy the woman the tougher and
less sensitive the hymen, and the less likely to break or bleed. I think one
great function of the foreskin also is to moisten the glans, so that it can be
lubricated for entrance, and then to retract, moist side out, to make entrance
still easier. I think that in nature the glans penetrates within the labia, is
withstood a moment, vibrating, and then all resistance is withdrawn by a
sudden 'flashing open' of the gates, permitting easy entrance, and that the
sudden giving up of resistance, and substitution of welcome, with its
instantaneous deep entrance, causes an almost immediate male orgasm (the
thrill being irresistibly exciting). Certainly this is the process as observed in
horses, cattle, goats, etc., and it seems likely something analogous is natural
in man."
While it is easily possible to carry to excess a view which would make the
woman rather than the man the active agent in coitus (and it may be

recalled that in the Cebidæ the penis, as also the clitoris, is furnished with a
bone), there is probably an element of truth in the belief that the vagina
shares in the active part which, there can now be little doubt, is played by
the uterus in detumescence. Such a view certainly enables us to understand
how it is that semen effused on the exterior sexual organs can be conveyed
to the uterus.
It was indeed the failure to understand the vital activity of the semen and
the feminine genital canal, co-operating together towards the junction of
sperm cell and germ cell, which for so long stood in the way of the proper
understanding of conception. Even the genius of Harvey, which had
grappled successfully with the problem of the circulation, failed in the
attempt to comprehend the problem of generation. Mainly on account of
this difficulty, he was unable to see how the male element could possibly
enter the uterus, although he devoted much observation and study to the
question. Writing of the uterus of the doe after copulation, he says: "I began
to doubt, to ask myself whether the semen of the male could by any
possibility make its way by attraction or injection to the seat of conception,
and repeated examination led me to the conclusion that none of the semen
reached this seat." (De-Generatione Animalium, Exercise lxvii.) "The
woman," he finally concluded, "after contact with the spermatic fluid in
coitu, seems to receive an influence and become fecundated without the co-
operation of any sensible corporeal agent, in the same way as iron touched
by the magnet is endowed with its powers."
Although the specifically sexual muscular process of detumescence in
women—as distinguished from the general muscular phenomena of sexual
excitement which may be fairly obvious—is thus seen to be somewhat
complex and obscure, in women as well as in men detumescence is a
convulsion which discharges a slowly accumulated store of nervous force.
In women also, as in men, the motor discharge is directed to a specific end
—the intromission of the semen in the one sex, its reception in the other. In
both sexes the sexual orgasm and the pleasure and satisfaction associated
with it, involve, as their most essential element, the motor activity of the
sexual sphere.[121]
The active co-operation of the female organs in detumescence is probably
indicated by the difficulty which is experienced in achieving conception by

the artificial injection of semen. Marion Sims stated in 1866, in Clinical
Notes on Uterine Surgery, that in 55 injections in six women he had only
once been successful; he believed that that was the only case at that time on
record. Jacobi had, however, practiced artificial fecundation in animals (in
1700) and John Hunter in man. See Gould and Pyle, Anomalies and
Curiosities of Medicine, p. 43; also Janke (Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen
des Geschlechts, pp. 230 et seq.) who discusses the question of artificial
fecundation and brings together a mass of data.
The facial expression when tumescence is completed is marked by a high
degree of energy in men and of loveliness in women. At this moment, when
the culminating act of life is about to be accomplished, the individual thus
reaches his supreme state of radiant beauty. The color is heightened, the
eyes are larger and brighter, the facial muscles are more tense, so that in
mature individuals any wrinkles disappear and youthfulness returns.
At the beginning of detumescence the features are frequently more
discomposed. There is a general expression of eager receptivity to sensory
impressions. The dilatation of the pupils, the expansion of the nostrils, the
tendency to salivation and to movements of the tongue, all go to make up a
picture which indicates an approaching gratification of sensory desires; it is
significant that in some animals there is at this moment erection of the ears.
[122] There is sometimes a tendency to utter broken and meaningless words,

and it is noted that sometimes women have called out on their mothers.[123]
The dilatation of the pupils produces photophobia, and in the course of
detumescence the eyes are frequently closed from this cause. At the
beginning of sexual excitement, Vaschide and Vurpas have observed,
tonicity of the eye-muscles seems to increase; the elevators of the upper lids
contract, so that the eyes look larger and their mobility and brightness are
heightened; with the increase of muscular tonicity strabismus occurs, owing
to the greater strength of the muscles that carry the eyes inward.[124]
The facial expression which marks the culmination of tumescence, and the
approach of detumescence is that which is generally expressive of joy. In an
interesting psycho-physical study of the emotion of joy, Dearborn thus
summarizes its characteristics: "The eyes are brighter and the upper eyelid
elevated, as also are the brows, the skin over the glabella, the upper lip and
the corners of the mouth, while the skin at the outer canthi of the eye is

puckered. The nostrils are moderately dilated, the tongue slightly extended
and the cheeks somewhat expanded, while in persons with largely
developed pinnal muscles the ears tend somewhat to incline forwards. The
whole arterial system is dilated, with consequent blushing from this effect
on the dermal capillaries of the face, neck, scalp and hands, and sometimes
more extensively even; from the same cause the eyes slightly bulge. The
whole glandular system likewise is stimulated, causing the secretions,—
gastric, salivary, lachrymal, sudoral, mammary, genital, etc.—to be
increased, with the resulting rise of temperature and increase in the
katobolism generally. Volubility is almost regularly increased, and is,
indeed, one of the most sensitive and constant of the correlations in
emotional delight.... Pleasantness is correlated in living organisms by
vascular, muscular and glandular extension or expansion, both literal and
figurative." (G. Dearborn, "The Emotion of Joy," Psychological Review
Monograph Supplements, vol. ii, No. 5, p. 62.) All these signs of joy appear
to occur at some stage of the process of sexual excitement.
In some monkeys it would seem that the muscular movement which in man
has become the smile is the characteristic facial expression of sexual
tumescence or courtship. Discussing the facial expression of pleasure in
children, S. S. Buckman has the following remarks: "There is one point in
such expression which has not received due consideration, namely, the
raising of lumps of flesh each side of the nose as an indication of pleasure.
Accompanying this may be seen small furrows, both in children and adults,
running from the eyes somewhat obliquely towards the nose. What these
characters indicate may be learned from the male mandril, whose face,
particularly in the breeding season, shows colored fleshy prominences each
side of the nose, with conspicuous furrows and ridges. In the male mandril
these characters have been developed because, being an unmistakable sign
of sexual ardor, they gave the female particular evidence of sexual feelings.
Thus such characters would come to be recognized as habitually
symptomatic of pleasurable feelings. Finding similar features in human
beings, and particularly in children, though not developed in the same
degree, we may assume that in our monkey-like ancestors facial characters
similar to those of the mandril were developed, though to a less extent, and
that they were symptomatic of pleasure, because connected with the period
of courtship. Then they became conventionalized as pleasurable

symptoms." (S. S. Buckmann, "Human Babies: What They Teach," Nature,
July 5, 1900.) If this view is accepted, it may be said that the smile, having
in man become a generalized sign of amiability, has no longer any special
sexual significance. It is true that a faint and involuntary smile is often
associated with the later stages of tumescence, but this is usually lost during
detumescence, and may even give place to an expression of ferocity.
When we have realized how profound is the organic convulsion involved by
the process of detumescence, and how great the general motor excitement
involved, we can understand how it is that very serious effects may follow
coitus. Even in animals this is sometimes the case. Young bulls and stallions
have fallen in a faint after the first congress; boars may be seriously
affected in a similar way; mares have been known even to fall dead.[125] In
the human species, and especially in men—probably, as Bryan Robinson
remarks, because women are protected by the greater slowness with which
detumescence occurs in them—not only death itself, but innumerable
disorders and accidents have been known to follow immediately after
coitus, these results being mainly due to the vascular and muscular
excitement involved by the processes of detumescence. Fainting, vomiting,
urination, defæcation have been noted as occurring in young men after a
first coitus. Epilepsy has been not infrequently recorded. Lesions of various
organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimes taken place. In men of
mature age the arteries have at times been unable to resist the high blood-
pressure, and cerebral hæmorrhage with paralysis has occurred. In elderly
men the excitement of intercourse with strange women has sometimes
caused death, and various cases are known of eminent persons who have
thus died in the arms of young wives or of prostitutes.[126]
These morbid results, are, however, very exceptional. They usually occur in
persons who are abnormally sensitive, or who have imprudently
transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hygiene. Detumescence is so
profoundly natural a process; it is so deeply and intimately a function of the
organism, that it is frequently harmless even when the bodily condition is
far from absolutely sound. Its usual results, under favorable circumstances,
are entirely beneficial. In men there normally supervenes, together with the
relief from the prolonged tension of tumescence, with the muscular repose
and falling blood-pressure,[127] a sense of profound satisfaction, a glow of

diffused well-being,[128] perhaps an agreeable lassitude, occasionally also a
sense of mental liberation from an overmastering obsession. Under
reasonably happy circumstances there is no pain, or exhaustion, or sadness,
or emotional revulsion. The happy lover's attitude toward his partner is not
expressed by the well-known Sonnet (CXXIX) of Shakespeare:—

"Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated."

He feels rather with Boccaccio that the kissed mouth loses not its charm,

"Bocca baciata non perde ventura."

In women the results of detumescence are the same, except that the
tendency to lassitude is not marked unless the act has been several times
repeated; there is a sensation of repose and self-assurance, and often an
accession of free and joyous energy. After completely satisfactory
detumescence she may experience a feeling as of intoxication, lasting for
several hours, an intoxication that is followed by no evil reaction.
Such, so far as our present vague and imperfect knowledge extends, are the
main features in the process of detumescence. In the future, without doubt,
we shall learn to know more precisely a process which has been so
supremely important in the life of man and of his ancestors.

[98]
The elements furnished by the sense of touch in sexual selection
have been discussed in the first section of the previous volume of
these Studies.

[99]
See Appendix A. "The Origins of the Kiss," in the previous
volume.

[100]

See, e.g., Art. "Erection," by Retterer, in Richet's Dictionnaire de
Physiologie, vol. v.

[101]
Guibaut, Traité Clinique des Maladies des Femmes, p. 242. Adler
discusses the sexual secretions in women and their significance,
Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, pp. 19-26.

[102]
In some parts of the world this is further aided by artificial means.
Thus it is stated by Riedel (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels) that in
the Gorong Archipelago the bridegroom, before the first coitus,
anoints the bride's pudenda with an ointment containing opium,
musk, etc. I have been told of an English bride who was
instructed by her mother to use a candle for the same purpose.

[103]
Parthenologia, pp. 302, et seq.

[104]
The connection of this mucous flow with sexual emotion was
discussed early in the eighteenth century by Schurig in his
Gynæcologia, pp. 8-11; it is frequently passed over by more
modern writers.

[105]
The drawing is reproduced by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i,
Chapter XVII; many facts bearing on the ethnography of coitus
are brought together in this chapter.

[106]
Onanoff (Paris Société de Biologie, May 3, 1890) proposed the
name of bulbo-cavernous reflex for the smart contraction of the
ischio-and bulbo-cavernosus muscles (erector penis and

accelerator urinæ) produced by mechanical excitation of the
glans. This reflex is clinically elicited by placing the index-finger
of the left hand on the region of the bulb while the right hand
rapidly rubs the dorsal surface of the glands with the edge of a
piece of paper or lightly pinches the mucous membrane; a
twitching of the region of the bulb is then perceived. This reflex is
always present in healthy adult subjects and indicates the integrity
of the physical mechanism of detumescence. It has been
described by Hughes. (C. H. Hughes, "The Virile or Bulbo-
cavernous Reflex," Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1898.)

[107]
Roubaud, Traité de l'Impuissance, 1855, p. 39.

[108]
Das Weib, seventh edition, vol. i, p. 510.

[109]
The influence of impeded respiration in exciting more or less
perverted forms of sexual gratification has been discussed in a
section of "Love and Pain" in the third volume of these Studies.

[110]
See, e.g., the experiments of Obici on this point, Revista
Sperimentale di Freniatria, 1903, pp. 689, et seq.

[111]
Summarized in Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, March,
1903, p. 188. The tendency to closure of the eyes noted by
Roubaud, to avoid contact of the light, indicates dilatation of the
pupils, for which we need not seek other explanation than the
general tendency of all peripheral stimulation, according to
Schiff's law, to produce such dilatation.

[112]

Vaschide and Vurpas, "Du Coefficient Sexuel de l'Impulsion
Musicale," Archives de Neurologie, May, 1904.

[113]
In the Priapeia is an inscription which has thus been translated:—

"You see this organ, after which I'm called
And which is my certificate, is humid;
This moisture is not dew nor drops of rain,
It is the outcome of sweet memory,
Recalling thoughts of a complacent maid."

The translator supposes that semen is referred to, but without
doubt the allusion is to the theologians' distillatio.

[114]
A woman of 30, normal and intelligent, after conversing on love
and passion, and then listening to the music of Grieg and
Schumann, felt real and strong sexual excitement, increased by
memories recalled by the presence of a sympathetic person. When
then tested by the dynamometer the average of ten efforts with the
right hand was found to be 28.2 (her normal average being 31.1)
and with the left hand 28.0 (the normal being 30.0). There was,
however, great variability in the individual pressures which
sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal
efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the
approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas,
"Quelques Données Expérimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation
Sexuelle," Archivio di Psichiatria, 1903, fasc. v-vi.)

[115]
Cf. MacGillicuddy, Functional Disorders of the Nervous System
in Women, p. 110; Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, p. 238;
id., "Note sur une Anomalie de l'instinct Sexuel," Belgique
Médicale, 1905; also "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in an
earlier volume of these Studies.

[116]
J. P. West, "Masturbation in Early Childhood," Medical Standard,
November, 1895.

[117]
Cf. the discussion of hysteria in "Auto-Erotism," vol. i of these
Studies.

[118]
Hirst, Text-Book of Obstetrics, 1899, p. 67.

[119]
The earliest story of the kind with which I am acquainted, that of
a widow who was thus impregnated by a married friend, is quoted
in Schurig's Spermatologia (p. 224) from Amatus Lusitanus,
Curationum Centuriæ Septum, 1629.

[120]
Janke, Die Willkürliche Hervorbringen des Geschlechts, p. 238.

[121]
Cf. Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes,
pp. 29-38.

[122]
Féré, Pathologie des Emotions, p. 51.

[123]
This is an instinctive impulse under all strong emotion in
primitive persons. "The Australian Dieri," says A. W. Howitt
(Journal Anthropological Institute, August, 1890), "when in pain
or grief cry out for their father or mother."

[124]
Vaschide and Vurpas, Archives de Neurologie, May, 1904.

[125]
F. B. Robinson, New York Medical Journal, March 11, 1893.

[126]
Féré deals fully with the various morbid results which may follow
coitus, L' Instinct Sexuel, Chapter X; id., Pathologie des
Emotions, p. 99.

[127]
With regard to the relationship of detumescence to the blood-
pressure Haig remarks: "I think that as the sexual act produces
low and falling blood-pressure, it will of necessity relieve
conditions which are due to high and rising blood-pressure, such,
for instance, as mental depression and bad temper; and, unless my
observation deceives me, we have here a connection between
conditions of high blood-pressure, with mental and bodily
depression, and the act of masturbation, for this act will relieve
those conditions, and will tend to be practiced for this purpose."
(A. Haig, Uric Acid, sixth edition, p. 154.)

[128]
A medical correspondent speaks of subjective feelings of
temperature coming over the body from 20 to 24 hours after
congress, and marked by sensations of cooling of body and glow
of cheeks. In another case, though lassitude appears on the second
day after congress, the first day after is marked by a notable
increase in mental and physical activity.

III.

The Constituents of Semen—Function of the Prostate—The Properties of
Semen—Aphrodisiacs—Alcohol, Opium, etc.—Anaphrodisiacs—The
Stimulant Influence of Semen in Coitus—The Internal Effects of Testicular
Secretions—The Influence of Ovarian Secretion.

The germ cell never comes into the sphere of consciousness and cannot
therefore concern us in the psychological study of the phenomena of the
sexual instinct. But it is otherwise with the sperm cell, and the seminal fluid
has a relationship, both direct and indirect, to psychic phenomena which it
is now necessary to discuss.
While the spermatozoa are formed in the glandular tissue of the testes, the
seminal fluid as finally emitted in detumescence is not a purely testicular
product, but is formed by mixture with the fluids poured out at or before
detumescence by various glands which open into the urethra, and notably
the prostate.[129] This is a purely sexual gland, which in animals only
becomes large and active during the breeding season, and may even be
hardly distinguishable at other times; moreover, if the testes are removed in
infancy, the prostate remains rudimentary, so that during recent years
removal of the testes has been widely advocated and practiced for that
hypertrophy of the prostate which is sometimes a distressing ailment of old
age. It is the prostatic fluid, according to Fürbringer, which imparts its
characteristic odor to semen. It appears, however, to be the main function of
the prostatic fluid to arouse and maintain the motility of the spermatozoa;
before meeting the prostatic fluid the spermatozoa are motionless; that fluid
seems to furnish a thinner medium in which they for the first time gain their
full vitality.[130]
When at length the semen is ejaculated, it contains various substances
which may be separated from it,[131] and possesses various qualities, some
of which have only lately been investigated, while others have evidently
been known to mankind from a very early period. "When held for some
time in the mouth," remarked John Hunter, "it produces a warmth similar to
spices, which lasts some time."[132] Possibly this fact first suggested that
semen might, when ingested, possess valuable stimulant qualities, a
discovery which has been made by various savages, notably by the

Australian aborigines, who, in many parts of Australia, administer a potion
of semen to dying or feeble members of the tribe.[133] It is perhaps
noteworthy that in Central Africa the testes of the goat are consumed as an
aphrodisiac.[134] In eighteenth century Europe, Schurig, in his
Spermatologia, still found it necessary to discuss at considerable length the
possible medical properties of human semen, giving many prescriptions
which contained it.[135] The stimulation produced by the ingestion of semen
would appear to form in some cases a part of the attraction exerted by
fellatio; De Sade emphasized this point; and in a case recorded by Howard
semen appears to have acted as a stimulant for which the craving was as
irresistible as is that for alcohol in dipsomania.[136]
It must be remembered that the early history of this subject is more or less
inextricably commingled with folk-lore practices of magical origin, not
necessarily founded on actual observation of the physiological effects of
consuming the semen or testes. Thus, according to W. H. Pearse (Scalpel,
December, 1897), it is the custom in Cornwall for country maids to eat the
testicles of the young male lambs when they are castrated in the spring, the
survival, probably, of a very ancient religious cult. (I have not myself been
able to hear of this custom in Cornwall.) In Burchard's Penitential (Cap.
CLIV, Wasserschleben, op. cit., p. 660) seven years' penance is assigned to
the woman who swallows her husband's semen to make him love her more.
In the seventeenth century (as shown in William Salmon's London
Dispensatory, 1678) semen was still considered to be good against
witchcraft and also valuable as a love-philter, in which latter capacity its use
still survives. (Bourke, Scatalogic Rites, pp. 343, 355.) In an earlier age
(Picart, quoted by Crawley, The Mystic Rose, p. 109) the Manichæans, it is
said, sprinkled their eucharistic bread with human semen, a custom
followed by the Albigenses.
The belief, perhaps founded in experience, that semen possesses medical
and stimulant virtues was doubtless fortified by the ancient opinion that the
spinal cord is the source of this fluid. This was not only held by the highest
medical authorities in Greece, but also in India and Persia.
The semen is thus a natural stimulant, a physiological aphrodisiac, the type
of a class of drugs which have been known and cultivated in all parts of the
world from time immemorial. (Dufour has discussed the aphrodisiacs used

in ancient Rome, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. II, ch. 21.) It would be
vain to attempt to enumerate all the foods and medicaments to which has
been ascribed an influence in heightening the sexual impulse. (Thus, in the
sixteenth century, aphrodisiacal virtues were attributed to an immense
variety of foods by Liébault in his Thresor des Remèdes Secrets pour les
Maladies des Femmes, 1585, pp. 104, et seq.) A large number of them
certainly have no such effect at all, but have obtained this credit either on
some magical ground or from a mistaken association. Thus the potato, when
first introduced from America, had the reputation of being a powerful
aphrodisiac, and the Elizabethan dramatists contain many references to this
supposed virtue. As we know, potatoes, even when taken in the largest
doses, have not the slightest aphrodisiac effect, and the Irish peasantry,
whose diet consists very largely of potatoes, are even regarded as
possessing an unusually small measure of sexual feeling. It is probable that
the mistake arose from the fact that potatoes were originally a luxury, and
luxuries frequently tend to be regarded as aphrodisiacs, since they are
consumed under circumstances which tend to arouse the sexual desires. It is
possible also that, as has been plausibly suggested, the misunderstanding
may have been due to sailors—the first to be familiar with the potato—who
attributed to this particular element of their diet ashore the generally
stimulating qualities of their life in port. The eryngo (Eryngium
maritimum), or sea holly, which also had an erotic reputation in Elizabethan
times, may well have acquired it in the same way. Many other vegetables
have a similar reputation, which they still retain. Thus onions are regarded
as aphrodisiacal, and were so regarded by the Greeks, as we learn from
Aristophanes. It is noteworthy that Marro, a reliable observer, has found
that in Italy, both in prisons and asylums, lascivious people are fond of
onions (La Pubertà, p. 297), and it may perhaps be worth while to recall the
observation of Sérieux that in a woman in whom the sexual instinct only
awoke in middle age there was a horror of leeks. In some countries, and
especially in Belgium, celery is popularly looked upon as a sexual
stimulant. Various condiments, again, have the same reputation, perhaps
because they are hot and because sexual desire is regarded, rightly enough,
as a kind of heat. Fish—skate, for instance, and notably oysters and other
shellfish—are very widely regarded as aphrodisiacs, and Kisch attributes
this property to caviar. It is probable that all these and other foods which
have obtained this reputation, in so far as they have any action whatever on

the sexual appetite, only possess it by virtue of their generally nutritious and
stimulating qualities, and not by the presence of any special principle
having a selective action on the sexual sphere. A beefsteak is probably as
powerful a sexual stimulant as any food; a nutritious food, however, which
is at the same time easily digestible, and thus requiring less expenditure of
energy for its absorption, may well exert a specially rapid and conspicuous
stimulant effect. But it is not possible to draw a line, and, as Aquinas long
since said, if we wish to maintain ourselves in a state of purity we shall fear
even an immoderate use of bread and water.
More definitely aphrodisiacal effects are produced by drugs, and especially
by drugs which in large doses are poisons. The aphrodisiac with the widest
popular reputation is cantharides, but its sexually exciting effects are merely
an accidental result of its action in causing inflammation of the genito-
urinary passage, and it is both an uncertain and a dangerous result, except in
skillful hands and when administered in small doses. Nux vomica (with its
alkaloid strychnia), by virtue of its special action on the spinal cord, has a
notably pronounced effect in heightening the irritability of the spinal
ejaculatory center, though it by no means necessarily exerts any
strengthening influence. Alcohol exerts a sexually exciting effect, but in a
different manner; it produces little stimulation of the cord and, indeed, even
paralyzes the lumbar sexual center in large doses, but it has an influence on
the peripheral nerve-endings and on the skin, and also on the cerebral
centers, tending to arouse desire and to diminish inhibition. In this latter
way, as Adler remarks, it may, in small doses, under some circumstances, be
beneficial in men with an excessive nervousness or dread of coitus, and
women, in whom orgasm has been difficult to reach, have frequently found
this facilitated by some previous indulgence in alcohol. The aphrodisiac
effect of alcohol seems specially marked on women. But against the use of
alcohol as an aphrodisiac it must be remembered that it is far from being a
tonic to detumescence, at all events in men, and that there is much evidence
tending to show that not only chronic alcoholism, but even procreation
during intoxication is perilous to the offspring (see, e.g., Andriezen, Journal
of Mental Science, January, 1905, and cf. W. C. Sullivan, "Alcoholism and
Suicidal Impulses," ib., April, 1898, p. 268); it may be added that Bunge
has found a very high proportion of cases of immoderate use of alcohol in
the fathers of women unable to suckle their infants (G. von Bunge, Die

Zunehmende Unfähigkeit der Frauen ihre Kinder zu Stillen, 1903) while
even an approximation to the drunken state is far from being a desirable
prelude to the creation of a new human being. It is obvious that those who
wish, for any reason, to cultivate a strict chastity of thought and feeling
would do well to avoid alcohol altogether, or only in its lightest forms and
in moderation. The aphrodisiacal effects of wine have long been known;
Ovid refers to them (e.g., Ars Am., Bk. III, 765). Clement of Alexandria,
who was something of a man of science as well as a Christian moralist,
points out the influence of wine in producing lasciviousness and sexual
precocity. (Pædagogus, Bk. II, Chapter II). Chaucer makes the Wife of Bath
say in the Wife of Bath's Prologue:—

"And, after wyn, on Venus moste [needs] I thinke:
For al so siken as cold engendreth hayl,
A likerous mouth moste have a likerous tayl,
In womman vinolent is no defense,
This knowen lechours by experience."

Alcohol, as Chaucer pointed out, comes to the aid of the man, who is
unscrupulous in his efforts to overcome a woman, and this not merely by
virtue of its aphrodisiacal effects, and the apparently special influence
which it seems to exert on women, but also because it lulls the mental and
emotional characteristics which are the guardians of personality. A
correspondent who has questioned on this point a number of prostitutes he
has known, writes: "Their accounts of the first fall were nearly always the
same. They got to know a 'gentleman,' and on one occasion they drank too
much; before they quite realized what was happening they were no longer
virgins." "In the mental areas, under the influence of alcohol,"
Schmiedeberg remarks (in his Elements of Pharmacology), "the finer
degrees of observation, judgment, and reflection are the first to disappear,
while the remaining mental functions remain in a normal condition. The
soldier acts more boldly because he notices dangers less and reflects over
them less; the orator does not allow himself to be influenced by any
disturbing side-considerations as to his audience, hence he speaks more
freely and spiritedly; self-consciousness is lost to a very great extent, and
many are astounded at the ease with which they can express their thoughts,
and at the acuteness of their judgment in matters which, when they are

perfectly sober, with difficulty reach their minds; and then afterwards they
are ashamed at their mistakes."
The action of opium in small doses is also to some extent aphrodisiacal; it
slightly stimulates both the brain and the spinal cord, and has sensory
effects on the skin like alcohol; these effects are favored by the state of
agreeable dreaminess it produces. In the seventeenth century Venette (La
Génération de l'Homme, Part II, Chapter V) strongly recommended small
doses of opium, then little known, for this purpose; he had himself, he says,
in illness experienced its joys, "a shadow of those of heaven." In India
opium (as well as cannabis indica) has long been a not uncommon
aphrodisiac; it is specially used to diminish local sensibility, delaying the
orgasm and thus prolonging the sexual act. (W. D. Sutherland, "De
Impotentia," Indian Medical Gazette, January, 1900). Its more direct and
stimulating influence on the sexual emotions seems indicated by the
statement that prostitutes are found standing outside the opium-smoking
dens of Bombay, but not outside the neighboring liquor shops. (G. C. Lucas,
Lancet, February 2, 1884.) Like alcohol, opium seems to have a marked
aphrodisiacal effect on women. The case is recorded of a mentally deranged
girl, with no nymphomania though she masturbated, who on taking small
doses of opium at once showed signs of nymphomania, following men
about, etc. (American Journal Obstetrics, May, 1901, p. 74.) It may well be
believed that opium acts beneficially in men when the ejaculatory centers
are weak but irritable; but its actions are too widespread over the organism
to make it in any degree a valuable aphrodisiac. Various other drugs have
more or less reputation as aphrodisiacs; thus bromide of gold, a nervous and
glandular stimulant, is said to have as one of its effects a heightening of
sexual feeling. Yohimbin, an alkaloid derived from the West African
Yohimbehe tree, has obtained considerable repute during recent years in the
treatment of impotence; in some cases (see, e.g., Toff's results, summarized
in British Medical Journal, February 18, 1905) it has produced good
results, apparently by increasing the blood supply to the sexual organs, but
has not been successful in all cases or in all hands. It must always be
remembered that in cases of psychical impotence suggestion necessarily
exerts a beneficial influence, and this may work through any drug or merely
with the aid of bread pills. All exercise, often even walking, may be a
sexual stimulant, and it is scarcely necessary to add that powerful

stimulation of the skin in the sexual sphere, and more especially of the
nates, is often a more effective aphrodisiac than any drug, whether the
irritation is purely mechanical, as by flogging, or mechanico-chemical, as
by urtication or the application of nettles. Among the Malays (with whom
both men and women often use a variety of plants as aphrodisiacs,
according to Vaughan Stevens) Breitenstein states (21 Jahre in India, Theil
I, p. 228) that both massage and gymnastics are used to increase sexual
powers. The local application of electricity is one of the most powerful of
aphrodisiacs, and McMordie found on applying one pole to a uterine sound
in the uterus and the other to the abdominal wall that in the majority of
healthy women the orgasm occurred.
Among anaphrodisiacs, or sexual sedatives, bromide of potassium, by
virtue of its antidotal relationship to strychnia, is one of the drugs whose
action is most definite, though, while it dulls sexual desire, it also dulls all
the nervous and cerebral activities. Camphor has an ancient reputation as an
anaphrodisiac, and its use in this respect was known to the Arabs (as may be
seen by a reference to it in the Perfumed Garden), while, as Hyrtl mentions
(loc. cit. ii, p. 94), rue (Ruta graveolens) was considered a sexual sedative
by the monks of old, who on this account assiduously cultivated it in their
cloister gardens to make vinum rutæ. Recently heroin in large doses (see,
e.g., Becker, Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift, November 23, 1903) has
been found to have a useful effect in this direction. It may be doubted,
however, whether there is any satisfactory and reliable anaphrodisiac.
Charcot, indeed, it is said, used to declare that the only anaphrodisiac in
which he had any confidence was that used by the uncle of Heloïse in the
case of Abelard. "Cela (he would add with a grim smile) tranche la
difficulte."
If semen is a stimulant when ingested, it is easy to suppose that it may exert
a similar action on the woman who receives it into the vagina in normal
sexual congress. It is by no means improbable that, as Mattei argued in
1878, this is actually the case. It is known that the vagina possesses
considerable absorptive power. Thus Coen and Levi, among others, have
shown that if a tampon soaked in a solution of iodine is introduced into the
vagina, iodine will be found in the urine within an hour. And the same is
true of various other substances.[137] If the vagina absorbs drugs it probably
absorbs semen. Toff, of Braila (Roumania), who attaches much importance

to such absorption, considers that it must be analogous to the ingestion of
organic extractives. It is due to this influence, he believes, that weak and
anæmic girls so often become full-blooded and robust after marriage, and
lose their nervous tendencies and shyness.[138]
It is, however, most certainly a mistake to suppose that the beneficial
influence of coitus on women is exclusively, or even mainly, dependent
upon the absorption of semen. This is conclusively demonstrated by the fact
that such beneficial influence is exerted, and in full measure, even when all
precautions have been taken to avoid any contact with the semen. In so far
as coitus reservatus or interruptus may lead to haste or discomfort which
prevents satisfactory orgasm on the part of the woman, it is without doubt a
cause of defective detumescence and incomplete satisfaction. But if orgasm
is complete the beneficial effects of coitus follow even if there has been no
possibility of the absorption of semen. Even after coitus interruptus, if it
can be prolonged for a period long enough for the woman to attain full and
complete satisfaction, she is enabled to experience what she may describe
as a feeling of intoxication, lasting for several hours. It is in the action of
the orgasm itself, and the vascular, secretory, and metabolic activities set up
by the psychic and nervous influence of coitus with a beloved person, that
we must seek the chief key to the effects produced by coitus on women,
however these effects may possibly be still further heightened by the actual
absorption of semen.[139]
The positive action of semen, or rather of the testicular products, has been
much investigated during recent years, and appears on the whole to be
demonstrated. The notable discovery by Brown-Séquard, a quarter of a
century ago, that the ingestion of the testicular juices in states of debility
and senility acted as a beneficial stimulant and tonic, opened the way to a
new field of therapeutics. Many investigators in various countries have
found that testicular extracts, and more especially the spermin as studied by
Poehl,[140] and by him regarded as a positive katalysator or accelerator of
metabolic processes, exert a real influence in giving tone to the heart and
other muscles, and in improving the metabolism of the tissues even when
all influences of mental suggestion have been excluded.[141]
As the ovaries are strictly analogous to the testes, it was surmised that
ovarian extract might prove a drug equally valuable with testicular

products. As a matter of fact, ovarian extract, in the form of ovarin, etc.,
would seem to have proved beneficial in various disorders, more especially
in anæmia and in troubles due to the artificial menopause. In most
conditions, however, in which it has been employed the results are doubtful
or uncertain, and some authorities believe that the influence of suggestion
plays a considerable part here.
There is, however, another use which is subserved by the testicular
products, a use which may indeed be said to be implied in those uses to
which reference has already been made, but is yet historically the latest to
be realized and studied. It was not until 1869 that Brown-Séquard first
suggested that an important secretion was elaborated by the ductless glands
and received into the circulation, but that suggestion proved to be epoch-
making. If these glandular secretions are so valuable when administered as
drugs to other persons, must they not be of far greater value when naturally
secreted and poured out into the circulation in the living body? It is now
generally believed, on the basis of a large and various body of evidence,
that this is undoubtedly so. In a very crude form, indeed, this belief is by no
means modern. In opposition to the old writers who were inclined to regard
the semen as an excretion which it was beneficial to expel, there were other
ancient authorities who argued that it was beneficial to retain it as being a
vital fluid which, if reabsorbed, served to invigorate the body. The great
physiologist, Haller, in the middle of the eighteenth century, came very near
to the modern doctrine when he stated in his Elements of Physiology that
the sperm accumulated in the seminical vesicles is pumped back into the
blood, and thus produces the beard and the hair together with the other
surprising changes of puberty which are absent in the eunuch. The
reabsorption of semen can scarcely be said to be a part of the modern
physiological doctrine, but it is at least now generally held that the testes
secrete substances which pass into the circulation and are of immense
importance in the development of the organism.
The experiments of Shattock and Seligmann indicate that the semen and its
reabsorption in the seminal vesicles, or the nervous reactions produced by
its presence, can have no part in the formation of secondary sexual
characters. These investigators occluded the vas deferens in sheep by
ligature, at an early age, rendering them later sterile though not impotent.
The secondary sexual characters appeared as in ordinary sheep.

Spermatogenesis, these inquirers conclude, may be the initial factor, but the
results must be attributed to the elaboration by the testicles of an internal
secretion and its absorption into the general circulation.[142]
When animals are castrated there is enlargement of the ductless glands in
the body, notably the thyroid and the suprarenal capsules.[143] It is evident,
therefore, that the secretions of these ductless glands are in some degree
compensatory to those of the testes. But this compensatory action is
inadequate to produce any sexual development in the absence of the testes.
We see, therefore, how extremely important is the function of the testis. Its
significance is not alone for the race, it is not simply concerned with the
formation of the spermatozoa which share equally with the ova the honor of
making the mankind of the future. It also has a separate and distinct
function which has reference to the individual. It elaborates those internal
secretions which stimulate and maintain the physical and mental characters,
constituting all that is most masculine in the male animal, all that makes the
man in distinction from the eunuch. Among various primitive peoples,
including those of the European race whence we ourselves spring, the most
solemn form of oath was sworn by placing the hand on the testes, dimly
recognized as the most sacred part of the body. A crude and passing phase
of civilization has ignorantly cast ignominy upon the sexual organs; the
more primitive belief is now justified by our advancing knowledge.
In these as in other respects the ovaries are precisely analogous to the testes.
They not only form the ova, but they elaborate for internal use a secretion
which develops and maintains the special physical and mental qualities of
womanhood, as the testicular secretion those of manhood. Moreover, as
Cecca and Zappi found, removal of the ovaries has exactly the same effect
on the abnormal development of the other ductless glands as has removal of
the testes. It is of interest to point out that the internal secretion of the
ovaries and its important functions seem to have been suggested before any
other secretion than the sperm was attributed to the testes. Early in the
nineteenth century Cabanis argued ("De l'Influence des Sexes sur le
Caractère des Idées et des Affections Morales," Rapport du Physique et du
Moral de l'Homme, 1824, vol. ii, p. 18) that the ovaries are secreting glands,
forming a "particular humor" which is reabsorbed into the blood and
imparts excitations which are felt by the whole system and all its organs.

[129]
The composite character of the semen was recognized by various
old authors, some of whom said, (e.g., Wharton) that it had three
constituents, which they usually considered to be: (1) The noblest
and most essential part, from the testicles; (2) a watery element
from the vesiculæ; (3) an oily element from the prostate. Schurig,
Spermatologia, 1720, p. 17.

[130]
See, e.g., C. Mansell Moulin, "A Contribution to the Morphology
of the Prostate," Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, January,
1895; G. Walker, "A Contribution to the Anatomy and Physiology
of the Prostate Gland, and a Few Observations on Ejaculation,"
Johns Hopkins Hospital Bulletin, October, 1900.

[131]
For a study of the semen and its constituents, see Florence, "Du
Sperme," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1895.

[132]
J. Hunter, Essays and Observations, vol. i, p. 189.

[133]
As regards one part of Australia, Walter Roth, Ethnological
Studies Among the Queensland Aborigines, p. 174.

[134]
Sir H. H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 438.

[135]
Cap. VII, pp. 327-357, "De Spermaticis virilis usu Medico,"

[136]
W. L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist,
January, 1896.

[137]
Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie, 1894, No. 49.

[138]
E. Toff, "Uber Imprägnierung," Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie,
April, 1903. In a similar but somewhat more precise manner
Dufougère has argued ("La Chlorose, ses rapports avec le
marriage, son traitement par le liquide orchitique," Thèse de
Bordeaux, 1902) that semen when absorbed by the vagina
stimulates the secretion of the ovaries and thus exerts an influence
over the blood in anæmia; in this way he seeks to explain why it
is that coitus is the best treatment for chlorosis.

[139]
In this connection I may refer to an interesting and suggestive
paper by Harry Campbell on "The Craving for Stimulants"
(Lancet, October 21, 1899). No reference is made to coitus, but
the author discusses stimulants as normal and beneficial products
of the organism, and deals with the nature of the "physiological
intoxication" they produce.

[140]
Spermin was first discovered in the sperm by Schreiner in 1878; it
has also been found in the thyroid, ovaries and various other
glands. "The spermin secreting and elaborating organs," Howard
Kelly remarks (British Medical Journal, January 29, 1898), "may
be called the apothecaries' of the body, secreting many important

medicaments, much more active and more accurately representing
its true wants than artificially administered drugs."

[141]
See, e.g., a summary of Buschan's comprehensive discussion of
the subject of organotherapy (Eulenburg's Real-Encyclopædie der
Gesammten Heilkunde) in Journal of Mental Science, April, 1899,
p. 355.

[142]
"Observations Upon the Acquirement of Secondary Sexual
Characters, Indicating the Formation of an Internal Secretion by
the Testicles," Proceedings Royal Society, vol. lxxiii, p. 49.

[143]
See, e.g., the experiments of Cecca and Zappi, summarized in
British Medical Journal, July 2, 1904.

IV.

The Aptitude for Detumescence—Is There an Erotic Temperament?—The
Available Standards of Comparison—Characteristics of the Castrated—
Characteristics of Puberty—Characteristics of the State of Detumescence—
Shortness of Stature—Development of the Secondary Sexual Characters—
Deep Voice—Bright Eyes—Glandular Activity—Everted Lips—
Pigmentation—Profuse Hair—Dubious Significance of Many of These
Characters.

What, if any, are the indications which the body generally may furnish as to
the individual's aptitude and vigor for the orgasm of detumescence? Is there
an erotic temperament outwardly and visibly displayed? That is a question
which has often occupied those who have sought to penetrate the more
intimate mysteries of human nature, and since we are here concerned with

human beings in their relationship to the process of detumescence, we
cannot altogether pass over this question, difficult as it is to discuss it with
precision.
The old physiognomists showed much confidence in dealing with the
matter. Possibly they had more opportunities for observation than we have,
since they often wrote in days when life was lived more nakedly than
among ourselves, but their descriptions, while sometimes showing much
insight, are inextricably mixed up with false science and superstition.
In the De Secretis Mulierum, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, we
find a chapter entitled "Signa mulieris calidæ naturæ et quæ coit libenter,"
which may be summarized here. "The signs," we are told, "of a woman of
warm temperament, and one who willingly cohabits are these: youth, an age
of over 12, or younger, if she has been seduced, small, high breasts, full and
hard, hair in the usual positions; she is bold of speech, with a delicate and
high voice, haughty and even cruel of disposition, of good complexion, lean
rather than stout, inclined to like drinking. Such a woman always desires
coitus, and receives satisfaction in the act. The menstrual flow is not
abundant nor always regular. If she becomes pregnant the milk is not
abundant. Her perspiration is less odorous than that of the woman of
opposite temperament; she is fond of singing, and of moving about, and
delights in adornments if she has any."
Polemon, in his Sulla Physionomia, has given among the signs of libidinous
impulse: knees turned inwards, abundance of hairs on the legs, squint,
bright eyes, a high and strident voice, and in women length of leg below the
knee. Aristotle had mentioned among the signs of wantonness: paleness,
abundance of hair on the body, thick and black hair, hairs covering the
temples, and thick eyelids.
In the seventeenth century Bouchet, in his Serées (Troisième Serée), gave
as the signs of virility which indicated that a man could have children: a
great voice, a thick rough black beard, a large thick nose.
G. Tourdes (Art. "Aphrodisie," Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences
Médicales) thus summarized the ancient beliefs on this subject: "The erotic
temperament has been described as marked by a lean figure, white and

well-ranged teeth, a developed hairy system, a characteristic voice, air, and
expression, and even a special odor."
In approaching the question of the general physical indications of a special
aptitude to the manifestation of vigorous detumescence, the most obvious
preliminary would seem to be a study of the castrated. If we know the
special peculiarities of those who by removal of the sexual glands at a very
early age have been deprived of all ability to present the manifestations of
detumescence, we shall probably be in possession of a type which is the
reverse of that which we may expect in persons of a vigorously erotic
temperament.
The most general characteristics of eunuchs would appear to be an unusual
tendency to put on fat, a notably greater length of the legs, absence of hair
in the sexual and secondary sexual regions, a less degree of pigmentation,
as noted both in the castrated negro and the white man, a puerile larynx and
puerile voice. In character they are usually described as gentle, conciliatory,
and charitable.
There can be little doubt that castration in man tends to lead to lengthening
of the legs (tibia and fibula) at puberty, from delayed ossification of the
epiphyses. The hands and feet are also frequently longer and sometimes the
forearms. At the same time the bones are more slender. The pelvis also is
narrower. The eunuchs of Cairo are said to be easily seen in a crowd from
their tall stature. (Collineau, quoting Lortet, Revue Mensuelle de l'Ecole
d'Anthropologie, May, 1896.) The castrated Skoptzy show increased stature,
and, it seems, large ears, with decreased chest and head (L. Pittard, Revue
Scientifique, June 20, 1903.) Féré shows that in most of these respects the
eunuch resembles beardless and infantile subjects. ("Les Proportions des
Membres et les Caractères Sexuels," Journal de l'Anatomie et de la
Physiologie, November-December, 1897.) Similar phenomena are found in
animals generally. Sellheim, carefully investigating castrated horses, swine,
oxen and fowls, found retardation of ossification, long and slender
extremities, long, broad, but low skull, relatively smaller pelvis and small
thorax. ("Zur Lehre von den Sekundären Geschlechtscharakteren," Beiträge
zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie, 1898, summarized in Centralblatt für
Anthropologie, 1900, Heft IV.)

As regards the mental qualities and moral character of the castrated,
Griffiths considers that there is an undue prejudice against eunuchs, and
refers to Narses, who was not only one of the first generals of the Roman
Empire, but a man of highly estimable character. (Lancet, March 30, 1895.)
Matignon, who has carefully studied Chinese eunuchs, points out that they
occupy positions of much responsibility, and, though regarded in many
respects as social outcasts, possess very excellent and amiable moral
qualities (Archives Cliniques de Bordeaux, May, 1896.) In America Everett
Flood finds that epileptics and feeble-minded boys are mentally and
morally benefited by castration. ("Notes on the Castration of Idiot
Children," American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899.) It is often
forgotten that the physical and psychic qualities associated with and largely
dependent on the ability to experience the impulse of detumescence, while
essential to the perfect man, involve many egoistic, aggressive and
acquisitive characteristics which are of little intellectual value, and at the
same time inimical to many moral virtues.
We have a further standard—positive this time rather than negative—to aid
us in determining the erotic temperament: the phenomena of puberty. The
efflorescence of puberty is essentially the manifestation of the ability to
experience detumescence. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the
individuals in whom the special phenomena of puberty develop most
markedly are those in whom detumescence is likely to be most vigorous. If
such is the case we should expect to find the erotic temperament marked by
developed larynx and deep voice, a considerable degree of pigmentary
development in hair and skin, and a marked tendency to hairiness; while in
women there should be a pronounced growth of the breasts and pelvis.[144]
There is yet another standard by which we may measure the individual's
aptitude for detumescence: the presence of those activities which are most
prominently brought into play during the process of detumescence. The
individual, that is to say, who is organically most apt to manifest the
physiological activities which mainly make up the process of
detumescence, is most likely to be of pronounced erotic temperament.
"Erotic persons are of motor type," remark Vaschide and Vurpas, "and we
may say generally that nearly all persons of motor type are erotic." The
state of detumescence is one of motor and muscular energy and of great

vascular activity, so that habitual energy of motor response and an active
circulation may reasonably be taken to indicate an aptitude for the
manifestation of detumescence.
These three types may be said, therefore, to furnish us valuable though
somewhat general indications. The individual who is farthest removed from
the castrated type, who presents in fullest degree the characters which begin
to emerge at the period of puberty, and who reveals a physiological aptitude
for the vigorous manifestation of those activities which are called into
action during detumescence, is most likely to be of erotic temperament. The
most cautious description of the characteristics of this temperament given
by modern scientific writers, unlike the more detailed and hazardous
descriptions of the early physiognomists, will be found to be fairly true to
the standards thus presented to us.
The man of sexual type, according to Biérent (La Puberté, p. 148), is hairy,
dark and deep-voiced.
"The men most liable to satyriasis," Bouchereau states (art. "Satyriasis,"
Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales), "are those with
vigorous nervous system, developed muscles, abundant hair on body, dark
complexion, and white teeth."
Mantegazza, in his Fisiologia del Piacere, thus describes the sexual
temperament: "Individuals of nervous temperament, those with fine and
brown skins, rounded forms, large lips and very prominent larynx enjoy in
general much more than those with opposite characteristics. A universal
tradition," he adds, "describes as lascivious humpbacks, dwarfs, and in
general persons of short stature and with long noses."
In a case of nymphomania in a young woman, described by Alibert (and
quoted by Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 28) the hips, thighs and
legs were remarkably plump, while the chest and arms were completely
emaciated. In a somewhat similar case described by Marc in his De la Folie
a peasant woman, who from an early age had experienced sexual
hyperæsthesia, so that she felt spasmodic voluptuous feelings at the sight of
a man, and was thus the victim of solitary excesses and of spasmodic
movements which she could not repress, the upper part of the body was
very thin, the hips, legs and thighs highly developed.

In his work on Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation (1862, p. 37) Tilt
observes: "The restless, bashful eye, and changing complexion, in presence
of a person of the opposite sex, and a nervous restlessness of body, ever on
the move, turning and twisting on sofa or chair, are the best indications of
sexual temperament."
An extremely sensual little girl of 8, who was constantly masturbating when
not watched, although brought up by nuns, was described by Busdraghi
(Archivio di Psichiatria, fas. i, 1888, p. 53) as having chestnut hair, bright
black eyes, an elevated nose, small mouth, pleasant round face, full colored
cheeks, and plump and healthy aspect.
A highly intelligent young Italian woman with strong and somewhat
perverted sexual impulses is described as of attractive appearance, with
olive complexion, small black almond-shaped eyes, dilated pupils, oblique
thin eyebrows, very thick black hair, rather prominent cheek-bones, largely
developed jaw, and with abundant down on lower part of cheeks and on
upper lip. (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1899, fasc. v-vi.)
As the type of the sensual woman in word and act, led by her passions to
commit various sexual offenses, Ottolenghi describes (Archivio di
Psichiatria, vol. xii, fasc. v-vi, p. 496) a woman of 32 who attempted to kill
her lover. The daughter of parents who were neurotic and themselves very
erotic, she was a highly intelligent and vivacious woman, with a pleasing
and open face, very thick dark chestnut hair, large cheek-bones, adipose
buttocks almost resembling those of a Hottentot, and very thick pubic hair.
She was very fond of salt things. Sexual inclination began at the age of 7.
Adler and Moll remark, very truly, that, so far at least as women are
concerned, sexual anæsthesia or sexual proclivity cannot be unfailingly read
on the features. Every woman desires to please, and coquetry is the sign of
a cold, rather than of an erotic temperament.[145] It may be added that a
considerable degree of congenital sexual anæsthesia by no means prevents a
woman from being beautiful and attractive, though it must probably still
always be said that, as Roubaud points out,[146] the woman of cold and
intellectual temperament, the "femme de tête," however beautiful and
skillful she may be, cannot compete in the struggle for love with the woman
whose qualities are of the heart and of the emotions. But it seems

sufficiently clear that the practical observations of skilled and experienced
observers agree in attributing to persons of erotic type certain general
characteristics which accord with those negative and positive standards we
may frame on the basis of castration, of puberty, and of detumescence. It
may be worth while to note a few of these characteristics briefly.
The abnormal lengthening of the long bones at the age of puberty in the
castrated is, as we have seen, very pronounced. There is little tendency to
associate length of limb with an erotic temperament, and a certain amount
of data as well as of more vague opinion points in the opposite direction.
The Arabs would appear to believe that it is short rather than tall people in
whom the sexual instinct is strongly developed, and we read in the
Perfumed Garden: "Under all circumstances little women love coitus more
and evince a stronger affection for the virile member than women of a large
size." In his elaborate investigation of criminals Marro found that
prostitutes and women guilty of sexual offenses, as also male sexual
offenders, tend to be short and thick set.[147] In European folk-lore the thick,
bull neck is regarded as a sign of strong sexuality.[148] Mantegazza refers to
a strong sexual temperament as being associated with arrest or disorder of
bony development, and Marro suggests that the proverbial salacity of
rachitic individuals may be due to an increased activity of the sexual
organs.[149] It may be added that acromegaly, with its excessive bony
growths, tends to be associated with premature sexual involution.
A further point which is frequently mentioned in the case of women is the
development of the chief secondary sexual regions: the pelvis and the
breasts. It is, indeed, almost inevitable that there should be some degree of
correlation between the aptitude for bearing children and the aptitude for
experiencing detumescence. The reality of such a connection is not only
evidenced by medical observations, but receives further testimony in
popular beliefs. In Italy women with large buttocks are considered wanton,
and among the South Slavs they are regarded as especially fruitful.[150]
Blumenbach asserted that precocious venery will enlarge the breasts, and
believed that he had found evidence of this among young London
prostitutes.[151]
The association of the aptitude for detumescence with a tendency to a deep
rather than to a high voice, both in men and women, has frequently been

noted and has seldom been denied. The onset of puberty always affects the
voice; in general, Biérent states, the more bass the voice is the more marked
is the development of the sexual apparatus; "a very robust man, with very
developed sexual organs, and very dark and abundant hairy system, a man
of strong puberty in a word, is nearly always a bass."[152] The influence of
sexual excitement in deepening the voice is shown by the rules of sexual
hygiene prescribed to tenors, while a bass has less need to observe similar
precautions. In women every phase of sexual life—puberty, menstruation,
coitus, pregnancy—tends to affect the voice and always by giving it a
deeper character. The deepening of the voice by sexual intercourse was an
ancient Greek observation, and Martial refers to a woman's good or bad
singing as an index to her recent sexual habits. Prostitutes tend to have a
deep voice. Venturi points out that married women preserve a fresh voice to
a more advanced age than spinsters, this being due to the precocious senility
in the latter of an unused function. Such a phenomenon indicates that the
relationship of detumescence to the deepening of the voice is not quite
simple. This is further indicated by the fact that in robust men abstinence
still further deepens the voice (the monk of melodrama always has a bass
voice), while excessive or precocious sexual indulgence tends to be
associated with the same kind of puerile voice as is found in those persons
in whom pubertal development has not been carried very far, or who are of
what Griffiths terms eunuchoid type. Idiot boys, who are often sexually
undeveloped, tend to have a high voice, while idiot girls (who often
manifest marked sexual proclivities) not infrequently have a deep voice.[153]
Bright dilated eyes are among the phenomena of detumescence, and are
very frequently noted in persons of a pronounced erotic temperament. This
is, indeed, an ancient observation, and Burton says of people with a black,
lively, and sparkling eye, "without question they are most amorous,"
drawing his illustrations mostly from classic literature.[154] Tardieu
described the erotic woman as having bright eyes, and Heywood Smith
states that the eyes of lascivious women resemble, though in a less degree,
those of the insane.[155] Sexual excitement is one among many causes—
intellectual excitement, pain, a loud noise, even any sensory irritation—
which produce dilatation of the pupils and enlargement of the palpebral
fissure, with some protrusion of the eyeball. The influence of the sexual
system upon the eye appears to be far less potent in men than in women.

[156] Sexual desire is, however, by no means the only irritant within the

sexual sphere which may thus influence the eye; morbid irritations may
produce the same effect. Milner Fothergill, in his book on Indigestion,
vividly describes the appearance of the eyes sometimes seen in ovarian
disorder: "The glittering flash which glances out from some female irides is
the external indication of ovarian irritation, and 'the ovarian gleam' has
features quite its own. The most marked instance which ever came under
my notice was due to irritation in the ovaries, which had been forced down
in front of the uterus and been fixed there by adhesions. Here there was
little sexual proclivity, but the eyes were very remarkable. They flashed and
glittered unceasingly, and at times perfect lightning bolts shot from them.
Usually there is a bright glittering sheen in them which contrasts with the
dead look in the irides of sexual excess or profuse uterine discharges."
The activity of the glandular secretions, and especially those of the skin,
during detumescence, would lead us to expect that such secretory activity is
an index to an aptitude for detumescence. As a matter of fact it is
occasionally, though not frequently, noted by medical observers. It is stated
that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.[157] The
activity of the sweat-glands is seldom referred to by medical observers in
describing persons of erotic temperament, although the descriptions of
novelists not infrequently contain allusions to this point, and the literature
of an earlier age shows that the tendency to perspiration, especially the
moist hand, was regarded as a sure sign of a sensual temperament. "The
moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and divine creature," remarks
Lazarillo in Middleton's comedy Blurt, Master-Constable, to quote one of
many allusions to this point in the Elizabethan drama.

The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158]; Tardieu
remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips. This
corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in classic statues as in
later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted. Fullness, redness, and
eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the absence of
anæmia, laughter, a well-fleshed face.
This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally erotic
temperament, as an abandonment to impulse. The opposite type of mouth—
with inverted, thin, and retracted lips—would appear to be found with

especial frequency in persons who habitually repress their impulses on
moral grounds. Any kind of effort to restrain involuntary muscular action
may lead to retraction of the lips: the effort to overcome anger or fear, or
even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate. In religious
young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed. I recall a small band of
medical students, gathered together from a large medical school, who were
accustomed to meet together for prayer and Bible-reading; the majority
showed this type of mouth to a very marked degree: pale faces, with drawn,
retracted lips. It may be termed the Christian or pious facies. It is much less
frequently seen in religious women (unless of masculine type), doubtless
because religion for women is in a much less degree than for men a moral
discipline.
It may be added that an interesting form of this contraction of the lips, and
one that is not purely repressive, is that which indicates the state of
muscular tension associated with the impulse to guard and protect. In this
form the contracted mouth is the index of tenderness, and is characteristic
of the mother who is watching over the infant she is suckling at her breast. I
have observed precisely the same expression in the face of a boy of 14 with
a large congenital scrotal hernia; when the tumor was being examined his
lower lip became retracted, well marked lines appearing from the angles
downwards, though the upper lip retained its normal expression It was
precisely the tender look we may see in the faces of mothers who are
watching anxiously over their offspring, and the emotion is evidently the
same in both cases: solicitude for a sensitive and tenderly guarded object.
The degree of pigmentation is clearly correlated with sexual vigor. "In
general," Heusinger laid down, in 1823, "the quantity of pigment is
proportional to the functional effectiveness of the genital organs." This
connection is so profound that it may be traced very widely throughout the
organic world.
The connection between pigmentation and sexual activity is very ancient.
Even leaving out of account the wedding apparel of animals, nearly always
gorgeous in scales and plumage and hair, the sexual orifice shows a more or
less marked tendency to pigmentation during the breeding season from
fishes upward, while in mammals the darker pigmentation of this region is a
constant phenomenon in sexually mature individuals.[159]

In the human species both the negative standard of castration and the
positive standard of puberty alike indicate a correlation of this kind. Those
individuals in whom puberty never fully develops and who are
consequently said to be affected by infantilism, reveal a relative absence of
pigment in the sexual centers which are normally pigmented to a high
degree.[160] Among those Asiatic races who extirpate the ovaries in young
girls the skin remains white in the perineum, round the anus, and in the
armpits.[161] Even in mature women who undergo ovariotomy, as Kepler
found, the pigmentation of the nipples and areola disappears, as well as of
the perineum and anus, the skin taking on a remarkable whiteness.
Normally the sexual centers, and in a high degree the genital orifice,
represent the maximum of pigmentation, and under some circumstances this
is clearly visible even in infancy. Thus babies of mixed black and white
blood may show no traces of negro ancestry at birth, but there will always
be increased pigmentation about the external genitalia.[162] The linea fusca,
which reaches from the pubes to the navel and occasionally to the ensiform
cartilage, is a line of sexual pigmentation sometimes regarded as
characteristic of pregnancy, but as Andersen, of Copenhagen, has found by
the examination of several hundred children of both sexes, it exists in a
slight form in about 75 per cent. of young girls, and in almost as large a
proportion of boys. But there is no doubt that it tends to increase with age
as well as to become marked at pregnancy. At puberty there is a general
tendency to changes in pigmentation; thus Godin found that in 28 per cent,
adolescent changes occurred in the eyes and hair at this period, the hair
becoming darker, though the eyes sometimes become lighter. Ammon, in
his investigation of conscripts at the age of 20 (post, p. 196), discovered the
significant fact that the eyes and hair darken pari passu with sexual
development. In women, during menstruation, there is a general tendency to
pigmentation; this is especially obvious around the eyes, and in some cases
black rings of true pigment form in this position. Even the skin of the negro
women of Loango sometimes becomes a few shades darker during
menstruation.[163] During pregnancy this tendency to pigmentation reaches
its climax. Pregnancy constantly gives rise to pigmentation of the face, the
neck, the nipples, the abdomen, and this is especially marked in brunettes.

This association of pigmentation and sexual aptitudes has been recognized
in the popular lore of some peoples. Thus the Sicilians, who admire brown
skin and have no liking either for a fair skin or light hair, believe that a
white woman is incapable of responding to love. It is the brown woman
who feels love; as it is said in Sicilian dialect: "Fimmina scura, fimmina
amurusa."[164]
The dependence of pigmentation upon the sexual system is shown by the
fact that irritation of the genital organs by disease will frequently suffice to
produce a high degree of pigmentation. This may the neck, the trunk, the
hands. Simpson long since noted that uterine irritation apart from pregnancy
may produce pigmentation of the areolæ of the nipples (Obstetric Works,
vol. i, p. 345). Engelmann discussed the subject and gave cases, "The
Hystero-Neuroses," pp. 124-139, in Gynæcological Transactions, vol. xii,
1887; and a summary of a memoir by Fouquet on this subject in La
Gynécologie, February, 1903, will be found in British Medical Journal,
March 28, 1903,
Of all physical traits vigor of the hairy system has most frequently perhaps
been regarded as the index of vigorous sexuality. In this matter modern
medical observations are at one with popular belief and ancient
physiognomical assertions.[165] The negative test of castration and the
positive test of puberty point in the same direction.
It is at puberty that all the hair on the body, except that on the head, begins
to develop; indeed, the very word "puberty" has reference to this growth as
the most obvious sign of the whole process. When castration takes place at
an early age all this development of pubescent hair is arrested. When the
primary sexual organs are undeveloped the sexual hair is also undeveloped,
as in a case, recorded by Plant,[166] of a girl with rudimentary uterus and
ovaries who had little or no axillary and pubic hair, although the hair of the
head was long and strong.[167]
The pseudo-Michael Scot among the Signa mulieris calidæ naturæ et quæ
coit libenter stated that her hair, both on the head and body, is thick and
coarse and crisp, and Della Porta, the greatest of the physiognomists, said
that thickness of hair in women meant wantonness. Venette, in his
Generation de l'Homme, remarked that men who have much hair on the

body are most amorous. At a more recent period Roubaud has said that
pubic hair in its quantity, color and curliness is an index of genital energy. A
poor pilous system, on the other hand, Roubaud regarded as a probable
though not an irrefragable proof of sexual frigidity in women. "In the cold
woman the pilous system is remarkable for the languor of its vitality; the
hairs are fair, delicate, scarce and smooth, while in ardent natures there are
little curly tufts about the temples." (Traité de l'Impuissance, pp. 124, 523.)
Martineau declared (Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires, p. 40) that "the
more developed the genital organs the more abundant the hair covering
them; abundance of hair appears to be in relation to the perfect development
of the organs." Tardieu described the typically erotic woman as very hairy.
Bergh found that among 2200 young Danish prostitutes those who showed
an unusual extension and amount of pubic hair included several women
who were believed to be libidinous in a very high degree. (Bergh,
"Symbolæ," etc., Hospitalstidende, August, 1894.) Moraglia, again, in Italy,
in describing various women, mostly prostitutes, of unusually strong sexual
proclivities, repeatedly notes very thick hair, with down on the face.
(Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xvi, fasc. iv-v.)
Marro, also, in Italy found that abundance of hair and down is especially
marked in women who are guilty of infanticide (as also Pasini has found),
though criminal women generally, in his experience, tend to have
abnormally abundant hair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, cap. XXII.)
Lombroso finds that prostitutes generally tend to be hairy (Donna
Delinquente, p. 320.)
A lad of 14, guilty of numerous crimes of violence having a sexual source,
is described by Arthur Macdonald in America as having hair on the chest as
well as all over the pubes. (A. Macdonald, Archives de L'Anthropologie
Criminelle, January, 1893, p. 55.) The association of hairiness with
abnormal sexuality in the weak-minded has been noted at Bicêtre
(Recherches Cliniques sur l'Epilepsie, vol. xix, pp. 69, 77.)
Hypertrichosis universalis, a general hairiness of body, has been described
by Cascella in a woman with very strong sexual desires, who eventually
became insane. (Revista Mensile di Psichiatria, 1903, p. 408.) Bucknill and
Tuke give the case of a religiously minded girl, with very strong and

repressed sexual desires, who became insane; the only abnormal feature in
her physical development was the marked growth of hair over the body.
Brantôme refers to a great lady known to him whose body was very hairy,
and quotes a saying to the effect that hairy people are either rich or wanton;
the lady in question, he adds, was both. (Brantôme, Vie des Dames
Galantes, Discours II.)
De Sade, whose writings are now regarded as a treasure house of true
observations in the domain of sexual psychology, makes the Rodin of
Justine dark, with much hair and thick eyebrows, while his very sexual
sister is described as dark, thin and very hairy. (Dühren, Der Marquis de
Sade, third edition, p. 440.)
A correspondent who has always taken a special interest in the condition as
regards hairiness of the women to whom he has been attracted, has sent me
notes concerning a series of 12 women. It may be gathered from these notes
that 5 women were neither markedly sexual nor markedly hairy (either as
regards head or pubes), 6 cases both hairy and sexual, 1 was sexual and not
hairy, none were hairy and not sexual. My correspondent remarks: "There
may be women with scanty pubic hair possessing very strong sexual
emotions. My own experience is quite the opposite." He has also
independently reached the conclusion, arrived at by many medical
observers and clearly suggested by some of the facts here brought together,
that profuse hair frequently denotes a neurotic temperament.
It may be added that Mirabeau, as we learn from an anecdote told by an
eyewitness and recorded by Legouvé, had a very hairy chest, while the
same is recorded of Restif de la Bretonne.
It is a very ancient and popular belief that if a hairy man is not sensual he is
strong: vir pilosus aut libidinosus aut fortis. The Greeks insisted on the
hairy nates of Hercules, and Ninon de l'Enclos, when the great Condé
shared her bed without touching her, remarked, on seeing his hairy body:
"Ah, Monseigneur, que vous devez être fort!" It may be doubted whether
there is any exact parallelism between muscular strength and hairiness, for
strength is largely a matter of training, but there can be no doubt that
hairiness really tends to be associated with a generally vigorous
development of the body.

Although the observations concerning hairiness of body as an index of
vigor, whether sexual or only generally physical, are so ancient, until recent
years no attempts have been made to demonstrate on a large scale whether
there is actually a correlation between hairiness and sexual or general
development of the body. Some importance, therefore, attaches to Ammon's
careful observations of many thousand conscripts in Baden. These
observations fully justify this ancient belief, since they show that on the one
hand the size of the testicles, and on the other hand girth of chest and
stature, are correlated with hairiness of body.
Ammon's observations were made on nearly 4000 conscripts of the age of
20. From the point of view of the hairy system he divided them, into four
classes:—

I. To which 6.1 per cent, of the men belonged, with smooth bodies.
II. Including 25.3 per cent., only slight hairiness.
III. 53.8 per cent., more developed hairy system, but belly, breast and
back smooth.
IV. 14.7 per cent., hair all over body.
V. 0.1 per cent., extreme cases of hairiness.

The beardless were 12.1 per cent., those with no axillary hair 9 per cent.,
those with no hair on pubis 0.4 per cent. This corresponds with the fact that
hair appears first on the pubis and last on the chin.
In the first class 69 per cent, were beardless, 54 per cent, without any
axillary hair and 6 per cent, without pubic hair. In the second class 24 per
cent, were beardless, 17 per cent, without axillary hair. In the third class 3
per cent, were beardless and 3 per cent without axillary hair.
Below puberty the diameter of testicles is below 14 millimeters. There were
13 conscripts having a testicular diameter of less than 14 millimeters. These
infantile individuals all belonged to the first three classes and mostly to the
first. The average testicular diameter in the first class was nearly 24
millimeters, and progressively rose in the succeeding classes to over 26
millimeters in the fourth.
While there was not much difference in height, the first class was the
shortest, the fourth the tallest. The fourth class also showed the greatest

chest perimeter. The cephalic index of all classes was 84. (O. Ammon,
"L'Infantilisme et le Feminisme au Conseil de Révision," L'Anthropologie,
May-June, 1896.)
We thus see that it is quite justifiable to admit a type of person who
possesses a more than average aptitude for detumescence. Such persons are
more likely to be short than tall; they will show a full development of the
secondary sexual characters; the voice will tend to be deep and the eyes
bright; the glandular activity of the skin will probably be marked, the lips
everted; there is a tendency to a more than average degree of pigmentation,
and there is frequently an abnormal prevalence of hair on some parts of the
body. While none of these signs, taken separately, can be said to have any
necessary connection with the sexual impulse, taken altogether they
indicate an organism that responds to the instinct of detumescence with
special aptitude or with marked energy. In these respects observation, both
scientific and popular, concords with the probabilities suggested by the
three standards in this matter which have already been set forth.
No generalization, however, can here be set down in an absolute and
unqualified manner. There are definite reasons why this should be so. There
is, for instance, the highly important consideration that the sexual impulse
of the individual may be conspicuous in two quite distinct ways. It may
assume prominence because the individual possesses a highly vigorous and
well-nourished organism, or its prominence may be due to mental irritation
in a very morbid individual. In the latter case—although occasionally the
two sets of conditions are combined—most of the signs we might expect in
the former case may be absent. Indeed, the sexual impulses which proceed
from a morbid psychic irritability do not in most cases indicate any special
aptitude for detumescence at all; in that largely lies their morbid character.
Again, just in the same way that the exaggerated impulse itself may either
be healthy or morbid, so the various characters which we have found to
possess some value as signs of the impulse may themselves either be
healthy or morbid. This is notably the case as regards an abnormal growth
of hair on the body, more especially when it appears on regions where
normally there is little or no hair. Such hypertrichosis is frequently
degenerative in character, though still often associated with the sexual
system. When, however, it is thus a degenerative character of sexual nature,

having its origin in some abnormal fœtal condition or later atrophy of the
ovaries, it is no necessary indication of any aptitude for detumescence.
Idiots, more especially it would seem idiot girls, tend to show a highly
developed hairy system. Thus Voisin, when investigating 150 idiot and
imbecile girls, found the hair long and thick and tending to occupy a large
surface; one girl had hair on the areolæ of the mamma. (J. Voisin,
"Conformation des organes génitaux chez les Idiots," Annales d'Hygiène
Publique, June, 1894.) It should be said that in idiot boys puberty is late,
and the sexual organs as well as the sexual instinct frequently undeveloped,
while in idiot girls there is no delay in puberty, and the sexual organs and
instinct are frequently fully and even abnormally developed.
Hegar has described an interesting case showing an association, of fœtal
origin, between sexual anomaly and abnormal hairness. In this case a girl of
16 had a uterus duplex, an infantile pelvis, very slight menstruation and
undeveloped breasts. She was very hairy on the face, the anterior aspects of
the chest and abdomen, the sexual regions, and the thighs, but not specially
so on the rest of the body. The hairs were of lanugo-like character, but dark
in color. (A. Hegar, Beiträge zur Geburtshülfe und Gynäkologie, vol. i, p.
III, 1898.) Sometimes hiruties of the face and abdomen begin to appear
during pregnancy, apparently from disease or degeneration of the ovaries.
(A case is noted in British Medical Journal, August 2 and 16, pp. 375 and
436, 1902.) Laycock many years ago referred to the popular belief that
women who have hair on the upper lip seldom bear children, and regarded
this opinion as "questionless founded on fact." (Laycock, Nervous Diseases
of Women, p. 22.) When this is so, we may suppose that the abnormal hairy
growth is associated with degeneration of the ovaries.
There is another factor which enters into this question and renders the
definition of a physical sexual type less precise than it would otherwise be.
The sexual instinct is common to all persons, and while it seems probable
that there is a type of person in whom sexual energies are predominant, it
would also appear that the people who otherwise show a very high level of
energy in life usually exhibit a more than average degree of energy in
matters of love. The predominantly sexual type, as we have seen, tends to
be associated with a high degree of pigmentation; the person specially apt
for detumescence inclines to belong to the dark rather than to the purely fair

group of the population. On the other hand, the active, energetic, practical
man, the man who is most apt for the achievement of success in life, tends
to belong to the fair rather than to the dark type.[168] Thus we have a certain
conflict of tendencies, and it becomes possible to assert that while persons
with pronounced aptitude for sexual detumescence tend to be dark, persons
whose pronounced energy in sexual matters tends to ensure success are
most likely to be fair.
The tendency of the fair energetic type, the type of the northern European
man, to sexuality may be connected with the fact that the violent and
criminal man who commits sexual crimes tends to be fair even amid a dark
population. Criminals on the whole would appear to tend to be dark rather
than fair; but Marro found in Italy that the group of sexual offenders
differed from all other groups of criminals in that their hair was
predominantly fair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.) Ottolenghi, in the
same way, in examining 100 sexual offenders, found that they showed 17
per cent., of fair hair, though criminals generally (on a basis of nearly 2000)
showed only 6 per cent., and normal persons (nearly 1000) 9 per cent.
Similarly while the normal persons showed only 20 per cent. of blue eyes
and criminals generally 36 per cent., the sexual offenders showed 50 per
cent. of blue eyes. (Ottolenghi, Archivio di Psichiatria, fasc. vi, 1888, p.
573.) Burton remarked (Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem.
II, Subs. II) that in all ages most amorous young men have been yellow-
haired, adding, "Synesius holds every effeminate fellow or adulterer is fair-
haired." In folk-lore, it has been noted (Κρυπτάδια, vol. ii, p. 258), red or
yellow hair is sometimes regarded as a mark of sexuality.
In harmony with this fairness, sexual offenders would appear to be more
dolichocephalic than other criminals. In Italy Marro found the foreheads of
sexual offenders to be narrow, and in California Drähms found that while
murderers had an average cephalic index of 83.5, and thieves of 80.5, that
of sexual offenders was 79.
On the other hand, high cheek-bones and broad faces—a condition most
usually found associated with brachycephaly—have sometimes been noted
as associated with undue or violent sexuality. Marro noted the excess of
prominent cheek-bones in sexual offenders, and in America it has been

found that unchaste girls tend to have broad faces. (Pedagogical Seminary,
December, 1896, pp. 231, 235.)
It will be seen that, when we take a comprehensive view of the facts and
considerations involved, it is possible to obtain a more definite and coherent
picture of the physical signs of a marked aptitude for detumescence than
has hitherto been usually supposed possible. But we also see that while the
ensemble of these signs is probably fairly reliable as an index of marked
sexuality, the separate signs have no such definite significance, and under
some circumstances their significance may even be reversed.

[144]
See Biérent, La Puberté; Marro, La Pubertà (and enlarged French
translation, La Puberté), and portions of G. S. Hall's Adolescence;
also Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman (fourth edition, revised and
enlarged).

[145]
Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, p.
174; Moll, "Perverse Sexualempfindung, Psychische Impotenz
und Ehe" (Section II), in Senator and Kaminer, Krankheiten und
Ehe.

[146]
Roubaud, Traité de l'Impuissance, p. 524.

[147]
Marro, Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.

[148]
Κρυπτάδια, vol. ii, p. 258.

[149]

Marro, La Pubertà, p. 196. In Italy, the sensuality of the lame is
the subject of proverbs.

[150]
Archivio di Psichiatria, 1896, p. 515; Κρυπτάδια, vol. vi, p. 212.

[151]
Blumenbach, Anthropological Treatises, p. 248.

[152]
Biérent, La Puberté, p. 148.

[153]
Venturi, Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali, pp. 408-410.

[154]
Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Sub. II.

[155]
British Gynæcological Journal, February, 1887, p. 505.

[156]
Power, Lancet, November 26, 1887.

[157]
With regard to the sexual relationships of personal odor, see the
previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man,"
section on Smell.

[158]
In European folk-lore thick lips in a woman are sometimes
regarded as a sign of sensuality, Κρυπτάδια, vol. ii, p, 258.

[159]
The direct dependence of sexual pigmentation on the primary
sexual glands is well illustrated by a true hermaphroditic adult
finch exhibited at the Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam (May
31, 1890); this bird had a testis on the right side and an ovary on
the left, and on the right side its plumage was of the male's colors,
on the left of the female's color.

[160]
See. e.g., Papillault, Bulletin Société d'Anthropologie, 1899, p.
446.

[161]
Guinard, Art. "Castration," Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie.

[162]
J. Whitridge Williams, Obstetrics, 1903, p. 132.

[163]
Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1878, p. 19.

[164]
C. Pitre, Medicina Populare Siciliana, p. 47. In England, from
notes sent to me by one correspondent, it would appear that the
proportion of dark and sexually apt women to fair and sexually
apt women is as 3 to 1. The experience of others would doubtless
give varying results, and in any case the fallacies are numerous.
See, in the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in
Man," Section IV.

[165]
In Japan the same belief would appear to be held. In a nude figure
representing the typical voluptuous woman by the Japanese

painter Marugama Okio (reproduced in Ploss's Das Weib) the
pubic and axillary hair is profuse, though usually sparse in Japan.

[166]
Centralblatt für Gynäkologie, No. 9, 1896.

[167]
It is important to remember that there is little correlation in this
matter between the hair of the head and the sexual hair, if not a
certain opposition. (See ante, p. 127.) According to one of the
aphorisms of Hippocrates, repeated by Buffon, eunuchs do not
become bald, and Aristotle seems to have believed that sexual
intercourse is a cause of baldness in men. (Laycock, Nervous
Diseases of Women, p. 23.)

[168]
For some of the evidence on this point, see Havelock Ellis, "The
Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," Monthly Review,
August, 1901; cf. id., A Study of British Genius, Chapter X.

THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY.
The Relationship of Maternal and Sexual Emotion—Conception and Loss
of Virginity—The Anciently Accepted Signs of This Condition—The
Pervading Effects of Pregnancy on the Organism—Pigmentation—The
Blood and Circulation—The Thyroid—Changes in the Nervous System—
The Vomiting of Pregnancy—The Longings of Pregnant Women—Maternal
Impressions—Evidence for and Against Their Validity—The Question Still
Open—Imperfection of Our Knowledge—The Significance of Pregnancy.

In analyzing the sexual impulse I have so far deliberately kept out of view
the maternal instinct. This is necessary, for the maternal instinct is specific
and distinct; it is directed to an aim which, however intimately associated it
may be with that of the sexual impulse proper, can by no means be
confounded with it. Yet the emotion of love, as it has finally developed in
the world, is not purely of sexual origin; it is partly sexual, but it is also
partly parental.[169]
In so far as it is parental it is certainly mainly maternal. There is a drawing
by Bronzino in the Louvre of a woman's head gazing tenderly down at some
invisible object; is it her child or her lover? Doubtless her child, yet the
expression is equally adequate to the emotion evoked by a lover. If we were
here specifically dealing with the emotion of love as a complex whole, and
not with the psychology of the sexual impulse, it would certainly be
necessary to discuss the maternal instinct and its associated emotions. In
any case it seems desirable to touch on the psychic state of pregnancy, for
we are here concerned not only with emotions very closely connected with
the sexual emotions in the narrower sense, but we here at last approach that
state which it is the object of the whole sexual process to achieve.
In civilized life a period of weeks, months, even years, may elapse between
the establishment of sexual relations and the occurrence of conception.
Under primitive conditions the loss of the virginal condition practically
involves the pregnant condition, so that under primitive conditions very

little allowance is made for the state, so common among civilized peoples,
of the woman who is no longer a virgin, yet not about to become a mother.
There is some interest in noting the signs of loss of virginity chiefly relied
upon by ancient authors. In doing this it is convenient to follow mainly the
full summary of authorities given by Schurig in his Barthenologia early in
the eighteenth century. The ancient custom, known in classic times, of
measuring the neck the day after marriage was frequently practiced to
ascertain if a girl was or was not a virgin. There were various ways of doing
this. One was to measure with a thread the circumference of the bride's neck
before she went to bed on the bridal night. If in the morning the same thread
would not go around her neck it was a sure sign that she had lost her
virginity during the night; if not, she was still a virgin or had been
deflowered at an earlier period. Catullus alluded to this custom, which still
exists, or existed until lately, in the south of France. It is perfectly sound,
for it rests on the intimate response by congestion of the thyroid gland to
sexual excitement. (Parthenologia, p. 283; Biérent, La Puberté, p. 150;
Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition, p. 267.)
Some say, Schurig tells us, that the voice, which in the virgin is shrill,
becomes rougher and deeper after the first coitus. He quotes Riolan's
statement that it is certain that the voice of those who indulge in venery is
changed. On that account the ancients bound down the penis of their
singers, and Martial said that those who wish to preserve their voices should
avoid coitus. Democritus who one day had greeted a girl as "maiden" on the
following day addressed her as "woman," while in the same way it is said
that Albertus Magnus, observing from his study a girl going for wine for her
master, knew that she had had sexual intercourse by the way because on her
return her voice had become deeper. Here, again, the ancient belief has a
solid basis, for the voice and the larynx are really affected by sexual
conditions. (Parthenologia, p. 286; Marro, La Puberté, p. 303; Havelock
Ellis, op. cit., pp. 271, 289.)
Others, again, Schurig proceeds, have judged that the goaty smell given out
in the armpits during the venereal act is also no uncertain sign of
defloration, such odor being perceptible in those who use much venery, and
not seldom in harlots and the newly married, while, as Hippocrates said, it

is not perceived in boys and girls. (Parthenologia, p. 286; cf. the previous
volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man," p. 64.)
In virgins, Schurig remarks, the pubic hair is said to be long and not
twisted, while in women accustomed to coitus it is crisper. But it is only
after long and repeated coitus, some authors add, that the pubic hairs
become crisp. Some recent observers, it may be remarked, have noted a
connection between sexual excitation and the condition of the pubic hair in
women. (Cf. the present volume, ante p. 127.)
A sign to which the old authors often attached much importance was
furnished by the urinary stream. In the De Secretis Mulierum, wrongly
attributed to Albertus Magnus, it is laid down that "the virgin urinates
higher than the woman." Riolan, in his Anthropographia, discussing the
ability of virgins to ejaculate urine to a height, states that Scaliger had
observed women who were virgins emit urine in a high jet against a wall,
but that married women could seldom do this. Bouaciolus also stated that
the urine of virgins is emitted in a small stream to a distance with an acute
hissing sound. (Parthenologia, p. 281.) A folk-lore belief in the reality of
this influence is evidenced by the Picardy conte referred to already (ante, p.
53), "La Princesse qui pisse au dessus les Meules." There is no doubt a
tendency for the various stresses of sexual life to produce an influence in
this direction, though they act far too slowly and uncertainly to be a reliable
index to the presence or the absence of virginity.
Another common ancient test of virginity by urination rests on a psychic
basis, and appears in a variety of forms which are really all reducible to the
same principle. Thus we are told in De Secretis Mulierum that to ascertain if
a girl is seduced she should be given to eat of powdered crocus flowers, and
if she has been seduced she immediately urinates. We are here concerned
with auto-suggestion, and it may well be believed that with nervous and
credulous girls this test often revealed the truth.
A further test of virginity discussed by Schurig is the presence of modesty
of countenance. If a woman blushes her virtue is safe. In this way girls who
have themselves had experience of the marriage bed are said to detect the
virgin. The virgin's eyes are cast down and almost motionless, while she
who has known a man has eyes that are bright and quick. But this sign is

equivocal, says Schurig, for girls are different, and can simulate the
modesty they do not feel. Yet this indication also rests on a fundamentally
sound psychological basis. (See "The Evolution of Modesty," in the first
volume of these Studies.)
In his Syllepsilogia (Section V, cap. I-II), published in 1731, Schurig
discusses further the anciently recognized signs of pregnancy. The real or
imaginary signs of pregnancy sought by various primitive peoples of the
past and present are brought together by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, bd. i,
Chapter XXVII.
Both physically and psychically the occurrence of pregnancy is, however, a
distinct event. It marks the beginning of a continuous physical process,
which cannot fail to manifest psychic reactions. A great center of vital
activity—practically a new center, for only the germinal form of it in
menstruation had previously existed—has appeared and affects the whole
organism. "From the moment that the embryo takes possession of the
woman," Robert Barnes puts it, "every drop of blood, every fiber, every
organ, is affected."[170]
A woman artist once observed to Dr. Stratz, that as the final aim of a
woman is to become a mother and pregnancy is thus her blossoming time, a
beautiful woman ought to be most beautiful when she is pregnant. That is
so, Stratz replied, if her moment of greatest physical perfection corresponds
with the early months of pregnancy, for with the beginning of pregnancy
metabolism is increased, the color of the skin becomes more lively and
delicate, the breasts firmer.[171] Pregnancy may, indeed, often become
visible soon after conception by the brighter eye, the livelier glance,
resulting from greater vascular activity, though later, with the increase of
strain, the face may tend to become somewhat thin and distorted. The hair,
Barnes states, assumes a new vigor, even though it may have been falling
out before. The temperature rises; the weight increases, even apart from the
growth of the fœtus. The efflorescence of pregnancy shows itself, as in the
blossoming and fecundated flower, by increased pigmentation.[172] The
nipples with their areolæ, and the mid-line of the belly, become darker;
brown flecks (lentigo) tend to appear on the forehead, neck, arms, and
body; while striæ—at first blue-red, then a brilliant white—appear on the
belly and thighs, though these are scarcely normal, for they are not seen in

women with very elastic skins and are rare among peasants and savages.
[173] The whole carriage of the woman tends to become changed with the

development of the mighty seed of man planted within her; it simulates the
carriage of pride with the arched back and protruded abdomen.[174] The
pregnant woman has been lifted above the level of ordinary humanity to
become the casket of an inestimable jewel.
It is in the blood and the circulation that the earliest of the most prominent
symptoms of pregnancy are to be found. The ever increasing development
of this new focus of vascular activity involves an increased vascular activity
in the whole organism. This activity is present almost from the first—a few
days after the impregnation of the ovum—in the breasts, and quickly
becomes obvious to inspection and palpation. Before a quite passive organ,
the breast now rapidly increases in activity of circulation and in size, while
certain characteristic changes begin to take place around the nipples.[175] As
a result of the additional work imposed upon it the heart tends to become
slightly hypertrophied in order to meet the additional strain; there may be
some dilatation also.[176]
The recent investigations of Stengel and Stanton tend to show that the
increase of the heart's work during pregnancy is less considerable than has
generally been supposed, and that beyond some enlargement and dilatation
of the right ventricle there is not usually any hypertrophy of the heart.
The total quantity of blood is raised. While increased in quantity, the blood
appears on the whole to be somewhat depreciated in quality, though on this
point there are considerable differences of opinion. Thus, as regards
hæmoglobin, some investigators have found that the old idea as to the
poverty of hæmoglobin in pregnancy is quite unfounded; a few have even
found that the hæmoglobin is increased. Most authorities have found the red
cells diminished, though some only slightly, while the white cells, and also
the fibrin, are increased. But toward the end of pregnancy there is a
tendency, perhaps due to the establishment of compensation, for the blood
to revert to the normal condition.[177]
It would appear probable, however, that the vascular phenomena of
pregnancy are not altogether so simple as the above statement would imply.
The activity of various glands at this time—well illustrated by the marked