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 amicae 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 aesthetically
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 aesthetically 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. Duehren and others have considered that the
aesthetic 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 ueber 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
anaemic, 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,' 'pais,' '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 paederasts 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 encyclopaedia for articles like:
Obstruction, Constipation, Haemorrhoids, Faeces, 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 paederasty, 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 unaesthetic 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 illae lacrimae; 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 faeces--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,
_Kontraere 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.


FOOTNOTES:

[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 Nullita del Matrimonio_, 1902, p.
39.

[27] Fere, _Comptes-Rendus Societe 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 Duehren, _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 volupte que ressentent les bords de la
mer, d'etre toujours pleins sans jamais deborder"--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 hyperaesthetic
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. Fere 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. (Fere,
_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
_Fetichistes 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'Hygiene_, 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 anaemic, 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 hyperaesthetic 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 Fere,
_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.