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
gonorrhoea, 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.


FOOTNOTES:

[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 choiros 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