Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume V Part 5

[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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 b.i.t.c.h licks her puppies shortly after birth as they urinate, absorbing the fluid.

[31]

See, e.g., the previous volume of these Studies, "s.e.xual Selection in Man," pp. 165 et seq., and Duhren, 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 a.n.a.logy between s.e.xual 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-b.e.s.t.i.a.lity-The Conditions that Favor b.e.s.t.i.a.lity-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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

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 a.s.sociation on which the symbol has arisen has in every case been in large measure, although not entirely, an a.s.sociation of contiguity. It is now necessary to touch on a group of s.e.xual symbols in which the a.s.sociation 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 s.e.xual desire in human persons. Here we encounter a symbolism mainly founded on a.s.sociation by resemblance; the animal s.e.xual act recalls the human s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual excitement or gratification; this is a s.e.xual fetichism in the narrow sense, and is by Krafft-Ebing termed Zoophilia Erotica. We have, further, the cla.s.s of cases in which a real or simulated s.e.xual 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s, but is affected by a deep degree of degeneration. In the first case we may properly apply the term b.e.s.t.i.a.lity; 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual matters, she saw from a window some boys tickling a dog and inducing s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xually hyperaesthetic nun who was always powerfully excited by the sight or even the recollection of flies in s.e.xual connection, so that she was compelled to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e; 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 s.e.xual effect on children even when not specifically s.e.xual; 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 r.e.c.t.u.m, 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual attraction of feminine garments, for all such tissues are liable to enter into the dress. In part, also, we have a s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 h.o.m.os.e.xuality. It is noteworthy that he was attracted to men in whom the hair and other secondary s.e.xual characters were well developed. (Fere, L'Instinct s.e.xuel, second edition, pp. 262-267.)

As a s.e.xual fetich hair strictly belongs to the group of parts of the body; but since it can be removed from the body and is s.e.xually 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 s.e.xually 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 s.e.xual 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 const.i.tuted 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. s.e.xual excitement and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n 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 s.a.d.i.s.tic 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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sociation with pa.s.sive 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual powers, had a great love of domestic animals, especially dogs and cats, from an early age; when petting them he experienced s.e.xual emotions, although he was innocent in s.e.xual matters. At p.u.b.erty 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 a.s.sociated with ideas of a similar kind. At the same time he had no wish for any sort of s.e.xual intercourse with animals, and was indifferent as to the s.e.x of the animals which attracted him; his s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual attraction toward animals.

In some cases s.e.xually hyperaesthetic women have informed me that s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xuel, second edition, pp. 166-171.)

Krafft-Ebing considers that complete perversion of s.e.xual attraction toward animals is radically distinct from erotic zoophilia. This view cannot be accepted. b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 s.e.x, though he had ample opportunity for gratifying normal pa.s.sions. 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 pa.s.sion that on one occasion force had to be used to take him away from the sow he was caressing. He did not m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e, and even when restrained from approaching sows he had no s.e.xual 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. 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 a.s.sistance 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity and pathological zooerastia as defined by Krafft-Ebing, yet it seems probable that in most cases of ordinary b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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; b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, or the impulse to attain s.e.xual gratification by intercourse, or other close contact, with animals. In seeking to comprehend this perversion it is necessary to divest ourselves of the att.i.tude toward animals which is the inevitable outcome of refined civilization and urban life. Most s.e.xual perversions, if not in large measure the actual outcome of civilized life, easily adjust themselves to it. b.e.s.t.i.a.lity (except in one form to be noted later) is, on the other hand, the s.e.xual 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity: (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 s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sign 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.e.xually excitable with the woman and capable of connection.[47] The goat has always been a kind of sacred emblem of l.u.s.t. In the middle ages it became a.s.sociated with the Devil as one of the favorite forms he a.s.sumed. It is significant of a primitively religious s.e.xual a.s.sociation 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 s.e.xual union between human beings, or G.o.ds 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 const.i.tute some of the most cherished works of the painters of the Renaissance.

As regards the prevalence of occasional s.e.xual 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]

b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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.

b.e.s.t.i.a.lity thus resembles masturbation and other abnormal manifestations of the s.e.xual 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 a.s.sisting the grave-digger conceived and carried out the idea of digging up the bodies of young girls to satisfy his pa.s.sions 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 Genesique," Annales d'Hygiene 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 s.e.xual 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 s.e.xual 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. It is apparently much the same in Italy.[49] In South Italy and Sicily, especially, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 s.e.xual 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 uber die Libido s.e.xualis, bd. i, p. 697.) In a case reported by Pfaff and mentioned by Moll, a country girl was accused of having s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual contact with the dog, it scarcely suffices to show s.e.xual 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 prost.i.tutes 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 haemorrhage in about an hour. Rosse also mentions that some years ago a performance of this kind between a prost.i.tute and a Newfoundland dog could be witnessed in San Francis...o...b.. 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, "s.e.xual 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, Beitrage zur aetiologie der Psychopathia s.e.xualis, 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 p.e.n.i.s from the boy's r.e.c.t.u.m 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 v.a.g.i.n.al discharge which had been present for about a week, coming on suddenly. After washing the external genitals and opening the l.a.b.i.a three rents were discovered, one through the fourchette and two through the left nymphae. The v.a.g.i.n.a 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 p.e.n.i.s 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 gonorrha, but contained no gonococci. These cases are probably more frequent than is usually a.s.sumed."

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 zoological 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 Gynaecologia, Section II, cap. VII; I have not drawn on this collection.)

In some cases women, and also men, find gratification in the s.e.xual manipulation of animals without any kind of congress. This may be ill.u.s.trated 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 v.u.l.v.a. 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 s.e.xual battery" which produced very exciting and exhausting effects. Nacke (Psychiatrische en Neurologische Bladen, 1899, No. 2) refers to an idiot who thus manipulated the v.u.l.v.a of mares in his charge. The case has been recorded by Guillereau (Journal de Medicine Veterinaire et de Zootechnie, January, 1899) of a youth who was accustomed to introduce his hand into the v.u.l.v.a of cows in order to obtain s.e.xual excitement.

The possibility of s.e.xual excitement between women and animals involves a certain degree of s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 uber die Libido s.e.xualis, 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 s.e.xually cohabit with women, but that they may be easily trained to it. There can be no doubt that dogs at all events are sometimes s.e.xually excited by the presence of women, perhaps especially during menstruation, and many women are able to bear testimony to the embarra.s.sing 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 (Kontrare s.e.xualempfindung, 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 s.e.xual excitement. In this case there was also s.e.xual excitement thus produced in the child, and after p.u.b.erty 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 a.s.ses which appeared to show signs of s.e.xual pleasure.

A very large number of animals have been recorded as having been employed in the gratification of s.e.xual 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 att.i.tude toward b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

In Egbert's Penitential, a doc.u.ment of the ninth and tenth centuries, we read (V. 22): "Item Episcopus c.u.m quadrupede fornicans VII annos, consuetudinem X, presbyter V, diaconus III, clerus II." There was a great range in the penances for b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, from ten years to (in the case of boys) one hundred days. The mare is specially mentioned (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Doc.u.ments, vol. iii, p. 422). In Theodore's Penitential, another Anglo-Saxon doc.u.ment 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. (Wa.s.serschleben, Die Bussordnungen der Abendlandlichen 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity. Burchard's Penitential, which is always detailed and precise, specially mentions the mare, the cow and the a.s.s, and a.s.signs 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 a.s.signed seven years penance in Burchard's Penitential. (Wa.s.serschleben, 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.lity 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 att.i.tude toward b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, 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 theologiae 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 s.e.xual enjoyment in the contemplation of the s.e.xual 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 pa.s.sage, 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 "c.u.m magno risu et delectatione." (Diarium, ed Thuasne, vol. III, p. 169.)