Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iii Part 10

[114]

E.g., Kiefer, Zeitschrift fur s.e.xualwissenschaft, Aug., 1908.

[115]

Fere, Revue de Medecine, August, 1900. In this paper Fere brings together many interesting facts concerning flagellation in ancient times.

[116]

Schmidt-Heuert (Monatschrift fur Harnkrankheiten, 1906, ht. 7) argues that it is not so much the actual use of the rod as playful, threatening and mysterious suggestions playing around it which nowadays gives it s.e.xual fascination.

[117]

Moll (Untersuchungen uber die Libido s.e.xualis, Bd. 1, p. 18) points out that these emotions frequently suffice to cause s.e.xual emissions in schoolboys.

[118]

As Eulenburg truly points out, the circ.u.mstances attending the whipping of a woman may be s.e.xually attractive, even in the absence of any morbid impulse. Such circ.u.mstances are "the sight of naked feminine charms and especially-in the usual mode of flagellation-of those parts which possess for the s.e.xual epicure a peculiar esthetic attraction; the idea of treating a loved, or at all events desired, person as a child, of having her in complete subjection and being able to dispose of her despotically; and finally the immediate results of whipping: the changes in skin-color, the to and fro movements which simulate or antic.i.p.ate the initial phenomena of coitus." (Eulenburg, s.e.xuale Neuropathie, p. 121.)

[119]

See the article on Udall in the Dictionary of National Biography.

IV.

The Impulse to Strangle the Object of s.e.xual Desire-The Wish to be Strangled-Respiratory Disturbance the Essential Element in this Group of Phenomena-The Part Played by Respiratory Excitement in the Process of Courtship-Swinging and Suspension-The Attraction Exerted by the Idea of being Chained and Fettered.

There is another impulse which it may be worth while to consider briefly here, for the sake of the light it throws on the relationship between love and pain. I allude to the impulse to strangle the object of s.e.xual desire, and to the corresponding craving to be strangled. Cases have been recorded in which this impulse was so powerful that men have actually strangled women at the moment of coitus.[120] Such cases are rare; but, as a mere idea, the thought of strangling a woman appears to be not infrequently a.s.sociated with s.e.xual emotion. We must probably regard it as, in the main,-with whatever subsidiary elements,-an aspect of that physical seizure, domination, and forcible embrace of the female which is one of the primitive elements of courtship.[121]

The corresponding idea-the pleasurable connection of the thought of being strangled with s.e.xual emotion-appears to occur still more frequently, perhaps especially in women. Here we seem to have, as in the case of whipping, a combination of a physical with a psychic element. Not only is the idea attractive, but, as a matter of fact, strangulation, suffocation, or any arrest of respiration, even when carried to the extent of producing death, may actually provoke emission, as is observed after death by hanging.[122] It is noteworthy that, as Eulenburg remarks, the method of treating diseases of the spinal cord by suspension-a method much in vogue a few years ago-often produced s.e.xual excitement.[123] In brothels, it is said, some of the clients desire to be suspended vertically by a cord furnished with pads.[124] A playful attempt to throttle her on the part of her lover is often felt by a woman as pleasurable, though it may not necessarily produce definite s.e.xual excitement. Sometimes, however, this feeling becomes so strong that it must be regarded as an actual perversion, and I have been told of a woman who is indifferent to the ordinary s.e.xual embrace; her chief longing is to be throttled, and she will do anything to have her neck squeezed by her lover till her eyeb.a.l.l.s bulge.[125]

"I think if I could be left my present feelings," a lady writes, "and be changed into a male imbecile,-that is, given a man's strength, but deprived, to a large extent, of reasoning power,-I might very likely act in the apparently cruel way they do. And this partly because many of their actions appeal to me on the pa.s.sive side. The idea of being strangled by a person I love does. The great sensitiveness of one's throat and neck come in here as well as the loss of breath. Once when I was about to be separated from a man I cared for I put his hands on my throat and implored him to kill me. It was a moment of madness, which helps me to understand the feelings of a person always insane. Even now that I am cool and collected I know that if I were deeply in love with a man who I thought was going to kill me, especially in that way, I would make no effort to save myself beforehand, though, of course, in the final moments nature would a.s.sert herself without my volition. What makes the horror of such cases in insanity is the fact of the love being left out. But I think I find no greater difficulty in picturing the mental att.i.tude of a s.a.d.i.s.tic lunatic than that of a normal man who gets pleasure out of women for whom he has no love."

The imagined pleasure of being strangled by a lover brings us to a group of feelings which would seem to be not unconnected with respiratory elements. I refer to the pleasurable excitement experienced by some in suspension, swinging, restraint, and fetters. Strangulation is the extreme and most decided type of this group of imagined or real situations, in all of which a respiratory disturbance seems to be an essential element.[126]

In explaining these phenomena we have to remark that respiratory excitement has always been a conspicuous part of the whole process of tumescence and detumescence, of the struggles of courtship and of its climax, and that any restraint upon respiration, or, indeed, any restraint upon muscular and emotional activity generally, tends to heighten the state of s.e.xual excitement a.s.sociated with such activity.

I have elsewhere, when studying the spontaneous solitary manifestation of the s.e.xual instinct (Auto-erotism, in vol. i of these Studies), referred to the pleasurably emotional, and sometimes s.e.xual, effects of swinging and similar kinds of movement. It is possible that there is a certain significance in the frequency with which the eighteenth-century French painters, who lived at a time when the refinements of s.e.xual emotion were carefully sought out, have painted women in the act of swinging. Fragonard mentions that in 1763 a gentleman invited him into the country, with the request to paint his mistress, especially stipulating that she should be depicted in a swing. The same motive was common among the leading artists of that time. It may be said that this att.i.tude was merely a pretext to secure a vision of ankles, but that result could easily have been attained without the aid of the swing.

I may here quote, as bearing on this and allied questions, a somewhat lengthy communication from a lady to whom I am indebted for many subtle and suggestive remarks on the whole of this group of manifestations:-

"With regard to the connection between swinging and suspension, perhaps the physical basis of it is the loss of breath. Temporary loss of breath with me produces excitement. Swinging at a height or a fall from a height would cause loss of breath; in a state of suspension the imagination would suggest the idea of falling and the attendant loss of breath. People suffering from lung disease are often erotically inclined, and anesthetics affect the breathing. Men also seem to like the idea of suspension, but from the active side. One man used to put his wife on a high swinging shelf when she displeased him, and my husband told me once he would like to suspend me to a crane we were watching at work, though I have never mentioned my own feeling on this point to him. Suspension is often mentioned in descriptions of torture. Beatrice Cenci was hung up by her hair and the recently murdered Queen of Korea was similarly treated. In Tolstoi's My Husband and I the girl says she would like her husband to hold her over a precipice. That pa.s.sage gave me great pleasure.[127]

"The idea of slipping off an inclined plane gives me the same sensation. I always feel it on seeing Michael Angelo's 'Night,' though the slipping look displeases me artistically. I remember that when I saw the 'Night' first I did feel excited and was annoyed, and it seemed to me it was the slipping-off look that gave it; but I think I am now less affected by that idea. Certain general ideas seem to excite one, but the particular forms under which they are presented lose their effect and have to be varied. The sentence mentioned in Tolstoi leaves me now quite cold, but if I came across the same idea elsewhere, expressed differently, then it would excite me. I am very capricious in the small things, and I think women are so more than men. The idea of slipping down a plank formerly produced excitement with me; now it has a less vivid effect, though the idea of loss of breath still produces excitement. The idea of the plank does not now affect me unless there is a certain amount of drapery. I think, therefore, that the feeling must come in part from the possibility of the drapery catching on some roughness of the surface of the slope, and so producing pressure on the s.e.xual organs. The effect is still produced, however, even without any clothing, if the slope is supposed to end in a deep drop, so that the idea of falling is strongly presented. I cannot recollect any early a.s.sociations that would tend to explain these feelings, except that jumping from a height, which I used frequently to do as a child, has a tendency to create excitement.

"With me, I may add, it is when I cannot express myself, or am trying to understand what I feel is beyond my grasp, that the first stage of s.e.xual excitement results. For instance, I never get excited in thinking over s.e.xual questions, because my ideas, correct or incorrect, are fairly clear and definite. But I often feel s.e.xually excited over that question of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, not because I can't decide between the two sets of evidence, but because I don't feel confident of having fully grasped the true significance of either. This feeling of want of power, mental or physical, always has the same effect. I feel it if my eyes are blindfolded or my hands tied. I don't like to see the Washington Post dance, in which the man stands behind the woman and holds her hands, on that account. If he held her wrists the feeling would be stronger, as her apparent helplessness would be increased. The nervous irritability that is caused by being under restraint seems to manifest itself in that way, while in the case of mental disability the excitement, which should flow down a mental channel, being checked, seems to take a physical course instead.

"Possibly this would help to explain m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic s.e.xual feelings. A physical cause working in the present would be preferable as an explanation to a psychological cause to be traced back through heredity to primitive conditions. I believe such feelings are very common in men as well as in women, only people do not care to admit them, as a rule."

The idea of being chained and fettered appears to be not uncommonly a.s.sociated with pleasurable s.e.xual feelings, for I have met with numerous cases in both men and women, and it not infrequently coexists with a tendency to inversion. It often arises at a very early age, and it is of considerable interest because we cannot account for its frequency by any chance a.s.sociation nor by any actual experiences. It would appear to be a purely psychic fantasia founded on the elementary physical fact that restraint of emotion, like suspension, produces a heightening of emotion. In any case the spontaneous character of such ideas and emotions in children of both s.e.xes suffices to show that they must possess a very definite organic basis.

In one of the histories (X) contained in Appendix B at the end of the present volume a lady describes how, as a child, she reveled in the idea of being chained and tortured, these ideas appearing to rise spontaneously. In another case, that of A. N. (for the most part reproduced in "Erotic Symbolism," in vol. v of these Studies), whose ideals are inverted and who is also affected by boot-fetichism, the idea of fetters is very attractive. In this case self-excitement was produced at a very early age, without the use of the hands, by strapping the legs together. We can, however, scarcely explain away the idea of fetters in this case as merely the result of an early a.s.sociation, for it may well be argued that the idea led to this method of self-excitement. "The mere idea of fetters," this subject writes, "produces the greatest excitement, and the sight of pictures representing such things is a temptation. The reading of books dealing with prison life, etc., anywhere where physical restraint is treated of, is a temptation. The temptation is aggravated when the picture represents the person booted. I suppose all this will have been intensified in my case by my practices as a child. But why should a child of 6 do such things unless it were a natural instinct in him? n.o.body showed me; I have never mentioned such things to anyone. I used to read historical romances for the pleasure of reading of people being put in prison, in fetters, and tortured, and always envied them. I feel now that I should like to undergo the sensation. If I could get anyone to humor me without losing their self-respect, I should jump at the opportunity. I have been most powerfully excited by visiting an old Australian convict-ship, where all the means of restraint are shown; I have been attracted to it night after night, wanting, but not daring to ask, to be allowed to have a practical experience."

Stcherbak, of Warsaw, has recorded a case which resembles that of A. N., but there was no inversion and the attraction of fetters was active rather than pa.s.sive; the subject desired to fetter and not to be fettered. It is possible that this difference is not fundamental, though Stcherbak regards the case as one of fetichism of s.a.d.i.s.tic origin ("Contribution a l'Etude des Perversions s.e.xuelles," Archives de Neurologie, Oct., 1907). The subject was a highly intelligent though neurasthenic youth, who from the age of 5 had been deeply interested in criminals who were fettered and sent to prison. The fate of Siberian prisoners was a frequent source of prolonged meditations. It was the fettering which alone interested him, and he spent much time in trying to imagine the feelings of the fettered prisoners, and he often imagined that he was himself a prisoner in fetters. (This seems to indicate that the impulse was in its origin m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic as much as s.a.d.i.s.tic, and better described as algolagnia than as sadism.) He delighted in stories and pictures of fettered persons. At the age of 15 the s.e.x of the fettered person became important and he was interested chiefly in fettered women. A new element also appeared; he was attracted to well-dressed women and especially to those wearing elegant shoes, delighting to imagine them fettered. He fastened his own feet together with chains, attempting to walk about his room in this condition, but experienced comparatively little pleasure in this way. At the age of 15 he met a lady 10 years older than himself and of great intelligence. As he began to know her more intimately she allowed him to take liberties with her; he fastened her hands behind her back, and this caused him a violent but delicious emotion which he had never experienced before. Next time he fastened her feet together as well as her hands; as he did so her shoes slightly touched his s.e.xual organs; this caused erection and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, accompanied by the most acute s.e.xual pleasure he had ever felt. He had no wish to see her naked or to uncover himself, and as long as this relationship lasted he had no abnormal thoughts at other times, or in connection with other people. He never m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed, and his s.e.xual dreams were of fettered men or women. Stcherbak discusses the case at length and considers that it is essentially an example of sadism, on the ground that the impulse of fettering was prompted by the desire to humiliate. There is, however, no evidence of any such desire, and, as a matter of fact, no humiliation was effected. The primary and fundamental element in this and similar cases is an almost abstract s.e.xual fascination in the idea of restraint, whether endured, inflicted, or merely witnessed or imagined; the feet become the chief focus of this fascination, and the basis on which a foot-fetichism or shoe-fetichism tends to arise, because restraint of the feet produces a more marked effect than restraint of the hands.

[120]

An attenuated and symbolic form of this impulse is seen in the desire to strangle birds with the object of stimulating or even satisfying s.e.xual desire. Prost.i.tutes are sometimes acquainted with men who bring a live pigeon with them to be strangled just before intercourse. Lanphear, of St. Louis (Alienist and Neurologist, May, 1907, p. 204) knew a woman, having learned masturbation in a convent school, who was only excited and not satisfied by coitus with her husband, and had to rise from bed, catch and caress a chicken, and finally wring its neck, whereupon o.r.g.a.s.m occurred.

[121]

Even young girls, however, may experience pleasure in the playful attempt to strangle. Thus a lady speaking of herself at the time of p.u.b.erty, when she was in the habit of masturbating, writes (s.e.xual-Probleme, Aug., 1909, p. 636): "I acquired a desire to seize people, especially girls, by the throat, and I enjoyed their way of screaming out."

[122]

G.o.dard observed that when animals are bled, or felled, as well as strangled, there is often abundant emission, rich in spermatozoa, but without erection, though accompanied by the same movements of the tail as during copulation. Robin (art. "Fecondation," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales), who quotes this observation, has the following remarks on this subject: "e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n occurring at the moment when the circulation, maintained artificially, stops is a fact of significance. It shows how congestive conditions-or inversely anemic conditions-const.i.tute organic states sufficient to set in movement the activity of the nerve-centers, as is the case for muscular contractility.... Everything leads us to believe that at the moment when the motor nervous action takes place the corresponding sensitive centers also come into play." It must be added that Minovici, in his elaborate study of death by hanging ("Etude sur la Pendaison," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1905, especially p. 791 et seq.), concludes that the turgescence of p.e.n.i.s and flow of spermatic fluid (sometimes only prostatic secretion) usually observed in these cases is purely pa.s.sive and generally, though not always, of post-mortem occurrence. There is, therefore, no s.e.xual pleasure in death by hanging, and persons who have been rescued at the last moment have experienced no voluptuous sensations. This was so even in the case, referred to by Minovici, of a man who hanged himself solely with the object of producing s.e.xual pleasure.

[123]

Eulenburg, s.e.xuale Neuropathie, p. 114.

[124]

Bernaldo de Quiros and Llanos Aguilaniedo (La Mala Vida en Madrid, p. 294) knew the case of a man who found pleasure in lying back on an inclined couch while a prost.i.tute behind him pulled at a slipknot until he was nearly suffocated; it was the only way in which he could attain s.e.xual gratification.

[125]

Arrest of respiration, it may be noted, may accompany strong s.e.xual excitement, as it may some other emotional states; one recalls pa.s.sages in the Arabian Nights in which we are told of ladies who at the sight of a very beautiful youth "felt their reason leave them, yearned to embrace the marvelous youth, and ceased breathing." Inhibited respiration is indeed, as Stevens shows ("Study of Attention," American Journal of Psychology, Oct., 1905), a characteristic of all active attention.

[126]

The exact part played by the respiration and even the circulation in const.i.tuting emotional states is still not clear, although various experiments have been made; see, e.g., Angell and Thompson, "A Study of the Relations between Certain Organic Processes and Consciousness," Psychological Review, January, 1899. A summary statement of the relations of the respiration and circulation to emotional states will be found in Kulpe's Outlines of Psychology, part i, section 2, -- 37.

[127]

The words alluded to by my correspondent are as follows: "I needed a struggle; what I needed was that feeling should guide life, and not that life should guide feeling. I wanted to go with him to the edge of an abyss and say: 'Here a step and I will throw myself over; and here a motion and I have gone to destruction'; and for him, turning pale, to seize me in his strong arms, hold me back over it till my heart grew cold within me, and then carry me away wherever he pleased." The whole of the pa.s.sage in which these lines occur is of considerable psychological interest. In one English translation the story is ent.i.tled Family Happiness.

V.

Pain, and Not Cruelty, the Essential Element in Sadism and Masochism-Pain Felt as Pleasure-Does the s.a.d.i.s.t Identify Himself with the Feelings of his Victim?-The s.a.d.i.s.t often a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t in Disguise-The Spectacle of Pain or Struggle as a s.e.xual Stimulant.

In the foregoing rapid survey of the great group of manifestations in which the s.e.xual emotions come into intimate relationship with pain, it has become fairly clear that the ordinary division between "sadism" and "masochism," convenient as these terms may be, has a very slight correspondence with facts. Sadism and masochism may be regarded as complementary emotional states; they cannot be regarded as opposed states.[128] Even De Sade himself, we have seen, can scarcely be regarded as a pure s.a.d.i.s.t. A pa.s.sage in one of his works expressing regret that s.a.d.i.s.tic feeling is rare among women, as well as his definite recognition of the fact that the suffering of pain may call forth voluptuous emotions, shows that he was not insensitive to the charm of m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic experience, and it is evident that a merely blood-thirsty vampire, sane or insane, could never have retained, as De Sade retained, the undying devotion of two women so superior in heart and intelligence as his wife and sister-in-law. Had De Sade possessed any wanton love of cruelty, it would have appeared during the days of the Revolution, when it was safer for a man to simulate blood-thirstiness, even if he did not feel it, than to show humanity. But De Sade distinguished himself at that time not merely by his general philanthropic activities, but by saving from the scaffold, at great risk to himself, those who had injured him. It is clear that, apart from the organically morbid twist by which he obtained s.e.xual satisfaction in his partner's pain,-a craving which was, for the most part, only gratified in imaginary visions developed to an inhuman extent under the influence of solitude,-De Sade was simply, to those who knew him, "un aimable mauvais sujet" gifted with exceptional intellectual powers. Unless we realize this we run the risk of confounding De Sade and his like with men of whom Judge Jeffreys was the sinister type.

It is necessary to emphasize this point because there can be no doubt that De Sade is really a typical instance of the group of perversions he represents, and when we understand that it is pain only, and not cruelty, that is the essential in this group of manifestations we begin to come nearer to their explanation. The m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t desires to experience pain, but he generally desires that it should be inflicted in love; the s.a.d.i.s.t desires to inflict pain, but in some cases, if not in most, he desires that it should be felt as love. How far De Sade consciously desired that the pain he sought to inflict should be felt as pleasure it may not now be possible to discover, except by indirect inference, but the confessions of s.a.d.i.s.ts show that such a desire is quite commonly essential.

I am indebted to a lady for the following communication on the foregoing aspect of this question: "I believe that, when a person takes pleasure in inflicting pain, he or she imagines himself or herself in the victim's place. This would account for the trans.m.u.tability of the two sets of feelings. This might be particularly so in the case of men. A man may not care to lower his dignity and vanity by putting himself in subjection to a woman, and he might fear she would feel contempt for him. By subduing her and subjecting her to pa.s.sive restraint he would preserve, even enhance, his own power and dignity, while at the same time obtaining a reflected pleasure from what he imagined she was feeling.

"I think that when I get pleasure out of the idea of subduing another it is this reflected pleasure I get. And if this is so one could thus feel more kindly to persons guilty of cruelty, which has. .h.i.therto always seemed the one unpardonable sin. Even criminals, if it is true that they are themselves often very insensitive, may, in the excitement of the moment, imagine that they are only inflicting trifling pain, as it would be to them, and that their victim's feelings are really pleasurable. The men I have known most given to inflicting pain are all particularly tender-hearted when their pa.s.sions are not in question. I cannot understand how (as in a case mentioned by Krafft-Ebing) a man could find any pleasure in binding a girl's hands except by imagining what he supposed were her feelings, though he would probably be unconscious that he put himself in her place.

"As a child I exercised a good deal of authority and influence over my youngest sister. It used to give me considerable pleasure to be somewhat arbitrary and severe with her, but, though I never admitted it to myself or to her, I knew instinctively that she took pleasure in my treatment. I used to give her childish lessons, over which I was very strict. I invented catechisms and chapters of the Bible in which elder sisters were exhorted to keep their juniors under discipline, and younger sisters were commanded to give implicit submission and obedience. Some parts of the Imitation lent themselves to this sort of parody, which never struck me as in any way irreverent. I used to give her arbitrary orders to 'exercise her in obedience,' as I told her, and I used to punish her if she disobeyed me. In all this I was, though only half consciously, guided through my own feelings as to what I should have liked in her place. For instance, I would make her put down her playthings and come and repeat a lesson; but, though she was in appearance having her will subdued to mine, I always chose a moment when I foresaw she would soon be tired of play. There was sufficient resistance to make restraint pleasurable, not enough to render it irksome. In my punishments I acted on a similar principle. I used to tie her hands behind her (like the man in Krafft-Ebing's case), but only for a few moments; I once shut her in a sort of cupboard-room, also for a very short time. On two or three occasions I completely undressed her, made her lie down on the bed, tied her hands and feet to the bedstead, and gave her a slight whipping. I did not wish to hurt her, only to inflict just enough pain to produce the desire to move or resist. My pleasure, a very keen one, came from the imagined excitement produced by the thwarting of this desire. (Are not your own words-that 'emotion' is 'motion in a more or less arrested form'-an epigrammatic summary of all this, though in a somewhat different connection?) I did not undress her from any connection of nakedness with s.e.xual feeling, but simply to enhance her feeling of helplessness and defenselessness under my hands. If I were a man and the woman I loved were refractory I should undress her before finding fault with her. A woman's dress symbolizes to her the protection civilization affords to the weak and gives her a fict.i.tious strength. Naked, she is face to face with primitive conditions, her weakness opposed to the man's power. Besides, the sense of shame at being naked under the eyes of a man who regarded her with displeasure would extend itself to her offense and give him a distinct, though perhaps unfair, advantage. I used the bristle side of a brush to chastise her with, as suggesting the greatest amount of severity with the least possible pain. In fact, my idea was to produce the maximum of emotion with the minimum of actual discomfort.

"You must not, however, suppose that at the time I reasoned about it at all in this way. I was very fond of her, and honestly believed I was doing it for her good. Had I realized then, as I do now, that my sole aim and object was physical pleasure, I believe my pleasure would have ceased; in any case I should not have felt justified in so treating her. Do I at all persuade you that my pleasure was a reflection of hers? That it was, I think, is clear from the fact that I only obtained it when she was willing to submit. Any real resistance or signs that I was overpa.s.sing the boundary of pleasure in her and urging on pain without excitement caused me to desist and my own pleasure to cease.

"I disclaim all altruism in my dealings with my sister. What occurs appears to me to be this: A situation appeals to one in imagination and one at once desires to transfer it to the realms of fact, being one's self one of the princ.i.p.al actors. If it is the pa.s.sive side which appeals to one, one would prefer to be pa.s.sive; but if that is not obtainable then one takes the active part as next best. In either case, however, it is the realization of the imagined situation that gives the pleasure, not the other person's pleasure as such, although his or her supposed pleasure creates the situation. If I were a man it would afford me great delight to hold a woman over a precipice, even if she disliked it. The idea appeals to me so strongly that I could not help imagining her pleasure, though I might know she got none, and even though she made every demonstration of fear and dislike of it. The situation so often imagined would have become a fact. It seems to me I have to say a thing is and is not in the same breath, but the confusion is only in the words.

"Let me give you another example: I have a tame pigeon which has a great affection for me. It sits on my shoulder and squats down with its wings out as birds do when courting, pecking me to make me take notice of it, and flickering its wings. I like to hold it so that it can't move its wings, because I imagine this increases its excitement. If it struggles, or seems to dislike my holding it, I let it go.

"In an early engagement (afterward broken off) my fiance used to take an evident pleasure in telling me how he would punish me if I disobeyed him when we were married. Though we had but little in common mentally, I was frequently struck with the similarity between his ideas and what my own had been in regard to my sister. He used his authority over me most capriciously. On one occasion he would not let me have any supper at a dance. On another he objected to my drinking black coffee. No day pa.s.sed without a command or prohibition on some trifling point. Whenever he saw, though, that I really disliked the interference or made any decided resistance, which happened very seldom, he let me have my own way at once. I cannot but think, when I recall the various circ.u.mstances, that he got a certain pleasure, as I had done with my sister, by an almost unconscious transference of my feelings to himself.

"I find, too, that, when I want a man to say or do to me what would cause me pleasure and he does not gratify me, I feel an intense longing to change places, to be the man and make him, as the woman, feel what I want to feel. Combined with this is a sense of irritation at not being gratified and a desire to punish him for my deprivation, for his stupidity in not saying or doing the right thing. I don't feel any anger at a man not caring for me, but only for not divining my feelings when he does care.