Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iii Part 11

"Now let me take another case: that of the man who used to experience pleasure when surprising a woman making water. (Cf. Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, Nov. 15, 1900.) Here the woman's embarra.s.sment appears to be a factor; but it seems to me there must be more than this, as confusion might be produced in so many other ways, as if she were found bathing, or undressed, though it might not be so acute. In reality, I fancy she would be checked in what she was doing, and that the man, perhaps unconsciously, imagined this check and a resulting excitement. That such a check does sometimes produce excitement I know from experience in traveling. If the bladder is not emptied before connection the pleasure is often more intense. Long before I understood these things at all I was struck by this quotation: 'Cette volupte que ressentent les bords de la mer, d'etre toujours pleins sans jamais deborder?' What would be the effect on a man of a sudden check at the supreme moment of s.e.xual pleasure? In reality, I suppose, pain, as the nerves would be at their full tension and unable to respond to any further stimulus; but, in imagination, one's nerves are not at their highest tension, and one imagines an increase or, at any rate, a prolongation of the pleasurable sensations. Something of all this, some vague reflection of the woman's possible sensations, seems to enter in the man's feelings in surprising the woman. In any case his pleasure in her confusion seems to me a reflection of her feelings, for the sense of shame and embarra.s.sment before a man is very exciting, and doubly so if one realizes that the man enjoys it. Ouida speaks of the 'delicious shame' experienced by 'Folle Farine.'

"It seems to me that whenever we are affected by another's emotion we do practically, though unconsciously, put ourselves in his place; but we are not always able to gauge accurately its intensity or to allow for differences between ourselves and another, and, in the case of pain, it is doubly difficult, as we can never recall the pain itself, but only the mental effects upon us of the pain. We cannot even recall the feeling of heat when we are cold, or vice versa, with any degree of vividness.

"A woman tells me of a man who frequently asks her if she would not like him to whip her. He is greatly disappointed when she says she gets no pleasure from it, as it would give him so much to do it. He cannot believe she experiences none, because he would enjoy being whipped so keenly if he were a girl. In another case the man thinks the woman must enjoy suffering, because he would get intense pleasure from inflicting it! Why is this, unless he would like it if a woman, and confuses in his mind the two personalities? All the men I know who are s.a.d.i.s.tically inclined admit that if they were women they would like to be harshly treated.

"Of course, I quite see there may be many complications; a man's natural anger at resistance may come in, and also simple, not s.e.xual, pleasure in acts of crushing, etc. I always feel inclined to crush anything very soft or a person with very pretty thick hair, to rub together two shining surfaces, two bits of satin, etc., apart from any feelings of excitement. My explanation only refers to that part of sadism which is s.e.xual enjoyment of another's pain."

That the foregoing view holds good as regards the traces of sadism found within the normal limits of s.e.xual emotion has already been stated. We may also believe that it is true in many genuinely perverse cases. In this connection reference may be made to an interesting case, reported by Moll, of a married lady 23 years of age, with p.r.o.nounced s.a.d.i.s.tic feelings. She belongs to a normal family and is herself apparently quite healthy, a tall and strongly built person, of feminine aspect, fond of music and dancing, of more than average intelligence. Her perverse inclinations commenced obscurely about the age of 14, when she began to be dominated by the thought of the pleasure it would be to strike and torture a man, but were not clearly defined until the age of 18, while at an early age she was fond of teasing and contradicting men, though she never experienced the same impulse toward women. She has never, except in a very slight degree, actually carried her ideas into practice, either with her husband or anyone else, being restrained, she says, by a feeling of shame. Coitus, though frequently practised, gives her no pleasure, seems, indeed, somewhat disgusting to her, and has never produced o.r.g.a.s.m. Her own ideas, also, though very pleasurable to her, have not produced definite s.e.xual excitement, except on two or three occasions, when they had been combined with the influence of alcohol. She frankly regrets that modern social relationship makes it impossible for her to find s.e.xual satisfaction in the only way in which such satisfaction would be possible to her.

Her chief delight would be to torture the man she was attached to in every possible way; to inflict physical pain and mental pain would give her equal pleasure. "I would bite him till the blood came, as I have often done to my husband. At that moment all sympathy for him would disappear." She frequently identifies her imaginary lover with a real man to whom she feels that she could be much more attracted than she is to her husband. She imagines to herself that she makes appointments with this lover, and that she reaches the rendezvous in her carriage, but only after her lover has been waiting for her a very long time in the cold. Then he must feel all her power, he must be her slave with no will of his own, and she would torture him with various implements as seemed good to her. She would use a rod, a riding-whip, bind him and chain him, and so on. But it is to be noted that she declares "this could, in general, only give me enjoyment if the man concerned endured such torture with a certain pleasure. He must, indeed, writhe with pain, but at the same time be in a state of s.e.xual ecstasy, followed by satisfaction." His pleasure must not, however, be so great that it overwhelms his pain; if it did, her own pleasure would vanish, and she has found witty her husband that when in kissing him her bites have given him much pleasure she has at once refrained.

It is further noteworthy that only the pain she herself had inflicted would give her pleasure. If the lover suffered pain from an accident or a wound she is convinced that she would be full of sympathy for him. Outside her special s.e.xual perversion she is sympathetic and very generous. (Moll, Kontrare s.e.xualempfindung, 1899, pp. 507-510.)

This case is interesting as an uncomplicated example of almost purely ideal sadism. It is interesting to note the feelings of the s.a.d.i.s.t subject toward her imaginary lover's feelings. It is probably significant that, while his pleasure is regarded as essential, his pain is regarded as even more essential, and the resulting apparent confusion may well be of the very essence of the whole phenomenon. The pleasure of the imaginary lover must be secured or the manifestation pa.s.ses out of the s.e.xual sphere; but his pleasure must, at all costs, be conciliated with his pain, for in the s.a.d.i.s.t's eyes the victim's pain has become a vicarious form of s.e.xual emotion. That, at the same time, the s.a.d.i.s.t desires to give pleasure rather than pain finds confirmation in the fact that he often insists on pleasure being feigned even though it is not felt. Some years ago a rich Jewish merchant became notorious for torturing girls with whom he had intercourse; his performances acquired for him the t.i.tle of "l'homme qui pique," and led to his prosecution. It was his custom to spend some hours in sticking pins into various parts of the girl's body, but it was essential that she should wear a smiling face throughout the proceedings. (Hamon, La France Sociale et Politique, 1891, p. 445 et seq.)

We have thus to recognize that sadism by no means involves any love of inflicting pain outside the sphere of s.e.xual emotion, and is even compatible with a high degree of general tender-heartedness. We have also to recognize that even within the s.e.xual sphere the s.a.d.i.s.t by no means wishes to exclude the victim's pleasure, and may even regard that pleasure as essential to his own satisfaction. We have, further, to recognize that, in view of the close connection between sadism and masochism, it is highly probable that in some cases the s.a.d.i.s.t is really a disguised m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t and enjoys his victim's pain because he identifies himself with that pain.

But there is a further group of cases, and a very important group, on account of the light it throws on the essential nature of these phenomena, and that is the group in which the thought or the spectacle of pain acts as a s.e.xual stimulant, without the subject identifying himself clearly either with the inflicter or the sufferer of the pain. Such cases are sometimes cla.s.sed as s.a.d.i.s.tic; but this is incorrect, for they might just as truly be called m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic. The term algolagnia might properly be applied to them (and Eulenburg now cla.s.ses them as "ideal algolagnia"), for they reveal an undifferentiated connection between s.e.xual excitement and pain not developed into either active or pa.s.sive partic.i.p.ation. Such feelings may arise sporadically in persons in whom no s.a.d.i.s.tic or m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic perversion can be said to exist, though they usually appear in individuals of neurotic temperament. Casanova describes an instance of this a.s.sociation which came immediately under his own eyes at the torture and execution of Damiens in 1757.[129] W. G. Stearns knew a man (having m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed and had intercourse to excess) who desired to see his wife delivered of a child, and finally became impotent without this idea. He witnessed many deliveries and especially obtained voluptuous gratification at the delivery of a primipara when the suffering was greatest.[130] A very trifling episode may, however, suffice. In one case known to me a man, neither s.a.d.i.s.tic nor m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic in his tendencies, when sitting looking out of his window saw a spider come out of its hole to capture and infold a fly which had just been caught in its web; as he watched the process he became conscious of a powerful erection, an occurrence which had never taken place under such circ.u.mstances before.[131] Under favoring conditions some incident of this kind at an early age may exert a decisive influence on the s.e.xual life. Tambroni, of Ferrara, records the case of a boy of 11 who first felt voluptuous emotions on seeing in an ill.u.s.trated journal the picture of a man trampling on his daughter; ever afterward he was obliged to evoke this image in masturbation or coitus.[132] An instructive case has been recorded by Fere. In this case a lady of neurotic heredity on one side, and herself liable to hysteria, experienced her first s.e.xual crisis at the age of 13, not long after menstruation had become established, and when she had just recovered from an attack of ch.o.r.ea. Her old nurse, who had remained in the service of the family, had a ne'er-do-well son who had disappeared for some years and had just now suddenly returned and thrown himself, crying and sobbing, at the knees of his mother, who thrust him away. The young girl accidentally witnessed this scene. The cries and the sobs provoked in her a s.e.xual excitement she had never experienced before. She rushed away in surprise to the next room, where, however, she could still hear the sobs, and soon she was overcome by a s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m. She was much troubled at this occurrence, and at the attraction which she now experienced for a man she had never seen before and whom she had always looked upon as a worthless vagabond. Shortly afterward she had an erotic dream concerning a man who sobbed at her knees. Later she again saw the nurse's son, but was agreeably surprised to find that, though a good-looking youth, he no longer caused her any emotion, and he disappeared from her mind, though the erotic dreams concerning an unknown sobbing man still occurred rather frequently. During the next ten years she suffered from various disorders of more or less hysterical character, and, although not disinclined to the idea of marriage, she refused all offers, for no man attracted her. At the age of 23, when staying in the Pyrenees, she made an excursion into Spain, and was present at a bull-fight. She was greatly excited by the charges of the bull, especially when the charge was suddenly arrested.[133] She felt no interest in any of the men who took part in the performance or were present; no man was occupying her imagination. But she experienced s.e.xual sensations and accompanying general exhilaration, which were highly agreeable. After one bull had charged successively several times the o.r.g.a.s.m took place. She considered the whole performance barbarous, but could not resist the desire to be present at subsequent bull-fights, a desire several times gratified, always with the same results, which were often afterward repeated in dreams. From that time she began to take an interest in horse-races, which she now found produced the same effect, though not to the same degree, especially when there was a fall. She subsequently married, but never experienced s.e.xual satisfaction except under these abnormal circ.u.mstances or in dreams.[134]

As the foregoing case indicates, horses, and especially running or struggling horses, sometimes have the same effect in stimulating the s.e.xual emotions, especially on persons predisposed by neurotic heredity, as we have found that the spectacle of pain possesses. A medical correspondent in New Zealand tells me of a patient of his own, a young carpenter of 26, not in good health, who had never m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.ed or had connection with a woman. He lived in a room overlooking a livery-stable yard where was kept, among other animals, a large black horse. Nearly every night he had a dream in which he seemed to be pursuing this large black horse, and when he caught it, which he invariably did, there was a copious emission. A holiday in the country and tonic treatment dispelled the dreams and reduced the nocturnal emissions to normal frequency. Fere has recorded a case of a boy, of neuropathic heredity, who, when 14 years of age, was one day about to practise mutual masturbation with another boy of his own age. They were seated on a hillside overlooking a steep road, and at this moment a heavy wagon came up the road drawn by four horses, which struggled painfully up, encouraged by the cries and the whip of the driver. This sight increased the boy's s.e.xual excitement, which reached its climax when one of the horses suddenly fell. He had never before experienced such intense excitement, and always afterward a similar spectacle of struggling horses produced a similar effect.[135]

In this connection reference may be made to the frequency with which dreams of struggling horses occur in connection with disturbance or disease of the heart. In such cases it is clear that the struggling horses seem to dream-consciousness to embody and explain the panting struggles to which the heart is subjected. They become, as it were, a visual symbol of the cardiac oppression. In much the same way, it would appear, under the influence of s.e.xual excitement, in which cardiac disturbance is one of the chief const.i.tuent elements, the struggling horses became a s.e.xual symbol, and, having attained that position, they are henceforth alone adequate to produce s.e.xual excitement.

[128]

This opinion appears to be in harmony with the conclusions of Eulenburg, who has devoted special study to De Sade, and points out that the ordinary conception of "sadism" is much too narrow. (Eulenburg, s.e.xuale Neuropathie, 1895, p. 110 et seq.)

[129]

Casanova, Memoires, vol. viii, pp. 74-76. Goncourt in his Journal, under date of April, 1862 (vol. ii, p. 27), tells a story of an Englishman who engaged a room overlooking a scaffold where a murderer was to be hanged, proposing to take a woman with him and to avail himself of the excitement aroused by the scene. This scheme was frustrated by the remission of the death penalty.

[130]

Alienist and Neurologist, May, 1907, p. 204.

[131]

This spectacle of the spider and the fly seems indeed to be specially apt to exert a s.e.xual influence. I have heard of a precisely similar case in a man of intellectual distinction, and another in a lady who acknowledged to a feeling of "exquisite pleasure," on one occasion, at the mere sound of the death agony of a fly in a spider's web.

[132]

Quoted by Obici and Marchesini, Le Amicizie di Collegio, p. 245.

[133]

It may be noted that we have already several times encountered this increase of excitement produced by arrest of movement. The effect is produced whether the arrest is witnessed or is actually experienced. "A man can increase a woman's excitement," a lady writes, "by forbidding her to respond in any way to his caresses. It is impossible to remain quite pa.s.sive for more than a few seconds, but, during these few, excitement is considerably augmented." In a similar way I have been told of a man of brilliant intellectual ability who very seldom has connection with a woman without getting her to compress with her hand the base of the urethral ca.n.a.l to such an extent as to impede the pa.s.sage of the s.e.m.e.n. On withdrawal of the hand copious emission occurs, but it is the shock of the arrest caused by the constriction which gives him supreme pleasure. He has practised this method for years without evil results.

[134]

Fere, "Le Sadisme aux Courses de Taureaux," Revue de medecine, August, 1900.

[135]

Fere, L'Instinct s.e.xuel, p. 255.

VI.

Why is Pain a s.e.xual Stimulant?-It is the Most Effective Method of Arousing Emotion-Anger and Fear the Most Powerful Emotions-Their Biological Significance in Courtship-Their General and Special Effects in Stimulating the Organism-Grief as a s.e.xual Stimulant-The Physiological Mechanism of Fatigue Renders Pain Pleasurable.

We have seen that the distinction between "sadism" and "masochism" cannot be maintained; not only was even De Sade himself something of a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t and Sacher-Masoch something of a s.a.d.i.s.t, but between these two extreme groups of phenomena there is a central group in which the algolagnia is neither active nor pa.s.sive. "Sadism" and "masochism" are simply convenient clinical terms for cla.s.ses of manifestations which quite commonly occur in the same person. We have further found that-as might have been antic.i.p.ated in view of the foregoing result-it is scarcely correct to use the word "cruelty" in connection with the phenomena we have been considering. The persons who experience these impulses usually show no love of cruelty outside the sphere of s.e.xual emotion; they may even be very intolerant of cruelty. Even when their s.e.xual impulses come into play they may still desire to secure the pleasure of the persons who arouse their s.e.xual emotions, even though it may not be often true that those who desire to inflict pain at these moments identify themselves with the feelings of those on whom they inflict it. We have thus seen that when we take a comprehensive survey of all these phenomena a somewhat general formula will alone cover them. Our conclusion so far must be that under certain abnormal circ.u.mstances pain, more especially the mental representation of pain, acts as a powerful s.e.xual stimulant.

The reader, however, who has followed the discussion to this point will be prepared to take the next and final step in our discussion and to reach a more definite conclusion. The question naturally arises: By what process does pain or its mental representation thus act as a s.e.xual stimulant? The answer has over and over again been suggested by the facts brought forward in this study. Pain acts as a s.e.xual stimulant because it is the most powerful of all methods for arousing emotion.

The two emotions most intimately a.s.sociated with pain are anger and fear. The more masculine and sthenic emotion of anger, the more pa.s.sive and asthenic emotion of fear, are the fundamental animal emotions through which, on the psychic side, the process of natural selection largely works. Every animal in some degree owes its survival to the emotional reaction of anger against weaker rivals, to the emotional reaction of fear against stronger rivals. To this cause we owe it that these two emotions are so powerfully and deeply rooted in the whole zoological series to which we belong. But anger and fear are not less fundamental in the s.e.xual life. Courtship on the male's part is largely a display of combativity, and even the very gestures by which the male seeks to appeal to the female are often those gestures of angry hostility by which he seeks to intimidate enemies. On the female's part courtship is a skillful manipulation of her own fears, and, as we have seen elsewhere, when studying the phenomena of modesty, that fundamental att.i.tude of the female in courtship is nothing but an agglomeration of fears.

The biological significance of the emotions is now well recognized. "In general," remarks one of the shrewdest writers on animal psychology, "we may say that emotional states are, under natural conditions, closely a.s.sociated with behavior of biological value-with tendencies that are beneficial in self-preservation and race preservation-with actions that promote survival, and especially with the behavior which cl.u.s.ters round the pairing and parental instincts. The value of the emotions in animals is that they are an indirect means of furthering survival." (Lloyd Morgan, Animal Behavior, p. 293.) Emotional apt.i.tudes persist not only by virtue of the fact that they are still beneficial, but because they once were; that is to say, they may exist as survivals. In this connection I may quote from a suggestive paper on "Teasing and Bullying," by F. L. Burk; at the conclusion of this study, which is founded on a large body of data concerning American children, the author asks: "Accepting for the moment the theories of Spencer and Ribot upon the transmission of rudimentary instincts, is it possible that the movements which comprise the chief elements of bullying, teasing, and the egotistic impulses in general of the cla.s.ses cited-pursuing, throwing down, punching, striking, throwing missiles, etc.-are, from the standpoint of consciousness, broken neurological fragments, which are parts of old chains of activity involved in the pursuit, combat, capture, torture, and killing of men and enemies?... Is not this hypothesis of transmitted fragments of instincts in accord with the strangely anomalous fact that children are at one moment seemingly cruel and at the next affectionate and kind, vibrating, as it were, between two worlds, egotistic and altruistic, without conscious sense of incongruity?" (F. L. Burk, "Teasing and Bullying," Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1897.)

The primitive connection of the special emotions of anger and fear with the s.e.xual impulse has been well expressed by Colin Scott in his remarkable study of "s.e.x and Art": "If the higher forms of courting are based on combat, among the males at least anger must be intimately a.s.sociated with love. And below both of these lies the possibility of fear. In combat the animal is defeated who is first afraid. Compet.i.tive exhibition of prowess will inspire the less able birds with a deterring fear. Young grouse and woodc.o.c.k do not enter the lists with the older birds, and sing very quietly. It is the same with the very oldest birds. Audubon says that the old maids and bachelors of the Canada goose move off by themselves during the courting of the younger birds. In order to succeed in love, fear must be overcome in the male as well as in the female. Courage is the essential male virtue, love is its outcome and reward. The strutting, crowing, dancing, and singing of male birds and the preliminary movements generally of animals must gorge the neuromotor and muscular systems with blood and put them in better fighting trim. The effects of this upon the feelings of the animal himself must be very great. Hereditary tendencies swell his heart. He has 'the joy that warriors feel.' He becomes regardless of danger, and sometimes almost oblivious of his surroundings. This intense pa.s.sionateness must react powerfully on the whole system, and more particularly on those parts which are capable, such as the brain, of using up a great surplus of blood, and on the naturally erethic functions of s.e.x. The flood of anger or fighting instinct is drained off by the s.e.xual desires, the antipathy of the female is overcome, and s.e.xual union successfully ensues.... Courting and combat shade into one another, courting tending to take the place of the more basal form of combat. The pa.s.sions which thus come to be a.s.sociated with love are those of fear and anger, both of which, by arousing the whole nature and stimulating the nutritive sources from which they flow, come to increase the force of the s.e.xual pa.s.sion to which they lead up and in which they culminate and are absorbed," (Colin Scott, "s.e.x and Art," American Journal of Psychology, vol. vii, No. 2, pp. 170 and 215.)

It must be remembered that fear is an element liable to arise in all courtship on one side or the other. It is usually on the side of the female, but not invariably. Among spiders, for instance, it is usually the male who feels fear, and very reasonably, for he is much weaker than the female. "Courtship by the male spider" says T. H. Montgomery ("The Courtship of Araneads," American Naturalist, March, 1910, p. 166), "results from a combination of the state of desire for and fear of the female." It is by his movements of fear that he advertises himself to the female as a male, and it is by the same movements that he is unconsciously impelled to display prominently his own ornamentation.

We are thus brought to those essential facts of primitive courtship with which we started. But we are now able to understand more clearly how it is that alien emotional states became abnormally a.s.sociated with the s.e.xual life. Normally the s.e.xual impulse is sufficiently reinforced by the ordinary active energies of the organism which courtship itself arouses, energies which, while they may be ultimately in part founded on anger and fear, rarely allow these emotions to be otherwise than latent. Motion, it may be said, is more prominent than emotion.

Even normally a stimulant to emotional activities is pleasurable, just as motion itself is pleasurable. It may even be useful, as was noted long ago by Erasmus Darwin; he tells of a friend of his who, when painfully fatigued by riding, would call up ideas arousing indignation, and thus relieve the fatigue, the indignation, as Darwin pointed out, increasing muscular activity.[136]

It is owing to this stimulating action that discomfort, even pain, may be welcomed on account of the emotional waves they call up, because they "lash into movement the dreary calm of the sea's soul," and produce that alternation of pain and enjoyment for which Faust longed. Groos, who recalls this pa.s.sage in his very thorough and profound discussion of the region wherein tragedy has its psychological roots, points out that it is the overwhelming might of the storm itself, and not the peace of calm after the storm, which appeals to us. In the same way, he observes, even surprise and shock may also be pleasurable, and fear, though the most depressing of emotional states, by virtue of the joy produced by strong stimuli is felt as attractive; we not only experience an impulse of pleasure in dominating our environment, but also have pleasure in being dominated and rendered helpless by a higher power.[137] Hirn, again, in his work on the origins of art, has an interesting chapter on "The Enjoyment of Pain," a phenomenon which he explains by its resultant reactions in increase of outward activity, of motor excitement. Anger, he observes elsewhere, is "in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion. Fear, which in its initial stage is paralyzing and depressing, often changes in time when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction.... Anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought."[138]

In the ordinary healthy organism, however, although the stimulants of strong emotion may be vaguely pleasurable, they do not have more than a general action on the s.e.xual sphere, nor are they required for the due action of the s.e.xual mechanism. But in a slightly abnormal organism-whether the anomaly is due to a congenital neuropathic condition, or to a possibly acquired neurasthenic condition, or merely to the physiological inadequacy of childhood or old age-the balance of nervous energy is less favorable for the adequate play of the ordinary energies in courtship. The s.e.xual impulse is itself usually weaker, even when, as often happens, its irritability a.s.sumes the fallacious appearance of strength. It has become unusually sensitive to unusual stimuli and also, it is possible,-perhaps as a result of those conditions,-more liable to atavistic manifestations. An organism in this state becomes peculiarly apt to seize on the automatic sources of energy generated by emotion. The parched s.e.xual instinct greedily drinks up and absorbs the force it obtains by applying abnormal stimuli to its emotional apparatus. It becomes largely, if not solely, dependent on the energy thus secured. The abnormal organism in this respect may become as dependent on anger or fear, and for the same reason, as in other respects it may become dependent on alcohol.

We see the process very well ill.u.s.trated by the occasional action of the emotion of anger. In animals the connection between love and anger is so close that even normally, as Groos points out, in some birds the sight of an enemy may call out the gestures of courtship.[139] As Krafft-Ebing remarks, both love and anger "seek their object, try to possess themselves of it, and naturally exhaust themselves in a physical effect on it; both throw the psych.o.m.otor sphere into the most intense excitement, and by means of this excitement reach their normal expression."[140] Fere has well remarked that the impatience of desire may itself be regarded as a true state of anger, and Stanley Hall, in his admirable study of anger, notes that "erethism of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s or s.e.xual parts" was among the physical manifestations of anger occurring in some of his cases, and in one case a seminal emission accompanied every violent outburst.[141] Thus it is that anger may be used to reinforce a weak s.e.xual impulse, and cases have been recorded in which coitus could only be performed when the man had succeeded in working himself up into an artificial state of anger.[142] On the other hand, Fere has recorded a case in which the s.e.xual excitement accompanying delayed o.r.g.a.s.m was always transformed into anger, though without any true s.a.d.i.s.tic manifestations.[143]

As a not unexpected complementary phenomenon to this connection of anger and s.e.xual emotion in the male, it is sometimes found that the spectacle of masculine anger excites pleasurable emotion in women. The case has been recorded of a woman who delighted in arousing anger for the pleasure it gave her, and who advised another woman to follow her example and excite her husband's anger, as nothing was so enjoyable as to see a man in a fury of rage[144]; Lombroso mentions a woman who was mostly frigid, but experienced s.e.xual feelings when she heard anyone swearing; and a medical friend tells me of a lady considerably past middle age who experienced s.e.xual erethism after listening to a heated argument between her husband and a friend on religious topics. The case has also been recorded of a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic man who found s.e.xual satisfaction in masturbating while a woman, by his instructions, addressed him in the lowest possible terms of abuse.[145] Such a feeling doubtless underlies that delight in teasing men which is so common among young women. Stanley Hall, referring to the almost morbid dread of witnessing manifestations of anger felt by many women, remarks: "In animals, females are often described as watching with complacency the conflict of rival males for their possession, and it seems probable that the intense horror of this state, which many females report, is a.s.sociated more or less unconsciously with the s.e.xual rage which has followed it."[146] The dread may well be felt at least as much as regards the emotional state in themselves as in the males.

Even when the emotion aroused is disgust it may still act as a s.e.xual stimulant. Stcherbak has narrated the instructive case of a very intelligent and elegant married lady of rather delicate const.i.tution, an artist of some talent, who never experienced any pleasure in s.e.xual intercourse, but ever since s.e.xual feelings first began to be manifested at all (at the age of 18) has only experienced them in relation to disgusting things. Anything that is repulsive, like vomit, etc., causes vague but pleasurable feelings which she gradually came to recognize as s.e.xual. The sight of a crushed frog will cause very definite s.e.xual sensations. She has had many admirers and she has observed that a declaration of love by a disagreeable or even repulsive man s.e.xually excites her, though she has no desire for s.e.xual intercourse with him.[147]

After all that has gone before it is easy to see how the emotion of fear may act in an a.n.a.logous manner to anger. Just as anger may reinforce the active forms of the s.e.xual impulse to which it is allied, so fear may reinforce the pa.s.sive forms of that impulse. The following observations, written by a lady, very well show how we may thus explain the s.e.xual attractiveness of whipping: "The fascination of whipping, which has always greatly puzzled me, seems to be a sort of hankering after the stimulus of fear. In a wild state animals live in constant fear. In civilized life one but rarely feels it. A woman's pleasure in being afraid of a husband or lover may be an equivalent of a man's love of adventure; and the fear of children for their parents may be the dawning of the love of adventure. In a woman this desire of adventure receives a serious check when she begins to realize what she might be subjected to by a man if she gratified it. Excessive fear is demoralizing, but it seems to me that the idea of being whipped gives a sense of fear which is not excessive. It is almost the only kind of pain (physical) which is inflicted on children or women by persons whom they can love and trust, and with a moral object. Any other kind of bodily ill treatment suggests malignity and may rouse resentment, and, in extreme cases, an excess of fear which goes beyond the limits of pleasurable excitement. Given a hereditary feeling of this sort, I think it is helped by the want of actual experience, as the a.s.sociation with excitement is freed from the idea of pain as such." In his very valuable and suggestive study of fears, Stanley Hall, while recognizing the evil of excessive fear, has emphasized the emotional and even the intellectual benefits of fear, and the great part played by fear in the evolution of the race as "the rudimentary organ on the full development and subsequent reduction of which many of the best things in the soul are dependent." "Fears that paralyze some brains," he remarks, "are a good tonic for others. In some form and degree all need it always. Without the fear apparatus in us, what a wealth of motive would be lost!"[148]

It is on the basis of this tonic influence of fear that in some morbidly sensitive natures fear acts as a s.e.xual stimulant. Cullerre has brought together a number of cases in both men and women, mostly neurasthenic, in which fits of extreme anxiety and dread, sometimes of a religious character and often in highly moral people, terminate in spontaneous o.r.g.a.s.m or in masturbation.[149]

Professor Gurlitt mentions that his first full s.e.xual emission took place in cla.s.s at school, when he was absorbed in writing out the life of Aristides and very anxious lest he should not be able to complete it within the set time.[150]

Dread and anxiety not only excite s.e.xual emotion, but in the more extreme morbid cases they may suppress and replace it. Terror, say Fliess, is trans.m.u.ted coitus, and Freud believes that the neurosis of anxiety always has a s.e.xual cause, while Ballet, Capgras, Lowenfeld, and others, though not regarding a s.e.xual traumatism as the only cause, still regard it as frequent.

It is worthy of note that not only fear, but even so depressing an emotion as grief, may act as a s.e.xual stimulant, more especially in women. This fact is not sufficiently recognized, though probably everyone can recall instances from his personal knowledge, such cases being generally regarded as inexplicable. It is, however, not more surprising that grief should be transformed into s.e.xual emotion than that (as in a case recorded by Stanley Hall) it should manifest itself as anger. In any case we have to bear in mind the frequency of this psychological transformation in the presence of cases which might otherwise seem to call for a cynical interpretation.

The case has been recorded of an English lady of good social position who fell in love with an undertaker at her father's funeral and insisted on marrying him. It is known that some men have been so abnormally excited by the funeral trappings of death that only in such surroundings have they been able to effect coitus. A case has been recorded of a physician of unimpeachable morality who was unable to attend funerals, even of his own relatives, on account of the s.e.xual excitement thus aroused. Funerals, tragedies at the theater, pictures of martyrdom, scenes of execution, and trials at the law-courts have been grouped together as arousing pleasure in many people, especially women. (C. F. von Schlichtegroll, Sacher-Masoch und der Masochismus, pp. 30-31.) Wakes and similar festivals may here find their psychological basis, and funerals are an unquestionable source of enjoyment among some people, especially of so-called "Celtic" race. The stimulating reaction after funerals is well known to many, and Leigh Hunt refers to this (in his Autobiography) as affecting the sincerely devoted friends who had just cremated Sh.e.l.ley.

It may well be, as Kiernan has argued (Alienist and Neurologist, 1891; ibid., 1902, p. 263), that in the disturbance of emotional balance caused by grief the primitive instincts become peculiarly apt to respond to stimulus, and that in the aboulia of grief the mind is specially liable to become the prey to obsessions.

"When my child died at the age of 6 months," a correspondent writes, "I had a violent paroxysm of weeping and for some days I could not eat. When I kissed the dead boy for the last time (I had never seen a corpse before) I felt I had reached the depths of misery and could never smile or have any deep emotions again. Yet that night, though my thoughts had not strayed to s.e.xual subjects since the child's death, I had a violent erection. I felt ashamed to desire carnal things when my dead child was still in the house, and explained to my wife. She was sympathetic, for her idea was that our common grief had intensified my love for her. I feel convinced, however, that my desire was the result of a stimulus propagated to the s.e.xual centers from the centers affected by my grief, the transference of my emotion from one set of nerves to another. I do not perhaps express my meaning clearly."

How far the emotional influence of grief entered into the following episode it is impossible to say, for here it is probable that we are mainly concerned with one of those almost irresistible impulses by which adolescent girls are sometimes overcome. The narrative is from the lips of a reliable witness, a railway guard, who, some thirty years ago, when a youth of 18, in Cornwall, lodged with a man and woman who had a daughter of his own age. Some months later, when requiring a night's lodging, he called at the house, and was greeted warmly by the woman, who told him her husband had just died and that she and her daughter were very nervous and would be glad if he would stay the night, but that as the corpse occupied the other bedroom he would have to share their bed ("We don't think very much of that among us," my informant added). He agreed, and went to bed, and when, a little later, the two women also came to bed, the girl, at her own suggestion, lay next to the youth. Nothing happened during the night, but in the morning, when the mother went down to light the fire, the daughter immediately threw off the bedclothes, exposing her naked person, and before the youth had realized what was happening she had drawn him over on to her. He was so utterly surprised that nothing whatever happened, but the incident made a life-long impression on him.

In this connection reference may be made to the story of the Ephesian matron in Petronius; the story of the widow, overcome by grief, who watches by her husband's tomb, and very speedily falls into the arms of the soldier who is on guard. This story, in very various forms, is found in China and India, and has occurred repeatedly in European literature during the last two thousand years. The history of the wanderings of this story has been told by Grisebach (Eduard Grisebach, Die Treulose Witwe, third edition, 1877). It is not probable, however, that all the stories of this type are actually related; in any case it would seem that their vitality is due to the fact that they have been found to show a real correspondence to life; one may note, for instance, the curious tone of personal emotion with which George Chapman treated this theme in his play, Widow's Tears.

It may be added that, in explaining the resort to pain as an emotional stimulus, we have to take into account not only the biological and psychological considerations here brought forward, but also the abnormal physiological conditions under which stimuli usually felt as painful come specially to possess a s.e.xually exciting influence. The neurasthenic and neuropathic states may be regarded as conditions of more or less permanent fatigue. It is true that under the conditions we are considering there may be an extreme sensitiveness to stimuli not usually felt as of s.e.xual character, a kind of hyperesthesia; but hyperesthesia, it has well been said, is nothing but the beginning of anesthesia.[151] Sergeant Bertrand, the cla.s.sical example of necrophily,[152] began to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e at the age of 9, stimulating a s.e.xual impulse which may have been congenitally feeble by accompanying thoughts of ill-treating women. It was not till subsequently that he began to imagine that the women were corpses. The s.a.d.i.s.tic thoughts were only incidents in the emotional evolution, and the real object throughout was to procure strong emotion and not to inflict cruelty. Some observations of Fere's as to the conditions which influence the amount of muscular work accomplished with the ergograph are instructive from the present point of view: "Although sensibility diminishes in the course of fatigue," Fere found that "there are periods during which the excitability increases before it disappears. As fatigue increases, the perception of the intercurrent excitation is r.e.t.a.r.ded; an odor is perceived as exciting before it is perceived as a differentiated sensation; the most fetid odors arouse feelings of well-being before being perceived as odors, and their painful quality only appears afterward, or is not noticed at all." And after recording a series of results with the ergograph obtained under the stimulus of unpleasant odors he remarks: "We are thus struck by two facts: the diminution of work during painful excitation, and its increase when the excitation has ceased. When the effects following the excitation have disappeared the diminution is more rapid than in the ordinary state. When the fatigue is manifested by a notable diminution, if the same excitation is brought into action again, no diminution is produced, but a more or less durable increase, exactly as though there had been an agreeable excitation. Moreover, the stimulus which appears painful in a state of repose loses that painful character either partially or completely when acting on the same subject in a more and more fatigued state." Fere defines a painful stimulus as a strong excitation which causes displays of energy which the will cannot utilize; when, as a result of diminished sensibility, the excitants are attenuated, the will can utilize them, and so there is no pain.[153] These experiments had no reference to the s.e.xual instinct, but it will be seen at once that they have an extremely significant bearing on the subject before us, for they show us the mechanism of the process by which in an abnormal organism pain becomes a s.e.xual stimulant.