Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct: A medico-legal studyKrafft-Ebing, R. von (Richard)
Science
Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct: A medico-legal study
Krafft-Ebing, R. von (Richard)
Paraphilias
The patient’s exterior—his plagiocephalic head; his large, prominent
ears; the deficient innervation of the right facialis about the mouth;
the neuropathic expression of the eyes—indicates a degenerate,
neuropathic individual.
Z. is tall, of powerful frame, and, in all respects, of masculine
appearance. Pelvis masculine; testicles well developed; penis
remarkably large; mons veneris with abundant hair. The right testicle
hangs much lower than the left; the cremasteric reflex is weak on both
sides. The patient is below the average intellectually. He feels his
deficiency, complains of his indolence, and asks to have his will
strengthened. His awkward, embarrassed manner, timid glances, and
relaxed attitude, point to masturbation. The patient confesses that
from his seventh year, until a year and a half ago, he practiced it,
years at a time, from eight to ten times daily. Until a few years ago,
when he became neurasthenic (cephalic pressure, loss of mental power,
spinal irritation, etc.), he says he always found great sensual
pleasure in it. Since then this had been lost, and the desire to
masturbate had disappeared. He had constantly grown more bashful and
indolent, less energetic, and more cowardly and apprehensive. He had
lost interest in everything, and did his business only from a sense of
duty, feeling very low-spirited. He had never thought of coitus, and,
from his stand-point as an onanist, he could not understand how others
could find pleasure in it.
Investigations in the direction of contrary sexual instinct gave a
negative result. He says he never was drawn toward persons of his own
sex; he rather thinks that he has now and then had a weak inclination
for females. He asserts that he came to masturbate independently. In
his thirteenth year he first noticed ejaculations as a result of
masturbatic manipulations.
It was only after long persuasion that Z. consented to entirely unveil
his vita sexualis. As his statements, which follow, show, he may be
classified as a case of ideal masochism, with rudimentary sadism. The
patient distinctly remembers that, at the age of six, without any
cause, he had “ideas of violence.” He was compelled to imagine that a
servant-girl spread his legs apart and showed his genitals to another;
that she tried to throw him into cold or hot water, in order to cause
him pain. These “ideas of violence” were attended with lustful
feeling, and became the cause of masturbatic manipulations. Later the
patient called them up voluntarily, in order to incite himself to
masturbation. They also played a part in his dreams; but they never
induced pollution, apparently because the patient masturbated
excessively during the day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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