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
I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Fritsch, of Vienna, for further
facts concerning this handkerchief-fetichist, who was again arrested in
August, 1890, in the act of taking a handkerchief from a lady’s pocket:—
On searching his house, four hundred and forty-six ladies’
handkerchiefs were found. He stated that he had burned besides two
bundles of them. In the course of the examination, it was further
shown that X. had been punished with imprisonment for fourteen days,
in 1883, for stealing twenty-seven handkerchiefs, and again with
imprisonment for three weeks, in 1886, for a similar crime. Concerning
his relatives, nothing more could be learned than that his father was
subject to congestions, and that a brother’s daughter was weak-minded
and constitutionally neuropathic. X. had married in 1879, and embarked
in an independent business, and in 1881 he made an assignment. Soon
after that, his wife, who could not live with him, and with whom he
did not perform his marital duty (denied by X.), demanded a divorce.
Thereafter he lived as assistant baker to his brother. He complained
bitterly of an impulse for ladies’ handkerchiefs, but when opportunity
offered, unfortunately, he could not resist it. In the act he
experienced a feeling of delight, and felt as if some one were forcing
him to it. Sometimes he could restrain himself, but, when the lady was
pleasing to him, he yielded to the first impulse. He would be wet with
sweat, partly from fear of detection, and partly on account of the
impulse to perform the act. He says he has been sensually excited, by
the sight of handkerchiefs belonging to women, since puberty. He
cannot recall the exact circumstances of this fetichistic association.
The sensual excitement, occasioned by the sight of a lady with a
handkerchief hanging out of her pocket, had constantly increased. This
had repeatedly caused erection, but never ejaculation. After his
twenty-first year, he says, he had inclination to normal sexual
indulgence, and had coitus without difficulty without ideas of
handkerchiefs. With increasing fetichism, the appropriation of
handkerchiefs had afforded him much more satisfaction than coitus. The
appropriation of the handkerchief of a lady attractive to him was the
same to him as intercourse with her would have been. In the act he had
true orgasm.
If he could not gain possession of the handkerchief he desired, he
would become painfully excited, tremble, and sweat all over. He kept
separate the handkerchiefs of ladies particularly pleasing to him, and
reveled in the sight of them, taking great pleasure in it. The odor of
them also gave him great delight, though he states that it was really
the odor peculiar to the linen, and not the perfume, which excited him
sensually. He had masturbated but very seldom.
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