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
In the course of the year 1872, the neurasthenic condition became
markedly increased. Now paranoia persecutoria again comes into the
foreground, and takes on a clinical coloring from the neurotic basis.
Olfactory hallucinations occur. Magnetic influences are at work on him
(false interpretation of sensations due to spinal asthenia). With
continued and intense sexual excitement and excess in masturbation,
the process of effemination constantly progresses. Only episodically
is he a man and inclined toward a woman, complaining that the
shameless prostitution of the men in the house makes it impossible for
a lady to come to him. He is dying of magnetically poisoned air and
unsatisfied love. Without love he cannot live. He is poisoned by lewd
poison that affects his sexual desire. The lady that he loves is sunk
in the lowest vice. The prostitutes in the house have fortune-chains;
that is, chains in which, without moving, a man can indulge in lustful
pleasure. He is ready now to satisfy himself with prostitutes. He is
possessed of a wonderful ray of thought that emanates from his eyes,
which is worth twenty millions. His compositions are worth 500,000
francs. With these indications of delusions of grandeur, there are
also those of persecution—the food is poisoned by venereal excrement;
he tastes and smells poison, hears infamous accusations, and asks for
instruments to close his ears. From August, 1872, however, the signs
of effemination become more and more frequent. He acts somewhat
affected, declaring that he can no longer live among men that drink
and smoke. He thinks and feels like a woman. He must thenceforth be
treated like a woman and transferred to a female ward. He asks for
confections and delicate desserts. Occasionally, on account of
tenesmus and cystospasm, he asks to be transferred to a lying-in
hospital and treated as a woman very ill in pregnancy. The abnormal
magnetism of masculine attendants has an unfavorable effect on him. At
times he still feels himself to be a man, but in a way which indicates
his abnormally altered sexual feeling. He pleads only for satisfaction
by means of masturbation, or for marriage without coitus. Marriage is
a sensual institution. The girl that he would take for a wife must be
a masturbator. About the end of December, 1872, his personality became
completely feminine. From that time he remained a woman. He had always
been a woman, but in his babyhood a French Quaker, an artist, had put
masculine genitals on him, and by rubbing and distorting his thorax
had prevented the development of his breasts. After this he demanded
to be transferred to the female department, protection from men that
wished to violate him, and asked for female clothing. Eventually he
also desired to be given employment in a toy-shop, with crocheting and
embroidery work to do, or a place in a dress-making establishment with
female work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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