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
“No pen, no tongue can describe all the misery, all the unhappy
situations, the constant fear of having this peculiarity recognized,
and of being cast from society. The one thought that, as soon as
recognized, one’s existence would be lost, and he would be cast away
from all, is as terrible as any thought can be. Then all the good that
one had ever done would be forgotten; then, in the pride of his great
morality, every normal man would be moved to scorn, even though he
himself had been never so frivolous in his own love.
“Then what does our misery amount to? We may, cursing man, end our
unhappy lives. Truly, I often long for the quiet of an asylum. My life
may end when it will, the quicker the better; I am ready.
“To refer to one more point: I also believe, like the others that have
written to you, that our nervousness is first acquired as a result of
our unhappy, unspeakably miserable life among our fellow-creatures.
“And still another: You write, at the conclusion of your work,
concerning the repeal of the legal enactments concerned. Indeed,
humanity would not be destroyed if they were repealed. In Italy there
is no such law, as far as I know; and Italy is not a wilderness, but a
cultivated nation.
“As for myself, compelled as I am to undermine my life by onanism, the
law could not touch me; for I have never sinned against it in a
letter. But, at the same time, I suffer under the accursed scorn to
which we are subjected. How can the ideas of society be changed, so
long as there is a law which strengthens it in its immorality? The law
must, of course, correspond with public opinion; but it should not be
in harmony with the erroneous opinion of ignorance, but only in accord
with the ideas of the best and most scientific thinkers,—not with the
wish and prejudice of the vulgar. True thinking minds cannot much
longer be satisfied with the old idea.
“Pardon me, Professor, if I close without a signature. Do not try to
find me. I could tell you nothing more. I give you these lines in the
interest of future sufferers. Publish from them, in the interest of
science, truth, and justice, what seems to you to be necessary.”
Case 115. On a summer evening, at twilight, X. Y., a physician of a
city in North Germany, was detected by a watchman while committing a
misdemeanor with a countryman in a field. He was practicing
masturbation on him, and then mentulam alius in os suum immisit. X.
escaped legal prosecution by flight. The authorities dismissed the
complaint, because there had been no publicity, and because immissio
membri in anum had not taken place. Among X.’s effects was found an
extensive correspondence of a perverse sexual character, which showed
that he had had perverse intercourse for years with all classes of
people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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