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
X. came of a neurotic family. His paternal grandfather died by suicide
while insane. His father was a weak, peculiar man. One brother
masturbated at the age of two. A cousin was sexually perverse, and
practiced perverse acts, similar to those of X., while a youth; he
became weak-minded, and died of spinal disease. A paternal great-uncle
was an hermaphrodite. His mother’s sister was insane. His mother is
said to have been healthy. X.’s brother is nervous and irascible.
X., likewise, was nervous as a child. The mewing of a cat would create
great fear in him; and if one but imitated the voice of a cat, he
would cry bitterly, and run to others for protection. Slight physical
disturbance caused violent fever. He was a quiet, dreamy child, of
excitable imagination, but of slight mental capabilities. He did not
indulge much in boyish games; he preferred feminine pursuits. It gave
him especial pleasure to curl the hair of the house-maid or of his
brother.
At thirteen X. went to an Institute. There he practiced mutual
masturbation, seduced his comrades, and, by his cynical conduct, made
them unmanageable; so that he had to be taken home. At that time the
parents found love-letters with lascivious contents, showing perverse
sexuality. From the age of seventeen he studied under the strict
surveillance of a professor in a Gymnasium. He made but sad progress
in learning. He had only a talent for music.
After finishing his studies, the patient entered the University, at
the age of nineteen. There he attracted attention by his cynical
character and his association with young persons who were thought to
be given to masculine love. He began to be dandified; wore striking
cravats, and shirts that were low cut; he forced his feet into narrow
shoes, and curled his hair in a remarkable way. This peculiarity
disappeared when he left the school, and had returned home.
At the age of twenty-four he was for a long time neurasthenic. From
that time until his twenty-ninth year, he was earnest and skillful in
his profession; but he avoided the society of the opposite sex, and
constantly associated with men of doubtful character.
The patient would not allow a personal examination. In writing, he
made the excuse for this that it would be of no use, because his
impulse to his own sex had existed from his earliest childhood, and
was congenital. He had always had horror feminæ, and had never been
inclined to avail himself of the charms of women. Toward men he felt
himself in the _rôle_ of a man. He recognized his impulse toward his
own sex as abnormal, and excused his sexual indulgence as being the
result of an abnormal natural condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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