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 1847 and 1848, during two weeks, as reported, the impulse,
accompanied by violent headache, to commit brutalities on corpses,
actuated him. Amidst the greatest dangers and difficulties, he
satisfied this impulse some fifteen times. He dug up the bodies with
his hands, in nowise sensible, in his excitement, to the injuries he
thus inflicted on himself. When he had obtained the body, he cut it up
with a sword or pocket-knife, tore out the entrails, and then
masturbated. The sex of the bodies is said to have been a matter of
indifference to him, though it was ascertained that this modern
vampire had dug up more female than male corpses. During these acts he
declares himself to have been in an indescribable state of sexual
excitement. After having cut them up, he had sometimes reinterred the
bodies.
In July, 1848, he accidentally came across the body of a girl of
sixteen. Then, for the first time, he experienced a desire to carry
out coitus on a cadaver. “I covered it with kisses and pressed it
wildly to my heart. All that one could enjoy with a living woman is
nothing in comparison with the pleasure I experienced. After I had
enjoyed it for about a quarter of an hour, I cut the body up, as
usual, and tore out the entrails. Then I buried the cadaver again.”
Only after this, as B. declares, had he felt the impulse to use the
bodies sexually before cutting them up, and thereafter he had done it
in three instances. The actual motive of the exhuming of the bodies,
however, was then, as before, to cut them up; and the enjoyment in so
doing was greater than in using the bodies sexually. The latter act
had always been nothing more than an episode of the principal one, and
had never quieted his desires; therefore, he had always cut up the
body afterward or mutilated another body. The medico-legal examiners
gave an opinion of “monomania.” Court-martial sentence to one year’s
imprisonment. (Michéa, _Union méd._, 1849; Lunier, _Annal.
méd.-psychol._, 1849, p. 153; Tardieu, “Attentats aux moeurs,” 1878,
p. 114; Legrand, “La folie devant les tribun.,” p. 524.)
(c) _Injury of Women_ (_Stabbing, Flagellation, etc._).—Following
lust-murder and violation of corpses, come cases closely allied to the
former, in which injury of the victim of lust and sight of the victim’s
blood are a delight and pleasure for degenerate men. The notorious
Marquis de Sade,[53] after whom the combination of lust and cruelty has
been named, was such a monster. Coitus only excited him when he could
prick the object of his desire until the blood came. His greatest
pleasure was to injure prostitutes and then bind their wounds.
Here also belongs the case of a captain mentioned by Brierre de
Boismont, who always compelled the object of his affection to place
leeches ad pudenda before coitus, which was very frequent. Finally this
woman became very anæmic and, as a result of this, insane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account