Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in WomenEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3: Analysis of the Sexual Impulse; Love and Pain; The Sexual Impulse in Women
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
But there is a further group of cases, and a very important group, on
account of the light it throws on the essential nature of these phenomena,
and that is the group in which the thought or the spectacle of pain acts
as a sexual stimulant, without the subject identifying himself clearly
either with the inflicter or the sufferer of the pain. Such cases are
sometimes classed as sadistic; but this is incorrect, for they might just
as truly be called masochistic. The term algolagnia might properly be
applied to them (and Eulenburg now classes them as "ideal algolagnia"),
for they reveal an undifferentiated connection between sexual excitement
and pain not developed into either active or passive participation. Such
feelings may arise sporadically in persons in whom no sadistic or
masochistic perversion can be said to exist, though they usually appear in
individuals of neurotic temperament. Casanova describes an instance of
this association which came immediately under his own eyes at the torture
and execution of Damiens in 1757.[129] W.G. Stearns knew a man (having
masturbated and had intercourse to excess) who desired to see his wife
delivered of a child, and finally became impotent without this idea. He
witnessed many deliveries and especially obtained voluptuous gratification
at the delivery of a primipara when the suffering was greatest.[130] A
very trifling episode may, however, suffice. In one case known to me a
man, neither sadistic nor masochistic in his tendencies, when sitting
looking out of his window saw a spider come out of its hole to capture and
infold a fly which had just been caught in its web; as he watched the
process he became conscious of a powerful erection, an occurrence which
had never taken place under such circumstances before.[131] Under favoring
conditions some incident of this kind at an early age may exert a decisive
influence on the sexual life. Tambroni, of Ferrara, records the case of a
boy of 11 who first felt voluptuous emotions on seeing in an illustrated
journal the picture of a man trampling on his daughter; ever afterward he
was obliged to evoke this image in masturbation or coitus.[132] An
instructive case has been recorded by Féré. In this case a lady of
neurotic heredity on one side, and herself liable to hysteria, experienced
her first sexual crisis at the age of 13, not long after menstruation had
become established, and when she had just recovered from an attack of
chorea. Her old nurse, who had remained in the service of the family, had
a ne'er-do-well son who had disappeared for some years and had just now
suddenly returned and thrown himself, crying and sobbing, at the knees of
his mother, who thrust him away. The young girl accidentally witnessed
this scene. The cries and the sobs provoked in her a sexual excitement she
had never experienced before. She rushed away in surprise to the next
room, where, however, she could still hear the sobs, and soon she was
overcome by a sexual orgasm.
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