Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5: Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in PregnancyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5: Erotic Symbolism; The Mechanism of Detumescence; The Psychic State in Pregnancy
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the
nature of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in
which it may originate. It is the case of a business man of 49,
of neurotic heredity, an affectionate husband and father of a
family, who, to his own grief and shame, is compelled from time
to time to exhibit his sexual organs to women in the street. As a
boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to coitus; both had
their sexual parts exposed. From that time sexual contacts, as of
his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive,
as well as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched
before each other with their sexual parts exposed, and also
imitation of the copulation of animals. Coitus was first
practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the woman's
sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement.
It was also necessary--and this consideration is highly important
as regards the development of the tendency to exhibition--that
the woman should be excited by the sight of his organs. Even when
he saw or touched a woman's parts orgasm often occurred. It was
the naked sexual organs in an otherwise clothed body which
chiefly excited him. He was not possessed of a high degree of
potency. Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him,
and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual
matters. His self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration,
and it was accompanied by the idea that other people felt as he
did about the sexual effects of the naked organs, that he was
shocking but at the same time sexually exciting a young girl. He
was thus gratifying himself through the belief that he was
causing sexual gratification to an innocent girl. This man was
convicted several times, and was finally declared to be suffering
from impulsive insanity. (Schrenck-Notzing,
_Kriminal-psychologische und Psycho-pathologische Studien_, 1902,
pp. 50-57.) In another case of Schrenck-Notzing's, an actor and
portrait painter, aged 31, in youth masturbated and was fond of
contemplating the images of the sexual organs of both sexes,
finding little pleasure in coitus. At the age of 24, at a bathing
establishment, he happened to occupy a compartment next to that
occupied by a lady, and when naked he became aware that his
neighbor was watching him through a chink in the partition. This
caused him powerful excitement and he was obliged to masturbate.
Ever since he has had an impulse to exhibit his organs and to
masturbate in the presence of women. He believes that the sight
of his organs excites the woman (Ib., pp. 57-68). The presence of
masturbation in this case renders it untypical as a case of
exhibitionism. Moll at one time went so far as to assert that
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