Benjamin Tarnowski

“ Not seldom their idol was only some brothel prostitute, who as for intercourse with them wanted only their money, or else some married woman who had never given the mad youth the slightest reason to suppose that she was at all inclined to allow him any intimacy whatever. ”

“ On proceeding one step further in psy- chical degeneracy, we come to subjects who have an exclusive taste for old men. Many born pederasts feel attracted only by men with gray beards. For them neither youth, nor elegance of bodily form, nor beauty, whether in woman or in man, is of any importance; their sexual instinct can only be excited by the aspect of a gray beard, some- times indeed by the ugliest face, rendered repulsive by deformity. ”

“ Just as a normally constituted and sexually developed man, try as he may, cannot feel any lustful desire for another man, so it is equally impossible for the congental pederast to accomplish coition with a woman. Such fruitless endeavours serve only to still more discourage the young man and finally inspire him with a disgust for women. He now seeks the companionship of men, pays court to them, falls in love with them, and in the meantime seeks for satisfaction in onanism. ”

“ For instance, the boy is more ashamed to undress himself before a strange man, than before a woman. On the other hand he prefers the company and caresses of men to those of women. He feels a great attachment to a man, follows him about incessantly, obeys him without a murmur, is charmed with him in one word, he " adores " a man, either a brave, generous and clever man or one with strongly developed muscles, whilst he remains quite indifferent towards women. At length he attains puberty; in the night he often has violent erections with emission of semen. ”

“ III. SEXUAL PERVERSION OF EPILEPTICS (EPILEPTIC PEDERASTY) As Epilepsy is one of the most distinctly marked forms of psychical degeneracy, it is obvious at the outset it must often manifest itself in conjunction with a perversion of the sexual instinct. It is now every day more evident that the special study of epileptic fits, the complicated disorders comprehended under the term " Epilepsy, " is far from being exhausted. ”

“ It often happens that the sexual power of the epileptic subject is much diminished ; copulation is achieved only with difficulty, and there is not much desire for it. Sometimes epileptic subjects do not satisfy their sexual desires with women, but resort from youth upwards to masturbation. . At the same time, at the age of manhood the erethism is sometimes so exaggerated, that ejaculation of semen immediately follows erection, which consequently renders normal copulation with women impossible. ”

“ Not only does the representation of womanly form give rise to no sexual excitation, but it paralyzes all voluptuous feeling, when such exists already. Among normally constituted men the heat of sexual erethism rapidly disappears at the sight of grown-up men. On the contrary this same erethism is quenched at once in the congenital pederast in the presence of women. The sight of a naked young woman leaves him indifferent, whereas that of a naked man will awaken in him feelings of lust. ”

“ At other times he felt no pederastic desires and liked the society of women, notwithstanding which he would, not without a certain amount of wit, defend the form of sexual perversion which occupies our attention. ”

“ I have often had occasion to refer to specialists in neuropathology young men of this sort, who would threaten to commit suicide, if they could not obtain an immediate cure of their infirmity. They used to complain of incomplete erection, and that the emission of semen took place at the mere sight of the loved person, and they felt incapable of having regular sexual intercourse with their idol, without whose possession life seemed worthless to them. ”

“ To congenital forms of sexual perversion must also be added that morbid deviation of the genesic sense, which manifests itself at certain times, then entirely disappears, and after a certain interval shows itself again with renewed force. Such are, so to speak, temporary pederasts, who are periodically subject to an abnormal sexual propensity, fail more or less to accomplish properly the sexual act, are not seldom married men, breed children, and intermittently give way to pederasty, as dipsomaniacs give way to their lust for drink. ”

“ Congenital Cynedes, who have been brought up among women, far from the depraving influence of pederasts, but still without suffi- cient care and education, easily become erotomaniacs. In such cases the object of their passion is naturally either some hero, whose portrait they have often had occasion to see, or a celebrated Musician, Singer, or man of Science. The same exaggerated ten- dency to fall in love, but this time with perverted sexual instinct, manifests itself also in that pathological state which cannot be better designated than under the namepede- rastomania. ”

“ The morbid subjects satisfy their perverted instinct two or three times during the course of the year, not oftener, and in other times have normal intercourse with women.
The more distinctly marked the periodicity of these attacks of sexual perversion, the more intense is the morbid disturbance, and the more it approximates to the form of a periodically re-appearing maniacal excitement, that is to say, the culminating exterior manifestation of psychical degeneracy. ”

“ The youth, who in the company of women appears ashamed and morbidly timid, when he is alone, allows his imagination to soar at will, and has then usually recourse to masturbation; or when the erethism is still greater, together with excitability and weak- ness of the nervous system, his imagination alone is then sufficient to procure him emission of semen. ”

“ It may here be remarked that the more easily the subject learns to overcome by force of will his instinctive predilection for men, the more does his aversion to woman diminish, and in many cases of young men with congenital sexual perversion, observed by us, we found that at the age of from 25 to 30 years they became capable of having intercourse with women, of marrying and of having children. ”

“ The more intense the morbid manifestation, the longer has the subject been addicted to masturbation, and the sooner has he become a pederast, and the sooner also does he lose the possibility of normal coition.
Yet more fatal in its effects upon subjects that way disposed is the companionship of similar morbidly affected comrades, in a still more advanced pathological condition, as often occurs in schools. By the example of elder comrades the boy early becomes a pederast and consequently at the advent of puberty his morbidly diminished desire for the female sex is still more accentuated. ”

“ JUST as children may be born with abnormally constituted extremities, trunk, head or other members, a congenital tendency may in like manner appear towards perverse modes of manifestation of the genesic instinct.
As in a physical cripple the whole organism may be more or less normally developed, apart from the particular abnormality, so in a moral abortion the psychical constitution may be more or less normal, with the exception of the particular perversion present. ”

“ The morbidly diminished sexual inclination towards the female sex that is congenitally pre- sent, and the weakened and perverted genesic instinct the consequence of bad surroundings and education cause the youth in this initial period of his life to be more indifferent to sexual enjoyment than are his comrades of the same age. ”

“ In the weaker defined manifestations the boy or youth exhibits only his predisposition to occupy himself with feminine work He likes to knit, to sew, to make doll's clothes; otherwise he distinguishes himself by his peculiar preference for feminine manners, he strives to be graceful and coquettish in his demeanour, imitates the tone and voice -of a woman, etc,, and is awkward and out of his element and blushes when in conversation with men. ”

“ The child born with congenital sexual perversion grows up and develops to all appearance quite regularly in every way. The genesic sense alone generally awakens unusually early and, as the period of sexual maturity approaches, a whole series of abnormal morbid manifestations show themselves. The first of these symptoms is an expression of shame, not before girls or women, but in presence of grown-up men. ”

“ But there are on the contrary other more gifted patients, more intellectually de- veloped who, when they are convinced of having committed such a crime, seek for a refuge in suicide, like the French general N., whose affair filled all the Paris papers a few years ago.
The tendency to necrophilism, which is in rare cases observed in patients, in the form of isolated attacks separated by long lucid intervals, is also to be considered as periodical sexual perversion. ”

“ When the period of manhood arrives, if the vicious habit, of seeking excitation in flagellation, that is to say by strokes with a birch on the posteriors, has become deep- rooted, the patient is only then able to have intercourse with women, after having been flogged previously, which for ever deprives him of the possibility of family life, and necessarily reduces him to the extremity of
1 J. J. Rousseau, Lcs Confessions, Partie I, Livre I.
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having recourse to masturbation or to the exclusive frequentation of prostitutes, women who sell their favours. ”

“ In fact there are cases known, of intellectually gifted married men, fathers of families, who, from time to time, sometimes after long intervals, have resorted to pederasty, flagellation or necrophilism, or felt an irresistible impulse to submit themselves to the coarsest and most cynical treatment insulting words, and blows administered by Cynedes, active pederasts or by prostitutes. ”

“ They are not female caresses nor meetings with women that appear to him in his dreams, but the pressure of the hand, the kiss of well-built, handsome grown-up men. The final erection ending with seminal emission is not provoked in dream by a female form in seductive attitudes and movements, but by the embracing, caresses and kisses of men. ”

“ In consequence of the congenital morbid erethism, the so-called excitable weakness of the nervous system, the feelings of lubricity become soon intensified to their utmost, and often find in the simple physical contact with the beloved person the determination of an emissio seminis. The love of such subjects is extraordinarily violent, morbidly passionate, absorbs all their moral and sensitive faculties, and is at first purely Platonic ”

“ As in all forms of periodical mania, in the intervals between the attacks the patients are entirely in command of their mental capacities, and consequently are able to hide even from their nearest friends their carefully dissimulated attacks. ”

“ During the course of such an epileptic disturbance, with obliteration of conscience, sexual erethism may supervene, with imperious desire to satisfy the same. The patient commits a series of nefarious acts, has sometimes abnormal sexual connection, and when the attack is over can but indistinctly remember what took place and is quite unable to explain his unreasonable actions. ”

“ Among the inhabitants of high mountainous regions, the Alps, the Cordillera, the Himalayas, we find, widely prevailing, besides cretinism and idiocy, a high degree of sexual perversion or else the sexual instinct totally extin- guished. ”

“ Another experienced violent lust, terminat- ing in spasmodic erection, when his genitals came into contact with fur, which occurred by accident, when he happened one night to cover himself with a fur rug. From that time from the age of twelve he was given to masturbation. The sight of the body of a man or of that of a woman, even during copulation, would not excite him in the least, but to touch a hairy little dog, which he sometimes took into his bed, always caused him erection, ending in emission : this was sometimes followed by a hysterical attack, accompanied by convulsions, sobbing, etc. ”

“ Another cause for the development in children of a neuropathic constitution with perverted sexual sense is to be found in various depressing circumstances that may have weighed upon the parents at the time of the act of procreation. For instance, if the father or mother had but just recovered from severe illness: typhoid fever, pneumonia, physical
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exhaustion, a high degree of anaemia, intel- lectual overwork, sexual and other excesses, immoral mode of life, and so forth, in a word all that can tend to enfeeble the nervous system and the genesic force of the parent. ”

“ But the strangeness to him of the phenomenon itself, the difficulty of giving it a distinct form, and his ever increasing shyness when in company with men, cause the youth to dissimulate his misfortune. ”

“ His sexual instinct tended solely towards the female sex. Every other genesic aberration appears to have been absent: onanism, pederasty, lasciviousness in company with young lads. But the sexual desire for women, for natural sexual satisfaction, was also absent. He further admits, that for a long time past he has had no connection with women, but asserts himself to have been formerly able to accomplish copulation. Some years ago he was engaged to be married, but the match was broken off by the parents of the bride, which had greatly dis- tressed him. ”

“ One of the manifestations of psychical degeneration is a morbid disposition to fall in love, which is the most prominent symp- tom of the mental condition in question. It is more frequently met with in women, par- ticularly among the hysterical ; it is also found in men of decided neuropathic constitution, who have been addicted to masturbation, or suffer from enfeebled sexual power. Severe previous cerebral disease during youth, com- bined with hereditary influences, may also sometimes favour the development of this condition. ”