Benjamin Tarnowski

“ This attractive feature of vice, which favours the imitation of morbid depravation, must lose its charm with the knowledge that vice in its most violent manifestations is the symptom of a morbid state, with a certain deadening, and not a refining of the feelings, and with an imperfect equilibrium of the nervous system which, far from leading to perfection, favours the development of mental disturbance and weakness of intellect. ”

“ The formation of such fissures which cause but little pain or itching and readily heal, in persons affected neither with syphilis nor with hemorrhoids, always indicates that they owe their origin to passive pederasty, when there exists at the same time a distinctly marked relaxation of the sphincter.
With regard to other morbid manifestations, such as for instance the formation of abscesses in the cellular tissue around the anus, of fistulas, hemorrhoidal nodes, verrucose ex- crescences, etc., their presence or absence is of no diagnostic value. ”

“ They avoid women in a certain measure solely because their morbidly excited erethism so much diminishes the duration of the genital act that they are unable to satisfy a healthy woman; besides, among Cynedes, particularly those so-born, the voluptuous spasm is not only induced by friction but by the mere touching of the loved person, and therefore still more by coitus inter (f) feces (intercourse between the thighs) .
Notwithstanding all this, such subjects sometimes marry and breed children, to whom they unfortunately often bequeath in some degree their sexual aberration. ”

“ The absence of full reasoning power, in- sufficient critical acumen, inability to distinguish the important from the unimportant, want of independent effort to discover the cause and manner of things, intellectual one-sidedness, loss of creative power and of originality of thought all these are so many tangible symptoms of different degrees of mental impoverishment and decay of the understanding. ”

“ But in fact the bringing up of the victim purposely for the vice is the greatest and most abomi- nable expression of premeditated depravity, whereas pederastic rape is more often a manifestation of senile dementia.
In the presence of a symptom of disease, the most unbridled demoralization fades and its liability to punishment is correspondingly diminished. ”

“ The most unmistakeable, but at the same time the rarest symptom of sodomy is the appearance of a primary syphilitic induration (Ulcus induratum) in the neighbourhood of the anus, or in the rectum, it having been proved, that the first appearance of syphilis always shows itself at the very place where the infection has originated.
I have most frequently observed the appear- ance of an indurated ulcus in Cynedes at the point of transition of the skin into the mucous membrane, particularly on the anterior wall of the intestine, less often in the neigh- bourhood of the radial folds. ”

“ Sight, touch, hearing, smell, even some- times taste, all the senses one after another, or all together, are excited to a certain extent, in order to raise the erethism to its highest degree of intensity. ”

“ The old man morbidly affected will some- times kiss his victim, at the same moment tearing its body open, from which the blood streams out, works himself into a passion, littering fearful threats and at the same time accomplishing the act of coition. ”

“ At present vice not only appears seductive to most people because of the force, novelty or diversity of the feelings excited, but it also gives to the libertine in the sphere of sexual activity a certain tone of epicureanism, of originality, of vicious repute and of supe- riority over other beings, who appear to be less perfectly developed in contrast with him, but more moral and more abstemious. ”

“ Above all, sexual desire not in keeping with his age is the very first symptom of a developing morbid condition of the subject.
The depraved individual seeks by changing the manner and means of accomplishing the sexual act, as well as in preparation for the same, a new way to increase and prolong the erethism. ”

“ Each premiss is to him a separate idea, and it is beyond the power of his comprehension to connect it with the preceding one or with the one which succeeds, to retain them in his memory and from them to deduce a conclusion. ”

“ I have reason founded on fact to believe that a sodomitic act committed once or twice with a certain amount of violence on a boy of from 10 to 11 years of age would after two or three months leave no visible traces of deformation on the anus and rectum. ”

“ When it is a grown-up man who is sub- jected to examination, the question becomes far more complicated.
Here, it is necessary to collect facts con- cerning heredity, and initial anamnesis, to follow up stage by stage the life that has been led, more especially during the period of puberty, combined with a full enquiry into all the physical and psychical peculiari- ties of the subject under examination, so . as to endeavour to decide the question whether we have before us a case of congenital or of acquired sexual perversion. ”

“ Pederasty, in the general sense of the word, does not, as we have previously observed, always manifest itself in sodomy. Those
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pederasts, who do not actually accomplish the sodomitic act, but discharge their semen inter feces, like the Fellators, will exhibit from that cause no deformations of the anus or of the rectum, nor of the genital organs. Passive pederasty also, when it is beginning to be resorted to by some demented old man, even when he is afflicted with hemorrhoids, will leave no characteristic signs upon the anus. ”

“ All acquired pederasts, active pederastic prostitutes, morbidly demoralized old men, in one word the majority of active pederasts, exhibit no difference whatever of their sexual parts from those of normal beings. ”

“ The depraved individual, on the contrary, attaches the greatest importance to exterior circumstances, seeks to keep away and avert all unpleasant feelings, being so to say occupied in concentrating himself in voluptuousness, is attentive to small things, capricious and full of pretention. Whereas the weak-minded old man performs the sexual act under the most various conditions, enjoying it according to his taste, sometimes in the most unworthy and disgusting manner. ”

“ An empty, apparently logically connected, sometimes witty gossipping habit, forms one of the most frequent symptoms of an incipient intellectual decadence due to age, or in subjects who are exhausted by all sorts of excesses. It very often happens that the same symptom combines with it the degree of mental poverty, that is known in society under the name of " average intelligence." ”

“ The most inventive in variations of the vice, in combining it with flagellation, mutual masturbation, and so forth, are the senile pederasts, particularly if senile dementia has developed itself upon the soil of sexual per- version.
In all congenital pederasts the sexual excit- ability is morbidly heightened in consequence of nervously excitable weakness, so that erection soon terminates with emission and the sexual act is always rapidly brought to an end. ”

“ It is under these excitations that passive pederasty shows itself, as a casual accessory phenomenon, as a new excitant, which may serve to heighten the erethism, which then finds its satisfaction in normal connection with a woman. ”

“ When the presence of congenital sexual perversion is contradicted by established facts, it is necessary to discover if the appearance noted is a symptom of incipient progressive paralysis, or an accessory phenomenon, a so- called psychical equivalent of epilepsy, or lastly if it is a symptom of premature senile dementia. ”

“ It is only real vice, the acquired sexual perversion of a healthy man, particularly the vice which is represented by prostitute pede- rasts, that can justly deserve punishment. And here it may be asked in the name of Justice, if the same degree of penalty is to
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be meted out to a weak-minded, simple country lad, accidentally led astray as to thoroughly depraved and utterly demoralized mercenary habitual Cynedes ? ”

“ Peters- burg, particularly among the women, as also among prostitutes, sodomy is of extremely rare occurrence.
On men the overflow of the suppuration from the ulcers on the penis is generally stopped on its way down towards the anus by the scrotum, and therefore soft chancres near the anus are far less frequently observed on men, than on women. Nevertheless, scratching the anal region with the finger
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which may have retained upon it venereal matter after dressing an ulcer, may sometimes be the cause of an auto-inoculated chancre in the radial folds. ”

“ When- ever it is necessary to forcibly separate the nates, in order to expose the anus to view, this symptom loses its importance. If, on a normally developed individual who purposely contracts the orificium ani, the nates are separated with gradually increasing force, there will always come a certain moment, when the inferior layers of the sphincter become expanded and the entry to the rectum is closed solely by the upper layers. At this
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moment the orificium ani forms a long and deep slit, very much resembling the anus infundibuliformis. ”

“ Not- withstanding the unlimited license of desire, of strong and all-powerful vice; carried to the utmost limits of demoralization; a licen- tiousness still further refined by the knowledge and genius of slavish talents, in this sink of all possible sensual debauchery the patho- logical types retain their exact character and are remarkable for the sameness of their manner of manifestation. The omnipotent Roman Imperator shows in his genesic lust the same aberrations, as those presented in our days by an individual who has never heard speak of the Romans, nor of sexual perversion. ”

“ Quite true I have had occasion to observe in habitual Cynedes, particularly prostitutes, who sometimes accomplish the sodomitic act several times in one day, the formation of verrucose excrescences on the border of the orificium ani, on the radial folds of the skin and even on the walls of the rectum. ”

“ Maudsley says that "between crime and insanity there is a border-land, where there is on the one hand a small dose of insanity and a large percentage of crime, and on the other hand a small admixture of crime and a large proportion of insanity." ”

“ The refined demoralization of the Romans at the time of their decadence, may be prin- cipally attributed to the imitation of certain psychopathic rulers, these "Madmen at liberty", as the historian has called them, who entirely uncontrolled, their sense of decency obscured and their sexual lust excited, abandoned them- selves openly to the most licentious acts, without being themselves conscious of their own demoralization. ”

“ It was precisely this confusion of the in- funclibulum when the muscles of the anus are relaxed, with the slit-shaped hollow when the nates are thrust asunder and the sphincter and levator ani muscles are contracted, which induced Brouardel to question the diagnostical signification of the anus infundibuliformis and to maintain, that the same symptom might appear in cases of irritation of the anus through cold, painful fissures, inflamed hemorrhoidal nodes, etc. ”

“ But some degrees higher, we come upon a subject, who is able to reason, to draw conclusions, to connect together several ranges of thought, but who does not possess the faculty of realizing the conception of a thing in its entirety, to abandon a course of ideas once adopted and to examine a subject from different points of view. ”

“ The decision of the above questions meets with the greatest difficulty when we have to do with elderly men, and here the most difficult task consists in the distinction of pederasty as a symptom of incipient senile dementia from positive vice, which is for ever seeking for new means to revive the expiring sexual power.
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The gradual diminution of the mental powers and the deadening of the feelings only attract the attention of friends or of strangers when they are approaching the final stage. ”

“ No doubt that during the further develop- ment of syphilis the disease very often manifests itself in various affections in the neighbour- hood of the anus and of the rectum, in the form of secondary and hereditary ulcers, contraction of the rectum, etc. Never- theless, here also, the localization of conse- cutive syphilitic appearances in the anus and rectum cannot be taken as proof that the infection originated in these parts. ”

“ For the psychopathic child with morbid sexual instinct, it is not so much the punish- ment of vice that is required, but rather a proper education and treatment. In a far greater degree does the individual attacked with initial progressive paralysis, or senile dementia, require medical aid, instead of punishment. ”

“ But, however different the forms of the manifestation of senile dementia may be, it must be considered that there are numerous indistinctly marked transition stages, in which it is impossible to determine where vice ceases and disease begins.
This is the more difficult that very often those who have led a loose life in youth become the victims of senile dementia later on. ”

“ The same forms of syphilis may be acquired in the pederastic act, as in regular coition with women. Nevertheless it often happens, that so-called accidental pederasts, after having been infected by a woman with a chancre or with urethritis, from dread of another infection give up altogether any connection with women, and become incorrigible pederasts, particularly when they find facilities for the exercise of this vice. ”

“ Thus it comes that so often, side by side with a rapid progress of civilization, an increase of sexual aberration may be observed. Depravity, which formerly was almost exclu- sively adduced to account for sexual perversion, now combines with the rapid growth of culture, and for the same reasons, and on account of the rapid progress of intellectual development, unavoidably brings along with
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it an increase of mental and nervous disease. ”

“ The ulcera mollia appear the most frequently at the anus simultaneously with similar ulcers on the genital parts and originate by auto-inoculation in the radial folds. Whilst the suppuration from a soft chancre comes upon parts of the surface of the patient's body where the epidermis happens to be abraded or lacerated, it there easily inoculates itself, and 'causes the formation of a fresh chancre. ”

“ In the text-books, and even in such a valuable monograph as Tardieu's work, the signs of sodomy are described singly, and a description of the general appearance of the alterations noticeable on what may be called an average pederast is wanting.
This circumstance has caused some less experienced enquirers in this branch of research to deny the existence of unmistakeable signs. So, for instance, Casper and Brouardel deny the importance of the infundibuliform (funnel; shaped) widening out . of the anus, which Tardieu so particularly insisted upon. ”

“ It is only after excluding all the above- named morbid conditions on positive grounds, based on facts deduced from careful enquiry and observation, that we can be permitted to affirm with probability the depravity, moral corruption and absolute, voluntary and premeditated licentiousness of the subject under examination. ”