Sexual Aberrations (Wilhelm Stekel)

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

"All the forms of sexual perversion...have one thing in common: their roots reach down into the matrix of natural and normal sex life; there they are somehow closely connected with the feelings and expressions of our physiological erotism. They are...hyperbolic intensifications, distortions, monstrous fruits of certain partial and secondary expressions of this erotism which is considered 'normal' or at least within the limits of healthy sex feeling."--Albert Eulenburg (1914)

"Variatio delectat ! How innumerable are the variations which Eros creates in order to make the monotonous simplicity of the natural sex organ interesting to the sexologist."--Sexual Aberrations (1923) by Wilhelm Stekel

"For those readers who are unacquainted with my new terminology as it is uniformly carried out in these volumes, I may say that parapathia stands for neurosis; paralogia for psychosis ; and paraphilia for perversion."--Sexual Aberrations (1923) by Wilhelm Stekel

{{Template}} Der Fetischismus : dargestellt für Ärzte und Kriminologen (1923) is a text by Wilhelm Stekel. It was translated as Sexual Aberrations: The Phenomenon of Fetishism in Relation to Sex.

It was part of the series Serie „Störungen des Trieb- und Affektlebens“.

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DISORDERS OF THE INSTINCTS AND THE EMOTIONS

The Parapathiac Disorders

WILHELM STEKEL, M.D.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS The Phenomena of Fetishism in Relation to Sex

Two Volumes — Vol. I

The sale of this book is strictly lim- ited to members of the medical pro- fession, Psychoanalysts, Scholars and to such adults who may have a defi- nite position in the field of Psycho- logical or Social Research.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

The Phenomena of Fetishism in Relation to Sex

DR. WILHELM STEKEL

Vienna

AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION FROM THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION BY DR. S. PARKER

Senior Physician, Psychopathic Department, Bellevue Hospital, New York City

INTRODUCTION BY

DR. EMIL A. GUTHEIL

Director of Education, Postgraduate Center for Psychotherapy

TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

VOLUME ONE

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INTRODUCTION

This book deals in a scientific manner with a sexual deviation called fetishism. This deviation involves the attraction to an object associated with a sexual partner rather than the attrac- tion to a partner as such.

The phenomenon of fetishism has been known to psychiatrists and criminologists for a long time as one of the clinical forms of sexual psychopathology. The first psychodynamic investiga- tion, however, goes back to Sigmund Freud, and the year 1905, when, in his first Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (Deuticke, Vienna) he approached this problem psycho- analytically.

Freud recognized the importance of infantile traumatic ex- periences for the peculiar constriction of the patient's erotic horizon, seen in fetishism, and attempted to explain why these traumatic experiences had become the center of the patient's erotic preoccupation. He thought that it was the specific emo- tional elaboration of these experiences that kept them alive in the patient's mind. Freud emphasized especially the connection between fetishism and the castration fear, a fact which helps to understand why fetishism is a predominantly "male" disease, and why ' 'female" fetishism is so rare as to be practically non- existent.

We know now that Freud overestimated the value of the castration complex in the psychopathology of fetishism. Stekel's present volume, which first appeared in 1923, reaches further and digs deeper than Freud's original work on the subject. Stekel attempts to show that the sexual deviation called fetishism has a polymorphous structure and represents — as do all neurotic disorders — a compromise solution and a crystalliza- tion point for many trends and many complexes existing in the patient's mind simultaneously; that it is, in fact, a synthesis of the patient's highest as well as of his lowest aspirations.

The great value of Stekel's present book lies in its lucidity

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INTRODUCTION

and its broad and undogmatic views, supported by a legion of case histories, some of them presented in minute detail. The volume covers the entire field, and includes also material dealing with a special form of fetishism, called transvestitism. As in all of Stekel's books, the general social and therapeutic implica- tions of the disease are discussed extensively. Physicians — espe- cially psychiatrists — psychologists, psychiatric case workers, members of the Bar and officers of penal institutions will find in the present volume valuable clues for the understanding and management of one of the baffling sexual aberrations of our time.

Emil A. Gutheil, M.D.

New York, N. Y. February 1952

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

For the purposes of this subject, the exhaustive study of the literature was of paramount importance, but I must emphasize the fact that it is not my purpose in the following pages to pre- sent a detailed case description of fetishism. The knowledge of many observations by others does, however, enable us to carry out a sort of comparative psychological study which is of benefit to psychoanalysis.

I believe that this book materially extends our understanding of the psychopathology of fetishism, although I am well aware that there are still many riddles left for us to solve. It is un- fortunate that the material is not only infrequent, but also diffi- cult to handle.

The following book will deal with sadism and masochism (issued in English by Horace Liveright, Inc., 1929). My readers will already have noticed that each of my works is organically developed out of the previous one. In this respect, Fetishism is a continuation of Impulsive Conduct (it is, after all, an impulsive form itself). As the last chapters of the book, especially, will reveal, it constitutes a transition to the impor- tant subject of sadism.

For those readers who are unacquainted with my new terminology as it is uniformly carried out in these volumes, I may say that parapathia stands for neurosis; paralogia for psychosis ; and paraphilia for perversion.

I am especially indebted to Havelock Ellis, Ludwig Binswanger and Dr. Sigg for their kind permission to make use of their interesting cases. I must also thank Dr. Anton Missriegler, my industrious colleague, for his many suggestions and the preparation of the indices.

Dr. Wilhelm Stekel.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

This book was written by a physician of acknowledged expe- rience in the field of emotional and instinctual disturbances. He has written it expressly for physicians and earnest students, and it is in the interest of making the author's authoritative methods and views accessible to our professional class that the translator has undertaken an English rendition. The exhaustiveness and wealth of allusion are precisely the factors which illustrate how much more we have gained from the psychoanalytical approach to these disturbances than from the purely descriptive treatises which have gone before.

S. Parker.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

Chapter I

DEFINITION OF FETISHISM

Fetishism in normal persons — Love conditions and erogenous zones — Significance of earliest experiences — A case of specific love conditions in a normal person — Definition of genuine fetish- ism— Influence of the constitution. Earlier explanations of fetishism and my conception of it as a form of obsessional neu- rosis— Flight from the female. The cult of the harem and secret piety — Cases of apparent fetishism. Infantilism. Partialism. Homosexuality — Onanism in fetishists — A case of rudimentary fetishism — The pathognomonic signs of true fetishism .

Chapter II

ANALYSIS OF AN INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION

A case of apparent bust and buttocks fetishism — A ceremonial as a condition of potency. The love of the sister. The homo- sexual component. Kleptomaniacal tendencies. Repressed love. Displacement. The infantile experience — Summary — Delimita- tion of genuine fetishism

Chapter III

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

Relationships between fetishism and impulsive acts. Cases of doll fetishism combined with kleptomania, buying mania, dromo- mania and narcotomania. The role of onanism and homosexual- ity in the rejection of the partner — Cases of silk, satin and fur fetishism combined with frigidity or impotence. Cases of clothes fetishism combined with impulsive conduct — Summary

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CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

Chapter IV

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF THE FETISHIST

The fetishistic system, its secret symbolism and the pride in being ill — Analysis of a case of calf fetishism. His onanistic phantasies. The significance of the specific numbers. His re- ligious complex, sadism and homosexuality. The analysis of the meaning of the numbers. Flight. Summary 82

Chapter V

FETISHISM AND INCEST

A case of glove and rubber goods fetishism. The origin and development of his paraphilia. His harem cult. His masochism and impotence. Fixation on the mother. Summary. Further remarks on the case. Relationships between fetishism and re- ligion. Asceticism and the Christ neurosis. Some of this patient's dreams. The infantile's sources of the compulsion in fetishism. The part played by incestuous strivings — A case of petticoat fetishism. Fixation on the mother. — Rubber cushion fetishism. Chemise fetishism. Dress fetishism. The incest problem in these cases 101

Chapter VI

CALF PARTIALISM, SADISM AND KLEPTOMANIA

Analysis of an impotent sadist. Dromomania and kleptomania. Patient's explanation of his calf fetishism. Obsessional ideas. Fainting spells. His relation to his mother. The psychogenesis of his sadism and the role of his homosexuality. His incestuous strivings towards his sister. The infantile traumata. The "philosophical idea" as the basis of his impotence. Summary. One of the victims of this sadist 133

Chapter VII

PARTIALISM AND THE CULT OF THE HAREM

The hand as a fetish — A case of hand partialism with a second case combined with impulsive acts. Narcissism in the fetishist. The fetish lover is an ascetic — The roots of the harem cult. Divers cases of wig, cap, shoe, linen, handkerchief, hair, leather fetishism and other forms — The role of the odor in fetishism — The repetition compulsion in the psychology of the collector . 169

CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE

Chapter VIII

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST (CORSET FETISHISM)

The harem cult in the form of books. The Satanic Bible. The sadistic phantasies of an ascetic. His struggle against masturba- tion. Frustrated flight into marriage. Drawings from his Bible. His place in religion — A case of shoe and corset fetishism . . 202

Chapter IX

ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST

Foot symbolism — A case of agoraphobia and foot fetishism. Compressed and bloody male feet. Masochism in fetishism. The structure of a case of fetishism. The typical life history. The first experience. The piety. The Christ neurosis. The asceti- cism. Dream analyses. The condensation found in the fetishistic symbol. An illustrative diagram of this parapathia . . . 225

Chapter X

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSION

The fetish exerts pressure. The pleasure of being trod upon. The first experience — Pressure fetishists and their masochism — A collar fetishist. The transformations of the fetish and the sadism contained in the compulsion — Two cases of shoe and boot fetish- ism— Three cases of anti-fetishism. Two button fetishists — Homosexuality in fetishism. The uniform as a fetish. The com- pulsions of military service. The compulsion against the genitals ' 276

Chapter XI CASES

An apron fetishist. Animism. Condensation in the symbol. A pants fetishist. Dream analysis. Religion in fetishism. The Christ neurosis. The method behind the paraphilia — The repres- sion of the partial instincts — A cheek fetishist. The piety of the atheist. Christ neurosis. Asceticism 312

NOTES TO VOLUME ONE

363

IV er ist krank ? Bin ich genesen? Und wer ist mein Arzt gewesen? Jetzt erst glaub' ich dich genesen, Denn gesund ist, wer vergass.

Nietzsche.

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VOLUME ONE I

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

The phenomenon of fetishism is doubtless one of the most puzzling in thu whole domain of sexual pathology. Indeed, we have, as yet, no real conception of how widespread or impor- tant it is. We all know that every human has individual needs, but we realize that his love-life is nevertheless contingent upon certain conditions. The personal form of sexual attraction va- ries with different persons on the basis of a kind of fetishism, i.e., everyone prefers certain characteristics or attributes in his sexual objects. As a matter of fact, such attributes are prac- tically the conditions of his attraction. Hands, feet, ears, the voice, the eyes, complexion, odor, bust, and other parts of the body have always been "fetishes." We call them normal fe- tishes. They become pathological only when they have pushed the whole love object into the background and themselves ap- propriate the function of a love object, e.g., when a lover sat- isfies himself with the possession of a woman's shoe and con- siders the woman herself as secondary or even disturbing and superfluous. I said the possession of the woman and thereby almost allied myself with many authors who forget the fact that there is also a homosexual fetishism. Such is, in my experi- ence, the end of every case of fetishism. Succinctly, the essence of such a condition can be totally explained as a retreat from the female, flight from woman.1 Fetishism always develops into a depreciation of the female, regardless of the causes, and the same is true of the few cases of female fetishism which I have been able to observe. In the latter type of case, there occurs a deflation of the value of the male and simultaneously the person strives to find a form of sexual gratification which will make

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the sexual partner superfluous. This attitude is usually what Adler called the "fear of the sexual partner," a fear which plays an important and even leading role in the struggle of the sexes, throwing a bright light upon many a dark phenomenon of our sex life.2

Binet has given us an explanation of fetishism which is very seductive. Krafft-Ebing, Moll and Merzbach are among those who have generally accepted it. According to this worthy author, every sexual perversion depends upon an "accident agissant sur un sujet predispose." The first sexual impression is permanently soldered to the individual's whole sex feeling; so that only the memory of this impression can provoke passion. A boy sees the naked bust of his governess and thereby experi- ences his first sexual excitement. This is the law of the recur- rence of identities, a law which plays an important role in the parapathias. We see in this notion of Binet,3 however, prac- tically the kernel of Freud's well-known theory according to which the trauma becomes the cause of the parapathia if it strikes a predisposed individual. This theory nevertheless does not explain all the curious traits of the fetish lover. Nor does it explain the question as to why all children do not react to such impressions with the development of fetishism.

We cannot sufficiently emphasize the fact that all these forms of paraphilia are a part of the make-up of all normal humans. If we examine so-called normal individuals carefully, we find that they all have their predilection points (erogenous zones). These parts of the body are preferred and their irritation inten- sifies the libido. I quite agree with Eulenburg 4 who writes :

"Just a general remark by way of introduction. All the forms of sexual perversion I have just mentioned, much as they differ from each other, have nevertheless one thing in common : their roots reach deep down into the matrix of natural and normal sex life; there they are somehow closely connected with the feelings and expressions of our physiological erotism. They are only pathologically one-sided offshoots or hyperbolic intensifications, distortions, monstrous fruits of certain partial and secondary expressions of this erotism which is considered "normal" or at least within the limits of healthy sex feeling. Fetishism thus finds its physiological basis in individual sex conditions, in the conscious or unconscious tendncies to partial attraction which so often obtain in the normal person's choice of a love object (the exhibitionism displayed in the tendency and necessity of shameless stripping even in normal love relations), in the sadism and masochism of certain frequent phenomena associated with the orgasm of the love act (in animals as well as humans), and finally in the voluptuous effect of certain injuries dealt out to the love object or, conversely, of humiliations and even mistreatment suffered at the hands of the partner. The importance of this physiological background of sexual perversions is analogous to a similar situation in the case of many phenomena of the functional psychoses. In the delusions of grandeur and persecution of the true paranoiac, for example, we also frequently find pathological development and intensification of the traits of personal over-estimation and suspicious judgment of others which were characteristic of the individual before the incidence of his psychosis.

"This principle of partial attraction almost invariably plays quite a leading role, either consciously or unconsciously, in the healthy love-life of normal individuals. Magnus Hirschfeld has laid especial stress on this point in an interesting monograph on this subject. One man falls only for slender, graceful fig- ures, another yearns for full and voluptuous Rubens' types. The one raves of blondes, the other of brunettes and black- or red- haired women do not lack for admirers — at least no more than the blue-, brown- or dark-eyed women lauded by the poets. Any sensual effect can take on a dominating importance. The way of a walk, the voice, the odor of the body or any part of it, that well-known "odor di femina," these can make them- selves effective, can become the basis of a permanent and irre- sistible attraction (or, contrarily, also of an insurmountable repulsion). How many are susceptible to the chic dress which permits of the plastic emphasis of physical beauty: small feet, narrow waist, proper curve of the hips. Even the whole ar- rangement, the cloth, the cut, can be provocative, not to speak of the highly seductive and studied effects achieved by the art of the tailor and the designer. We have already arrived at the transitions not only to parts of the body as a fetish, but to the

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fetishism of clothes and goods. We have passed from the "physiological" to the pathological. The same processes are to be found among women, although in this case the vestigial and transitional forms as well as true fetishism are much more sel- dom, or at least appear to be so because the personal love con- ditions of women, their "partial attractions" (and partial re- pulsions) operate at a deeper level and come to the surface much less frequently. Nevertheless, the preference for bearded or clean-shaven men, big and strong or small and delicate males, the susceptibility of some women to exotic, foreign races, or types of other colors, brown Turcos, black Somalis, yellow Asiatics, etc., these expressions of sex attraction must be reck- oned in this class."

Many authors consider "individual love conditions" to be1 fetishism. Let us examine such a case somewhat more closely. This case was described by Gamier as object fetishism of an inverted person (homosexual).

Case i. Gustave L., thirty-two, servant, of medium build and normal physical development, was indicted because of an attack upon his faithless love object X. The story of his life mentions the fact that as early as ten years of age he experienced a thrill when embraced by a man whose beard brushed his cheek. He proceeded by all manner of means to achieve the same excitement whenever he could. Shortly thereafter he was so impassioned by the sight of an urinating man that he was impelled to masturbate. At thirteen he noticed that he was sexually excited by the sight of laborers in their working clothes. A well-fitting shirt was sufficient to bring on an orgasm even if only imagined. Any other form of clothing, however, including the military uniform, left him cold. He began to have relations with women, but felt no particular pleasure. His vain desire to imitate his com- rades impelled him in these relations more than anything else. Only one woman was able to enchant the twenty-three-year-old boy, and the reason for that was the fact that he was in love with her lover and not with the forty-six-year-old woman herself. This lover also wore a blouse. During intercourse with the woman, he would have a mental picture of her lover and would then have an orgasm. Nevertheless, he tired of the woman, bummed restlessly about searching for his ideal and was unable to remain in any one place. Finally he succeeded in

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

attracting the friendship of an ideal partner. Seizing upon en- thusiastic words, he pictured to Garnier the various phases and practices of his relations with this man (mutual masturbation and pederasty). But his pain was boundless when he learned that his friend had relations with women, too. The excitement which this realization provoked led to jaundice. Following a frightful depres- sion which was complicated by insomnia, and tortured by inde- scribable jealousy, he threatened his betrayer with a revolver and was arrested.

This case exhibits only certain features of fetishism. Gus- tave is restless, changes his female love objects, but he is ap- parently satisfied with his lover. The blouse is an individual love condition which is probably a fixation of infantile impres- sions. When one studies the life histories of normal indi- viduals, one will be surprised to find that such personal love conditions absorb considerable importance during adolescence, but that such infantilism is overcome in the course of time and then these impressions fade. The intellectual and civilized per- son lays much more weight on spiritual attributes, he enjoys rather the consonance of ideas and tastes and only unconsciously does it sometimes appear as if the individual love conditions have been paramount in determining the choice of a love ob- ject. The healthier a person is, the more easily does he con- quer the tyranny of symbolism in life. But who can say of himself that he is completely free in this respect? It would be gratifying to analyze a number of normal persons with a view to studying their personal sex foibles.

Havelock Ellis has already begun with the publication of the erotic biographies of normal individuals. His cases are very instructive and have even prompted Freud to change his opin- ions on the sexuality of parapathics. The parapathic does not suffer from a pathological sexuality, but rather from his special relation to sexuality. He fights off his sexuality. I know of innumerable examples of persons who remain quite healthy when they learn not to take their deviations from the normal tragically. I offer the following illustration.

Case 2. G. S., twenty years old, stud. ehem. "I first learned to masturbate when I began cross-bar gymnastics, i.e., at eight

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years of age. The special opportunity appeared while climbing on the hard iron bars, but particularly while on the soft, flexible rope. That was also the reason why I was the best climber in the class. As far as I can remember I had only the desire to achieve that "fine feeling" (as I called it) at any price. That I didn't fall from the rope during the orgasm is still a wonder to me. Sometimes, when I had climbed to the top before I had an orgasm, I would slide back down the rope a distance and then climb back up again in order to get my thrill. In the courtyard of our former home there was a cross-bar which was also used as a swing and I climbed up and down the ropes of this, too, often enough. One day my eldest brother saw me doing this from a window of his study and I hardly knew what hole to crawl away to for shame. I was altogether very careful to cover my activity from the very beginning (why especially?).

But there was something else besides the climbing which excited me insanely, and that was riding and anything which was at all connected with it. In 1897, my parents spent the summer with us in B. There, we boys were occasionally permitted to ride around on the beach donkeys and, of course, that meant masturbation for me, since all I had to do was to press myself a little harder against the pommel. Yet I was fearfully bashful even so much so to speak the words riding, saddle, stirrup, spur, riding breeches, riding boots, and the like.

Subsequently, i.e., at about my fourteenth or fifteenth year, I began to give up climbing (if only because I was no longer taking gymnastics), and the riding came to the fore. I still had no idea what all this interest meant. Nor did I as yet masturbate with my hands, but rather in the following fashion : I would blow up a rub- ber air cushion such as I used to sit on, and then I would bend it in such a way that it would take on about the form of a saddle. Keeping it in this shape, I would put it on a chair, sit down on it, brace my hands firmly in front of it, so that the soft rubber would not be pushed forward out of shape, and then begin to work. I also used to do it this way with the use of a bundle of towels in the bath room. Frequently I have also made use of my father's hunt- ing boots or my mother's galoshes to intensify my pleasure. Some- times I would also masturbate on a saddle which lay in the stables of a friendly family X (but always with the terrifying anxiety that I would be discovered). Twice, but with great fear, I got a pair of riding boots belonging to Mr. X, which also had spurs on them, and pulled them on in a toilet on the first floor of their house.

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

The boots I found in a dark corner near the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. X. I masturbated once or twice a day on the average, always imagined something that had to do with riding, and usually also spoke some words aloud.

Then there were two other things which affected me strongly and those were women's high-heeled shoes and sport breeches which were to be buttoned below the knee. It was the peculiar creasing of these breeches which especially excited me; so that, although I would under no circumstances wear such trousers, I would secretly try to tie them on with garters and string and would then masturbate. In this operation I began to use my hand only after my fifteenth year, but up to that time I would get an orgasm by rubbing my penis against some other soft object.

Once I nearly went wild when I saw a pair of perforated women's shoes with very high heels in a store window. They must have reached to the knees (similar to the shoes one sees in the circus). I nibbled at the memory of this sight for weeks. Indeed, I even thought of stealing the shoes. Frequently I would draw riding boots, women's shoes and the like on pieces of paper in order to titillate myself and achieve satisfaction more quickly. The special female qualities began to interest me after my six- teenth year.

A school-mate afforded me "sexual enlightenment" in a rather gross way as early as my first high school year. I suppose I be- lieved what he said, but it didn't bother me much otherwise. I had no idea at that time that my masturbatory acts had any sexual meaning. Of course, I also joined my comrades in making fun of notorious portions of the "holies" or, pardon me, the holy Scriptures, as well as the book of psalms. But I had no real un- derstanding of why I did it. And then all these things began gradually to appear. I observed how, within me, these "forbid- den" things would crop up singly in my lascivious thoughts, would then be held at bay for a while, until, finally, the mental images of the specific female attractiveness gained the upper hand and have retained it. For now neither riding or anything connected with it (unless it be a woman riding in a man's saddle as, e.g., in the Wild West movies and melodramas) nor anything like climbing can give me the least thrill, although — but of this more later.

The period of my most intensive masturbation was during the last three years of high school (I was always a frivolous and lazy pupil, but a good one nevertheless). I masturbated four and five times a day and once established my record of seven times. Since

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I never dared to do this during school hours in the morning, I always masturbated in the afternoons. I practised mutual onanism with a cousin, who was living with us, quite frequently and once even tried immissio penis in anum on him, but this was a com- plete failure.

Since I suffered from this "bad habit," it is understandable that I also tried to give it up. I was once able to withhold myself for a week, but then I had nocturnal pollutions and that was the end of my abstinence. The immediate provocation for the period of abstinence was a lecture by a pastor. The lecture, I felt at the time, quite elevated me. It is not difficult to imagine that this lecture had about as permanent an effect as the faithful promises I made myself. I was always of the opinion that I was com- mitting a fault, if not a sin (although this notion occasionally broke through) ; that is, if the differentiation I make is permissible. But I was especially affected by the fear that I was ruining my health (which, by the way, is enviably good).

Towards the end of the next to last school year, female images prevailed in my phantasies and replaced all the others. For some time I was unusually tender towards my mother and sisters, espe- cially the eldest, and kissed them whenever I could. My attitude changed abruptly, however, when, during one of my very infre- quent nocturnal emissions, I tried in my dream to have intercourse with my eldest sister. In the morning I had such a moral hang- over that I summarily gave up my tenderness towards them and have not had a recurrent desire since then.

The following has, however, become the chief source of sexual excitement for me: It is not the naked woman, but rather the barely draped body, especially the breast, delicately indicating or outlining the form, which fascinates me. I'm practically beside myself with passion whenever I see a lightly clothed girl running, her breasts beneath her blouse or dress visibly following her run- ning motions. Well-shaped women's legs (but not at all neces- sarily clothed in perforated or sheer stockings) and women's feet are also the objects of my phantasies. I must emphasize that I'm not attracted by naked feet, but rather by feet covered with fine shoes carrying half-high or straight heels. I am particularly pro- voked when a good share of the leg is also visible ; the shoe itself would leave me cold. I don't particularly prefer really small feet, but neither do I lay much store by large ones. I can get an erec- tion pronto, e.g., whenever I see a pretty and well-formed girl fighting against the wind, which wraps her dress flatly about her

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

body. But I'm disconsolate if she has a corset on. Corsets can in- flame me, and to a considerable degree, but only when I see them in pictures, like the ones in Lustige Blaetter and Jugend. The pic- tures by Bayros excite me greatly, but those by Reznicek less.

The slit skirt now in the mode, which often permits of a clan- destine peek as far as the knee, frequently gives me an erection. What a start this is for the imagination! Especially when one can picture the leg up as high as one likes. Clothing which has portions cut out catches my fancy only when it is very loose and deeply cut out. Hair or clothes in themselves mean nothing to me.

For some time now I have been masturbating manually once a day. During vacations and on Sundays as well as on days when there is no work, I sometimes make it twice or three times. But I can also leave off for a day or two without afterwards trying to make it up. If I masturbate during the day, I take one of the magazines I mentioned above and enliven the pictures with my imagination, e.g., what I should do were I to kiss the girl, slowly undress her, lay my head between her breasts; and finally she would take my penis and put it in her vagina and then we would expire with pleasure. These are the usual phantasies to which such pictures are subject as I have seen during the day. In my mind, however, the girl must keep her shoes and stockings on, since this promotes my satisfaction. I then picture to myself how she embraces me with her legs and we press body to body and breast to breast. . . .

On the occasion of my second visit to England in the summer of 1913, I had intercourse with a woman for the first time. But when I got home, I was unable to withstand the urge to mastur- bate, thinking of the prostitute, remembering especially how she stuck my penis in her vagina.

It is true that I went up to the university with the best inten- tions not to sink into the "cesspool of sin and vice" and to remain "pure." Gradually, however, the more my mind became freed from the bonds of school and church, the more liberally did I look upon sexuality, and I began to yearn for woman with all my thought and feeling. I do so to-day more than ever. Since on Sundays I had to visit my parents who lived not far away, I dared not, especially for fear of my father, try intercourse in Germany. But I don't want an ordinary prostitute, nor did I ever look for such women. I want a sweet, open, refreshing girl who possesses a personality and an interest in the arts and sciences. That's what I've always been looking for in vain, but my fear of my father

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and my bashfulness have always held me back. In Englands thank God — I was far enough away from home. It was there, too, that I made several friends, thereby losing some of my bash- fulness ; but one of the girls lost her charms for me, some of the others didn't keep their dates, and another aroused my pity — but not my passion.

Back home again, I did not give up my search, although it is my opinion that there is a dearth of desirable material here. Furthermore, a rather revolting occurrence banished my interest in women temporarily. A good friend and schoolmate of mine, with whom I spend a good share of my time, picked up a gon- orrhoea. I have asked surely a dozen girls for a date (quite a number for my finances), but only one kept her appointment ; all the others turned me down and this one was unable to meet me a second time, so I let her go.

Nevertheless, I never did and I never will give up my attempts. I have often run out on the street in the night and fog simply be- cause every fibre in my body cried out for a woman. I never know where to hide myself. I usually walk about until I am tired. Often a streetwalker has appeared, but I usually let her go, despite my terrible need, and return to my "handiwork."

At this point I must interrupt the story of G. S. to point out that he has found a way to woman, but does not feel himself to be pathological despite his fetishistic tendencies. His state- ments about the frequency of his masturbation are worthy of consideration. If we remember that this is a strong and fine- looking man, we will realize how little truth there is in the exaggerations about the ruinous effects of onanism peddled by even the leading sexologists.

One thing is evident: this man's fetishism lies in the direct path which leads to the woman, and this point deserves closer attention. It would probably be more advantageous not to speak of fetishism in such cases at all. Otherwise we would have to differentiate between great and small and between false and genuine fetishism. Eulenburg's term "partialism" would probably do well enough for such cases. We know now that every person has his own set of partial attractions or prefer- ences ; so that the term genuine fetishism would have to be re- served for such cases as I have exhaustively analyzed and dis- cussed towards the end of this treatise.

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

1 3

The true fetish lover dispenses with a sexual partner and gratifies himself with a symbol. This symbol can be repre- sented by a piece of clothing, a part of the partner s body (pubic hair, nails, braid or pig-tail) or any object used by the other person (irrigator, prosthesis, handkerchief, apron, petti- coat, chemise, brush, etc.).

We thus have three kinds of erotic symbolism (Havelock Ellis).

1. The importance of the partial attraction. The love ob- ject must fulfill a certain sexual condition. Sexual intercourse is possible when this condition is met.

2. The paraphilic seeks certain attributes in his love object and finds his gratification at the zone of partial preference (or- gasm in nasa, in auricula, inter mammas, etc. ) .

3. The paraphilic dispenses with the female, satisfies him- self with the symbol and uses the erotic symbol to dispense with the partner. We shall reserve the name of fetishism for such cases as these.

I have already stressed the fact that all persons display cer- tain fetishistic rudiments. These vestigial traits are by no means so important in normal individuals as in true fetish lovers, however, because they themselves constitute a means to an end, to conquest of the female and to alloerotic orgasm, whereas in the case of genuine fetishism such traits make the individual independent of his sexual object. He becomes pro- gressively freer and rapidly sinks into a state of autoerotism. Fetishism thus becomes an apparent cause of impotence. I say apparent because impotence springs only from a fear of the sexual act (which is looked upon as sin) or from a fear of the sexual partner. Thus Moll emphasizes the fact that fetishism leads to impotence, but Krafft-Ebing comes somewhat closer to the truth when he writes : "It is thus perhaps better to look for the pathological criterion of the fetishism of parts of the body on a strictly subjective, psychic level. The concentration of the patient's sexual interest in a certain part of the other person's body which (and this is to be stressed) never has a direct rela- tionship with the sex act (such as breasts, external genitals, etc.), often leads this type of fetish seeker to disregard actual intercourse as the goal of his sexual striving, but to find his

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gratification rather in some act executed upon that part of the body which is most attractive."

Here we have two important symptoms of fetishism: A fe- tish is chosen which possesses but a distant connection with the sexual act as such (and sometimes none whatever) and, sec- ondly, with the aid of this fetish the coitus can be disregarded.5 By this I do not mean to deny that there are fetish lovers who have normal intercourse. I myself know such cases, though they are rare. Nevertheless, in all these cases one can always find the tendency to pass up coitus and to cohabit with the woman only under the pressure of social duty.

Despite the numerous case histories of fetishistic patients which one can read, I can honestly declare that we are as yet far from understanding the essence of this illness. Fetishism is a complicated religion, an artful setting, whose structure can be compared only with the compulsion neuroses. Indeed, we will probably be nearer the truth if we say that fetishism is an obsessional neurosis.

It has recently become modish to rant about the dangers and the disadvantages of psychoanalysis. But there is one good thing about psychoanalysis which we must not forget and that is the wonderful opportunity it has given us to deal with the patients and their parapathias for months and even years at a time. As soon as we have learned to disentangle ourselves from the bonds of prepossession, aprioristic theses and defini- tive methods of approach, we must recognize that such an in- tensive association with the patient must necessarily afford the unbiassed scientist an unusual opportunity to become acquainted with just those intimate and far-reaching details which the pa- tient invariably withholds during the first few visits. Never- theless, it is precisely in the sphere of the paraphilias that psy- choanalysis has advanced the least. Aside from the funda- mental treatise on the Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex by Freud, there are only a few studies in paraphilia by Sadger and some smaller contributions on foot fetishism by Abraham to which we will refer later. The reason for this is to be found in Freud's opinion that paraphilia is something complete; that it is not reducible or analyzable to any further component elements. According to the well-known statement

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

of this author, the child is a "polymorphous pervert." If it sublimates these perverse instincts, i.e., if it is possible for the child to transform them into socially amenable drives, then it will develop into a healthy and normal individual. If, however, these impulses are simply repressed, so that they retain their vitality in the unconscious and produce symptoms, then the individual becomes parapathic. Should the original, perverse tendencies persist into adult life, then the individual has be- come an adult pervert.

In such a system there is nothing to be analyzed. "The neu- rosis is the negative of a perversion/' says Freud. I disagreed with this statement of Freud's when I was yet personally asso- ciated with him and worked as a pupil under the tremendous influence of his ideas. At this time I can but repeat what has been so often said: Paraphilia (perversion) frequently shows us nothing more than the well-known picture of a parapathia (neurosis). In many cases the paraphilia (perversion) is a positive of the parapathia (neurosis). I am able to demon- strate this in the case of the fetishist and have been able to dem- onstrate it in the case of homosexuality. To decide how much of a parapathia is due to the constitutional component and how much of it is a psychic superstructure, that is a problem beyond me. But, in the case of fetishism, I can demonstrate the na- ture of this emotional superstructure, whereas the "constitu- tional" element always hauled up by Freudians in their embar- rassment fades into the background as an insoluble and hypo- thetical factor.

Under the pressure of experience, Freud has recently modi- fied his opinions and now concedes transitional types which stand between a neurosis and a perversion. His most recent opinions have been represented by Sadger as follows : 6

"The purely accidental and chronological contact of the fetish and genital excitement as represented in Binet's explanation is at least not exhaustive or universally applicable. It is also not at all understandable why an accidentally simultaneous occur- rence should take on such permanent power. Begging the ques- tion by calling it degeneration is only a way out, but not a true explanation.

"It is at this point that the further studies of Freud begin.

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He took as a point of departure the notion that one invariably finds an intensification of certain partial instincts in fetishism, primarily the sexual pleasure derived from peeping, but also the thrill derived from odors. One lover of clothing fetishes was found always to have been a witness while his mother was un- dressing, this even as a little child. Not that anything out of the ordinary had occurred between them. It was only that the woman was so attached to her son that she did not suffer him to be ashamed when she undressed and it was thus that both usually had no scruples in undressing before each other. This naturally increased the constitutionally exaggerated peeping tendencies in the boy until he became a voyeur (peeper). Con- stitution and bringing-up worked hand in hand. When, later, his peeping impulses were repressed, the boy became a clothing fetishist by the mechanism of displacing his energies from the naked to the clothed. Instead of evincing an interest in the naked female, he developed an interest in her clothing. He also exhibited an intellectual parallel to this emotional one-sidedness. The man became a speculative philosopher, i.e., he turned his interests from the things of the world to words which are, as it were, the mantels of our concepts. This explains the attraction that philosophy held for him.

"The mechanism operating in this case was about as follows : It is a case of an increased peeping impulse which wanted to look and could be gratified by a disrobing person. The repres- sion which followed was introduced by a dissociation of the complex to which this peeping drive was attached. One part of this complex, i.e., the naked body of his mother, was com- pletely suppressed, whereas the other part of the complex, asso- ciated with the repressed part in a certain manner, was idealized, surrounded with hyperbolic over-estimation, elevated to the status of a fetish. This is a reaction which stands about half way between complete repression and sublimation. This boy thus no longer had a desire to fill his eyes, nor even to be re- minded of this tendency, but he became an idolator of cloth- ing, that which had formerly frustrated his seeing anything. He became a clothing fetish lover after the repression of his peeping tendencies and the dissociation of the complex. The theoretical importance of this explanation is that it shows us

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

how this case of fetishism does not develop on the basis of an early childhood impression, but because of an instinct repres- sion and the dissociation of the attendant complex.

"In another case of foot fetishism Freud nevertheless found precisely this peeping pleasure to be the definitive motive. As a child the patient in question had always looked under the skirts of women. He always began with a close observation of the feet and would then cast his eyes gradually along the leg until he was looking up at their genitals. It was during one of these exploratory trips in sexual provinces that he suffered a severe psychic trauma. He did not achieve a view of his moth- er's genitals, but the parts of his younger sister. This view afforded him a sudden realization of the possibility of castra- tion which had already been threatened him. This, however, was the culmination of the intimidating efforts of up-bringing. He was greatly frightened and this was the beginning of in- hibition. The reaction was at first only a local or geographical one, i.e., he dared no longer look all the way up to the genitals, but had to keep himself back, and thus became permanently fix- ated to the very beginning of his peeping trip, viz., to the feet. Had the inhibition been a greater one, he would have been thrown further back than the foot. He would have preferred the value of shoes, and in severe cases it is not even necessary for the foot to be in the shoe; the shoe alone is a sufficient sexual object. The choice of the foot in this case was determined by a double motive: geographically and symbolically it was the fe- male penis. It seems apparent that the patient's mother herself formed the condition for the boy's fetishistic development by exhibiting an increased erotism in respect of the foot,7 as a re- sult of which she doubtless kissed her baby's feet a good deal. Thus again inheritance and the acquisition of a trait work to- gether in this case. During sexual development, there was then a regression due to intimidation and, finally, fixation during puberty. In order that a perversion may take firm root, it is necessary that a repeated fixation during adolescence take place. In short, a congenital predisposition, intimidation with regres- sion in childhood and, finally, a second fixation in puberty which leads to permanent consolidation of the perversion."

Freudian constitution is thus now replaced by the "disposi-

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tion of the erogenous zones." That's not progress. It only states in other words that the fetish lover is predisposed to his disease by the presence of a higher congenital erogeneity of certain parts of the body. Paraphilia then arises on the basis of a preference of certain partial instincts. The fetish itself replaces the genitals.

Such a description of the facts is one-sided. It embraces some of the cases, but is by no means applicable to the essence of true fetishism. The process is also frequently quite the op- posite of the one described by Sadger. It is possible that pre- cisely the view of a forbidden part of the body can lead to the repression of peeping lust and the compensatory intensification of other sensual reactions. The normal lover looks eagerly at his love object, he likes to touch her, her kisses taste good to him, he is thrilled by the special odor his sex object pervades, her voice possesses for him an inimitable ring, a wonderful melody. In short, he loves with all his five senses. The em- phasis laid on any one of these senses at the expense of the others may frequently be due to the fact that the other four senses have been repressed because they were associated with forbidden impulses.

Sadger's explanation possibly embraces individual cases of partialism, but it is certainly ineffective in solving the riddle of genuine fetishism which has nothing to do with any congenital disposition (i.e., with a stressing of erogenous zones).

Fetishism is a disease and not a fate. It is a parapathia. It is a construction built by the patient for a particular purpose. This point of view also permits us to drop all the so-called "normal fetishes" from our present concept. When a man is fascinated by small ears and is always looking for girls who possess them, he is yet far from being a fetish lover in this sense. He simply expresses a form of sexual variation which is so infinite in its possibilities that it would be impossible to describe it. The point is that his variation lies along the sexual guiding line which leads to the woman, to use an expression of Blüher as developed from Adler. Normal fetishism aids the man in the conquest of the woman and even promotes his libido. These cases have nothing at all in common with the cases of fetishism as I shall describe them. As a matter of fact, they

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

are quite the opposite of what we shall call fetishism and we would do well in such cases not to speak of fetishism at all. The true fetishist needs the fetish in order to supplant the fe- male. The normal individual, however, prefers certain erog- enous zones in order to make the possession of the female more piquant and valuable. The fetish lover depreciates the woman, whereas the normal person over-estimates the possessor of the erogenous zones he prefers.

This is also demonstrable in most cases of partialism. Thus Havelock Ellis writes rather interestingly of foot fetishism :

"The sexual symbolization of the female foot and its denu- dation, which we thus find so characteristic of bygone eras of civilization, and also the fascinating effect which such a leaning has, these realizations are of importance to us in explaining the cases of foot fetishism in our own times. Much as this tend- ency may be eccentric, it can nevertheless be only a recurrence of a sensual or emotional compulsion due to a kind of pseudo- atavism or to a developmental inhibition such as our forefathers probably, and our own small children doubtless, experience. The occasional reappearance of this rudimentary impulse and the tenacity with which it can persist are conditioned by an hypersensitive reaction of an abnormally nervous and perhaps prematurely developed organism to irritations which are gen- erally not noticed or quickly overcome by the average European population. Or, on the other hand, the usual type of person can promptly repress such an abnormal reaction in the maze of highly complicated processes which mark the course of the sexual physiology and tumescence.

"Even if it were considered rash to speak of fetishism as a true atavism, it is still possible to look upon it as a congenital development. It is the infrequent development of a congenital rudiment which frequently had a general and, we might say, normal distribution in earlier epochs of history.

"It may well be that the insensitive and average man never notices such a detail, but for the man who loves with phantasy and rapt attention these susceptibilities become a definite center of gravitation in the highly complex constellation of his pas- sionate feelings. An especially nervous person can find such a symbolism to be an absolutely indispensable element of attrac^

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tiveness in the women he loves, once the symbolism has taken sufficient root in him. Finally, the fully captivated person looks upon the symbol as the chief thing and the person herself is no longer a source of interest, becomes simply an appendix to the symbol. Or the individual who was the love object passes com- pletely into the background of the fetish lovers mind and the symbol alone becomes the goal and the sole source of sexual gratification. Although we may consider as diseased the tend- ency to find especial sexual attraction in the symbol of the love object, we must say that the genuine and complete perversion is represented only by the last type of case mentioned above, viz., the case in which only the symbol is capable of affording sexual satisfaction. In the less marked cases of this type of sym- bolism, it is still the woman who is sought, and procreation is essentially preserved. But if the woman is ignored and the symbol itself becomes an adequate and even welcome stimulus to detumescence then the condition is certainly a pathological one."

Havelock Ellis thus also sees the substitution of the symbol for the love partner as the pathological element of fetishism. He emphasizes the atavistic basis of foot fetishism, a point of view which approximates the sweaty-feet theory of Abraham and Freud. I would rather support the theory of Alfred Adler in the case of foot fetishism : whoever sucked his big toe as a baby will later become a foot fetishist. This point of view is more closely allied to my declaration that the fetish itself is a replica of the person's own erogenous zone. We love in the other person whatever we love in ourselves. We stimulate libido only in those zones of our partner whose activation in us promotes libido, too.

One will find that this law can be corroborated in the whole province of sexual life. There are, of course, all kinds of dis- placements and substitutions. If a naked foot made us happy in childhood, if we desired only to see the naked foot of another person, then it is possible that in adult life this libidinal charge is passed on to the shoe which clothes the foot. We have al- ready seen, in Case 2, G. S., p. 7, how the fact that the body was clothed constituted the special source of animation. The

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

reason is simply that the draping permits the phantasy to in- crease the voluptuousness of the draped object many fold.

If we study various cases of fetishism we will ever find that the tendency to flee from the female is of the utmost impor- tance. I recall the well-known case of Moll, who exhibited a case of rose fetishism. The man lived in absolute abstinence. He never had intercourse with women and even declared that he was a mysogonist. One evening he saw a woman who was wearing a beautiful rose upon her breast and promptly fell in love — with the woman, but primarily with the rose. Secretly he soon engaged himself to this woman, but his desire was solely directed to her roses. He never rested until the roses she wore became his property. He would then take them home, smell them over and over again and thereby sense the deepest raptures. He finally collected quite a museum of roses with a deal of industry. I wish also to point out that this is a char- acteristic which we will observe time and again. This collecting of the symbolic objects is what I have called the harem cult of the fetishist. It never is absent in any case of genuine fetish- ism. It is a characteristic sign of the true bent and is at bottom the symbolic representation of the individual's latent Don Juan strivings. The fetish lover is a Don Juan type or has, at least, secret appetites of this kind. But they are at war with his inner morality. Instead of collecting women,8 however, he collects fetishes.

Every fetish adept has his harem of handkerchiefs, drawers, shoes, braids, photographs, hair, corsets, garters, etc., etc. Each single fetish soon loses its enchanting qualities as a fetish and the devotee quickly and hungrily finds himself another sample only to drag forth the old one again after a while; all just like a pasha in his harem. There is always a favorite for the mo- ment.

But to get back to our rose fetishist. Did he marry the woman whose roses he had learned to love so well that he had become engaged to their possessor ? By no means. He did as all fetishists do. He gave some lame excuse for breaking off the engagement, gave up the woman and remained true to his roses. The fetish has fulfilled its duty. It kept the man from the woman and took the latter's place.

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But behind this apparent paraphilia there is a secret anxiety.

This man hides between Scylla and Charybdis, between sa- tanical desires and puritanical tendencies. He is a Don Juan without the nerve to commit sin. The female appears to him devoid of any fascination because the seductive qualities have been violently passed on to a smaller object, the rose. It's no sin to kiss roses. Nor can the rose put his potency to the test. The rose as companion will never force him into the struggle of the sexes, the battle which the fetish lover always avoids.

Now, this also explains to us a form of fetishism which turns out not to be fetishism at all in the sense in which we here use the word. I mean the preference some men have for small, old, crippled, ugly, bent and short women who are cross-eyed and limp ; for misshapen creatures, in a word. The famous case of the philosopher Descartes, who was attracted only by cross- eyed women, belongs in this group. I would like at this point also to point out that there are men who choose women who have one leg amputated or who wear crutches. In addition to the well-known and understandable infantile source of these cases (memory of an infantile sexual object), the majority of them probably have another motivation. The man feels sym- pathetic towards these deformed women. They are not accepted at the full female value. One of Merzbach's cases, of which I shall speak later, corroborates this supposition fully. Destiny has branded them and they are underrated. With such women, it is easier for the man to feel the full importance of his per- sonality, a circumstance which plays a deciding role in the busi- ness of wooing and wedding a woman. Compared with such half-women, the man feels himself whole. This also gives us insight into the reason why some men are so potent when with prostitutes and such failures with decent women. This type of man so over-estimates the decent female that he feels inferior in her presence and this circumstance often precludes the possi- bility of any sexual aggression because potency and the feeling of superiority are intimately related feelings. In such cases, then, the man drops to the level of the "branded" woman, he makes her happy with his favor, whereas he is otherwise the one who is favored.9

We will always find in the cases of fetishism that are de-

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

scribed, that the person in question emphasizes the fact that he has always lived in abstinence. Thus, Lippmann says of his case of pig-tail fetishism: "He never displayed the slightest trace of sensuality. Conversation about girls or about sexual matters held no interest for him. At the request of a friend he joined a fraternity which demanded abstinence in sexual mat- ters as a condition of membership. He declared that such a condition was easy for him." But the fact that he was only repressing his sexuality is let out of the bag when we learn that, contrary to his usual habits, he once became drunk and in that condition sprang for the bar-maid, and tousled her hair. Such effects of alcohol, the banishment of inhibitions, apparent changes of character, can frequently be observed in sexual mat- ters. For such persons chastity is practically a necessity for it protects them from such slips of conduct (cited after Merz- bach: Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtssinnes, Alfred Holder, 1909).

This patient further stated : "He never experienced any sen- sual attraction to a person of the opposite sex. This became especially clear to him once when there was a discussion in a society called Ethos on the difficulties of resisting seductive ex- periences. At that time he was imbued with an honest convic- tion when he stated that he could guarantee chastity as far as he were concerned, but he had no notion of what temptation meant to the others." We notice here that this patient has avoided women from earliest youth and the reason is palpably that he doesn't even wish to begin the battle of the sexes. He always fears the superiority of the female, just as I have explained it in the discussion about men preferring crippled women. One of Merzbach's patients, who sought out only deformed women as his sexual partners, stated that he was mightily inflamed when- ever his partner and he had to go through all sorts of tricks with the cushions and bed linen to get the woman into the right position. "In addition to the sexual lust provoked, such handicapped creatures possessed the added virtue of feeling in- debted. . . ." Manifestly, the patient laid the greatest store by the woman's thankfulness and his feelings of superiority. The fact that many men are potent with a prostitute, but impotent

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with a decent woman even in marriage, is reducible to this fine play of egoism.

I could buttress these statements sufficiently on the basis of many cases described by other authors. Regardless of whether there is a tendency to shoe nails, roses, handkerchiefs or corsets, one will always observe that these persons have a desire to avoid the woman. There is a marked chastity of living in contrast to the extravagance of their phantasies. It is always a battle be- tween the satanic and the religious.

Erotic eccentricities (Eulenburg's "picacism") have nothing in common with fetishism. They are usually fixated infantile habits as I have sufficiently described in "Infantile Psycho- sexuality" of this series.

In defining the nature of fetishism, I wish to present further some cases from the Sexual Pathology of Magnus Hirschfeld. The first case reads :

"In another case a man was plagued with the obsession to sit down on any spot from which a woman had just arisen. He was usually able to effect his purpose even in well-filled street cars and trains and without being suspiciously noticed. The warmth imparted to the seat by the woman's buttocks often pro- voked an erection in him. But to sit down on a seat which had previously been occupied by a man called forth a wave of un- pleasantness in him and finally became impossible. In hotels, trains and otherwise, he usually made use of women's toilets, but this habit not infrequently brought down hard words upon his head."

This man very probably had begun early in life to use the toilet immediately after a female member of the family had been there. The warmth of the seat then provoked pleasure in the boy. The contact with the seat doubtless kindled associa- tions of contact with the female body (the well-known tertium defecations which plays such an important part in childhood). The repressed homosexuality is expressed in his disinclination to sit upon any seat previously occupied by a man. This is a typical case of "psycho-sexual infantilism" with repressed homosexuality and repressed anal sexuality.

We come to the second case of Hirschfeld :

"One of my patients, a Jewish business man, was filled with

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

a sadistic hatred against red hair. He nevertheless married a woman with fiery red hair. He rationalized this act with two excuses : He thought that he would lose his hatred through con- stant association with the object of his disgust in marriage. In addition, his wife brought so much money with her that he de- cided the red hair was worth the price. And, lastly, all those whom he had questioned found red hair rather pleasing if any- thing. He had come to me because he wanted to have his dis- taste cured by hypnosis. Before undertaking anything else, I suggested to the wife that she dye her hair, but this she stoutly refused to do. She conceived her husband's distaste as a per- sonal slight or, at best, as a whim which he would easily give up "if he really loved her." Many similar cases occur every- where, with the public sadly underestimating fetishistic compul- sions in its ignorance. The marriage was dissolved."

This is a case of "partialism," a love condition of a highly individual kind, but negative; similar to what Hirschfeld has described as "anti-fetishism." The man evidently fights off an irresistible susceptibility to red-haired women (infantile mem- ory?), and his method is to transform the leaning into its op- posite. He nevertheless succumbs to the seductive effects of the red hair and then rationalizes his marriage in a rather sorry way by saying he wants to "accustom" himself to red hair by this marriage. But his inhibitory mechanisms are found to be stronger than his leanings. This man could easily be cured by psychoanalysis, just as psychoanalysis can uncover the psycho- logical background of his conduct. The case does not belong to the group of true fetishism.

Hirschfeld's third case reads :

"I now come to an example of hair fetishism. The patient, who has been under my care for over ten years, is a prominent government official of fifty years. He relates the following:

"When he was seven years old, the children were all in bed one evening when their young governess came to them and em- braced them one by one because she was leaving. The moment when our patient held her hair is still clear in his mind. When he began to have waves of sexual appetite during puberty, his passion was always aroused by the sight of a lovely head of hair. From that time on, he was enkindled only by men's hair,

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whereas women's hair created no stir in him. More, he was interested only in smooth, brown-black hair which was parted. The patient also casts his eyes upon the forelock, but that is not of such importance to him. He is distinctly fussy about how far the part is pulled to one side. He prefers young and bash- ful men, but insists that they must act naturally. He finds the heights of pleasure and constant sexual provocation in acting as barber to someone. He executes this as follows : Standing be- hind the man, he moistens the hair with oil and pomade which, along with a comb, he always carries in his pocket, and then he draws a part through the hair. When he has drawn the part back as far as the neck, he gets an emission, but even stroking the smooth hair, smoothing it down, has this effect, especially if he lightly touches the back of the individual with his body while approaching for the operation. He never exposes his genitals for shame, but he believes that this would enhance his feelings. He himself has a part in his hair and very frequently cares for his hair, but he gets much more enjoyment from exe- cuting the operation on others. The very sight of a part in someone's hair is enough to cause him to run after that person and speak to him. During the time when he was a young officer, he always drew a careful part in his hair before meet- ing any girl and having intercourse ; and the moment before the orgasm he would picture a very straight and lovely part as the symbol of most acute pleasure. The patient states that he has no understanding for the desire on the part of some to cut off hair and keep it as a remembrance or because of a compulsion, yet he can imagine "that he would cut off a lock from the head of a very dear friend who were dying and would be lost to him forever." His chief associations pass from the sight of a fine part back to the most enjoyable hours he had experienced in parting the hair of young men, "an expression of the highest level of his thoughts and feelings, a world in which he moved as within a charmed circle the center of which was represented by a well-drawn, straight, brown-black part, the very focus of a universe in which but little light disclosed pulsating life shin- ing forth from deepest night." Because of his eccentric habits, the patient had become noticeable and in the places which he frequents he has become known as "the barber." These places,

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

also, by no means reflect his aristocratic origin, but are of a low- grade atmosphere which he prefers."

This case, also, has little to do with genuine fetishism. It is rather a typical case of "psycho-sexual infantilism" with homosexuality.

The reader has doubtless become anxious to read a typical case of true fetishism. Somewhat later I shall produce the ex- haustive analyses of such cases, but at this point I wish to insert a very characteristic case of Paul Garnier's,10 which will serve even further to describe and delimit our subject.

Case 3. The twenty-six-year-old writer, Louis X., had publicly masturbated in the Park of Vincennes and was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. The official physicians, Paul Gar- nier and Legras examined him as to his mental condition and gave the following as part of their opinion:

X. comes of a wealthy family and has a distinct degenerative heredity from his mother's side. He nevertheless discloses no especial signs of degeneracy. On the contrary, he gives the appear- ance of being remarkably well-kept and elegant. He wears patent leather shoes which are noticeably shiny. He carries a pince-nez and a monocle without, however, being near-sighted, but only to affect an interesting attitude. His carriage is quiet and his move- ments controlled. His voice is monotonous and somewhat fem- inine. He is tall, slender, and wears a light blonde beard. Because of their excessive cultivation, his hands give the impression of delicate, female hands. His finger nails, lastly, are so long that they incapacitate him for any kind of manual work whatever.

He has always enjoyed the best of physical health, but psychi- cally he shows considerable anomaly. He was always fearful and never manifested any degree of aggressiveness. "We never saw him laugh," said his brother. He lives alone and passes his days behind the locked door of his room. He had always exhibited a flair for the paradoxical, for irony and depreciation. On the other hand, he had never given anyone the slightest cause for censure, neither at home or in school. But this is due more to his passivity than to his ambition.

His habits were always bizarre, and everyone made fun of his manners. He was hardly twelve years old when he was already paying extraordinary attention to his personal care, anointed his body with pomade, powdered it afterwards and was constantly ad- miring himself in the mirror like a vain woman. It was laughable

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to see him try to protect his complexion when in the country and he invariably hid himself from the direct rays of the sun. His brother often found him striking a grotesque pose in bed, his head covered with a sheet, lying flat ort his belly.

At the age of 13, X. was first introduced to onanism in school. At home he would wait for his parents to go out and then mas- turbate in peace. From this time on, he achieved an orgasm while masturbating only if he could have a pair of patent leather shoes before him.

This habit of staring at shoes had been present early in child- hood, however. With exception of manual masturbation, all other forms of onanism disgusted him. He reached the age of seventeen and still had no noticeable yearning for the female sex. They sent him to the university where he studied law, but his heart was not there. He was, however, attracted to writing and decided to be- come an author. He then published several pieces of his work, but they were prompt failures. It was during his period of military service that he tried to initiate heterosexual intercourse, especially because his comrades made fun of his girlish bashfulness. He found no gratification whatever in coitus, however, and returned to masturbation. After his one-year term of service he got himself ready for the doctorate and also published two novels which grad- ually sank into oblivion, unnoticed. His favorite books were the works of suggestive authors.

At twenty-two he felt the first breath of a nebulous desire for passive pederasty and made bashful but fruitless attempts to pla- cate these wishes. He then began to enjoy admiring elegant and handsome young fellows and his raptures were distinctly increased when they happened to be wearing patent leather shoes. He would picture these patent leather shoes to himself when he masturbated at home, and invariably used the most recent example he had seen.

He was always convinced of his powers as a literary possibility and knew well how to pull the wool over his parents* eyes for four years. He declared that he was working in the office of an attorney and would leave the house regularly at the expected hour each morning. He said that he was going to the office and always used all kinds of tricks to keep his mother and his brother off his track. Arrived at home, he would drop remarks about his studies and how intensively he was working. He would even tell the family about the successes his writings were enjoying. When he left the house each day, however, he would actually go to various museums of the city or would go collecting butterflies. On these

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

trips he was vainly in search of his ideal, a creature which he de- scribed as follows : "I yearned for the company of an elegant and cultured young man. I desired that we should meet daily and pass many hours together chatting on literature, philosophy, etc. Now and again, during these hours, it was my desire that we should exchange caresses and pet a little, and finally masturbate each other. I would never ask my ideal to gratify my tendencies to pederasty, the disgusting details might wreck our friendship. Nevertheless, I have desired to be possessed by a man at least once in my life, if only to experience the feeling. But none of these dreams are destined ever to come true."

Dejected at the failure of his literary ventures, tortured by the fear that his complicated web of lies would be discovered for what it was, disconsolate over the frustration of the pederastic dreams which disappeared like a fata morgana whenever he attempted to realize them in more or less burlesque adventures, he came home, became melancholy and suffered from an obstinate frontal head- ache. To gratify his over-running passion, he suddenly decided to substitute a billiard ball for his penis. The first one he tried was too large and injured him. Finally he found one of the de- sired calibre and went through a procedure which he describes as follows: Squatting low, wearing a pair of pink, silk bloomers which I had bought some time previously, I vaselined the billiard ball and stuck it in my anus. I carefully protected the silk panta- lets from becoming soiled by covering them with a linen cloth. Then I would press the billiard ball brusquely against my anus with my left hand, so that it would almost snap in. Meanwhile, I held the bloomers with my right. At that moment I had but half an erection, but the real thrill came when the ball was finally in my rectum. Then while I masturbated with my right hand, I tried to get the billiard ball out of my rectum with the left. When I had done this, I repeated the procedure and often carried it out as many as six to twelve times. My delight was especially great if I was able to snap the ball in with one stroke. I always tried to withhold the ejaculation as long as possible and derived the most gusto from an orgasm when I held the ball firmly between my buttocks after the last expulsion."

His descriptions of the sensations he experienced during this act are very complicated and much less clear than the masturbatory images of former years. His pleasure was a double one: 1 — Whenever he would introduce the billiard ball into his rectum, he would picture to himself the penis of the last object he had

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seen which had particularly caught his eye with elegance and patent leather shoes. "They always appeared to me in rows of 4, 5, 6, until I had chosen the most attractive one of the lot and thereby achieved an orgasm." 2 — He imagined that while he was going through the pederastic act, one of his favorites was mas- turbating him.

Nevertheless, he was not completely alleviated by these extraor- dinary procedures and went so far as to insert stereotyped adver- tisements in the public print which read about as follows : "I hereby offer my buttocks to handsome men with patent leather shoes.,, He also didn't hesitate to make the most disgusting prom- ises, and even while writing the words "patent leather shoes" he got an erection. Patent leather shoes was an obsessional idea with him. He stared at the shoes of every man he passed on the street. The trinity : patent leather shoes ; fine, young man ; elegance led to an immediate erection. He would stand for hours before shoe stores, go blocks out of his way to get to one, and had the greatest difficulty pulling himself out of the state of drunkenness which such sights brought over him. The shinier the shoes were, the more fascinated he became, and at night he dreamed that he had robbed the store of the patent leather shoes. He finally decided to buy a pair of them himself, ones similar to those the young cadets wear. What followed this purchase was a delirious possession which he describes as follows : "In overheated excitement I ran home with them. My heart was nearly beating through my breast, I locked the door in order to enjoy my possession to the full. I placed the new shoes on the silk bloomers. My sexual excitement suddenly achieved a maximum in an instantaneous erection. 'Finally, finally, I have you/ I cried. Before retiring, I placed the shoes on the little night table where they could be brightly lighted up by the lamp. I couldn't take my eyes from the wonderful sight and my sensual animation was expressed in a permanent erection. The following morning, I had to look at them long and hard before I could decide to leave them. From then on I spent some time each day looking at my shoes after I had taken them out of their box."

X. protects his patent leather shoes with the jealous attention of a lover. One day the maid had put the shoes in another place when she had cleaned up the room. This cut him terribly and thereafter he locked them safely in a closet.

His greatest pleasure consists in pulling them out each day and gloating over them. He seeks out everything which will increase their polish. He stands them on the window sill in order thus to

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

enjoy the reflected glint of the sun on them. He marvels at them. He becomes so fascinated that he gets a spontaneous orgasm. He considered for a long time, however, whether or not he should put the shoes on and go out with them. He finally decided to put them on and wear a riding habit. He hoped thereby to create a stir and thus catch the eye and the desire of one of his favorite types. Quite naturally, he did not achieve his purpose. "I re- turned home," he writes, "powerfully excited and couldn't eat a bite. Of course, plenty of people turned about to look at me on the street, but they didn't give me any thrills since they were not my type. I also noticed a slight crack in one of the shoes and that depressed me as much as if I had seen the first wrinkle in the face of a beloved woman. I have not put them on since then."

But sight alone is not the only portal to his pleasures. The very odor of his shoes can bring about an immediate orgasm. He de- rives the utmost joy from smelling at them, and touching them is rapture. Upon waking in the morning, he takes them in the bed and places them between his legs, but he feels that he must con- trol himself to some extent as otherwise he might damage them. X. draws the following picture of his relations with the shoes :

"I pull on my pink, silk bloomers and then put on my patent leather shoes. I climb up on two chairs, spread my legs and then admire myself in the mirror. I masturbate, fixating my buttocks, my legs and especially my shoes in the mirror all the while. At such a moment I am in love with myself, I could pet and hug my own body as I look at it in the mirror. This sight can sometimes so excite me that I frequently don't need the billiard ball at all in order to achieve an orgasm. In this position, it is always my pur- pose to direct the stream of semen that spurts out into the open- ing of the shoes and if I succeed in doing this I am seized with a paroxysm of lascivious lust. Another time, I will rub my anus, my legs and my buttocks with a shoe just before ejaculation, meanwhile steadily staring at the reflection from the shiny surface of the other. But I most usually place each shoe on a separate chair near the window, turn them until they reflect the light the brightest and then take up a distance which will just permit me to squirt into the opening of the shoe. The moment the semen touches the shoe I feel not only a sensation of fullest gratification, but also one of complete triumph."

Finally, X. attempted the realization of his phantasies. He went walking in his patent leather shoes. He saw a young man on a bicycle who pleased him considerably. The cyclist turned

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about and looked at his shoes. That was his ideal ! In the throes of his excitement, he displayed his genitals, but his disillusionment was great when the other coolly removed himself from the scene. The result of this episode was his arrest upon the charge of a passer-by.

The opinion of both specialists directed attention to the hereditary Stigmatisation of the patient, the compulsive char- acter of his conduct, and pleaded for the internment of the patient in an institution. The court followed the advice of the specialists.

This remarkable and almost unique case discloses the charac- teristic signs of true fetishism. In the first place, we note the steady avoidance of the female. X. tried coitus once or twice, but it gave him no pleasure. He then elaborated his homosex- ual components and acts as if he is searching for a partner. But he never finds one. He has no force, no aggressiveness, and actually passes up any opportunity which offers itself. Whenever a young man gives him an opening, he finds that the gentleman falls short of his ideal. Succinctly, he avoids reality and lives in a world of phantasy.

The true fetishist expresses himself in masturbation. There is no fetishism without onanism. X., too, is quite a devotee of masturbation and reality has lost all value for him. He walks in a world of dreams.

But this world of dreams reaches all the way back to his childhood. Like all other cases of fetishism, X. is a typical case of psycho-sexual infantilism. At the same time, he suf- fers from impulsive conduct. He actually could have stolen the shoes in the store windows. He finally did exhibit his genitals publicly in the Bois de Vincennes. Whoever among my read- ers has studied Volumes V 11 and VI 12 will easily understand the complicated procedures of our patient. These shoes are the representatives of two people (perhaps the parents). They are for him the symbols of certain persons or experiences. By means of emotional displacements, mighty affects, having their origin in earliest childhood, are apparently drawn from their object of original attachment and transposed to these shoes. The latter then become idols, real gods, genuine fetishes.

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

There is in all cases of fetishism a tendency to the forma- tion of series and a sort of harem. The individual seems to be true to his love object. The construction of a series of love objects is exhibited in the person's choice of a partner by first imagining a whole row of possibilities and then, during mas- turbation, picking out one of them as a favorite. This repeti- tion compulsion of the onanistic act indicates the individual's deficient sexual gratification. His phantasies do not achieve the desired effect, i.e., the original goal has been replaced by a fictitious one. Gratification is therefore possible only by ex- haustion. That is why most of these cases go to excess in masturbation and often succumb to onanism as often as twelve times a day.

Their masturbation contains, also, an impulse to exhibition- ism, to public masturbation, to a symbolic representation of their secret wishes. This patient X. advertises himself in the papers, he makes himself noticeable, and finally exhibits his genitals in a public place.

All these patients suffer from the irresistible power of a fer- menting secret. They hide themselves away in shyness to live in their world of dreams, but there is another force which impels them to betray themselves, to communicate themselves to others, to reveal their secret symbolically or directly to all the world.

In X.'s case, too, we see him roaming about in a sort of twi- light state (the hyponoic state of Kretschmer), similar to the conditions we have found in an examination of impulsive acts. We have observed in him an irresistible drive to make-believe and a narcissism which expresses itself in onanism before a mirror. Narcissistic love is present in every case of fetishism and the habit of masturbating before a mirror is very charac- teristic.

In other words, Louis is a genuine fetish lover. It is not irrelevant at this point to interpret the symbolic meaning of his patent leather shoes and his divers manipulations. The reader will doubtless already have thought that the shoes probably represent his parents, that they are pluralistic phantasies and may be a condensation of birth phantasies and other sexual processes. In some of my analyses later on, I will be able com-

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pletely to interpret similar cases. X. was not analyzed, but was sent to an asylum. It would have been possible to free him from his morbid leanings by a proper analysis.

Before we define fetishism formally, it will pay us to con- sider another interesting case. In the Archives internationales de neurologie, Nr. I, 1922, Viollet reports the following case:

Case 4. Mr. D., twenty-five, is the eldest son of a family of three children. The one sister died at eighteen and the other is sixteen years old. His father suffers from chronic bronchitis "et a des habitudes d'ethylisme." His mother is a moron, brutal and irritable. There are no other hereditary stigmata.

D. was never seriously ill, but he was always somewhat delicate. During the war he was called to the colors three years after his class.

Shortly after being conscripted, he married and now has a four- month-old baby which shows a spina bifida incompleta and an atresia ani.

He states that he masturbated as early as eight years of age and claims that he came by it alone. He says that he has either of two images during onanism: the one is that he masturbates on ("sur") a pillow, a child's feather pillow, the other is a picture of a little girl who lives near by.

These images he has been using while masturbating ever since childhood. If he happens to meet the little girl, who is now twenty-five, on the street, he immediately has an erection, runs home, pulls out his little pillow, hides himself usually in the attic, and masturbates. When he is about to have the orgasm, her image stands almost physically before him and he experiences deepest pleasure.

The reason he hides himself is because his mother always beat him brutally whenever she would catch him masturbating. Once his wife helped his mother beat him fearfully. He has been living, since marriage, together with his wife at his parents' house. He is greatly afraid of his mother. His wife he finds quite pretty, but she is quite agitated over his masturbation.

He has intercourse with his wife every day, but he finds that less enjoyable than when he is alone with his little pillow. One day his wife found him masturbating and invited him to give it up and He down with her, but when he tried to have intercourse he promptly lost his erection. That has happened often and D. states

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

that whenever he has an erection and has his pillow he can never finish the act by means of normal coitus.

He must always have that special pillow. When he goes to sleep he has a clean pillow slip beneath his head, but when he uses the pillow for masturbating, he pulls a dirty, old, unwashed pillow slip over it. Once his wife hid the pillow under the mattress and he searched for it frantically, but he did not masturbate without it. It was only after he had found it that he masturbated again.

The image of the girl can cause him to have an erection, but he cannot masturbate without the pillow. This girl who plays such a large part in his phantasies has never been the object of D's actual attentions. On the contrary, he once even refused to dance with her and has never so much as thought of having intercourse with her. He invariably pictures her at her present age and dressed in the clothes she wears in the street. It is interesting to learn that he could have married this girl who comes from the same stratum of society as himself, but he never took the oppor- tunity to make her acquaintance. She does not exist for him outside his onanistic phantasies, nor does he love her.

The author of the report was not able to decide just what form of obsessional imagination this case represented. He wrote: "II m'a ete impossible de decouvrir decisevement s'il s'agissait la d'une obsession."

D. is an anxious, monosyllabic type, quite good-natured, but he probably did not understand the meaning of the questions which the author put to him.

It is nevertheless important to remember that D. also mastur- bated without having seen the girl just previously. His one condi- tion was that he had to be alone, undisturbed and with his little pillow. In that state, he did not even need the phantasy of the woman. The pillow and being alone were absolute conditions. But with his mother and his wife around, he was finally unable to find the slightest peace at home ; and thus he was one day ob- served by two women masturbating in a little side street near his home. Upon their charges, he was arrested.

Viollet hastened to remark that it was not D.'s desire to masturbate publicly, as the court had assumed, but that he had simply hoped, at the time he was seen by the two women, to find the quiet in this place that he wanted. If he had been able to masturbate at home, he would not have chosen the alley for the purpose.

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D. is of masculine build, is a steady and capable worker and earns a livelihood for himself and his family. He is by no means an asocial individual. Nevertheless he appears to be a man of low grade mentality. He has had a meagre education, is dull mentally, displays abnormal anxiety and possesses a very weak will. In addition to this he is addicted to alcohol. That is, he is like many men in Burgundy. They drink their red wine and crew on bread crusts — usually many bread crusts. He is, in short, not an alcoholic in the strict sense of the word. He neither exhibits symptoms of alcoholism "nor can alcohol be blamed for any part in his case."

In view of the fact that D. did not masturbate during his military service and during the period when his wife had hid- den the pillow, Viollet concluded that simply burning the pil- low would bring the patient's masturbation to a stop, that D.'s desire would cease. The author further thought that it be- hooved the two women to become a little more considerate of the patient.

This is doubtless a typical case of fetishism, i.e., a rudi- mentary form. D. was able to marry and to have regular intercourse, but he was not able to give up his fetish. We are here clearly able to see two forms of displacement of affect : the one towards the girl and the other towards the pillow. In both cases, we are dealing with a regression back to an infantile ideal, very probably the mother. But the formation of series in phantasies is missing. His marriage appears to have pre- cluded the development of a complete fetishism. In this case we also observe that, instead of the formation of series or a harem of fetishes, the patient is quite faithful to his love object : the pillow, or the girl. D. resembles Louis X. in this respect. It is probable, however, that a deep analysis in this case would have been able to discover serial formations. This case also was ended by the "force of fermenting secrets." D. was prompted to carry out an exhibitionistic act and was arrested. The therapy which the author suggests (burning the pillow) seems to me to be laughable and doomed to failure. Were it to be carried out, the patient would probably replace the lost object by a harem of new pillows.

WHAT IS FETISHISM?

We are now enabled to come to the following conclusions. In a case of true fetishism we can observe :

1. The fetish replaces the sexual partner. This initiates a manifest retreat from active heterosexual activity. The male fetish devotee either flees from or depreciates the female. The female fetishist is either anaesthetic when with a man or she avoids coitus entirely.

2. The fetishist suffers from a form of psycho-sexual in- fantilism and expresses this infantilism in his onanistic phan- tasies.

3. There is usually present a tendency to construct a series of fetishes (the harem cult of the fetishist).

4. The individual's tendency to repeat the forbidden infan- tile pleasure leads him to impulsive acts of all kinds. Fetishists are vagrants, kleptomaniacs, exhibitionists, etc.

5. The fetish itself is determined in its choice by emotional displacements and symbolization. It gradually absorbs the whole sexual activity of the individual.

6. Fetishism is a complicated compulsion neurosis and also serves the purposes of asceticism. Fetishism is repentance and pleasure together.

7. The impulsive acts take place in a kind of twilight state. The fetishist is a day-dreamer to whom the borders between reality and the dream world become hazy.

8. There is also an invariable criminal component present (the sadistic traits of Mr. F.).

9. Fetishism is a kind of religion.

10. The symbolism of fetishism can be interpreted and cleared up only by a deep driving psychoanalysis.

These conclusions will serve for the present. In the follow- ing chapters we shall have occasion to make important addi- tions to these ten points.

THE ANALYSIS OF AN INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION

In employing the expression fetishism, as we have, only for such cases of severe paraphilia in which the fetish totally re- places the sexual object and forms the nucleus of a compli- cated system, we must necessarily reject a number of other ec- centricities which have heretofore been described as fetishistic We here arrive at a well-known province, that of the specific love condition. In reference to this condition, I need only call the reader's attention to Frigidity in Woman (the chapters on "Love At First Sight" and "The Individual Love Condition") and Impotence in the Male (the chapter on "The Conditions of Male Potency") of this series.

The field of "partialisms" is practically inexhaustible. Everybody has his own sexual predilections and points of preference, the basis of which is partly constitutional and partly conditional. But the more deeply I delve into my material, the more surprised I am at the inconceivable wealth of "erogenous zones" which we possess and the number of individual love conditions.

It shall not be my purpose to consider the divers forms of partialism which are scientifically of little interest and can have value only as curiosities. On the basis of a few analyses, I shall try to show how complicated the situations sometimes are and what abstruse determinants often appear for the partialism in question. The example I choose here is the analysis of a case of so-called "breast and buttocks fetishism" which, being coupled with impotence, could easily have misled one to con- sidering it as a case of true fetishism.

Case 5. Mr. I. O., thirty-eight years old, a bank official, con- sulted me because of absolute impotence. He has been unable to perform intercourse for the past two years. Not long ago he still

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 39

had a weak erection, but it ended in an ejaculatio praecox. Now he is not able to produce even this weak erection.

He states that he masturbated only a year, between the ages of fifteen and sixteen, and that he then gave it up. When asked about his phantasies and his love conditions, he confessed that he remembered a scene which once excited him considerably. This scene he must always picture to himself during inter- course. He was seventeen years old and worked in a tailor's shop. He saw that the tailors often grasped the girls by the breasts or by the buttocks and since then, he says, these memories have been his sexual conditions. He invariably imagines that he is standing behind a girl and grasps her by the breasts. With- out this fondling, he was always impotent and now not even this image helps him.

He readily accepted analysis as a means of cure.

He relates the obligatory but unimportant story of his early life. There were seven children. He was the youngest and was pampered. He was never beaten and states that he first was in- troduced to onanism at fifteen by a schoolmate. He soon gave it up.

He exhibits marked resistance to the analysis.

He is convinced that he cannot be helped. He does not doubt my ability and my good will, but thinks, nevertheless, that his cause is lost. He is told that he is really afraid of what's coming and that that is the real reason why he is considering breaking off the analysis.

He reports that for eight years (between twenty and twenty- eight) he regularly visited a certain blonde prostitute who at- tracted him considerably, to such an extent, as a matter of fact, that he was never impotent with her. He nevertheless performed a certain special ceremonial whenever he was with her, otherwise he never got an erection. He placed her beside himself in a naked state before a mirror. He then went behind her and gasped her by the breasts. He remained in this position for a while and then grasped her by the buttocks. Finally, intercourse would be ef- fected in the usual position. With other prostitutes it frequently happened that he was impotent, but with his blonde he was always potent.

"Did this prostitute look like anyone who was prominent in your childhood life?"

He said no, but then bethought himself :

"I find that she is remarkably like my sister who is five years

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older than myself. That is, not so much in appearance as in her movements, expression, lovely character. . .

He thus confesses the possibility of a fixation to an older sister (the patient, by the way, has no knowledge of Freud).

He reports further that he has also frequently masturbated in recent years and that he must take up a curious position while doing so. He places his erected penis as far back between his legs as he can and then rubs it at the root until he ejaculates.

Suddenly he remembers that an uncle once forbade him to mas- turbate and told him all kinds of stories about what diseases he would have if he continued. This uncle died when he was eight years old. In other words, he had masturbated before he was eight and had already been warned of what the results would be if he persisted.

Now we understand why he insists repeatedly that masturbation has made him impotent. His guilty feelings spring from his child- hood experiences.

He is a distinct slave of his family and knows nothing but the family. He lives with his mother and an unmarried sister with whom he is constantly quarreling. On the slightest provocation they can make the biggest scenes. He has often thought of marry- ing her off, but she is very discriminating and turns all wooers down. An older sister is very well married and quite well to do. The one at home will not live below the social status of her mar- ried sister. He once thought: when my sister marries, I'll live with her. The thought surprised him very much, since he thought that he would be glad to get lid of her.

He relates hesitatingly that he once dreamed he was having in- tercourse with his sister and that the memory of the dream was very painful to him. He treats every woman like a sister, fem- ininity is "taboo" for him.

This gives us some understanding of why he must approach the woman from behind. He cannot look her in the face and maintain the fiction that she is, symbolically, his sister.

He once fell in love with a "sister of mercy" in the hospital and the bridge of associations offered by the word sister helped him into this. He kissed her when they were on an outing together and felt nothing but devotion to her. An inexplicable anxiety and the fear of making a fool of himself nevertheless withheld him from trying to have intercourse with her.

Spontaneously he tells of a fondness he once had for a school- mate. A strong homosexual component thus comes to light. A

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 41

few days ago he went to a Turkish bath and it is plain that the men he saw there excited him somewhat, for while he was washing himself with soap, he ran his finger into his rectum and said, "That's the way the homos do it." Then a wave of revulsion came over him. Otherwise, however, he has nothing against homosex- uals. On the contrary, he feels that he must pity them.

His preferred posterior position is also illuminated by his homo- sexual instincts. He apparently also thinks of a man when in this position. He often used to place his penis between a prosti- tute's legs from behind and would thus achieve a greater erection than otherwise. Formerly he was able, by this trick, to achieve intercourse.

The patient remembers that he was always placed on the pot until he was five years old, because his parents were afraid that he might fall into the toilet. He shared this anxiety even during the first years that he went to school and actually defecated in his pants one day in an emergency.

Since his sisters also used the pot at that time, it is under- standable that he often observed them in this position. It is prob- able that this sight — observing his sister from behind — was the origin of his paraphilia.

He presents numerous idiosyncrasies which have persisted since childhood. Thus, for example, he cannot eat bread and butter nor any Swiss cheese, because the odor is unpleasant to him. Closer probing discloses the fact that the odor is unpleasant be- cause it reminds him of the odor given off by the vagina. He remembers a vulgar verse he once heard in school, which made a terrific impression on him: "Old Swiss cheese and girls' holes stink, but just the same they're great I think. . .

It is not a great step from such a memory to the phantasy of cunnilingus. He confesses that he has always been filled with such phantasies, but that he has always thought he could do it only on a clean, appetizing girl. Prostitutes were always somewhat dis- gusting to him and he never had anything to do with any other kind of woman.

He produces a wealth of memories which prove how greatly he loved his sister and how much he leans upon her. He always used to meet her after office hours, divided every tasty morsel with her, used to walk only with her, etc.

He wants information on a rather curious phenomenon. He states that he feels compelled to worry about what would happen if this or that brother-in-law or even his mother should die. He

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says that he cannot protect himself from these death ideas. The following dream of the patient's gives us a little light on the sub- ject.

I found myself in a house — I don't know whether it was mine or some other house — where I felt very comfortable. The socialis- tic congressman Domes (whom I don't know at all) also lived there. He, however, was a stranger there, whereas I was quite at home. Domes was relieved of duty as a farm hand. My brother- in-law, Max W., was also relieved of serving because, as a mer- chant, he had planted a very small part of the large piece of prop- erty he had in the Prater (a large park in Vienna — Translator). I thought my brother-in-law was quite clever in getting himself exempted because he had made use of this miserably small piece of land. Suddenly I see my brother-in-law as if he were in Domes's place. He had joined the colors. I called attention to the fact that my brother-in-law was a smart man because, contrary to my brother's luck, he had got himself exempted just because of that little lot.

Just before this dream he had a waking dream: My brother calls me to the telephone and says: "Guess who's calling you? The Kaiser!" I was quite overjoyed at this and awoke.

The Kaiser in the dream represents the controlling power, the guiding thought here, the person who is loved above all others. We shall soon learn who this person is. The next dream reveals to us that it was his favorite sister who was married to Mr. W.

The house in question in this dream is the house of his sister. There he is at home and his brother-in-law is the real intruder. This congressman Domes died not long ago. He had once heard him speak at a meeting and envied him. His brother-in-law W. has a very large penis and he had heard his sister complain that her husband gave her no peace. It went so far that his family intervened and begged W. to have some consideration for the woman. This evidence of capacity animated him, who was im- potent, tremendously. He found his sister quite reduced physically, thought she looked badly and even discussed the possibility of a divorce with her since she was said to feel so badly about her lot.

His brother-in-law had often emphasized the fact to him that he (the brother-in-law) could cohabit whenever he had the desire. He was a fast worker in the "vineyard (Weinberg) of the Lord." His brother's wife had died. But if the husband of his sister were to fall in battle (he was later on the Western front where

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 43

he was seriously wounded), he would now be at home with her and would have been rid of both his brother-in-law and his jeal- ousy. Wherefore, the death wishes against his brother-in-law who was so potent and a whole he-man, whereas he felt himself inferior and impotent.

The next dream leads us still deeper into the complicated prob- lems of his parapathia :

After dinner I went to the Ungargasse to the riding academy. Before the gate I pulled off my regular shoes, apparently getting ready to go to sleep. I was afraid of a few of the military persons going in and out the gate. After sun-down I picked up my shoes to put them on and noticed that there was also a pair of new "Christian" half shoes, brown, soft, canvas-like material. I wanted to take these, too, and leave, but I couldn't walk away barefoot. So I sat down to put on my shoes with the new, half shoes beside me. It took me about half an hour to pull on the right one, it being already dark. At that moment along came a big, coarse man with a blouse on — I thought he was the color sergeant — and asked gruffly after picking up the half shoes, "Where did you get these shoes?" I was so scared, I said they belonged to me. He turned the shoes over to look for the "Christian" mark which I noticed then for the first time. I was so afraid that I thought that was the end of me and was about to let him know that I had found the shoes lying on the spot, when he said: "Well, if you like them, you can keep them." I was also somewhat familiar with him in order to show him that we were brothers in arms, although I was only a corporal. During this conversation, I began to pull on the left shoe, but the tongue was a little loose and I had to fasten it by pulling the string through about eight or ten eyelets. After I had put the shoe on, I noticed that the tongue, which I had laced inside, was now out, and that it barely hung to the shoe by one eyelet. So I took the shoe off again to begin from the begin- ning. All this time, the other man stalked up and down, stopping now and again to bore me through with his gaze. I couldn't stand his stare and was altogether very much frightened. I thought to myself that he looked rather intelligent, that he was, perhaps, an officer, a captain, and that he was angry with me for having been so familiar with him. I thought I had better be more formal with him the next time I spoke with him. Then I awoke.

The color-sergeant of the dream reminds him of his father. His father was just as strict with him and minded the morals of the family pretty well. The color-sergeant is here the representa-

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

tive of authority (father — physician — God). His anxiety with this man reminded him of an experience he had had during his military days. He had received the order to buy up some foodstuffs for his company in the neighboring countryside. He then used some of these provisions to supply his family. During one of these buying trips, he was stopped by a policeman, arrested and brought before a military tribunal. He suffered terrific anxiety at the time. He was afraid of every and any kind of official office. In this dream, he is afraid of the men who go and come. That is his anxiety of homosexuality, since riding is a symbol of coitus. He went there to learn how to cohabit. There are two ways of doing it. One is to do it normally (regular store shoes), and the other is to do it the way the roues do it (elegant half shoes). But how can he do it like an old roue if he is impotent? He is always at- tracted to the wives and sweethearts of his friends and acquaint- ances. It would tickle him to flirt with them. He has had phan- tasies of these men dying and the women then falling to him. But how can he tread the moral path without protecting himself with impotence ? His emasculation is symbolized distinctly enough by his scene with the shoes. Putting it in is still possible for him, but he evidently has trouble keeping it in. The right and the left shoe are dealt with separately according to the symbolism of left and right in the dream.1 He can still make it on the right, but on the left, the tongue gives him trouble.

At this point the dream becomes somewhat transparent and re- veals some relationship between his tongue and his impotence as well as his "specific phantasies." With considerable resistance, he confesses that he has frequently turned the thoughts of fellatio and cunnilingus over in his mind. He would gladly carry out cun- nilingus on a virgin or a "pure girl." He also permitted fellatio on himself once, but desisted from repeating the experience, be- cause he thought that it "must be terribly harmful."

I ventilated a suspicion that some important experience in his life had something to do with this dream, but he denied this. He knew of no color-sergeant and believed that the whole dream was nothing more than a memory of his military days. Only a hazy memory of having once crawled into his sister's bed as a child and being caught by his father. He remembers also having been told to get out of his mother's bed (riding academy). Before the eyes of his father (boring glances) he was always fearful. His father had always demanded of the children that they speak formally

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 45

with him, whereas in other families he knew that the children were quite familiar with their parents.

A much more important meaning of this dream will become apparent to us only later.

The next night he dreamed :

I came to the office twenty minutes after eight i.e., twenty min- utes late. In order not to meet the general manager, I made a short cut through the chief clerk's office. He very courteously wanted to know what I meant by coming late. I mumbled some kind of excuse. ...

Again we find the old anxiety and fearfulness of the slightest authority, the fear of being caught in transgression.

The analysis progresses. He remembers various infantile wishes and phantasies. Thus, he had often thought of stabbing (raping) his elder sister and then landing in jail. His relatives would visit him there, but he would remain silent and would speak no word. His family would then suffer for shame.

His parents were not happy together. His father was very strict and found much for which to reproach his mother. It ap- pears that the boy very early nurtured ideas of revenge upon his father and these go well with the latent sadism shown in his rape phantasies. The latter even reappeared a few years ago and were repressed again. It is possible that the war helped to reactivate them.

Whenever he returns to his desk from the toilet, he is rather ashamed to meet any of the women in the office, especially if they happen to have provoked his fancy. He then feels as if he had just done something dirty or forbidden.

To-day he had a day-dream of a lost ring and reports a com- pulsion idea in connection with it which is not at all seldom. I repeat in his words :

"I imagined that whenever I passed by an open window, my pure solitaire would fall from my finger and roll in the gutter. Then I want to call my younger sister to watch that no one picks the ring up and runs off with it. In the office, this phantasy is related to a Miss L.

"I trust both these women and consider them both sensible and energetic. At the same time I am afraid that the ring will be lost and will never be found again."

The first association is his pure, white diamond. He manifestly doesn't want to lose his purity. Miss L. is a poor, little girl of

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thirty summers who has managed to retain her virtue. His sister is also virtuous. He has constructed a condition by which his im- potence is determined, viz., "As long as I remain virtuous, my sister will not lose her virginity." Miss L. is but a substitute for his sister.

It is plain that the ring is also a symbolisation of his love. He wants to give it to his sister. At the present time, his incest phan- tasies are expressed by his feverish desire to find a man for his sister, only because he believes that she needs sexual satisfaction. He has nevertheless never brought any of his friends into his house out of simple jealousy and his sister has always thrown this up to him.

The ring he actually received from his family just before he left for the front. It is a symbol of his family's love for him. He will be able to give himself to another person only when he has lost the ring, i.e., freed himself from his family. But he is quite well protected from love and marriage, for did he not see a misalli- ance at home and are his sisters not unhappy or the lords in their husbands' homes? He doesn't want to be lorded over. He's afraid of marriage. He claims he could have married long ago. But how can an impotent man marry?

To-day he dreamed :

I had an emission in the dream and saw a moist spot on the ceiling. I knew that my mother would come in my room in the morning and I was afraid that she would see that spot.

When he awakened he found that he had had no emission at all. He then went on to describe the mother's jealousy of her chil- dren's love. She even complained to his married sister that she loved her husband more than her own mother.

He often slept in the house of one or another of his sisters and was able to hear at night how one of them rebuffed the amorous attentions of his brother-in-law. This excited him greatly. Once he heard her say : "Will you please take your hands away !" Ever since then he is in the habit of holding his hands on his genitals (a perennial memorial).

He dreamed :

I transposed entries from the pay to the balance side of the books, about half a page. After I had finished about half the job, I suddenly thought to myself : you've probably entered something that's none of your business and you'll have to make it good. I looked the work over carefully and found that there were no mis-

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 47

takes (i.e., that I had not entered such a figure). The book was in order.

The dream discloses the secret of his inner guilt (indebtedness). This is a symbolic representation of the analysis. He looks the credit and debit side of his analytical book over carefully and finds everything in order. We, however, must suspect that he has kept a very important entry (guilt, indebtedness) from us. This is also expressed by the ambiguous termination of the dream. He has made the entries and he has not made the entries.

He is quite as talkative as usual, but his associations are largely unimportant. He reports something about his kleptomaniacal tendencies, slight transgressions and tendencies to little bits of dis- honesty. I note the fact that when the analysis is left to him, he wanders off into endless side paths ; so I take matters into my own hands and ask him directly about his sexual habits (standing be- hind the woman — grasping her breasts). I want to know when he first tried this trick. He said he thought the first time was with his prostitute Anna with whom he had had intercourse for 8 years and who looked so much like his sister. Then he first confessed that his brother had first recommended this prostitute to him and that his brother had used her for years before he began.

This information sheds new light on her importance in his erotic life. He uses his brother via this prostitute. The position he takes up — standing behind — rhymes well with his homosexual im- pulses. Furthermore, such a position permits him to imagine other girls in place of the one he has. When this was mentioned, he confessed that he was quite a subject of this form of imagery. At that time he had frantically loved a girl named "Franzi." He didn't marry her because she was too poor for his grand ideas. But this girl was the only one he had ever really loved. It was a year already that he had completely broken off with her except that he would see her and kiss her. But he didn't dare to go fur- ther because she was a decent girl and he was afraid to get so deeply involved that he would have to marry her. One day he caught her in a corner of the room and it was there that he first tried this position and the grasping of the breasts (he was twenty- one). When he went to his prostitute, he repeated the manipula- tion, but pictured his girl Franzi in his mind.

More and more he begins to talk of the repressed love for Franzi. He always met her on the street after work in the place where he was employed with his brother. They would then

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go walking together and would stop in dark corners to kiss. Finally she asked him to come to her house because she wished to introduce him to her parents. He became frightened and didn't want to bind himself to anything. She was a frivolous sort and he could easily have had her if he wished, but he was afraid to take what he could have practically for the asking. He loved her too much. He would then feel lost and would have to marry her. Instead, he withdrew, but suffered the tortures of the damned for his weakness. He went to his brother-in-law and begged him for some advice. He said he loved this girl and wanted to know how he could forget her. His brother-in-law said : "Get another."

He then began constantly to think of Franzi whenever he was with Anna the prostitute. His brother, too, tried to win Franzi and got as far as a kiss. Being very jealous, the patient suffered terrible pangs. He would hear his brother talking with her over the telephone, would let his brother tell him how frivolous she was, how she carried on with this one and that one. He would even follow her on the street, observed her every move and couldn't get her out of his mind.

She soon left the business and became a cabaret singer. He met her once or twice, but soon began to avoid the old places where he was likely to run into her, where she sang. She became quite well known and he learned that she had an affair with some composer. That was during the war. The composer was a color- sergeant. And now we understand the dream about the riding academy better. The right word is — mare. He thought : I'd like to ride this mare. He knew that he'd have no peace until he had slept with her. In the dream he sleeps before a riding academy (where one rides mares). The color-sergeant is now her lover. She is symbolized by the Christian shoes. He's a Jew and she is Christian. The ordinary shoes symbolize the prostitute. The Kaiser in the dream is also Franzi, and the false entries of the next dream also refer to her.

And now the long dammed-up love of this patient breaks forth in the analysis. He feels that he can love only Franzi and will never come to rest if he cannot win her. What does any other woman mean to him if he cannot have her? She will always be engraved in his soul. His obstinately persistent love condition is nothing but the expression of his unfulfilled wish to return to her. He cannot pardon himself for not having taken her when he had the opportunity. It would have been easy and he would not have had to marry her either. He loves her to-day after twelve years

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 49

just as passionately as when he was a youngster. A few months ago he met her on the street and boasted like a youth. She found that he looked quite fresh and well preserved. He said he didn't know what made her say that. He had had numerous women since seeing her last, the prettiest girls and the smartest women. Then they shook hands and parted, each wishing to return to the other. But now he is well protected from seducing her by virtue of his impotence. How can he hope to approach her, the experienced and artful woman who has already tried so many men? And he impotent. His impotence is a means of self -protection against Franzi. If he were not impotent to-day, he would go after her and live with her.

Now we also understand why he became so wrought up when a friend of his married a girl who had been the sweetheart of others before him. He was quite enraged and declared that he would be unable to do such a thing. His protests were nothing but the over- tones of his yearning for Franzi.

She is the girl who was to be found by his ring. Miss L. in the office is a representative of Franzi and the ring is a symbol of his love for her. He could give up the ring only to his sister or to Franzi.

For some time he spoke only of his love for Franzi. With her he'd be potent, of that he's sure. With her he'd be able to do without his habit of standing behind and grasping the breasts. He doesn't believe that he used this manipulation before he met her. It only happened that Franzi had been standing so that he could embrace her from behind. He then continued the petting in this position and reached for her breasts. Breasts and buttocks are the only parts of a woman that attract him, and this interest goes back to childhood.

A considerable load of material corroborates the childhood ori- gin of these two erogenous zones. He had once played with a younger sister and observed her buttocks. The form of the nates interested him in every little girl and boy with whom he played.

He was also interested in the business of his sisters washing their breasts. His girl Franzi also bears a great resemblance to his favorite sister. She has the same eyes and he also believes she has the same type of figure, i.e., the same form posteriorly. He always makes observations of women from behind. Although it is possible for him to forget faces, he can never mistake a person if he sees them from behind.

He went again to a prostitute and was this time able to have

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intercourse without resorting to his usual manipulations. He has made up his mind to marry soon, but he doesn't choose to look up Franzi. He is still afraid of her, but believes that he is finally getting her out of his mind, because he feels that he has disrupted the identification of her with his sister. He has also gained some insight into the fact that his brother's love and affairs with Franzi probably intensified his own feelings for the girl, and that his /homosexual impulses towards this brother were connected with this. He knows, too, that Franzi's promiscuity attracted him willy- nilly as a means of satisfying this homosexual lust.

A few more remarks on his kleptomaniacal acts. He recalls the fact that he takes only round or spherical objects. For example, he is tickled whenever he can steal an apple or an orange. In front of the grocery or fruit stores, there are always open crates of fruit and whenever he can steal a large apple out of one of these crates he is overjoyed. The following day, he usually goes back to the same store to buy several things in order, as it were, to repay the grocer, and frequently he has sent the money in anonymously. He once took a round, crystal ball from one of his friends and a spherical vase from another, but afterwards threw these objects away. As a boy, he had been impelled to grasp his sisters by the buttocks, but had been reprimanded by his father and even severely whipped for it. His kleptomaniacal impulse is a transformation of the sexual tendencies which are re- pressed by the incest barrier. These twicking habits, which are so well loved by children, were also exploited whenever he and his brother got together. Once he placed a pencil on his brother's seat in such a way that his brother injured himself slightly when he sat down on it. This symbolic act is certainly transparent.

I know nothing further of his destiny.

This case is very instructive because it shows us the back- ground for the development of a specific love condition after the twentieth year of life. This alleged sexual condition was noth- ing more than a perennial memory of his lost love and meant to say : I would like to have Franzi back again.

His preference for buttocks and breasts is not at all patho- logical. As I have already emphasized, every man and every woman has his or her preferred erogenous zones. They are predilections which determine the lover's choice and represent the individual's sexual taste. Such forms of preference have

ANALYSIS OF INDIVIDUAL LOVE CONDITION 51

nothing to do with true fetishism. When the sexual gratifica- tion is effected in the specific erogenous zone, then we can con- sider them as cases of partialism. There are men who prefer to have coitus inter mammas, for whom, indeed, this is the only form of cohabitation which leads to satisfaction. I have also seen men who preferred coitus inter femora mulieris a tergo and who rejected normal intercourse (in vaginam). These are cases of partialism which often disclose an infantile origin. But they may frequently develop only during or even after puberty. I know a girl who was seduced at sixteen by her employer. He had her masturbate him while he kissed, licked and bit her on the back of her neck. To this very day, ten years later, that has remained the most gratifying form of sex- ual pleasure for her. The teeth of her sexual partner play an important role in this manipulation. If her friend has large, broad, spade-like teeth (like her first lover's) she becomes very passionate and pictures his kiss and his bite.

Even the first sexual experience of an adult can become a fix- ation and form the basis of an individual love condition.

The analysis of the case described in this chapter has taught us that infantile experiences and incestuous tendencies can give the experience of adult life a specific quality and color.

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ON IMPULSIVE ACTS ARISING FROM OBSESSIONAL LOVE OF DOLLS, CLOTHES, DRESS GOODS, ETC.

We have already seen that kleptomaniacs really are chasing childhood phantasies. They want to revive their past. This impression seems to conflict with the observations of de Cler- ambault, who has described a special type of kleptomaniacal fetishism under the name of hephephilia.1 This type is char- acterized by a preference for certain cloths or goods. De Cler- ambault emphasizes the fact that his cases exhibited a remark- able indifference to their past (indifference au passe). Kurt Boas 1 however, has rightfully doubted this supposition and has shown that a careful analysis of the author's cases dis- closes exactly the opposite. He says : "There can be no talk of an indifference au passe/ On the contrary, what is actually to be found in these patients is a sexual anaesthesia or, rather, a hypaesthesia towards normal coitus." In other words, there is an avoidance of the sexual partner just as we have been able to demonstrate in many of our cases.

The alleged indifference towards the past is only apparent. Actually all these patients are slaves of the past. They have really remained infantile and I could just as well have described them in Infantile Psycho-Sexuality of this series as examples of "psycho-sexual infantilism."

Whereas the cases of genuine fetishism, on the one hand, are very complicated in their psychic structure, the cases of partialism are fairly simple in form and may frequently be easy of reduction to some infantile impression. It is invariably possible to show that such patients live in the past, i.e., that they reveal a typical psycho-sexual infantilism. But one case, that of Laquer, may serve as a sample : "Thus in the next few

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

weeks I shall have the opportunity of examining an eighteen- year-old student of music, stigmatized and hereditarily degen- erated, who twice stole money from an open cash register for the purpose of buying himself a boy's suit, blouse and knee pants. In this dress, the patient walked around the streets for two hours. Even without it, he gives the impression of being a child. He excused himself with the statement that he 'derives gratification and ecstasy from being a child or at least from being looked upon as a child by elders, talked to familiarly and being kissed by them.' Sexual factors play no part here ( ?). He also stole in the department store, but threw away the suit he took there once he had worn it. He claims to have suc- cumbed to this perverse habit suddenly when he once visited an institute of minor children and felt the desire to be their equals again."

In this case we have the opportunity of observing the very widespread combination of psycho-sexual infantilism and klep- tomania— naturally on a sexual basis. The impulsive conduct of the individual represents a regression into the infantile period of his life. It is noteworthy that this sort of combina- tion is especially to be found in women, and it is characteristic of such females or female-infants that they often show a pref- erence for dolls. Indeed, these dolls can become fetishes, they take on a real value for the woman only when they have been stolen.

The doll can represent either a real doll or be a symbol of a child. It can, however, also be a symbol of the genitals, as I was able to point out years ago in my book on The Language of Dreams. Kurt Boas has made the following accurate re- marks in a critical discussion of the passion for dolls : 2

"Vinchon considers the combination of doll fetishism and homosexuality as an especially widespread occurrence. He in- cludes both the Uranian and the Lesbian types. As a matter of fact, his first case does show Lesbian relations with a prostitute. The relationship, however, was not at all circumscribed to the two women themselves, but radiated also to the dolls : the pa- tient's partner gave her a doll which they both called their com- mon child. The doll was dressed in gorgeous pink or blue dresses (the preferred colors of the patients). She was laid

'54

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upon a small sofa in the corner of the room and carried a small savings bank hung around her neck. This was for the collec- tion of the gratuities of the prostitute's usual visitors. But it must not be supposed that the doll served only the purpose of fleecing the customers. Both women were actually devoted to the object as if it were their living offspring. The patient, especially, spoke of the doll with marked agitation.

"Dolls are to be found with remarkable frequency in the rooms of demimonde women, prostitutes and inmates of bor- dellos. The last type of woman almost invariably has a doll with her to which she gives either her own name or that of a child of hers. The dolls are always of the female sex and it appears that they have nothing to do with perverse purposes in respect of exciting the men. Neither can they be there purely for decorative purposes. In many cases, the doll serves a simultaneously pleasant and practical purpose, as in the case of Vinchon: the doll with the savings bank. But the dolls are certainly also a conscious representation to the prostitute of certain sexual attributes: they are symbols of chastity and purity. It is also possible that they symbolize the genitals ('my little sister,' as the genital is often termed). But it is not logical, simply because of such traits, to take for granted that every such woman is a Lesbian. I believe that Lesbian habits are to be found in clandestine as well as public prosti- tutes especially during the early stages of their careers and par- ticularly during a period of compulsory internment in a hospi- tal department for venereal disease. The older prostitutes have overcome this stage and finally become quite indifferent sex- ually. There are, however, also prostitutes who are not out- and-out Lesbians but who are nevertheless devoted doll fetish- ists. Contrary to the case of Vinchon, such cases do not rep- resent the presence of both the father and mother in the picture, with the child, the doll, as the offspring of the relationship. Instead, the father or the mother is dropped from the relation- ship and it is a case of only father or mother with the patient and the doll : a trinity. The doll is then the child which is pampered, fastidiously cared for and spoiled in all directions. At night the doll sleeps with the fetishist.

"These discussions lead us to ask ourselves : what gives us the

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

right to talk of doll fetishism in such cases? We see clearly that it is quite inaccurate to speak of doll fetishism here."

Boas is perfectly right. These are cases of psycho-sexual in- fantilism with an impulse to collect (harem cult). In the analysis of infantilism, we saw that the patients saved books from childhood, infantile mementos, playthings, etc., and used them to amuse themselves. Why shouldn't the doll serve sim- ilar purposes, especially since it can so well serve to revive infantile memories symbolically?

The following is a case of my own observation :

Case 6. Mrs. G. J., a woman in her forties, has the impulse always to be playing the child. She talks baby talk, prefers to wear children's or very short dresses, and is considerably aided in these habits by the trend of fashion. When she is home alone, she jumps about the room like an active little girl and piles all her old playthings out of the drawer onto the floor. Among other things, she has several old dolls with which she used to play years ago. She begins to pet the doll and then imagines that she her- self is the doll. She would give anything not to be a day older.

The woman was raised by an aunt who spoiled her to an un- usual degree. The aunt died when the patient was thirteen and ever since then the girl has been fighting the passing of the years. In the beginning of their marriage, her husband was very tender towards her, but lately he has been more and more indifferent. She still has, however, a tremendous need for being pampered and can still this desire only in her activity with the dolls.

At first she satisfied herself by playing with the dolls behind the locked doors of her room. The hours passed in sheer delight and she felt herself transported back to the days of her child- hood. At the time, her husband had no notion of her habits.3 One day he came home unexpectedly and found his wife in the midst of her practices, a doll in her hand and surrounded by all kinds of dolls and playthings. He became furious at this scene of childishness. With the lightning accuracy of the lover he had realized that these dolls were his rivals. Blind with rage and jeal- ousy, he tore the dolls out of her hands, ripped them to pieces, de- stroyed the other playthings and threw the lamentable remains into the great fire in the fireplace.

The poor woman looked upon the sack, helpless and dumb. Then she fell in a faint. Or was it an hysterical fit ? She awak-

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ened in bed, a doctor was sitting beside her and her husband was crying bitterly and begging her for forgiveness. She was unable to speak. The doctor found that she had a high temperature. She was seriously ill. The temperature persisted for a month. The diagnosis was vague and uncertain. Typhoid fever was thought of, some consultants suggested the possibility of an occult tuberculosis and one of them thought it might be hysterical fever. Finally the fever gradually subsided, she recuperated visibly, but her character had manifestly changed. Whereas she had formerly been quite happy and alert, she became morbid and seemed to be dreamy. She was no longer able to read through a book, nor did she display her old interest in the theatre or the arts.

Formerly she had frequently had an orgasm during coitus and was easily provoked to orgasm by irritation of the clitoris. Now she became anaesthetic. She could not forgive her husband the murder of her dolls. She ceased to be a child. She felt old and often said that she had nothing more to live for. What is the use of living ? she would always ask.

It was at this time that her kleptomaniacal impulses set in. She began to steal large and small dolls in all the department stores and would lock them in her closet. One day she was caught and her husband discovered her doll harem. She, however, appeared to have no memory of having stolen them and declared she had bought them. The fact was that she had actually bought a doll now and then when she found no opportunity to steal one. When asked about the collection, she stated that she would suddenly find herself impelled by an unknown force to go searching for a doll. She seemed as if drunk and trembled all over as if she had just committed a crime. She would tell the sales-persons that she was looking for a fine plaything for her child and was fearful and ashamed lest they should suspect that she was buying the dolls for herself.

At this stage of her difficulty she came to consult me. The analysis showed that as a child she had suffered a curious series of traumata such as a girl of a better class family seldom experi- ences. When she was seven, her nine-year-old brother played with her and carried out cunnilingus on her. Then, one day, he brought three of his friends who also played with her. Later, she slept with her aunt in the same bed and was always petted and stroked over the whole body. Her aunt called her "my dolly" and said that she was as pretty as a doll. The next trauma was suffered at the hands of her brother's tutor who always caught her in a quiet

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

corner of the house, kissed her furiously and would feel her parts. She confesses that she was quite a coquette as a child and prac- tically enticed the men to play with her. At thirteen she became the mistress of her piano teacher. She had no intercourse with him, but he would put his penis in her hand and play with her parts. At fifteen she was deflorated by a physician whom she practically seduced. Then followed a few more affairs before she met her husband, who was very naive, engaged himself to her and always played with her without having intercourse, although she was never resistive to his blandishments. The first few weeks of their marriage he was impotent, and when he was finally able to cohabit with her, he was so excited that he did not notice that she was not a virgin.

She vowed she would be true to her husband and also kept her promise. Her faithlessness was expressed only in her play with the dolls. Each of the dolls represented a separate experience from life. They each had a name which was taken from her own past. Her aunt's name had been Rosa and one doll (the favorite of the harem) was called Rosalinde. The doll which represented her brother Carl was called Charlotte, the piano teacher was re- vived in Franzi, etc.

Following the scene with her husband, her hate awakened and she swore revenge. Although she had felt herself to be a child and, like all infantile women, actually looked young, she claimed that she now felt very old and displayed the contrariness of the parapathics which contrasts with their fictions in life. She claimed she was an old woman whom no one liked. But she was driven to revive her past and revenge herself on her husband, nev- ertheless. She wanted to look up all the old lovers of her past, but where could they be found? The piano teacher was an old man by this time. Her brother was in America and the other men seemed unapproachable and had long since forgotten their former playmate. She therefore had to reach these men in her phantasy. She enjoyed her forbidden fruit in her dreams and became a klep- tomaniac.

A protracted analysis was followed by complete cure.

In this case we meet with an impulse to revenge. The domi- nating idea is: You must do something to revenge yourself. You must revenge yourself on your husband. You must re- vive the old pleasures which he has destroyed. The most clear of all the pictures of her youth were those of her aunt and the

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piano teacher. She desired again to be the dolly of her auntie and to play with the piano teacher's penis. In this wise she fulfilled Gross's formula : she took the forbidden fruit into her hands.

Curiously enough, she had always refused to gratify her husband in this manner and it was certainly the painful mem- ory of her childhood which kept her from doing so. This manipulation belonged, as it were, to a fictitious world and dared not be dragged into the world of realities. These pa- tients always remain true to their phantasies and refuse to have them profaned by reality. One can frequently observe how such patients feel that reality depreciates their fictions and tends to make them superfluous. It is not true that parapathics always desire to see their phantasies realized. Many flee from reality and reserve the specific scene for their phantastic life and their onanistic manipulations.

And now let us turn to some other observations. We have the case of Duboisson and several cases from Vinchon which I have taken from the paper of Kurt Boas. Unfortunately, all these cases lack the very necessary psychological analysis and yet they offer such interesting points of approach that we shall understand them better when we have added our own analysis of them. I begin with the case of Duboisson :

Case 7. Mrs. C. is a large, strong woman of thirty-three who shows no special physical signs except, perhaps, that slightly jaun- diced and pale complexion of persons suffering from diseases of the liver.

She had the various diseases of children, such as measles, scarlet fever, small pox, etc., but none of them were serious. She never had typhoid fever or convulsions, but with the incidence of puberty, she began to show signs of nervousness and irritability.

Even as a little girl she used to become quite excited upon the slightest provocation, could not sit still, would laugh or cry almost for the asking, but usually for no reason at all. Occasionally she would have a fit of laughter which she could not control. Her father died of pneumonia and her mother, who had been an irri- table woman all her life, died of a heart disease. Upon the slight- est irritation, the mother used to fall in a faint.

Between her thirteenth and fourteenth year, Mrs. C. suffered

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more attacks. She developed slowly and the beginning of men- struation was attended by great pain and a noticeable deteriora- tion of her personality. She would throw herself to the floor, have fits which looked for all the world like true convulsions. At that time she first experienced the curious drawing feeling in her throat and breast which is so characteristic of hysteria.

Since adolescence, these symptoms have become aggravated rather than improved. Mrs. C. is constantly in need of move- ment and activity. Even her sleep is restless and characterized by muscle twitchings and various other convulsive phenomena. She is incomparably irritable, moody, and ready either to burst into tears or laughter. At the slightest excitement or irritation, she also has the feeling as if a ball is rising in her throat. This feel- ing she holds as a secret, since she has never told it either to her husband or her physician. It is understandable that at certain times all these symptoms would become worse, e.g., they would reach their high- water mark each month at the time she would menstruate and also during each of the three times she was preg- nant. To complete the picture, I must also add that she suffers from gall stones which cause her more or less periodic attacks. These attacks are not at all irrelevant to the psychic and mental condition of the patient.

From the mental point of view, we find that Mrs. C. is doubt- less below the average in intelligence. She went to elementary school, but no further. She writes orthographically correct, knows how to add and subtract and even to divide, but has never been able to do the most simple multiplication. Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, she was brought to Germany, where she easily and quickly learned to speak German and spoke it even after she returned to France. To-day she has forgotten every word and states that she feels that she has even lost her memory. The real fact is that, like many patients of her kind, she has lost her ability to pay attention. She is unable to pin her mind down to anything. That is also the reason why she is completely incompe- tent for any serious business. Her husband, who is a leading author, wanted to interest her in his works, but the best he could get out of her were a few examples of copy work and these were so bad that he had to give up making use of her.

Before entering upon a discussion of the acts for which the woman was indicted, I must add a few more remarks on her family life. The C. family suffers from but one disturbance and that is one of the children. Mrs. C. has two children, a boy and

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a girl. The girl is now five and one-half and has, since birth, been the one and only worry the mother has had. After an especially difficult birth, the child began to have convulsions at three months of age which made the doctors think it had a tuberculous meningitis. Thanks, however, to the unusually de- voted care which the child enjoyed, it remained alive and has reached its sixth year. Its health is nevertheless not all that could be desired and much caution and attention is necessary. From the day the child first became ill, Mrs. C. forgot every- thing else and began to live only for this child. She became the little girl's slave and devoted both her days and her nights to her daughter. For the daughter's sake she gives up every form of amusement and distraction and if she does go out sometimes without the child, it is only to buy something which the child wants or needs. This, of course, is per se nothing unusual. Many mothers sacrifice their lives for the children they love. But the mother love of Mrs. C. is marked by something more, some- thing pathological. We all know how the majority of hysterical persons suffer from obsessional ideas, although such ideas are usu- ally varied. Mrs. C.'s obsession is perennial. Her desire to please and gratify the child has gone so far as to endanger the health and even the life of the girl. It is useless for the doctor, with the aid of the husband, to tell the woman that nothing is more dan- gerous than to fuss with a child in this manner when it needs quiet and not constant excitement in each of its moods and phan- tasies. Everything was in vain against such mother love, and all that the doctor accomplished was to bring the mother's hate down upon his head.

And now we come to the criminal act. At the suggestion of thfe physician, the husband, who had become more and more irritated by the extravagant spending of money for the littlest things, for* bade his wife to buy the child playthings almost every day. He felt that about forty dolls with all the trappings that go with them ought to be sufficient distraction for the child. She conceived this rather righteous opposition as animosity and knew no other way to satisfy her desire than to take what she was forbidden to buy, feeling that once the things were in the house, her husband would have to pay for them if it were demanded.

It does not seem as if she operated under a well-thought-out plan. If one is to believe her, this seems to have been her atti- tude when, one November day, she stood before an object in the magasin de Printemps which seemed suitable as a plaything for

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

her child (a sheep). She succumbed to her feelings and carried out her intention. Two weeks later she appeared again in the store and in the course of time had carried off more than sixty ar- ticles of various kinds : playthings, dolls, clothes for dolls, etc., all of a value of about three hundred francs. Arriving at home with- out accident, she hid the objects in a closet and awaited the com- ing of Christmas in order to surprise the child with this wealth of presents and simultaneously confess her action to her husband.

Mrs. C. stated that she knew she had stolen, but that she felt the theft to be very innocuous if not entirely pardoned by the fact that her husband would pay for them sooner or later. She seemed to feel that she had floated a loan rather than committed a theft. With a truly wonderful naivete, she declared that this one quiet- ing thought was the reason why she was able to go through with her criminal actions with the greatest of composure, absolutely sure of her conscience, without a trace of excitement, she, who had al- ways been so excitable, and without any sign of subsequent pangs. Even when she was caught in the act and led away to the police commissioner, she was composed and so indifferent that a witness who happened by suspected the soundness of her mind and rushed to inform her husband. It was only when the whole muddle came before a judge and she was impressed with the fact that her acts were not to be taken so lightly that she became somewhat animated. Even to-day she is not completely convinced of the state of affairs at that time and cannot believe that such acts as hers are, to say the least, inexcusable. Mrs. C. can be described in a word : she is a child, but this thirty-three-year-old child is hys- terical and that includes all the cerebral deficiencies which such a condition entails.

Here we have a characteristic case which is really very little different from the case I described. As in most of these cases, we find a married woman with marked signs of psycho-sexual infantilism. But, in all these cases, we must not forget one motive : the marriage and the duty to be faithful are conceived as compulsions. The kleptomania expresses one phase of the struggle of the sexes. This woman also has the tendency to trouble her husband, to hurt him, to irritate him, to test his love for her. There can be no question that this woman loves her child more than she does her husband. The formula in her case would read : I want to please my child even at the expense

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of hurting my husband. The fact that she told her husband about her deeds Christmas Eve is a sufficient proof of how deeply her desire for revenge pervaded her. Manifestly she was to a great extent guided in this action by memories of her childhood when she herself was bountifully heaped with pres- ents. Her husband had had enough at forty dolls, but she showed him that she was capable of transgressing his orders (that's what you get if you don't do as I want you to do) . This case shows clearly her tendency to humiliate her husband and come out triumphant over him.

The following will be a case of Vinchon's * which I have taken from Kurt Boas :

Case 8. Jeanne C, called Carmen, was first seen in June 1908, when the diagnosis of general paralysis was made with a state- ment that she was mentally deteriorated, euphoric, childish and lacking in insight. It appeared that the onset of the illness oc- curred about January of the same year and is said to have been provoked by a sudden moral shock. There followed the opinions of three specialists and the first findings in the psychiatric clinic corroborated the above conclusions.

In January, 1903, it actually appeared as if Carmen, who is now forty-five (1904), had lost her memory following an accident with a wagon. Her whole character seemed to become entirely childish and her former tendencies and habits seemed to revive and be- come intensified. She laid hands on everything which she found loose about her, stole the papers from under the very arms of passers-by, etc. She was interned because of these acts.

Carmen left the asylum in October, 1903, considerably im- proved. Her acts and manner of speech, however, are still child- ish in character. She remained fairly well watched and cared for until 1906, at which time she tried an unsuccessful theft. Her arrest was confirmed because a collection of things was found in her possession which provoked the astonishment of the police. Following a forensic opinion handed down by psychiatrists, she was provisionally turned over to her friend for safe keeping. She soon after appeared at the gates of the "infirmerie speciale/' how- ever, talked in a bizarre manner and was again arrested. This time the physician thought she was simulating, although he agreed that she was diseased. After a few days of excitement, she be- came quiet again and was able to be discharged from the clinic.

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

During the next six years, i.e., until 191 2, she displayed nothing pathological except a short and hardly clear state of excitement, which occurred in the summer of 1910. But she was always more nervous in the summer and rather susceptible to attacks of this nature. March, 1912, she was again interned, this time in the asylum of Sainte Clotilde. She was picked up at a funeral. The doctor again looked upon her as a malingerer. During her so- journ in Saint Lazare she again had an attack of excitement and was transferred to Magnan's clinic where she received the diag- nosis of low grade mentality with maniacal excitement. In the beginning, Carmen was not at all willing to share her secrets with us. Whenever we spoke with her about her thefts, she said she remembered nothing. She nevertheless told us with her well- known verve about a lot of details from her past life, e.g., the story (which surprises one in a woman of her age) about the dolls which she cannot leave for a moment and has never left ex- cept for the one time of a few weeks when she had to busy her- self with a little boy.

She has two blonde dolls. The one is large like a baby, and always lies in bed behind her. The other one is small and can be taken with her wherever she goes. In an endless collection of boxes, she keeps silk remnants, pieces of lace, divers ribbons, etc. It is her greatest pleasure to make use of these articles in making a dress for one of her dolls. She likes to sew the silk, to use heavy linen materials, and is especially fond of working with the laces. Learning of these predilections, we got the idea of giving her a doll, especially since, in the hospital, she complained that she missed them. Hardly had she seen the thing, when she grabbed it out of our hands, pressed it lovingly to her bosom and then hid it under her dress. She became considerably excited, could hardly speak, mumbled huskily something like "thank you" and tried to embrace us. At the same time, she looked as if she were experi- encing the heights of passion.

An hour later we had her brought to the examining room. Her answers are still confused and her facial expression sufficiently portrays her shame and distraction. She finally brought herself to communicate the following to us:

She had formerly cultivated many intimate affairs, but no longer has any interest in normal sexual appetites. She is supposed to have been syphilitic at one time and, although she was treated at the time, she feels that it is the same old disease which keeps re- turning and provokes her attacks of excitement. As a child she

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used to masturbate by rubbing herself against the backs of chairs and the legs of tables, especially because her parents, having no- ticed her habits, had commanded her to keep her hands behind her back. She was quite a fiery little girl who identified even the possession of a plaything with sexual gratification. This habit of mind disappeared during puberty, but returned with the onset of her menopause about ten years ago (she was forty-four in 1903). It was at this time that she executed her first thefts.

Carmen has never resisted. It comes upon her with great sud^ denness, although she is somewhat upset for a few days before. She goes to a church she usually makes use of, Sainte Clotilde, in a rich parish. She first senses an indefinable unpleasantness in the stomach, after which her desires take on form and then she wishes to have one of those vanity cases which the women of the world generally carry, particularly a small box of rice powder.

In trying to get such an object, her misfortune usually causes her failure and she is arrested. In that moment her face becomes congested, beads of perspiration stand out upon her forehead, her genitals become wet, and the possession of the object, if only for a moment, consummates an actual sexual thrill which she de- scribes as "making my thing." For a time the stolen object takes on the value of a fetish and she adds it to her collection which she always carries on her person. The very sight of this harem of hers is a source of rapture for her, but it can also become an ob- ject of disgust. In such a case, she will break an object and throw it away.

Sometimes she buys what she wants instead of stealing it. The result is that she is then less affected by the object than if she had stolen it, but this does not spoil her pleasure completely for she recalls the joy she experienced in paying out the money and hav- ing a heap of bands, remnants, laces, etc., sent home. Her friend usually has the articles exchanged later on, but if he lets her keep them, she uses them to dress her dolls.

This "impulse to steal," as she expresses it, causes her much unhappiness and she would like best to commit suicide in order to be rid of it all. These words, nevertheless, cause her an am- biguous feeling which derives from the memory of both the pleas- urable and the disgusting sensation she experienced when she once stole something.

Hardly had Carmen bared her secret when she felt sorry for having done so. She took it ill of us that we had wheedled it out of her. Her first reaction was to fall into a terrible anger which

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

was manifestly not simulated. Finally she quieted herself and begged us to tell nothing to her lover. She is ashamed of it all and would rather be taken for an ordinary thief. "And above all, it's not so bad in Saint Lazare. The nurses are very nice to me."

On the ward we were able to observe an action similar to the ones she had described to us. Following a short period of excite- ment, she tried one morning in October, 1912, to take a ribbon which was bound about the hair of another patient. She produced the same symptoms she had described to us, but this time it was sufficient only to touch the object of her desires. Soon after, she grabbed the ribbon and demanded that it be destroyed.

As regards the doll, Carmen surrounded it with nothing short of a cult. She is so fearful that we shall take the doll away from her that she hides it by day under her skirts and by night in her bed. She ordered remnants to be sent to the ward and made up some clothes for the doll, among other things a coat of blue linen against which she often rubs her cheek in dreamy raptures. The doll reminds her very much of the small child she once tended to so willingly.

She tells us that this doll is the best protection against her thieving tendencies. She has never been in the least cowed by the punishment society deals out to thieves, and professional thieves among the women command her affection, although she despises them, too. It is possible, she says, to get along with such women as one like, i.e., badly more often than otherwise. This questionable friendship once went so far as to cause her to start up a Lesbian affair with a woman who — strangely enough — counted most neurologists as her friends. Another companion who was also interned because of thievery, made her the proposi- tion to live together "and also to work together" when she was discharged.

It appears that Carmen is affectionate with her lover, but the slightest irritation can precipitate her into a fit of anger. She is incapable of protracted attention and is subject to constant changes of mood. She is especially touchy about her age and her physi- cally deteriorated condition.

Carmen was subject to all the children's diseases in infancy. Her bringing-up was lamentable and her mother pampered her be- yond endurance. She could not stand the school to which she was sent and had to be reared at home. A private teacher taught her how to read and also a little music. Ever since twenty years of agft she has lived in Paris and has been everything between a demi-

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monde and a model, making her living as best she could. She fre- quently drank champagne and other forms of alcohol to excess and fared poorly in these bouts.

I must call attention to the pointed epicritical remarks which Kurt Boas has appended to the report of this case and I desire to point out here only the fact that the relationship between this woman's love for dolls and her homosexuality seems pretty clear. She was very much spoiled by her mother and yearns to be back in her mother's lap again. She plays her own past when she plays with her dolls. She also confessed to Lesbian rela- tionships.

She is frequently the subject of fits of anger against her lover. I have analyzed such cases many times. Such women are usually habituated to some form of Lesbian gratification (mutual cunnilingus is very widespread among prostitutes). They are generally frigid when with a man and the slightest provocation can engender outbursts of temper because of their deficient satisfaction. They nevertheless protest their great love, portray the virtues of their husbands or their lovers, fling the dirtiest vulgarities in his face when they are mad, and re- pent afterwards, saying that they didn't mean it, their words were only senseless epithets, pathological products of an irri- tated fancy. One of my patients used to accuse her husband of homosexual relations with his friends whenever she would become angry, and thus revealed the root of her own hatred. The above case is further marked as homosexual by the desire to steal a powder box and by the attempt to steal the ribbon of another female patient.

Now we turn to another case of doll fetishism which was published by Vinchon in the Journal de Medicine in 19 14 under the title "Le Fetichisme de la Poupee et le Vol aux Etalages." 5

Case 9. This deals with a girl by the name of Louise who came of a silk weaver's family in Lyons (this detail is of impor- tance in the development of her sexual perversion). She soon came to Paris from the provinces and there became a member of a gang of department store thieves to which not only she, but also her daughters, daughters-in-law and her sons belonged. The fol- lowing information from the anamnesis is of importance.

Her father and one of her brothers were epileptics. A maternal

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uncle is an idiot. One of her sisters committed suicide and the patient herself was retarded in school. She began to speak with difficulty at the age of five and at seven she suffered from "nervous fever" due to anxiety. She claimed that someone ran after her in the street and accused her of having stolen a little dog. She did poorly in school and preferred manual work.

She was a depressed and anxious sort, suffered frequently from headaches and liked to be alone. At times, also, she would get attacks of pathological irritability of an hysterical type.

At fifteen she began to work and then passed through all the stages of tailoring, finally interesting herself especially in the mak- ing of silk corsets. Her taste for this type of cloth appeared as early as her seventh year. An uncle surprised her once at that time while she was in the act of rubbing silk with which she was working. She described her feelings as a kind of shivers (fris- son).

At seventeen she first began to menstruate and also fell ill with chorea minor subsequent to an attack of typhoid fever. She was choreatic for three years before the illness disappeared, thanks to isolation. When she had recovered, she went to work for three hundred francs per month as a seamstress for a ladies* tailor.

She was also supported in part by a lover, a writer with whom she lived from the time she was twenty-one and by whom she had a child. Two other children died in infancy, there were three mis- carriages and the last was a daughter who was delicate. During her pregnancies, she was always ravenous for certain foods, but had never succumbed to the desire so far as to steal.

Her lover died after ten years of common law marriage. Louise, who was then thirty-one, began to masturbate with silk, but she had not yet begun to steal silks. Whenever she experiences the impulse to steal, she usually has alternate attacks of vicious anger and hysteria, but she can withstand other temptations.

At thirty-six she had a second attack of typhoid fever and she claims that she stole for the first time during her convalescence. She cannot give the details. Since then she has lived in Paris, where she has been a devoted silk fetichist.

Her first thefts provoked in her an exceeding sensual gusto such as she had not known when only masturbating with silk. The very contact with the silk, especially if it were red, and its rustling were sufficient to bring on the sexual paroxysm. She would be- come so excited in the act, that she took no care to protect her- self and was caught every time.

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As soon as she has stolen the goods, she is either disgusted and ashamed, tries to throw the stuff away, or she feels spent and tired. Like all patients of her kind, she is very bashful about an- swering questions on this subject.

It does not take long before she must leave her position. She is thrown out of every department store as soon as they learn that she is the cause of the disappearance of so much silk. She be- came a professional thief and sought in this way to earn a liveli- hood.

The impulse to steal appears especially when she is in the throes of certain states of depression, after her second typhoid attack, during her climacteric, etc. During such times, she felt little incentive to work and harbored ideas of suicide. She even at- tempted suicide on several occasions and in many different ways, e.g., by cutting open her veins at the wrists, choking herself, throw- ing herself down the stairs or out the window and once she tried to throw herself under a train.

Altogether, Louise was arrested twenty times, was convicted eleven times, received eighteen months in prison each time she was convicted and was interned for nine months in the insane asylum, all since 191 1 (she was then forty-five). Each time, she had the same story to tell. Each time she was interned, she suf- fered hysterical attacks and also exhibited all the signs and symp- toms of this neurosis.

Four times she broke away from the asylum, thanks to the aid of her children and probably also the aid of those who were finan- cially interested in her thefts. They always faded from view as soon as she was arrested again.

As a child, Louise had loved passionately to play with dolls. It was one of her greatest pleasures to make silk clothes for them and she continued this habit up to the present day. She states that, in order not to appear foolish because of this habit, she always ex- cuses herself by saying that she is working for her children, and now that she has grandchildren, she says she is working for them.

The doll itself is not a fetish for her. It must first be dressed in silks and red is her favorite color. Her pleasures in these op- erations were quite active and used to be distinctly sexual in na- ture. Now they are but pleasant memories of former enjoyment.

This is a typical case of psycho-sexual infantilism which finds an animated expression in playing with dolls. Here, too, we find the attacks of vicious anger against the lover, just as we

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were able to see them in the former case. Kurt Boas is right when he says that the regression to the level of the old mem- ories of silk fetishism appeared after the death of her lover. "They had up to that time remained just below the threshold of consciousness." Another cause of the regression is to be looked for in the second attack of typhoid fever. As I have already pointed out in Infantile Psycho-sexuality of this series, a regression frequently begins after a long and exhausting ill- ness. The menopause may also have played a part here (Cf. Frigidity in Woman, the chapter on the critical age of woman, 2 ed.). It is the critical age of woman, the battle against the years. Boas also takes this stand and adds the following epi- critical remarks to the case :

"I would like to take a stand on some of Vinchon's conclu- sions. He first points to the fact that the doll cult is fre- quently to be found coupled with homosexuality, especially in the case of Lesbians.

"As a proof of this, Vinchon makes use of some cases from KrafTt-Ebing. Some Miss Marie writes in a letter to her Les- bian friend Sandor: "I no longer love the children of others, I love only my own little baby from Sandi, a darling little doll. Oh, how happy I am with my little Sandi."

"Male homosexuals also are sometimes devoted to dolls. I mentioned a case of Laquer's above.6 KrafFt-Ebing reports the case of an Uranian type who confessed that he liked to play with girls who played with dolls. He would also make up clothing for the dolls. At thirty he was still greatly interested in dolls of all kinds. The cases 122, 124 and 129 from Krafft- Ebing's casuistic collection also reported a preference for dolls as against girls, and they also tailored for their playthings."

"Vinchon himself emphasizes the fact that this cannot be called true doll fetishism. There is no evidence of any of the criteria laid down by Stekel and myself.

"When Vinchon states further that there is the possibility of border-line cases and gradual transition between marked and indistinct cases, he is doubtless right. This is probably the reason why dolls are so preferred in the Christmas and other holiday presents in insane asylums. They can never be too numerous.

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"In the metropolitan cities, one finds the usual doll cult in the accepted sense of the word (according to Vinchon) quite widespread. This is particularly apparent in certain trades, such as tailoring, costuming, hat making, etc. In cabarets they sell dolls filled with bon bons or smoking articles. They are also sold in boxes which also include cocaine, but this is not general. Every woman has her favorite type of doll. The more grotesque a doll is, the more readily will it find a buyer.

"Vinchon then gives us examples of doll cults from other cultural eras, the old Greeks, the Romans, Japanese and Chinese. The last-named people have special artists for the manufacture of valuable silk clothing and all kinds of decora- tions and enhancements for the dolls.

"One must be careful not to place all these cases under the pathological magnifying glass and summarily dispose of them as cases of fetishism. Vinchon recommends that we hold our- selves to Garnier's definition,7 but I believe that the criteria advanced by Stekel and myself are superior to his."

I must add a few explanations to these pointed remarks of Kurt Boas'. The last case we described displayed an extraordi- nary love for certain goods, a sexual symbolism (I am care- ful in the use of the much misused title of fetishism) which is very widespread. We know also of a passion for furs which can even lead to kleptomaniacal episodes. We can understand the addiction, as it were, to furs by our understanding of the passion for hair. The furs are the symbols of the hairy body, especially of the beard, the axillary hair, the hairy vulva.8 The love for satin is also common and the sexual object is frequently attractive only when wearing satin. I have also found a pas- sion for very ordinary goods in patients and in the discussion of genuine fetishism later on we shall have an opportunity of be- coming acquainted with such a case. These habits can, how- ever, also have a negative value, e.g., women in silk can be un- attractive to one who displays a passion for woollens.

In addition to Clerambault, such cases have also been de- scribed by Langlois.9 The first of these authors avoids the false term fetishism, but the second always speaks of cloth or goods fetishism, which is summarily criticized by Boas 10 in

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

his exhaustive paper on this subject. The following cases from these authors have been taken from Boas' paper.

Case 10. The first patient of de Clerambault, a forty-year-old woman, gave the following information about her vita sexualis : She came home from school at fifteen and was married at sixteen and one-half years. She never cared for sexual intercourse with her husband and latterly became even disgusted and pained by it. She preferred to satisfy herself in onanism, a habit with her even before she was married.

She found out about it spontaneously. When she was alone in the room one day, she felt a curious kind of thrill when her geni- tals touched a chair. She describes it as follows: "I wasn't sit- ting as one usually sits on a chair, but like on a horse. The chair was upholstered in satin. Since I liked the feelings I got, I con- tinued to try the practise over again. I also heard them speak about such things then, too, but I did not begin to use my finger until later."

She was pregnant seventeen times altogether, among them being four abortions. She had a lover whom she liked very much, but sexual intercourse with him was far less gratifying than masturba- tion. Every morning, after he left, she would masturbate. She also had frequent erotic dreams in which she would have inter- course with a dog or with men who "did all kinds of things to her" ("qui lui faisaient des choses epouvantables").

The cause of her psychiatric examination was found in re- peated silk thefts. She had already been punished four times pre- viously for persistent stealing of silk coupons and was under arrest for recurrence of theft at the time of the examination. Her first theft was committed when she was thirty-two years old. She had no objective grounds for the act, since she had plenty of silk at home, but she sensed a certain lustful feeling during the commit- ment of the theft. This thrill she got only when she would steal, whereas the buying of the goods leaves her cold. Following the theft, she always rubs the silk against her genitals.

This patient also discloses some signs of homosexual tendencies in that she masturbates, she imagines to herself a completely naked girl of about sixteen.

When asked whether she could not give up the onanism, she re- plied that she felt too weak to do so. She said that she tried to rid herself of the habit by getting herself a lover.

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The chief points about this case are : first of all, an anaesthesia when with her husband. Later she even became resistive to in- tercourse. With her lover she was relatively anaesthetic. As far as she can remember, her first enjoyment came with her early onanism on the satin chair. It is probable that this was a recrudescence of a repressed infantile impression. Finally, there is here the almost invariable homosexual determinant of the kleptomania. This may be a fixation of some person out of her childhood who wore silks. This symbolism can also repre- sent a fine (silky) skin.

Case II. The second patient dates her passion for satin and linen as far back as her sixth year. Later she passed to using silk and cloths for rubbing herself, using the remnants of her tailoring Bister. Whenever she did this, she felt quite miserable, and stopped it only when she began normal sexual intercourse. She can no longer wear silks, although there is nothing more enjoy- able for her than the rustle of fine silk and the feel of it next to her body. Satin no longer has any attraction for her. Because of her passion for silks, she has frequently stolen the goods. The last attempt was the theft, together with her daughter, of a silk corset from the window of a corsetier's. She cannot resist the temptation to steal silks. She is particularly attracted to silk rib- bons, bands, caps, skirts and corsets. Whenever she feels the rus- tle of the silk, there is a peculiar tickling sensation in her finger tips. Then the temptation becomes too great, and if she does fight it off, she becomes exhausted and falls into a fit of tearfulness. I f she does take the silk, she experiences a curious pleasantness in the region of the stomach and feels a rapture pass through her which makes her hold her breath. She then immediately searches for a lonesome corner in order to carry out all kinds of manipu- lations with the silk. When the sensual flight has passed, she feels herself exhausted, all her limbs are dead.

There are many points of similarity between this case and the one described before. In both, the "fetishism" appeared rather early and was altogether the first form of sexual activity. The transition to normal sexual intercourse took place only after- wards.

Case 12. De Clerambault's third case concerns a widow of forty-five who had always lived happily with her husband, despite

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

the fact that she had no taste for cohabitation. Between 1881 and '89, the patient was convicted three times for theft, falsification and once because of unknown reasons. Cessatio mensium began at thirty-eight with her, and she began to use ether, morphine, cocaine, rum, and either rum or Cologne water mixed with ether. Ever since she began to use ether (at thirty-nine), she has the im- pulse to steal silks. She achieves thereby a sensation of lustful- ness which she describes in characteristic terms. Taffeta excites her most of all, since it is of finest silk. She has less of a passion for satin than for silk. She did not, however, go in for heavy silk things, because she felt that these would excite her too greatly. She would like to sleep in silks, but thinks that this is not nice for a decent woman. She says she would be unable to sleep if she ever put such goods on. She would be so fired with passion that she would have to get up constantly and cool herself off with water. Whenever she is about to steal some silk, she is overcome by a great trepidation, but this soon is replaced by a feeling of pleasure.

Epicritical remarks of Dr. Boas: "In these cases, too, we will have to dispense with the diagnosis of fetishism. We don't have to discuss the reasons. In this case, kleptomania has occurred in a woman in climacterium. The cessatio men- sium, per se, can hardly be the cause of the thefts, but the cause is doubtless the chronic use of toxic substances, especially ether, which provoke in the patient a general and chronic ex- citement in which she is not conscious of her acts."

Case 13. This is Case IV of de Clerambault. It resembles the last case described almost to a hair. It concerns a forty-nine-year- old widow who possessed a questionable past, especially as regards her sexual history. She is heavily stigmatized by heredty. Her father and mother both committed suicide and her brother is in an asylum.

As early as seven or eight, she began to masturbate, either alone or in company with another little girl with whom she played father and mother. She began to menstruate at twelve and married at twenty-six, although she was never satisfied during coitus. She stated that she early had a passion for silks (there are, unfortu- nately, no definite data), and states that her sole motive in marry- ing was to become the possessor of a black silk robe. Her words are understandable and characteristic even in the original : "La soie

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

a un frou-frou, un cri-cri, qui me fait jouir." The very mention of the word silk or even the thought of the goods, provokes sexual ecstasy in her. She also senses an "erection des parties sexuelles." She experiences a tremendous orgasm if she then rubs the silk against her parts. In addition to this, she is excessive in matters of alcohol and ether and masturbates daily. She has repeatedly stolen in department stores; three times in 1914. One of these thefts was a black silk robe worth one hundred and sixty francs. When she took it, she rolled it up and went off with it between her legs. One day of the same year, she says, she went into a department store at the behest of a vision. She had previously taken ether. In the department for silks, she saw a blue and white dress which created a spasm of joy in her. She passed it into a large bag beneath her skirts and then masturbated publicly in the store.

Masturbation, per se, does not afford her complete satisfaction. She must always think of the rustling of silk in order to bring about an orgasm. Sometimes men do play a part in her onanistic phantasies, but they have no real attraction for her sexually.

Case 14. The fifth case of hephephilia (Langlois) concerns a twenty-five-year-old woman who has been married for five years and is the mother of three small children. The following was taken on her vita sexualis.

She dates the awakening of her sexual life from her eighteenth year at which time she first menstruated, i.e., rather late. Soon thereafter she began to masturbate and first used her finger. She states that she never suffered any somatic detriment thereby. One day she accidentally discovered her peculiar love for satins. She states that she experienced great happiness and felt deeply tempted when handling satin. She was partly sorry and partly happy that she was not working in the silk department of the store where she was employed. She thought that if she were employed in that de- partment, she would be impelled to steal the silks and that would reveal her perversion.

Women who came to buy from her and wore silk dresses were subjected by her to variously guarded stroking and petting, whereby she felt rapturous sensations. One day she suddenly got the idea that it must be a great feeling to masturbate with satin. She then said that she was unwell a few days before she actually began to menstruate, laid herself on her bed at home and mas- turbated with the aid of pieces of silk. She said that this gave

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

her "une sensation indefinissable qui la transportait et la faisait jouir."

All these experiences happened in her eighteenth year and since then they have grown upon her. She is especially overcome with this impulse about the time she gets her period and has been able to deceive her family. She has a constant sensation of itching and tickling in the genital region which drives her to masturbate again and again. She states that she is quite indifferent to normal coitus, but (just like the previous patient) she conceives marriage as a good means of achieving her particular sexual objects, i.e., satins, clothes, etc.

At the request of her parents she married. She was not satis- fied by normal intercourse, but always acceded to her husband's desires. When they furnished their home, she managed to have the bedroom done entirely in satin and even the bed clothing was made of this goods. No one thought further of this matter, but simply gratified the wishes of the young wife. For her it was the highest of pleasures to hide herself away in the room alone and masturbate at will. She was, however, afraid to make use of the satin decorations or the satin bed clothing in her onanistic acts because they might be soiled. She soon began to wear satin con- stantly. One day she had a voluptuous dream in which she saw her naked body clothed entirely in satin, but such a dream has not recurred in her thoughts. She also confessed to her exam- * iner that her husband would attract her much more sexually if he would wear satins sometimes, even if it were only a servant's gar- ment. Upon further questioning, she stated that any man who wore satin could excite her. She also declares that when she pic- tures her husband in satins during cohabitation, she is animated more than usual, and feels that this would give her greater pleas- ure than masturbating with satins. She answers negatively when asked whether she has homosexual feelings and also denies that her masturbation reminds her of a man. She added, however, that she would feel an especial lust if the satins with which she masturbated had previously touched her husband's genitals. The husband had no inkling of these perverse habits and thought that his wife's pruritus vulvae was due to excessive intercourse instead of to excessive masturbation.

The patient usually masturbated by day when her husband was at work. If she happened to be caught in bed, she declared she suffered from migraine. She displayed her passion only for satins and was not animated by silks, furs or other goods. The

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

color of the goods also played a certain role, black being her fa- vorite color. She usually burns the satin cloths which she at first is afraid to soil with her sexual secretions.

These are all cases which Eulenburg has termed sexual picacism. It is a characteristic of this woman that she is frigid in normal sexual intercourse. Her impulses are what we have seen to be a regression into the past. It is unfortunate that these cases were treated in a purely descriptive manner and not psychoanalyzed.

This case, however, doubtless approaches that which we call true fetishism. She is anaesthetic to coitus, a condition which is similar to male impotence. She gratifies her sexuality in onanistic acts, whereby the specifically determining phantasy seems to be inaccessible to her consciousness. She shows the same kleptomaniacal impulses as the preceding patient.

Kersten reports a case of "Fetishistic Theft Complicated by Alcoholism" in Gross' Archiv, Vol. XXIII, p. 365.

Case 15. One May day, 1905, the fifty-three-year-old lamp- polisher F. stole a doll's pillow from a child's doll carriage on the street of a small town. He confessed to the theft and added that he had no clear notion of what he was going to do with the pillow. He was drunk. He had been convicted of thefts before and the cases had always been concerned with the stealing of bed clothing from children's beds or cradles. He was divorced from his wife, but exhibited nothing further of note and was also a desirable worker in the factory where he was employed. All these factors pointed to a fetishism in the patient.

According to the forensic opinion of the specialist, his sexual appetite was activated by the sight of beds and their appurtenances. The slightest taste of alcohol so intensified F.'s impulses that he was unable to withstand them, especially since he was already so much of an alcoholic that he was looked upon as an alcoholic psychotic. The court action was therefore dropped. (Records of the Royal Barrister, Dresden, St. A. VIII/94/05.)

Here we have the same results that we have seen in all cases of impulsive acts. The alcohol destroys whatever inhibitions are present and makes room for the expression of the infantile impulse.

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

The following is a highly interesting case of clothes fetish- ism reported by Pappenheim :

Case 1 6. On the evening of the first of June, 19 19, the thirty- five-year-old pastry baker's helper, K. L., was arrested at the ter- minal of one of Vienna's most congested car lines for having taken a folded velour hat out of the pocket of a stranger. When arrested, L. was found to have in his possession another velour hat and four men's belts which he had stolen shortly before at the same place. When his rooms were searched, eight hats and thirty-nine belts were found and L. confessed that he had acquired these in the same way.

L. had already been convicted for petty larceny before, in 191 3, 19 1 5 and 1 916. The last of the three had been because of an anal- ogous theft. When arrested for the theft of a velour hat in 1913, L. had at home nine velour hats, a camera, three pairs of opera glasses and a cigarette case, all of which he had stolen. In 191 5, while substituting in the cloak room of the opera, he stole an overcoat.

L. denies ever having been seriously ill. He had an inflamma- tion on his penis when he was nine or ten years old because, as he claimed, he played with himself too much. He can remember that his father often beat him for doing this and also clipped his finger nails.

He claims always to have been a good boy, but adds with a smile, that even as a boy he was peculiar. He always liked to play with dolls and even carried them to school with him in his knap- sack. His father beat him for it until he gave up the habit. At home he liked best to model cribs and houses out of his box of blocks, and was always at home around the kitchen stove where he liked to cook, scrub the floor, etc. He never had any friends and was always alone. In the summer he would walk in the wood near by, catch butterflies, etc. He was always a quiet person, took life seriously. As a child he read fairy tales and later drew only romances from the library.

He offers the following information on his sexual life : He never had any erotic relationships with schoolmates. Many years ago, when he was about eighteen, he tried to masturbate, having heard about the practise, but was unable to gain an erection. At nine- teen, after having withstood the jibes of his companions about his virginity and because he suffered from an acne (which the laity usually blames upon sexual chastity), he visited a prostitute, but

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

was unable to get an erection. A second visit which lasted throughout the night failed as miserably, and he never tried again. He nevertheless picked up a gonorrhoea during these trials, but this soon healed. At about the same time, he was once grasped by the penis by a man in the Turkish bath, but he was not especially enlivened by the experience. His first notion of abnormal sexual feelings occurred at about twenty-five, soon after he had returned from Germany. He noticed that whenever he would brush past men in a well-filled street, he would have "peculiar feelings." Now and again he would also have an erection. He then began to pre- fer second-hand suits, especially such as were fitted for a belt, although he was not financially forced to wear such clothing. It was at about this time that he began to steal belts in motion pic- ture houses. His first arrest occurred some years after he had already been practising these habits. Latterly he had been in the habit of taking only velour hats and belts. Upon direct ques- tioning, he replied that any other objects which he had stolen, he had also taken from men. He remembered that the man whose overcoat he had stolen was also dressed in sports clothing.

L. describes how, when he sees a hat peeping from a man's pocket — he can hardly make it clear — he becomes excited, feels a sort of knocking within his breast, and frequently gets an erection. If the theft of the hat or the withdrawal of the belt from the trousers is difficult, he has an orgasm which follows a pain in the penis as if he suffered urgency. Then he is weak and spent. If the theft is easy, he is not particularly pleased. When questioned about it, L. agreed that he was always fearful of being caught, but that could not prevent him from succumbing to his impulses. He states that he is not at all sexually provoked when conversing with men, nor does he have that sensation he once used to have whenever he would brush by men in the street. He becomes ani- mated only when he sees a man with a velour hat or a belt, but not every man with a velour hat or belt will catch his eye. He prefers men with curly hair. At home he has the hats covered with a white cloth and the belts all folded away. He handles them occasionally, feels them, and now and again has an erection. His own hat never gives him the same feeling, only stolen ones.

The especial point about this case which makes its publication appear indicated — I have found no similar case in the course of a superficial search through the literature — is that L.'s fetishism is marked by a homosexual component which is expressed in his de- sire to steal male clothing from men. ("Ueber einen Fall von

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

Kleidungsfetischismus homosexueller Art." Ztschr. f. Sexual- wissenschaft, Vol. VII, Nr. 19, Dec, 1920.)

This is a case of genuine fetishism. The patient is homo- sexual only in his phantasies. It seems plain that the hat, sticking in a pocket, symbolizes for him the phallus protruding into a vagina. We have here the factors of impulsive conduct, the expression of an infantile phantasy and the harem cult. The hat, and perhaps also the belt, have a phallic meaning for this patient.

There is no piece of clothing that cannot be made the center of a fetishistic habit. The specific form and type of clothing also plays a part. Gamier described a case in which a wedding gown was the specific love condition.

Kersten reported the following case of fetishistic theft in Gross* Archiv, Vol. XXV.

Case 17. One evening in February, 1906, the village of L. was astounded by the theft of a ball dress from a garden which had been entered clandestinely. A forty-year-old stone cutter, who had been living a hitherto blameless life, had been married for fifteen years but was without children, was arrested as the thief and con- fessed the crime. When, upon search, his home was found filled with a suspicious number of evening gowns, dresses and petti- coats, he confessed further that, to gratify his sexual appetite, he had for two years been clandestinely stealing women's apparel from gardens where they had been hung out to dry or air. He usually stole at dusk or night and either climbed over the fences or broke into the places.

The forensic opinion on S. was that he was a fetish lover whose free will and responsibility had been sufficiently circumscribed at the time of the deed by a pathologically disturbed mind as to ab- solve him from punishable blame. S's. over-weaning instinct is doubtless based in great part upon his low mental status, although his hereditary rating appears negative. Whenever he sees a petti- coat hanging on a line, he becomes involuntarily provoked sexually, especially if the wind lends the petticoat some form. He is then an impulsive automaton, driven willy-nilly to become possessor of that piece of apparel. He takes the skirt and presses it close to his bosom, which is in itself a kind of sexual gratification for him. When he gets home, he puts the petticoat on in the fashion of a

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

woman, and, dressed in this manner, he has intercourse with his wife. Allegedly, S. has not cohabited with his wife during the past two years without wearing a petticoat or skirt, and it is his desire always to have a new one on, i.e., one that he has but recently stolen. Only in an emergency would he use an old one, but then the pleasure was not the same. The case was dropped. (Records of the Royal Barrister, Dresden, St. A. VII, 103/06.)

In all the above cases we have been able to observe a combi- nation of erotic symbolism with impulsive acts of a klepto- manical type. The fetishist is a collector and every mono- maniacal collector is, in certain circumstances, a thief. Who- ever has read the previous volumes of this series will understand that this kleptomaniacal impulse is an irresistible one. The tremendous displacement of affect, the transference of emo- tions, makes an emotional debauchery possible which circum- scribes consciousness and thus intensifies the erotic ecstasy.

The impulse derives from childhood and attempts a revival of the past. Stealing dolls is a palpably infantile trait. It is as if these parapathics had recovered their infantile past with one dash. In the days before psychoanalysis, it was possible to talk in such cases of degeneration and impulsive acts on a con- stitutionally degenerative basis. Psychoanalysis, however, first discovered to the world the power of infantile experiences and childhood attitudes. But the interpretation of infantile phan- tasies alone is not enough. Whoever tries to solve the riddle of fetishism with the key of the infantile trauma will soon learn otherwise by his failure.

The true fetish lover is an actor who, like the erotic sym- bolist, possesses the power to annul reality and feel and think his way into his role. There is not a single object which he is not capable of drawing into the charmed circle of his system and creating it a bearer of emotion and affect. If the object — let us say a doll — appears suitable to represent the past, if it can take on the symbolic meaning of the genitals, or a sexual act, then it will all the more easily become the foundation of a com- plicated structure which I have chosen to call a "fixed castle in the air."

But the patient does not satisfy himself with thinking and

EROTIC SYMBOLISM

phantasies alone. The call of the past, an unfulfilled childhood wish, the desire to revive an old scene, impel the fetishist to the execution of compulsive acts which bring him into conflict with the law. He often achieves a secret goal thereby: he makes himself interesting and also plays the martyr, suffers, and enjoys his suffering.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM

Most so-called fetish lovers harbor a complicated system and also display a peculiarly individual taste. They try to surprise the physician with a wealth of details the importance of which they specially emphasize, and then add: "You have doubtless never heard of such abstruseness in your life." They plainly reveal what they think is a secret pride in their neurotic fictions, their sexual neoplasms, their illness ; a pride which can be com- pared only with that found in marked and typical hypochon- driacs. The latter may be called narcissistic fetishists. Fetish lovers often shown signs of hypochondria and hypochondriacs, on the other hand, make a fetish out of their symptoms and their diseases. They are downright in love with their troubles.

The fetishist usually expresses his true tendencies and the causes of his sexual symbolism in a kind of secret code. In the course of an analysis, he will strive more and more to cover up the meaning of this code. He becomes unhappy when he sees that the physician is beginning seriously to unravel his secrets, and then generally takes flight. I can therefore give all analysts the advice not to disclose their knowledge and un- derstanding to the fetishist too early, nor to let him feel that he and his system have been discovered for what they really are.

We meet with the most curious displacements. Thus, for example, a hand which is the object of a most passionate par- tialism is not at all representative of itself, but symbolizes an action which was once carried out with a hand. The more com- plicated the patient's system is, the more suspicious must we be of it.

All these patients cry miserably for cure and promise one eternal thankfulness if they are freed from the bonds of their sexual symbolism. But they must not be believed. They only

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 83

act as if they really wanted freedom, whereas actually they live by their fictions, embrace their symbolism and want to have nothing to do with cures.

As we have already seen, sexual symbolism has the tendency to free an individual from the necessity of a sexual partner. The love conditions become more and more circumscribed until the fetishism becomes equivalent to asceticism. Finally, this trend drives the person away from the partner and towards a symbol, a part of the body, even a part which has little or nothing to do with sexuality or perhaps altogether a foreign and inanimate object. But always, the person strives to pre- serve his secret code and to prevent anyone from deciphering it. The following is an instructive example of this tendency.

Case 18. Fritz K., a twenty-nine-year-old chemist, suffers from a complete incapacity for work. Originally he was to be trained as a business man according to his father's wishes. At seventeen he suddenly became ambitious, began to study hard, passed the college examinations with good marks and went in for the university studies with an industry which finally enabled him to achieve the doctorate after the conquest of all his inner troubles. But now he seems unable to do anything. He seems interested enough in a lot of things, but is always at the surface of whatever he does. He is a good musician, can compose at the piano, but lacks any founda- tion. He cannot decide upon a profession. He doesn't like chem- istry any more and is bored by it. He would like to become a mu- sician or a philosopher. He believes that his pathological sexuality is the cause of all his troubles and his weak will. He states that he has been masturbating since earliest youth and always with one and the same picture in his mind :

He imagines two women struggling with each other. The one is slender and has a graceful leg. She wears white, sheer, silk stockings. The other is strong, robust and stocky, and wears black stockings. The struggle between them is bitter and it always seems as if the slender one will win. But always at the last mo- ment, the black legs win and at that very moment he has an ejac- ulation. He frequently must masturbate as many as five times in one night.

He is always restless and unable to concentrate. After he has masturbated, however, he becomes somewhat more composed and attentive to things. It is as if a motor were being" driven cease-

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

lessly through space. He visited many cities, looked up many physicians, but left them all after a short time. In Vienna he is restless, cannot remain in his rooms, runs to the cafes, from the cafes to the theatre, and there he is bored. He would like to read books, begins with great interest and attention, but throws the work away after a quarter of an hour.

He is constantly searching, searching for the proper sexual object in all the streets and alleys. He is interested in nothing but the stockinged ankle, and women with sheer silk stockings are the chief attraction.

He can run after them for hours. Then he will run home and masturbate with the above-mentioned mental picture, the woman he has just seen taking the place of one of the amazons.

He has also tried normal coitus. He found his potency good, but the orgasm was rather weak in comparison with that provoked by masturbation. He has read very many analytical books, but this is a detriment rather than an aid to treatment.

Second visit : He came a quarter of an hour too late and excused himself by saying that he had to wait at the barber's (he was re- minded of the fact that this only corroborated the prophecy that he would be resistive to treatment).

Sometimes the masturbation was an expression of his despair. He wanted to ruin himself in this pleasurable manner. Following every onanistic act, he experienced a moral and physical depres- sion, but the physical or hygienic dejection has disappeared since he has read my book on onanism. He still gets a moral hang- over, however, after every act.

Wrestling has always interested him, and in school he often wrestled, naturally picking on the smaller boys so that he would come out a winner. Only once did he see two women wrestling, and that excited him greatly. That was three years ago and some time after the compulsion idea had been formed. He also strug- gled with his masturbatory tendencies (here he was reminded of the fact that he was a wrestler with all things in life. He was also asked about his parents' lives). His parents, he said, fought like cats and dogs. There were always arguments and he cannot re- member ever having heard a tender word pass between them. His father was a drunkard and committed suicide (one of his brothers, too). He was then nineteen and the father fifty-six.

His mother was more intelligent than his father and often trumped up illness in order to have her way. The patient blames his mother as the cause of his illness, claiming that she pampered

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 85

him and reared him as a very introspective type. Even as a child, he was always alone and played with his building set. At ten he was sent away and the letters he received from his mother were full of imperatives. Do this and don't do that. Honor thy parents that thou mayest prosper on earth. She also inculcated too much religion into him. He states that between five and fourteen he was very pious. He recalls a very strict teacher of religion who tried his mightiest to fill his soul with the fear of God. He was there- fore always afraid of the wrath of God, and suffers from an op- pressive guilt feeling of which he has been unable to divest himself to this day. He was still confessing at eighteen, but "finally over- came the whole mess.', Nevertheless, there were always substi- tutes for the religion afterwards. He became an evangelical Protestant, then raved about Johannes Müller (the biologist), Lhotzky, Mulford, etc.

He sought God's aid against his onanistic impulses, and when yet a child he struggled with this "depravity." He remembers that he came by masturbation himself. He was leaning out the window when he felt a curious tickling sensation in the region of the pros- tate. He pressed his hand unconsciously against his penis and that was the beginning of his unhappiness. From the very first, his onanistic phantasies consisted of lovely legs. His first objects of lust were girls he had seen on the street wearing yellow stock- ings. The wrestling phantasies were developed only during the past three years.

His onanistic phantasies are not always as simple as he has described them. The chief point is that both these women wrestle for him just as two knights would be struggling for the posses- sion of a castle beauty. He is always interested in the question of which one he will possess. When the legs of the two women are intertwined during the match, he is especially tickled. He often imagines that there may be a gladiator's school for women in every land. Every country chooses its best amazon and then an international championship is staged (cf. the modern interna- tional beauty contests — trans.). The best wrestler then becomes his mistress. The audience at these wrestling matches consists only of men. There are three rooms; the match begins in the first room and then the stronger woman drags the weaker one through the second into the third, where she wrestles some more with the latter and finally conquers her.

"In my mind, I often measure their leg sizes. For example, ankle 18 and calf 32. The other one has a smaller ankle, 16, but

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a larger calf, let's say 34. She's the winner. The wrestlers are always contrasts. A brunette usually wins over a blonde." When he was twenty-three, a ten-year-old girl he saw on the street pro- voked his fancy. He had to contain himself in order not to attack her on the street. He would like to rape a little girl. Being the stronger would excite him. For example, he is greatly animated when women let him carry them. Once when he carried a girl across a stream, he was almost beside himself with passion.

Yesterday he didn't masturbate. Why? (He was told that he knew that he would observe himself in order to be able to tell me the phantasies.) What he told me with such seeming exhaus- tiveness did not in the least complete the list of his onanistic phantasies.

At the beginning of the war he was so excited that he prac- tically forgot to masturbate (wrestling match between Germany and France). This state persisted for a few months. He was wounded and ended in a hospital. There he naturally fell into his old phantasies and habits. He protests, however, that onanism is not always pleasure and vows he will take his life to punish himself. Whenever he had an opportunity to command in the war, he felt much better and masturbated less.

He describes the story of his life and explains how he has always been led by chance. He was always lucky, always found someone who was interested in him and produced the means whereby he educated himself.

Again he produces an appendix to and elaboration of his wres- tling phantasies. The time factor plays a large role. The women first wrestle for a period of five minutes and during this phase it is possible that the weaker one may forge ahead. Then there is a pause of several minutes, after which they begin to wrestle again for ten minutes. During this second period, it is possible that the weaker one may win once, but the stronger woman will win at least six times. The winner is then entitled to have inter- course. She falls upon the loser and copies the movements of sexual intercourse until the weaker one is exhausted and declares herself beaten. The stronger woman then places her knee upon the breast of the loser, and in this moment he has an orgasm.

As a child, he had seen a picture in a magazine called Modern Art which was entitled "Rivals." Two women were struggling with each other. One was lying on the ground, her hair flowing in the breeze, while the other braced one knee on her breast. He was then eight years old and now believes that he has been using a

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 87

similar mental picture because that one made such a deep erotic impression upon him.

He has already tried to remember whether or not he ever spied on his parents during intercourse. His father often came home drunk and he knows that his mother no longer loved his father. Perhaps there was a kind of wrestling match between his parents which ended in his mother's conquest. Perhaps he was a witness to such bouts, but his memory fails him. He considers this suppo- sition to be a theoretical construction.

He manifests a great yearning for a fine woman, an ideal love. A few years ago he made the acquaintance of a very dear girl and thought that he loved her. At that time, he had no wrestling phantasies whatever, but he also did not love this girl really. He believes that a true affection for a noble, sensitive soul could save him from himself. He even wonders that he has no leg phantasies in the company of fine, chaste girls. He is inflamed only by sensuous-looking, provoking women.

"Can you explain this to me?" he asks.

"I think so. I also understand your wrestling phantasies now. Two tendencies are wrestling within your breast for the upper hand. You desire to love spiritually, to belong to a single woman, to woo and wed her according to the laws of the Catholic religion (the sacrament of marriage). That could be called heavenly love. You know Titian's painting of heavenly and earthly love, don't you?"

"Certainly. I like it very much."

"You can masturbate and love only when earthly love conquers. Your difficulty is the expression of a battle between eros and sex- uality, instinct and sublimation, brain and spinal cord. You want to kill God within you, conquer the need for a spiritual love by crass sensuality. The devil wrestles with God. (Think of Job and of Faust.) You have projected this struggle to the outside world. You have a picture of it before your mind's eye."

The patient thought these conclusions over and corroborated their validity. We now also understand the meaning of the three rooms. They represent his three decades of life in which sensual- ity has always won over spirituality. His Satanism has always conquered his Catholicism. The minutes he mentions can also be explained in this way. For five years he was very devout, then came a recess period of some time, after which he entered a ten- year period of Satanism. The black stocking symbolizes the branded, sinful woman. The white stocking is a symbol of purity.

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He then relates something of the terrible religious impressions he received in childhood. He comes of a family in which there were always rights between the liberals and the zealots. His mother engraved piety into his brain with the strongest impera- tives, and now he takes pleasure in proselyting his relatives to a more modern form of devotion. Three of his mother's brothers became freethinkers and tried to draw his mother away from the church. They were, of course, only partially successful. He be- lieves that she became hysterical only when her religious beliefs were shaken.

"Didn't you want to become a priest?" I asked.

He hesitates to answer, but then confesses that when he was a child they gave him a small altar. He played the preacher, read masses and acted the high priest. His ideal was to become a pastor. His piety was nothing short of fanatical.

"At bottom you have remained devout. To believe is a feeling, an emotion. Your disbelief is the product of your intellect and the intellect can never conquer one's feelings. It is a struggle be- tween a whale and an elephant. They can never come together. Your belief has withdrawn into your unconscious and is protected by your parapathia. Your wrestling phantasies insure your chas- tity, for, in reality, you approach woman only very seldom."

He agrees that he is still devout and that during the war he occasionally prayed, especially when he was at the front. He would like to drive out this "foolish belief, " but has been unsuc- cessful to this day.

And now he knows why he is dissatisfied with all professions. At bottom he sticks to his ideal and would prefer to become a priest. Studying chemistry was an accident and music is but a substitute for religion with him. He prays while he plays. Wild military melodies pass into chorals to the glory of God.

His resistances increase. He comes late and his associations are halting. His one new addition is that he now states having had phantasies in which he himself wrestles with a woman, but the woman is always of the coarse and sensual type, not the spir- itual kind which he adores and would like to love. He avoids con- necting the latter type with his phantasies about legs and ankles. Only occasionally will he create a combination between a coarse and graceful female. It is much more difficult to phantasy such a woman than the usual kind.

He is always vacillating between wish and counter-wish. He has now become quite conscious of this trend. Last night he

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM S9

had a dream and a voice said to him : "You will tell this dream to Dr. Stekel." "But, no !" said another voice, "you will tell him nothing." And he forgot the dream. This keeps up the whole day long. Two forces are struggling within him — among others, the female and the male principles. He wants to be a man and yet remains a woman.

More and more he is beginning to realize that the cause of his "fetishism" is his repressed religious feeling. He conceives the wrestling phantasies with the two women as a symbolization of a struggle between sensuality and belief.

Last night he had two dreams:

I went on a mountain-climbing trip. It seems as if my brother fell.

My father had a large business. A large theft was discovered and there was an unpleasant scene. . . .

To the first dream he associates a memory that he once went on a mountain-climbing trip with a girl. They were caught in a thick fog and lost their way. Finally they came to a point where further passage was impossible. He tried to pass and slid down about thirty yards. He received slight injuries, but was able to find a way to a mountain shelter. There a rescue crew was formed and the girl was freed from her rather uncomfortable po- sition. It was already dark and cold and the girl was in danger of freezing.

To the second dream he recalls that his father suffered business reversals and hung himself in despair. He believes, however, that his father's unhappy marriage was partly the cause of his father's bitterness.

It becomes increasingly plainer that the patient is afraid of woman and marriage. His parent's unhappy marriage had the effect of an "eternal warning" even in childhood. He then pro- posed never to succumb to a woman. For that reason, he con- structed a fetishistic system which enabled him to avoid women and celebrate triumphs in his phantasies. In his mind, every mar- riage was a wrestling match in which the stronger one wins. The weaker must then die, as his father did.

Now we understand the first dream. His brother is in the Alps, climbing mountains. Since childhood he has had the desire to see his brother die so that he might become the sole heir to his mother's small fortune. The dream has, however, also another meaning. This brother is the symbol of his other self, his para- pathia, the pious man yearning for love and marriage. He tried

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to reach the heights with a woman, but was caught in a fog, lost his way, and fell. The second dream has a religious import. The father is God the Father. He wanted to become a wandering preacher and offer mankind the evangelism of love. He wanted to speak the word of God. But he thwarted God, deprived him- self of his belief in Him. Therefore the stir (the scene) in his soul.

He has a singular conception of religion. It is for him a kind of altruism. Whenever he does something for the good of an- other and not for his own advantage, he feels pious. Whenever he loves something for its own sake (and not for the sake of pos- session), he feels that this is true love. Religion is thus love without possession. The egoist and the altruist struggle for his soul.

He dreams : The chief postal inspector comes to inspect a post- office of which his brother is the postmaster. There was quite a scandal because the books were not in order.

I am the inspector who is dissatisfied with the analysis. He himself is dissatisfied with his past life.

Here he produced an important memory. When he was 3 years old, his fourteen-year-old brother came into his bed and placed his (brother's) erected penis in his hand. When he was eight, he was bathing with another brother and they played with their parts.

His sexuality was awakened early. He clearly remembers hav- ing had thrills as a child of two to three when he played with other children and laid himself upon them. They played they were dogs, ran about on all fours and barked "bow wow." Then he would be the stronger dog and would hop up on the others. He would ex- perience quite a pleasurable sensation. Later he gained the same thrills from wrestling with his playmates, especially at the mo- ment when he bent their backs, i.e., just before they fell to the ground. His earliest wrestling phantasies were purely homosex- ual, and the first time he was fired by the image of male, not female, legs. Even to-day he is animated by youths. Only the other day he was at an open-air bathing pool where he lay next to a boy in cotton stockings. He got an immediate erection.

He is somewhat disturbed by his fierce sadistic impulses. On the streets he can follow girls between seventeen and twenty for blocks and has to fight off the impulse to fall upon them and rape

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 91

them. He calls this a fit. Once a woman provokes one of these fits, he feels through with her (self -protection). Recently he had adored a woman in a purely Platonic fashion. But she provoked one of these attacks in him (desire to rape), and since then she has passed out of his mind.

He is very vain and wants always to make a good impression. He invariably becomes confused and embarrassed in the presence of those whose respect he cherishes. He lacks the capacity to enjoy things harmlessly. He is always observing himself. He had periods in which he was always impelled to provoke another's attention and wanted always to be looked at.

He is especially delighted by a marked contrast between the calf and the ankle in his wrestling phantasies. The calf reminds him of a penis. It appears that this is a bisexual symbol.

The homosexual factor forges more and more to the fore. Girls in short skirts remind him of boys and the wrestling women in his phantasies are pages. This is the reason why he is never satisfied by coitus, but must masturbate afterwards. Only once did he ever experience an exception to this. That was with a prostitute in Vienna who had a boyish bob and was built like a boy. He does not like to have intercourse in the usual position, but prefers it with closely intertwined legs. When he masturbates, he also crosses his legs. The pressure provokes a kind of ecstasy in him and when he is about to have an ejaculation, he presses the right leg close upon the left. (The right leg plays the male and the left the female.) He can never find the vagina when with a woman and always permits her to pass his penis into the introitus (he seeks the anus and desires to avoid any sign of activity or guilt. He is the seduced, not the seducer). This is a contrast to his rape phantasies. His maleness was originally sadistic, but is now maso- chistic. He is not impassioned by a woman lying still, but only by the movements of the female. There must be a play of the muscles, especially of the calves. If a woman wears shoes, stock- ings and a skirt of different colors, he is animated, whereas solid or ensemble colors leave him cold.

He achieved his most gratifying orgasm while wrestling with boys and at the moment when his energy was almost spent and he was barely able to bend the other down.

Suddenly he remembers that his mother made much of his legs. She often slapped him on the legs and sometimes on the buttocks. He has an older brother who is feeble-minded. When the

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patient was eight, the seventeen-year-old brother attempted a pederastic assault upon him which failed because the patient cried out loudly.

Sometimes when he looks at women he looks cross-eyed. One eye is exophoric. He knows that this is a parapathic strabismus. It first appeared in youth and recurs only occasionally. He had all kinds of compulsion habits, e.g., he would jump up and down in the room like a frog and developed a kind of ecstasy. Again he would imagine that he were some important personage and would then execute all kinds of ceremonials (e.g., a general reviewing the army, etc.). His phantasies are so active that the figures almost live. If he imagines that he sees a corpse on the floor, he actually sees it and could touch it. It is often difficult for him to differentiate between his phantasies and reality. He believes him- self to be the emperor of Japan and can walk about for hours under the influence of this phantasy.

The most terrible feeling comes over him when he comes out of such trances. Especially after masturbation, he has the feeling that he's going insane.

Every ankle he sees on the street is a new trauma for him, for it is the beginning of another series of innumerable phantasies. He feels himself to be the unhappiest of men and life is one grand disappointment. A loving couple on the street makes him sad, for he has never known the happiness of love. He would like to be completely bound up in some woman, but has to satisfy himself with his phantasies for his disillusionment. He mastur- bates after every touch of depression and becomes dejected after every onanistic act. At the same time he has the feeling as if his phantasies are running away with him and disappearing in a fog.

Yesterday he had a characteristic experience. He saw a young woman standing in front of a theatre. She had pretty ankles, well- formed legs, and wore elegant, sheer stockings. He accosted her and, although she hesitated at first, she permitted herself to be taken to a cafe. There she prevailed upon him to buy drinks and even asked him for money, which he gave her, unresisting, again and again. He became frightfully excited, his whole body trembled. Finally, he accompanied her home, where she bade him good-night in front of the door, although she had promised to sleep with him. He hadn't the nerve to demand the money back or to force himself upon her.

His first association was the memory of an apache dance which

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 93

had once inflamed him sexually. In this dance, the apache appar- ently killed his female partner after he had gratified his lust.

This is evidence that he is struggling against the phantasy of a love murder. Whenever he is with prostitutes, he is bashful and exhibits tics, which makes them afraid of him. One of them once told him he was too sinister-looking.

He has manifestly repressed his original stock of sadism. He can't bear to look at blood, is full of sympathy, and could hardly hurt a fly. He nevertheless knows that he hates women and could kill them.

He comes to the hour loaded with a bushel of notes, associa- tions which he has collected throughout the day. I want to warn all my analytic colleagues against falling into this sort of trap. Such a wealth of apparent material only disguises the resistances present and makes it possible for the patient to dispense with the necessity of getting down to work in free associations. I there- fore refused to listen to all his "associations."

He then refuses to associate. He says he can think of nothing. He then begins to produce a lot of faults he finds with me. Nat- urally, only after I had called his attention to the fact that he is doubtless dissatisfied with me to-day. He said he expected more complacency. He had hoped we would become friends, take walks together, etc. He is told that such intimacies would disturb the progress of the analysis. In such a circumstance we have great need of the effect of personal distance. Finally he brings forth the declaration that he does not believe in his sadism uncondition- ally. He believes and yet he doesn't believe. The next associa- tion is :

"I once saw a picture which stimulated me unbearably. A girl was tied hand and foot and bound to the railway tracks. In the distance was the speeding train which was soon to run over her and kill her."

He experienced a most powerful impression once when he saw a steer hop a cow. The animal violence of the act made him thrill. Yesterday he masturbated with the phantasy that he were injured in one arm and carried it in a sling. In another phantasy, he wrestles with a woman and conquers her with one arm.

Onanism has the meaning of castration for him. For a time he has emasculated himself. He is also subject to the phantasy that his penis is a woman and his right hand a man. He thus over- comes woman.

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He remembers an old house which he knew in his youth. The place was filthy and full of rats. It was a sinister spot and he never dared go in. It was said that the place was connected with a castle by means of an underground passage. He would have given anything to crawl through this underground tunnel, but he was too fearful.

He is here told that he has just represented his resistance to the analysis in a pictorial fashion. The old house symbolizes his parapathia, his past. He is afraid to get down to the underground passage of his repressed ego. (In addition to this the association is also a plain phantasy of the mother's womb.) He corroborates the interpretation by saying that he hasn't the nerve to look his own unconscious in the face. He would rather run away from himself.

He had a perturbing experience. He was in the postofike and had to wait in line. There he saw a woman standing at one of the tables and writing something. He was behind her and she animated him greatly because she had "the most wonderful calves." He sped home and wanted to write his mother a letter, but couldn't. He had to masturbate with the phantasy of those ankles. Then he was able to write the letter, and afterwards he fell off into a deep sleep. When he awoke, he felt like a new-born child. "He could have torn up a tree."

The language of the patient is especially important. His simile is a psychic revelation. I hope later to show just what he meant by it. At any rate, it seems plain that his colossal excitement was somehow connected with incestuous phantasies (mother?).

He associates the name Marie to the girl (the mother of God?). But he says he can't remember any Marie in his life.

He continues to describe his parapathic symptoms. He is afraid of high mountains and looking out the window. He feels drawn into the depths. He feels himself weak and small and helpless like a child.

It also occurs that the weaker of the two women in his wrestling phantasies wins. Indeed, in the wrestling matches he had with other boys, he would often let the weaker one conquer him and would then experience an enormous pleasure (a phantasy of wrestling with his father? Being a boy, he identifies himself with his father. This explanation is not communicated to him). He often has the woman conquer the man in these phantasies. This is contrary to his feelings of propriety in sexual matters, but affords him a paroxysmal orgasm nevertheless. He also is

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 95

sensually thrilled when the woman kills the man in his imagina- tions. (The female in him overcomes the male, and he then submits to the father who is the representative of manhood.)

The following day he brought a dream. Last evening he had to masturbate three times and it was after the third time that he fell asleep and had the dream. Just before the second time he masturbated, he had a waking dream which he noted as follows :

Two persons are wrestling with each other. One is a woman and the other is either a woman or perhaps a man. The first female is slender, delicate, lovely (but) quick and muscular. Ankle circumference, 12.3 cm.; calf, 23.8 cm.; weight, 112 lbs.; difference between calf and ankle, 11.5 cm., i.e., about 100 per cent.

The second woman possesses a manifestly heavier build, and is naturally stronger and superior as regards her muscular energy. She is, however, plumper and less agile. Ankle, 19.4 cm. ; calf, 25.1 cm.; weight, 135 lbs.; difference between calf and ankle, 5.7 cm., or only about 30 per cent.

During the match, the coarse strength of the second woman is easily superior to the effort of the other. The delicate one wins, however, because of her greater agility and especially because of her finer display of muscular control and the greater difference be- tween ankle and calf circumference.

Symbol of the delicate ankle: weakness. Symbol of the well- developed calf, i.e., the greater difference between the two: strength.

The deep dream following the third onanistic act took place about 1.30 to 2.30 in the morning.

An old man leads me into a garden (home) and shows me about. This garden (?) lies within the midst of someone's else property (I don't recall what we did in that garden). Suddenly I notice that I have forgotten the key to my house. The old man looks at a watch and says, "A quarter to ten." And I replied, "Then I can get home just in time to get in before they lock the door at ten o'clock.,, To my astonishment I discover that I am minus some of my clothing (the trousers?).

A young man is added to our dinner table. He says at table (apparently to the woman of the house, the wife of the old man), "If you eat as late (945) as this again, I'll give notice and leave!" The old man looked up at him in surprise and pointed to me as if to say, "You're not alone here." I acted (wrote) as if I hadn't heard anything.

First of all, it is not infrequent that patients tell us they had to

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masturbate several times in one night. That reveals an irresistible sexual impulse which cannot, evidently, be stilled by onanism. The reason for this is that the specifically determining phantasy is not accessible to consciousness and only mitigated by substitutes. The patient states that he is busied only with the wrestling phan- tasies and that he has no idea what could have been the prototype for these pictures. We know, on the other hand, that he first began to indulge in these phantasies long after he had actually seen a wrestling match. The above waking phantasy is character- ized by a curious precision which reckons to a decimal. Such precision cannot be a haphazard occurrence. There must be some connection between these figures and his paraphilia or his specific onanistic phantasies. We can go on the assumption that a closer analysis of these figures will lead us to a deeper understanding of his parapathia, i.e., if the patient willingly delivers up his material. I nevertheless reckon with bitter resistance for I cannot expect that he will willingly disclose the secret hidden behind these figures.

I say, "I am especially surprised by the precision of your figures in these wrestling phantasies. What can you associate to these figures? What is the meaning of that difference of 1 1.5 cm. and 5.7 cm.? Have these particular figures any relationship with occurrences in your family history?"

He is quiet and thinks long. Then he says, "Such numbers fall into my mind in droves. They are the product of my playful fancy. I can't find any kind of special sense in them."

I am not the less convinced that these numbers have a special determination and turn to the analysis of the dream. I think that perhaps the dream will forge a path back to the numbers.

The first thing is the episode with the elderly gentleman who leads him through his garden. His first association is myself and the functional interpretation of the dream becomes clear.

I lead him through the garden of my science which lies in the midst of foreign property (religion — parapathia). He is supposed to help me find the solution to his parapathia, but he has forgotten the key. I remind him of the fact that it is high time he were getting well and on the way home, i.e., becoming pure and able to work. It is already a quarter to ten and the hour when all the houses lock their outer doors is drawing near. He is willing to dispense with the key and run for it (this time for his mother to whom he is greatly attached). But he discovers that he has undressed before me, he is missing several articles of apparel. In-

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 97

deed, he has revealed a considerable portion of himself to me. He is dissatisfied with the analysis. Before one gets to the material benefits of life, it's too late. He will give notice on the analysis and leave. He is conscious of these tendencies of his neurotic ego and, being sensitive, puts on as if he would continue the treatment and not have noticed the conduct of his enraged inner person, his brother.

He has, however, a rather recent experience to relate in refer- ence to the numbers 9.45 and 10 o'clock. He believes that this experience has something to do with the cause of his onanistic acts. Yesterday, after the analytic hour, he felt quite perturbed and was impelled to run about and look for a woman, any woman, a girl, a sexual object that wore sheer stockings and had a narrow ankle. For the first time, he felt curious about how far up he could see, whether he would be able to see as far as the garter and how the stocking was held up (ankle and garter as symbols of pressure and impression). He accosted a girl who seemed quite plainly dressed. He noticed immediately that she was a Jewess, and, although he is a full-blooded Nordic and a German nationalist, too, his weak spot is a Jewess. He feels they have more class, more . . . Well, he asked her to go walking with him and she surprised him by accepting the invitation. Then she began telling him her troubles, how her parents were dead and she had to live with relatives, etc., etc. Although he appeared to be very touched by the story, he never forgot his purpose. He wanted to take her to a hotel. He tried to kiss her, but she slapped him and said, "What do you think I am, anyhow? I want you to know that I'm a decent girl and even if I'm not dressed up in finery, I'll have you understand I'm no prostitute." Suddenly she looked at her watch and said, "Oh, I must be home by 945 or 10 at the latest." He escorted her home and then asked her if he could see her again. She said that she would leave that to chance.

This episode was a deep humiliation for him. He felt as if slapped in the face by this answer. He had been used to conquer whomever he had set out to overcome. But this little Jewess, who looked like nobody at all, showed him so much resistance. Isn't he fine and stimulating enough for anyone to want to be with him?

Then he began to think of me. He considers it even more of a humiliation to be analyzed by me without enjoying the pleasure of making the analyst's acquaintance. I don't permit him the

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intimacy of the house. But in the dream, he has revenged him- self. He has made himself a part of my family, goes through all the intimate and hateful little family scenes, but he acts dis- creetly, as if he hadn't heard or seen a thing.

The coarsely material interpretation is even more clear. He is now reminded of the narrow crevice between the buttocks. This is provoked by the narrow piece of property between two other properties in the dream. The garden is the anus, his trousers are down, but he acts like that little Jewess : he doesn't want to give me his penis (he left his key at home). He says he must run home and thus wants to revenge himself upon me by refusing me (identification with the girl he met). He is the young gent and gives me, the elderly gentleman, notice that he will quit the analysis.

While he is developing the sexual side of the interpretation, I call his attention to the approaching termination of the analysis. He laughs and says he would be tickled, finally, to have someone who seemed to understand his difficulties. He believes the young man could also be someone else.

"Have you ever heard anyone say that if dinner were ever served so late again, they would give notice and leave?"

"Sure/' he called out, jumping up, "that's what my brother once threatened.

"Which brother?"

"My older brother, who committed suicide." "How much older was he?" "About five years." "Exactly?"

"Well, let's see. Why, it's exactly five years and seven months (5.7) and the other brother who's alive is just eleven years and five months older than myself (11.5)."

The figures are completely cleared up when we understand that when he was nineteen years and four months old, his brother was twenty-five years exactly. His weight is one hundred and thirty-five pounds. The figures for the first wrestling match refer manifestly to an older brother. In other words we have here the curious fact that the figures have nothing to do with the female ankles and calves, but that they simply express in a roundabout way the age and weight differences between himself and his brothers.

The whole business about the ankles and calves is thus seen to be a blind, a hoax. He is not at all interested in women's legs.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF FETISHISM 99

He is provoked by his relationships with his brothers. We know from the data he has given us that he was the object of homo- sexual attention on the part of his brothers. One of his brothers led him through the forbidden garden of homosexuality, but now that brother is cool towards him, has married, and is no longer a sexual object.

He was always insanely jealous of his brothers. Jealous when they were intimate and confidential with each other while he was left out of it. He was jealous of his father, too, and especially of his mother whose little playmate he wanted to be. He wished all his rivals dead and then later suffered pangs of guilt over the suicide of his father and brother because he had harbored death wishes against them.

The wrestling matches of the weaker woman with the stronger one represent his struggle with his older (stronger) brother. But the younger, more agile, one wins despite his lighter weight. The winner then gains the highest prize, the mother, whose life he shares. The eleven and one-half-year older brother now lives with his mother and that is what drove him out of the house. He wants to possess either the brother or the mother, but only for himself alone.

He harbors murder in his breast. He became a chemist in order to be able to get rid of people. In the dream, too, he sees a meal served in which he takes no part, but acts only as an on- looker to whom the meal means nothing.

The effect of this explanation of the figures as symbols of the age differences between himself and his brothers was dumbfound- ing. I have never seen such an expression of surprise. He was not happily excited, but stood there as if he were a criminal caught in the act. He became red as a beet, searched for some- thing to say, but had no answer for the facts.

I felt that I had made a mistake and reckoned with the fact that the "satisfied" patient would never return. The following day he told my maid that his mother was ill and that he would have to go home. He bade her good-bye, but left me not even a line.

For months I didn't hear from him but then a repenting letter came. I had been the only one who had ever understood him and he would like to continue the treatment at all costs. Could I par- don his flight? His mother had died meanwhile, his feelings had not betrayed him. Now he has but one goal in life and that is to overcome his leg phantasies and become well again.

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I answered him in the affirmative, since I was interested in the further possibilities of the analysis, but neither the horse nor the rider ever returned.

In this case we have observed the signs of genuine fetishism :

1. The system. The fetish lover builds himself a compli- cated system with all kinds of abstruse and eccentric love con- ditions. This system contains pointers to the origin of the parapathia and the patient's family history.

2. The fetishism is a means to the avoidance of the sexual partner. Our patient never had an orgasm with women, nor does he have intercourse frequently although he finds it easy to win them. He never sticks to one woman for any length of time. He gives her up and remains faithful to his masturbatory tendencies. In the past year, he tried to have intercourse but twice and both times he failed.

3. The harem cult. He collected innumerable photos of many favorites. Photographs of the legs, of course, which he used alternately during his onanistic practices.

4. The fetishism disguises the obsessional neurosis. He exhibits the well-known impulse to search, to hunt ; an impulse which we have already disclosed as the call of the past.

5. He is pious and makes of this piety a fetish. Inwardly he is devout, but outwardly he is a freethinker who tries to proselyte the various members of his family to newer religious forms. His fetishism enables him to turn from the female, but he complicates the condition to such an extent that he finally has altogether depreciated reality. We must ask ourselves: When will our patient ever have the opportunity to witness such a wrestling match as he dreams of? It is also interesting to note that he avoids these wrestling matches. Although at the time he was being analyzed, female wrestling matches were being held in Vienna, he never went to a one, feigning an anxiety to become completely overcome by his illness.

We, however, know better. The amazons didn't interest him per se. The match which provokes him is the struggle with his brothers, the struggle for a better position in life, the struggle for his mother's love and for the love of one of his brothers. This is what shadows him and makes him incapable of any work.

FETISHISM AND INCEST

An especially important case of fetishism came under the observation of Dr. Sigg. The author, who had reported on the case at the annual meeting of the Swiss Psychiatric So- ciety in 1 9 14, offered me his still unpublished material for this book. Because of the war, my book was not published at that time, although the material was prepared. I took the oppor- tunity to expand the material and to search for new cases. At my request, Dr. Sigg's paper was published in the Zeitscrift für Sexualwissenschaft in 191 5 under the title "Zur Casuistik des Fetischismus,,, and I added epicritical remarks ("Ergän- zende Bemerkungen zum Fall von Dr. Sigg"). With Dr. Sigg's authorization, I herewith present the case because of its interest and instructiveness.

Case 19— At four years of age, the healthy, intelligent and now thirty-year-old patient used to crawl into his parents' bed. They played with him. He imagined his mother to have a penis until the observation of his little sister taught him better. He pre- ferred his mother to his father because she was more tender and soft. Up to seven he used to sleep in the room next to his parents. He would kiss his mother on the neck or on the breast; and he liked to play with his penis, but always was slapped if he were caught. They used to tell him that if he did that any more, he wouldn't grow. When his little sister came in his fourth year, he still believed the fable of the stork, but at eleven he was already sexually enlightened enough to know just where the latest addition came from. He cannot remember having seen his parents naked nor can he recall ever having heard anything special while eaves- dropping about their room. It was thus that the second pregnancy of his mother (when he was ten) quite surprised him.

As a boy he was rather untidy, afraid of water and being washed, dependent and spendthrifty. He was very much afraid of one of his uncles because of the latter's strictness and whip- pings. At about four he used to like playing with his penis and

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pushing it all the way back into the scrotum. At six he followed a little girl and wanted to "marry" her. In his seventh year, he played a good deal with a somewhat younger cousin, practised mu- tual masturbation with him, pressed his erected penis between the thighs of his cousin and played "father and mother" with him. In addition to these onanistic manipulations, he already had an- other sexual object at this time which, however, he always kept a secret from everyone for "fear that it would get about/'

At nine years of age he succumbed to a desire for the possession of his mother's brown leather gloves, took them to bed with him, pressed them against his perineum between the anus and the scrotum, and then put them on and masturbated. He claims that it made no difference to him that they belonged to his mother. He put them on "because of the feeling it gave" him, because he "had a thrill," "simply feeling the leather gives me pleasure." That certainly meant something sensual, he thought. In the same box with the gloves, he also found some rubber tubes for irrigators and these he either carried around with him, like the gloves, in his bag, or he would press them also to his bottom and wind them around his penis whenever he were alone and felt him- self unwatched. In doing so, he always felt a "pleasant pain." At about this time, too, he began to develop an interest in women's gloves, and in the dancing class, he would dance only with the girls who wore kid gloves. He liked gray gloves pretty well, but the woollen ones the dancing teacher wore left him cold. His daily masturbation was more regular than the dancing lesson.

He was twelve years old before he had his first ejaculation, and soon thereafter the glove, too, took on an increased sexual im- portance. Whenever he would feel the leather of the glove, he would get an erection and would begin to think of girls who could wear them. He denies having had coitus phantasies at the time. In his walks, he would count the number of pairs of gloves he had seen and said: "My eyes were spellbound." The brown or black gloves on the street were his chief source of interest, whereas silk gloves or white ones made no impression upon him. At about the same time he began to get erections whenever he would fight with other boys, and the same would take place in climbing. He liked to brace himself again the trunk of the tree.

He found some rubber probes at home and used them to sound his urethra as far up as the bladder. He said the pain was a pleasant one. He would give himself enemas and, as with his urine, he would withhold the water as long as possible. In addi-

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tion to gaining pleasure from touching leather or rubber goods, he also liked to smell them, but denies ever having had an interest in the odor of his excrements. His chief intentions were to come in contact with leather and rubber goods as much and as fre- quently as possible (he never cultivated any love affairs and was quite proud to be a boy). Whenever he had to defecate, he re- mained in the toilet as long as he could.

At sixteen, the horizon of his autoerotic activities was advanced. He would tie rubber bands together and then bind his penis and his scrotum with the elastic, or he would push his penis far back into his scrotum. Rubber tubes were also made use of in this manner and finally he came to tie the elastic about his penis or his scrotum or both in certain definite ways. He was thereby especially con- cerned that his perineum should be pressed down tight. At that point below the scrotum he would tie big, elastic knots in order to create constant pressure. "Of course, it always pained me some- what, but I liked it."

With his entrance into a boys' school, all these manipulations as well as the daily masturbation found a temporary end. He never- theless continued to take gloves to bed with him until he was caught. On the other hand, he finally retained his urine so long that the doctor had to be called. He was in bed for six weeks, but claims that he suffered from appendicitis. The doctor, he said, told him it "all came from masturbation."

Just before he left for school, he visited a prostitute with some of his friends, and had intercourse with a woman for the first time. Since then he often has phantasies of normal coitus when masturbating. He has also paid attention to the girls, but has never gone further than petting and kissing. Away from home, he felt a little more free in the exploitation of his interests in gloves, made the acquaintance of women who wore brown or black new gloves, made them gifts of gloves, but later demanded them back again. When walking with a girl, it was always a special pleasure to hold her gloved hand. This excited and gratified him sexually. He would stand before the window of a rubber goods store and derive great enjoyment from the sight. He bought con- siderable quantities of rubber tubing, such as is used for douches, and bound the tubing, as in earlier days, several times about his penis or scrotum and also took the tubing to bed with him, or carried it about in his bag. He became acquainted with an elderly gentleman with whom he practised mutual masturbation. This man still plays a part in his phantasies.

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When he returned home, he took active part in some clubs, sat on committees, exercised, acted in a dramatic society where he played female roles, played some music, but could not banish a certain persistent moodiness. At bottom he was reticent, never satisfied with himself and frequently the subject of suicidal ideas. At home he was usually depressed. Whereas, in youth, he had been an impassioned reader of Indian stories, he now became in- terested in the singular sadism of the Middle Ages with their tor- turous and inquisitory instruments. He bought numbers of books about these practices, but also continued to buy more and more rubber goods. With long rubber tubing he would wind spirals about his loins and scrotum, hang condoms on the tubing, roll a rubber bed-flask about his penis and scrotum, insert tubes into his rectum and give himself copious enemas or shove sounds into his ears and his nose. To satisfy his sadistic trends, he would visit divers museums where he would become almost glued to the collections of instruments of torture, and afterwards he would dream about them all over again in his phantasies with himself as the tortured subject. Strangely enough, he cultivated the inti- macy of a woman at the same time and cohabited with her sev- eral times a week in normal fashion. This, of course, tended to inhibit his onanistic habits, and he even gave up carrying his rub- ber goods collection about with him. He also served in the army without taking his rubber tubing with him. But as soon as his clandestine love affair was at an end, he withdrew again to the cultivation of his former eccentricities, bought up more rubber goods, masturbated with a rubber bottle, and even tied the bottle to his penis and scrotum in order that he might walk about during the day in constant satisfaction. He was very much afraid of venereal infections, read a great deal about syphilis, and claims that this was the reason he circumscribed his heterosexual relations.

From year to year, his onanistic indulgence increased in scope. It is of note that he was not especially interested in the consum- mation of sexual satisfaction by means of the ejaculation, he was rather more attached to the phantasies he had, how he would be- come rich, have a fine future, etc. Or he would fancy tortures which would be demonstrated to him. He claims to have mas- turbated whole nights, simultaneously reading masochistic litera- ture (see his bibliography attached at the end of the case history).

Finally, he became engaged, although the chief purpose of the engagement was the acquisition of further capital for his business. During the two years that he was engaged, he continued his rub-

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ber and glove fetishism unabated because "he wanted to get in all that he could while there was yet time." He went to extreme pains to hide his collection of fetishes from his fiancee, but soon after they were married, his wife discovered the bag filled with rubber goods and even noticed that her husband was not so clean and tidy as she had believed him to be. She abruptly refused to comply with his request that she wear gloves whenever they went out together. After four years of married life, they began to consult Specialists, but these all gave them an unfavorable prognosis. The wife naturally also suffered from her husband's moodiness, de- pressions and from the constant quarreling, which was provoked by his being caught at his old habits. He began to feign business trips, but would use his time away from home gratifying his fetish- istic tendencies to the full or having intercourse with other women. His wife gave birth to three children, the youngest of which was generally considered as oversexed. He played constantly with his penis and had frequent erections at two years of age.

His hopes of ridding himself of his perversions by marriage were not fulfilled, and soon his wife afforded him no satisfaction at all. But his interest in gloves continued to increase. In the street car, he always tried to gain a seat from which he could see all the women and at the theatre or during a concert he would look about him towards the women who were wearing gloves. Whenever he catches sight of women's new brown or black gloves, he is promptly seized by the desire to grasp the hand that wears them in his own, to touch the leather. He stated that he would not have gone with other women had his wife worn the gloves he always prepared for her before a walk. He even threatened her whenever she would refuse, by saying that he would leave her for others who, he claimed, would gladly comply with his wishes. Gloves had such an effect upon him that he would first have to rub his eyes before he could look away from them. He also had the desire to masturbate with such gloves or to cohabit with the women who wore them. To suit him they must be tight-fitting, without a single crease, and absolutely clean. He cannot tolerate any defects in them. Nor does he evince the slightest interest in the usual or coarse glove such as those of suede. The gloves he has once given as a gift and then demanded back in return for new ones he prefers to carry in his pockets. He would first grasp them firmly in his hand, press and rub them a little, and feel relieved. It was not uncommon for him to follow women wearing new black gloves about the streets and thus forget his

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own business. On such escapades he was always oppressed by the fear of being seen by his friends. This was also the cause of his anxiety whenever he would look for gloves in a theatre. At home, he would often pull on a pair of gloves and masturbate, but only if he felt that he were surely alone, or only in bed where he was able to satisfy himself and deceive his wife. Before he could shake hands with anyone, he would first have to rub his hands, wipe them off, and then look to see if they were dry. He made repeated promises to his wife to stop his practises, but was not able to desist from them. His wife, by the way, played no part in his onanistic phantasies. On the contrary, he preferred to indulge himself in dreams of being a wealthy merchant, in phantasies about the rapid rise of his business, etc.

It was not long before he began to interest himself in sadistic literature, bought a considerable number of the desired books and also added to his collection of fetishes. He had a mistress, too, but she would not comply with his perverse desires. More and more his sexual satisfaction with his wife depended upon what was contained in his phantasies. In short, he gratified her, but never himself. He also wet the bed a few times. His clandestine affairs originated, he claims, through the agency of his glove escapades. The longer he was married, the more he felt himself to be nothing but his wife's slave, and yet he did not wish to give in to her. In one respect, he derived pleasure even from the little quarrels with his wife and from the scenes in which she would catch him at his practises. He preferred to see her in her underthings, would love to pet and kiss her then, and often ex- perienced a sudden desire to have intercourse with her immedi- ately after a meal. Many times, his onanistic phantasies consisted of images in which he saw himself beaten and punished by her. Nevertheless, he did suffer greatly from the continual quarreling with his wife and was also very jealous of her. He was always afraid that she was on the lookout for a substitute, especially since she always boasted to him of her many admirers. In his suicidal depressions, he never thought of the act without first thinking of taking her into death with him so that she should not be able to marry again. For his clandestine affairs he preferred thin and slender figures, apart from those who attracted him because of perversities, but he did not care for women of the male type.

Whenever he went on a trip, he invariably sent his collection of fetishes secretly before him and would happily anticipate the night when he could live alone. His collection was contained in a

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107

,arge cardboard box and consisted of stomach tubes, enema tubes, rubber bottles, long, black stockings, rubber bathing caps, ice bags, condoms and a few dozen adapters for hypodermic syringes. In addition: leather aprons, a leather-lined corset (which he made himself), leather puttees, a leather headgear and mask with holes in front for the eyes, nose and mouth ; leather sleeves which reached from the shoulders to the fingers, black, leather gloves as well as a pile of old, collected gloves and divers small rubber articles, the last of which he would stuff under his pillow. The patient himself stated that he had always desired the closest contact with leather goods and always had to have the leather fit his body or an organ as tightly as possible. The patient was a confirmed smoker, but was not a heavy drinker. He considered his perineum as his most sensitively erogenous zone. Before he would indulge himself in the pleasures of dressing himself in his leather clothing (which he had made with his own hands of the finest glove leather), he would first press a bundle of gloves, which had been rolled together with rubber tubing, tightly against his perineum. He would then also wind tubing about his hips and genitals. He preferred to use the rubber goods between his legs because these articles were wash- able. Altogether he was a great lover of change in his divers utensils, but would then promptly achieve sexual gratification on the new article. Another of his favorite practises was to fill a rubber bag with warm water, press it against his anus and then bind his feet together. In order to have everything fit closely to the body he had to make use of a great number of straps. The final stage of indulgence consisted in a masturbatory period of sev- eral hours without ejaculation. This excess, he feared, was very injurious to his health. Meanwhile, he would read such trash as Les Gants de I'Idole or similar books. If it were at all possible, he always tried to stand a mirror opposite his bed, so that he could look at himself whenever he wanted. He differentiates the value of the two fetish types by saying that the rubber had a more tactile, the leather a more optical, effect on him. It was a fact that the sight of leather and skin gave him the greatest thrill.

Some days he would introduce rubber tubes into his rectum and walk about the house in this fashion with a part of the tube hang- ing out. He liked to cover his penis with condoms and withheld his urine for as long a time as possible. Simple urethral douches he would follow with complete filling of the bladder by means of syringes to which needles with olive tips were attached. He also liked to press his penis against hard objects or clamp it be-

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tween things. He said that he was able to preserve an erection during matrimonial cohabitation only as long as he was twicked in the perineum. He denies ever having had a premature ejaculation.

His passive and also somewhat active algolagnia was gratified by occasional visits to a similarly perverse prostitute. He never- theless retained more of a passivity than an activity in these acts. He would permit himself to be whipped until the blood nearly ran, would delight in the "warm feeling,, which he compared with the simile of a pair of warm trousers. He permitted himself to be strapped prone to the bed in a crucifixion position. The whip- ping would not provoke an erection. "I let myself be whipped and beaten because I like it." After his turn, he would then do the same to the prostitute and would also derive enjoyment from this. They would then stick each other with pins and needles about twenty times in the back, buttocks and legs and were tickled if the blood spurted. When alone, sometimes, he would even tie himself down and would then concoct all kinds of procedures in his phantasies, such as cold-water douches, etc. He would beat himself over the back and buttocks with his stomach tubes until he were bruised. His lust was always intensified by simultaneous onanism. The mirror had always to be in readiness for him after such self-inflicted punishment. His female partner he would often nearly choke to death.

He became more and more estranged from his wife and, though he was finally impotent with her, he simulated orgasm until his failure to get an erection betrayed him. The erection then became impossible except during fetishistic onanism. In addition, his wife's strict observation forced him to drop his illegitimate rela- tions with women, too, and this bound him all the more to his rubber and leather goods. He felt that he could no longer exist without them, became almost encapsulated and finally began to forget even his business duties for the sake of his perversions.

The persistent snooping of his wife forced him to transfer his collection of tools to his country place near by and it was there that he indulged himself extravagantly for a few days when his wife forbade him to enter the house in town. His impotence continued to give him more and more food for thought, however. He considered whether or not his wife wouldn't begin divorce proceedings which would let the cat out of the bag. It is note- worthy that he was easily able to forego during his military service all those things which attracted him irresistibly in his private life. Nevertheless, he was always able to make plenty of female ac-

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quaintances which he excused with the aid of his glove fetishism. He also liked to watch the slaughtering of animals. Although he was a great smoker, he did not like cigarettes with tips, and often liked to chew his cigars thoroughly. If he were at any time not in a position to make use of his rubber things during the day he would resort to the trick of using a handkerchief or the tail of his shirt to press against his perineum until he could feel it. His onan- istic phantasies grew greater in importance and the chief charac- teristic now was that they became increasingly masochistic. He would see himself the subject of the crudest attacks, the slave of the brutal hangings by the feet. He displayed no verbal masochism and reacted sensitively when abused, but he liked to be caught by his wife. This "letting himself be caught" played a leading role in his dreams. He was frequently dejected, sought less and less social contact, suffered greatly from his constant moodiness. Fol- lowing his onanistic excesses, he was an especially irritable crea- ture and could be plunged into long fits of silence by the slightest business details. He denies having had the slightest leanings towards men after his childhood days.

With a few exceptions, this completely healthy and very intelli- gent man was able to desist from his masturbatory habits with the aid of the sedative cure with Sedobrol. He was, however, never able to keep his hands quiet during a conversation; they were always reaching for his genitals. In the beginning, he paid no attention to his external appearance, but soon became an excellent social being with his musical inclinations, his dancing and his re- freshing effect on others. He ceased carrying things in his pockets, but was able to take his mind off gloves only with difficulty. His chief diversion was the weaving of baskets. It was never noticed in the place that he displayed any schizophrenic signs, but he was doubtless an introverted individual. His very free disposition of affect was remarked by his observers and he was able to entertain others for long periods of time. He desired very much to be freed from his suffering, but his business soon called him away. At that time, his fetish collection was withheld from him as well as his library of about fifty perverse books.

Once returned home, he was not immediately able to cohabit with his wife and there was a resumption of the furious scenes as a result of his moodiness. I feared that I might hear he had had a relapse of his old trouble, but one day he called on me, gave me permission to make scientific use of his case and told me that he was living on the best of terms with his wife, has intercourse

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with her which satisfies him and is able to work steadily and in- dustriously in his business. It is seldom ihat he succumbs to onanism, but he still must carry a glove in his pocket. He has not collected any more fetishes than that, however.

We have here a man who has masturbated since earliest youth. His whole perverse construction has been built upon this onanism. It is to the greater effect of this masturbation that he indulged himself in his fetishistic, masochistic and sadistic impulses, and the longer he lived the more truly did this habit take over his entire sexuality. Stekel is doubtless right when he says that we should not take too much stock of the earliest infantile memo- ries. These so-called memories may be later products. An im- portant factor in this case is his great interest in his mother's gloves at nine years of age. He promptly made a fetish of them, pressed them against his genitals and either masturbated with them or carried them about with him. It was not possible, how- ever, to elicit the original provocation of this first perverse ex- pression. We cannot say whether or not the fact that the mother's gloves were brown also decided the color of later glove fetishes. This is a possibility, but cannot be proved. It is of interest to us to learn that this glove provoked sexual excitement when pressed to the perineum as well as to the penis and that the autoerotic former habit continued throughout the patient's life to possess an undiminished force. In the course of time he began to use rubber in this region instead of leather, the reasons doubtless being the greater cleanliness and the cheaper cost. The earlier indulgences in simple glove bundles gave place to more and more complicated applications to the perineum which all had the common purpose of provoking a "pleasurable pressure" (his coitus phantasies). He yearned for his "pleasurable pain" and was gratified by it. Begin- ning with simple circles about the penis and scrotum, he advanced to double circles and was finally executing figures of eight about the hips and genitals. This indicates a considerable extension of his erogenous zone upwards in the course of time. We may also note a special tendency to bring the leather as close to the skin as possible and this attitude applies to every conceivable mucous membrane in the apertures of the body. He went in for probings of the urethra, bladder douches, large enemas, the introduction of objects into the rectum, nasal and gastric soundings and the occlu- sion of the ears with rubber. Finally, his whole skin was made to feel the fetish. He practically encased himself in corsets, put- tees and bandages and found such a strait-jacket condition pleas-

FETISHISM AND INCEST

urable or at least the pleasurable preface to a gratifying mastur- bation. This skin fetish also was of the same material as his most original fetishistic object, the glove. This man who paid so little attention to his own appearance demanded the extreme of cleanliness in gloves and rubber goods. The enjoyment he de- rived in a fetish became greater when that fetish was compressed, a trait which characterized his early relations with gloves, the objects which directed the course of all his later sexual life. Com- pulsion, grasping, pressing, all these traits run throughout the course of his perversity. The compulsion evidently increased the fetishistic delight. It was only in moments of external coercion, at times when he was unable to adhere to his fetishistic practises, that he satisfied himself by simply carrying the object in his pockets or under his coat.

Parallel with this fetishistic habit, his normal sexuality appears to have developed also. At seventeen he already had his first sex relations and continued from then on more and more prolifically. Despite the patient's claim that his engagement, which took place at a ball, was in large measure controlled by the effect of gloves, we know that the essential motivation lay in the fact that this mar- riage meant a considerable increase in his business strength, that this increased business stability, further, meant that he would have to pay less attention to business and would consequently have more time for his perversities. And although his eccentricities were noticed even during the engagement period, they were mar- ried nevertheless, i.e., the business deal went through. There can be no doubt that the patient knew himself well enough to mean that statement about wanting to get in as much of his masturba- tion as possible before marriage only as a bit of humor. His extra-marital relations continued even after marriage and were actually made the substitute of marital duties whenever possible because his wife made any addition of fetishistic habits, even of normal ones, impossible. The more he became involved in mas- ochistic and sadistic phantasies and practises, the more he with- drew from his wife. His business incapacity had been sufficiently covered by his wife's dowry. We have, as a matter of fact, already seen how his wife had enabled him to indulge himself more than ever. His relationship with a perverse prostitute con- stituted, as he said, the high-water mark of his perverse existence. The strict and persistent threats of his wife as well as his own fear of public revelations, finally drove the man back to autoerotic habits, and it was then that he became impotent. He was lastly

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in a curiously autistic and perverse state of autoerotism such as can hardly be described adequately. His jealousy of his wife in- creased in direct proportion to the advance of his impotence. Following his estrangement from his wife, a perverse female com- panion served him for a while, until even this was dropped and he landed at a level where it appears that the fetish had completely supplanted the female.

In summarizing the gradual development of this abnormal sex- uality, its proliferation over the bounds of normal instinct, we must say that this man was suffering from a compulsion neurosis in the full sense of the word. As Stekel so accurately puts it, this is a case of flight from woman. It is also rather certain that, even had his wife gratified his perverse designs upon her, she would not have satisfied him to the end.

This case offers numerous analogies to the case of corset fetish- ism published by Abraham. "As with a magic attraction my eyes were always directed to women's shoes ... an inelegant shoe invariably repulses me and fills me with abhorrence," says Abra- ham's patient. We have only to exchange the word shoes for gloves and the quotation could fit the words of our own patient. In this patient's glove fetishism, the thought of how the hand contained in the glove would be pressed also played a major part. At the age of about sixteen to eighteen the patient also developed an interest for his mother's corset, tried it on several times and felt well in it. He always preserved his perverse tendencies as a deep secret. It was not possible to elicit any psychic traumata in in- fancy, but we see that the perversion was already present in his early interest in his mother's gloves. The one difference between this case and that of Abraham is to be found in the fact that our patient early developed normal sexual contact, and the regression to autoerotic habits took place comparatively late. For some time his sexual goal consisted of gloves and his desire did not go beyond looking at or feeling them. His visual pleasure in this was incom- parably great. A common feature of these two cases is found in the "affective rejection" of the fetish if it possessed unsatisfactory form or color or, conversely, a very imperative and demanding attachment to the fetish. In contrast to Abraham's patient, fur- ther, our patient displayed no koprophilic pleasure in smelling, but he did have castration phantasies. He enjoyed his penis tremen- dously, dreamed frequently of its size and how it was marvelled at by others. We must also emphasize his habit of retaining his excrements and the enemas he gave himself. It was not possible

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to elicit from the patient any information as to whether the same tendency dominated his masochistic punishing and binding habits. He did, however, like to lie motionless for hours at a time and create phantasies of all kinds of methods by which he would be showered with cold water at the slightest motion of his body. I am nevertheless chary about connecting this phantasy with his pleasurable habits of withholding his excrements. An important feature of these habits, however, was also the clamping of his genitals, the great emphasis of the anal zone. Water was also a constantly recurring element of his dreams.

At the time the gloves began to play such a role in his life, our patient must already have been specially constituted from a psychic point of view. We see that many other children have similar ex- periences without falling into the same habits. It is simply that others conceive gloves to be something quite different from what they mean to this patient. He made use of this first fetish in sex- ual practises on a very definite erogenous zone, but in addition to this perverse tendency he developed his normal sexuality, too. It was only after the period of marital and extra-marital sexuality that we saw a rapid increase in his perversions and a correspond- ing reduction of his normal libido. He regressed to his earlier autoerotic activities, but transformed them to approximate the level of his adult intelligence. His normal sexuality itself had never actually been purely normal. He had brought the habit of masturbation with him from childhood and had not been able to divest himself of it as the normal individual is.

Jung writes : "The concept of normal sexuality contains the clause that all infantile tendencies be removed as far as possi- ble, including even those which are not per se sexual in nature. The less this is the case, the greater is there a danger that the sexuality will become perverse. The basic condition of per- version is an infantile and poorly developed condition of sex- uality." He considers perversion to be due to a disintegration of fully developed sexuality and not, as Freud, a rudimentary phase of normal sexuality. I consider our case to be a proof of Jung's position. Normal sexuality was present, but finally disintegrated again to form as a product a perversion which was recharged with libido. And the chief receptacle of this libido was our patient's hyperbolic phantasy, provoked by and at once attached to the perverse habits. Almost the entire reserve of

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libido was poured into these phantasies instead of being used for objects in the real world. It was at the point of being stuck fast in these phantasies that the patient came for treatment.

The success of my treatment is to be seen in the fact that this man, who was completely impotent and estranged from his wife, now lives a normal sexual life with her again, is able to work with his full powers and discloses no more perverse tend- encies. The analytically cathartic probing of the perversions themselves and the consequent transference were alone suffi- cient to achieve a satisfactory goal, although the analysis of the unconscious was not effected. Whether, for this reason, the case will successfully withstand the test of time is a ques- tion I cannot answer, but a number of specialists gave him such a bad prognosis several years ago that the patient didn't dare to undertake any treatment until dire necessity finally drove him to it. The exhaustive discussions about his perversions dragged the patient out of that dark seclusion which had hitherto been so pleasant to him that asceticism which, to him as to every other pervert, was so valuable. He transferred his phantasies to me and disclosed to me the dark secret which had held him spellbound ever since his thirteenth year. This aided in taking the joy out of perversions which derived a major portion of their effect from the fact that they were practised in seclusion. In addition, he proceeded to transfer a part of his libido to his wife and to his work, i.e., to real objects instead of to phan- tasies. His libido was re-channelled from perversities back to normal desire and if this is not a permanent effect, it is only because the patient never learned the nature of his unconscious. Nor would this knowledge have been susceptible of construc- tive integration in his future.

The interesting development of this case of perversion was the sufficient cause of my exhaustive report.

THE PATIENT'S LIBRARY

i — Die Macht der Rute und die Macht der Frauen. 2 — Qualvolle Stunden. 3 — Die Peitsche als letztes Erziehungsmit- tel. 4 — Der Sklave seiner Sklavin. 5 — Die Prügelzucht in der Pension. 6 — Die Selbstbewahrung (84 ed.). 7 — Die

FETISHISM AND INCEST

Zuchtrute von Tante Anna, by Else Romberg. 8 — Sexuelle Irrwege, by Steingiesser. 9 — Die Folter in der deutschen Rechtspflege sonst und jetzt. 10 — Die Liebes-und Lebens- strafen. 1 1 — Venus im Pelz, by L. von Sacher-Masoch. 12 — Im Rausche der Sinne. 13 — Unter strenger Hand. 14 — Klostersitten und Nonnendisziplin. 15 — Grausame Frauen, von Sacher-Masoch. 16 — Aerztliche Untersuchungen und Scham-und Sittlichkeitsgefühl des weiblichen Geschlechtes. 17 — En 1592 : Le tour d'Europe d'un flagellant. 18 — La ceinture de chastete de Casanova. 19 — Le Chäteau de fouet. 20 — En Luoisiane. 21 — Les grands marches d'esclaves. 22 — Contes paillards. 23 — Le journal d'une flagellee. 24 — L'esclave gantee. 25 — Souvenirs cuisants. 26 — Les mille et une nuits. 27 — Le jardin des supplices. 28 — La divine Marquise. 29 — Les desequilibrees de l'amour : L'Abbe Ecornifleur. 30 — L'in- ceste perverse. 31 — Le fouet au moyen age. 32 — Memoires d'une fouetee. 33 — Le trimophe de fouet. 34 — Nos belies flagellantes. 35 — La philosophic du fouet. 36— La terreur du fouet. 37 — L'ecole du fouet. 38 — Vierges fouettees. 39 — La revanche du marmon. 40 — Le pensionat du fouet. 41 — Les humiliations de Miss Magde, etc., etc. . . .

The following are my "Epicritical Remarks on the Case of Dr. Sigg."

"To him who knows cases of genuine fetishism well, the above case will not be surprising. They are not at all so seldom as their discoverers or the patients believe, but they are seen so seldom by physicians because the secret of eccentricity is one of the psychic factors which give the disease its value and charm.

"One of the chief characteristics of these fetishists is that they feel themselves to be the only one who is suffering from such a perversion. The result of such a feeling of isolation is a 'pride of illness' which is also quite typical of every hypo- chondriac and every obsessional neurotic.

"The reason I take the liberty here to add a few remarks to the case of Dr. Sigg is because this case forms an extraordi- narily clear and emphatic corroboration of the thesis which I laid down in my paper on 'The Psychology and Therapy of Fetishism.* 1

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"We find here first of all the harem cult which is present in every case of fetishism. Every one of them has a large collec- tion of fetishes which continues to grow in size and serves the phantasy of the possessor in the same fashion as a harem of wives serves a pasha. There are always certain favorites among these fetishes and they alternate in being the favorites.

"Quite frequently we are told that the very first fetish was taken from among the mothers possessions (but even the father's or the sister's personal objects can be fixed upon). Such a statement gives us a lead to the problem of incest, the details of which have not yet been worked out analytically in respect of the question of fetishism. I am nevertheless not afraid to declare that the nucleus of the fetishistic neurosis can be the forbidden love of the patient for a close relative. Such a love is then subjected to repression and the result is that the repression is subsequently directed at the whole sex. In the case of Dr. Sigg it could be explained about as follows : His first leanings were towards his mother, the gloves being the symbolical representation of that woman. This could be one of the roots of the case and would also explain why he finds himself in flight from the female. Every woman becomes for him the incarnation of his mother and thus reflects his sinful thoughts. In the end, his love for his mother is transferred to leather and rubber goods. He clothed himself in his love, it pressed him, bound him ; it was the obsession which he could not dodge.

"This case also displays the sign of 'auto-symbolic represen- tation of the compulsion/ a factor which I have stressed so much. The fetish must symbolize the obsession. Thus : tight- fitting trousers, tight shoes, tightly-tied aprons, etc. Bandages, corsets, suspenders, abdominal compresses are preferred. Among my patients, there is one who makes a fetish of abdomi- nal compresses and ties the compresses of others so tightly about his body that he feels a slight pain. The patient of Dr. Sigg laces himself in a leather suit and thus surrounds himself with his chosen neurosis, although it is really an indication that he has removed himself from a female partner and directed his attention to a secondary object. It is this displacement of libido from the living flesh to an inanimate object which quite typifies

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the fetishist. The fetish is not only a neutral thing which can serve either one of the bisexual intentions, but it is also some- thing which has no relationship with living nature, it is the life- less representative of a phantasy, helplessly serving the will of the fetish lover. The same tendency appears in a negative form in the masochistic phantasies and practises of this patient (law of bipolarity). He permits himself to be bound, beaten, tortured, and likes it because he has involuntarily merged the concepts of 'guilt and atonement' in one act. These tendencies of his disappear during the days of his military service because the strict compulsions of the service make every other form of obsession or compulsion, the fetishism included, quite super- fluous. We must remember that the meaning of this neurosis is : I want to be compelled to something in order that I may not be guilty of it (pleasure without guilt).

"It is remarkable, also, how infantile the perversions are which the patient described. He wets the bed, is a little child again, and plays with dolls. His 'letting himself be caught' also rhymes with this characteristic. It is a typically infantile feeling which is derived from the well-known games of chil- dren.

"But what, let us ask, is the deeper motivation of this eccen- tric illness? What is the driving force which always keeps him on edge? I will answer these questions by quoting the conclusions of my remarks on the above-mentioned paper:

"Fetishism is a substitute for religion. In the form of a per- version it offers the possessor a new religion in which he can find his satisfactions according to his beliefs. This religion is derived from a compromise between an almost insurmountable sexuality and a strict piety. It offers the individual the oppor- tunity of a more or less complete asceticism. Behind the facade of Satanism and libertinism there hides a devoutness whose aims lie far beyond the horizon of this world. The fetishist is embroiled in an open battle with every form of authority, but especially with God whom he secretly honors and believes to be serving in his own way by divers forms of abstinence."

"In other words : every true fetishist copies Christ. He suf- fers from a 'Christ neurosis.' Inwardly he is excessively proud

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of his suffering and hopes that the special nature of his pains will gain him something in the beyond.

"Many may think this declaration rather bold, but only a far-reaching analysis will disclose these hidden religious tend- encies in any case. At bottom, every fetishist is chaste. He is a lamb in a wolf's skin.

"These Christ-like characteristics are also manifest in Dr. Sigg's case. Did we not hear the patient say that he liked to have himself tied to the bed in a crucifixion position and whipped. It is not improbable that the Saviour there appeared before his mind's eye."

I would like to add to these epicritical remarks by saying that this case contains many more corroborations of my theses. We see, first of all, quite an extraordinary harem cult and also a gradual retreat from woman. But we also see the patient's infantile attitude and the masked incest phantasies. Just as a sister's sewing pillow became a symbol of the sister in one case, so in this case does the mother's glove, which was the first object to fulfill a wealth of fetishistic conditions, become a symbol of the mother. It is probable that the inevitable strok- ing of the perineum during the care of the baby provoked libidinous sensations which led to the fixation of the perineum as a highly erogenous zone. But we must also not forget that the importance of tying, binding and pressing in this case points to the original situation of the child in diapers. This patient often pressed his shirt-tail between his legs, just as the diapers are drawn between babies' legs (psycho-sexual infantilism). In all cases of fetishism we come across a great pleasure in looking in at store windows which display goods of fetishistic value to them.

Such staring at a window display is a manifest recrudescence of childhood and possesses a certain symbolical meaning. It is looking backward at the display of memory, just as roaming reflects a tendency towards the past. Once before such a win- dow display, the patient comes under the influence of a dreamy state, a sort of mental absence, in which the regression takes place. The patient's impulsive acts also take place in such a state, which permits of a complete regression to earlier levels

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and perhaps even to the mother's womb. The act of pressing against the perineum is a symbolization of the act of birth, which, for this patient, doubtless means a re-birth. It thus displays a sort of anagogic tendency.

The rubber goods are also to be taken symbolically. It stands for the phallus. What he really wants is a phallus so big that he can wind it about his body, large enough to put it into his own anus. He thus manifests a desire to create all his pleas- ures within his own body. He intensifies his autoerotism. It is for this reason that he is in love with his own penis, admires himself and his parts in the mirror. He wants to be a man and a woman simultaneously. This typically infantile attitude is also displayed by his bed-wetting habits, his urine retention (urine sexuality) 2 p.id his letting himself be caught, a well- known infantile habit perhaps best portrayed by the children's game of hide-and-go-seek. His wife must always play the bugbear which catches him.

The Christ tendency in his neurosis is indicated by his need for symbolical washing and the circumstance we have already mentioned of his being tied to the bed in crucifixion position and then whipped.

The c-'minal tendencies break through in his sadistic im- pulses. He nearly choked his fetishistic partner to death. It is very probable that his hate is directed against women as the representatives of sin. This is also the conception defended by the Christian religion and by the Bible — the female as the incarnation of sin, as the holy fathers described her. We will soon have an opportunity of seeing how a dream well appears to corroborate this approach to the problem (the two follow- ing dreams were kindly put at my disposal by Dr. Sigg of Zürich).

The dream which will give us so much insight into the psy- chology of the fetishist reads as follows :

"I find myself in one of the outlying districts of a metropolitan city (Paris?). On the sidewalk at the corner of the street, there is a table covered with fowl and passers-by take what they want without paying for it. As soon as I reached for a piece, how- ever, they all looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. I immediately thought of apaches and quickly faded from the scene.

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but a pack of people with drawn knives sprang after me. I ran faster and faster. Suddenly some streetwalker ran towards me and cried, 'I'll grab him, I'll stab him/ She stabbed me through the tongue and yelled, 'Now I've poisoned him.' I felt a sharp pain in the tongue, was seized with a fear of blood poisoning and bit a piece of my tongue right off. Then I suddenly found myself at home in my parents' room. Other family relatives were also there. Even the chippy from the former scene was there, although better dressed. She offered me some powder with which to rub rny hands. This was supposed to make my hands soft and smooth. I took the powder from her and rubbed my hands with it. But immediately I sensed some unpleasant tickling, my hands began to burn and I wanted to wash them. As soon as I touched the water, however, they burned even more because an acid was formed. My hands became quite bloody and I began to think of sulphuric acid. I called to my relatives under no circumstances to touch my wounded hands nor even the powder that that wench had. I saw thick scabs form on my hands and awakened with a terrific feeling of anxiety."

(The other dream of which the patient spoke is summarized as follows: He found himself to have an unnaturally large penis in his dreams. People congratulated him on the size of it and marvelled at him everywhere. The dream also had him on the water frequently, on small boats which were either half submerged or even flew through the air. He himself fre- quently walked through the air in his dreams, about a yard above the earth. Thus, e.g., from his home to the office or vice versa. Those who wondered at him tried to ape him, but were unsuccessful.)

The analysis of this dream brings a wealth of important points of view to light. It is, first of all, rather striking that his dream contains nothing of his fetishes, but that is a phe- nomenon which we can quite often observe. The dreams of the fetishist occur on another planet. By day they sin, but by night they act the holiest of the holies. They fight terrible battles with depravity and temptation and finally come out of the struggle as conquerors. Either that or they conceive them- selves as saints and triumph over mere mortals. We see, in other words, that the background of every fetishism is a re- ligious one. The basic tendency of the patient is to dream a

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pure life, to begin all over again and make it as chaste as possible. It is for this reason that the contrasts of white and black, vile and pure, etc., play such an important role in fetish- istic lives. But to return to the analysis of the dream.

"I find myself in an outlying district of a metropolitan city (Paris?). On the sidewalk at a street corner there is a table covered with fowl.,, This scene is laid in Paris, the Babel of sin, i.e., the world is filled with depravity and temptation. Temptation is found even on the street (fowl as phallic sym- bols and the "board" instead of the "bed").

"The passers-by take what they want without paying for it, but as soon as I reach for a piece they all look at me out of the corners of their eyes." Everybody else may sin and doesn't have to pay the wages of sin, but for every little misstep I must expiate. "I hardly dare to taste of the joys of life which delight everybody, and immediately I am reprimanded." The apaches are the symbols of his conscience. They are the same figures as the fates. They run after him and stab him. He wants to fly from them. He is also fleeing from the homo- sexuality within him (the fowl as phallic symbols).

Then comes the prostitute who stabs and infects him. He tries to rid himself of the sin and bites off the infected part of his tongue (castration complex and death of his sexuality). His mouth is probably his most sensitive erogenous zone and the relationships between this symbol and the infantile pleas- ures of suckling are clear. The syphilis takes on the character of impurity altogether, of depravity, of incest. He is infected by sinful thoughts. Then he begins the great exodus from Paris back to his early childhood (Quo vadis?). The correct conclusion is that he should finally land at home in the room of his parents. The dream here also develops the relationship be- tween the prostitute and the mother, the contrasts appear to fade and the streetwalker appears to take on the symbolization of sensual lust in all its meanings. Sexuality is thus the sin which is contrasted with the apparently desexualized mother. The powder which he used appears to me to be the sin of mas- turbation : first pleasurable, then burning. He wants to wash his hands of these sins. But the wounds burn in water. He becomes more and more widely infected, he is covered with

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putrid wounds, he is a Lazarus. These bloody wounds indicate the martyrdom he has embraced, his fetishism. The fear of expiation, the anxiety that his wounds might infect his mother, awaken him.

The trips he takes on small boats and his flying through space are also interesting factors of the second dream. They are nothing but spermatozoon dreams and mean to say : "I want to begin life anew. I want to be pure and go through life as a clean man. I want to be above all other men. I desire to be something extraordinary." As it is, he is an exception because of his parapathia, his fetishism.

The unnaturally large penis of his dreams quite corroborates my statement that he desires such a large organ only in order that he may be able to put it in his mouth or his anus. The rubber tubing is but the symbolization of the long penis. What a rubber bust does in one place, these tubes do in another : they replace what he doesn't possess. He realizes an age-old chil- dren's dream to possess the longest penis in the world, or at least the largest one that he has ever seen.

Dr. Sigg was good enough to put other dreams of this patient at my disposal and, although it is a difficult matter to judge dreams outside the bounds of an analysis, they might neverthe- less permit us to come to some conclusions.

"i. I fitted the Czar with shoes and had to make them wider. . . . Accompanied by a cousin (girl) of mine, I looked for a carriage. A workingman was also with us. I found no carriage and wandered about.

"2. I felt injured while at dinner and went off into another room where a man was lying in bed drinking wine out of a bottle. The wine ran over his lips and onto the bed and that greatly in- censed me. Unpleasant awakening (the wine was some red, sticky fluid and 'there was a dirty time in the bed. I was afraid that I would be driven out, felt restless and cried because I felt so pained.').

"3. I am a recruit in the army (is a captain as a matter of fact) and had to go through training in the street. I had to get my rifle which lay on the pavement and, in doing so, I had to crawl over two upturned boats which lay there. There were several rooms in a row on that pavement and I went into one of them to change my

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clothes. But people were passing back and forth in front of the rooms and I felt somewhat ashamed. I lost time. Going back again, I was the forager and had to find a camping site for our kitchen. The place was filled with troops. A comrade in arms demanded wine of me, but I had none and gave him syrup to drink. He cursed and swore that it was water and I was quite upset to find that the bottle actually contained only watery lees.

"4. I find myself in the company of men, all of whom have their trousers down as far as the knees. We were in some reading room and there were no women present (this dream repeated itself many time).

"5. I am among schoolmates. I walk dejectedly about because it was said that I had to leave. Something was said about a venereal disease. The doctor says that the disease is not venereal. I was disconsolate because it was thought I had a venereal disease.

"6. I am walking with a friend named B. We walk into a hotel and are told that someone has been murdered. Bank notes have been stolen. B. and I are supposed to have committed the murder. The police commissioner comes in and we are questioned. A bunch of bank notes are found on B. (he is penniless in fact). The police commissioner holds a revolver against my neck, so that I can feel the coldness of its barrel. He threatens to shoot me. Then he turns to B., who confesses. They shoot him in the head and he drops as if dead, but he soon comes to and says that the bullet is still in his head. We see blood on the sofa and the bank notes are also there."

The first dream displays the frequent use of the Czar as a symbol. The Czar, the monarch, is the symbol of omnipo- tence, autocracy, i.e., in this case the fetishism (picture of com- pulsion). He finds his shoes too narrow. His parapathia op- presses him. He wants to make the shoes wider, and this ex- presses his prospective tendency to loosen the bonds of his para- pathia. He then looks for a carriage which is supposed to take him further (his cousin as an incest compromise, a miti- gated incestuous figure), but he doesn't find one, and has to wander about. This wandering about, searching for the right way out of his dilemma, is a feature we will find in the dreams of all these cases. Even by day they play this lost condition, can't find the way to the doctor, have suddenly lost the sense of direction or position. The reason is because they are being

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driven towards an unknown, an unconscious, goal while in a dreamy state.

The second dream seems to me to exhibit relationships with urine sexuality (wine instead of urine). Perhaps an indica- tion of urolagnia and cannibalism. Every bit of emotion is im- portant in the dream. His feelings in this dream are indicative of his realization that the man in bed, his alter ego, is a pig. He is afraid of his own impulses.

The third dream provokes the following remarks: Most fetishists dream about military service and find themselves in the most menial positions. They are recruits and the compul- sions of fetishism are expressed by the compulsions of military service. He, a captain, is again a recruit, i.e., a common soldier (later on we shall have an opportunity of exhaustively analyzing a similar military dream of a fetishist). He further sym- bolizes his humiliation by his having to crawl. He needs a new philosophy of life and expresses it here by having to change his clothing. Again we see the drinking scene, but this time the wine has been replaced by syrup which, in turn, is not even syrup, but water, so that his comrade curses. This appears to be a religious symbol : holy communion. The body and the blood of Christ. But his piety is just as false as his fetishism.

The fourth dream is important because it is of a stereotyped nature and is often repeated. It is plainly a case of homosexual exhibitionism.

The fifth dream expresses his sorrow at being infected with paraphilic thoughts, i.e., that he is impure.

The origins of his guilt feelings come to the surface in his sixth dream. B. is his other ego, the murderer and thief. The sexual symbolism of the dream is quite transparent and per- mits us to leap to some experience in childhood, the memories of which may still be traced in his unconscious (the bullet is still in his head). The police commissioner is probably the doctor (in the fifth dream he said, "The doctor said that the illness did not come from intercourse" ) to whom he has ef- fected a transference. His other ego, B., must die.

As far as we are able to make any conclusions on the basis of these dreams, I should say that the patient is marked by an hypertrophic urine sexuality. This rhymes well with the re-

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tentive tricks he used to enjoy. I would like to emphasize the fact, also, that fetishists generally disclose the tendency to withhold their urine or their feces. Their goal is the conquest of their sexual impulses by a roundabout means, i.e., by means of a paraphilia. But the other instincts also provoke these persons to a playful sort of struggle with themselves. They want to see whether they can overcome such impulses or not. One not infrequently finds the patients to be ascetic in type, they don't drink or smoke, have given up meat and are vege- tarians. Whenever they do withhold their excrements, they try it until it hurts. Defecation and micturition are then highly delightful for them — incidentally, a habit which is char- acteristic of many children. Perhaps this obsessional tendency to try to overcome an organic compulsion, the struggle between the compulsions of the will and the compulsions of instinct, contains the infantile roots of the fetishism.

What is, after all, a saint? A man who has been able to overcome the pressure of his deepest instincts by means of the compulsions of religion. Freud very accurately described re- ligion as a compulsion neurosis. Fetishism is analogous to religion in that they are both motivated by prohibitions, but beyond that they both disclose the same tendency, viz., the ex- clusion of the sexual instinct. Religion, however, goes after sexuality directly, whereas fetishism sidetracks it.

Feelings of guilt are the motive for the fetish lovers re- ligious fervor. In reality he is not avoiding intercourse, but sin, and the reason intercourse becomes sinful in his mind is be- cause during the act he is plagued by incestuous phantasies and tends to transform the real sexual partner into an imaginary one. The imaginary female is, at bottom, his mother. This explanation is certainly quite plain.

There are, however, cases which speak an even more clear and understandable language. The incestuous difficulties of fetishists are, after all, also found to be the plague of other parapathics, too. We must conceive the fetishist as a man with an abnormally strong sexual drive, as a sort of sexual atavist. This runs counter to Freud's 3 opinion. He writes : "A certain reduction in the striving for normal sexual gratification seems to be the prerequisite for all cases (weak sexual execution)."

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And in a note he says, "This weakness would reflect the con- stitutional condition of the individual." He nevertheless weakens these statements when he adds, "Psychoanalysis has discovered in these cases an early sexual intimidation as an accidental factor in the development of the disease, an intimi- dation which drives the individual from the normal sexual ob- ject to the acceptance of a substitute." The constitutional weak- ness of the sexual apparatus is, nevertheless, a conditio sine qua non for Freud. An opinion which is quite invalidated by my own experience.

The fetishist is a person with an unusually strong sexual in- stinct. It is for this reason that he becomes attached to the divers members of the family perhaps even earlier than other children and is marked by a characteristic emphasis of all para- philic activity. This is the reason he looks for protective mechanisms and finds them — in religion. But it is perhaps this early infantile interest in the family which may have moved Sadger 4 to write : "The final and genuine fetish, however, the fetish which is always looked for and desired, no matter in what disguise or symbolization, is the naked genital of the mother or the mother image."

How does that rhyme with a case of foot fetishism whose mother died at his birth? Is his wet-nurse or his governess to be classed among his forbidden and tabooed mother images ? We shall see that it was his father who served as the point of fixation. One thing is certain : the fetishist discloses a patho- logical fixation on his family.

The next case shows us the relationships between a fetishist and his mother rather clearly.

Case 20. Max Rudolf Senf described a case of petticoat fetish- ism in Gross* Archiv, Vol. LX. The strong, thirty-year-old farmer had never had intercourse with a woman despite frequent oppor- tunities. Thirteen years ago he first began to put his mother's or his sister's petticoats between his legs and masturbate with them. Even before that he had masturbated with a quilt. He said that the coverlet and, later, the petticoats were, for him, the same as a woman. Senf also found a letter on the man's person, after he had been arrested for the theft of petticoats, which was addressed to his mother. It was characterized by "an extrava-

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gantly sentimental tone." This peasant wrote his mother that he would soon come home and that then they would all "experience a freshet of spring love such as the poets sing about."

This case of Dr. Senfs exhibits one factor which is so fre- quently observed in fetishism that we must consider it as typi- cal. This peasant stated that he had first begun to masturbate with the aid of his mother's and his sister's petticoats. If we remember what his mother seems to have meant to him, we can- not but see that his fetishes very frequently were symbols of his mother, and thus represented incest.

It is stated that this fetishism began in the patient's sixteenth year, a fact which shows us that we must not always look for the sources of fetishism in earliest childhood. The relations of fetishism to infantile family contacts are nevertheless so close that only the blind or the arbitrary could overlook them. The patient always used the mother's clothing as a symbolic representation of the whole mother during his onanistic acts, and this explains us his asceticism. The psychogenesis of fetishism has many points in common with that of homosex- uality. The fetishist also has a distaste for women and re- treats into an asexual, homosexual, or autoerotic life.

The road to woman is closed to the male fetishist, for before her stands the threatening figure of the mother or the sister. Every coitus thus becomes the rashest depravity, but not only because the female is the symbol of evil, but because his sexual libido really belongs to his mother or her younger substitute, the sister. This makes intercourse a tenfold sin and asceticism becomes imperative. The impossibility of achieving his desire makes the fetishist reject all women, and his continual search- ing only masks the real goal. The fetishist acts like a real Don Juan. They both have the same type of harem cult. They both act as if they were looking for a definite object and yet they cannot see their real sexual objects. Adults often play with children by looking feverishly for some object which they themselves have hidden. The fetishist likewise always seeks his satisfaction in symbols. But these symbols are analogous to spiritual nourishment. They cannot still the physical hunger of the individual and the result is a tremendous damming up of

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

energy because an ungratified wish is indestructible. Like un- touched capital, it increases in value by the constant addition of the interest of associated emotions. The desire grows upon the individual and soon makes a caricature of the symbolism. The infantile incestuous fixations are often repressed and the sexual symbolist hasn't the slightest notion of how he arrived at his manifestly eccentric tastes.

A patient who, in her youth, had long ministered to her father and often had to give him the urine bottle, the bed-pan and an air cushion, confessed to me that whenever she saw this trinity of articles in the windows of surgical shops, she would experience an involuntary flurry of excitement and get an im- mediate orgasm. Often only a urine bottle or a bed-pan, or also the odor of rubber, which reminds her of the air cushion, are sufficient to bring on the orgasm. It is understandable that this woman became a nurse during the war. She had made her confessions to me before the war. But when I took charge of a hospital unit in which she was a nurse, she-was considerably embarrassed.

Such experiences as these give us greater insight into a case like the following one. This is an excellent complement to the case of the irrigator attachment we saw before. Hirschfeld de- scribed this case as rubber cushion fetishism in Sexual Patholo- gie, Vol. III.

Case 21. B. Z., a twenty-one-year-old student of political econ- omy, displays a peculiar form of fetishism, viz., a remarkable sexual reactivity to rubber air cushions. Mr. Z., whose feminine traits had long been known to his family without their having un- derstood the true nature of his character, noticed that at about fourteen years of age he suddenly experienced the curious desire to collect air cushions, blow them up and press them to his body. At first he was unable to relate any sort of imagery to these secret habits, and they remained quite inexplicable to him because he had, as yet, no knowledge of sexual matters. The purely instinctual drive to hide away with such cushions, keep them always close to his body, increased in power and soon led to rather serious depres- sions on his part until, about four weeks after the first experiences, he gained his first relief in an ejaculation. On that evening, he

FETISHISM AND INCEST

129

had, as usual, blown the bag up tightly and then laid himself upon it in bed in such a manner that his genitals and the lower part }f his abdomen just covered it. The singular irritative quality of the fetish was primarily of a tactile nature, although later he ex- perienced an associated erotic thrill by the odor of the rubber, too. The visual effects of the fetish were quite negligible and the acoustic avenue of excitement was, of course, entirely absent.

For the six years following he masturbated with the aid of this fetish every day and the images which he had from the very begin- ning and throughout this infrequently interrupted period were

haracterized by the same general motive : He phantasied a large,

strong, fat man who was diversely placed in various masochistic positions. The pleasurable images of fat legs and thick body were provoked by touching and rubbing tjie smooth surface of the tightly blown-up air cushion. It is noteworthy that in the course of time this symbolization gradually became a substitute as the patient gave way to the impulse to possess the living partner. Since, however, the living partner was not readily obtainable, he arranged a situation which at first appears to be highly narcissistic, but is doubtless of heterogeneous derivation. He would dress himself in a large-sized suit which would be stuffed out with his air cushion, and then he would look at himself in the mirror. But, seeing a virtual, fat, sexual partner in the mirror instead of his real self, he would become sexually titillated and experience final gratification and relief. He never used anything but a rubber cushion to stuff the suit, since other materials, such as pillows, had no sexual effect upon him whatever. As already mentioned, his first sexual experiences of this kind occurred when he was fourteen, but it was possible to elicit a memory from his eighth year which had some relationship with this complex. In that year of his life he saw an air cushion for the first time, and a few days after that he was taken to the circus where he saw a clown dressed up as if he were a balloon. He seems to have been deeply affected by both these experiences, but they were nevertheless soon forgotten, to become reactivated by sexual maturation as adequate sexual motives.

There was no analysis in this case; so that we can depend only on our own conclusions in the matter. The exhaustive analyses of later chapters will show us, however, how compli- cated the psychogenesis of such a case can be. For the present,

i3o SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

we can consider this case as simply a continuation of the case of Dr. Sigg. Analysts with any degree of experience will be able to draw their own conclusions.

Frequently, we observe that the objects which become fetishes are useful or staple articles. That makes the erotic and sym- bolic use of nursing articles more understandable. Everything which achieves any contact with the human body is especially subject to become a fetish. Thus, also, the preference for shirts, trousers, underwear, trusses, pads, etc. All that is necessary is that someone in the family wore them. The shirt is a highly prized object, the specific body odor of the wearer being an important secondary item. The earlier volumes of this series contain many relevant examples, but the following case from my own experience will serve to illustrate.

Case 22. Mr. Adolf N. is a healthy, thirty-five-year-old travel- ing salesman who comes of a healthy family. He suffers from a pathological mania for women's chemises. At home he has a large collection of such underthings and he can spend hours before the windows of the various women's shops in town. Sometimes he will spend days going from one shop to another until he has finally acquired a chemise. But the new article must first acquire a specific odor of urine by being urinated on before it possesses any sexual effect upon him. He would like to collect old, worn, sweaty chemises from women, ones that also had the odor of urine, and he would be glad to pay any price for them. He has also stolen these goods on two occasions in hotels. He pretends that he has made a mistake in the room number and, after steal- ing the chemise he's looking for, he disappears, leaving a new and better one in its stead. When he has donned such a chemise he will stand before a mirror and masturbate. He claims that he was subject to this peculiar habit as early as 7 years of age. At that time he would smell his mother's night gown and experience cas- cades of sexual ecstasy at the odor of perspiration and urine. He even tried once to take one of these night gowns and hide it in his bed at night. His mother discovered the absence of the piece, however, and he had a hard time lying his way out of the situation when it was found among his things.

He tried normal intercourse a few times, but was never able to have an orgasm. Only once did he ever have an ejaculation with a woman and that was when he was having intercourse with a,

FETISHISM AND INCEST

prostitute who wore a dirty old shirt which smelled of sweat and urine. He agreed with the incestuous interpretation of his con- dition and said that he often had dreams in which he saw himself having intercourse with his mother.

It is easy to see the connection between fetishism and incest in this and similar cases. The same is true of the following case by Gamier.

Case 23. Louis I., a young butcher, was brought to the hospital in the following dress: 1. A corset of black cloth under a large- sized coat. 2. A second corset underneath the first. 3. A third corset. 4. A camisole. 5. A woman's collar. 6. A thin woven shirt, and 7. A chemise. He wore fine, women's stockings and women's garters. When he was 10 years old he had had the burning desire to put on the chemise of his sister who was four years older than himself, and during puberty he actually would sneak into his sister's room at times and put one of her under- things on. As soon as the chemise had enveloped his body, his sexual excitement was tremendous and he would have an immedi- ate ejaculation. Afterwards, he would sorrowfully put his own clothing on again and go back to his father's butcher shop. In the course of time, he began to buy himself chemises and later ac- quired the other articles which were found on his person (1. c, pp. 62-63).

Armand Silvestre says of the chemise that it is not so much the woman as that object of hers which best portrays her "spirit/' In the days of the Directorate, the character of female dress be- came entirely shirt-like and the female was thus more properly displayed as such. Modern fashions have achieved the highest possible refinement in the manufacture of silk and silken chemises and it is thus no wonder that, especially in France, this piquant transformation of what was formerly quite a simple piece of clothing has produced a great number of so-called chemise fetish- ists who hunt feverishly for women's underthings and find their sole sexual satisfaction in the possession and handling of these objects. In one of the poems of that decadent poet Rollinat, a girl gives her lover her chemise with the following words :

Conserve la tou jours ! Qu'elle soit pour ton äme La chair mysterieuse et vague de la femme

Qu'elle soit l'oreiller de tes regrets moroses.

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

Qu'elle soit l'oreiller de tes regrets moroses Quand tu la baiseras, songes aux nudites roses

Qui furent ton festin charnel! Que les parfums ambres de ma peau qui l'impregnent, Pour l'odorat subtil de tes reves y regnent,

Candides et luxurieux! Qu'elle garde ä jamais l'empreinte de mes formes ! j'ai dit ä mon amour : "J'exige que tu dormes

Entre ses plis mysterieux,"

and her lover replies in true f etishistic style :

"Adieu!" — J'ai conserve la mignonne chemise, Je Texhume parfois du coffre oü je Tai mise,

Et je la baise avec ferveur ; Et mon reve est si chaud, qu'en eile il fait revivre Ce corps si capiteux dont je suis encore ivre. Car il m'en reste la saveur.5

The chemise represents the woman who wears it. By virtue of the transposition of certain specific qualities and the displace- ment of affect, it becomes the woman herself. In the course of time, the fetish then becomes the symbolical representative of the person who was the source of the original provocation. This person is usually some member of the family.

I have never yet analyzed a case of fetishism in which this root was not to be found. The original object can be either homosexual or heterosexual in nature. The homosexual types of fetishism can be reduced to such a fixation on the father or a brother. But not in all cases. The fixation can sometimes be the mother, a sister, an aunt or grandmother; so that the sources of the fetishism become intimately interwoven with the homosexual components.

Every one of these cases shows a marked psycho-sexual in- fantilism, however, and a tendency to impulsive conduct. Our further material will reveal to us that despite the importance of these factors, the riddle of fetishism is not at all completely solved by means of the incestuous fixations involved. We shall have an opportunity of considering the above-mentioned pref- erence for chemises in another light in the next chapter.

CALF PARTIALISM, SADISM AND KLEPTOMANIA

In the course of an analysis of a case of partialism, it is always possible to show that the so-called partialism is but one symptom of a complicated parapathia and cannot be explained or resolved except in connection with all the other symptoms. The cases are frequently complicated by sadism, masochism or other paraphilias, and there is almost invariably a sign of psycho-sexual infantilism. In the following case, the partial- ism was but one symptom in a rather severe compulsion neuro- sis which considerably hindered the patient in the execution of his profession. I once called an obsessional neurosis the imperative of atonement, but the repentance is often only a facade behind which the patient can wallow in the pleasurable memories of the past.

Such patients as these often consult the physician because of impotence, i.e., their sexual potency is conditioned by certain situational qualities. When their sexual conditions are not fulfilled, they look like the clinical picture of a case of actual impotence. Now, the striving for what is normal is a natural and instinctive drive in humans. It is an immanent imperative, so to speak. Whereas, the formula of the parapathia would read : be different from the other, the tendency to be cured is expressed in the desire to be normal, i.e., like the others.

There is a bitter struggle between both these tendencies and the result depends upon the intervention of the psycho-therapeu- tist. Every parapathia discloses the strictest reactionism. The patient refuses to change. He refuses to give up his infantile springs of pleasure. He would like to get well, but not at the price of his phantasies or the infantile sources of those phan- tasies.

The following case clearly shows us the psychogenesis of a compulsion neurosis, the cause of the partialism and the sexual

133

132

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

Qu'elle soit l'oreiller de tes regrets moroses Quand tu la baiseras, songes aux nudites roses

Qui furent ton festin charnel! Que les parf ums ambres de ma peau qui l'impregnent, Pour Todorat subtil de tes reves y regnent,

Candides et luxurieux! Qu'elle garde ä jamais l'empreinte de mes formes ! J'ai dit ä mon amour : "J'exige que tu dormes

Entre ses plis mysterieux,"

and her lover replies in true f etishistic style :

"Adieu!" — J'ai conserve la mignonne chemise, Je Texhume parfois du coffre oü je Tai mise,

Et je la baise avec ferveur ; Et mon reve est si chaud, qu'en eile il fait revivre Ce corps si capiteux dont je suis encore ivre, Car il m'en reste la saveur.5

CALF PARTI ALI SM, SADISM AND KLEPTOMANIA

The following case clearly shows us the psychogenesis of a compulsion neurosis, the cause of the partialism and the sexual

133

136

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

quite infatuated in a small cousin of mine and always wanted to be taken to see her.

"At six I went to public school and even masturbated there. But I recall distinctly that my onanistic acts there were accom- panied by outspoken sadistic phantasies, viz., the desire to beat girls, especially to whip their naked legs. When I was fourteen, I was one day leaning out the window when a cousin of mine whacked me on the buttocks and thereby somehow touched my anus. That was the beginning of a serious illness from which I have been suffering to this day. I believed that he had injured my spine and began to suffer from a host of obsessions of which I shall speak at length later on. I was especially plagued by the fear that a rat might bite me in the behind. I must state that we were living on the third floor and it was impossible for the rats to come up from the cellar that high. In addition to that, we had a modern, closed toilet, not one of the old, open ones."

Such an anxiety is especially common among homosexuals and, particularly, among unconscious homosexuals. I therefore asked him whether or not he had produced homosexual phantasies during his onanistic procedures. He became quite upset and assured me that he had never had the slightest homosexual thoughts. No man ever caused him the least animation. On the contrary, such notions disgusted him. He confesses, however, that as a boy he often thought of whipping boys, too. He then continued his story :

"At fifteen, I wanted to put an end to masturbation and my sadistic phantasies. I therefore went to a prostitute and had in- tercourse, but without any gratification. The whole thing took me a couple of seconds and I must add that such a weakness has re- mained with me to this day. I have never been able to keep up intercourse for more than a very short time and I never derive the pleasure from it which masturbation affords me.

"I also remember having stroked my aunt's calf when I was about six years old. I was just like a little puppy. I went for every leg I saw. Even to-day, the calf of some woman's leg plays a most important part in my life. I know definitely that at six years of age, I always masturbated with phantasies of some calf in my mind. After my aunt visited us, I imagined her leg to myself and masturbated. I stuck a pillow between my legs and thought it would be a good substitute for her calf.

"Once my father caught me and forbade me strictly to mastur- bate. But I would wait until my parents were asleep and then,

CALF PARTIALISM

137

feigning that I was sleeping, too, I would be able to enjoy myself as I wanted. My conscience was troubled nevertheless for I thought to myself that God sees everything and that father had said it was a great sin. I was also beaten once for continuing despite my father's warning.

"I was quite a vain little boy. Until I was four, I had long locks and also wore dresses. Everybody thought I was a girl and would say, 'Oh ! What a pretty little girlie !' I mutinied against having to wear pants and always wanted to have the dresses back again.

"Often I would put on some of my mother's clothes and that would invariably incite me to masturbation. Sometimes I would crawl into bed, pull one of mother's petticoats over my head in order to be able to enjoy the odor, and would then play with myself. (These habits later turned out to be phantasies of the mother's womb).

"My parents quarrelled a lot and I always took my mother's side. I also remember lying in bed between them, but I don't recall ever having heard or seen them having intercourse. But I later had plenty of opportunity to eavesdrop while my mother was having intercourse. My father had become quite poor, having lost his money in a bankruptcy. We were all on rather short rations. It was then that my mother made some money out of men. When I was eleven, she would take me along, find herself a man, and bring him along home. We children then had to leave the room and would have lots of fun. 'Uncle' often promised me presents and gave me money, but my mother would take it away and then say she lost it. Some time later, my sister also had many affairs, my mother having played the go-between.

"My first masochistic thoughts came to me at about six while I was struggling to overcome my onanism to please God. I imagined myself being beaten. The sadistic phantasies developed only later, although I am not very sure whether or not I may have had such sadistic thoughts even earlier.

"Two girls were living in our house, piano teachers. I was hardly six and yet I was in love with them. I was terribly jealous, too, especially when they were more friendly with my sisters than with me. I was altogether quite jealous of my sisters, anyway.

"By seventeen I felt an aversion to the whole family, although my sisters were beauties and my mother was still quite a chic woman. But I couldn't stand any of them, always growled and was thoroughly dissatisfied with everything.

138 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

"You have told me that what I was looking for was freedom and some distance from my ties. I now understand my attitude. It was then that my sadistic phantasies and conduct began."

I asked about these sadistic procedures and learned the follow- ing:

He always seeks his prey on the streets and prefers young girls of a childlike type. He accosts them in a very friendly and casual manner, beams upon them, and asks them if they are not interested in learning how to dance. He tells them that he can fix them up with an excellent position in a high class dancing troupe. The one condition being that they have to be willing to undergo a rather strenuous bit of training. He then takes the girl to a hotel where he is already well known and where his splendid tips make him a welcome guest.

The girl must undress to her shoes and stockings. Soon after the first few steps, he manages to find some mistake or other and begins to smack the girl lightly on the calf. He uses a belt. When he notices that the girl is frightened or cowardly and rather subdued, his lashes become stronger and he sometimes also whips her across the buttocks. He binds the girls to the window sash so that they must stand on their tip-toes. Their discomfort and pains afford him pleasure and he gloats. Finally, he uses the girls for intercourse which, however, is quite weak in potency and lasts but a couple of seconds.

Many girls seem to like these procedures and act as if fascinated. Most of them become frightened, however, and cry. If the girls revolt and begin to yell, he stops immediately and tries to make a joke of the whole thing. He repeats this game about twice a week, each time with a different girl. He is also impelled by the desire to rape girls and to whip them across the calves, but he has never succumbed to such a desire yet out of fear for the law.

He dreams:

I went walking with my colleague Otto. He was quite friendly to me. Then I saw that both his hands were nailed to a board.

Otto is a vaudeville artist whom he likes very much. He would like to play with Otto and have Otto caress him. In the dream, Otto's hands are nailed down, which is an expression for the fact that Otto is married. Otto's wife is rather distasteful to him and this antipathy is at once also an expression of his antipathy to- wards his own sisters, i.e., the inversion of a definite attraction ( sei f -protective tendency ) .

CALF PARTIALISM

139

Otto is his second self, his parapathia. He has nailed his inner self down. It is apparent that his actions are only a small part of his programme. On the other hand, this can also be under- stood as his parapathia having nailed him down. His hands are tied and he cannot do anything evil. In other words, he must have done something sinful with his hands.

He is also overcome by the unconscious desire to have Otto play with his penis, but this cannot be done if Otto's hands are nailed to the board. Boards represent flesh. Otto is married, he is not a free agent. G. is jealous and would like to have Otto for himself.

G. feels himself likewise bound by his own marriage. He once loved his wife, but now he is impotent with her. His love appears to have died. It is only the spiritual ghost of its former self. There is also an indication of the Christ neurosis here (Christ nailed to the cross). Like the Saviour, he is also nailed to the board. Despite his paraphilic tendencies, G. is pious and daily chastises himself by means of his suceptibilities and humiliations.

The following night he dreams :

I kissed Otto's wife on the arm, sucked her arm, and derived intense pleasure.

He recalls that lovely arms have also occasionally interested him, and that Otto's wife does have lovely arms and hands. No other associations. Resistances. Otto's wife seems to stand for some other person. A third dream:

A very obese and dirty man who seemed to be some vaudeville artist engaged in our show wanted to appear on the stage. I cursed. "How can you dare to come into our fine establishment looking like that? I won't let you appear. Such swine don't belong in this place."

In order to understand this dream, we will have to spend some time with his obsessional ideas. He is constantly obsessed with compulsions which have to do with his stage appearance. If he doesn't do this or that, he will be a failure. He presents all kinds of ceremonials which I shall consider later on. The most important point is that he won't permit himself any great success. He ruins his own successes. He always says to himself (after some sadistic scene) : "Now you won't have any success. You don't deserve to have any." Thus he spoils his own hopes.

Now we can see through the third dream. He is the man who is supposed to appear in such a dirty condition. He robs himself

I40 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

of the possibility of success. He is the swine. He is a manifest masochist and went through a markedly masochistic period during childhood.

He later recalls that his masochistic period lasted but a week. Before that he had indulged considerably in sadistic phantasies. In order, however, to rid himself of these sadistic ideas, he imagined himself to be a very pretty girl whom the whole world admired, but whose lover beat her. His sadism is the reaction to his feminine tendencies. He wants to be a man and show women that he is a man.

A maid who was with the family during his childhood played quite an important role in his life. She was in the house for many years and shared the family's happiness and troubles. She was the confidante and friend of his mother. But for him she was an equivalent of his sisters : taboo and lacking in any sexual attrac- tiveness.

When he was six, his first obsessional stewing began. He would ask himself: "What is happiness? I dare not experience happiness."

He recalls how his father beat him because he had been fresh. He acted as if he were going to faint, and ever since then he has used illness as a means of avoiding all unpleasant responsibilities. After being whipped (his mother had saved him by calling out to his father that he had done enough), he hated his father and wished him dead. But he immediately began to punish himself by mulling over the same compulsion ideas again. He ruined every bit of pleasure for himself. What good is happiness? Does it help at all ? When he was seven, a schoolmate dared him to show his penis. He wanted to play together, but G. felt disgusted and didn't want to have anything to do with him (screen memory?).

Shortly after, i.e., in his seventh year, he received the slap on the behind from his cousin (he had first placed this memory in his fourteenth year). For a long time thereafter he was sure he was going to suffer from some spinal cord disease. He listened to his elders talking about pains and illness and thought he had all of them. He was especially fearful that his veins would burst (initial hypochondria as a result of guilt feeling).

At about this time, while playing blind man's buff, he fell on his head, cut his temple, and was in a faint for some time. His mother told him that that was the punishment of God, and ever since then he has firmly believed that he will die of some terrible disease whenever he has an evil thought.

CALF PARTIALISM

At three years of age, he underwent an operation on the penis. He remembers what happened after the operation, the nurses, the physician, even their cutting off his locks just before the operation and his crying when they bandaged him. But he cannot recall why he was operated upon. He was quite a fresh little boy and said to the nurse: "You can kiss my ."

He claims never to have suffered from castration anxiety. Only later did he become disconsolate at having such a small penis, and he believed that that was the result of masturbation. He was afraid that his penis would not grow, and felt overjoyed when he would see it swell and grow larger on erection.

He became rather devout at eleven years, prayed regularly, and believed that God would help him and deliver him from masturba- tion. He nevertheless made use of onanism to make himself ill. At thirteen he was apprenticed in a business house where he was somewhat mistreated. At that time, he masturbated six times in one night in order to make himself sick, and the following day he suffered from fainting spells. But he also had such dreamy states and sweet fainting spells on the street. He would suddenly feel giddy and light-headed and say to himself : "I'm no longer here."

At about this same time, he would dampen any joy by telling himself that he didn't deserve it. He joined some society as a comic, and enjoyed quite a success. But he soon began to ruin his success. He would have to look at his hands (the memory of masturbation) and would tell himself before every appearance over and over again not to look at his hands. Of course, he would then spend most of the evening thinking of his hands. He didn't know what to do with them. They embarrassed him. They were the hands with which he had sinned. His onanistic phantasies weren't clear in his mind. He thought it had something to do with his sadistic notions.

He brought two rather curious dreams :

Airs. L. held a thresher in her hand and it looked like an arm or a leg. I wanted it as such. Added weight. . . . Then in the background she shows me something that looks like a bone. I felt that I shouldn't be seeing these things.

I had had a terrible scene with my mother, ran away in the heat of anger and found myself naked on the street. Two persons walked towards me and made some comment. I pulled my night- shirt on and then found myself in some sort of family store-room. My mother said: "Now I've torn it," and tore a red-cheeked, fleshy face to pieces. It looked like a fleshy mask of some kind

142

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

I was quite angry and cried, "Is that so? Well, now you can make the speech. I need the mask for my speech." I also heard that she had torn up this mask because she had done something bad.

The analysis of the first dream proved that the missing bone represented the penis. His family used to get some added weight whenever they bought meat at the butcher's. That was always bone. He is quite attracted to Mrs. L. and looks for some added weight in her, the penis. He had always believed as a child that women also have a penis. The calf was for him a substitute for that organ.

In the second dream, his mother tears up his mask. Even as a child he had had quarrels with his mother and had told her she

could kiss his little . But when his mother would shed tears at

such language, he would show shame and regret. His indifference to his mother in later years was only a mask. If he would only show himself as he really is, in his naked state as on the street in the dream, or if he would but take the mask of hypocrisy from his face, one could see how much he really loves and cherishes his mother. Two years ago his mother died. He is quite con- scious of his incestuous thoughts. But the fourth commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," gave him the shivers and he always tried to repress the desires. As a child he did look like that mask: red-cheeked and fleshy. His mother tore up the pic- ture of his childhood. He hated his mother whenever she had anything to do with strange men. Now his hate breaks through in the dream. He tears the mask from his mother's face. She was a whore and is to blame for his illness. That's why he hates all women. In every woman he tortures his own mother.

The sentence about his not supposing to see those things in the first dream is rather revealing. He recalls that his mother showed not the slightest reticence before her children and not only dressed or undressed before them, but also satisfied her daily physical needs with them about. Under such circumstances, he was able to see her legs and even more. But did he really want to see her genitals as a boy ? He seems to have no recollection ever of having seen either his mother's or his sisters' genitals in childhood. He was a fresh and forward youngster and yet he cannot understand how it was that his sisters and the maid, then as now, left him cold. He protests this with such emphasis that he makes himself liable to suspicion. We must suspect a fixation on the sisters here, but we do not share this suspicion with him.

Whenever he becomes frightened, he feels a tickling sensation

CALF PARTIALISM

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around the testicles. Any creepy impression provokes the same sensations. He 'lays that to the operation he had when he was three years old. It was an operation on the testicles after a testis had been injured. That's what his older sister told him when he had asked her about it. He returns to the boy who had made a homosexual advance to him. It was in the first grade and he had enjoyed such things only in his phantasies up to that time. But this was a real partner. He was nevertheless repelled when he was to touch his schoolmate's penis. It seems that his father had portrayed the handling of the genitals as something especially disgusting. As a child he always tried to avoid touching any part of his bottom, and it was only when masturbating or urinating that this taboo was breached. He masturbated several times a week.

It was only when he was fourteen that a physician forbade him to masturbate and he promptly stopped. But his parapathia became increasingly worse.

The chief characteristic of this patient is obsinacy. He resists himself and ruins his own successes. Yesterday was the best day he has had in years. He feels that the analysis has relieved him greatly.

I continue the analysis of the last dream because I expect that it will offer me important disclosures. I ask him for associations on the mask which his mother tore up in the dream. He says :

"The mask was red and round. It had a beard and looked like a hot water bag. There was a tear at the top. Mother said: That's why I'll burn it.

"Bum? Didn't you say tear at first?"

"Burn or tear . . . Because it had a tear and was therefore no good any more."

"What did the beard look like?"

"A beard and a face like a butcher's. A coarse, ordinary bird. Perhaps it was Anton's face." (That was the cousin who had slapped him on the buttocks. Screen memory?)

"Did your father have a beard like this?"

"Oh ! No ! My father had a Vandyke and a fine face. But this was a tough face. I don't know. I ought to be able to re- member how it looked. [He thought awhile and then suddenly called out.] I've got it! It was the man we used to laugh about. A great story, but silly stuff. No importance."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, mother got herself a man on the street who looked coarse

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and rather ordinary, like a butcher. Then she brought him home, took him into her room and locked the door. My sister and I wanted to peek through the keyhole, but we couldn't see anything. Then we heard some groaning, muffled giggling and all kinds of suspicious noises. Then they both came out of the room and the man looked red-faced and wiped the perspiration from his face. He looked like that mask."

"Were you jealous or angry with your mother?"

"Not at all. We laughed and had a good time out of it." He is quiet for a while and then continues. "I haven't the slightest notion why I'm impotent with my wife. She has the prettiest leg you can imagine. And what's more, whenever I see a woman with similar legs, I'm also impotent with her. Children interest me most of all. I would like to play with every child and torture it. Even as a boy I would imagine girls during masturbation and the ejaculation would make me feel as if I were sailing in heaven. A great gusto, that was. The acme of delight and rapture. I often had a similar feeling later during my attacks. I could even produce them at will right on the street."

"Did you always masturbate with the phantasy that you were beating a girl ?"

"No. As I have already mentioned, I often used to put a chemise or a petticoat of my mother's or sister's between my legs. Or I would cover myself with it, smell it and think that mother should be punished — because she stinks."

"Who would beat her? Your father?"

"No. Never my father. That always disturbed my onanism. That would spoil all my fun. It was always a different person. Father always quarreled with mother. I can recall that whenever they spoke quietly with each other, I felt very happy. I was in paradise." He is quiet again.

"What's on your mind ?"

"I'm thinking of that dream again. In the dream I was quite angry with mother. That reminds me of the scene with the veloci- pede. There was an 'uncle' who came to see us rather frequently, a Mr. S. He came twice a week. 'A season ticket' was what my mother called him. Wre were quite happy about his visits, because whenever he came mother got money and that meant that we had a warm meal. Once he gave mother twenty crowns to buy me a velocipede. When he left, mother refused to think of buying me the bicycle. I became angry, yelled and cried, swore at mother, called her a whore and cut up until she made ready to go out and

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buy the plaything. On the way she suddenly told me she had lost the money. I believed her and was miserable. She bought me some small toy as heart-balm. To-day, of course, I realize that she used the money to keep us fed. I remember well that one day, instead of Mr. S., a porter came with his card which said that he had to excuse himself. That night we didn't have a warm meal, but only dry bread. Mother showed me the card. It said, 'I deeply regret not being able to come to-day/ I was seven and was already able to read that. How do you like that for education?" "You certainly must have hated or despised your mother.,, "Hated ? Only because she didn't buy me that bicycle. I usually sided with mother whenever there was a quarrel in the family. I can remember that father always threw it up to mother what a fine past she had. There seems to have been something like that early in their married life." "And you heard all that?"

"Yes. My parents didn't care a hoot whether I was in the room or not. That's why I learned so fast."

He continues talking about the scenes with his mother. He remembers how happy they all were whenever Mr. S., their sub- scriber, came. They often had only bread crusts to eat and perhaps a piece of cold sausage, but S. meant a fine, warm meal for them. He nevertheless has a shadowy recollection that something in him revolted against S. and that he was jealous of the man. He ap- pears to have repressed his jealousy completely. He also seems not to recall whether or not he also played with his little sister while all this was going on. No, that he is sure he never did. His younger sister was never a sexual object for him. They only made a lot of fun whenever S. would come out of mother's room, red-faced and excited.

"Did you look through the keyhole?"

He does not answer. He can't recall. It is possible, he thinks. He dreamed :

I held a lecture on air. Then it was something about the mark and the crown. I talked with a German about the matter. Some- how he was able to quiet me. Then I sat on the toilet. It was all wet with urine. Someone said: "It's certainly a good thing that the Germans come in here and clean the place up." Suddenly I feel a tickling sensation behind and turn around to see a small rat which had just crawled out of a hole above me and was tickling me. Curiously enough, I was not at all frightened or disgusted as I am in reality.

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Then we were riding in an omnibus. The conductor was rather fresh. My wife came aboard only later and sat down next to me. When the conductor saw that she was paying no fare, he said, "Ah ha! you're talking with the woman, eh?" — as if we were making up to cheat him out of the fare. That got me into an argument with him. In front of St. Stephen's I called him some name or other. He said, "I'll have you locked up !" I wanted to climb over the window sill and fight it out with him.

I was at the stage door of a theatre. Suddenly I missed a package which I had had in my hand. "Don't fool me now. I know that some bird has hidden it." I growled at a small, ugly man who was stronger than I. I couldn't get the best of him. Then I had the package again. It contained a heavy and dirty table cloth and some other things. I then went home with the package and cursed my wife because she wasn't with me at the time. When I opened the package, the red table cloth was miss- ing. I went back to the theatre and they had found it.

I went home. It was like K street in my youth, dark and

dreary. It made me afraid and I thought of burglars. In the third room of the apartment there was a figure, a slender, skinny, old, hunch-backed woman. She had a cloth about her and said she had nothing to wear. I gave her something, but it wasn't enough for her. She looked about and wanted books. She looked through a pile of books.

Then the scene changed. I was looking for a coach on the street. Suddenly I see my father, but he looked strange to me. I was nevertheless happy to be able to invite him to ride in the carriage with me. But I never found one.

Again a wagon. Three of us were riding down a hill. One was fat, and at one place where it was rather steep, the fat man got out in order to go to the toilet on another hill. The coach- man said that he could have driven closer to the toilet.

I will now turn to the analysis of this important long dream. When I asked him to associate on the word air, he said : "Thoughts are as thin as air." Then he wonders how the change from air to marks and crowns came about. From there he begins to speak about the inflation of the mark and the crown and says that money is now as thin as air in Germany and Austria (this shows us the connections between air-feces-money-anal complex). Yesterday his wife let wind without shaming herself. He said to her: "You're a fine woman, you are. Any ordinary person would be ashamed of such a thing and would certainly feel that it's not

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right." Then he begins to speak about his mother. She had no shame at all. She displayed all kinds of disgusting little habits. For instance, she would rub her fingers through her toes and then put them in her mouth. She often had her fingers in her vagina, so that her hand always smelled strongly. That was the reason they all felt so disgusted at table sometimes. Whenever she went to the toilet, it always stunk terribly. He never wanted to go to the toilet after his mother had been there. His father, however, was a meticulously clean person.

Suddenly he recalls a lot of important details from childhood. He liked to smell his own wind. He would pull the covers over his head and thus create a cavern in which he could retain the odor of his wind for a long time. As he put it, defecation was always a fete. It was a source of great pleasure to him. Following the whack he got from his cousin, he was always afraid to be bitten by a rat in the toilet. From then on his pleasures in the toilet were spoilt. He would stand on the seat instead of sitting and even turned himself about in order to be able to see the rat if it ap- peared. Later, he would defecate on a piece of paper and throw the feces into the toilet. It was only after he was seventeen that he gave up the rat phobia after a consultation with a physician. But his pleasures in defecation have also disappeared since then.

This demonstrates clearly to us how he himself was the cause of his loss of pleasure. In the dream there is a clear-cut pleasure, a gratifying tickle, accompanying the appearance of the rat, and no disgust.

We continue the analysis of the dream. A short dream of last night landed him in the care of another analyst. There he found me, saw that I was also a parapathic and also had to be analyzed. This is the typical revenge of the patient who sees that he must bend himself to the authority of the physician.

His further associations on air: There is thick and thin air. Then he comes to his statement that several Germans were there.

"What does that make you think of ? Several Germans."

"Germans like to keep order. They are clean and neat. Father was also clean. Germans are homosexuals. I hate homosexuality. . . . You once told me that the rat means a man, means homo- sexuality. That rat came out of a pipe."

Further analysis showed that this dealt with a womb phantasy. Many lovers come to visit her (the dirty closet). Father won't stand for that (the Germans come and clean up the place). Out of the pipe (the vagina) comes the father's penis (the rat). He

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goes into detail about his disgust for homosexuals and how he could never enter into a homosexual act.

We continue with the second part of the dream about the bus. To the conductor he associates : "A coarse, heavy fellow. Like a beer brewer. A very strict man. . . ."

"Who does he make you think of?"

"I can think only of father. He was very strict and we all were afraid of him."

Here the bipolar attitude towards his father breaks through (love and hate). Whenever father had a quarrel with mother, he always sided with mother. If he had been larger and stronger, he would have beaten his father. In the dream, he reenacts the scene as he would have liked to do it in childhood. Father would sometimes go for weeks without exchanging a word with mother. That is indicated by the exclamation in the dream: "Ah ha! You're talking with the woman !" The woman is the representa- tive of his mother. Further analysis showed that he had also transposed emotions from his sisters to the woman. It is for this reason that he is impotent. His relations with the woman (his wife) are those of brother and sister.

That brings us to the point where he is to be locked up. Being locked up or locked in was always an abhorrent and fearful situa- tion for him. As a child, he was frequently locked in. We also know that whenever he would have his parties with girls in the hotel, he would be afraid to have his will because he was afraid of the law. Recently he also received a threatening letter from an attorney. His anxiety about being locked up has sufficient basis in fact and manifestly breaks through in the dream. He is afraid to come into conflict with the police because of the things he has done. On the other hand, the bus is also a symbol of woman. He recalls the well-worn joke : If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be an omnibus. He had the phantasy that he and his sister were locked in his mother's womb and that there he would whip her.

The association after whipping is raping. As a child he had heard a great deal about raping and wondered what it meant. When his father caught him masturbating, he said that he was committing sin. He always imagined that a man beat a woman in intercourse and raped her. He saw a rooster topping a hen and said that the rooster was raping the hen. He understood that this was animal intercourse.

At first when his mother began to have strange men in the

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house, he believed that the men would beat his mother, and sym- pathized with her. The phantasy that he wants to beat a girl means, really, that he wants to have intercourse with a girl.

He is still a big boy and depends very much upon all his in- fantile habits. He has not yet developed to full manhood. He is still mama's little boy. He talks baby talk with his wife, calls her Maupi, Kraupi, Mutzi, Shnuzzi, Shutzi and is called the same kind of names by her.

When, at six years of age, he wanted to kill all his joy and fun in life, he really wanted also to kill his fun and pleasure in masturbation. But that was impossible; so that he had to say to himself that he did get some fun out of it all. At this age, too, he would stand before the mirror and doubt his identity (this phenomenon is frequently observed in womb phantasies). He would ask himself : "Is that I ? No, that can't be myself !" He felt strange to himself. He would become suddenly anxious standing before the mirror, because he thought the face he saw was strange. He would call out: "Who's that?"

Womb phantasies have the curious appearance of "deja vu" or the contrary, i.e., that something, a street, looks strange and new. At least once every year he experiences the feeling that he has been in or seen this or that situation sometime before, has been in the same neighborhood, the same mood, etc.

When he was nine, a maid showed him her genitals. She told him to look at a black spot. Later she went to the hospital with syphilis and even then he understood that that was a serious venereal disease. But the chief factor about sexuality as far as he was concerned was its punishing character (raping).

During masturbation, he would picture to himself that a roomer in their house, who was serving in the army, was being punished. This roomer would tell them about the various punishments they received for divers transgressions : binding, chaining, solitary con- finement, etc. He would then enlarge upon these sentences in his phantasies. Then he would have his schoolmates whipped across the legs, a favorite phantasy of his.

He speaks of all these associations during the analysis of the dream. They are all a part of the latent dream thoughts and are related to his guilt feelings. That leads us to the analysis of that part of the dream which had to do with the burglars and the old woman. His first association is his grandmother. She was a respectable and righteous person, the very opposite of his mother. He has a fear of the ideas of atonement which persist in pene-

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trating to consciousness. These ideas consolidate to form the person of his respectable grandmother who runs the books of his soul, as it were. How have you spent your life? Why haven't you become a decent man? He now wants to finish his life in the manner of his father.

The last portion of the dream discloses to us his repentance at having deceived his wife. He is the fat man who goes looking for a toilet on another hill, though it costs him great effort and despite the presence of one in his vicinity (association: "Woman is a receptacle," a quotation from the famous trial of Eulenburg). The dream really says : "Be true to your wife and leave all these escapades. Be a decent man." The dream is the voice of his conscience which plays such a dominant role in the symptom- formation of his parapathia.

Also, the dirty table cloth must be replaced by a clean one. He takes it ill of his wife that she cannot prevent him from cheating her. That small, ugly fellow is his alter ego. He struggles with his inner self. . . .

The red table cloth points to his blood complex. It is as if he were blaming his wife for something which is connected with his own glory phantasies. He produces many associations which touch on the theme of love murders. (Is it because he wants to murder his wife that he is impotent?)

He dreamed :

Dr. Stekel had a little girl who had some sexual relationship with a maid.

His first association is that last evening he had a tickling or itching sensation in his rectum which felt rather pleasant. It was connected with the phantasy that he were a woman. That was his deepest wish as a child and we will recall that he was miserable when they cut off his beautiful locks at three years of age. He believes that it was their maid who had cut off his hair, and he also associates their maid to the one I have. He also remembers having lain in bed with her frequently as a child, but he believes that nothing happened. Whenever he was washed he would scream lamentably and yell: "Oh! I'm sick." That was especially true after the experience with his cousin and his mother often took him to the doctor, although there was nothing to be found. As a child he had a typical dream which often repeated itself : There was a round arena on the roof of the school, round like a ball, and I wondered how it was possible for me to remain so high up. There was often snow in this arena, but always in the

CALF PARTIALISM

form of large balls. It was necessary for him to crawl through all kinds of dark passages and narrow holes in order to get up there. This is a stereotyped dream which retains his memory of the large breasts of his mother in symbolical form (she was a noticeably luxurious-looking woman). After he is born, he achieves the breast.

He often thought of birth and death and even as a child he had frequently wondered why people must die, hoping, of course, that he would remain immortal. Whenever he liked other children, he was impelled to embrace them so hard that they would cry out (memories of his mother's embraces).

When he was seven, they spent some months in the country and there he would see white figures passing through the garden. This made him terribly afraid.

I will pass over some dream analyses in this case, because they only repeat old and well-worn motives: unpleasant affairs with girls, whom he had beaten, repentance because of his faithless- ness, homosexual phantasies, etc.

An important dream :

The street car stopped twice before it reached the station. I thought to myself: it is certainly difficult, dangerous, even im- possible to reach one's goal.

The meaning of this dream is simply that it is dangerous to reach any goal. What is his goal, after all? He thinks of his sadistic scenes and we learn that at bottom he would like to choke or stab these women to death, but his mortal fear of the law stops him just short of his sexual goal. It is also important as an in- dication that twice during the analysis he was about to divulge deciding material, but caught himself just in time.

He associates to his calf fetishism: it first occurred to him when he was not quite three years old. His Aunt Rosa had a baby and he was told that the stork had bitten her in the leg.

"Where?" he asked.

"In the calf !" was the answer. He then believed that children came from the calf. He is always on the lookout for women with quite fleshy calves, but small genitals.

He dreamed:

In the dream, I felt a heavy hand on my head. I looked lasciv- iously at an old woman and she stabbed me in the head.

I was at the race track. On a slight elevation, there was a small house in which my wife was sitting. One of the horses became wild and ran away. The crowd scattered and some of

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them yelled to me to catch the horse. Then the horse changed to a crazy man. I turned and ran, but a small whip almost tripped me. Then I was in a small room and locked the door, but I noticed with sudden fright that a second door was still open. I awoke with anxiety.

This dream is rather easy to interpret. He, the patient, is the wild horse, the insane man (one of his great fear9 is that he will go crazy). He is afraid of his own sadism. He is supposed to do something to inhibit his own passions (catch the horse), but his impulse to use the whip trips him up and prevents him from man- aging his paraphilia. He has locked the main entrance, but his sadism can still come in through the other door.

He says he is interested in the beheading of women. He would like to be the executioner.

Another determinant for his misogyny : he would like to kill the woman within him.

The woman who provoked his lust in the dream reminds him of his mother, whom he manifestly still loved with considerable passion, even when she had become old and had lost her charms. His mother used to lay her hand on his head whenever he had a fever. Often he complained to her that his head felt as if it were being stabbed and then she would be specially sweet to him, would put cold packs on his brow and sit by his bed. Only later will we be able to understand the passage about the heavy hand.

Fables and fairy tales always made a deep impression upon him. He was once able to see a children's play in which they presented that part of Snow White where the hunter cuts out the child's heart. Later, he reproduced the scene in his onanistic phantasies. He likes to take trips into the country, but he is afraid to go with his wife alone. They invariably have a friend come along. As the analysis of this showed, he needs the friend as a protection against himself and his murderous tendencies.

When he was thirteen, he played with a little six-year-old cousin of his. He would win her with presents of candy and then she would permit him to put his penis between her legs and imitate the movements of coitus. He was already having orgasms with ejacu- lation at this time, although he later wanted to correct himself and say that he had his first ejaculation when he was fourteen or fif- teen. These little meetings with his cousin continued for several years.

At thirteen he also fell in love with a boy who was a most beautiful schoolmate of his. The patient tried at all costs to be

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like him, imitated his dress, and jealously sought his friendship. He was very vain and always wanted to be the most handsome of men. At fifteen he went to a prostitute because he had heard that masturbation makes one ugly, while coitus is better than the best cosmetic.

They had a roomer who, he thought, didn't think much of him. Later this roomer became one of his teachers in grammar school. This roomer also cultivated homosexual relations with another teacher and they would exchange handsome boys with each other and play with them. The teacher would beat the boys over their naked calves and this excited our patient considerably.

We will recall that he always plays the teacher in his sadistic hotel scenes and it appears that the above experience was the de- termining factor in this habit. Indeed, although he claims to have experienced his teacher's habits in earliest childhood, it is pos- sible that his memory betrays him. He desired to become a teacher at any price because he wanted to be able to beat the little boys across the calves. The earliest objects of his sadistic phan- tasies were little boys.

The analysis proceeds, but with the greatest difficulties. He re- members divers acts he perpetrated upon little children, but his memory is halting and fraught with resistance. To this day, the child is his chief object of sexual desire. He even looks upon his wife only as a child.

The story of his marriage is quite characteristic of his psychic make-up. He made the acquaintance of his wife when she was sixteen and after a short time she became his sweetheart. He often wondered how it was possible for him to remain potent with her although he never had any sadistic phantasies in regard to her. He soon became a little tired of her, but snapped up with jealousy as soon as he noticed that she began to lean towards other men. He again won her affections and again tired of her. This game then repeated itself about a dozen times, and he always became deeply dejected whenever he would try to leave her. When they lived together, however, they were always at each other's throats, so to speak, until he finally made up his mind to marry her be- cause he saw that he couldn't live without her and thought that it would end his troubles. He hadn't been married two weeks before he became impotent with his wife and has remained so to the present day. I noticed that he had completed an identification here with his sister and asked him to produce all that he could remem- ber about his sister from his childhood.

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It was here that a most curious fact appeared, viz., that, al- though he had even boasted of his enviable memory for every detail of his childhood, he could remember nothing about his games or his relations with his sister. Whenever he would try to recall anything about her, he would always think of something or other relating to a cousin. He dimly remembers having played papa and mama with this cousin out in a garden veranda. The cousin's name was Elizabeth, and that is also his wife's name. The further analysis shows definitely that Elizabeth was only a screen memory behind which was hidden the person of his sister, and we see that he actually has been treating his wife as a sister. She is taboo for him, noli me tangere.

During one of the first few grades of school, one of his school- mates said to him : "Nobody plays with a sister. That's no fun." He now recalls that he often played with his sister. It was a game in which they played the parts of two women, she was the rich one and he the poor one. They would meet as if at the market place, complain of the hard times and scarcity of money. But he denies that they ever had anything sexual to do with each other. He could swear to it. His memory never fails him.

Now we want to look into his compulsions a little more. The obsessional ideas are specially connected with his appearance as an actor. Whenever he is in trouble on the stage, he feels his gaze drawn to his left hand as if he were hypnotized. It is then he fears that he will be a failure, God will punish him. Lately, how- ever, he has been doing very well and he has been saying to him- self: "You don't have to give yourself so much trouble. What must be will be." He nevertheless fears that just then an evil thought will enter his mind. It seems as if he were punishing him- self for some experience of childhood in which his hand played an important part. He had repeatedly dreamed that his left hand lay heavily on his head. One of his most obsessive ideas is the torturing thought that he will never forget his evil phantasies (he has repressed something and these evil thoughts are the symbols of it).

He sometimes feels that there is a colossal difference between his right and left hands. Just as if they were two strange hands that didn't know each other (the right hand shall not know what the left hand doeth). I call his attention to the fact that left means incest and homosexuality and that right stands for normal. It has been his desire to be normal, but he has not been able to achieve his wish.

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He then begins to speak about homosexuality and I call his attention to the conflicting data he has offered. He had first dated the story about his cousin whacking him on the behind with his fourteenth year and later he changed it to his seventh year. This uncertainty reveals to us that we must be dealing with two different experiences. He is asked to repeat the story about his cousin and relates the following :

"I was seven years old and was leaning out the window. My cousin came up behind me and gave me a whack on my buttocks. I was so frightened that I thought he had injured something. I always held my hand over my behind. After a while I began to be anxious about the rat, about a rat biting me in the behind."

I tell him that the whole story has an untrue ring and that he is probably relating what might be called a screen memory. We know that he is given to dreamy states and such persons are liable to experience things during such a state which they later forget. He should remember the roomer who certainly has something to do with his parapathia.

This roomer must certainly have been a perverse individual. He had relations with the patient's mother and probably also with the maid. Once both these women spent some time in the teacher's room together. He first heard laughing and crying and then it turned out to be quite an excited and hilarious time.

"Weren't you ever in this roomer's quarters ?"

"No. Never."

After a while, he says : "Well, perhaps ... it seems to me that he must have given me some tutoring. He called me into the room and had me learn something. Oh, yes, now I can see it again. He whipped me across the calves and the naked buttocks with a switch."

"Did he do anything else with you?"

"Impossible!"

He then relates something about the homosexual phantasies of his childhood and the experiences he had with homosexuals who made him all kinds of tempting offers. He claims to have rejected all such offers with disgust and astonishment.

During this tale, he suddenly excuses himself and asks to be permitted to leave the room because he has an imperative urge.

When he returned, he said : "I know it is not nice, but I must tell you. I felt as if a hard piece of feces were sticking in my rectum. But when I got there, I found that it was nothing. How we can err."

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I realize that this is a homosexual phantasy and call his atten- tion to the fact. I tell him that he is apparently not clear on one definite experience of his childhood. But he says he can't see anything in it. He agrees that he feels a positive transference to me, but he has never considered love of other men as anything but low and inconceivable. He denies ever having had homosexual phantasies.

The analysis halts and sputters. There are innumerable re- sistances. He is struggling against his better judgement. But some dreams carry us along.

He dreamed :

It was a small room. I am with my mother and sister and ring for the maid. A lovely, blonde girl appeared. I ring ten times.

He associates the fact that his sister had almost the same face as the maid. The number ten has been worrying him for some time. Recently he awoke and heard someone call out the num- ber ten.

The second dream had him in his small home. Several aristo- crats also slept there, but there was a porter there, too, who took care of everything. This porter was an important personage (a busy body). It seemed like a sort of competition. I was sup- posed to ride from the bed to the hall. I won and got six points. Then the aristocrats rode into the Prater with the porter, and without paying any attention to me. I then rode backwards to- wards the sulky park.

Then I saw a horrid, large bird carrying my wife on its beak. I also saw my father and several other persons riding off — fur- ther and further away until I didn't see them any more.

He was especially attracted by his wife on the beak of that bird. He recalls having dozed off a little last night and his wife awaken- ing him. When he opened his eyes he seemed not to see her, but some old, wrinkled woman. His association to the bird is that the bird is a stork which brings the babies.

The bird is thus the phallic symbol of his father. His wife rep- resents his sister (stork and spermatozoa dream). The old, ugly face reminds him of his grandmother and now he remembers that it was she and not the maid who had cut off his hair (Samson complex — impotence. He continues to be impotent with his wife). He recalls the riding from the bed into the hall. His sister once slept in the hall, but he can't remember clearly whether or not he ever rode up to her. He can only remember that he had a hobby horse which for some strange reason was taken from him. It is

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probable that he used to masturbate on it. He would often play horse with his sister ; also coachmen and horse. The lost hobby horse appears to be a screen memory for his sister.

It seems that he directed his earliest sadistic impulses at the hobby horse. It was taken from him and put into the store room in the attic. They always promised him that if he would be a good boy, he would get his hobby horse back again. But he never saw it again. The rest of the dream cannot be interpreted at this time.

Thus far, we can readily see his "weaning complex," called the castration complex by Freud. The castration character may be indicated by his having torn out the hobby horse's tail.

Another dream continues the theme about the horse :

I was in Lawrence Hill Avenue and wanted to climb into a one- horse carriage with my wife. The coachman fell forwards over the horse from off the box. I jumped out and ran away with my wife, leaving my new suit in the carriage. I was in my shirt, but I had a suit in my hands. In the Brandstaette (a city street), a man and a woman came out of a door.

It was in Lawrence Hill Avenue that he had had his next to last unpleasant experience just prior to marriage. He had run into a shop to buy a whip. He had found a girl who was willing to go to a hotel with him, but she turned out to be a whore who demanded plenty of money. He had also had his last unpleasant meeting just before marriage in the Brandstaette. It was then that he decided to marry in order to protect himself against his paraphilia.

We thus see that his marriage has a distinct relationship with his paraphilia. He is afraid to become well and give up his ill- ness. That is the reason he is impotent with his wife. If he were not, he would be in danger of losing his delight in the whipping scenes, which represent a cherished treasure of his childhood and are apparently connected with his sister. The new suit symbolizes his new attitude towards life, but the coachman (his conscious) succumbs to the power of his instincts.

He recalls having beaten an inanimate ball because it did not roll after him. He was four years old. Then he took a funnel and stuck a big hole in the ball. He cried bitterly afterwards be- cause he had spoiled his plaything. The deeper relationships of this memory with his paraphilia are not yet clear, but the sadistic element (ball-woman) appears to be clear.

Various dreams which he brings appear to point to the fact

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that his first experiences occurred with his sister. Dimly he re- calls that he used to crawl into her bed at night. He also used to sleep beside his mother, whose warm body made him feel com- fortable.

At this point he stopped the analysis.

After about a month, he returns to the analysis in order to gain some light on the following dream :

I did something to some little girl (Mizzi?) and some woman caught me in the act (Mizzi's mother?). Afterwards I saw the child lying in bed and holding two sticks in the air, they were thin sticks. She invited me to do something to her again. I purposely said : "No. I won't do it," in order that the woman who had for- bidden me to do it might hear.

As I awoke from the dream, I had the feeling that I was pok- ing a stick into my ribs on either side.

He spontaneously associates his sister's legs to the sticks.

It was not possible to gain any further information on this dream. He comes late to the hour, talks about banal actualities and manifests the greatest resistances. I decided upon another method and hypnotized him. He fell asleep easily. I then gave him the suggestion to think about the dream and to reproduce some scene from his childhood which might enter his mind as an explanation for the dream.

What he said was as follows :

"I see my sister. I see her lovely blonde head. She wears a blue bow. It is evening. My parents have gone to the theatre and the maid has left us alone. We play school and my sister is the teacher. We sit in the first row and she teaches me. Then we play dog. I'm the dog and begin to bite her. I bite her softly in the arms and cheeks. Then she falls on the floor and lies quite still as if dead or asleep. I fall upon her and she spreads her legs, but she doesn't move. Then I lick her. She twitches her legs, but holds them tightly about me. Then I jump up and she scolds me with her finger, saying: "You disgusting little brat, you !" But we play again and I repeated it several times. Then the maid came into the room and threatened to tell mama. She spanked me rather lightly on the behind. Then we were quiet and I ate a piece of bread and butter. After that we went into the hall and the maid left us again. As soon as she was gone, my sister sat herself on the window sill and I licked at her again and bit her in the calf."

He is awakened from the hypnosis and doesn't remember what

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he said. He was told about the scene he had described and im- mediately began to feel nauseated.

In the next hour, he repeated the scene and added a few details. It appears that this cunnilingus was repeated frequently. We then hear of another disclosure. Without my asking him any- thing, he begins to tell me the following :

"I see before me a large, white — immense — belly. I have my fingers beneath it. I smell my fingers and put them in my mouth. I am lying between my parents in bed. I raise myself a little. Both parents are fast asleep. I crawl over to my mother, who doesn't mind. I crawl down to her feet and embrace her calves. I lick her feet and then her calves. Gradually I crawled up higher — no — it's not possible — yet — I can see it quite clearly. I licked my mother. She closed her legs tightly about me so that her knees touched me. She tousled my hair" (cf . the first part of the dream about the heavy hand on his head)/'

He adds a lot of details and repetitions which I can pass over here. As I was able to learn by chance, the mother was a lewd person who had a bad name. Her sensuality was pathological and even as an old woman she continued her profession, partly for pleasure and partly for money.

He is asked what he has to say about his rat phobia. When he was eight, he saw two giant rats in the Prater. They had tremen- dous bellies and long tails. In childhood, he saw a terrible pic- ture : "Hatto in the Mouse Tower" was the name. Hatto sitting beside some bread and water. The mice ran hither and thither — the Pied Piper of Hamelin — tadpoles also have wiggly tails — rats have wiggly tails — I see snakes that turn and twist — I see a noodle in my mouth which is fat and smooth and shiny and moist and slippery. It is slowly sliding down my throat (noodle is a Viennese vulgar term for penis) — I'm biting on a penis and won't let go — just like a dog that has something in his mouth and won't let go — I see a small penis without hairs — just like fountain — city park — Danube Girl (a half-naked fountain figure in Vienna) — children are playing in the sand — they are playing with a switch which is being swung hither and thither in the sand — swaying like a snake — someone scares us with a dead rat's tail — nauseating — fear and disgust — two tails which entwine, one hangs on the other — two men embrace, entwine — they go off hand in hand, their penises entwined — a rat climbs up a man's leg (sickening) — the noodle in my mouth — a canary bird.

"When I was five I saw my father's penis. Whenever I mas-

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turbated and wanted to spoil my fun, I thought of my father's penis and it was all over. Now I am sick and disgusted with every penis as if it were a rat. I think of that teacher, that homosexual, who was a roomer in our house. He was a handsome man. I was in his room once." What happened in that room ? . . . His mem- ory fails him.

His sister had told him that when he was thirteen he had mas- turbated against the leg of his sleeping mother. She was quite used to that in him. His mother pervaded a repelling odor, but this odor did not at all disturb his onanistic habits. On the con- trary, it activated them.

He dreamed:

It is the room in R street. I am sitting at the secretary.

I have a little girl on my lap and am licking her eyes out. They are full of tears. The door to the next room is open and there is a round table in there round which the family sits. One of them was a man with a pince-nez. Emission.

I have a quarrel with Mr. Pfeiffer. He punched me on the jaw, but I was a coward and only appeared to return him a slap on the face. It was more of a joke ; so that he could boast that he had really punched me.

I received an invitation to a sanatorium. The sanatorium was on one of Vienna's hills and yet out in the country. We came up to the place from behind. It was a narrow little house and as we went in we saw peasant's children at play. I said: "It's lovely in the country when the sun is shining." A man and his wife who had just come up thought the same. In the hall of the place there was quite a crowd but the hallman knew us (we had already been there once). Inside, it looked like some sort of play. I had a seat down front and there were two others with me, among them an ugly Jew with a round, bent back, but larger than me. I took a piece of paper and stuck it in his behind so that everybody laughed at him. He took my place.

He adds to the first dream that his sister was also along. This dream manifestly contains a repetition and corroboration of the cunnilingus scene. The eye represents the vagina and the man with the pince-nez is his father, the father who chased him out of his mother's bed once and also caught him masturbating.

The second dream represents his inner struggle with himself.

The third portion of the dream finds its explanation through the medium of the hallman who reminds him of his deceased

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brother-in-law. His sister was quite as light-headed as his mother (great crowd in the hall; the sanatorium represents a bordello). The big, ugly Jew is paying amorous attention to his wife. He takes his place. He is afraid to be cheated just as his father was betrayed. The children, playing in the sun, are symbols of the genitals.

I recall the fact that in that uninterpreted dream about the aris- tocrats, G. rode backwards to the sulky track. In this one, he sticks the paper into the Jew's behind and everybody laughs.

He asks me for a hypnosis and is soon asleep. He is asked to produce his associations to the dream about the aristocrats and to pay especial attention to the porter. He delivered the following explanation :

"The aristocrats are the adults and the other people are the children. The aristocrats ride into the Prater, which means that the parents have gone to the park. The porter, who is supposed to take care of everything, is the roomer at home. He also had a pince-nez. He was the man with the glasses. He was the lover of my mother and the maid. I played with my sister in the hall. The porter, the big bird, are both the penis of that roomer. He had a very large penis."

"How do you know that?"

"I told you that already."

"Tell me about it again." (As a matter of fact, he had never said a word about it. He had probably intended speaking about it, and the intention is retained in memory as a matter of fact. This frequently occurs during an analysis.)

"Well — the teacher gave me lessons. We were often alone in his room. He would put his penis in my left hand and I would rub it until a white juice would run out."

"How often did he do that?"

"Ten times, he did it."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Ten times." (See the dream with the number ten.)

"What does that mean in the dream where you say 'we came up to the place from behind'? Why did you stick that piece of paper into the Jew's behind?"

"The teacher used to undress me and then switch me lightly on the legs. Later on he used to do that in school, too. He also tried to put his penis in my rectum, but it hurt me and I cried out He then put his finger in and I liked it. I was quite under

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his spell. He was the teacher and said that I had to do every- thing he told me to do. If I were to speak of this, however, I'd feel like dying." "Do you remember what his name was ?"

"Certainly. Sonnenthal. ('It's lovely in the country when the sun is shining/) He is also the man with the pince-nez. He used to pinch my whole body, but especially my calves and buttocks. He also commanded me to put my penis into his rectum. He would bend his back and bend over. He was really nothing but a dirty Jew ('it was like a play inside ; an ugly Jew was with me')."

"Do you remember all these things clearly ?"

"Certainly."

"Then why haven't you said anything about them?"

"I don't know, doctor. May I open my eyes? I'm not sleep- ing. I'm awake. I'm not even sure whether I was asleep the first time I was hypnotized. I'm sure I've always remembered this thing about Sonnenthal, but I didn't want to know it, as you so accurately wrote. I understand now why I'm always running about so much. I'm really running after all these experiences I had in childhood."

We still had to explain his impotence, but this, too, found an un- expected interpretation. It appears that he has staged the impo- tence for his own benefit. We know that ever since his childhood he has been fighting to destroy all his joys. He feels that he doesn't deserve any happiness in life and even as a boy he would ask himself what good happiness would do him. He would imag- ine that he had had his pleasures and everything was the same as before. He always had a good erection when with his wife. But whenever he was about to have intercourse, the very philosophic thought would enter his mind: "Imagine that it's half an hour later. What did you get out of your delights ?" That would then be the end of his erection.

The explanation of this staging of a defeat is to be found in his childhood. He had a burning desire for the possession of his sisters. But he would spoil his yearning by asking himself : What have you left of your pleasure after half an hour? On the mor- row ? When you're dead ? In short, he was so completely able to depreciate the value of his sisters and push them into the back- ground of his life, that even at the beginning of the analysis he was able to wonder that they played no part in his sexual life, that he had no memories of sexual relations of any kind with them. But we have learned that he had good reason for his bad

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conscience. He fears God and wants to expiate by spoiling his every joy. He is impotent with his wife because he really de- sires her but feels he doesn't deserve her. Even as a child he be- lieved that everyone was in league with God against him, and he has preserved this feeling to this very day. He's an unlucky bird because he doesn't want to give himself any luck. He possesses the loveliest of women and can't have her. As soon as he wants to have intercourse he spoils his fun by starting to philosophize. That is not a fate. It is a self-willed and personally staged defeat.

The analysis was at an end. G. was no longer troubled by his obsessions, he was able to appear without hindering his own progress and spoiling his own successes. He lost his desire to run after girls and entice them into sadistic scenes. Three weeks after the analysis, he had resumed sexual relations with his wife. She was no longer his sister or his mother image, but his wife.

From many points of view, this case is an exceptional pic- ture. First of all, we see here the power of infantile ex- periences and the influence of the environment. A sullied mother who used her child as a badge of respectability to catch men (a married woman with a child — a trick of many prosti- tutes who even borrow children in order to use them for this purpose. Also a speculation in pedophilic possibilities). Con- trasted with this, a strict and respectable father who, along with the pious grandmother, was a representative of morality. The ambivalence in his soul was undoubtedly caused by this anoma- lous environment of his childhood.

His marriage was a trial to free himself from the bonds of his infantile habits. But identifying his wife with his sister, as he did, made her taboo and the road to his paraphilia was again open.

We observe a massive impulse to achieve a repetition of the experiences of early childhood. The scenes he enacts in the hotel with the girls is really a composite of several early mem- ories (mother, sister and teacher). His steady battle against his homosexuality leads to the repression* of these instincts and their consequent absorption in the symptomatology of the spe- cific scene. He becomes the teacher and the girls play the little boy who is switched across the legs. We also have here

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an explanation of why he was always so weak and uncertain during the coitus which would follow these scenes with the girls. He could hardly find the vagina because he was really looking for the teacher's anus.

His kleptomania was really secondary. It becomes interest- ing only through its connection with the linens and underthings he took. This habit is reducible to a very primitive instinct, the olfactory impulse. He began to use his mother's under- things for his onanistic purposes when yet a little boy. Rudi- ments of this impulse are still within him and he would still like to steal women's underthings if it were not such a danger- ous business. Not all such cases show clear connections with incestuous tendencies as this one has.

Wagner-Jauregg described a case of a maid who used to steal her master's shirts and put them on at night. I know of a maid who used the cast-off chemises of her mistress as night- gowns. She was surprised in one by the mistress and suffered an hysterical attack as a result of which she was brought to me for an opinion. It was easy to judge that this maid was in love with her mistress and liked to titillate herself with the mistress's odor.

There are kleptomaniacs who steal corsets, handkerchiefs, underwear, stockfngs, etc., and use them as a means of sexual excitement. They are usually called fetishists. If our patient had been interested only in these underthings, had collected a harem of such articles, had completely rejected the female in their favor, then we could call him a fetishist. His calf par- tialism is determined by many factors. Sadger's declaration, which is supposed to represent Freud's opinion, too, viz., that every fetish represents the female genital to the fetish lover, does not exhaust the problem. Their proofs are supposed to be found in the fact that such cases improve after analysis. A bust fetishist (Sadger's terminology) loses his monopolizing inter- est in breasts after the treatment and begins to have intercourse, i.e., he interests himself in the female genitals. That is, of course, no proof at all that the breasts are supposed to represent the female genital. We know that any erogenous zone can be genitalized, as it were, and take over the role of the genitals. As soon as the infantile fixations are lifted, the patient turns

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his interest again to the central theme of normal sexual rela- tions.

In Chapter II, we were able to observe how it is possible that in a case of bust partialism special circumstances can fixate an interest in a certain erogenous zone after puberty without the basis of an incestuous determinant. In the above-mentioned case, the bust was the memory of an unforgotten sweetheart.

Partialism is such a widespread and common characteristic among humans that we can hardly look upon it as anything but normal. It is naturally individualized in each case. One would have to cite many, many cases to illustrate and explain all types of partial preference psychologically and analytically. We may be satisfied with the above cases. Such a work as this is not supposed to be a cabinet of curiosities, but a scientific treatise. Now that we have fulfilled our duties in analyzing some of these curious conditions, we may turn again to the complicated prob- lems of true fetishism.

To return to our case again, we must say that G. is always staging one scene — always the same. He has not been able to overcome the tyranny of infantile symbolisms and to fix him- self to a single object of reality. He is subject to the com- pulsion of serial formation, nor is he capable of concentrating his attention for any length of time on one person. Not even the acme of masochism, the woman who serves his every sadis- tic will, can hold him. He may try a few repetitions, but is fleeting in his tastes. He flies out on the street, seeks anothet object. But he does not search for the girl, he looks for thfc resistance to his wishes, the barrier to overcome.

Chance had it that soon after I had finished with this case, a colleague came to me with a girl who, he declared, must be suffering from a paralogia because the story she has constructed about her defloration sounded so improbable. I had the girl tell me her story and immediately realized that she must have been one of G.'s girls.1 Her description corresponded in detail with everything which I knew only too well. I was, of course, able to reassure my colleague that the girl was not suffering from a paralogia, but that her story consisted of sad facts. I was, however, able to learn that G. had described his sadistic acts much more harmlessly to me than they actually were. This girl

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had been recommended to him by another gentleman to learn dancing. G. led her onto a half -darkened stage and had her do some steps for him. Elise — as we may call the girl — was a twenty-one-year-old, nervous, hysterical person whose one de- sire it was to become a famous dancer. She had, however, never learned to dance before and was able to do only a few simple steps and some graceful bows. G. told her that she would have to go through some strenuous training in order to become famous. He locked her in a dark chamber for half an hour, pulled her by the hair and finally took her to a hotel. There he had her take everything but her chemise off and when she made a false step, he would switch her over the calves with a girdle (he was not able to get a whip). He commanded her to hold her hands behind her back. Elise complied because she was fascinated by the thought of becoming a famous dancer. As soon as she had her hands behind her back, he tied them and continued to become more and more strict and cruel. She began to protect herself. She yelled and cried for help, but no one came. He became even more vicious and finally threw her across the bed, so that her legs were pressed close to his body. She implored him to spare her, cried that she was yet a virgin, but he laughed sarcastically and said that they didn't need vir- gins in the theatre. She finally weakened and he deflorated her in a coitus that lasted but a few seconds, but was painful to her nevertheless. He then unbound her and gave her some money which she took hesitatingly. We are not here interested in Elise's further destiny, except to say that she tried to gain redress through the courts. She consulted an attorney, but was unsuccessful. G. had arranged things so well that no one was able to catch him.2

We see clearly that his special scenes are a composite of four separate experiences, (i) His father's beatings; (2) Love and hate of the mother; (3) The scene with the teacher; (4) The scene with his sister.

I was immediately struck by the similarity which Elise bore to G. She looked as if she were his sister and might have been his younger sister, especially. I had known his younger sister and had treated her for a parapathia.

If we analyze this scene of his, we can observe the fact that

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the chief factor in it is ascribable to the influence of his teacher.

1. He is the teacher. He is punished and allegedly must study in that little room. Instead, he is forced to suffer a homo- sexual act. His restlessness is due to his eternal reactivation of this one scene.

2. He is the father. The sadistic part of the scene is derived from his father, who was his first teacher. This man had chas- tised him and had also punished him by locking him in a dark room.

3. He beats his mother — the whore. The whipping across the calves is a sadistic transformation of his original love scenes with his mother (we know, on the other hand, that he had also been highly interested in the calves of boys, especially between the ages of seven and fourteen).

4. He repeats the old scenes with his sister. The coitus is violently executed on the bed in such a manner that the girl's legs are pressed close about his body (see the dream about his sister and his mother). Instead of cunnilingus, he has inter- course. He also confessed that he sometimes practised cunni- lingus instead of coitus.

5. He pays the girl just as the men used to pay his mother. He identifies himself with the innumerable lovers his mother had and perhaps also with one his sister had.

We have not been able to corroborate Sadger and Freud's statement that the fetish (the calf) represents the female geni- tal. In this case, the calf is determined by the calves of his mother, his sister and the maid who always went about the house with naked legs and bare feet. In addition to this deter- minant, the calves represent the calves of boys and also the phallus to which he is homosexually fixated. Like many sadists, he has a small phallus, and that is one of the bases of their de- sire to revenge themselves on human kind. His hatred of women is derived from his hatred of his mother, who was a prostitute. It follows that he married a woman with a more than questionable past, i.e., he has recreated his mother in her (also his sister, who began her life along the lines of her mother. She later saved herself by marriage, but paid for her life with a serious parapathia).

The calf is thus a complex symbol in this case, just as in the

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case I described in Chapter IV, where it represented the brother's phallus and many other complexes. It is a dangerous thing to try to solve paraphilias with a single formula. They are usually of a very complicated structure. We shall have sufficient opportunity to dwell upon this point in our analyses of true fetishism.

In this case, we can see how the up-bringing started an other- wise well-fitted, highly talented, fine and well-liked man on the road to criminality. The blame rests finally with his mother.

[edit]

VII PARTIALISM AND THE HAREM CULT

Variatio delectat ! How innumerable are the variations which Eros creates in order to make the monotonous simplicity of the natural sex organ interesting to the sexologist. The most widespread form of partialism is the preference for feet. I have always wondered at the fact that there are many more foot fetishists than hand lovers. I must admit of some bias in view of the fact that I paid especial attention to the sexual impor- tance of the hand when I made a study of autoerotism and both male and female impotence. The previous volumes of this series contain sufficient material to corroborate the importance of the hand in human sexual life. Nevertheless, the number of those who seek only the hand, seek only to kiss, stroke, pet or suck on it, is rather circumscribed. A far greater number of men emphasize the importance of the beautiful hand only as a means to the attractive female herself. I know many aesthetes who could never kiss a woman whose hands repelled them. I know of cases, on the other hand, where the one partner has fallen in love at first sight primarily through the effective agency of well-shaped hands which happened to fulfill his particular love conditions. They were, in such cases, the short-circuit be- tween love preparedness and infatuation.1

In the two following cases, the hand is the central theme of interest. Both cases, however, show flight from the female. The chief point is really not whether a patient has been able to have coitus one time more or less. The deciding factor is rather that behind the partialism, there lurks an anti-feminine tendency, even an anti-sexual and ascetic striving.

Moll reports the first case as follows :

Case 25. P. L., a twenty-eight-year-old Westfalian business man, revealed no hereditary stigmatization. Upon questioning, he gave the following information about his sexual life. As far as he can remember, his first sexual experience came when he was

1 6s

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seven years old. Si pueri eiusdem fere setatis mingentis membrum adspexit, valde libidinibus excitatus est. L. claims with great certainty that he had an erection during this excitement. He stated that he was taught to masturbate by another boy when he was about seven or eight. "Being a very easily excitable nature," says L., "I masturbated frequently until I was eighteen without in the least feeling any deleterious results or being at all conscious of the real nature of the act." He liked especially cum nonullis com- militonibus mutuam masturbationem tractare, but he was not at all indifferent to who the other boy was. On the contrary, not every schoolmate satisfied him in this respect. When questioned about the possible conditions he sought in another boy, he an- swered that it was particularly a pale, well-formed hand which attracted him to mutual masturbation. L. also recalls that during the time when he took exercises, he would often find himself alone on the bars at one end of the gymnasium. He did this with the view ut quam maxime excitaretur idque tantopere assectus est, ut membro manu non tacto, sine ejaculatione — puerili aetate erat — voluptatem clare senserit. Still another procedure in his child- hood commands our interest. One of L.'s favorite schoolmates, N., with whom he mutually masturbated once made him the fol- lowing proposition : ut L. membrum N. — i apprehendere conaretur, he, N., would struggle as much as possible and try to prevent L. from doing it. L. agreed and the masturbation was thus directly connected with a sort of fight between the two, L. always being the winner and N. the conquered (in other words, a sort of rudi- mentary sadism in L. and masochism in N. — St.).

The struggle always ended regularly ut N. tandem coatus sit membrum masturbari. L. assured me that this type of masturba- tion afforded not only himself but also N. a particularly height- ened sense of gratification. It was in this fashion that L. con- tinued to masturbate until he was eighteen, but once he was told about the nature of masturbation by his friend, he tried with all his might to desist. He was also able to execute his will more and more as time went on until, as soon as he had experienced his first coitus, he was able to stop masturbation entirely. By that time, however, he was over twenty-one. To-day he says he can hardly understand how he was able to masturbate with other boys and he feels nauseated at the thought. No power in the world could make him touch another man's organ now, and even the sight of another's penis is disgusting to him. He claims that the last vestige of his attraction to other men has faded and that he

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feels himself wholly attracted to women. We must mention, how- ever, that although he feels himself dedicated sexually to women, this attraction is marked by a rather abnormal characteristic. The chief source of his sexual excitement in a woman is the sight of a lovely hand. He is far more deeply affected by the sight or touch of a graceful, feminine hand quam si candam f emi- nam plane nudatam adspiceret. Just how completely he is held spellbound by a woman's hand may be seen from the following incident.

L. was acquainted with a young woman who possessed almost all of the feminine virtues, but her hands were fairly large and not well shaped. They were perhaps also not always very clean, as he would wish. It was therefore not only impossible for L. to cultivate a very intimate friendship with the woman, he was not even capable of touching her. L. feels that there can hardly be a more disgusting sight for him than dirty finger nails, and unclean nails alone would make it impossible for him to have anything to do with the most beautiful of women. L. frequently used to sub- stitute for coitus in earlier years by ut puellam usque ad ejacu- lationem effectam membrum suum manu tractare iusserit.

He was asked just what it might be in a woman's hand that provoked him, whether it might be the symbol of strength and whether he would like to be directly humiliated by a woman. He answered that it was simply the form of the hand which at- tracted him and that he would derive no pleasure whatever in being humiliated by a woman, furthermore, that he had never thought of the hand as the symbol of female strength. His pref- erence for a woman's hand is even to-day so great ut majore vo- luptat afficiatur si manus feminae membrum tractat quam coitu in vaginam. He nevertheless likes to perform the latter instead, be- cause intercourse appeals to him as something more normal whereas his other leaning makes him feel pathological. When- ever a lovely female hand touches him, his erection is instan- taneous. He states that kisses and other forms of petting or adu- lation haven't nearly the same effect on him.

The patient performed intercourse only during the last few years, but even so, the determination to do so was not easy. He also found far less gratification in coitus than otherwise. If, how- ever, he finds himself in the immediate vicinity of a woman to whom he is attracted, the very sight of her alone is often so ef- fective that his excitement can rise until he ejaculates. L. assures me that under such circumstances he never so much as touches

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his penis, but the orgasm gives him a much deeper satisfaction than if he were having intercourse.

L.'s dreams are never concerned with intercourse, and when- ever he has an emission during the night, it occurs in connection with quite different thoughts from those prevailing in the minds of most men. The dreams L. has are recapitulations of his ex- periences during his school days. At that time he also would have an orgasm whenever he was greatly frightened or anxious. When, e.g., the teacher would read a passage for the boys to translate and he was not able to follow, he would frequently have an ejacu- lation. His present nocturnal emissions are always accompanied by dreams which reenact some such scene as the one described. The patient feels that because of his abnormal feelings and de- sires he will never be able to love one woman for any length of time.

This case reveals a marked bisexual tendency and also a re- treat from the female. His dreams betray some secret sexual desire which is inaccessible to the patient's conscious. All such dreams about not getting through or not achieving something show, according to my own experience in the matter, that the patient has some goal in mind which cannot be achieved or reached. It is quite false to believe that the anxiety about not getting finished in time can provoke an orgasm. The psychic mechanism is rather that the duty he must apparently perform is only a mask behind which a much more important or difficult duty is hidden. The manifest problem is only a symbol of a hidden sexual life. You won't achieve your sexual objective ! (Unfortunately, Moll's case was not analyzed.) The present duty of the individual is thus a sort of oracle, i.e., if you can perform this duty well then you will have solved the other, more difficult, one, too. The problem, however, is a forbidden fruit (usually incest or some serious paraphilia) and that is the rea- son the impulse is inhibited by anxiety. The development of anxiety then accompanies the orgasm.

The next case gives us even deeper insight into the structure of hand fetishism.

Case 26. G. L. is a twenty-three-year-old student of medicine and would like to be freed from a passion which now so takes up his energies that he can hardly think properly. The livelong day

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he thinks and dreams of lovely women's hands, to such an extent, as a matter of fact, that he can no longer do the slightest bit of work. We note the characteristically complete immolation of the fetishist. Like weeds, the fetishistic thoughts and phantasies over- grow the entire field of the patient's life. Even the most gratify- ing transient relief does not satisfy for long nor give him peace. That is precisely the difference between normal sexual gratifica- tion and compulsive satisfaction. When a normal man is tor- tured by the pressure of great libidinal desire, there is for him one act of relief, after which he falls into a more or less long period of relative peace and sexual indifference. In fetishistic paraphilias, however, which are nothing but obsessional neuroses, the gratification and surcease is only short lived and soon the old, implacable impulses are at it again.

G. L. portrays his fetishism as follows:

Ever since I can remember, I have had a pathological prefer- ence for hands and have taken every possible oppportunity to kiss the hands of every girl and woman I can get hold of. My pleas- ures are not connected directly with the kissing of the hands, how- ever, but rather when I soar off into phantasies about doing it. I suppose, therefore, that my raptures are not provoked by the actual contact of "hand and lip," but probably by the associated feeling of humiliation. I can recall that even when I was five years old, I used to kiss my governess* hands and — when no one else was about — used to call her "gracious lady." That tickled me. Be- tween the ages of eight and seventeen, I masturbated almost daily and invariably excited myself by imagining all kinds of the basest humiliations. I now remember a most pleasing phantasy I had : I would dream that I was a plantation owner and that I had my female slaves whip and tread me under their feet. I came to masturbate in the following manner. I went to public school for but half a year and while there I recall having to do some arith- metic problem which was too difficult for me. I felt a great anxiety come over me which soon turned to distinct rapture. I did something involuntarily with my hand and this noticeably in- creased my pleasure. While in high school, I was quite proud of my dangerous secret, but I soon began to suffer from a nervous breakdown. During the later years of high school, I had a dis- tinct homosexual leaning. I was downright in love with one of my schoolmates, but nothing serious ever came of it except harm- less tenderness and a deep mutual trust. The fact that he was anti- Semitic and suffered my attraction to him rather than invited it,

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increased my pleasure in the relationship if anything. Even to-day, his type of person gives me a thrill of delight whenever I see an example. I nevertheless feel towards him now as if he were the cause of my present nature (although he is not), a bitter hate it is, and I have often had phantasies of murdering him in cold blood.

I first began to notice girls when, in the dancing school, etc., I had to be a little gallant towards them. As soon as a girl becomes at all friendly towards me, I like her immensely, but she immedi- ately loses all sexual charms for me. I am always looking out for plenty of variety in my abasement. I am already a little jaded by the thrill I used to get out of hand-kissing and bending on my knee, but these extravagant forms of mine have had the effect on one girl of causing her spontaneously to raise her hand for me to kiss whenever she sees me. At such a moment I have often had a prompt ejaculation which depleted me tremendously. When- ever I offer my seat in the street car to a woman, I feel that my voice trembles with emotion. If I feel impelled to kiss a woman's hand in front of many other people, my lips twitch. You see, I like to talk about my illness. As a matter of fact, one of my bad points is that I have very little sense of shame. I haven't yet gone in for masochistic literature, but I like to commit social errors and then regret them with pleasure afterwards. Every morning, I awaken with great anxiety which disappears only after I have reached the street. I am very stingy with my time and if I feel that I have wasted even a quarter of an hour, I reproach myself mercilessly. I once had the habit of looking stealthily at the clock every few minutes, but even so my nervousness makes me com- pletely incapable of any work. I have a fervent desire for inde- pendence in everything, dislike to have books recommended to me. react indifferently or antipathetically to persons with whom I am brought together, and usually listen to advice courteously only to forget it immediately afterwards. I seem to derive pleasure from lying and I have probably never spoken a true word to even my best friends. Sometimes I am cowardly and yet again I can be foolhardy, but always I am moody. I am sometimes subject to outbursts of niggardliness which can be downright grotesque. Thus, for example, I cannot see any line of a piece of paper un- used without feeling disturbed about it, and I often consider spending money for a street car ride very carefully, although I have, on the other hand, given out a good deal of money for super- fluous articles. I also lose money frequently. Names and the

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sense of direction drop from my mind immediately and I find my- self quite distracted. I cannot pay attention to lectures for more than a very short time and whereas I formerly went to the thea- tre frequently, I can now hardly bring myself to look at the stage. It is a habit with me to procrastinate and leave important things to the last minute. I also come late for appointments and keep people waiting. There have been Sundays when I have made three or four appointments for the same time and I seem to get a feeling of triumph from the knowledge that someone is waiting for me in vain. Philosophy and literature interest me especially, but I have a distaste for the special sciences. For the past twelve years I have had the determination to become a writer and al- though I frequently change my plans abruptly, I have never been shaken in this one purpose. It has practically become a fixed idea with me. I have the courage of my convictions, believe in my own talent and am rather insensitive to both the teasing of my colleagues or their objective criticisms. Well-meant advice, how- ever, especially if it is given by anyone upon whom I look as an authority, can provoke me to actual fits of frothy anger (e.g., "lyrics aren't being read, it's better to go into business"). Fre- quently I have played with the idea of committing suicide. For the past ten years I have been keeping a rather exhaustive and detailed diary which, as far as I know, no person has ever read. I have never been able to accomplish normal intercourse, but I feel that I am becoming more and more sensually excited every day. In this very personal diary of mine, by the way, I have the tendency (perhaps unconscious) to falsify everything in such a manner that it makes me appear in a more favorable light. My dreams are frequently masochistic in character.

This patient reveals a number of compulsive actions which are quite transparent if one remembers that his mother died on the 5th of November ( 5/1 1 ) and that he reproached himself bitterly for death wishes he harbored against her.

He continues :

Ever since the death of my sister, I close every notation in my diary with the words : "Regards to my dead !" I have never yet left a single space unwritten in that diary, and if any page hap- pens to have a line unfilled, I scribble a few irrelevant words in it as a filler. On important occasions I pray for my deceased relatives in the following order (strict routine) : mother, sister,

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grandparents, grandfather (paternal). During the first wave of sorrow that overcame me after the death of a great artist, I thought of including him in my prayer also, but that soon ap- peared to be a sacrilege against my mother. I am also subject to the habit of repeating the word mother five or eleven times in my mind before every important decision. The numbers five and eleven have altogether monopolized my mind. My explanation is as follows : Whenever I climb stairs, for example, I feel that I must begin and finish with the right foot. While climbing the stairs, I propose various obsessional problems to myself, e.g., to climb three stairs before anyone meets me coming down ("three of a kind"). But even more. I feel that I must have passed this end point (i.e., the third step) completely and to this end I feel that I must go beyond it by at least one step with each foot. In short, my life seems to have no absolute resting point. The same is true of the numbers nine (three times three) and two in my mind. I count from one to eleven and then from eleven to one backwards and finally repeat to myself the word zero eleven times. When I am telephoning, I feel impelled to stand first on one foot, then on the other and finally on both feet long enough for me to have counted quickly to five or eleven. I cannot com- fortably begin the conversation until I have done this. I become unbearably embarrassed whenever I have to converse with anyone in my father's presence. Without actually wishing to do so, I find that I invariably make use of the same figures and manners of speech in the presence of the same persons. Thus, e.g., there is one colleague whom I always greet with the stereotyped state- ment that I consider his phlegmatic make-up as an indication of hidden power. A girl once told me that she was not in the least interested in conversation about travel or philosophy and as often as I meet her I serve her nothing but these dishes as food for her ears. I almost laugh in the face of one of my acquaintances when- ever I meet him, but not because he is so funny, only because he once told me that I had "such a nervous laugh." As long as I liked any friend, I would find myself involuntarily passing his house or the place where he lived several times a day, and while I was under the spell of the great artist I mentioned before, I would find myself unconsciously wandering into the opera house even in the morning, although I may have left the house in quite the op- posite direction. On the street, I invariably endeavor to pass as many people as I can, loving couples being of special interest in this game. In passing them up, I get the feeling as if I were get-

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ting further in life (and love) than they or their posterity. Dur- ing the past winter I became subject to the fixed notion that I had to kiss the hand of at least one girl per day. I would disconso- lately consider that day as lost and wasted on which I had been unable to carry out my project. As a matter of fact, I am con- tinuously plagued by the obsession of "losing time." I feel in the most comfortable spirits if I can hold some shakeable or handy object in my hand (such as a blade of grass or a stalk of wheat or oats). There are many persons whom I like a great deal, but I have never been able to say a sweet or kind word to them yet. I am obsessed with the habit of drinking to the bottom every glass of water which stands on the table before me, even though I may not be thirsty. I have often drunk up pitchers full in this fashion.

This list of compulsive acts demands our careful analysis. In the first place, we see here a totem cult which reminds one very much of the habits of primitive peoples who fear the re- venge of the deceased and especially the killed.2 Our patient has every reason for fearing the revenge of the dead, for he feels nothing but malicious joy at the death of another : What luck that it's not I ! What advantage would I have ? In short, he reacts to the situation with the most direct and primitive of feelings, but these in turn provoke a moral backwash which is the expression of highly cultivated sensitivity. Even the death of mother and sister were a source of satisfaction to him, for from then on his father was dependent upon him. Father was then entirely his own. The fact that he says prayers for all the dead (despite his boasting of his being a freethinker and atheist) shows that he wants to over-compensate for his sinful thoughts. Now that they're dead, he feels, I hope they're all right. What he was unable to wish the living, he wishes the the dead : bliss. But when a great artist died, he did not pray for him. He had no reason for doing so, for the death of this artist had actually shaken him. He had really lost a dear per- son in the artist, a person who had afforded him pleasure and against whom he had never had any death wishes.

He can't stand the presence of an unused line in his diary, nor can he suffer any free time during his day. He reveals the well-known horror vacui of parapathics who dare not think cer-

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tain thoughts which might express their guilt consciousness. He speaks the word mother before making any important de- cision. He needs her protection, the woman he had loved so deeply and had nevertheless wished dead because of his jealous desire to have her for himself alone.

The obsessional use of the numbers 5 and 11 is easily ex- plained on the basis of his mother's date of death as the fifth day of the eleventh month. All his other explanations are sim- ply rationalizations. His eleven-fold repetition of zero is only the annulment of an unpleasant past experience. The stereo- typed manners he discloses have the apparent purpose of cover- ing his embarrassment. He is even embarrassed in the presence of his father when he has to speak with other persons, the reason being that he fears they might guess his real attitude. There is always the danger that he might betray himself in a slip of the tongue, but the stereotypes and platitudes form a mechanism which insure his security. Still other habits reveal the cruelty of the man and the sense of superiority which con- stantly alternates in his breast with inferiority feelings and envy. He is indescribably ambitious and wants to be the leader. That is the hidden meaning of his walking tests in the street. He looks upon them as indicative.3

Like all obsessional neurotics he is superstitious and believes himself surrounded by mystic wonders and miracles. He be- lieves in the omnipotence of his thoughts and that is the basis for his belief of himself as the murderer of his relatives and all the other dead whom he once envied in life.

Every day he feels impelled to kiss another girl's hand. This illustrates again the serial formations of fetishists. They can never satisfy themselves with one sexual object. This patient has his own harem of lovely hands, but although he has a large variety to choose from, he cannot be true to any one. That is a characteristic which makes these cases typical. Even should he find the loveliest hands in the world one day, he would not be faithful to their possessor. He would soon be driven to another.

In turning our attention to the closer analysis of the case, I find the most important communication to be the circumstance that even as a child he was already kissing everybody's hands.

PARTI ALISM AND THE HAREM CULT 179^

In childhood, this was a courteous form of play for which he was always praised. Everyone would say : "Oh ! What a cour- teous and well-behaved little fellow he is." But even then he revealed disturbing signs which have stuck to him to this day. Thus, for instance, he cannot surfer the knowledge that anyone is indifferent to him. He feels that he must mean something to everyone, the world must love him and marvel at him. Whenever this is not the case, he feels frustrated and reacts by being unpleasant and disaffected. He can even become terribly vicious, especially when he is concerned about a girl who ap- pears to be paying him no attention. He poses as a gallant person, but this attitude is only affected. At bottom he is filled with but two feelings about women : anxiety and scorn. Anx- iety because he cannot suffer any superiority which is perma- nent, and scorn because he considers their powers as limited and looks upon them all as essentially nothing but seducers and sexual creatures ("A uterus with some lady hung on"). He also claims that he could make every woman love him. His affectation of obsequiousness, his humble hand kiss, is but a method of assuring his final triumph over all women. But the phantasy of the kiss is more important to him than the kiss itself, a circumstance which discloses to us that his hand kiss- ing but hides some process which is inaccessible to his own con- sciousness. His humility and obsequiousness are only apparent, he likes himself in this pose of the woman's friend and the masochist. The basis of his conduct, however, is sadistic, a relationship which we will discuss more thoroughly when we consider the question of masochism. Masochists are sadists who have turned their cruelty in upon themselves. In his child- hood, G. L. also had a period of sadism during which he lived only in purely cruel phantasies. Since, however, he wanted to be loved by everybody, he considered every questionable expres- sion of affection as an injury and hated all the persons who stood in the way of his achieving such love. His sister was his chief rival. He wished her dead, but when she did die, he had to suffer all the tortures of repentance. We see that his char- acter strives to revamp all his original sadistic and egoistic de- sires on an altruistic mould. He suffers from a hypersensitive morality which has become strict to the extreme of piety. He

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may protest his atheism, but inwardly he is devout and con- strained by innumerable prayers and devotions.

Thus, for example, he is bound by the resolution : "You will never really possess a woman, because you must punish your- self deeply." Following the death of his dearest kin, he made the resolution which he could keep only by the aid of his hand fetishism. The intention as such was not conscious and ap- peared only during the analysis.

He repeatedly had the opportunity to have intercourse with girls. Some even came to his room with him and practically offered themselves to him. But, despite the worst kind of an erection, he remained always within the bounds of harmless petting and playing. The important thing in his mind was to make his father believe that he was a regular Don Juan, to make his father jealous. His father was really his greatest love and also the final cause of his illness. After his mother died, he took her place in bed and slept next to his father. The latter, for his part, gave up most of the joys of life for the sake of his son and thus, in time, a sort of marriage relationship was built up between the two. The son, however, was shut-in and reticent with respect to his father. He wanted the father to feel that perhaps the son didn't love him so much as he thought. This apparent coolness was, however, only a repression of a great love. In the last analysis, this man really loved men and not women, whereas in life he played the opposite role.

He can recall only one really deep love in his life. This was a colleague in school who probably reminded him of his sister or mother. The patient also believes that the other even resem- bled him somewhat; so that we have, in addition, a narcissistic basis for the relationship. At present, however, his entire life turns about the person of his father although he makes it appear as if he were furiously cultivating the memory* of his mother. He has a picture of her on his desk, carries another with him and also wears a ring which she gave him. Such piety has but the purpose of pouring oil on the fire of his father's jealousy, to cause him pain because he does not love the patient according to the latter's wishes.

The infantile nature of his conduct is well enough demon- strated in his preservation of the childish game of kissing hands

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and playing with time. He treats time as one might treat a mistress, now he loves her, now he doesn't. He doesn't want to become old, he wants to remain a child because he is afraid of the time when he might fall in love with a woman and thus lose his father. All the hands he kisses are, after all, his father's.

He firmly believes in his becoming a godsend in his own historical mission. Christ is always on his mind. He feels himself as Christ and harbors all kinds of savior ideas. The kissing of hands also has some connection with this Christ neurosis of his. There is a scene described in the Bible which always excites him whenever he reads it. It is the scene where Mary Magdalene wets the Lord's toes with her tears and kisses his feet. "She hath been forgiven many sins, for she hath loved much; but whosoever hath been forgiven little, he hath loved little." He thinks of this scene from the Bible whenever he has occasion to kiss a woman's hand. He is the repenter, the re- gretful sinner whom God hath forgiven. He awaits salvation from a woman. He is Mary Magdalene. He plays and lives himself so deeply into the part that at times he doubts his male- ness. He then trims his sexuality to fit his feelings. Gradu- ally, however, his ideas of Christ and being an apostle are trans- formed into the notion that he may as a poet give the world a new kind of religion. He considers his life to be one grand preparation for this profession. Women are disturbing ele- ments in such plans, fame is more important than love.

His obsessional ideas are nothing but deeds of penance ad majorem gloriam Dei. These acts of penance are calculated to soften God's wrath so that he might look more mildly upon his own final triumph. He wants to get ahead of everybody. He is beside himself with envy at the slightest success of another and only in the most infrequent cases will he confess his envy even to himself. Sometimes he actually transforms his envy abruptly to uncritical and limitless wonderment. But even in this he has a chance to feel himself superior to all others and particularly superior to the girls whose hands he kisses. He wants to possess everything in some way or other, he must drink from all the fountains of knowledge and understanding, drink to the last drop. What he cannot accomplish in life

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(empty the cup of happiness), he achieves by means of innu- merable compulsive acts.

The hand is also a protective measure for him against all the temptations of this mortal world. He had sinned with the hand, masturbated, hit others with it, and it is on the hand that he must atone. Everywhere he sees hands, they reach out from heaven to him, the giant hands of God whom he feels over his head at all times. He is one of the chosen and must therefore not succumb to the lamentable weaknesses of the mortal chil- dren of the earth.

He looks upon the eccentricity of his sexual make-up as some- thing superior. One should never believe such patients when they come to the physician and beg for cure. Inwardly they are proud of their singularity, delight in the illness which di- vides them from others. What troubles another suffers to achieve a woman ! Our patient has only to kiss her hand and presto ! he has an orgasm and ejaculation. He is not alone in this kind of gratification. I know many men who satisfy them- selves in this manner. One can frequently recognize the fe- tishist in the hand kisser. They smell the hand, suck on it hard, and soon one can see that peculiar glint in their eyes which be- trays sexual ecstasy. I once knew a renowned artist who grati- fied himself only in this manner. He also was filled with ideas of salvation, founded religious movements, and wanted to start a sect of his own. He became a wandering preacher and an ascetic. With the aid of the hand, he was able to do without woman and thus successfully preserved his chastity which, fur- thermore, triumped in his old age when he became a missionary. He had strong ascetic tendencies, wanted to become a hermit, build himself a house on the top of a lonely hill, and all sorts of other phantasies.

Havelock Ellis excellently describes these attributes of the fetishist in the following passage from his book on perverted sexual feelings :

"The cause of the pathological and dangerous isolation of the fetishist is to be looked for in the extreme individualism which the development of his erotic symbolism presupposes. The lover who lets himself be guided by the elements of sexual selec- tion will always find the right way through the communal feel-

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ing which binds him to the society of other human beings. He is controlled by the feeling of his descent, by the sense of his people, at least bythat of fashion and habit. Even the pervert can usually find himself an environment in the course of time whose ideals coincide with his own. But the erotic symbolist is different. He almost invariably remains alone. He is doomed to loneliness from the very beginning because it ap- pears that erotic symbolism develops best upon the basis of ab- normal reticence and anxiety. Whenever the symbolist tries to achieve his desires (he often feels them to be* something new) and finds how different they are from the goals of other men, his original anxiety and inaccessibility are increased. He is a lonely person. What are the highest ideals to him are either childish prattle or disgustingbanalities to others, and sometimes even subject to police force. We have forgotten that all these impulses which appear to us to be so unnatural, making an apotheosis of the foot, and other parts of the body, the reten- tion of urine and feces, the desire to have intercourse with ani- mals, emphatic exhibition — all these are expressions ethically of what were concepts of the highest forms of living and deeply mystical feeling to our ancestors.

"Without some abnormal constitutional background no one can diverge very greatly from the instinctual life of the rest of human kind. An individual would at least possess a neuro- pathic impressionableness for abnormal irritations. Not infre- quently the person discloses still other abnormal signs: stig- mata, occasionally a certain degree of congenital imbecility or some disposition to mental disease.

"Quite apart from the frequency with which the manifesta- tions of erotic symbolism point to congenital abnormalities, they are altogether of the greatest interest to the careful and un- biassed psychologist. They may appear absurd or even repul- sive at times, but of all the manifestations of normal or ab- normal sexual psychology they are the most specifically human. More than all the other forms of expression, they reveal the colossal plastic power of the imagination. They disclose to us the extreme individualist who lives not only in no accord with the others of the world, but even diametrically opposed to them.

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He creates his own paradise on earth. They are the acme of human idealistic capacity."

It is certainly true that one may frequently observe rudiments of fetishism among the biologically degenerate and the mentally diseased. The marked infantilism of such persons may be the cause for the development. But fetishism is per se certainly no sign of biological degeneration. We must not forget that a paralogia is a regression to an infantile level and shows the same mechanisms as a parapathia. The circumstance that a person possesses a fetishistic leaning is not yet a sign that he is hereditarily stigmatized. It is especially among the fetishists that I have been unable to find even a trace of hereditary devia- tion in the family history. The patients themselves were de- cidedly of the intellectual class. Two of these cases will con- cern us in the next chapter. In many cases, this abnormality is the only pathological streak in the individual. But beyond the hereditary principle, we can always find the repressed psy- chic conflict between sexual desire and sexual anxiety, the fear of the sexual partner, the inner piety of the man and the tend- ency to fix one's infantile experiences for all time.

It is at this point that I wish to discuss that curious phe- nomenon of fetishists : series formation, harem cult. The fetish lover recompenses himself for his loneliness by means of a host of phantasies which become incarnate in one symbol. This plurality of figures is really a substitute for one single figure as the case of our pillow fetishist showed. In my experience such cases are not at all so seldom.

One of the most curious cases on record, and one which is of importance for our purpose, is that of Dr. R. Hahn (Ein merkwürdiger Fall von Diebstahl aus Gegenstands fetishismus. H. Gross* Archiv, Vol. LX, 1914).

Case 27. This is the case of a cabinet-maker, T., who was caught in the act of stealing children's and infants' bed clothing and thereupon arrested. In the course of the investigation against him, it came to light that, although he was an otherwise blameless individual, he had already been punished several times before for very similar thefts and that he had never committed the thefts for personal gain (he always stole only infants' bed clothing), but

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apparently because of an abnormal sexual impulse. This was the reason for his psychiatric examination.

The story of his life is negative. He states that he began to masturbate at twelve years of age, having come upon the habit by chance or, rather, as a result of the sinister effects of a signifi- cant experience. He got hold of a book at that time which re- vealed to him all the details of matrimonial and sexual life, and reading it excited him to a terrific sexual pitch. It was precisely at this time, too, that his greatly pregnant sister came home and began to get the crib, the linens and all the baby's things ready for the coming child. He claims that the combination of the book, his pregnant sister and the infant's things made an unforgettable impression upon him. So much so that he suffered from painful erections and felt impelled to find relief in masturbation, but, in some way which he is unable to explain, he seized upon the un- born child's bed clothes for his purpose. From then on he mas- turbated almost daily, using his sister's quilts because he soon learned that they afforded him an even greater gratification. In the course of time, his sexual excitement became more and more intimately bound up with the thought and the sight of infant's bed clothing.

After his confirmation he was apprenticed and learned cabinet- making. His statements to the effect that he had always done satisfactory work and led a quiet and respectable life were con- firmed by the certificates he bore with him. He was not given to drink, showed no pathological intolerance for the drug, nor effected any crime or theft while under the influence of the same. He continued to masturbate excessively even while apprenticed, although, as he claims, he tried vainly to overcome the habit for a few weeks, the result being that his lust became even more deeply affected by the thought or sight of children's bed linens and he masturbated twice as much as before. He was invariably attached to the use of baby quilts or infant's clothing while satisfying him- self and often bought himself the desired objects for his purposes. Since, however, he liked to change his fetishes frequently, and he neither earned nor had access to sufficient money to acquire them as often as he wanted ; since, also, he was not nearly so provoked by ones he bought as by ones which may have been used already, he found himself driven to the acquisition of these goods in a criminal manner, i.e., he stole them whenever and wherever it was possible for him to find access to them.

November 5, 1898, he tried to shoot himself in the heart with a

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revolver because he felt that his abnormal sexual feelings had brought him to distraction.

He had never had anything to do with a girl and since he never felt any special desire to cultivate the acquaintance of women, he also never frequented places where he might meet them, e.g., a dance hall. He did have intercourse when he was nineteen; he was taken in by a prostitute. After 1903, he frequently visited houses of prostitution. He had coitus several times, but always found it difficult to produce an erection or achieve ejaculation unless he imagined babies' quilts or stared steadily at the corner of his prostitute's pillow (it seems always to have been the same one). In most cases, he had to complete his satisfaction after intercourse by masturbating, and at any rate, these trials of nor- mal sexual contact did not in the least aid him in ridding himself of his fetishistic tendencies. His passionate impulse to find grati- fication only in infant's things was not at all diminished. It was for this reason that he soon chose to give up normal intercourse altogether. Even after he had been severely punished several times by heavy prison sentences for his thefts of infant's bed goods, he always returned to his old habit with irresistible alac- rity. Wherever he would see little quilts and babies' goods, he felt goaded by the impulse to acquire them, to steal them. He would force himself to walk past the place, turn back once, twice, three times ; go on again ; but finally he could not resist and would have to return. He has often take the greatest pains, overcome the greatest difficulties, has even exposed himself to the most threatening dangers in order to achieve his purpose. Thus, for example, he would collect babies' blankets and quilts from the windows of each story in a house, without thinking, apparently, that he could be seen (these statements were corroborated by sworn witneses and incorporated in the records). He would even drag up ladders or climb over fences and shrubbery, break into private grounds and property, only to gain possession of the bed clothing. He would be plunged into an almost feverish animation which would pass only with the acquisition of the desired object. His impulse to steal, however, never concerned any other type of object. He never tried to enrich himself through stealing nor had he ever been subject to police punishment for any other rea- son. He invariably took the stolen goods home with him, but the very achievement or possession of the things was sufficient grati- fication for him, although he usually felt the desire to use them during masturbation. He usually kept them at home for a while

PARTI ALISM AND THE HAREM CULT 187

and used them in this wise, but finally he would destroy the goods, especially because no one object was ever able to hold his attention for long. Altogether he committed about eighty or ninety such dangerous and difficulty thefts.

There was only one type of quilt which was able to provoke immediate erection in him and make him desire prompt gratifica- tion on the object and that was any red or red and white striped blanket with a flowered coverlet and lace trimming. He states that this preference doubtless derives from the fact that his sister, as he can still remember very well, had just such little coverlets when he was a boy. The greater the similarity between coverlets he sees and the ones his sister had, the greater is his sexual lust, and he feels himself impelled to acquire the piece at any price. He claims never to have been excited about blue, brown or other colored goods, but the sight of the right colored quilt will create a sudden and irresistible wave of feeling in him. He cannot wait until he goes home for money or borrows it. He must gain pos- session of the article forthwith. But even though he recognizes the serious mistakes he commits, he feels that he is hopelessly delivered into the hands of an unhappy habit. He fears that he shall never be otherwise. He assures one that he has often tried to repress his abnormal impulse to theft and sexual gratification, to forget, control or fight an instinct which makes him so unhappy ; but even though he may have been able to accomplish this pur- pose for a week or two with the aid of all his reserve energy, the first sight of the proper fetish plunged him again into his habits. His unhappy passion shadows him even in his dreams and in them he has often experienced sexual situations which he repeat- edly knew in life, whereas he cannot remember having had any other kind of sexual dream. He would usually awaken from such dreams with a great erection or just after an emission. He de- clares that the best thing would have been the successful termina- tion of his attempt at suicide, especially since he does not feel sure that he would now have the nerve to take up the revolver again. As it is, he finds no more use in living.

Since the findings of the experts, with which the court agreed, were to the effect that the prisoner's soundness of mind and re- sponsibility at the time of the theft could not be absolutely de- nied, he was again sentenced to a new and increased term in prison. He was found repeatedly masturbating while in jail, but had nothing further to add to his above statements. He himself seemed to meet his fate with inner composure. He never re-

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vealed any sign of marked psychic disturbance. Nothing further is known of him.

It is seldom that one can find such an open approach to the psychogenesis of an uncomplicated case as this. It must be apparent even to the analytically lay person, that this man has displaced his emotional attachments in sexual phantasies about his sister to the bed things. The quilts are nothing but a mental bridge over which he reaches his pregnant sister again, the sister who will soon have a child. This eternally unfulfilled desire for his sister creates an impulse in him and the forbidden or taboo character of the process is transposed to the kleptomania accord- ing to a manner which we have already explained in detail. In this case, the harem cult is particularly striking (80-90 quilts), and it is also subject to analysis.

We see a plurality of fetishes appear whenever a certain, defi- nite object is not obtainable. The endless series of objects then has the purpose of removing the original point of departure to a greater distance, making it seem further away. In my dis- cussion of Don Juan,4 I called attention to this serial formation as a substitute for something else. Unfulfilled wishes create symbolic acts, the constant and frequent repetition of which symbolically represents the individual seeking and never finding his ideal.

The infantile character of the kleptomania and the pleasure in this case is strikingly portrayed by the choice of the sexual object. Coitus itself does not satisfy him and must be helped along by phantasies of babies' bed clothing. After intercourse, he continues with masturbation because onanism as an adequate method of gratification ends in orgasm, too. His incestuous phantasies are manifestly smuggled into his onanistic phan- tasies.

It is inconceivable that they still have judges who could sen- tence this poor patient to a "protracted term in prison." The character of this insurmountable obsession is so marked, the reduced state of his mental vision at the time of the act so clear, that only a deficient education in sexual abnormalities can ex- cuse such a severe sentence.

The harem cult is a trait which gives us more psychological

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understanding of all kinds of collectors. They are concerned with the formation of a series, i.e., with substitutes. Origi- nally, the impulse was directed at quite another object, e.g., in this last case it was the sister of the patient. The real motive here was the wish to be her child, to be cared for and nursed by her. He identifies himself with his sister and is really the child in the crib. Actually, he plays both roles, but since his wish is never fulfilled and cannot be gratified, he can never rest. He is in a state of psychic perpetual motion. We see what it is that makes these persons so restless. They are subject to the repetition compulsion which, according to Freud, is a striving to improve on a former situation, to transform an unpleasant situation into a pleasurable one. "If I had only gone after my sister then I should have possessed her !" But he is left to re- peat the play with substitutes. Sobriety follows upon a tran- sient period of emotional drunkenness and the perpetual motion continues. The forbidden or taboo nature of his desires is expressed in the forbidden or anti-social character of his acts (kleptomania). Having repressed his wish to possess his sis- ter, having subjected his own activity, he now releases himself symbolically in the repetition compulsion. It is the categorical imperative of repentance over an omitted aggression which drives him to new symbolical aggressions.

In the following, I have brought together a few more exam- ples of harem cult in fetishists without taking the trouble to add a pyschological explanation. On the basis of what I have said above, however, it is clear that there must necessarily be such an interpretation in every case. Only a psychoanalysis will divulge the proper answer.

Case 28. Kurt Boas reported the case of a wig fetishist in H. Gross' Archiv (Vol. 39, Nos. 1 and 2, criminalistic review). The patient, a clear case of transvestitism, is always trying to get hold of large and modern women's wigs. He then admires him- self vainly in a mirror, but his delight is distinctly increased and provoked to heights of desired gratification (ejaculation) if he can then top the wig with a woman's hat of pot, bell or stork's nest form. Having learned from dream analyses that the hat is a symbolical representative of the genitals, we can understand the relations of the patient's animation and the fetishism. For him

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the act of setting the hat on top of the wig is symbolical of the act of sexual union. Many forms of fetish attachment are based upon a "super-valuation of the symbol" which has deposed reality in the patient's mind.

Keferstein reported the following case in the Zeitschrift f. Med.-Beamte, p. 771, 19 14.

Case 29. A married but childless man of about forty-five, im- potent and separated from his wife, had for some time been collect- ing all kinds of colored hats and student's and fraternity caps. He gave the impression of being somewhat mentally abnormal, was inaccessible and shut-in, but otherwise not a social. By virtue of some swindleing deal, he had been able to enrich himself to the extent of six new caps, but this led to his being indicted for fraud. Since, however, he aroused suspicions as to the soundness of his mind, he was remanded for psychiatric examination. The result was the discovery of a case of fetishism. It was after his separa- tion from his wife (which was due to his impotence) that he had begun to collect the caps. Whenever he would see such colored head gear, he would be overpowered by the desire to possess it, and whenever he would look over his collection of caps, he be- came sexually provoked, would get an erection and immediate orgasm.

But erotic collectors of fetishes commit not only theft but robbery, too. Thus, for example, I was asked to hand in an opinion on a case in America which had given even the judges considerable trouble. The man had fallen upon a woman in a park at night and had commanded her to hand over her shoes and stockings. He took no notice of her money or her jewels.

A similar case was also reported by Ludwig Hoffmann in his Fräulein von Scuderi (The Girl of Scuderi). A goldsmith was so deeply in love with his own shop and works that he murdered the buyers of his goods only to regain possession of the golden jewels (the case was dramatically adapted by Otto Ludwig).

Hammond reported a similar case of criminal impulses in the service of an erotic collecting instinct.

Case 30. Among the communicated cases of unquestionably perverted sexual feeling, there is an especially interesting one

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which, however, was not at first recognized. The details were reported by Beck.5 It concerned a man named Sprague who was arrested for robbery in a Brooklyn street in 1849. The robbery was executed in the following manner : The defendant, who was a printer by trade, had attacked a young woman one morning while he was on the way to work, threw her to the pavement and ran away as soon as he had quickly taken off one of her shoes. Al- though she wore a chain and a gold watch and had a few other valuables on her person, he did not touch these, nor did he mis- treat the woman in any other manner. At the trial, his attorneys declared that he was not responsible for his acts.

The chief witness was the defendant's father, a highly honor- able and respected minister whose testimony was corroborated in every detail by several other witnesses. Charles Sprague, the pa- tient's paternal great-grandfather, his grandmother, his great- grand uncle, three grand aunts and a cousin are or were mentally unbalanced. He himself had suffered several violent clouts on the head in his youth and had also fallen on his head. A year after his last fall, he began to complain of headaches and his friends noticed that his eyes bulged curiously. At about the same time, it was noticed that he began to steal the shoes away from the female members of his family and would hide them. Usually only one shoe of a pair would be missing, but it would sooner or later be found somewhere about the house, water soaked, turned and twisted like a piece of rope and then stuck away in a feather bed, a sack of straw, a box in the attic or among the clothes of some closet in the house.

The family's suspicions first turned to the servants, whereas the real miscreant remained shrouded in silence whenever he was questioned. It was only during the past six years that he con- fessed to the deeds. When they began to dispute with him about these eccentric acts, he would admit the possibility of his having taken the shoes, but he claimed neither to remember whether or when he did it nor to know for what purpose he may have taken them. The intervals between his thefts never lasted more than three or four months. When the family finally realized that it was he who was carrying off the shoes, they naturally began to lock these articles away, but this did not prevent the occasional discovery of a water-soaked, wrung and twisted shoe. At one time it was rumored about that Sprague had tried to take a shoe from a foot of one of the maids in the house, and on another occasion one of his sisters surprised him in the act of taking a

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shoe out of one of her locked drawers. In the same spring in which the trial took place, two girls had complained of having lost shoes which they had taken off on a warm evening in the park. They did not find the thief. {Sexual Impotence in Men and Women. By William H. Hammond, M.D., Surgeon General of the Union Army, Prof, of Psychiatry and Neurology in the New York Post Graduate Medical School.)

This case clearly reveals the impulse in question as the con- sequence of an omitted aggression and its relationships with incestuous phantasies. We must remember that the first shoes he stole were those of the female members of his family and in this case the shoe is a manifest symbol of the female genital. The shoe is genitalized, as it were.

In most cases, too, the traumatic infantile scene may be recon- structed with a certain degree of accuracy. Thus, in the fol- lowing case.

Case 31. A case of underwear fetishism in a railroad man was found to be rather difficult. He had been caught just as he was breaking into the home of a high police official with the intent of stealing women's underthings. It was learned that he would often prowl about the streets of his town at night, looking for some opening or crack in window shades through which he might catch a glimpse of a woman disrobing herself. It would be here that he would later that night break in and steal some underthings and thereafter wear them on his own person. He differed from a partial transvestitist in the fact that he never would wear unused things. At his trial, I defended the point of view that in the case of this hereditarily stigmatized individual, it was not possible to affirm his mental responsibility to the degree that the law de- manded. The opposing specialist, a university professor, ex- plained to the court that it was quite irrelevant to the law of the case whether this man wished by his thefts to enrich himself or simply to gratify a sexual desire. In both cases, he was seeking his own advantage. The court agreed with the latter opinion and sentenced the man without mitigation on a charge of burglary. A few days later he was found dead in his cell. He had hanged himself. (Hirschfeld, Sexualpathologie, Vol. III.)

The reader who has given some attention to the foregoing chapters and has remembered my discussion of shirt fetishism

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will readily understand the psychology of this case. It is pos- sible that the patient had once observed the disrobement of one of his family relatives.

The fanatical collecting of these patients often reaches an inconceivable intensity as the following cases demonstrate.

Case 32. K., a forty-five-year-old shoemaker with an allegedly clear inheritance, of peculiar character, possessed of low intelli- gence and a male habitus without biological stigmata, was caught on the evening of July 13, 1876, as he was in the process of tak- ing stolen female underthings from a hiding place. About three hundred articles of women's apparel were found in his possession, among them chemises, drawers, night caps, garters and even a female doll. He had on one of these women's chemises at the time of his arrest. He had been indulging his passion to steal women's underthings for the past thirteen years and, although chastened by being caught and punished the first time, he had de- veloped considerable dexterity in his happy hunt. When the im- pulse came over him, he felt that his head became heavier and he could not resist, whatever the dangers were. He was quite indifferent to who might be the victim.

He would then don the stolen articles at night in bed, imagine lovely women and experience lustful passions as well as a satis- fying orgasm. This was also the apparent motive for his thefts, since he never disposed of the things he stole, but rather hid them in divers places.

He stated that he had formerly had normal intercourse with women, but denied ever having practised onanism, pederasty or any other sexual habits. He claims to have been engaged at twenty- five and stated that the engagement was broken by the girl for no good cause. He had no insight into the pathological nature of his condition or the criminal character of his acts. (Passow, Vierteljahrsschrift f. ger. Medizin, N. F. XXVIII, p. 61 ; Kraus, Psychologie des Verbrechens, 1884, p. 190.)

Case 33. A hitherto blameless baker's helper, thirty-two years old and single, was caught in the act of stealing a handkerchief from a woman. He confessed with forthright repentance that he had already stolen eighty or ninety handkerchiefs in this manner. He liked to collect his articles only in this way and was impelled to attack only young and attractive women.

He disclosed nothing striking in his external appearance, was

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rather carefully dressed and revealed a peculiar character and con- duct which was partly anxious and depressed and partly feminine and complacent. At times he was even whining and lachrymose. He also manifested a marked awkwardness, weak understanding and dulness of orientation and abstraction. One of his sisters is epileptic. He lives in comfortable circumstances, was never seri- ously ill and has developed well. He manifests some weakness of memory and confusion in telling his life story, and even arith- metic is difficult for him, although he had learned well in school and absorbed his material rapidly. His anxious and vacillating character raises the suspicion of masturbation and he confessed that he had indulged in this habit excessively ever since his nine- teenth year.

Because of this vice, he had for some years been suffering from weakness, lassitude, trembling of the legs, back pains and a dis- taste for work. He was also subject to periods of anxious depressiveness and would then avoid all people. He had extrava- gant and hyperbolic notions of the consequences of sexual inter- course with women and was therefore unable to effect such inter- course. He had nevertheless been thinking of marriage recently.

In a rather imbecilic way and overcome with repentance, X. confessed that about a half year previously he had sensed an irre- sistible sexual attraction to a young woman in a crowd and had pushed his way sufficiently close to her so that he could snatch her handkerchief as a token of a deeply gratifying, though vi- carious, sexual pleasure. Subsequently, whenever he laid eyes on a woman of his type, he would fall before a wave of sensual lust, his heart would palpitate, he would get a prompt erection and be overcome with an impetus coeundi. In this state he would ap- proach the woman and — faute de mieux — steal her handkerchief. Although he was not for a moment under the influence of illu- sions as to the criminality of his acts, he felt that he had to obey his impulses. He was also subject to considerable anxiety in the act, partly because of the importunity of the sexual pressure and partly also because of his fear of being caught.

The specialist's opinion rightfully laid stress on the patient's congenital imbecility and the detrimental effect of masturbation. His abnormal appetites were laid to a perverse sexual instinct, an interesting and well-known physiological relationship between the olfactory senses and the sexual instincts being recognizable. X. was set free. (Zippe, Wiener med. Wochenschrift, 1879, Nr. 23.)

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Handkerchiefs are greatly desired objects of fetish lovers and harem collectors because they are easily acquired, stolen and hidden. The same is true of garters and neck-kerchiefs ("Get me a kerchief from her breast — a garter feeds my pas- sion best!" cries Faust). I may also recall Case 5 in Chapter II. Many patients will tell the physician that they first mastur- bated with the aid of a handkerchief, and often it was the prop- erty of some member of the family, a circumstance which lends the object a special significance.

The importance of handkerchiefs in this respect is well illus- trated by a patient of Sadger's : 6

"Yes, and something more about handkerchiefs. The girl I mean must have cried into the handkerchief at least once, and I like to have it smell a little of perfume. I am then able to visualize the girl's face in the cloth, a kind of photograph which I can then kiss. Of course, she has pressed the handkerchief to her face if she cried in it. I received my first handkerchief from my sweet- heart when I was sixteen, and thereafter demanded one from every girl I became acquainted with, with the added condition, of course, that she first must have cried in it." — "And who was the very first woman of your childhood days who had any connection with such a tear-stained handkerchief?" — "My mother. When I was about three or four years old, we received news of the death of my grandmother, and my mother cried bitterly. I wanted to cry, too, but I was unable to bring up the tears. Mother went about the house all day long with a handkerchief to her face and cried continuously. It was then that I wanted to boss her as she used to me, when she would say that I went about like a bumpkin with a handkerchief. I took the handkerchief away from her and hid it. She looked everywhere for it, but I wouldn't tell her where it was and called her a bumpkin, too. Of course, I did have a bad conscience about it all and found no peace, but I forgot about it in a little while and the handkerchief was found only later in some drawer when we were moving. Then I told mother everything. She washed the handkerchief and gave it to me with the words: Tf you took it from me then you can keep it, but I shall keep the pretty handkerchiefs which I bought for you.' That, naturally, was more than I'd bargain for, and I disputed with her. I insisted on giving her back her own handkerchief and getting my own new ones, went to bed deeply injured and

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cried all night. I even continued the whole scene in my dreams, but the next day mother gave me my handkerchiefs back. Her own handkerchief was exquisitely perfumed, as were also all her underthings for which I had a terrific attachment.

"Then I continue my examination by asking him why he were always seeking the girl's face in the handkerchief. 'Were you/ I asked him, 'rebuffed by your mother when trying to kiss her?' 'Yes, she would often do that to me when she was mad at me. She wouldn't let herself be petted or stroked or kissed. It was then that I would quickly take something of hers that I might nevertheless have something of her. I would take a needle, a brooch, a handkerchief or anything that was at hand and make off with it. I collected hair ribbons in order to add them to the guitar bands I had hanging up. They are a kind of spoils of war, as it were, after having achieved a girl. In addition to that, the guitar itself symbolizes the female in its form. You play on both of them, so to speak.' — 'How did you get the hair ribbons ?'

I got my first guitar when I was eleven after I had noticed that a friend of mine increased his popularity with the girls by playing and singing on it. I got mother to buy me one, learned to play it from him, and then actually found that it brought me a lot of popularity, too. I had also seen girls' hair ribbons in my friend's house and I wanted them, also. My first one I got from mother and then begged them of every woman I knew and considered them as a kind of trophy. I now have fifty- four such ribbons in my collection and the name of the girl is written on each one. Furthermore, I always carried my sweetheart's hand- kerchief in my pocket, even at the front, and now, too, although I have long since broken off with her. I felt that it was a part of her with me, that I had, as it were, taken her face with me. When I left for the front, she cried, I comforted her, embraced her, and took the handkerchief away on parting."

In this case, the handkerchief appears to be a substitute for the face of the love object. It is an example of symbolic dis- placement of affect.

Wullfen described some interesting details relevant to klep- tomaniacal collectors which were partly his own and partly others' experience.

"A forty-five-year-old shoemaker, without physical signs of degenerative constitution, has been stealing women's underthings

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since his thirteenth year. At night he would don them himself, imagine female bodies and have an ejaculation. Several different articles were found in his possession. Another patient had had the impulse to put on his sister's chemise ever since he was eleven years old. In his later years, he would have an orgasm every time he did it. As an adult he always bought women's chemises and put them on with a great deal of sensual satisfaction. Still an- other man would get an ejaculation while tearing up women's underwear, and a fourth masturbated in his fifteenth year while looking at an apron that had been hung out to dry. As an adult, he always became sexually animated whenever he would see an apron, regardless of whether it were being worn by a man or woman. Manifestly, the erogenous zone hidden by the apron had some sexual relationship with the apron itself. A clothes fetishist would steal white linen petticoats from dry goods houses, try them on (a procedure which in itself gave him a thrill) and even wore them when having intercourse with his wife. He alleged not to have had intercourse even once during the past thirteen years without first donning one of the petticoats. He always strove to use a new one which he had just recently stolen. The use of an old petticoat would not afford him the same gratification (Kersten) . Another fetishist would erect a circle of poles in an open field and then hang his stolen petticoats on the sticks. He would walk around the circle, stroking and petting the dolls, and would sud- denly fall upon one of the figures, press it closely to his bosom and masturbate. Thus, in addition to theft, he also committed a public nuisance or disorder by his immoral act in public. He claimed that his impulse was almost invariably irresistible, that he would sometimes spring out of bed at night, run out into the open, find some petticoat and gratify himself. He stated that at such times he felt so wild that he neither knew where he was or what he was doing. He would find himself in a wood or in a field when he would come to."

Such an erotic collecting impulse can acquire the most gro- tesque forms. Sometimes our Don Juan will collect trophies of his victories, thus revealing the fact that the trophy rather than the victory or the woman means more to him. An elderly gentleman once showed me a large book into which he had care- fully pasted nice visiting cards. They were all from prostitutes of whom he had demanded them either before or after every coitus. He never visited the same prostitute twice and always

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had the date marked on the card. On some of the cards, he had made a note of some paraphilia or infection. I knew of another who collected ball souvenirs which he would take vio- lently from the women at an affair. A third one was a collector of locks of hair (not infrequent) and the collection of pubic hairs is well known.

Sadger (1. c.) also reports on such a partialist.

Case 34. "I began to desire the pubic hairs of a woman rather than her genitals as early as thirteen years of age. At that time I asked our maid to give me some of her hair and begged her not to take it from her head, but to cut some off from between her legs. These hairs then gave me a great gusto, colossal delight. I have since developed a real museum of such hairs, have cut off a nice, little bunch from the genitals of every mistress and packed it neatly away tied with a string. I would also write the girl's name on the little band." Another patient related the fol- lowing from as early as his ninth or even eighth year: "At that time, i.e., when I myself had no pubic hairs as yet, I would make for the hairs in my sister's comb and wind them about my penis. Now, whenever I see a hair in my girl's comb, I become speech- less with emotion and the same is true when I run my hands through a woman's hair or see her axillary hairs. When I used to lie in bed with my mother as a child and she were asleep I would love to play with her pubic hair and pull on them. I also like to smell pubic hairs and become very excited sexually when doing so. It all reminds me of the odor mother had."

In all these cases we must remember to differentiate whether the fetishist is directed towards the object itself or whether the object serves simply as a representative of the process of con- quest. We have already pointed out this difference when dis- < cussing the cases of underwear fetishism. In this class also belong those who collect toilet paper or any other object per- vaded with body odor. Two typical cases will suffice to illus- trate the subject.

Case 35 is a patient of mine, Mrs. W. H., who declares that she becomes sexually excited only when the man in question wears shoes made of Russian leather. The very odor of such leather alone excites her to the pitch of orgasm. She states that she was

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frequently provoked by a stable boy when she was seven years of age. He would put her up on a horse whenever she would come into the stables, but later he began to play with her parts. Such a memory is pretty well engraved in her mind and demands constant and continuous repetition. She possesses quite a col- lection of leather pieces which she cut out of old shoes and boots.

Magnus Hirschfeld {Sexualpathologie, Part III) reports a similar case.

Case 36. A woman once showed me a small piece of Russian or Muscovy hide which she carried under her dress on a string hung close to her bosom. Using the strongest superlatives, she described to me the significance of this leather's odor for her sexual life. Her erotic attachment to her husband, who is said to have been rather ugly (she was widowed early), consisted solely of a bunch of odors, chief among them being a "male odor well mixed with tobacco and Russian leather." She still enrap- tures herself in the stale odors of her husband's clothing, claim- ing that there is yet "a good deal of that sweet aroma" in them. She would have to summon all her reserve resistance in order to keep from succumbing to a man who would make use of these odors. In a case which became known to me, the woman would have her husband send his shirts home from the front during the war, in order that she might become drunk on the odor of them and thus achieve an orgasm.7

In Impotence in the Male in this series, I have exhaus- tively described the psychology of the erotic collector, but I should like to add a few remarks at this point. Every special sense can be exploited by the collector, the chief one among them being the sense of sight, and then the olfactory and the sense of touch, but I know of cases in which the sense of hear- ing or that of taste plays the dominant role. In the case of the shirt and chemise fetishists, for example, we made the acquaint- ance of erotic collectors for whom the odor of perspiration and urine first made the object valuable and desirable. Our cloth fetishist delighted herself with the soft, lovely touch of silk and satin. The eccentricities of the urge to collect are to be under- stood and cleared up only by the psychoanalytical approach. Through the courtesy of Mr. O. B., I am able to conclude with two more cases.

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Case 37. Mr. N. K. collects slices of sausage from every part of the world, and already has a veritable museum of such sausages. He preserves them in formalin, each slice in a glass jar of its own which bears the label of the time and the place of acquisition as well as the kind of wurst. He takes long trips in order to enrich his collection.

What sort of eccentric experiences can have brought this man to such an abnormal habit ? What can be his sexual make-up ? Can the wurst be a phallus substitute or does it signify castra- tion? Our informant could give us no enlightening informa- tion on this point.

He was, however, able to afford us more light on the next case, making good use of his psychoanalytical knowledge. In the words of Mr. O. B. :

Case 38. "During the war I was obliged to share my quarters with Captain E. He was a very considerate, but shut-in, person who had become so accustomed to me that he manifestly preferred me for his room-mate. I had already been struck by the fact that, in addition to his regular luggage, E. packed a large box about with him wherever we moved, and this box he watched care- fully, permitting no one to have even a peak into it. It was only after several months together that he disclosed the nature of the case's contents to me. It contained a mass of keys which E. had stolen, not bought. He confessed to an irresistible impulse to steal these things. Each one of them had a label through the handle which designated the time and the place it had been stolen. The collection consisted of fine ones, coarse ones, large and small, artful and artless. When I asked him about this mania, he could give me no information as to what the source of it could be. But one day we were talking about the sense of shame. We were observing a pair of dogs copulating and I remarked how strongly the sense of shame had been developed in our day. 'Nonsense/ said E., 'we're no better to-day than we ever were. I was able to observe my parents many times when a little child, and even later when I was seven years or so.'

" 'How did you manage that ?'

" 'Well, when I was quite small, my parents used to copulate in my presence without any inhibitions, but as I began to grow, they would send me out of the room. I, however, would close the door and promptly begin to look through the key-hole and see

PARTIALISM AND THE HAREM CULT 201

just as much. Only once did my father catch me at it, and then he locked the door and turned the key in the lock, so that I couldn't see anything/

"Then I heard that E., who avoided all women and was looked upon as a peculiar bachelor, wanted to steal that key which had blocked his view of his parents' paradise in order that he might enjoy the scene of the intercourse again. E. thus betrayed the real root of his kleptomania to me."

This is an exemplary case of the repetition compulsion in the service of erotic symbolism. E. continues to conduct himself as if he were about to experience that same old scene. Father cannot, however, deprive him of his view now for he has the evil key in his own possession. In Freud's sense, the repetition signifies the correction of an infantile situation, but it all means a repetition in which the key as a phallic symbol gratifies the homosexual component of the patient. His thefts have dis- placed aggressions against the phallus of his comrade. His entire sexuality has been shifted to a side track and this was possible only because of a colossal displacement of affect.

All such cases disclose a marked tendency to day-dreaming. The patients live in a world of dreams and even their acts are effected in a sort of hypnoic state.

Nevertheless, not all cases are as transparent and easily solved as that of Captain E. Fetishism is usually a quite complicated condition, as our further discussion will show. Our solution of simple and uncomplicated cases, however, will give us in- creasing insight into the more difficult cases to follow.

VIII

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST

The fetish lover's harem cult can also express itself in books full of drawings, sketches or confessions which the fetishist may keep. These contents then express the fetishism. Merz- bach described the case of a man who collected the pubic hairs of his sweethearts in a book and finally had quite a collection of these trophies.1 The man was not a true fetishist, but sim- ply a man with partial preferences who had an impulse to col- lect the objects of his love.

I know fetishists, however, who make themselves a sort of fetishistic bible. They open this book whenever they want to indulge in their fetishism, in their own religion. They hide the book with a deal of apprehension and it is not easy to gain access to such a volume. They never permit their bible out of their hands and if they do then it is because they have decided to give up the paraphilia. The normal person cannot possibly appreciate the greatness, the significance of such a sacrifice.

In order to demonstrate a comprehensive picture of such a fetishistic bible, I will describe a case of corset fetishism in de- tail which came under my treatment about four years ago. The very manner in which he began treatment was peculiar enough. Months before he appeared, he inquired about the method of treatment, the price, the length of time it would take, and then considered the matter at great length only to come — not to cure his fetishism, but his impotence.

This case concerns a very seriously handicapped person who yearns to save himself from the hell of satanic phantasies and live the pure and regular life of marriage. His account is a veritable and valuable "document hutnain," despite its almost incoherent style.

Case 39. The thirty-six-year-old policeman, W. G. — we shall call him William — has been impotent all his life. He blames ex-

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THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST

203

cessive onanism for this impotence. He was married two years ago, but, despite a good erection, he was unable to effect a normai coitus. He claims that this failure was due to his wife's awk- wardness, but he confesses that he has also failed miserably with prostitutes. He is quite normally built, shows no degenerative stigmata, and derives from a healthy family. He relates that he is interested only in corsets and tightly laced, heavy women, and that his wife does not correspond to this type. She is thin and never wears a corset, whereas he is animated only by quite heavy or even obese women who are well corseted ; those who are so tied in that they give the impression of being hardly able to breathe. This tight lacing is an unconditional love prerequisite for him, but he has never yet possessed such a woman.

He himself derives his interest for corsets from a pubertal im- pression. He was fourteen years of age when his attention was attracted to a luxurious and buxom blonde who lived next door. She was tightly corseted and was allegedly the first object of his onanistic phantasies.

He is subject to the well-known impulsive restlessness of fetish lovers, runs about the streets for hours at a time until he has caught sight of a desirable object and then returns home to pull on a corset and masturbate before a mirror with the phantasy that he is the woman he saw. Before I go into the results of his analysis, I want here to reproduce some parts of his bible. I must mention that about a week after we had met, he handed me a very elegantly bound, but thumbed, volume and asked me to study it. He would return in a fortnight.

The major part of the book was written in shorthand, but some of it was in longhand. At the beginning there are several rather long, well-meant, but naive, poems which express the nature of his phantasies. He is, however, a poor poet, despite the vividness of his phantasy life. Then come a few confessions and, finally, a whole series of pictures, most of them clippings from newspapers and magazines. We shall reproduce some of these also later on. Most of these pictures, however, have been changed and trans- formed by his having sketched or drawn obscene figures into them; genitals are introduced; extravagant breasts added to cor- sets, etc. . . .

I shall begin with some of his writings.

And now to-day on the 18-3- 1905 unhesitating end of all spiri- tual onanistic comments and notes ! Reason : self-realization, be- cause thereby cause and course of the disease sufficiently defined,

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cure would be impossible, spirit would be on the royal road to insanity (softening of the brain, sexual dementia). Rather, if it cannot be otherwise, lewdness with some woman, whether virgin, wife or widow, but especially with some public prostitute, in reality as a useless, constantly changeable degeneration and devia- tion in respect of the female intercourse as I put it down on paper. In future I shall make note only of serious comments or pictures concerning the sexual sphere, e.g., results and course of relevant medical examinations and tables of measurements on the female (prostitute's) body, and also "love-letter" remarks. That, with respect to my immanent cure from spiritual and physical mastur- bation, so help me God !

Last evening about 7:30-8 o'clock the first and perhaps not last visit with my well-known father confessor who has been my confessor since about 1896, formerly preacher, pater Erhardus. Place: large, comfortable room with an adjoining cabinet on the left. Lovely and clean, electric light (the priesthood is quite well maintained).

Went there to confess after I had spoken with him down in the church on the 2-3-1903. Naturally stressed masturbation, my un- happiness. He knows my suffering, the chain of sorrowful cir- cumstances, he knows my material state rather well.

Concise contents of his statements because I earnestly asked him whether extra-marital intercourse were absolutely sinful and punishable before God or whether this might be permitted the mature man who could no longer contain himself. Answer:

"Every extra-marital cohabitation, quite irrespective of whether it be carried out in maturity or later, is sinful! Only marriage gives one the religious right which then becomes a duty."

Were every man and every woman so pervaded with the holy command of God to be chaste and remain so until the ties of marriage did bind them, irrespective of whether the marriage took place early or perhaps late because of economic conditions, then surely the majority of cares and evils would disappear, perhaps even ninety-nine percent of unhappiness. Then life would not be so miserable as it is to-day or as many take it to be, just because, having become infected or having lost their chastity, they have not been capable of protecting themselves from more mistakes. In answer to my declaration that it is unjust to have to bear such suffering and marry only when thirty-five or forty, while a luckier man with sufficient funds may marry at twenty, he trustfully ex-

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST 205

pressed the view that it were foreordained and perhaps even good for some that they were not able to marry early. He said further :

"Matrimonial love, which soon blows over, must contain mutual respect and the firm resolve to remain true to the other partner for life even should sexual incapacity of either one occur."

"The path which leads to the loss of chastity is doubtless easier to tread and calls forth the impulse to continue unholy intercourse indefinitely and thus descend ever deeper and deeper until finally virgin, girl and wife have been seduced simply because one has been unable to withstand and has let one's self go. It is easier, I say, than the return to moderation and the rejection of such unholy indulgence." Aids against inchastity : continuous vigilance in moderation, prayer, trust in God, work, shame, industry, hard bed, etc., etc.

Before he would absolve me, he demanded my promise "to desist with all my strength from any unholy intercourse." "Yes, if I can," I said.

"I do not ask whether you can or not, for there is no dispute with the word of God. It must be followed, may the fulfillment be ever so impossible and difficult in your mind. Fulfilled in so far as you are willing and will give me your promise to remain chaste."

A few seconds of deep silence.

Tensely he waits in his cabinet, sitting on a stool next to me while I kneel on the hassock.

"No, I cannot promise you that," I say, oppressed at heart but forthright. This moment in which my heart and soul broke so decidedly with the word of God was frightful, but I couldn't help it. Mistrust of the truths and commands of the Catholic church, repugnance against the "dead hand," against the power of the clergy, the wish to avoid the general mental debauchery of the people and wait patiently, seek cure, seek medical assistance, even err humanly if need be, with the consciousness that it was done, not out of sacrilegious and spiteful desire to insult God, but only in order to live on in this world, not out of humility before the pillars of the church who then use it as a means of repressing human ambition and progress, but rather as an acceptance of the principle of enlightenment. Perhaps, then (because I can no longer contain my swelling passions), I shall marry and never be able to enjoy life because I shall be a hard pressed father of a family. Others may laugh at me, gratify their instincts pleasur-

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ably and not in an emergency, finally marrying when they are in a good financial position and therefore getting a better wife, whereas I would age rapidly and early with my unstilled desires. "Celibacy" is, after all, official chastity, and yet also the unofficial cause of all the trouble because, many getting off easy, the good name of the Catholic church is smirched, whereas, once removed, the power would weaken the strength of the church with all its nimbus of holiness. Only then would I look upon a priest with respect because, as a man, one would expect only humanity from him and not too sacrificial and hyperbolic an attitude. I under- stand why so many people become Protestants or want to, at least, like my schoolmate Josef B. With them the clergy can marry, too.

"Then," said the father, "I can say no more," and shook his head. "I can give you only my blessings, but not my absolution."

He blessed me, I crossed myself, thanked him, felt inwardly quieted and happy at my enlightenment, even mentioned the deci- sion the physician had made and bade him not be angry with me.

"No," he said, "I can see that you are honest," and left coldly. He opened the door for me, locked it behind me and probably left for the dining hall as it seemed to be ringing for dinner. Nevertheless, to tell the truth, ashamed and excited as I was, I walked quickly away and was glad when he stopped to talk with the servant who was ringing the dinner bell on the next floor. As I closed the door of the entrance and stepped into the great court, the watch tower struck eight o'clock.

I came home excited. Bargaining with God and the world, yearning to marry, conscious of my desires, excited even yet for fear of God's judgment should I destroy my virginity before mar- riage. For the present I stop thinking and ask Dr. F. to decide for me as quickly as possible, but I continue to hope for a quick marriage with some pretty girl who will either bring me some money or help earn with me. If that doesn't succeed, then I feel I must seduce some fifteen- to eighteen-year-old girl, keep her company for about ten years and then marry her as some small salaried clerk or other. Or, if I can bring myself to it, whores (why say hypocritically "unholy intercourse"?). But I do sin- cerely hope that now when I need God's help most in my great emergency, everything will proceed towards a happy end just as He would wish it.

With approval and insight I say that pater E. spoke "golden words" yesterday. He is right. I would be happy if I could live such an ideal life. The world, however, we mortals, are different :

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST 207

not so good and not so ideal. And just because much that is ideal in life becomes real and prosaic, so must the highest and most idealistic coitus make room for a more natural and mortal atti- tude introduced by the experience of an unholy and emergency intercourse. I believe that nothing else can work and take place in this vale of tears called world, except in unusual cases. There may be abstemious and passionless people in the world, but I'm not one of them.

He took quite a sensible attitude towards intercourse when he said that it is not a pleasure but a happy duty. For if this act were not filled with so much delight then there would be an end to making children. There would be nothing but care in the business.

True enough, he also was right when he asked what I would do if a naturally diseased body would prevent me from effecting any intercourse whatever. He said that he had had enough to do with all kinds of people, had heard confessions from the healthy and the sick, from insane people, too, had tasted enough of human woe — brought on by themselves.

Insanity may arise from a mistrust in the power of good, from a susceptibility to passion, but never from chastity. They too, the insane, had declared that they could no longer continue, but they fell because of their own weakness, because of their dis- belief in God's unimpeachable and chaste laws of morality. Fre- quently married women complained to him that they could no longer live with or love their husbands, but this was — as he had otherwise learned — after they had committed adultery.

Pater N. could well say: "The greater your defection, your cries against God and his church, the greater is the guilt which accumulates in thy heart; the more you are conscious of your guilt and therefore seek peace in enmity ; but this peace of heart thou canst not find, for thou feelest the emptiness of thy heart."

That is also the reason why Pater N. is an enemy of the Society for the re-marriage of divorced Catholics. I didn't want to dis- pute with him on the last matter because the argument would have led into infinity. After all, how many men are there who actually crush their women as if they were animals? And should she nevertheless give such a man love, perhaps even support him and wait patiently until he dies instead of leaving him to find her happiness at the side of another? He generalizes his horror of this society, perhaps in a Jesuitical and clerical manner. There is, of course, a grain of truth in what he says. Two people should

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first learn to know each other pretty well and not after it is too late. Indeed, he didn't say just this, but I suppose that would have been his answer.

Concluding comments: How right I was to decide to give up the perversions deriving from spiritual onanism once and for all, especially after I had indulged myself sufficiently in the foregoing comments, is demonstrated by the article on "Insanity and Phan- tasy" from the Neues Wiener Tageblatt of March 27, 1905, which I found in my brief case. If my book were passionately con- tinued in this wise, the article mentioned would define my com- plete destiny. The end : insanity resulting from spiritual and physical onanism, over-heated phantasy, a pathologically developed imagination which might otherwise have been creative. As it is, however, the basic tendency and course of my sexually phantastic excitement has always been and still is about as follows :

The women who have provoked my passions, quite regardless of their age, class, confession, or education, become, in my mind, my "victims" and my "vassals."

1. I titillate my senses Platonically, as it were, first through their sensuous possibilities and then on their clothed and beautiful bodies. Then I make them lascivious, wanton and lewd; myself, by means of their surrounding charms, my kisses, embraces, touch, talk, in fact with every possible means. Torture them by disre- garding their own unsatisfied Platonic or sexual desires, make them wild and giddy through conversation, dress or luxury.

2. More or less gradually, quickly, coolly or violently (depend- ing on the figure), I subject them to the most divers and exciting, painful, but harmless, tortures, such as massage in the prone or hanging position, on the rack, in bonds, by tickling or whipping ; or the tortures of baiting, the rope, ducking, and the specially de- lightful form of corset torture. This period of inquisition, which follows my first phase of wantonness, is diversely repeated and varied with my female figures. Thus, for example, the child, girl, flapper, virgin, wife, mother, matron, all of them are frequently dressed several times, repeatedly tortured, progressively denuded, either by me alone or even with the aid of the victim's "maids" (whores; those women already seduced and debauched), again subjected to different barbarities, but always more and more pro- voked and tired by means of the unusual bindings and rope tor- tures ; most devilishly photographed in highly irritating positions ; clothed again, laced, punched, tickled, petted, pinched, massaged,

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST 209

etc., etc. Faintings. Awakening in luxurious quarters, resting, amusement and laziness in these "playlands." Their comrades are meanwhile further mistreated and caused to suffer and to sigh.

3. According to the strength of the victim, the beauty and pas- sion of the prey, as well as the character of the man torturing her, the decent woman then arrives at the third and last stage of suffer- ing and (perhaps) secret delight. Extreme abasement and ex- treme pleasure, alternating, endlessly offered, and not only by one man, but by men, even women. Now comes the coitus, the rape and ravishment, the best and most pleasant period, but also the most exciting even for the strongest woman. Greatest of rap- tures for the man thus "treating" the woman, happiest wanton- ness for her companions (the whores ; always only five at a time). And then combined, refined and nerve-racking methods of ravish- ing the female body.

How many attacks on girls over ten, pupils of schools, flappers ! How many budding young women and girls have been raped, what numbers of brides, wives, widows have not been ravished and mothers and divorcees desecrated, regardless of the number of their children ! And what a delicacy were pregnant women !

There is no use of shame or pain, resistance or despair in any of these three stages. The flapper, the virgin, the young bride, the wilted wife, the mother, they are all downed by the raw strength of the male. And if his strength is not sufficient, or if he does not wish to exert himself, there are the five young and lovely wantons there, ready for any and all of the most repulsive orgies. One at the right and one at the left, each takes one of the vic- tim's arms while one of her legs is lifted up by a third and a fourth pulls the other leg aside. The poor creature raves, but the man is thrilled at the sight of these lovely limbs and peeks up

into her open dresses, higher and higher, tickles her on the ,2

while the five damsels smilingly stifle the cackling cries, curses and damnations of the hoarse and half-unconscious subject. Now her lover's fingers creep over her full and heaving breasts ; embraces ; she is pulled into a bed, the gasping victim fights in vain, her blouse is opened, the corset slit at the front, the silks crumpled and often torn, her lovely panties ripped at the very most ticklish point of her belly and in the wild tussle which ensues, both man and whores help to subdue the candidate for violation and reveal her nakedness. Unconsciousness. Ejaculations. Finally, the man un- dresses before the trembling beauty and violently seduces her.

The cries and echoes die away, her resistance is broken; ab-

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sorbed in frenzies of passion, she is left alone in bed. Either hopelessly crushed, despairing, or lighter of heart, thankful and infatuated, the lovely victim finds herself bathed in her own blood and secretions, alone in a luxurious love bed with a naked and pas- sionate man in a palatial room. Recess. Remuneration through the selfsame servants who previously violated her so. They tend her and bring her clothing, amuse her and surround her with every luxury. Then renewed and always more impassioned love scenes.

That is, so to speak, only a typical example of the innumerable desecrations of men against women. How many orgies, for ex- ample, did I not stage in my mind with all the beautiful girls and women I saw at the V. international automobile exposition in 1905 ! How I provoked, tortured, denuded the elegant princess H. in my

phantasies, and even .3 How quickly did I love that charming

Mrs. W., at first Platonically and then under torture. She was finally undressed and violated by a man in each arm pit, another ad vaginam, and another in the mouth.4 In short, only her own beauty had been able to call forth such an excess of passion. Sick, nearly crazy with shame, shuddering disgust and lustfulness, she was dragged to her resting bed.

How the duchess Y. cried out when her latest corset with a straight front was closely laced about her in her own boudoir by August! Catching her breath, she dropped sitting on the soft couch as August tugged the strings from forty-five inches to twenty inches about her middle. She wore a deeply cut-out negligee ( a low-cut, perfumed chemise), silk stockings and bloom- ers and fine garters. August's eyes sunk themselves through the negligee, embraced her lovely body while he kissed her neck, face, hair and rosy shoulders. Trembling and half beaten she was, for August spent an hour detailing to her the extent of her subjected position ; how she would have to accept his love in any form, have to conduct herself like his own woman, otherwise her five maids and the crudest of tortures would certainly force her to submis- sion. How she yells when he clasps her so tightly that her buxom breast is pressed forth closely against his chest, covered only by a fine, thin shirt. Her arms push him from her, but he rains kisses upon her breasts and arms. She shrieks. He coddles her, pulls her luxurious breasts out of her chemise. Crack ! She whacks him on the face. Bang! He rips the silk from her shoulders to her corset. Simultaneously she tries to run out the door, but he grabs her by her extruded hips and begs her for forgiveness.

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST

21 I

Gasping with pain at the closely laced corset, she drops in his

arms. Then he calmly her between the breasts, and

belly, carried the almost unconscious duchess before a mirror and tried ,5 her thighs and belly. Hardly had she felt the sacri- legious hands of the man upon her genitals, when she quickly pulled herself together for further struggle, the corset groaned as if it would burst, in vain she caught herself in the mirror, hur- riedly closed her bloomers, pushed his hand away from her parts and, opening the door, yelled furiously into the hall : "Help ! Help ! He's raping me !" August, however, caught her and began to feel her up, meanwhile calling to all the girls gathering in the hall. (There were five of them as well as a few others who were just in the process of accompanying a delectable Jewish flapper, a Prot- estant virgin and another harmless Christian wife for a walk.) Quickly the five wantons gathered about. The other three victims had certainly understood the cries of the duchess, especially when they had heard her yelling so frantically, and had seen her in a cos- tume such as only the most trusted maid is permitted to sight, in addition to which they found her wildly warding off the greedy ad- vances of a totally strange man. They immediately wanted to help, too, but the companions drew them, shuddering, off down the corridor. In answer to their clamorous questions about the scene, they were told something innocuous and advised that they would soon enough find out. As a matter of fact, the fourteen-year-old flapper (Ida!) was raped that very evening, the virgin Elsa the following day during a comfortable moment in her amusements, while the other woman, having arrived and passed her "tests," was brought back to her room and two hours later knew exactly what had been awaiting the duchess.

The duchess breathed anew, but she soon shrank back as strange hands grabbed her, pushed her down, tied her pretty, little feet and held her mouth shut. Terrorized, she felt August in a re- newed onrush, but as she was pressed down on the couch and her beautifully made panties again opened, so that her parts became visible, she fell into a fit of tears. When she had become quieter, she learned that the maidens obeyed August implicitly and had gathered the instruments of iniquity to crush her resistance. She begged August for consideration, but he was deaf to her plea. She prayed, she beseeched. The prostitutes threatened her with terrible barbarities, pains, whippings, tweezings, even branding her completely naked body by August while they would be racking her. The duchess was horribly afraid of even the word torture,

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especially of the drawing, hanging and rack types. Her fear was also heightened by the carefully couched threats and descriptions which the prostitutes and August whispered in her ear. She said that she would rather be laced to death than otherwise tortured to death. She saw August's love for her and also the preparation of the instruments. Passively resistive now, she permitted herself to be mauled and fingered by August and even looked lovingly at him as he kissed her breasts and played with her belly and bottom. The girls, meanwhile, created quite a noise in fixing the torture boards, the straps, the ropes and rods. "Therese, throw me an- other strap or otherwise this one'll bust when he ties this big one in." Or: "Steffi, bring me another corset as strong as the one she's got now or she's liable to croak when the laces pull her too tight." "Empty that bucket, Olga, or she'll drown everything when the fireworks begin." "Don't you think, Mizzi, that Au- gust should do her up brown before he takes her off the board? Just because she wouldn't mind him before. Yet she's so spoiled she can hardly stand much." "Just wait, Annie, the duchess'll decide quick when she's on the rack. Then she'll give him any- thing he wants, but it'll be too late because she'll be sick in bed for a fortnight before those pains are gone."

The duchess heard it all and naturally began to fear the torture more than August's love. She fell in a faint, but was awakened by a quarrel. It was all a hoax! August grabbed one of the maidens who was at fault, tortured her himself and had her also attacked by her colleagues, got her dressed, whipped her, bound her tightly and pressed her in an iron corset. The whore bawled and begged for pardon, fell in a faint and, apparently suffering the most terrible pains, kissed the feet of the duchess and beseeched her for a good word with August. The duchess had become pale with fear and terror as she was being held by August and two of the girls while the other two were punishing their colleague. She became quite submissive and when she was again threatened with the same treatment as the prostitute had suffered if she did not obey, she lay herself close to August on the sofa, did not even whimper when he surreptitiously shoved his finger in vaginam ; rather she cuddled closer to him in a lewdly inviting fashion and begged for the pardon of the poor creature whom the two hand- maidens had dragged blubbering into a corner. "Set Steffi free! I forgive her." The four girls picked up their colleague and ran to the feet of the duchess to thank her. She, on the other hand,

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST 213

seemed rapidly giving way to adultery. "Tell me that now I won't be tortured either." August remained adamant and the duchess again became excited. The prostitutes begged for her. August embraced the body of the woman who was kissing him for joy and dragged her — not into the bed as she had hoped but to the instruments of barbarism. Oh, what a fate ! At a sign from him, she was tied down, hung up and placed on the rack. Un- conscious, the duchess was taken down, untied and put in bed, but when she awakened, August racked her still more tightly. As she was again being taken to the torture board with August hold- ing her by the buttocks, she threw her arms about his neck, kissed him ardently and said, as she offered him her breasts : "Take me, take me, my lover, I love you, be mine.,, "Many thanks, lovely sweetheart, I love you, too, and will not torture you any more, but, just as a little warning, I think I'll have to bend you somewhat more to my will." The astonished duchess again began to tussle with the maidens who pulled her hither and thither in the room, baited her, kneaded her belly and her bosom, bent her like a wheel on the sofa until the seams of her corset began to give and they themselves were so exhausted that they drooped their heads and said : "Oh, stop it, August, you two have had enough." Beside himself with passion, August fell upon the sinking woman and laid her in his love bed.

The prostitutes had withdrawn, the duchess saw no more in- struments of torture and in August only her dear lover. Volun- tarily she became an adulteress and, while August slowly un- dressed her, she begged with importunate lewdness for union which was freely and frequently granted her. That is how the duchess and August satiated themselves. The duchess was suf- ficiently fixed and when he had finished admiring her violated form, August again laced her body down to twenty inches and praised her beautiful figure. Flattered, the duchess permitted her- self again to be topped while in this corset, vainly she stroked her- self over the buttocks, across the iron clad corset, turned her wasp-like waist, her white abdomen and her well-formed pelvis. She was happy to have won the first prize the evening before as the woman who laced herself the tightest of all. The second lac- ing prize went to an eighteen-year-old Jewish ballet dancer and to a twenty-year-old Christian dressmaker, primarily because of too much racking of their bodies. Seen from behind, this thirty-two- year-old duchess had a waist breadth which was but a quarter of

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her pelvic breadth, whereas most of the others had a ratio of at least one third the pelvic circumference. That was the reason for the duchess's winning.

And these are the procedures that I varied endlessly in my mind. All with girls, women and "whores." For these last were also treated in the same fashion occasionally along with their mis- tresses. Often hundreds of them are lying in an immense hall of orgies, bound, naked, in all possible positions, and the women,

egged on by lashes of the whip, sprang upon the of their

men or, like prostitutes, invited them to copulate. One was able to see all kinds of feminine figures there, for it had been arranged to have the women jump down from a balcony on to feather beds and when they would jump, their skirts and dresses would fly in the air (their maids had not permitted them to put on bloomers) and the men standing below would be able to look all the way

up their lovely white legs to their sweet . Hardly landed, they

would be seized by the men and promptly seduced, all their parts, breasts and arm pits being used, etc., etc., ad infinitum!

I repeat: Living an apparently ascetic and chaste existence, I am inwardly given to a pathological development of my instincts, a criminal against woman in my mind, and belong in an asylum. In my own mind, however, there are no laws, there is no protec- tion for children, for girls, no chivalrous respect of womanhood. As often as I practise masturbation, three elements are present: I. I excite myself and the women in my phantasies, clothed and naked. 2. Then I torture them with all manner of apparatus and machines, cords, ropes, etc., but especially with a tightly fitting and high-class corset. 3. Finally, I force the female to have inter- course, although without torture, and give it to her whether she likes it or not until both she and I have enough.

During the first part of my phantasies, I am being dragged un- willingly, as it were, into my spiritual filth, but my acquiescence grows upon me with the second stage until I am ready for phys- ical masturbation. At the third phase, while the unhappy victim is writhing in the pains preparatory to the highest raptures, my spiritual onanism reaches its acme and provokes physical mas- turbation. As soon as I have an ejaculation, and my phallus sinks, the phantasies fade away and the dreams of feminine lust and tor- tures interest me no longer. Moreover, I am unhappier than ever, for I realize that I have unnaturally desecrated both my body and my mind.

THE BIBLE OF THE FETISHIST 215

I feel crushed and beg God earnestly for forgiveness of my weakness, my oft-repeated sins. I can be saved only by :

1. Will power and trust in God through prayer, vigilance and acceptance of the sacrament.

2. Unexpected material enhancement such as a good gamble, promotion or a paying bit of extra work.

3. I ardently yearn for a true, Platonic love such as my youth- ful attachment to a charming young neighbor, a chaste and bloom-- ing girl.

4. Best of all would be actual intercourse with my own wife, but that is also my greatest despair because I have not yet been able to marry on account of my financial circumstances. Were I to get a girl with some money, I should be relieved of the financial worries in which I now find myself.

5. Intercourse effected with any kind of woman acceptable. Comments on the above five points :

1. Unfortunately it has rarely been the case. My will is too weak.

2. Tried definitely in 1908 and my salary is larger. But it is not enough, for I must be rich.

3. My list of virgins: Anna B. Rosa L. Marie Z.

4. Woman is false and cheats her man. 18 Nov., 1901. Hansi F., wife of a typesetter, thirty years old. Only kisses and em- braces. Nearly seduced her the evening of the 10th of November, 1902, if the presence of her twelve-year-old sister had not frus- trated the attempt.

5. I am following my clamorous but, unfortunately, only Pla- tonic devotion to Mrs. F., as of 18 November, 190 1. Visited a prostitute of thirty-two living in the Franciscan Square who looks very much like her. My lasciviousness had her undress, but I saw only body and limbs — not F. I nevertheless grasped her, laced her, kissed her, embraced, etc. But I didn't undress my- self, didn't lose my virginity. To the devil ! Why not ? Couldn't I have deflorated myself, as it were, right there and then? But I considered it a success if I even tried to copulate. I have noted this experience down as an exemplary piece in my "love note" col- lection, my satanic bible.

Once my final fall took place and a visit with a prostitute had transformed me from a boy to a man, I had to preserve my first mistress by measuring her off seventy-five different times. This gave me a basis for choosing a future wife. The seventy-five

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measurements I took of her were height and breadth and circum- ferences. Fourteen times with her clothes on, fourteen times naked, twenty-seven limb measurements, twenty special measure- ments on her naked or laced body, etc. Total : seventy-five meas- urements with a tailor's tape.

First I try out the measurements in my "book" ; pure calcula- tion; and when I have had intercourse, I note the measurements here, having first laid them aside for a while. This concerns only the first visit to a prostitute. After the second copulation with the beauty, the "love notes" are added as an aid to the memory of her personal charms and ten measurements appended.

These ten measurements give me a tangible feeling of the di- mensions of the woman's body; so that I pretty well know just what sort of figure of a mistress would satisfy my sensual and aesthetic needs. These few naked statements end an almost too luxuriously grown treatise, and purpose (no infection being pre- supposed) to cure me from the profligacy and disease of every kind of onanism. Naturally, a love marriage with its holy inter- course would be an unmentionable happiness. Oh, Almighty God ! I beseech you for my own true wife and all her charms and pleasures.

Ended this 28th day of April, 1907. Twenty-four years of age.

At this point, the diary ends. William has not continued this satanic bible since that date, nor has he entered any more pic- tures nor communicated any more phantasies. He struggled with all his might against his paraphilia, tried to save himself first by normal intercourse, sought out divers prostitutes and had them put on corsets he had brought with him, but he was never able to achieve erection or effect coitus. He would begin, but terrific palpitation of the heart would set in and he would flee.

He consulted a physician who diagnosed a cardiac neurosis and forbade him any activity in sports. Hitherto his chief di- version had consisted of mountain climbing, but now that he was advised against such strenuous activity, he was in danger of reverting to his former phantasies. The sadistic imagina- tions gradually receded, but he continued to indulge in his ideas of the torturing corset until even that didn't give him much gratification either.

Meanwhile, his piety became manifestly more overt, he went

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to church more frequently and reduced the practice of mastur- bation. His salary had increased, but it was insufficient for his needs. There were certain things which he wanted absolutely : 1. A small house of his own, or a villa if possible. 2. A large garden of his own. 3. An automobile. He couldn't imagine himself living without a car.

He searched perseveringly and finally found a girl who had a little business of her own. She was a designer of hats who made quite a nice living. Indeed, she was not very young, being thirty-six, but she appealed to him, especially since he learned that she was domestically inclined and economical. She was a Jewess, however, and that meant only a civil marriage. At first his religious training rose up in him against such a union, but he said to himself : Jewesses taste better. They are more pas- sionate and certainly better housewives. They are faithful. You won't be cheated. She's also not so attractive that other men will be looking at her greedily.

He decided to marry her. The outcome was described at the beginning of this case history. His wife was deeply frustrated because she had expected the joys of love and found a man who talked in big words but couldn't effect intercourse. He was im- potent. There came quarrels. He wanted her to be examined by a gynecologist, claiming that there must be something wrong with her, that her hymen must be too strongly developed, etc. The gynecologist examined her and found that her hymen was but rudimentarily developed and that there was thus no obstacle to her copulating.

Both of them had some money saved ; so that the hope of a small home of his own was no longer an Utopia. Indeed, they were even in a position to buy a small car and he began to work on his wife to let him buy the car and other things, protesting that he would then surely be potent. But the war came and that was the end of all their savings. He still had his wife, although the bubbles of his hopes and wishes had burst. It was then that he came to me with the hope of curing his impotence and gave me his "satanic bible."

It contained pictures which showed how all his thoughts and ideas revolved around corsets. He would cut out any and every advertisement that had to do with them.

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Some of the drawings are memories of women he has seen on the street. They indicate what the special features of these women were that provoked his fancy : tightly laced bodies.

His corset phantasies are variously prefaced and illustrated by an accompanying advertisement or picture. It is under- standable what sort of an interested public they would attract. Beside the pictures of these advertisements, he would make the following marginal notes :

"Very low cut lady (also serves), elegantly dressed and laced. Awaits male company. Ha! what a thrill to disrobe such an insanely corseted woman and then rape her (first her corset would split in the struggle)."

But soon he begins to transform the pictures himself, and in in his mind and sketches disrobes the women in the pictures He also uses pictorial advertisements of furniture as a back- ground for sketches of his tortured and racked women. He collects these corset pictures from all kinds of advertisements and the collection reveals a manifest interest in the erotic effect.

He also gathers every little newspaper clipping which might have the slightest erotic thread. Sometimes he also adds pic- tures, drawings and comments to the news articles as illustra- tions. The following is an example :

(A Nuisance in the Theatre.) Our Berlin correspondent wires the 30th inst., reporting that during the performance in the new royal opera yesterday, a dentist visiting the city was arrested by detectives for having obscenely molested young women and girls who were standing with him in the parquet. The hitherto blame- less man confessed to having been the cause of several acts of disorderly conduct recently in which female members of theatre audiences had suffered (3i-Jan.-i905).

"I lewdly imagine the scene to myself about as follows : I'm in the National People's Theatre, standing room, and squeeze a buxom Jewess Olga P. on one arm with my right while I pass my left about her soft waist from behind, embrace her bosom and her belly, lock my legs about her dress and limbs. Too bad, that date in the Adlergasse fell through (October, 1902). She was good petting, that luxurious, black Jewess, Olga."

That shall end the excerpts from the patient's "satanic bible." It is readily understandable how such persons find repeated

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219

provocation for their onanistic acts in the perusal of such lit- erature. But his decision to part with the book is in itself an indication of a strong will to be cured. It derives from his re- ligious, anagogic tendencies. The example of this case clearly reveals to us the two powers that struggled for supremacy within his breast : religion and Satanism. Apparently he sub- mitted to the Satanic urge, but in reality he remained chaste. He has not masturbated since he was twenty-four. He parted with his bible and gave up his phantasies. But even more. He remained chaste and virginal even in marriage.

In the analysis, it appeared that he regarded coitus as the original sin. It is from this sin that he withholds himself and ever and again reverts to asceticism. He was well on the way towards achieving his former ideal and becoming a saint

The analysis of such a fetishist is endlessly difficult and suc- ceeds best, perhaps, when the patient is quite naive about psy- choanalytical matters. These persons are, however, usually quite complicated individuals, well educated and trained in philosophical questions. They know well how to cover up in- fantile motives. This patient came with an apparent desire to be cured, but he insisted on sticking to his own program and first confessing his life's sins. He continued this for six weeks, disregarding all my protests. Whenever I would interrupt the stream of talk, he would not associate and all my efforts were in vain. All my analytical tricks were fruitless. What I did learn was that his mother was a heavy woman who laced her- self tightly into a corset, and that even as a child he was greatly interested in this piece of his mother's apparel. Ever since he was eleven he always used his mother's corset in masturbation. He would put it on and claimed that it fitted him well. In addition to this, he blamed the then prevalent fashion for cor- sets and several other childhood impressions for his fetishism.

He feigned a necessary trip to the country and did not return to the analysis for two years. He inquired whether he could come back, desired an appointment, promised by telephone to return at a certain time, but never kept his appointment. I see him about once a year at the most inopportune times, inquiring whether he cannot return to the analysis. I know that he is still impotent and is considering getting a divorce and becoming

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a monk. His piety has grown, he gets along well with his con- fessor and has given up his opposition to the church.6

The case permits us to glance into the horrible phantasy world of an ascetic fetishist. I have dared to publish this ma- terial because it is of paramount scientific interest and affords us a greater understanding of the psychology of the erotic col- lector. The core of his existence is the corseted female. Any- thing that has to do with corsets is an object of his irritated interest. We can observe several symptoms of the genuine fetish lover: I. The strict asceticism disregarding even mar- riage. 2. Pathological phantasies which express themselves in masturbation. 3. The cult of the harem which is here repre- sented by his "Satanic bible.,, 4. The novel factor of a sadistic attitude towards the woman. 5. The fetishistic symbol (the corset) expressing the compulsion.

Externally, this man is a mild, fine and complacent gentle- man. Never has he so lost control of himself as to speak an indelicate word to his wife, let alone physically to insult or tor- ture her. He strives towards a higher, ethical form of life, he is deeply pious and yet, in his phantasies, a libertine whose cruel practices could surpass those of a Marquis de Sade. Shudder- ing, one must recoil from the abortions of his hellish phantasies. One would take him for a criminal, were it not for the impass- able crevasse between his real conduct and the world of his phantasies. But it is precisely this contrast which is typical of the fetishist. Every attempt to transform his phantasies into realities fails. All the other fetish lovers whom I have observed also never dared more than a very bashful attempt which usually failed and fell far behind the demands of reality.

Sadism is present in every case of genuine fetishism. It ap- pears to be the deepest cause of this illness as well as of every compulsion neurosis.

The reaction to this sadism is the self -protective buttressing of the religious urge. As an atonement for the sadistic phan- tasies, the patient constructs the sexual ideal of asceticism which is more or less strictly observed.

The primary sadism then becomes transformed to masochism as a result of the pious ideas of expiation. The fetishist begins to execute his tortures on himself.

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221

William also laced himself into the corset and tried to torture himself. He would lay himself down on the bed in crucifixion position, tied in a corset, and try to bind himself. That con- duct approximated in his mind his ideal of Christ, brought him nearer the fiction of being a martyr (the Christ neurosis). Visiting his father confessor is an expression of his anagogic- religious tendency.

He is, on the other hand, a satan, too. He is the prophet of a new religion the sign of which is the corset. In one of his dreams, Christ and Satan struggle for possession of the world. Christ touches the devil, who wears a corset, with the cross and the devil disappears in a cloud of smoke and dust.

Unfortunately, it was not possible to unearth the infantile roots of his paraphilia, but the incestuous attitude towards his mother explains the early incidence and the stubbornness of his illness. In order to understand his paraphilia accurately, we must unravel the endo-psychic representation of his illness. He himself is the female whom he wishes to conquer. The man in his paraphilia is Satan, the devil who wishes to desecrate the woman in him. Symbolically, the female is the sign of chas- tity, whereas in life she is the incarnation of sin.

It is this divergence of conscious and unconscious striving which makes the patient incapable of love and affection. The corset is at once the symbol of an ascetic compulsion and the sign of his deepest raptures. It is thus that desire and absti- nence become unified in one symbol. In his struggle against the ascetic ideal, he commands five prostitutes, i.e., his five senses, his passionate desires. He strives towards love of life and joy of the senses, but his infantile guiding principle (Adler) leads him on to God and eternal bliss. He is simultaneously devout and agnostic, a libertine and an ascetic, a true Faust without Faust's mental qualities. He desires and rejects the analysis. He wants to be cured and yet fears that the analysis might de- stroy his ascetic life and rob him of his religion.

He often laid his prayer book next to his Satanic bible, and thus beautifully expressed the frayed, ambivalent nature of his soul. The struggle between belief and disbelief ended in the creation of a substitute religion.

Corset fetishism is comparatively frequent. The chief point

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is always the pressure of the article and the pain caused by it. This type of fetish addiction is often combined with shoe fe- tishism. Hammond reported an interesting and significant case of this kind :

Case 40. The patient is a well-educated and respectable man, the father of four healthy children, happily married. "Even long before puberty," he said, "I disclosed a preference for domestic activities, girl's games and even for feminine clothing, although I never expressed the last leaning beyond wearing women's shoes at times. I also admired the narrow waists of the ladies and even tried at fourteen to get a corset for myself. The older I got, the greater became my interest in feminine clothing, but, since I had no sisters, my sole source of gratification lay in reading novels which dealt with women, etc. I wrote several little stories en- titled Adventures in Crinoline and also wrote some other short tales of a similar nature. They were published and greedily bought up. To this day, I never miss an opportunity to see a man playing a female role on this stage."

At twenty-one, he began to wear corsets himself because he liked them so well, and, although he laced himself rather tightly, he seemed to suffer no serious detriment to his health. He con- fessed, however, that this always afforded him a certain sensual satisfaction. At first he suffered some pain in the pubic region and also had erections, but he soon learned that whenever he tied the corset on tightly, the erections ceased and copulation as well as masturbation were quite impossible.

Fearing impotence and other detriments resulting from mastur- bation, he anxiously avoided any voluntary orgasm and remained abstinent to the day of his marriage. He recalls having had three involuntary emissions, once while he was riding horseback. The result was that he gave up this otherwise healthful sport. The other two emissions occurred while he was buttoning on a pair of tight women's shoes with French heels.

Following marriage, he never put on a corset nor wore any fe- male clothing (with seldom exceptions), i.e., until the birth of two children convinced him of his potency. Then, however, the pa- tient began to succumb again and dropped into his old habits. Here I will let him speak for himself : "I bought myself a pair of very elegant women's shoes with French heels which were at first so tight on me that I limped." He would wear these shoes pub- licly while promenading in fine weather and lift up his trousers,

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223

so that the heels would show to better advantage. When the weather was adverse, he would put them on at home once a week and button them up in front of a mirror. This would always bring on an erection and sometimes even ejaculation.

When the novelty of this had worn off, he bought himself a corset, and whenever he could do so without being noticed, he would lace it on so tightly that he nearly fell in a faint. Both these articles of apparel, the button shoes and the corset, seemed to have a special appeal for him. Often in the horse cars, he would see a lady with a narrow waist and small feet opposite him and would experience a kind of idealized coitus with her or, as he put it, he felt a flow of his feeling towards her. Roubaud re- ports a quite similar case of a young man who was potent only with blondes who wore a corset, high heels and silk dresses. The last three objects also had a great effect on our own patient, re- gardless of whether the wearer were a man or woman.

He soon came to indulge his tastes more and more and even went so far as to buy himself, in addition to his already men- tioned possessions, a black silk dress which fitted him very tightly. He was quite proud of it, too. Ringlets and hoops, false hair, earrings and brooches, everything female was grist for his mill. Indeed, he would sit tightly corseted for hours while a barber would curl and do up his hair in the feminine manner. Finally, he arrived at the point where he would wear his black silk dress on promenade and to church, lifting it gingerly on one side to display the white, pleated trimmings and the shoes with the high, French heels. With a well-padded bosom, closely gathered waist and enormous cut de Paris, with fantastically done up hair, ear- rings and extremely tight and uncomfortable shoes he could walk miles or dance for hours with the greatest of pleasure. It actually appeared as if physical pain were an integral part of his bliss and he gloated in it as long as it were caused by some feminine article of apparel. Although he aped the manners and habits of women, he never abused his dress for base purposes, with the exception of experiencing an orgasm in these clothes now and again.

As I have already mentioned, he recommended narrow waists highly and had not only read a great deal on this subject, but had also collected all the literature that had been written for and against the practice. He often tried to lace himself so tightly that he would faint but in this he was unsuccessful. He even suc- ceeded in persuading his wife to lace herself closely and tied her corset tighter every day himself until her waistline had been re-

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duced about six inches. This also gratified him sexually. A child which she soon afterwards bore was quite healthy and well formed.

"He showed me," said Dr. Hammond, who communicated the case to me, "several photographs which portrayed him in all con- ceivable forms of feminine dress: as a ballet dancer, as Queen Elizabeth, as a Polish peasant, as an old maid, the goddess of lib- erty, Juliet; or in a simple street dress which he had some time worn to church.

"He often resolved to give up his habits, but he invariably re- verted to them. Sometimes he was able to abstain for weeks and months, but the old susceptibilities would return. He enjoyed a largely protein diet, but ate no fat. Only albumens satisfied him. I prescribed a vegetable diet for him, but he was so disgusted that I had to rescind my orders. He drank only weak tea and coffee. For a while he was given bromides in order to weaken his passions."

This case is not one of genuine fetishism and would doubt- less be diagnosed by Hirschfeld as transvestitism. He never- theless reveals two characteristic factors : the tight lacing in a corset and the wearing of tight-fitting shoes. It is significant that he himself chooses to wear the corset and the shoes. In every case that I have observed, these features of identification with the usual wearer of the clothing can be made out. I have always stressed this point. The pains express the invariable component of sado-masochism. I would call this man a case of "rudimentary fetishism." We are indebted to Abraham for another interesting case 7 of corset and foot fetishism which I shall discuss in detail later on.

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST

It is not at all the purpose of this work to exhaust the sym- bolic possibilities of the various parts of the human body. The divers forms of partialism and fetishism, especially, show such a specifically individual etiology that one is tempted to forget the general symbolism involved. And yet the individual pos- sesses a secret memory for symbols. There is a mnemonic system of recording symbols ; so that in dreams and other hyp- noic states we all sink back into the thinking and feeling of prehistoric times. It would be an interesting piece of work to demonstrate the signs of archaic thought processes in fetishism and to show that every paraphilia is really a regression to some aboriginal human level. I know that some schools of psycho- therapeusis lay a deal of weight on such relationships, but have they any significance in psychoanalytical practice? Do they bring us nearer the solution of parapathias ?

It is particularly in the case of foot fetishism that I could easily reveal the relationships between individual and general symbolism, but there is an exhaustive treatise by Dr. Aigremont {Fiiss~und Schuhsymbolik-und erotik, "Folkloristische und sexualwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen," Leipzig, Deutsche Verlags- Aktiengesellschaft, 1909), which makes any special study of this kind superfluous. That learned author has come to the following conclusions : Sexual foot and shoe symbolism is very widespread and of age-old origin. The female foot is the symbol of f ruitfulness because it touches the earth ; the male foot, on the other hand, is the symbol of creation. The shoe is a symbol of the vulva, while the foot is a sign of the penis (there are innumerable corroborations in ethnographic and folk-lore studies). The old and holy symbols of the pagan world, however, where creation and birth were looked upon as mysterious and holy manifestations of supernatural power,

225

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were transformed in the newer spiritualistic thought of Chris- tendom to evil and depraved concepts. As in the case of many sexual symbols, cynicism and a kind of frivolity also crept into these. In conclusion, Aigremont advises us not to forget the historical use of the foot and the shoe as sexual symbols in the direct sense.

We acknowledge the right of such conclusions, but we must ask how far would such research get us ? It is certain that the instincts as the sum total of unconscious experience also play a part in the choice of a symbol and Binet has too greatly sim- plified the matter for himself, despite the fact that many obser- vations appear to corroborate his thesis. We must simply admit that there are cases of fetishism and fetishism. The ones which I term genuinely fetishistic are all quite complicated and reveal their symbolism in divers forms.

Foot fetishism or, rather, the attractiveness of the foot and the shoe, the calf and the stocking, is so extraordinarily com- mon that these parts of the body (and their clothing) could easily be reckoned among the so-called secondary sexual char- acteristics. Throughout literature, there are innumerable eulo- gies of the foot and the shoe and it would be easy to collect many such examples.

To illustrate this subject I shall choose that case of foot fetishism from among the number which I have observed, which I analyzed the longest. The observation dates from the period of my association with Freud, when I still believed in long periods of analysis. I analyzed this man for over a year and thus had plenty of opportunity to examine his parapathia carefully.

Case 41. Mr. Beta, a thirty-year-old independent scholar, suf- fers from divers parapathic symptoms of which I shall pick out only two because they irritate him most of all: his agoraphobia and his foot fetishism.

He cannot walk in the street alone, but must always be accom- panied by someone. It is only along certain routes in the immedi- ate vicinity of his quarters that he can navigate without the aid of his servant, but when he desires to go further, he needs com- pany. The second part of his suffering is quite antithetical to the .first mentioned part. He raves about feet and feels impelled to

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 227

run after persons with feet of the shape he delights to see. Should he meet with his "ideal" in the street, he will follow it for hours at a time, would like to speak with the person and beg him to display the naked foot to him. During the first phase of his ana- lytical treatment, he lost his anxiety and was able to walk quite a distance alone. And what would he do on such a walk? He would look for an "ideal" and follow it about without, however, having the nerve to walk up to the person and talk about what oppressed him. He could go through the streets for hours in this wise and loved best to go for the Danube where there are often numbers of men who pull off their shoes, unwrap the rags from their feet and lie down to sun themselves or cool their feet in the river. I must mention that Beta was not at all attracted to the delicate, lovely and provoking feet of women. Nor was he in the least animated by women's ankles, legs or lovely shoes, as many of his fellow sufferers. He would always look first at a person's feet, be they man or woman, and formed his opinions of them on this basis. A woman as such did not interest him. He wanted to see the shoe fit the foot tightly and the phantasy of whatever was pinched and close was of elemental pleasure to him. He is promptly enlivened by the sight of corns and envies every chiropo- dist he sees.

He likes only male feet: red, swollen, dirty, sweaty and in- flamed feet. Abraham, to whose publication I will return below, explained foot fetishism on the basis of a repression of the olfac- tory pleasure in sweaty feet and Freud lends this theory consid- erable support. It is argued that man has developed from an olfactory to an optic animal and the consequence has been a sad reduction in the functional role of the nose. In this type of fetishism, the repressed impulse breaks through (partial repres- sion) and all foot fetishists are really fixated to the memory of sweaty feet. In this case, where sweaty feet are preferred, the tendency of the orthodox Freudian school to lay foot fetishism to the repression of certain instincts would appear to have found objective corroboration. We will soon see, however, that there are much more important mechanisms in operation here. Our patient — he felt himself ill and came to me to be liberated from the tyranny of his fetishism — would have plenty of opportunity to see men's feet at the bathing resorts if that were all that he were really after. He would have only to go through the cure at Wörishofen (a watering place) according to the Kneipp method and would there be able to gratify his dearest wish without becom-

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ing noticeable.1 But such easily attained delights do not attract him. The feet of the rich leave him unmoved, but the foot of the working man, the man who is oppressed, the servant, the de- pendent, the man who must go bare foot, whose feet are subjected to such great pressure that the marks can be seen on the skin, only such a foot impresses him deeply.

I must pause here for a moment to emphasize this factor as a frequent point in the histories of fetishists. Whatever is exposed to pressure or a compression or compulsion increases the value of the fetish. This factor alone contains the symbolical representa- tion of the whole fetishism. In such a case as this, the fetishism clothes the patient like a tight shoe and compresses him. It keeps the patient under constant constraint. From this point of view we are able to note the great similarity between fetishism and com- pulsion neuroses. In this form, the masochistic tendency of the fetishism betrays itself as a reaction to the never failing sadism of the patient.

As explained, Beta always sought out-of-the-way places for the gratification of his fetishism. On warm days, he goes to the Danube where poor working men may be found in droves, bath- ing their sweaty, swollen feet. It is the sight of these large, red feet which then gives him a thrill. He rushes home to mastur- bate. It is also important to find out in such cases just what the onanist adds to the scene in his phantasy. Whoever would suppose that Beta desired to touch the foot of a man or perhaps to have a homosexual relation with him would be sadly mistaken. Mr. Beta imagines that he is the poor workman with the red, sweaty feet and this picture is what provokes in him the most gratifying orgasm. Such a sign is also typical of the genuine fetishist. He identifies himself with his sexual object and it is by this process that Beta becomes the possessor of the red, swollen and sweaty feet.

Now, we could search here for infantile traumata and Beta actually related a host of details in this regard which I shall be able to report in the course of the dream analyses later on. He declared that as a child he had seen how a soldier who was the lover of their cook had pulled off his boots in their kitchen and the soldier's big, red feet had impressed him greatly. He also tells how the soldier rocked him on his knees and how this cre- ated a rush of pleasure in his veins. Such experiences cannot, however, explain the special mechanism of his parapathia, nor are they even accurately recalled. It is even probable that he

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 229

sketched them into the story of his life in the telling of the tale. I believe that fetishists invariably make up a great part of their early life and add experiences to the story which lie in the direc- tion of the fetish itself. Their so-called memories are false mem- ories (screen memories, but not in Freud's sense2).

I therefore expected our foot fetishist to relate a story to me which would approximate the type of history which all fetishists and homosexual men tell one. They relate how there was a time when the whole woman or the whole man interested them, with especial reference to the genitals. Subsequently, gradual changes in their attitude allegedly took place. First they became inter- ested in women's feet, then in men's feet in the course of time, until finally they developed a restricted attraction to red and swollen, sweaty feet. The sight of the soldier's feet should have determined the patient's subsequent interest specifically in that sense, but we see that the memory was hauled forth as a flight from sexuality and from woman (in this case from men, too). We must not forget how many children are exposed to these and similar experiences and yet how comparatively few become fetishists.

I repeat that this particular expression of taste developed only in the course of years and that, also, is a special characteristic of fetishism in general. But the individual's taste does not remain stable. The sexual goal keeps changing, but always in a pro- gressively restricted and circumscribed sense. There are always new compulsion formulae added to the original one, just as in a true compulsion neurosis. In this case, for example, it was the female foot which was the first step removed from the female genital and deflected all the interest from the genitals to the sex- ually indifferent foot. The next step was then the male foot, but the special condition of redness, swelling, perspiration, etc., came only later. As if Beta were afraid that he would achieve his sex- ual goal somewhat too easily. Artificial obstacles and difficulties which derive from a hidden ascetic tendency.

Beta, nevertheless, has intercourse with women or, rather, he is continuously trying to have intercourse with women. He belongs to that class of society in which one simply must have a mistress. His comrades go regularly to a brothel after the amusements of the club and he feels that he must go along. Once there, his con- duct is quite characteristic. He quickly falls for the first girl who pleases him, but, strangely enough, pays little or no attention to her feet, looks only for her pretty face. He rapidly gets a

23o SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

strong erection which subsides, however, at the moment when he is about to effect the immisio penis in vaginam. We note here the operation of an inhibition which springs from deep seated moral tendencies. Just as if a voice were saying to him : "Don't do that. It's a sin !" Under the circumstances, Beta has the girl then phallus extra vaginam manu stuprare usque ad ejacula- tionem. This act meets with all the requirements of that tendency of parapathics which I have called "pleasure without guilt." The passivity of his part also portrays to him his guiltlessness. Such logic is, of course, infantile, but that is true of all parapathics. He virtually says to himself : "It's really not your fault ; she did it." That is also the reason why any practice which necessitates passiv- ity on his part is always more successful, an apparent paradox which is due to his essentially feminine attitude. Immissio penis has been successful only infrequently, and then generally in a half erect state. Once, however, he was able to carry out perfect in- tercourse, but in that case the prostitute gave him a slap in the face and told him he deserved to be beaten. A wave of anger poured over him, he wanted to beat her back, to choke her, humble her, show her his real strength ; at that moment he got a strong erection, felt himself to be the complete male, took a properly aggressive attitude and was able to exploit his potency.

After such escapades and visits to prostitutes, he feels himself sullied and must take a bath. All his plans to find himself a beau- tiful mistress went wrong. Meretricious contacts and clear cut attempts by women of his circle to seduce him lost their effect in his indifference. He would begin the flirtation willingly enough, but never permitted the relationship to force a decision since that would necessarily have ended in a debacle for him.

The anamnesis and the psychoanalytical probing of the patient afforded much important material. At a very early age, Beta al- ready showed signs of considerable erotic urge combined with quite an aggressive constitution. At seven he was the friend of a little girl who came daily from near by to play with him. In- stinctively one day he tried to cohabit with her and injured the child. The punishment which followed — for the girl's English governess heard of the scene — and the ceaseless talk of his bad conduct promoted a gradual change in his character. This experi- ence had the effect of an "eternal warning" and stood threaten- ingly at the very beginning of his life.

But still his guiding principle led him towards the female. Dur- ing the following years he had various little affairs with cousins,

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 231

transient adventures with maidservants, etc. At twenty-one he fell in love with a dancer, and his father took this occasion to have a talk with him about women. His father believed that he should be absolutely unhampered in his activities, but he advised his son that one could not be cautious enough in life. Aside from the ever present danger of venereal diseases, there was the palpable pos- sibility that he would fall into the clutches of an unscrupulous woman. He should therefore take hold of himself and try to keep from binding himself to any one woman. In short, Beta realized that any kind of an affair with this dancer would be unpleasant to his father whom he idolized and respected. He therefore resolved not to disappoint his father and never to have any intercourse as long as his father lived, except now and again with a prostitute to whom he would not be obligated. Such a re- solve naturally resulted in his harboring death wishes against his father and the father actually died a few years later. Beta had, of course, pushed this thought aside, it was no longer in the cen- ter of his consciousness, but at the periphery ; he dared not think it ; he had to repress it.3

What did he do when his father died? First he assured the physician that he would never survive his father's passing, and then he promptly made a new resolution. He now swore that he would not have intercourse with any woman for the next three years. Succinctly, three years of strict abstinence. But he stuck to his resolution for only a year and then broke it with the motivation that it was, after all, not in accordance with what his father would have wished. His eruption took place under great resistance, however, and his impotence became more and more clear cut ; the forms of his fetishism began to appear dimly in the background.

A cold sweat would break out upon his body when he would bring himself to sleep with a prostitute. Poisonous feelings of guilt appeared before his eyes in all kinds of shapes. He was particularly hounded by the fear that he had acquired a venereal infection.

Externally, one would take him for a freethinker, but he was quite devout at heart. He was the plaything of two rival tenden- cies. It had been well known that his father was a liberal and that had always been the tradition of the family. But a clerical tutor had instilled the fear of God in the boy and packed him full of all sorts of superstitions about guilt, sin and atonement.

The solution of his fetishism was achieved in a peculiar man-

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ner. One day he confessed to me that what really interested him in the line of feet was a bloody one. He would often phantasy that he had stuck a nail or splinter into his foot and that it bled. The picture of a foot with a nail in it appeared more and more frequently in his phantasies and day-dreams. In short, there ap- peared that phenomenon which I have found so often in para- pathics : the Christ neurosis.

And now we can better understand his identification with the possessor of a sweaty foot. He was an impassioned hunter and for them "sweat" meant blood. His foot bleeds because it has been stuck through with a nail. He is Christ. It is with this picture in mind that he masturbates.

We must not mistake the fact, however, that fetishism per- forms an important function. It insures the fetish lover's chas- tity, guarantees the ascetic state for which he will be repaid in heaven. This circumscription gives him the right to expect saint- hood. That is why he is specifically interested in the feet of the poor, the oppressed. Christ was not the king of the wealthy, for to them heaven had been closed. Christ was the Lord of the weak and the enslaved. And the more one humbled one's self on this earth, the surer one could be of achieving salvation and recom- pense above. Since, now, Beta was very pious at heart, there was but one cure for his fetishism, viz., marriage. In that state co- habitation is no longer a sin. This case thus shows clearly that his fetishism was nothing but a mask for his ascetic and devout tendencies, for as soon as he was married, he promptly lost all interest in red, swollen, sweaty feet and his potency was fully satisfactory after the first few erratic experiences usual in such cases.

I have already mentioned above that the fetishism must con- tain an indication of the compulsion. Whatever presses, laces, hurts; whatever is done under coercion serves to symbolize the parapathia. In no case of fetishism will one miss such an indi- cation of constraint. It was with an iron obsession that Beta had forced his impulses into the Procrustes bed of his parapathia. He developed the agoraphobia in order to shield himself from the dangers of the street. He reduced and focussed his attention to the foot because he was in mortal fear of all the other depraved thoughts he might have.

Beta had the misfortune to have been the cause of his mother's death at birth and now he feels himself to be a born woman killer. He also had his own impulses to kill women, to choke them, be-

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 233

cause he hated them to the kidney. His father had been a Don Juan and the boy had felt that women stood between him and his father. Even as a youth he had a bipolar (ambivalent) attitude towards the tutors and governesses in the house. He hated the governess because she, too, was the mistress of his father while he himself was also attached to her. She had strikingly big feet which were almost the size of men's feet. His father's foot was also his sexual object.

At this point I wish to demonstrate the accuracy of some of the above statements and explanations on the basis of some of the dream analyses of this case.4 The analyses are built strictly on the foundations of the patient's own associations ; he was a think- ing and intellectual person. He was the first case of fetishism which I was able to study so carefully and it will doubtless inter- est others to follow the path I trod in gaining knowledge.

He dreamt :

I see a large wooden image of Christ before me and take a piece out of it.

This dream is to be taken symbolically. The dreamer is still a believer, a devout believer, as a matter of fact, despite his appar- ent pose as a freethinker. The day before the dream, he had read a book entitled La folie de Jesus (Dr. Binet-Sanglee, Paris, A. Maloine, 1908), but had to stop suddenly in the middle of it. He could not say why. It was all like an obsession, like a command : stop reading. The deeper causes for this experience are revealed in the dream. He had taken something from his godliness.

Second determination. He himself is Christ, but only a part. He adapts a part of the life of Christ for himself. He is there- fore no longer flesh and blood, but wood. He can no longer give way to the passions of the flesh. Simultaneously he expresses his bipolar tendency: he is made of wood, can easily burn and go up in flames. What piece was it that he took out? He doesn't know, but we shall learn in later dream analyses. That piece which he took out of the image — might not that have been the foot? His fetish? His personal religion? His atonement? A later dream will afford us still further insight into this.

Another dream :

I read a complaint of a certain Mr. X. against the high school principal Weihrich who died the same day. There were three parts to his complaint and Weihrich was indicted oniy on the last

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count. He had to walk in sandals and do something else, too. But I didn't understand that part of it.

Addendum: I saw a photograph of Gessmann and spoke with him about it.

The evening before, the dreamer had eaten a whole wheat roll with butter which, in Vienna, is called bosniak or Hadschi-loja after some Bosnian insurgent. A short while after eating the roll, he vomited and had terrific pains in the region of the kidney. He thought it was due to acid and alleges that any acid makes him sick. Whenever he eats ripe pears, he gets the same kind of griping and has a diarrhoea.

The analysis brought forth significant associations to the name of Weihrich. Weihrauch (incense) — Weihe (dedication) — Weiher (fish-pond) — Wow. Relating X (knock-kneed) — wow — and Gessmann, who is a notorious anti-Semite in Vienna, this was manifestly "knocking" the physician. He complains that the analyst has spoiled his pleasure in his perversions. He is being swindled (smoked out). Swindle makes him think of rocking. He recalls that as a child he was rocked on the knee of a soldier. That is one of the roots of his fetishism. There is, in addition, the fact stressed by Adler that he sucked his big toe as a baby.

His latent desire is thus to take a dirty, sweaty foot or a great toe into his mouth. Making a symbolical equation, we have the foot instead of the hand, the toe for the thumb, the penis and a breast. From here the path of associations leads to the para- philia of fellatio and to the wet-nurse complex.

Bosniak is a Viennese expression for a Bosnian soldier and Hadschi-loja reminds him of the slang Viennese expression for walking-hatschen. The vomiting, the pains and the diarrhoea were provoked by the phantasy that he had taken a great toe (sweat — butyl acid — butter) into his mouth and had swallowed the acids contained in perspiration. Before we began the dream analysis, he had had waking phantasies of having swallowed a big foot.

Thus another root of his fetishism : the penis had been portrayed to him as something revolting, something one must be ashamed of. The result was a displacement of all his erotic libido to the foot.

Gessmann leads to guess. I'm the man who only guesses and knows nothing. The photograph (my picture) didn't please him at all. It was much too pale for him (Gessmann is dark). Light leads again to sweat and to hi? idiosyncrasy against rare roast

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 235

beef. Blood is called sweat in the language of hunters and roast beef also reminds him of sweat which is considerably reduced if one uses sandals instead of shoes (symbolic equation: blood, per- spiration, pus, mucus, urine, sperma, air, money, etc.).

The three parts of this dream are : ( 1 ) His English governess, (2) His brother, and (3) The sweaty foot. I have already sev- ered him from his governess and his brother through the analysis and now I want even to separate him from his perverted delight in sweaty feet. That is the reason for the "knocking," the blame contained in the association Foot — flat foot — wow — . Further associations lead him to the "Wandering Jew" of Eugene Sue and that calls forth sweat again.

He himself is Ahasuerus, however. In his most delightful phan- tasies, he is Ahasuerus, the flying Dutchman or any other eternally damned soul. His foot images are all masochistically colored and represent ideas of expiation.

That which he could not understand in the dream is what he learns in the analysis. He doesn't want to understand it, for the moment he does have understanding, he is through with his ob- sessions. He derives too much pleasure from these infantile things, however, and doesn't want to give them up.

This dream also contains a number of serious emotional striv- ings. Among others, coarse calumniations of my own person which are so well disguised that the manifest dream content appears to contain no afTect whatever.

Finally, he has me die, throws me among the corpses. That walk in sandals is a march into eternity. Sometimes he doesn't understand me at all. "There is something spirited about your thinking." He makes a spirit of me (Gessmann — Geistmann — Geist is German for spirit. Trans.). A spirit is light, white, pale. I'm much too dark for him. As far as he is concerned I could live only as a picture (photograph). This all leads to a new opening, his belief in the devil. I'm the devil in his eyes. I want to make him potent, i.e., to lead him into the arms of the female. But he wants to live an ascetic life and become a saint. He is always looking for situations in which he shall be unrighteously injured. He is invited to a party and the hostess has to call it off for one reason or another. He immediately makes a serious insult out of the whole thing. He thrives on unrighteous slights. He wants to suffer the pains of the pure. Thus, after the party had been called off and he had gone on a hunting trip, he wrote me the following very interesting letter:

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"The calling off of that party; the invitation to another visit with a similar renunciation following, all this plunged me into a state of the direst depression, despite the fact that I should have been happy that the hunt was also called off because that always makes me nervous. Indeed, even the depression wasn't so despair- ing; I think I found it rather pleasant. It was all a frustration, an injuiry from which I gathered pleasures. I'm just a masochist, and a masochist is passive, and passivity means femininity, whereas the male is active. That is why the masochist possesses feminine feelings and desires to be overcome by a man, by an active indi- vidual. That is also the reason why masochists have a preference for soldiers, for active military men. The chief pleasure of the masochist, the passive one, is 'passio/ 'passion' ; and thus the ideas of atonement. His greatest irritation is to be found in 'action' — coitus.

"There must have occurred some great injustice in my child- hood from which I then derived gratification. I am still intent on gathering satisfaction from such a construed injustice.

"And do I not forbid myself everything even now? My illness is the apotheosis of a prohibition. I don't have intercourse, I'm asexual, see nobody, avoid the theatre, close myself off more and more behind a wall of books and don't even leave the house which is the first step one would have to take to do anything. My anxiety is a protection against pleasure.

"At times I feel as if nothing would give me greater pleasure than to die and be forgotten : the nth degree of masochism. Dur- ing such a depression, I often have a curious day-dream :

"A man was unjustly sentenced for murder, but the peculiar thing about it all was that he hardly defended himself and heard the sentence with a composure which only those possess who are unjustly accused and feel as innocent as an angel. He was sen- tenced to life imprisonment. In prison, he appears so great that even all the jailers look upon him as a saint. He comforts the sick, heals them and seems to work wonders. In the course of years the fame of this holy criminal even reaches the ears of the emperor and he pardons him without rescinding the sentence. The saint in prison is notified, but he no longer understands the trifles of this world. He is completely transfigured, he is Christ himself. It is his chief triumph that in his sainthood he has lost his genitals, has become sexless and passes like a ray of light to heaven. The ruler is speechless, but is powerless even so much as to approach him. He, however, lives on in his usual manner."

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 237

This letter contains highly significant confessions, the most im- portant of which are patently presented in the waking phantasy. It discloses to us the root of his asceticism. He indicts himself bitterly because of his murderous tendencies and is sorry that he has not led a saintly, but rather a sinful existence.

That name Weihrich is indeed an ingenious choice. It points to his satanic and olfactory complex (incense; the devil stinks). The incense also leads to his saintly complex. The principal is the father who had once unjustly whipped him. It is this in- fantile situation which constantly shadows him in life. "Blessed be the meek and they who suffer for the sake of justice ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." That is his guiding motive.

He wants to reach the kingdom of heaven. He wants to excel his father, and his asceticism will assure him an even higher post in the skies. He wants to be a woman and lack a penis. These female tendencies alone will enable him to triumph over his father and in life eternal he will be over his father and gloat. He the saint; his father the sinner. Before the throne of God, he will fling three complaints at his father (the principle) and at the dead. But, we must ask ourselves, what is the source of this hatred against his father? An old rivalry — the English governess. This governess was his great love. When his wet-nurse left, this maid became everything for him. She dared not have anything to do with anyone else, otherwise he would become enraged. His father, however, was very sweet to this English child's maid and the boy witnessed many small and one important meeting which deeply mortified him. Was it possible? "His" Frances dared to kiss another man? That inflamed his sensitivity and his egoism to the thoughts of direst criminal revenge. But the child is im- potent against adults. If only he had a poison, he could revenge himself on his enemy. Therefore the vomiting, the nausea and the diarrhoea after the Hadschi-loja. Father was a pasha and kept a harem. Beta's masochistic ideas are the atonement for the criminal phantasies of his childhood.

Here he clearly demonstrates his castration phantasies. He desired to castrate his father for having had intercourse with the Englishwoman. Then he wants to emasculate himself. The piece that he wants to take from himself (see the dream of the wooden image) is the genital. Then he can become Christ. He is the criminal, the mother killer who is innocent of the crime. We see also the root of his wandering impulse (marching in sandals) and the neurotic distortion of this impulse — the agoraphobia. He

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also wanted to murder his brother in order to have his father for himself.

The most important meaning of the dream is : He charges him- self with three crimes and must atone for the third. He must become a wanderer and expiate his sins. What are the three crimes ? What has he committed that he should desire to renounce all earthly happiness ? The other dreams will give us the answer.

Another dream :

THE CLIMBING APE

It was in the Tyrol and the road was fearfully steep. Frances, my brother and I were together. Three trucks and an auto came uphill and a one-horse dray came down the hill. I climbed about like a monkey and had terrible fears. Then I tore out a tree branch with my left hand. They all marvelled at my strength.

An onanistic dream. He is the poor man who ride? a one-horse dray, i.e., without a woman, and thereby comes down (a one-horse dray came down hill). He bears the heavy burden of his para- pathia and always feels weak and beaten. The contrasting wish : "They all marvelled at my strength." His potency always fails with women; the path to woman is too steep for him. He can't find his way into the vagina. He can never effect immissio penis. He is no man at all and must satisfy himself with masturbation (the auto and pulling out the branch). His associations then take a singular turn. We will follow closely. The seven asses — branches — burden lead to depravity and syphilis. Many of his dreams deal with picking an ace — pickle — pimple — picking a pimple — pox. Infection.

What do those three wagons and the auto represent ? Who are they? Three persons whom he loves and among whom his affec- tions vacillate. He identifies himself first with one and then with another (the ape frequently expresses the capacity for "aping" or identification as well as the possession of a long tail (penis) and climbing). He apes everybody, even his brother who lives a loose life. The three wagons are his father, Frances, and the wet-nurse. He himself is represented by the auto.

His greatest fear is to fall. His climbing leads to his wet- nurse complex. A wet-nurse once let him drop and he is afraid that Frances might also let him go, i.e., stop loving him. She could also fall — for some one else. She could transfer her affec- tions to his brother of whom he is bitterly jealous. He emascu- lates his brother, tears out his branch. One of his pet phantasies

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 239

is that he is Zeus who emasculates Cronus. He has castrated his father and has become the stronger. He is jealous of his father. If his father is God (Cronus), then he is the son of God: Christ. He is the man who has overcome time (Cronus), he will live eternally. He is Ahasuerus : Damned, unhappily wandering for- ever, ever searching, but possessed of eternal life nevertheless.

That was his great discovery. He believed as a youth that he had discovered the secret of eternal life and divine power. This discovery (one must involuntarily marvel at the bipolarity of all parapathic phenomena) was masturbation. During the early years of his life, onanism was but a substitute for his nurse's breast. He had been nursed for thirteen months and the trauma of weaning played a major role in his phantasies. He had been abruptly weaned and he wants to do the same to others. He wants to cut off the breasts or the symbolical substitutes (penis, feet, every- thing paired, such as the ears, etc.). He wants to ape what was done to him.

W e come again upon the castration complex. He tears a branch out with his left hand, his own penis from the tree of life. He rips his own sexuality out of his body. He always fears that his penis might be caught and cut off in a woman; she might bite it off. He gladly castrates himself, since he wants to have nothing to do with women and visits a brothel only under pressure and even then cannot effect anything. In order to execute this auto- castration, he needs such strength as will command universal at- tention and wonder. He wants to become a saint, like St. Francis. The apparently innocent word Frances contains a direct indica- tion of his foot fetishism. He is a Franciscan, a Minorite, a beg- ging monk who wanders barefoot from land to land and extols the virtues of poverty and chastity. That is why the dream takes place in the Tyrol, the land of the pious peasants. The road to heaven is a steep one and he has to drag the three conscious sins (the sinful truck) along with him. In addition to this, a fourth one, his worst and most difficult one: the auto. He sees the threatening burden bear down upon him. That's what will happen to you if you but leave the straight and narrow path. You'll come down more and more. You're not a human; you're an animal, an ape.

Above the entire dream there hangs the powerful anxiety. He is also the three persons in one : himself, his unconscious brother and his parapathia along with the female (castrated) component in him, the Franciscan. He feels that he must climb the heights,

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however, and overcome everything. He is fearful lest he fail to achieve his goal. He is afraid that he might fall to the bottom and lose his eternal bliss.

The polar tension between the conscious and subconscious ten- dencies which drive him into the drama of this paraphilia can best be perceived when we remember that in conscious activity he is a freethinker who hates monks and nuns (he could tear them to pieces) and chooses to read books which undermine religion (La folic de Jesus).

There follow three dreams which he dreamed in one night.

I had an old jacket and some old cloths in a box, but when 1 opened the box, it was full of red splinters and sawdust which represented a part of the cross and the blood of Christ. I was then able to close the box only with great difficulty and my right thumb and index finger were bloody. I became greatly frightened and had much trouble in washing the blood away.

Papa, my brother and I wanted to ride from Pest to Vienna in the Orient Express. We spoke with the conductor and ordered three seats. I said I'll sleep with papa and brother can sleep alone.

My friend M. telephoned me that I would be advised about the monotelephone.

The word monotelephone is another clever disguise for mas- turbation. One should read the dreams backwards. He must masturbate and has been told by M. how detrimental it is.

He is to die. He orders the seats from the conductor (usually the figure of death). He sleeps with father. His brother, who is a Don Juan, doesn't belong to father after whose death he, Beta, remained chaste for a year. He here atones for an old sin. He sinned grievously against his father (see the dream of the wooden image of Christ).

Blood sticks to his fingers. The blood of Christ. He can't wash it away. It is strange, however, that the cross which now enters his mind has a curious form. It consists of four hem- ispheres which are connected by cross-bars. From this cross he wanders to the image of four cups — hemispheres — filled with blood. Blood and milk. He drinks the blood of Christ. The Orient Express is also a leader to the Christ neurosis. As I have already explained, he vacillated between two extremes : Christ and Antichrist (Satan).

Masturbation was also the atonement and expiation of his des-

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 241

perate ideas of murder. Blood sticks to his fingers.5 He would like to cleanse himself and become a saint. When he heard that onanism was detrimental to his health, he continued it in order thus to punish himself and finally kill himself. Then the semen (symbolical substitute for blood) stuck to his fingers. The box is Pandora's box. All his pleasures and desires flowed from the box that could not be shut.

All three dreams deal with his onanism. The fingers defiled with semen (self-pollution), the express train and the monotele- phone are but three variants of the. same theme: masturbation. The old cloths refer to the handkerchiefs he used when mas- turbating.

The conductor leads the way across the viaduct of the dead to his death wishes. Everybody will die (sleep). He alone (monotelephone) will remain. The jacket leads to murder and blood phantasies via Jack the Ripper. He opened the box with bloody things with the aid of a knife (memory of ripped-up dolls filled with sawdust).

Most important of all : He is a woman and no man. He has a jacket and a box.6 He is menstruating. He sleeps with papa, just as that Englishwoman did. He has a telephone with a re- ceiver. This phantasy also illuminates his position when mas- turbating. He must always lie supine otherwise he never ex- periences any satisfaction. He repressed his sadistic murder im- pulses as too male. As a female he could be passive and masochis- tic. He could suffer. This phantasy leads directly to the wish to be a woman, Christ nailed to the cross. His pet phantasy is that he is nailed (possessed).

The masturbation (mono) enables him to retain his feminine phantasies stubbornly. He is male on the right side and uses his left side. His phantasies during masturbation are distinctly bisexual and even in the next dream, we shall see that he is the horse and the rider in one.

He masturbates only with his left hand (he is left-handed), and we may recall that in the previous dream, he had torn out the tree branch with his left hand.

The most significant (functional) meaning of the dream is that the jacket and the old rags which he has hidden in a box, repre- sent his old piety, inculcated by that clerical tutor he had; the priest who had told him a lot of tales about the miracles worked by the blood of Christ. He has lost his belief, however. The warm and well-fitting jacket of devotion is gone. Only worth-

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less remnants of Christ are left; sawdust. In another dream, he had cut something out of the wooden image of Christ. He had destroyed the holy image. And now the blood of his deed sticks to his fingers. He has turned against his religion.

He wants to be pious. He wants to leave Pest (pestilential sin) and go to his father, i.e., to his father in heaven. He will be advised — by God. He is the one and only, a chosen man, a part of Christ himself (monos). He awaits the miracle of enlighten- ment. He would like to experience such miracles as his tutor had related to him.

In vain will we search for traces of his paraphilia in his dreams. Only seldom does one hear of sexual pictures and never does he dream of naked men with sweaty feet. Consciously he is a para- philic, but unconsciously he is a hypocrite.

Still another onanistic dream of Mr. Beta.

My brother, a riding master, and I had a ride in the Prater with a stable boy. The riding master and I were ahead and he thought I had better gallop ahead a little, but not too fast because otherwise the other horses would rush after. I did as he asked, but my horse, called Nana, crowded me somewhat, and I played with the reins as if they were elastic, pulling on them until I would bend far backwards and twice, I think, my knees went up and I nearly rolled over backwards. A little anxiety.

Again we have four persons. This is a death ride. The father died first, as we know, and advised his son not to ruin his life. His horse is called Nana — Oh, Nana — onanism. He plays with the elastic reins (his penis) and goes through the well known motions. He masturbates too much and will die as a result.

He will die first — gallop ahead. The horse is also a memory of the successor of his wet-nurse, a child's maid who played with his penis. After he was weaned, he was quite incorrigible and this nurse-maid quieted him by this new form of gratification. It is this same old infantile delight that he still seeks. He would like to have this form of affection from everybody and also desired it of his father.

Still more important is the functional significance of the dream. We have again the anxious emotion and the fear is that he might fall. His riding master teaches him how not to spend his life and not to ride too fast. But Nana crowds him. Nana is the well- known courtesan made immortal by Emile Zola. He is afraid the sorceress could catch him. He's not safe in the saddle and the

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 243

reins are elastic. Horses are symbolic of passions. Will he be able to rein in his impulses ?

In this dream, too, we miss any sign of feet or any indication of his perversions, but we do see the anxiety of woman (Nana) which plays such a leading role in his paraphilia.

The next dream:

I travelled with my brother to Reichenberg and there we looked for the station. Everything was German. We finally found the railway station, but there were no tracks. They were one floor higher. My brother wanted to go up in the elevator, but the machine stuck between the floors of the station and my brother jumped off. Then some porter or other went up and we were told that the railway formerly passed through the valley until the "great misfortune" occurred.

We shall try to follow the thoughts of the dreamer himself in analyzing this dream, reserving our interpretation for the last. He is struck first by the fact that Reichenberg is mentioned in the dream and this reminds him of a singer named Reichberg who died in an asylum of paresis. He had apparently had syphilis, just like another singer, G., and the poet Lenau. But Reichberg also means the fertile hill, the breast, the milk-laden udder of the cow. "I was always impressed," he said, "by Homer's use of the expression 'the udder of the earth/ I often used the ex- pression myself many times a day. That makes me think of another hill, too: the mons veneris. And now another singer comes to my mind, that poor and tragic Reichenmann who died so young. Don't you think it's surely untrue that he was a homo- sexual? Reichberg is the opposite of Armental (rich hill — poor valley. Trans.) and that makes me think of an opera in which the lately deceased bass Hesch used to sing the role of D'Armen- tal. Poor Hesch ! He too died so young. I like all bass singers."

He also likes the expression "feet forward," 7 and thus reveals his real passion, his foot fetishism. Bass also calls the French word bas to his mind and that leads him again to foot. Every hill (Berg in German) has a foot, at the foot of the hill. And then from Reichenberg he passes to Reichmann, a certain Her- mann whose feet attracted him when he was a child. He was only a very young boy and was greatly impressed whenever he saw the slightly older Hermann walking about the courtyard of the house with bare feet.

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At this point his associations pass from the city of Reichenberg and we observe that his thoughts turn to certain bodily symbols. Behind Reichenberg there lurks the shadow of an important figure of his youth.

After a short pause, he comes to the statement in the dream: "and we looked for the railway station." He tells me that as a child he was in the habit of turning all words about. The German word Bahn (railway) thus made Nab and that leads him to navel. He feels certain that the railway represented the navel in this dream. Suddenly he thinks of the moon, and then recalls that the dream must have taken place under the light of the moon. The moon is a celestial station. The railway station was the navel. Yesterday he suffered an attack of anxiety while passing the hotel Oesterreichischer Hof and now recalls that his mother once lived there. His attack of fear is explained by associations which lead to the deepest factor of his paraphilia. The hotel is identified with the figure of his mother who lived there. "The other side of the station" (a statement in the dream) indicates the phantasies of his mother's womb which are so characteristic of him. The other side of the station (or navel) was where he also once lived. Via navel, tunnel, hall, dirt, he passes to divers railroad symbols. Trains come and go in the station. He recalls his onanism. Machine is also the French word for penis. II a gate sa machine. He has ruined his phallus. He is impotent. He recalls seeing a train stop in the middle of an open field once because the machine (the locomotive) had broken down. Mas- turbation has also ruined his machine. The prepuce is for him a symbolic expression of the hall of a railway station where trains move in and out. He is also subject to a definite form of anxiety, viz., that he may rub off his prepuce while masturbating. During coitus, too, he desires to leave the foreskin out, as if the phallus were a child which had to be kept in a protected place (symboliza- tion of his phantasies of the mother's womb in the form of the phallus).

The day before, I had advised him to go out despite his great anxiety, and this he was able to carry out with the aid of the analysis he had already undergone. Again he had an attack of fear before the hotel Oesterreichischer Hof, and we see how cor- rect Freud's rule is that a patient with an anxiety neurosis must always be forced into the situation which provokes anxiety. The phobia is a kind of mental moat, a protective wall of unconscious notions which the patient does not wish to give up or reveal.

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 245

Walking in this case has the effect of producing anxiety and the psychoanalytical examination of this emotion affords us a better understanding of the elements of the mental structure. At this moment, the patient produces an association which is of great significance. He says : "The smaller the room, the more comfort- able I feel. I now know why. Because I have a covering for my head. The larger the space I am in, the more unpleasant I feel, especially if there is no roof or ceiling above me." We note here the classical identification with his attitude towards his phallus (the protective covering, the foreskin that dare not be pulled back because he will become anxious). What he feels in respect of his penis, he feels regarding his whole person. He likes it in the toilet best of all, because the room is small and has a low ceiling. That is also the room which interests him most of all in the house and the place where he often spends the most time (a very frequent occurrence with parapathics who suffer from phantasies of the mother's body).

The initiated reader will recognize that this clearly depicts the maternal womb phantasies which appeared in the form of the hotel scene. We now understand what he meant by "the great misfortune" which he mentioned at the end of his dream. It was his "great misfortune" to lose his mother at birth. He was the cause of her death and in his phantasy, returning to his mother's womb means, symbolically, going to the grave. The grave is a small and well-covered place. Some of his masochistic ideas, such as being unrighteously sentenced to a cell, also derive from these phantasies of a small and narrow space.

The anxiety he produces on the street is intimately connected with the act of walking. The "act" of walking reminds him of the sexual act. As a boy, he used to masturbate while walk- ing, by rubbing his penis against his pants. That was also why he usually walked in a pigeon-toed fashion. (This manner of walking has been completely changed during the course of the analysis. He now points his toes outwards, as most people do 8).

His anxiety is a fear of walking in the street. Mother Earth symbolizes his real mother and the walking thus indicates for him the accomplishment of an incestuous sexual act.

There is, however, still another parallelism between walking and erotism. He is not able to effect immissio penis, no matter how great his erection is at the time. The phallus collapses im- mediately. To-day he has captured the solution. "I should be tickled that I have got out of a woman alive. It would be foolish to

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try to get back in again." As he had learned later in life, there had been some talk at his birth of sacrificing him for the sake of his mother. But he is now really happy that they did not choose him for the sacrifice and is therefore actually thankful to all doctors for his being alive. After all, it would have been so easy. He thus denies any desire to get back to woman or even to go to heaven (this is, of course, just stage play on his part). He re- calls a humorous verse he read recently in the Fliegende Blaet- ter wherein a child is supposed to pray for piety in order to get to heaven, but instead, says that it just came from there and doesn't want to get back.

Long pause. Then he remembers that as a young boy he wrote a little fairy tale about a fairy which changed itself to a hill (mons veneris?) and then fell apart again. The knight who saved her received such a munificent reward from her that he was able to marry her. This fantasy is a new lead for us. The figure of the fairy is first transformed to the mother and then to a gover- ness who is, in reality, identified with the mother. Moreover, both these women had once lived together in that hotel Oester- reichischer Hof. From the psychoanalytical point of view, there- fore, these first literary attempts are significant. Such products invariably contain the nucleus of the child's uneliminated psychic conflict and represent a sublimated attempt to digest the situation (Cf. my monograph "Dichtung und Neurose," J. F. Bergmann, 1909).

The governess represented mother to him, taught him how to pray and to say the Ave Maria. He was particularly impressed with that part of it which said : blessed be the fruit of thy body. For months and months he continued to turn over in his mind the question as to what that could be: the fruit of thy body. How did the fruit get in there ? How did it come back out again ? Could it be through the anus? From here he returns to his ideas about toilets and small spaces. In large rooms or spaces, he is afraid of tentacles that might reach out from the walls or ceiling and envelop him. He thinks of the houses along the street as immense women who could seize upon him. A part of his anxiety on the street is, however, ultimately a fear of prostitutes. Each house is to him a female.9 Policemen are the tentacles of the law. In Reichenberg, the policemen are going to wear speared helmets as they do in Prussia. The helmets remind him again of the breasts — the cups — the pox — and from there he goes back again to lues and the ideas of infection he expressed at the outset of

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 247

the dream as corroborated in the persons of Reichberg, G. and Lenau. The helmet also recalls to him an infantile sexual theory which has to do with being born in a hood. It is interesting in this respect that he always holds his hat on his head whenever he is seized by an attack of anxiety, as if the labor of the wind (birth labor) could blow it from him. In short, he could lose his magic hood. He expresses the infantile sexual theory that children are first laid as eggs and then appear in a skin (or amnion).10 His foreskin is even now a representative of the amnion and at every coitus he thus repeats the act of birth.

From Reichenberg and helmet his associations travel over Prus- sia to Germany. Germany reminds him of the so-called German vice (le vice allemand, i.e., homosexuality). He flees from the female to the male. Coitus is a dangerous path which leads to woman, whereas the noble affection for a man preserves life. Other important relations are touched upon in this respect which may be due to the fact that his mother was a German whereas his father was an Austrian.

The first part of his dream thus means as much as: I have always been searching for the man but have invariably found the woman. His fear of syphilitic infection had a great deal to do with this attitude, of course.

Proceeding, we come to the analysis of the dream statement: "And then we found the station, but there were no tracks." This makes him think of a joke he once heard about a man who was sitting opposite a woman in the train coupe who had her legs crossed in such a fashion that one could see rather far up them. "What fine rails you have there," he said. She demanded a certain sum of money for the privilege of viewing the station to which the rails led, but he felt the fare was too high. He claimed that he could show her the station master standing at attention with a red cap on for less than half the price.

The rails are thus the road to woman, the road which he cannot find despite all his searching and seeking, simply because of his homosexuality. And now we come to that peculiar manifestation of the dream viz., the necessity for going up to the first floor of the station in order to find the tracks. He promptly associates the first year of life to the first floor. One must get as far back as the first year of life in the analysis in order to find the right track (the first floor is thus also the nurse's breast). There is still another interpretation which approximates the approach of Schemer. If the vagina is the mezzanine, then the navel is a

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floor above it. Here the word navel reminds him of Naples, and he recalls the adage: Vede Napoli e poi mori (See Naples and then die).

He produces still another infantile sexual theory which derives from these associations. "I thought," he says, "that babies came out through the umbilicus." He is constantly plagued by the fear that he may burst open at the navel, he permits no one to touch him in that region. As a boy he did not believe that he was a boy, but a girl, and that the female differs from the male only in having a somewhat larger belly button. His navel was thus his vagina. Later he believed that he was hermaphroditic. His per- sistent disorientation in respect of the female body, on which he can never find the foramen vaginae without the woman's aid, is due to his chronic confusion of the vagina and the navel. He always climbs a floor too high. His further associations led to the wet-nurse who lifted him ("elevator") still another story higher.

Strangely enough, and contrary to his feelings about the nurse, he abhors elevators and suffers from the fear that they might get stuck between floors and prevent his escape. We see in this a revamping of his agoraphobia: he gets stuck on the street and can't move further. The same is true of his heterosexual rela- tions: his penis might get stuck in the vagina and he would lose it; he would be caught in the caverns of the mother's body and wouldn't be able to escape. Or the phantasy : he has committed a homosexual act or has been unjustly accused of having committed such an act and has been locked up.

He feels that his greatest despair would be to find himself locked out on an open balcony with no covering above and a drop below. This leads us back to the above-mentioned nurse complex. There creeps through his memory a dim flicker of having been dropped by his wet-nurse. The balcony, which is the most uni- versal symbol of the nursing breast, accurately portrays the child's position on the arm of the nurse: uncovered above and a drop below. He was always breathlessly afraid of being swung and lifted as a baby and felt best when safely tucked away in his carriage or crib. He always preferred a bed with a canopy and feels that every house is a woman. Comes again to the fear that every house might reach down and swing him into the air. He never shows any anxiety in the garden or on the street or if he gets into a wagon or a car because the carriage symbolizes for him the comfort and security of the baby carriage. He always

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 249

wants to feel his feet on the earth and finds that he cannot walk because that necessitates his lifting his feet. He thinks of an illustration he once saw in the Fliegende Blaetter in which the houses were all represented as humans. The houses are constant recollections of the "terrible" people who always swung him into the air. The elevator reminds him of his nurse because she always elevated him (lifted him) to the breast. It was in a lift that he experienced his first attack of anxiety.

Now he first feels certain that some woman had dropped him. Probably his governess. The "great misfortune" is thus not only the death of his mother, but also his "own fall." The word fall reminds him of the fall of Eve — omphale and phallus ; then again to the fall on the street. He is especially anxious when the wind is blowing (he was also nearly blown out at birth). He recollects a picture from Struwelpeter (a German fable) in which the wind carries off a child.11 He was greatly impressed by Rembrandt's Ganymede in which the seizure of a child and its flight through the air are depicted. The wind can lift one up just like the houses on the street, and there is such a thing as "the bride of the wind." We begin to see the connections ever more clearly. Throughout childhood, he was constantly in fear of being picked up and that is a reason for his appreciation of big feet. They stand solidly on the ground. He is also frightened by boat rides because the rocking of the boat on the waves reminds him of being rocked in his nurse's arms. He is also then forced to retire to the "narrow cabin" where only resting in the bed or bunk will quiet his nerves. He also abhors the idea of going up in a balloon or airplane. When Bleriot went up in his airplane, our patient was afraid that the flier was going to fall on his head. He says that he would jump out of any balloon he got into, just as his brother jumped out in the dream. He would not be in the least ashamed although he shamed himself whenever his governess was tender with him on the street. She always used to kiss him and people would laugh at him. That is also why he is able to go through the streets at night without fear, he is not able to see anyone laugh- ing at him. Once when he was twelve years old, his governess awaited him at the school and kissed him when he came out. He fell into a bit of anger. He doesn't want to be a baby forever. He wants to stand on his own feet. He even learned to dance recently in order that he might mix more socially. This reminds him of the fact that his governess would always dance about with children in order to quiet them. He suddenly recalls being caught

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in an elevator in Reichenhall (a well-known German resort — Trans.) and almost being squeezed to death. That leads to a new anxiety, viz., his fear that his chest will be crushed. He even knows the basis for this particular anxiety, the infantile source of the phobia. His governess used to crush him to her breast and say: "Oh, I'll crush you to death, I'll just eat you up." The scene in the elevator in Reichenhall 12 happened in this wise : the elevator boy jumped out at a floor and he tried to jump after him while his father and brother stayed in to ride on up.

This incident represents another significant complex to us. He wants to have come out of the mother's womb before his brother and he manifestly envies his brother having been born first. The phantasy of the mother's womb thus again plays an important role in this mechanism. There is also another basis for the in- cident: father and brother can die (be carried off), but I'm going to save myself. He now recalls an experience from his fifth year : his father and brother were riding in an elevator which got stuck between two floors and he himself stood below and yelled insanely that father better look out, he could be crushed or pressed to death. He likes to ride in express trains, especially in the direc- tion of Pressbmg. Sailors interest him because, as he hints, they are "pressed" into service. He always reads the Neue Freie Presse (a leading Viennese daily — Trans.) and finds it a good paper, whereas the Old Press did not satisfy him. He likes to watch wine pressing because it is still done with naked feet. He is more anxious than otherwise at the end of a walk or errand because he is "pressed" and he associates that masturbation also occurs by his pressing his penis. He likes to see soldiers who appear as if they had been compressed into their uniforms. "Pedem (or passum) premere" is the Latin expression for walk- ing fast. Whenever he watches the review of cavalry, he looks for the boots of the leader because his feet are tightly pressed into them. He is thoroughly gratified libidinously if he has to press hard at defecation.

Whenever he has been examined by a physician, he has always emphasized to the doctor that he should not touch his navel as otherwise he might die.13 This analysis thus shows us how far- reaching are the thought processes and associations which deter- mine an apparently harmless dream picture and what widespread connections with it are set up. I have purposely gone into de- tails (although not the exhaustive details) of this dream in order to show that the simple translation of dream material into the

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 251

language of psychoanalysis is in itself not enough. The most important part of the solution comes from the dreamer himself.

We begin to see that the repressed wish may be formulated about as follows : If only my father and brother had died there in Reich- enhall, just as my mother died when I was born. I would then be independent in this world. That is, in fact, one of his dearest desires. He wants to be the only pebble on the beach. He would like to see everybody die out. He would see a great misfortune strike the world, but leave him unscathed. He, the small, scared, bashful, anxious and oppressed patient would then be the One and Only.

We also learn what significance was attained by the infantile impressions of being swung and lifted through the air as regards the development of his anxiety. The governesses and other educ- ing adults are indicated in the dream in the form of the "servants."

The matter of the servants then led to a still further association of importance. One of them was a kindergarten teacher from Prussia by the name of Deutsch (the word German in previous associations). She was called La Prussienne in the house. He comes back to the associations of Deutsch (German) with the German vice and Prussian helmets. He then brings forth the memory of another childhood experience from the deepest infantile level. The nurse carried him in her arms up to the first floor of the house where he involuntarily became the witness of a rather undisguised erotic scene between herself and a strange man. That was also a "great misfortune." He remembered an exhibitionistic act on the part of the man.

We now have an understanding of the dream. His brother is the penis that wants to jump out (before him). He once got a box on the ear from his father because as a little boy he wanted to take out his penis on the street and walk around with it hanging out. Now he has developed the lustful phantasy of walking about the main streets of Vienna with bare feet and great toes show- ing. His exhibitionistic tendencies have been displaced down- wards.

Finally, his agoraphobia has been demasked and we see that it is but his anxiety of his own impulses. He would like best of all to open his trousers and walk about with his phallus hanging out, but he is afraid that he might actually do this in an insane moment (the insanity of Lenau, the institution at Reichenberg). That is why he would like to be insane, just for the pleasurable moment of gratifying his exhibitionism. The Hotel Oesterreichi-

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scher Hof, before which he suffered an attack of fear, faces the Old Meat Market. He would like to open up his meat stall. And why? Because he is always reproducing the scene of his birth. The phallus is the fassimile of the child. It is to be born without accident. That is, he identifies himself with his mother and his penis with himself, his mother's child. One of the two must be sacrificed, either the mother or the child. The first idea is emotionally represented by the castration phantasies and the second by the fear of death. When a man takes his foot out of a shoe, it is for him a symbol of birth. The great toe is the symbol of the dirty, compressed and red child.

The attack of anxiety, however, plays the same scene except in a displacement upwards. He is afraid that his hat might fly away and convulsively holds it fast to his head. He is afraid to un- cover his head, i.e., the head of his phallus.

The trains now travel up above. Everything takes place either above (in the head) or below (the feet). Formerly, the mas- turbation took place below and it was while everything travelled below that the "great misfortune,, of the box on the ear took place which he has not yet forgotten.

The causal scene here becomes more and more clear cut in his memory. He was bathing with his older brother and they had been playing with their genitals when their governess broke into the room and threatened them with the direst punishment. They would have their pipi cut off if they didn't stop. They would get a "terrible disease" from such playing. Finally, he even got a box on the ear from father. He himself had been the prompter in playing with their genitals. His brother got off with a sermon.

In the dream, the railway is the onanism. He made a train out of his phallus and ruined his machine by overwork. He must die. He can still hear the horrible warning of his governess : "If you don't stop playing with your pipi, it'll fall off and you'll die." Then there was the trauma of that clap on the ear which was truly a trauma for him because he had never before been punished. He was unconscionably proud and sensitive.

His thirst for revenge and insatiable hate date from this ex- perience. The true phantasy is that father and brother (the latter derided him because of the box on the ear) should die. In order to realize this wish, he makes use of the railway and the elevator in the dream (he reproduces the dream elements of the elevator in his own parapathia in that he cannot bring himself to get stuck in a woman's vagina). He also presents his brother with a syphilis

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 253

in the dream from which he will soon die. Why? Because his brother is wealthy (Reichenberg) and he wants to inherit his money. The hill (his fable) should crumble apart and he should collect all the riches.

That is why he desires to be a woman. A woman cannot lose her pipi, it cannot fall off her, she does not sin, she is passive. He wants to be a woman, a saint, and thus triumph over his father. High above, in the eternal fields, he will be the conqueror and to that end he must be ascetic. He is not deserving of the enjoyments of life, especially because, in his heart, he has been a murderer. The railway and the lift were to have killed his father and brother and the governess to the end that he might have masturbated without interference. The railway and the eleva- tor are thus death symbols here.

Finally, the dreamer considers the whole thing and says : "This picture represents a sort of cross-section. It expresses my am- bivalent nature : half man, half woman. I masturbate as if I were a woman, and the most important thing, I think, is the fact that walking in the street alone also means masturbation to me. I am ashamed to be seen in the street because I have a feeling that everybody can see in my face that I have masturbated. That is why I desire always to be alone. I would like to see the whole world crumble and disappear and then I could exploit my pleasures without shame or fear. That is what I call my "psychic an- archism." 14

This dream has demonstrated to us the sexual meaning of walk- ing and also the divers uses which the foot has found in his phan- tasies. His anxiety in walking is anxiety of woman and his foot fetishism is a protection from woman. In his asceticism, he as- sures himself a final triumph over his brother. His f etichism also aids him in persevering in his asceticism. The foot admonishes him of his birth, of his sins, of the fact that he is a pious pilgrim, a Franciscan.

There then follow seven dreams.

1. A very handsome young man was telling me and all the gen- tlemen and ladies that he was quite healthy except that he had sweaty feet. There was nothing to do about it because it was a disease he had inherited from his father and grandfather.

2. I went down into a valley and saw a sailor disappear into a country house. I searched for him, but didn't find him any more.

3. Papa, my brother, a certain Mr. F. and myself played bil-

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liards. I played the balls as if I were playing golf, however, and continued a try until I had made a good shot. Then everybody was sitting down ; Mr. F. ate up the contents of two cans of sar- dines and said that at midnight he was going to eat at a friend of his whom he liked a great deal, despite the fact that the friend had said : "I am a Christian Socialist."

Then father was suddenly taken deathly ill with some heart con- dition and they bought only half of the evening edition of the Neue Freie Presse, which I read. They said that he dare not move and that the whole paper would kill him. Then I saw that there was the entire first afternoon edition there and I thought: how can that be that father should die a second time after he has already died once.

4. I threw my watch to the floor, but it didn't break. Only the case sprang open.

5. An economist by the name of Christians and some fat man and myself were together in a small room. Christians had said : "We'll play the following game." He would bathe first and then would come I and then, if there were still another bathroom left, the fat man. He bathed in a single bathroom, but the one I used was for four people. The fat man left because there were no other bath rooms. Christians attracted me considerably. We were both naked and I wondered that he was larger than myself. Then my brother came along and asked me what I was doing and whether I hadn't seen his penis. "Not even so much," I said, and pointed to a part of my finger.

6. A woman with a staff or a phallus in her hand is bending over a child (Jesus?) in a cradle.

7. I wanted to go into the mausoleum at the Central Cemetery, but it gave me the shivers and an angel barred the way.

The first dream plainly emphasizes the foot fetishism which characterizes our patient. He is the "handsome young man" who feels himself completely healthy with exception of his sweaty- feet fetishism which is here represented by its own symbol. His first nursemaid suffered from perspiration of the feet and now he has repressed the contact and has a great disgust. He is, how- ever, attracted by a livid or warm foot. We are also reminded of the second meaning of sweat in his mind, i.e., blood. A bloody foot and a foot covered with filth (wading in muck) play a lead- ing part in his phantasies. Another meaning of this dream is : his guilt smells to heaven. All his personal blame in the matter is here displaced to his father and grandfather and comes to him

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 255

only via heredity. Later we shall become acquainted with still another meaning of the dream which has to do with the fact that he also inherited quite a fortune from his grandfather and father.

The second dream refers to the serious trauma of his life. The sailor (his father, the master) used to visit a peasant (the Eng- lishwoman in the country) every night. He has repressed this occurrence because he did not want to see it. The dream fulfills his desire; he searches (for the memory), but does not find it any more. In this second dream, also, his father dies again, dis- appears into the grave where he can no longer be found. The third dream is of fundamental significance in this series. His father is alive again, has been resurrected, and the patient won- ders at this. A great miracle has occurred. Father has died twice. This second death is of great importance because, as we know, his father had not actually died within him. He was still the master over our patient's destiny. But now — and that is the wonder — Beta has become free, only now has his father actually died. In this we observe the weighty problem of the death of already deceased persons. Th second death is an expression of the dreamer's wish to eliminate them and actually know them to be among the dead.

The game with the billiard balls has a meaning of its own. He thinks first of flat feet and then of football. The ball of the foot is what interests him. He alleges that he is disgusted by feet with corns which he also calls balls.15 But even other kinds of balls attracted his attention, e.g., the breasts. Golf reminds him of gulf and he thinks of the Latin name for gulf which is also the name for breasts or bay (sinus). His foot fetishism is also a displacement from above downwards. The balls of the feet represent both breasts. Mr. F. represents his father, F. is the "real anal erotic" as he calls him because his mouth is so full of blasphemy. These blasphemies are closely connected with the dream material, but I cannot take the trouble to follow this thread now.

His two delineations of father (Faustand Mephisto) are here indicated by the father and Mr. F. Father has two mistresses, the child's maid, i.e., the country house, and the Englishwoman. They are portrayed as cans without a head (tail). His associa- tion on sardine is Piedmont which easily resolves itself into pied- mont, i.e., foot of the hill (see the dream about Reichenberg). We see that the dreamer goes to the bottom of the valley in the second dream, i.e., down to the foot of the hill. What the mean-

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ing of this passage is we shall presently learn. Mr. F. is to visit a friend of his who is a Christian Socialist for a midnight supper (one of the political parties in Germany and Austria. — Trans.). That is, this is the holy supper which Greek Catholics take after midnight. The friend's name is Carpenter and immediately Beta thinks of the son of a carpenter— Christ (the name in German would be Zimmermann which thus would permit of the further distortion to Frauenzimmermann — a not unusual pun on a com- mon German name — indicating the figure of a Don Juan or a man who loves the ladies). Father should turn Christian and be- come devout. The other determinant is: father should turn to him (Christ).

This defines the real conflict of his life. As I have already mentioned above, Beta's father and grandfather were confirmed liberals, never prayed and never went to church. His own first tutor was a fanatic clerical, however, and inculcated a point of view into him which now makes him look upon the heritage of his parental line as a stigma. He has inherited liberalism, i.e., heath- enism from them. Externally playing the role of the freethinker, he is inwardly a most pious clerical (i.e., Christian Socialist).

"Suddenly father was deathly ill from some heart disease." Agnosticism was what had been gnawing at his heart and it was high time that he should be proselyted and saved. That was why he dared not read that "Jewish sheet" the Neue Frew Presse. That is why only half of the paper, i.e., the "Press," as the con- servative and almost clerical forerunner of the Neue Freie Presse had been called, was permissible. The allusion to the paper is also another indication of the female question. The free press (the libertine which blackmails), a prostitute. The half press, a demi-monde. A full-blooded paper might be detrimental to his health. Furthermore, he doesn't want father to marry again or have anything to do with "whole," i.e., with full-blooded women. "Half the evening edition" leads to thoughts of the "holy supper," but "the first afternoon edition" was not susceptible of solution. Probably an allusion to some scene between father and a nurse- maid.

The fourth dream shows the watch as the representative of the heart. His heart (the father) will not die. He throws it to the floor, but it does not break. He only notes what time has been struck (the watch sprang open). His father struck him after that first scene. The opening of the case indicates the resurrection of the dead, their release from the tomb.

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 257

The fifth dream appears to be the keystone of a series of dreams including some of the earlier ones. The analysis of this dream lasted about ten hours and I have set down only the net results. In respect of the economist, he thought of his brother, but there were no associations on the baths until I insisted that the dream must have some relationships with his religious complex. He de- nied this but soon came upon allusions to his own economy, his desire for money, the need for living economically. Further as- sociations led to Aaron and the golden calf.

These disparaging ideas are apparently directed at the fat man who seems to be the imago of his father, despite the fact that he looked in the dream more like a common, ordinary cab driver. He also stood there as if stone dead, a description which fits well since his father is actually dead. (Coachman or driver also indi- cates the leader or driver of the family, i.e., the father. A coach indicates a pair, i.e., marriage.) He now thinks that it wasn't really a bath, but only a shower, they only wet their heads. Fi- nally, he thinks that the economist was a man who suffered from a chronic eczema and that instead of economist it should be ecce homo. Aaron — John — Ko — Kohn and Christ. The bathing means baptismal (John the Baptist). Christ was the first to be baptized. He is the One and Only (see monos — monotheist). Beta had for some time considered whether he should have himself baptized or not and envied the courage of Constantine the Great who had himself baptized on his death bed and was thus able to enter heaven "pure" and enjoy eternal bliss (he calls his friend Kohn constant Ko). That "horrid fat man" rejected baptismal and the baptists and thus lost his chance of going to heaven.

The most important factor in the dream is, however, that the economist animated him sexually. We also begin to understand his brother's question as to whether he had seen his (the brother's) phallus or not. Christ was the patient's first religious and sexual ideal. The sweaty feet are the blood-stained feet of the son of God.

The patient's sins, however, are much, much greater than this. For a time during childhood, he had suffered from the grandiose delusion that he, too, was a son of God. He thought himself a sort of Christ, and the family was the holy family. Father was God, brother was the Holy Ghost, and he himself was the "Son of God." That is why he is surprised to find in the dream that Christ is larger than he is. He is the savior. He is atoning for the sins of his father and has nailed himself to the cross of his

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parapathia. His chief sin was that he had made an erotic ideal of his religious God. As a boy he had felt frustrated by the fact that Christ always wore a loin-cloth. Another sin was that he had once wanted to see his father's phallus and had asked his father to show him his "pipi." What he got was a beating, and that is what the brother's question in the dream really refers to.

The following day, he dreamed a variation on this theme — the sixth dream. He described the woman as follows : a heavy, com- mon person, avaricious, lewd, repulsive ; a cook who was the apoth- eosis of all the worst memories of his childhood. The bisexual character of the dreamer also becomes noticeable. The chief con- sideration here is that his father (the fat man of the fifth dream) has been represented as an old woman. He is the little Jesus. His father prevents him from masturbating.

In the last dream, he is seized with regret for having so calum- niated his father. He wants to climb into his father's tomb.1* Ideas of suicide. An angel (his physician) prevents him from the execution of the notions. The angel reminds him of a pic- ture of the resurrection of Christ. This was also effected in the third dream (the miracle or wonder expressed as wondering). The springing open of the watch case is the opening of the door of the tomb when Christ was resurrected. The angel is also the angel with the fiery sword who drove the sinners out of paradise. We then realize that the deepest cause of his impotence is his feeling that he is unworthy of the possession of a woman. The angel drives him out of paradise (the cemetery — the tomb — the vagina). He shudders before woman who personifies sin in his mind. Every time he tried to enter the vagina, his phallus col- lapsed. Between him and woman stand death and sin.

He dreams of resurrection. That is the great miracle. He really awaits the renaissance of his potency. His phallus is to be resurrected. His member is his divinity. His true God is dead ; he can neither pray nor believe — nor even possess a woman.

The second dream reviews the death of his father and the loss of his potency. He no longer possesses a phallus ; only the foot. His foot fetishism is his atonement for the alleged sins of his fa- ther and for his own waywardness. But throughout all the dreams there is a growing hope of immanent recovery. The coup succeeds. His father dies. The watch falls to the ground and an angel saves him from annihilation.

There is also another form in which his belief in his parapathia appears. He suffers from agoraphobia, but this is, in a way, his

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 259

fear of the resurrected. His father might be revived and meet him on the street. The devil might come after him.

It took a year of arduous work in the analysis to dig up this long-lost religious complex of Beta's. There is hardly a para- pathia in which this complex is not to be found, regardless of how enlightened and atheistic the patients may consider them- selves. They are all believers, hypocrites in feeling. Intellectually, they have overcome their religious leanings, but their infantile effects are eternally seared into their hearts to flame up again in their darkest moments. It is the heart, unflinching child's heart which still believes when the mind has thought itself beyond all religion and piety.

This dreamer, too, who sees the Bible in place of his mother, is ostensibly a fanatical freethinker and an ardent follower of Haeckel. A "monist" of the strictest sort. But all skin deep. The religious complex usually is firmly soldered into one piece with the parent or (Edipus complex. The sins against the parents be- come the sins against God and religion.

It is astounding how frequently we meet with the Christ neu- rosis in the case of this patient. In the last series of dreams it was sufficiently indicated by the words Christian Socialist and the name Christians. In addition to this there was a hint at the child Jesus. The foot is for him a melting pot of his religious and sexual symbols. Such a consolidation is characteristic of all cases of fetishism and one can observe the same to be true if one only analyzes them with sufficient care and depth. Dream analysis is, to be sure, an art which demands perseverance and patience as well as the probing of even the most complicated ramifications in the patient's mind. These complexes are more or less dis- guised in Beta's first dreams and it is only after the analysis of the later dreams that we are able to gain insight into them. But even in them the whole problem of his parapathia was present.

It is now, towards the end of this analysis, that I wish to bring the first dream which this patient produced. Such initial dreams are very important because they generally contain the whole para- pathic problem in nuce.

I saw a play at the royal theatre. It seems that I was with a couple of friends (M. R. and K. R.). They played a piece with two actors. One of them was Kainz and the other Gregori (two famous Viennese actors of a generation ago — Trans.). It seems that the action took place in the middle ages, because we were all dressed in togas or things that looked like bathrobes.

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Suddenly one of the actors (Gregori) talked a lot and then ran off after having spoken very loudly. The other one continued talking and then, suddenly calling out: "Now everybody must look at me !," he pulled off his toga and stood there with his trunk naked and a sort of towel about his loins.17 The most curious thing about the whole scene was that he had a triangular piece of brown wood stuck on the end of his penis. When we saw that we were all disgusted and left the theatre. The act was over.

I also recall that someone said the next act begins in ten min- utes. We took a little walk in a long street and then wanted to return for the next act.

It is difficult to convey a true impression of the amount of con- densation represented in this dream. The most significant and definitive experiences of his life are reproduced in its various parts. The reader who has studied the foregoing dreams of this patient will already have recognized some of the unconscious dream motives without further analysis. Before going into the chief meaning of this dream, i.e., into the experience represented, I would like to set down at least fragmentarily some of the dream analysis.

As we already know, the play in the royal theatre indicates the family situation. He was not alone in the audience there either ; there were, in addition to him, his brother, the governess and the tutor. The two actors, Kainz and Gregori, are special references to the two souls within his breast. He first saw them, too, in "Faust," when Gregori played Faust and Kainz, Mephisto. They were the incarnation of the cleavage in his soul, the devil and Faust. Gregori reminds him of the Greek word for awakening and also of Gregorius, the pillarist, of the pope Gregory, etc., etc. Kainz is also an allusion to Cain which permits of divers relation- ships to his brother, etc. The scene is staged in antiquity, i.e., his own early age or childhood. The actors are dressed in bath- robes, a scene which looks funny to him and somehow reminds him of the old Roman togas. Then came the curious scene with the wooden covering of the phallus, a picture which was resistive to solution for some time. The most important feature of this element is doubtless that it expresses his castration complex, one of the chief bases of his whole neurosis.

But now to the trauma which is cloaked by the dream. Once after a bath, he and his brother crept up to the room of the Eng- lish governess. They were both dressed in bath robes. They dragged up a chair and then alternately climbed up on it to look

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 261

through the keyhole where they were able to observe diverse pro- voking scenes (coitus) in which the actors were the persons to whom their rearing had been entrusted. Suddenly his brother became frightened and ran away yelling. He also began to shriek, but was so paralyzed with fright that he remained standing in the next room. His brother had already reached the safety of the bed before he had been able to collect himself. When he was caught, he was soundly beaten and boxed. He remembered the punishment for the rest of his life. That was the worst beating of his childhood. That scene when he was caught before he could reach the haven of safety is reproduced by him now in his agoraphobia. It is one of the deepest roots of his anxiety. The second meaning of the dream derives from Kainz and passes to the theme of Cain and Abel, i.e., the murder of his brother. He was always the cat's paw for his brother and even in this case, he was the one who got whipped whereas his brother got off without a scratch and laughed up his sleeve. That is the source of all his dark hatred against his brother. Still another interpre- tation derives from Abel. As children, the two of them were present at a ballet given for children called "The Sun and the Earth." A certain Mrs. Abel played the part of the sun. She had thin jersey tights over her naked body and for months there- after the boys amused themselves by going around saying, "Old Abel has no pipi, old Abel has no pipi !," i.e., she was castrated in their eyes. But it was Beta's idea that brother also should have no pipi. It was the aim of his sadistic desires for revenge to ef- fect a castration of his brother.18 The punishment for such a desire is now his psychic impotence. Again we note the bisexual character of this dream. The actors wore bathrobes which also make them look like women (the clergyman's gown, robes, dress- ing gowns, etc., are also made use of for the same purposes in dreams). It was also in a bath that certain homosexual scenes took place between himself and his brother. This act he had staged "alone" with his brother. Now he is Kainz, the man who has nothing. He would like to be a woman. The next trauma occurred ten years later when the English governess began to have affairs with another of his tutors; they took place so fre- quently that the tutor soon had to leave the house. The last sen- tence about the long street in which he spends some time, the "endlessly long trail," is a figure of the path of his life. The wood instead of the breast. The governess was as flat as a board where he expected her to have full, round breasts. (There is

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also the board-like flap in the pants of the Styrian mountain folk, which the patient knew very well.) Another determinant derives from the wet-nurse, after whose discharge he had cried bitterly and was implacable for weeks. This is the trauma of weaning which, according to Staercke, is the apotheosis of castration.

A few months later, Mr. Beta finally brought me the conclud- ing solution of this dream. That story about the coitus scene was right, except that it originally dealt with two other persons (the soldier and the nursemaid). It was an act of revenge that he had displaced the action to his father and the governess. The real traumatic scene had taken place as follows: After their bath, both the boys had gone to bed together and there began to play Mama and Papa. Beta was on the bottom and was pushed in the navel by his brother. Then they played all kinds of little tricks with each other. Suddenly their father appeared and gave it to both of them. Such experiences preclude the development of the individual's aggressiveness and lead to the fixation upon a female role in life from sheer obstinacy (Adler). Such was also the case here. He wanted to be a woman and that is why he sud- denly finds himself in the dream with a piece of wood instead of a penis.

It is important that he is playing on the stage, he is an actor and is doing splendidly. He is Faust, the God seeker and Mephisto the God hater, both in one. As Mephisto he plays the fetishist, the paraphilic, the degenerate; as Faust he is the pious believer, the chosen one who yearns for salvation. The toga-like dress is his monk's garb.

And what does he make himself look like? First he prattles about piety and then we see him standing in a loin cloth. We begin to understand this figure. He is Christ. But Christ with- out a phallus. He wears a piece of wood as a covering for his penis and this hides and hinders its function. It is the same piece of wood he took out of himself in the first dream about the wooden idol. His Christ neurosis is a protective mechanism against his sexual activity. He wants to while away more time in the dark street of life and then return to his piety.

This is a consideration of the most fundamental of this pa- tient's dreams. I have mentioned the trauma which was woven into the dream. The following communications are extracts from further dreams of Mr. Beta. They are instructive because they show us how significant materials return over and over again.

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 263

On the other hand, they will disclose to us divers variations of the original trauma.

The first one is a dream of his brother's.

I was supposed to appear in some vaudeville as a woman. I was horribly surprised to see myself dressed only in a bathrobe and feared that it might open and that then everybody would see me. I then sat down among the audience.

The brother, too, is a serious case of a parapathia. We see here a dream which is almost identical with the one Beta had and note how the same environment, the same mistakes in bringing up, the same trauma have been able to produce almost identical results in two different boys. We find here the vaudeville stage (Silvester Schaeffer), the bathrobes, the acting and the dread.

I was at a cinema and there we saw pictures of a glacier on which a couple and a guide were coming towards us. First came the woman, who had on a long hiking coat that looked like a bath- robe. Then came the man with a hood over his head. Suddenly the guide was no longer there and in his stead there was a cross. The cross then changed to a white ghost. I wanted to run out of the cinema, but I was suddenly frozen to the spot with the ghost coming after me. I awoke with fright.

Here we see the figures which were such good stock in other dreams. He looks into the moving picture of his own soul. He sees the glacier which is doubtless the symbol of his own icy sex- uality. His guide is Christ himself who turns into the cross. The couple represent the two components of his own soul, the female and the male. Again we see the bathrobe and the hood, the latter indicating the hood of the monks, the Franciscan hood. The spirit of Christ chases and threatens him. He awakens in a fright that he may transgress the commandments of religion.

At the end of this dream he had a very clear-cut hypnagogic dream. I phantasy that my life should be one great expiation. First would come a public confessional in the Franciscan church and following that a protracted atonement and penance with the monks, chief among the punishments being public whippings on the cross, etc. Then I asked myself why I should want to suffer so, and my answer was that I had killed my father and mother, The first crime was forgiven but the second was not. Then I asked myself how had I wished to kill my father and the answer was that I had wished to kill him because I did not wish him to put his thing in. I recalled the scene at Aussee and heard the

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thundering voice of God calling: "In punishment for not having wished him to put it in, thou also shalt not be able to put it in. Thy seed shall fall fruitlessly on the ground. Thy suffering shall be the eternal lopping off of thy phallus and it shall always grow back again, an eternal torture. For thou hast the desire to cut off thy father's phallus." Whenever I was whipped thereafter, I always got an emission and the semen was left as a sacrifice on the cross. But the monks found me too evil for them and I was turned over to worse company, the soldiers. With them I went to war, came to Africa and was there captured by natives and tor- tured fearfully. At the last moment I was saved, but I never saw my home again. Christ appeared in the clouds and, reaching down, took me to his bosom. He is always pure and said to me : "Thou hast conquered, my son, for thou hast overcome the flesh."

This hypnagogic dream speaks such a clear and unambiguous language; it comprises all the elements of his Christ neurosis in such an unmistakably unified whole that I can doubtless spare myself the trouble of analyzing it.

All these dreams are variations on the one theme of the great traumatic scene of his early childhood. His father came upon the brothers in the bath just as they were playing with each other. That is why all the dreams reenact a play (theatre, cinema, vaude- ville, cards, games, etc.). This early experience was the great misfortune of his life. Every time there arises within him a tendency to aggression, he recalls the beating he received at that time and a still, small voice says to him : "Hands off !"

The day after that scene in the bath, their father came to the boys and spoke quietly and considerately with them about the ter- rible consequences of masturbation. The results would be death, softening of the brain, diseases of the spinal cord, the nerves, paralyses, etc. One would then be unable to walk and would have to be pushed in a wheel chair or ride in a carriage. This sermon appears to Beta to be the most deeply impressive of his life and doubtless entered into the provocation of his agoraphobia. He cannot walk ; his father's prophecy has come true.

His father was the black crow who prophesied his ill fortune. Because of this and the fact that his father was also the intruder who broke up the erotic games with his brother, Beta succumbed to the audacious ideas of revenge. This gives us an even deeper understanding of his foot fetishism. It is a pleasure and a pen- ance in one. The fetishistic manifestations can also be deter- mined by infantile criminal phantasies. That may perhaps be the

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 265

usual mechanism behind the development of fetishism, but only more analyses of such cases can enlighten us. In Beta's case it happened as follows : After a bath, he ran about in his room bare- foot. The English governess came into the room and yelled at him : "You'll catch your death of cold." Going barefoot thus took on an association with dying. His passive (criminal) wish then became a desire to see his father catch cold ; that would be his re- venge for the scene after the bath and the father's chastisement for his having masturbated. The wish then turned to anxiety, i.e., he could not see his dear father walking about the house with- out slippers. He feared that he would catch cold. Another cause of his anxiety was the notion that he could be infected by a splin- ter. This fear also derived from a repressed criminal desire.

His father's death was a serious trauma for him. Father had caught a cold and died as the result of pneumonia. He had been warned against his affair with that dancer, but he knew that when father would die, he would be free to do as he wished. Old death wishes arose in him anew and he desired to see his father die and liberate him. The reaction to the wish was, however, that he became anxious and feared that his father would die. We recall that after his father's death he actually threatened to take his own life, and that he swore not to have any intercourse for three years. This oath he broke, however. But, although he made attempts, they were invariably failures. His foot fetishism became pro- gressively more marked.

We know of three sins, three burdens, which he always carried about in his soul. The death of his mother, the death of his fa- ther and — the most serious — his masturbation. These three sins he had to expiate.

He wants to castrate himself and, spiritually, has already done so. He has even played with the thought of having himself actually castrated, so that he may prevent his onanism and become a saint. His paraphilia is still further determined and directed by his castration complex as we shall see directly.

The analysis then came upon the following dream.

Although the mustache which I had was quite short, I cut it still shorter, using a scissors. Finally, it looked so short that I might just as well not have had any mustache.

He himself interpreted the dream. He wants to be a woman and have no penis. Mustache is a well-known and universal sym- bol for the phallus. Women fall for a fine mustache. Like a large nose, it is the sign of a large penis. (Bluebeard, the his-

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torical woman eater, was described by Grimm as a very potent man with a large, black beard.)

Beta gets a thrill from cutting his finger nails. He also dreams frequently of manicuring himself. What is the purpose of the castration? Suddenly he falls asleep during the analysis but awakens again in a few seconds. He had a curious dream-picture. He saw a man within a mandolin ; but this man was himself, he finds. He sketched the picture as follows :

The dream is :

I stood in the round belly marked T and fell forwards through the Bridge B to the cross-board B'. I couldn't extricate myself Before that I thought of a certain man named Triasangoli who had had a fight with a porter.

On the basis of all that we have already heard, this is manifestly a phantasy of the mother's womb. Some of the parts of the dream-picture are well known to us, e.g., the bridge and the wooden board. The belly of the mandolin is his mother's belly, the bridge the vagina — the bridge to life. The cross-board blocks the way.

Mr. Beta, however, is also the man who killed his mother at his birth. Now he phantasies himself back in that position — i.e., with some variation. He can't get out. One of his infantile birth theories (with especial reference to his own birth) was that he had ripped open his mother's belly with the toe nail of his great toe.

This makes everything more clear to us. The nail of the great toe is the penis and he feels at bottom that with his erect penis he injured his mother. That is why he is afraid ever again to put his penis back into a woman. His erection always collapses under a wave of anxiety. (Such anxiety often arises from the ob- servation of copulating dogs who, after copulation, frequently cannot come apart. Beta insists that he has never seen such an incident, but says that he had early witnessed such occurrences in June bugs, flies and butterflies.)

/ /

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 267

His anxiety in the street is equivalent to his fear in the vagina. He never has any fears when he is out in the open country and out there he also experiences persistent erections (outside the vagina).

The fight he mentions indicates the injury. Triasangoli makes him think of trias and angle — the characteristic trinity which we know to be the symbol of the phallus. Angle has to do with that which catches and hooks fish. He thus symbolizes his penis as an angle ; it has a catch which can injure a woman. That's why he prefers to castrate himself. That's why he takes the scissors to cut off his mustache. These sadistic and castrating phantasies appear directly in his consciousness. Beta has every reason to repress his sexuality. He hates women, is a woman murderer. He would like to possess a giant phallus with which he could bore them through and kill them. Jack the Ripper. That's why he has to avoid women and circumscribe his interests to the foot.

His inability to put it in also has a definitely criminal source. We may remember that he wanted to stab his father to death. For the sake of a woman (that English governess) and his de- sire to be undisturbed in his relations with his brother, he wanted to remove his father. The beating and that intrusion after the bath had inflamed his hate. Now, however, he suffers from the imperative tyranny of penance. Instead of his original desire, he symbolizes it, as it were, on himself by removing the points of his mustache. That is the reason for the mention of Mr. Tria- sangoli in the hypnagogic dream-picture. He had a terrific fight with a porter. The sexual act is altogether too closely identified with the criminal act to suit the patient. Every coitus is murder. Murder is forbidden.

He has, on the other hand, every reason to desire to live his life over again and that is the reason for the phantasy of the mother's womb. He is compressed within his fetishism just as that figure in the mandolin. He can't even move. The figure he drew is thus a symbolic representation of the compulsion which he has brought upon himself.

Further than this, I must also call attention to a significant in- fantile theme which enables us to appreciate all these disturbances as a form of psycho-sexual infantilism. The first compulsion which we suffer in life is being pressed within the womb and then immediately upon birth being rolled in a diaper. It was once a common habit to see babies done up and bound in strips, but this has long gone out of fashion, especially in England and

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America. The diapered child is often the prototype of all later binding and swaddling phantasies. In the sketch he has given us, Beta presents a remarkable resemblance to a child swathed in diapers. In short, he is a perennial nursling, as we have already had occasion to observe in his dreams.

Beta's psychic impotence is not only infantilism, it is also a punishment for his criminal thoughts. Almost every impotence is to be explained on this basis. That is why such patients always dream of revolvers and rifles which never go off. This is, fur- thermore, another reason why young persons so frequently com- mit suicide. As long as the revolver is to go off, it had best be directed at one's own breast.

The hypnagogic picture is intimately related to these thoughts. The two Bs together give BB which leads him to baby, and such he really is, both in the picture and in his unconscious. He re- verses the process of his birth and reappears as a girl, without a penis. The result is that his mother may live yet. He is not the murderer of his mother (he also does not wish to be his father's murderer consciously).

The belly of the instrument is his mother's belly and the servant represents the father. As a child, he had to bow before his father and they had a slang expression for that about "being your servant." That evil piece of wood which we saw in the dream about Kainz and Gregori retains a connection here, too, in that his head is nailed down under it. Playing the mandolin (mas- turbation) caused his parapathia. A woman cannot injure her- self in masturbation because she loses no semen. This dream- picture reveals to us how quickly the complicated and ramified thought processes of a parapathic can transform themselves into the elements of a dream. The phantasy of his mother's womb quickly possessed him for but a few seconds as if he were thus ventilating his wish to start his life over again.

We must approach such hypnagogic dream-pictures as transi- tional stages between day-dreams and true dreams. Sometimes individuals are subject to such hypnagogic pictures during full consciousness and are then much surprised to learn that they are subject to such phantasies altogether. All these patients have two kinds of thought. Beside their stream of consciousness there flows an uninterrupted stream of phantasies. These phantasies can often be fished to the surface of consciousness by means of a method which I have called the production of "artificial dreams." The method consists in having the person make up a dream, create

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 269

a pure phantasy. The product of such creation will then fre- quently reveal all the individual's innermost complexes and wishes, and its structure will be found to deviate in no respect from that of the so-called genuine dreams. One can thus often arrive at the most important and definitive analytical material with a mini- mum of effort. The following is such an artificial day-dream of Mr. Beta and I must add that this phantasy afforded me even deeper insight into the structure of his unconscious than most of the true dreams he produced. For the hour just previous, nothing had entered his mind, and I requested him to produce an artificial dream which should comply with but one condition, viz., that it should be told promptly and without hesitation. The day-dreamer closed his eyes and began to speak so quickly that I could scarcely follow him.

I was in a labyrinth consisting of innumerable passages. I saw somebody in front of me, but try as I would, I couldn't catch up with him. I arrived at the end of the passage far behind him and had a hard time getting out, too. I seem to think that I got out a little too fast. I was on the Isle of Crete and saw Minos. He had a crown on his head and a great, thick snake about his trunk. He clubbed the labyrinth with the snake and it crashed to pieces under one blow. Then I climbed aboard a little ship and was driven about the whole Mediterranean Sea by a storm until I found succor and peace at the pope's. He commanded me to make a barefoot pilgrimage to Jerusalem and that would make me well again.

The difference between a true dream and this psychic creation may, perhaps, be looked for in a certain logical cohesion of the day-dream. It lacks the grotesque and senseless manner of the dream and also reveals a triumphant optimism unknown to dreams of sleep. The initial phase is a clear-cut phantasy of the mother's womb. The man ahead of him is his brother whom he envies because of his primogeniture. He came after him, but was never able to catch up with him. There was also another feeling about this scene. He wanted to catch up with this somebody as fast as possible and the result was that he came out with a rush and killed his mother. We are already acquainted with this phantasy of the innocent murder of his mother. The subsequent picture is a continuation of the phantasy of the mother's body with the father appearing as Minos (Cf. "The Elfenking with Crown and Sword"). He has a terribly thick phallus. The statement about clubbing the labyrinth with the snake betrays an idea of cohabi-

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tation as a sadistic act whereby the mother is killed. He himself is not guilty of the death of his mother. It is his father who killed her with his great thick snake. He also produces more direct phantasies about his father having removed his mother for the sake of other women, to get her money, etc. He then regrets such baseless suspicions dejectedly. Many of his acts of atone- ment are obedience and regret after the fact.

Then again the phantasy of his mother's body bobs up (small ship — Mediterranean Sea), but along with this there appears the unified consolidation of the various motives of salvation : the flying Dutchman, Ahasuerus, Tannhäuser, etc. His religious ideas of atonement are condensed into the one trip of penance to the pope (who is also the father; his name in Italian is papa). The pil- grimage to Jerusalem is variously determined and its importance is also indicated by the plural determination. (1) It is the Holy Grail. (2) It has to do with the physician who is a Jew. (3) He has been reading a novel by a certain Else Jerusalem called The Holy Scarib. It deals with prostitutes. Religion, medicine and the prostitute will cure him. At the same time, however, the pen- ance which the pope places upon him is also a pleasure. For him, walking with bare feet would be a permanent thrill, the greatest delight. The snake in the dream points, also, to the story of the garden of Eden and the fall of Adam and Eve. Like Morel's patient (see Vol. VI), he seeks the paradise of virtue. The earth is his mother — mother earth — and walking with bare feet he will always be close to her.

Considered from the functional point of view, the plasticity of this dream picture is nothing less than marvelous. His soul is a labyrinth of innumerable passages and before him walks the man whom he cannot overtake — Christ, the pure and noble man. He strives towards a divine goal, but is judged otherwise. Minos is the judge of the nether regions, and I also was the judge who re- flected to him his true inner structure. The whole labyrinth of his parapathia crashes about his head and that I break up the labyrinth with a snake is the expression of his anxiety that I might conduce to his sinfulness. In the language of Silberer, he is seeking for an anagogic orientation. He feels that I am setting him free too early. He still wants to do penance and save himself by conscious religiousness.

In reviewing the totality of this case, we see, first of all, that this alleged paraphilic (pervert) has chosen a disease which per-

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 271

mits him to avoid women and successfully exploit his asceticism. For every one of these patients the female is an instrumentum diaboli, the incarnation of sin. Even masturbation is a lesser evil. As a matter of fact, Beta took to masturbation as a pun- ishment and expiation, an original discovery for shortening his life. The idea is that as long as I must have pleasure, let me pay for it with my life and vitality.

His sadistic attitude towards the female — and how often shall we meet with it in this book! — drove him to impotence and permitted the progressive development of his paraphilia. The foot became a symbol of his sin and his striving. The foot which was compressed into a narrow and tight-fitting shoe, the tortured, pressed, heated, swollen and wounded foot — that is what provoked his fancy more than anything else. The foot became a symbol of his illness, his spirit, his constrained im- pulses, his whole ego. Whatever impulses he had to fear were nullified by his fetishism. He was accomplished in the art of reversal or opposition. His limitless ambition, finding no sat- isfactory outlet because his capacities were insufficient for real creation, plunged him into the opposite habit of self-denial. Everything could be attained through self-abnegation. Become a second Christ. He, the hater and murderer, would become another saint. Such a goal was really buried deep within his unconscious, whereas outwardly he played the agnostic, the monist, the atheist, the freethinker, and looked sarcastically upon all religious ceremony. His fetishism, however, was a true religion which he had formed for himself. His God was — the foot.

It is a matter of interest that he left the analysis unimproved. He was much too obstinate in his attitude towards the physi- cian and would not suffer another's triumph. He preferred to be treated by a masseur who, after two weeks of general mas- sage, discharged him as cured. He sought an excuse against cure and preferred to hand the prize to a masseur than to a psychoanalyst. Shortly thereafter he married and is to-day the father of several handsome children. His foot fetishism, the agoraphobia and several other neurotic symptoms have com- pletely disappeared. He has, however, become quite pious and

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has no compunctions about the exercise of his religious devo- tion. He no longer needs his fetishism, for he has found a more direct path to his God.

He has given up his hopes of fulfilling some historical mis- sion and has adjusted to the search for a more tangible happi- ness. His guilt feelings evaporated as soon as he came to learn in the analysis how universal his impulses and feelings were. He is neither a sadist nor does he fear his sadistic eruptions any more. It has been overcome by means of the one antidote I recommended to him: love. Previously he had avoided love and had been incapable of falling in love because he depreciated women and fled as soon as he felt that he was endangered. It became necessary for him first to change his attitude towards women and thus to correct his adjustment to the world at large.

Fetishism is a religion of hate. The hatred is well disguised, but breaks forth at various moments. Every compulsion leads to the formation of hatred against the compulsion and this hatred finally is transformed into a hatred of everything and everybody. The obsessional neurosis is the apotheosis of a hate neurosis.

Man's original attitude towards the world in general is hate. Any loss of pleasure or gratification provokes the aboriginal reaction of hatred. In Beta's case we were able to observe the significance of the "weaning complex" which, by the way, is an expression to be preferred to the more biassed and one-sided expression "castration complex."

His first frustration took place when he was weaned at thir- teen months. I might say here that I consider it a great mis- take to wean children from the breast so late. The result is that they react all the more strongly and remember with hate the brutal disturbance of their pleasant situation.

His second frustration occurred when his father and the English governess forbade him to masturbate. Onanism was a practice filled with satisfaction in his stage of life and the threats of his environment forced him to desist from this his glorious discovery. The reaction, of course, was hatred of his environment.

The third frustration was his fathers warning against the

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 273

dancer when he was twenty-one. Beta had sought a normal sexual contact and was certainly wealthy enough to keep this dancer, just as many of his social equals kept other women. But the weighty voice of his father put an end to the first awak- ening of love in his heart. It was this that reactivated the earlier hatred of the young man and caused him to wish that man dead who had so persistently intruded upon his life. His dilemma was, however, that he loved his father quite as pas- sionately as he hated him (bipolar attitude). The line of rea- soning here was : you have robbed me of so much pleasure that you should really recompense me in some way.

It is rather characteristic that the real development of his foot fetishism took place after his twenty-first year. He still had an opportunity to make heterosexual contacts, but when his father fell ill his first thought was : "If he dies now, 111 be free and the road to some girl is open." The reaction was, how- ever, that a pathological fear arose that his father might ac- tually die. He told the doctor that if his father died, he would commit suicide. He talked and acted like an insane man. Nevertheless, he was unable to squeeze forth a tear at his fa- ther's grave.

It was now that he was ready for penance. Now he could indulge in his fetishism and create the swollen foot as his ideal. He was quite a linguist and, as the analysis showed, knew well the meanings of all ancient and modern languages. The "swollen foot" was CEdipus.

He had killed his mother and perhaps also his father, since he had wished him death. He had also desired to kill his only rival, his brother. These are the three crimes for which he must do penance. His foot fetishism enabed him to combine his ideas of expiation with a complicated paraphilia. The foot became the sign of the genitals and religion, sin and lust, pun- ishment and praise.

This shows us how complicated are the psychic structures of fetishism. The chief factor in this case was the "Christ neu- rosis."

Dr. Missriegler has made the following illustrative plan of this case.

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w pq

.So 5 >> a

'•§

THE ANALYSIS OF A FOOT FETISHIST 275

If we attempt a resolution of this complicated foot fetishism of Beta's, we will find that foot signifies :

1. The Genital.

(a) The phallus and foreskin (shoe).

(b) Lingam: phallus and vagina (shoe).

2. His Paraphilia.

(a) His fetishism.

(b) The Child.

(d) Symbolization of the obsession.

3. The Criminal Ideas.

(a) The foot as a weapon.

(b) The nail as a weapon.

(d) The swollen foot (CEdipus — patricide).

4. His Religious Ideas.

(a) The foot of Christ — nailed to the cross by the feet.

(b) The repenter (Ahasuerus — the pious pilgrim — flying Dutchman).

(d) Ideas of salvation.

(e) The martyr.

5. Phantasies of the Mother's Body.

(a) Birth (taking off the shoe).

(b) Protection in the womb (regression — retrospective tendency).

See plan on page 274.

We meet here with the phenomenon of symbol condensation. The following chapters will enlighten us on this as well as other manifestations of fetishism.

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS

In the foregoing chapter, I presented a case which shows us how powerful is the impulse to look upon a compressed foot. Beta was not in the least animated by the sight of a foot in a broad and comfortable shoe. The foot must bear the signs of mistreatment, pain, compulsion and compression.

It is thus that the parapathic symbolizes his own parapathia. The tightly laced shoe is the symbol of his tightly laced and artificially constraining parapathic system.

Every case of true fetishism that we analyze will disclose these signs of obsession and compulsion. Indeed, the object or part of the body in question can become a fetishistic symbol only when it exerts an obsessional force or when a compulsive influence can be exerted upon it. We must remember this bit of knowledge well. It has been corroborated again and again in experience. It reveals to us the playful exploitation of the symbol itself, for that which the fetishist compresses and con- strains is his own sexuality. He makes it appear as if he is elevating himself above the normal, but in reality he is receding from the normal and natural in sexual activity; he is abstinent and, as we shall see further, pious, ascetic, suffering.

The following case is an unusual one which I take from Havelock Ellis with his express permission.1 I have had to shorten the highly interesting case history to some extent, but the plenitude of perspectives which it affords us is preserved. I know of hardly a case which presents such a wealth of human and symbolical material in such concise form.

Case 42. C. P., thirty-two years old, good heredity. He mas- turbated between the ages of nine or ten and fourteen because he felt the desire and need. He had discovered the act for himself. Otherwise he was quite naive, ignorant of sexual matters and had never been enlightened by either servants or other children.

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THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 277

"If I meet a woman who appears attractive to me," he writes, "it is not my wish to have sexual contact with her in the usual sense of the word, but rather to lie down prone on the floor and have her walk over me and tread me underfoot. This curious wish occurs seldom and only when the woman in question is a real lady and well built. She must be elegantly dressed, prefer- aoly in evening clothes with low shoes which have very high heels. The shoes I like to see either open, so that the instep is visible, or fitted with a single ribbon or strap. The dress should be high enough for me to get a good view of the shoes and also of the ankle, but not necessarily as high as the knee, for then the effect is not quite the same. Even though I may appreciate the spiritual or beautiful qualities of a woman, there is, after all, nothing about her that could arouse me like that part of her from the knee down, especially the foot. She must also be carefully dressed. Under this condition, my desire for sexual gratification can increase rapidly, but can be satisfied only by contact with that part of a woman which really attracts my interest. Comparatively few women have a leg or ankle or foot beautiful enough to command my undivided or permanent attention. If such nevertheless turns out to be the case, I lose no time or energy in trying to get under her feet and then await being trod with most anxious anticipation.

"The treading must last several minutes and must include the chest, abdomen, inguinal region and, finally, the penis which is by then far too stiffly erect to suffer any damage thereby. I might say that I am also thrilled when a female foot compresses my throat.

"When, then, the lady faces me and places one foot suchwise on my penis that the high heel sinks into the root and the sole covers the rest of the phallus while the other foot is placed upon my abdomen so that I can see and feel her shifting her weight from one foot to the other — then I experience an almost instan- taneous ejaculation. Such a moment, under the conditions I de- scribe, is for me the outbreak of a storm of rapture which cul- minates when the lady bears down upon my phallus with her whole weight.

"One of the reasons for my special delight in this kind of con- tact seems to be that first the heel and then the sole of the slipper prevents the immediate passage of the semen and thus protracts the period of my enjoyment. In addition to the physical aspect of the experience, there is also a curious psychic accompaniment. I imagine that the lady who treads upon me is my mistress and I

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her slave, and that she does it as a punishment for some trans- gression I have committed or perhaps out of pure pleasure for herself.

"The natural and accurate conclusion is that the greater the mis- treatment and harshness I 'suffer,' the greater is my pleasure. The phantasy of 'punishment* or 'enslavement' appears less fre- quently when I have difficulties in realizing my wish or if the lady is lovelier or heavier than usual and the treading is merciless. I have often been trod so sedulously and long that I have tried to avoid the pain of every tread and afterwards was black and blue for days. I strive especially to induce women to do this to me when I feel that I sha'n't insult them, and it is surprising how much luck I have in this. I must have lain under the feet of at least a hundred women already and many of them were from the best strata of society. They would never have dreamed of per- mitting normal sexual intercourse, but the idea of effecting it in this form so provoked and caught their fancy that they gladly repeated the process. I hardly need to emphasize that in achiev- ing orgasm in this fashion neither my own nor the clothing of the ladies were ever in the least opened or ruffled. On the basis of divers and long experience I can say that the weight I prefer is about ten-eleven stone, and that black shoes or slippers and brown silk stockings appear to call forth in me the deepest gratification and the strongest desires.

"Ordinary boots or street shoes give me nowhere near the pleas- ure I find otherwise, although on occasion I have been trod satis- factorily with them. Naked women repel me, nor do I find any joy in women dressed in trousers. I do not reject normal sexual intercourse and have occasionally cohabited. The pleasure I de- rive therefrom is, however, considerably less than that I find in being trod by women. I have also found considerable delight — and have often had a strong erection — in seeing women, clothed as I have described above, trodding some other, inanimate, thing under foot, such as a cushion in a carriage or the foot rest before a chair. Often at picnics or garden parties I have followed a couple of pretty girls only for the sake of seeing the grass straighten up again after they had trod it down. Even the sight of a carriage step under the foot of a lady gives me pleasure ; it is something which demands the pressure of a foot.

"And now I can explain how my feelings were bent in this di- rection. When I was a boy of about fourteen years of age, I was visiting for some time with close friends of my parents. The

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 279

daughter of the house — and the only child — was a pretty and robust girl about six years my senior. She was my chief com- panion.

"This girl was always prettily dressed; she had well-formed feet and ankles and was also well aware of the fact. Whenever she could, she dressed herself so that her virtues stood out well, i.e., with short dresses and small, low shoes with high heels. Nor was she averse to showing these advantages off in a very coquet- tish and inspiring manner. She seemed to have a penchant for treading on things which gave way before her feet, e.g., flowers, grass, fallen fruit, acorns, hay, straw, etc. On our walks about the garden, which were quite informal, I had become accustomed to watching her tread things down and would even scold her. At that time, also, it was one of my chief pleasures — and still is — to stretch out before a roaring fire on a thick carpet. One evening I was in this position and we were alone when A. came through the room to get something from the fireplace mantel. Instead of stretching her hand out over me, however, she playfully stepped up on me and said that was the way she did in the grass and hay. I naturally complied with the jest and laughed with her. After she had stood on my body for a minute or two, she gingerly lifted up her dress and, holding on to the mantel piece, stretched her lovely foot and brown silk stockinged leg towards the fire to warm them, meanwhile laughing at my heated face. She was quite an ingenuous and charming girl and I am rather certain that, al- though she was quite pleased at my animation and the feel of my body under her feet, she had not yet understood my feelings at this first experience. Neither do I recall that, although I was nearly bursting with sexual desire, she manifested the slightest sign of a corresponding feeling. I grasped her uplifted foot, kissed it passionately, and pressed it in irresistible ardor against my erect penis. At almost the same instant that her foot bore down upon my phallus, I had the first real and complete orgasm of my life. No description can convey a conception of my feelings at that moment. I only know that from that time on the focus of my sexual desires was displaced and forever fixed.

"Innumerable times afterwards I felt the pleasurable weight of her delicate slipper and nothing will ever equal my memory of that delight. I know, too, that A. derived as much pleasure from treading on me as I from being trod. She was in a position to buy whatever articles she desired and when she had recognized what thrills she afforded me, she acquired more and more lovely

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stockings, delicate shoes with high, sharp heels. She would then demonstrate her new goods to me by demanding that I lie down and get the feeling of them for myself. She confessed that she was pleased to see her slippers sink into my body and to hear the crack of the muscles whenever she would turn her heel in my ribs. After a few minutes, I would invariably press her shoe to my penis and then she would cautiously bring her whole weight, about nine stone, to bear upon it, meanwhile watching me with glisten- ing eyes, red cheeks and trembling lips as she would feel the pulsa- tion of the phallus beneath the sole of her slipper, as must surely have been the case. I am not in the least doubtful that she also had an orgasm, although we never exchanged a word on the subject.

"This took place at every suitable opportunity for several years, and after a separation of four or five years we did it about four or five times a day. A few times I masturbated in her absence, using her shoe to press my penis as hard as I could. I imagined thereby that she were treading upon me. Naturally, the pleasure I derived from this surrogate was considerably less than with her. Never did we mention normal sexual intercourse, especially since we were both satisfied with things as they were.

"When I was about twenty, I began to travel and upon my re- turn, I found her married. Although we met frequently, our former habits were never mentioned and we remained good friends. I confess that I frequently looked surreptitiously at her feet and would gladly have accepted the pleasure of resuming the curious practices which she was able to afford me. But my wish was never realized.

"I then resumed my travels and now both she and her husband are dead.

"From time to time, I had occasional relations with prostitutes but always in the above-mentioned manner. I nevertheless prefer to make use of a woman of my own or a better station, but such a wish is fraught with difficulties.

"Of the one hundred women, more or less, who, both at home and abroad, have stood upon me, at least eighty or eighty-five per- cent were not prostitutes. Ten or twelve at the most also derived sexual gratification thereby, but even though they manifested ex- citement, the majority of them were not really excited. As far as I can remember, A. alone derived complete gratification there- from. It has never been necessary for me to waste many words in inducing a woman to tread me (prostitutes excepted). On the

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 281

contrary, it has always been my purpose to achieve my aims in a joking or playful way and it is more than doubtful whether any but a few married women have really been cognizant of the situa- tion even when they have been affording me the deepest sexual satisfaction; especially since the movements of my body and my excitement at the time could just as well have been laid to the effects of the treading. Those women who did it to me more than once (and most of them complied but once) naturally understood the second time what it was all about, and although neither the women nor myself ever so much as mentioned the real nature of the proceeding, they were never averse to complying with my wishes as often as I wanted. I can hardly believe that they de- rived the least sexual delight from the business, although they could patently see that I was achieving it, and yet they never re- fused to afford me the pleasure. In the case of many a woman it has taken me over a year to achieve my goal, but I finally gained my wish. In most cases, however, my plans have failed. I never risk the request until I am practically sure of acceptance and have never yet experienced a really serious reversal or re- fusal. In very many cases, I must confess, compliance with my request has often been a sort of giving in to a joking whim which, aside from the novelty of treading on a man, promised little ex- citement for the woman. Just as in the case of normal seduction, one of the chief sources of gratification for me is winning the woman over to my desires without arousing any resistance in her. The higher the social standing of the woman, the more difficult does this seduction become and the greater is then my satisfaction. I have found three prostitutes in my experience who had had the same sort of contact with other men and were well informed on the method. It is not without interest to remark that these three vwomen were all of fine, strong build — one of them about five feet, ten inches tall and weighing about fourteen stone; but they had nondescript faces. The weight, the build and the dress of the women I meet are all of equal importance to me. I find that a sudden kick at the moment of the very pitch of sexual excitement is capable of enhancing and protracting my gratification. My emotional pleasure is due especially to the fact that when the woman stands with her full weight upon my erect penis and presses it into the soft and giving abdominal wall, the period of ejaculation and the time of the orgasm are considerably pro- tracted. That is also why I prefer low shoes with high heels. The semen must also be pressed through two separate barriers:

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first at the root of the penis which is crushed under the weight of the heel and then again past the ball of the foot which compresses the forward part of the phallus ; between the two there is only the space under the instep of the shoe. My pleasure is further in- creased by a retention of urine and that is why I like to have as full a bladder as possible when being trod. The weight, the build and the dress greatly enhance my desires, especially when the woman is one whom one would love to have tread one."

I have presented this case here despite the fact that it is a mixed form. We must not forget that this man actually co- habits with women, he needs them for his purposes and uses the shoe for onanistic practices only in cases of emergency. The paraphilia has not yet isolated the man nor has it yet re- pelled him from women. He is neither impotent nor asocial and the conquest of a woman excites his libido. His sense of reality easily overcomes his phantasy.

And yet this case reveals the power of the original impres- sion. Or perhaps not? What would have been the effect of this first impression in the case of any other man whose phan- tasies were directed in some other direction? We are also not at all helped in this question by Mr. C. P.'s early history. We cannot say whether or not there may have been a much more important, more infantile impression behind this early one.

Aside from these points, however, this case illustrates the struggle against libido and the power of a compulsion. His sensuality is stronger than his urge to purity (James* anti- sexual instinct). The female, the personification of sin, is stronger than the male who symbolizes the resistance of virtue. The deeper meaning of this scene will be revealed particularly in our discussion of masochism (in Sadism and Masochism). One thing is true, however, and that is that this man strove to resist the supremacy of woman and stages her conquest only as an apparent one. He lets them go, unsatisfied, as if he had only wanted to make fools of them ; as if he were to say : "So, now you're all excited and probably think that I'm going to cohabit with you. But you're mistaken. I'm satisfied and that's all that worries me." That is probably the reason why most of the women complied with his requests but once.

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 28$

Women can, after all, be induced to almost any sort of proced- ure if they can be made to feel that they will be recompensed by a considerable potency in the partner. If they do not get this satisfaction, they lose all interest in the "erotic symbolism" (Havelock Ellis) of their partners.

I would also like to call attention to the special emphasis of the lustful objects of these patients. All fetishists circumstan- tially describe the special conditions which their objects must possess and the more eccentric and wild these are, the more proud the patients are of themselves and their leanings. I have observed that they always watch the physician closely when telling him about their tastes and are downright insulted if he does not express the greatest astonishment at the singu- larity of what they relate. I once saw the man in Vienna who was known to all as the individual who visited prostitutes and had them stick a feather in his anus, at which he would crow : "kikeriki !" I listened to him relate his story and then thought I would joke with him. I answered, "Oh, you're not the first one who has told me this. There has been quite a number of men who have played the rooster." He was deeply insulted, manifestly dejected and had difficulty in assuring me hypocriti- cally that he was relieved to learn that there were others like him. Of course, I never saw him again.

But this shows us that the true fetishist lives in the delusion that he is "the only one," the chosen one. The surface of his illness is thus a distorted reflection of the idea of the historical mission which is to be fulfilled.

C. P. also reveals the peculiar pride of the parapathic in his abstruse form of sexual gratification. The thought which dom- inates him at all times is : will I be able to induce this woman to accept the röle I wish her to play? Once he has inveigled her into it, he triumphs over her. I know of men who con- sider women only then as convincingly theirs when the women have performed fellatio on them. Under the guise of suprem- acy the women are depreciated. It is with extraordinary clever- ness that this situation has been turned to the use of a woman hater. The real motto of his life reads : All women are bad and can be made to do what one wants them to do if one is only

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persevering and patient enough. The naked woman as such does not interest him; indeed she repels him. He was on tru road to becoming a true fetishist, but stopped midway.

It is not without significance that pressure on the throat is able to provoke the same type of deep orgasm in him. It is here that the criminal root of his paraphilia shimmers through. In principle it is similar to the lex talionis (the phantasy of choking a rival. The penis a symbol of this rival and his para- philia a displacement from above downwards). The woman with a high heel appears to be but a bisexual representative: the woman with the penis, the original ideal of many men. Functionally, his paraphilia is to be looked upon as a symbolic concession to his homosexuality. The woman in him conquers the male. The male is the subjected, humiliated, constrained one.2

The pressure on the penis, as well as the pressure of a corset (we have already heard of such a case) , the pressure on a hand, the pressure of some article of clothing (tight trousers), a tightly fitting vest or glove — all these articles can become spe- cific love conditions.

Great interest must be accorded those cases in which the ob- ject itself is rejected for the sake of the circumscribed interest in the pressure itself. The compression is the thing which effects an orgasm. It is, however, not always necessary that the pressure be exerted directly on the penis as in the foregoing case; often it is sufficient if exercised against an arm or a leg.

Again, such a pressure may be able to direct the patient's attentions to coitus itself. Thus, a man once told me that he had vainly courted a woman for a year. One day he suddenly grasped her firmly by the arm and said : "I could hurt you, you cruel thing." At that instant she became pale and sank into his arms. "You shouldn't have done that," she said, "it com- pletely overcomes me." The following day, he again ap- proached her, but in vain. When he remembered what had transpired the previous day, he again grasped her arm so firmly that she was terribly pained. But the result was again the same; she succumbed to his will. Subsequently he never forgot that this trick was the key to her body.

A genuine pressure fetishist, however, forgoes the posses-.

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sion of a partner and seeks only the opportunity to be pushed or pressed in some part of the body. In the street car, in om- nibuses or trains, there are always a few pressure fetishists who revel in the happy hunting ground of a crowd.

The following is the classis case first published by Fere. It is doubtless in a class by itself as a clear-cut example of this type of fetishism.

Case 43. M. V. was a thirty-eight-year-old distiller who had revealed divers neurotic symptoms even in childhood. While teething, he suffered from convulsions and until puberty had pavor nocturnus and wet the bed. Even now he will awaken occasionally soon after falling asleep and feel anxiously oppressed, but he generally lays this to exhaustion or stomach trouble. While at school he had manifested industry and intelligence and at eighteen he successfully passed two academic examinations. At the school where he was only partly boarding in (because of his enuresis), he was given the nickname of Miss V. because of his delicate complexion, his smooth skin and girlish appearance. He never took part in the activities of the other boys and always sought to be alone. He insists that he never was so much as animated sex- ually during his school days and only occasionally did he have a nocturnal emission attended by some dream or other. Afterwards he was invariably tired and more than ever disgusted with his comrades' talk of sexual matters. He never felt especially at- tracted to the boys with whom he was thrown together and the sight of a girl was a real scare for him, especially when, because of his shy and delicate appearance, they were more than usually nice to him. Even the memory of such experiences caused him to become red with shame.

The first time he ever sensed a sexual lust which was accom- panied by pleasurable feelings was when he was eighteen. Along with a very large family, he went on an outing in a buggy which was much too small to permit all of them to sit down. Many of the children stood between the adults' legs. One of the girls, about twelve years old, stood in front of him with her back turned towards him. In the course of a little while, what with the jarring of the buggy, she slid in between his legs. At first he was quite ashamed of the situation, but when he saw that no one had taken any note of the fact, he was calmed. The rubbing, however, soon called forth an erection and whenever the buggy jarred on the road, the girl stepped on his foot and he noticed that this pain

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or pressure enhanced the quality of his lust and excitement. At one point where the wagon went over a great bump and the girl came down hard on his foot, he had a sudden ejaculation. He experienced with that a sudden sexual relief which was not at all accompanied by lassitude and disgust as had been the case after nocturnal emissions. On the way home, a little girl of about six or seven took the first girl's place between his legs, nor did she have any greater respect for his feet or for his comfort. Again he was sexually provoked, but this time he did not achieve an orgasm. The lack of this natural climax to his desire kept him in a state of constant excitement throughout the day and the mem- ory of the extraordinarily pleasant pressure on his feet persisted.

From that time on these feelings have repeated themselves often, the only addition being that he would sometimes become ticklish and cold in the feet whenever they were compressed. From then on he was no longer intimidated by the presence of women as had previously been the case, nor did females excite the slightest sexual desire in him. Whereas his nocturnal pollu- tions had formerly been attended by only vague dream pictures, they were now more frequent and clearly accompanied by the vision of women treading on his toes. Ever since that buggy ride, he has not had another opportunity to be in a crowd, nor has he experienced the same intense feelings he had then. For several years his paraphilia expressed itself only in torturing thoughts and dreams, but the other sex did not exert any attraction for him.

At twenty-seven he went to Paris and for many years now he has been the passive sufferer of those passers-by in the auto bus who step on his feet. At first he experienced a thrill only when the bus would bump over the heavy cobblestones, but soon he was affected even when in the tram. Whereas he was initially thrilled only when young women or girls would step or stand on his feet, he soon was excited when any kind of woman touched his foot and continued to seek the opportunity for this contact although it never lasted sufficiently long for him to achieve an orgasm. Frequently, however, such experiences would produce dreams the same night with the result that he became more and more tired.

One day while riding on the bus, he saw that the platform was filled with women and offered one of them his seat, but not so much out of courtesy as to seize the opportunity to be among the others. With every bump in the road and every change in the

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 28?

direction of travel, the little group had to shift its weight from one foot to the other with the result that he succeeded in being stepped on and thus achieved his end. He was quite thrilled and soon experienced an orgasm. He then began to stand only near the exit whenever he would ride in the street car and would stick out his foot to be stepped on (accidentally, of course) by every woman who got ready to get off. He was thoroughly frustrated whenever the lady would avoid him or first excuse herself and then avoid him. He noticed, however, that this occurred much less frequently than one would expect and that the women showed no compunction about treading on his feet. In the event that the person treads on his toes twice or more, he may even be promptly relieved. He was thirty-one before the thought entered his mind to try normal sexual intercourse, i.e., he came upon the notion more out of curiosity than because of a real urge. He visited a prostitute and after the ejaculation, which came only after a pro- tracted period, he felt very tired, heavy with lassitude and dis- gust. His disgust was especially astonishing in view of the fact that the girl called forth his sincere and heartfelt sympathy and admiration by a heart-throbbing story of her life. As a matter of fact, he cannot yet forget the effects of her tale. The second time he visited her, he was again unsatisfied and then decided to have her tread upon his feet, but even this was a failure. Ap- parently, the desired result is achieved only when he is trod upon in a certain way and publicly. Ever since these failures, he has been plagued by the thought that he is different from other men and that the fact might be noticed, especially by the women. He became subject to fits of depression and gave up his position in 1894. There began the habit of drinking, although he did not give way excessively to alcohol. Soon, however, he began to suf- fer from insomnia and epileptiform seizures at night. When he heard that alcohol was able to call forth new diseases in man, he abruptly gave up drink and simultaneously broke off all his other relationships and withdrew into seclusion where he gave himself over to the execution of religious ceremonies.

He was thirty- four at the time the epileptiform convulsion began. His small stature, the enuch's voice, the pale skin and his blond hair made him look like a very young man from a distance. He was nevertheless very well proportioned and disclosed no deformi- ties with the exception of slight webbing between two or three toes of both feet. His genitals were of normal size and not de- formed. He had sufficient hair in the axilla and about the geni-

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tals, but the rest of his body was quite devoid of hair and the beard over his chin was very sparse. Since falling into the de- pressive state, he has begun to look like an aged man, his body is bent, his skin wrinkled and shrunken and his eye dulled. (L'in- stinct sexuel. Evolution et dissolution. Charles Fere, Paris, Felix Alcan, 1899, pp. 262-265).

Unfortunately this very interesting case was never analyzed, but we can nevertheless see that the pressure fetishism was ac- companied by a simultaneous incapacity for heterosexual inter- course. Furthermore his life ends in a religious twilight state.

All these patients suffer from the deepest of guilt feelings, for without a sense of guilt there is no fetishism. The fetish itself is at once a symbol of pleasure and punishment. Initially, the pain is supposed to drive out the pleasure, for the patient really wants to castigate himself for his pleasures by means of these pains. He wears narrow shoes in order that the pain may make him forget his fetish. Here we see sexuality creeping into the very medium which was to have repressed it, it over- comes the pain, displeasure turns to delight and finally the two are inseparably welded. The chief goal has been reached, how- ever. The woman has been avoided (i.e., as a sexual partner). These men are all infantile characters for whom coitus, putting the penis into the vagina, is a cardinal sin. Pleasure derived from other erogenous or sensitized zones is not depraved nor even looked upon as sinful. The sinful wishes and ideas are eliminated by means of hysterical or epileptiform seizures or in dreams and dream-like states. The patient mentioned above, a palpable degenerate, also fled into the arms of religion and expressed his sexual strivings in his epileptiform attacks. Whether or not the pressure on the foot which he experienced was a psychic correspondent in his mind of the nail which bore through the foot of Christ is a question I cannot answer. On the basis of analogy with the case before it, it would seem so. The paraphilia is, as it were, a kind of religion. The enuresis from which he suffered until adolescence points to the "urine sexuality" which deeply motivated his conduct. Like the case just before it, the last one appears to me to be intimately con- nected with phantasies of the mothers womb. It is remark- able, too, how late this man's paraphilia began; so that we

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 289

must say that the case probably concerns the parapathic super- structure superimposed on a much older system. What could have been the infantile sources of this paraphilia?

The next case of my own observation throws some light on the genesis of such paraphilias.

Case 44. Mr. A. L., a twenty-six-year-old technologist, relate? that it is only in a very unusual manner that he can achieve an orgasm. He tries normal intercourse frequently, but, despite his utmost efforts, he has not been able to get an orgasm or ejacula- tion. Only when the woman touches his phallus with the tip of her foot does he experience complete gratification, and it is to this end that he always lays himself in bed with a woman in the op- posite position, i.e., with his head towards the foot of the bed. 1 immediately recalled the fact that brothers and sisters not unusu- ally lie in bed together in this fashion and, surely enough, he con« fessed that he had for some years slept in bed with a sister in this manner. She had also repeatedly pressed against his phallus with her feet, whether accidentally or purposely, he cannot say. At the time, he claims not even to have thought about it and in- sists that he recalled the facts only when I questioned him about it.

It is not impossible that a similar etiology was present in the foregoing case as well as in others like it. It need not sur^ prise us then that these persons continue to repeat one and the same situation throughout the conduct of their lives. The parapathic simply happens to be the individual who has not overcome his past. The limits between phantasy and reality have become vague to him and the symbol becomes the domi- nating influence of his life.

In some later cases, we shall become acquainted with even more characteristic causes for paraphilic development, but at this point I might with profit to the reader call attention to the cases in Volume V of this series (Psycho-sexual Infantilism) wherein the infantile source of the parapathia is more clearly outlined than in these cases. We must not forget that in diapers and cradles, babies are protractedly wrapped in tightly, and that this circumstance undoubtedly has something to do with the psychogenesis of fetishism. All fetishists are, after

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all, pronounced infantilists as the obstinate retention of an in- fantile impression alone shows.

We must also bear in mind that a parapathic symptom is never determined solely by a single fixation. The symptom rep- resents a plurality of causes which may be of the most hetero- geneous nature. Every symptom is a compromise between the most diverse impulses, and the compromise is the very es- sence of the parapathia. The fetish is the future and the past of the individual, childhood and divinity, compulsion and free- dom, appearance and reality.

Can it really be true that each man retains the memory of the time when, wrapped in diapers, he delighted in his infant state? 3 I recall, in this respect, the case of the man (Vol. V, No. 19) who wound himself in linen sheets and then defecated as a representation of the child. I believe that the essential causes are somatic in nature, constitute the primary nucleus of the disease, as it were. But later, there is added a psychic super-structure; so that the pressure of the system symbolizes the compulsion which is taken upon one's self or suffered at the hands of the world. The parapathia is the reflection of an inner struggle. It expresses a psychic conflict and its compro- mises.

The following case is one of Löwenfeld's and also affords us interesting points of view.

Case 45. "I noticed the first traces of perverse tendencies in myself during my earliest boyhood or youth. At that time I was particularly attracted by other youths in riding boots with stiff shanks, preferably of patent leather. I must digress to mention that my father was a shoemaker by trade and that this offered me considerable opportunity for visual gratification. I can distinctly recall having often surreptitiously followed some schoolmate or other who wore such boots. But these leanings began to broaden their horizon and soon included girls who wore white stockings and spangled shoes (such as one saw frequently in those days). One of my father's customers was a certain Prof. H. who had three charming daughters often seen chatting in our establishment.

"At that green age I already had developed divers means of finding just the right place or position from which I could ob- serve these girls with all the sensual concentration of an adult,

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 291

watch their feet in all the various stances they took, see them try- on shoes, etc. I also masturbated at that age. I could lie in bed in a certain sensual position, concentrate my thoughts upon shoes and achieve the heights of lascivious rapture. Later I got hold of a book on onanism and read about the masturbation of youths, about the secretion of a sort of semen and then recalled my former practices. Whenever there were shoes in the store belonging to any of these girls, I couldn't have enough of touching, smelling them or putting my hands inside them.

"Thus years passed. My terrible leaning to shoes only in- creased and finally I was interested, also, in button shoes and high shoes of all kinds. My tastes became not less than discriminating and I began to pay special attention to boots and shoes belonging to young women and girls, shoes that were yet tainted with little perspiration. In my mind, I compared such shoes only with an 'angelically pure chalice.' I confess to a special susceptibility to button shoes which were lined with white flannel; the odor of them almost made me sensually drunk.

"During my early school years, I also suffered from frequent and apparently unprovoked erections ; but these erections were not at all attended by any feelings of lust or desire, rather they were accompanied by a feeling of general unpleasantness in the ab- domen and a sort of burning in the phallus. I was also enuretic, but that disappeared in the course of some time. In addition to my passion for shoes, there developed in me about this time an even more terrible and persistent one, an indulgence which has for the past twenty years afforded me the most painful experiences of my life. When I was about ten or twelve years old I began to be attracted to such girls and boys as wore stiff collars. In those days, the children wore sort of Lord Fauntleroy collars and cuffs, and to scratch these starched linens was pure delight for me. I can still see a relative of mine who was then a handsome little boy. He complained to me one day that his collar was too tight and then showed me a chafed spot on his neck. I experienced a sudden and overpowering sexual irritation and ever since then I have been spellbound as by a hellish influence. The thoughts of such collars monopolized an increasingly greater share of my mind and the sight of a girl with one of them on could drive me nearly crazy. My heart would begin to palpitate and the blood would rush through my body in a wave of sensuality. If the col- lar stood high, I would become dizzy with excitement. In addition to this, there was, of course, my occasional flair for shoes, boots,

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etc. I already had an idea of the nature of the unhappy passions which had possessed me as early as my thirteenth year, but I had as yet no notion of the word perverse. But I firmly felt that my habits and desires were singular, and thought that I was incurable, an idea that I still retain. Of course, I read several things about self -tainting, and the like.

"At about that time, it also behooved me to think of choosing some trade, but because many masters always warned me against taking up their trade or profession, it came about that I drifted into my father's business. Strangely enough, I had no real desire in this direction, despite my passion for shoes. I didn't like the idea of a constantly cooped-up, sitting position, in addition to which I feared that the trade would expose me to frequent irrita- tion, chafing, repression and frayed nerves. Nevertheless, I could discover no other special inclination within me and remained with my father.

"Dr. Moll's book came into my hands when I was about twenty- two and I might mention here that at that time I also visited a prostitute in the company of one of my friends. The result was the usual one ; I was not able to do more than get an initial erec- tion. Even on the way there, I felt as if I were going to be im- potent and, like the persons in Krafft-Ebing's book, I had no more desire to visit one of them.

"Among the various methods I undertook at that time to con- trol my passions, I might mention specially the long walks which had the purpose of making me as tired as possible. It is my en- joyment of the beauties of nature which even to-day makes it easier for me to bear my cross.

"Whenever I would see a woman on the street (preferably one dressed in black), who wore a high collar, I would follow her until I would see her either adjust it with her hand or make some movement of the head which indicated that the collar was chafing or otherwise irritating her. In that instant, I would feel as if struck by lightning, a feeling which I can often compare only with a sudden rush of blood. As soon as this movement or action had taken place, another thought intruded upon my mind: 'The spell is strong and you are lost.' It was immediately thereafter that I would feel the sinking feeling, that rush of blood through my veins. To-day just as years ago.

"I once bought a girl a high starched linen collar, a pair of cuffs to match and then got ready for what I looked upon as a supremely enjoyable evening. She manifested considerable under-

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standing for my inclinations and I couldn't see enough of her that evening. I got her actually to go through the almost endlessly re- peated movements of loosening with her finger the collar which I had purposely tied tightly about her neck until I noticed that she had chafed her skin. My joy and gloating was nothing short of the delight of a sadist. Every time her hand went to her collar, I suffered a pleasant jolt in the pit of my stomach. The same was repeated when she bought a pair of button shoes another time. When I saw them, I instantly imagined the fun that awaited me when I would be privileged to pull them off her feet. The sad ending was that my relations with this girl were not permanent/'

There followed a third affair with a girl who turned out to be pregnant and deserted by her lover. The patient writes further : "I must also not forget to mention still another passion which formed itself at about this time, viz., an interest in narrow sleeves. Of course, it was not too hard to interest the girl in these, too. She was rather a full figure and it was a rare treat for me to grip her under the arm where I could feel the perspiration ; espe- cially when she also wore a belt. I had no trouble making the girl dance to my music. Impassioned words, subtle compliments, unceasing flattery of her physical charms all aided in making her more compliant with my perverse desires. I must say that I suc- ceeded, too. In the course of a few months we were involved in a correspondence which fairly exuded the most extravagant phan- tasies on my part and corresponding replies from her. I burned these letters some time ago because I couldn't stand the irritation of them. I have never forgotten their contents, however.

"I must also mention still another group of feelings I developed. I could never stand women who wore a pince-nez, not even if they possessed all the perverted virtues I have mentioned. It has al- ways seemed peculiar to me that these horrible pictures neverthe- less pursue me into my dreams, and not only once, but many times and, curiously enough, always with the same actions.

"I must digress to mention the fact that I visit a certain part of the country at least once or twice a year regularly. It is a place which appeals to me as an absolutely ideal retreat from all impure things of life. The dream I mention invariably produces a house somewhere in this region and as I am hesitatingly coming around one corner of the house I meet with a middle-aged woman accompanied by three pretty girls who disclose precisely that which I came to this place to be rid of.

"There are times when I feel that I have a firmer grip on my-

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self and yet again moments when I am possessed by a deep and harassing depression. Anything which touches upon this chosen countryside idyll can also plunge me straightway into fright or sensual excitement.

"What seems to me to be the most important and significant part of the whole thing is the feeling of a splitting of my ego whenever these perverse feelings come over me. As I have al- ready mentioned, I am always striving to overcome and suppress these perverse impulses and the depraved habits connected with them, but there are then the inevitable periods of relapse. I live in phases. There are times when my perverted desires press me more than usual, my body seems to burn with an unrelenting fever. I am oppressed and paralyzed by the pressure of a passion which is looked upon by normal persons only with undisguised sarcasm, and fear that even the best physician might, after all, have the same attitude towards my condition. And yet when a particularly charming female crosses my path, the terrible moment is upon me again and I realize to the full how deeply this frightful evil has taken root in my soul.,, (Extract from Löwenfeld, Sexualleben und Nervenleiden, 5 ed., I. F. Bergmann, Wiesbaden, 1914).

This case also shows us how that which "oppresses" so easily becomes a fetish. The patient's infantile impression of those three pretty girls also recurs in his dreams. He raises his fetish to a divine position as is shown by his calling the shoes "angeli- cally pure" receptacles. His abhorrence of sweaty feet may be due only to a repression and would then corroborate Abraham's theory of the role of sweaty feet in the psychogenesis of the fetishism.4 The relationships of this case with homosexuality are also rather plain. Always his interest generates in boys and then passes to girls, and it is a debatable question whether a fetishism can develop altogether without a considerable ad- mixture of homosexuality. We invariably observe the avoid- ance of the woman and the interest in boys. In this case, he is always running after boys and only later does he transfer his interest to girls. The high, starched collars attract his atten- tion when worn by either boys or girls. His impotence is re- vealed not only in his plain avoidance of women, but also by the fact that he cannot effect intercourse with prostitutes. First he succumbs to the foot fetishism, then to the collar habit and finally to a mania for narrow sleeves. Before a wave of

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homosexuality and the fears of woman he retreats into a para- pathia ; he fixates upon a symbol. He is also subject to those curious sleeplike and dream-states which we stressed in our discussion of infantilism and impulsive conduct. His split personality is fairly distinct, but it has not reached the stage of epileptiform seizures.

This case presents the interesting feature of the displacement of the paraphilia from the foot to the neck. That is somewhat analogous to Havelock Ellis's classical case in which the com- pression of the throat was as gratifying as the compression of the phallus. It is most certain that sadistic-criminal phantasies, of which the patient has no conscious knowledge, play a consid- erable role in this mechanism. Is it, after all, possible that the sadistic, the actively criminal, attitude of fetishists may be the reason why we see so few female fetish lovers ?

Mrs. H. Hug-Hellmuth has put such a case of female shoe fetishism on record.5

Case 46. This case concerns the daughter of a general who from her youth has manifested a special attraction for the shiny riding boots of her father. "A man clad in boots and sitting atop a horse is the only man." She rejected divers suitors and finally engaged herself to a lieutenant thirty years her senior (father imago). She was deaf to all the arguments of her family and in- variably countered with praise of his attractive feet (riding boots). Her fiance died before she married and she chose in his place a strikingly ugly old major just because he wore very high riding boots. She is fatally infatuated with his charming boots and any civilian in his "run down" low shoes is no man at all in her eyes. "One can get the shivers at the sight of riding boots and yet love them, too," she says. The marriage, of course, was a failure. Perhaps because she is frigid. She advised a girl friend of hers not to marry because naked feet are ugly. A man with his feet naked is a gruesome sight. "I shudder even at the thought of the great toe [manifestly a phallic symbol in her mind]. And the nails that are crippled and crooked, and the little toe which cannot grow, it is all a frightful sight for me." She herself preferred to wear high shoes because of the virile and erect appearance it gave her and also because of the pleasant sensation of being tightly laced in. High shoes are charmingly decent because they clothe the form of the calf, but leather puttees and calf braces only ac-

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centuate these features of the leg. As a child she had wanted high riding boots and was thrilled when her father gave her a present of a pair on one of her birthdays (identification with her father).

Hellmuth remarks on this case: "The genuine character of this girl's fetishism is indicated by the fact that her complete and sole interest in a man was ultimately dedicated to his boots, the man was, as it were, the necessary accessory to the fetish, a fact which she herself quite clearly recognized in so many words. She not only rejects the normal goal of sexuality, but she takes umbrage in the thoughts of her fetish in order to make her wifely duties at all bearable."

If this case had concerned a man, he would probably have been impotent. A woman can still bear children and be a party to sexual intercourse, no matter how anaesthetic and frigid she may be. We nevertheless observe a marked flight from normal sexuality in this case. She chooses old men and avoids the young ones, not alone because this enables her to gain a father imago for herself, but also because it protects her from the stormy passions of youth. She, too, reveals the symptom of "symbolical compulsion" in her delight at being laced in high shoes. Her disgust with the naked foot is doubtless the sym- bolical abhorrence of the naked phallus. It is not at all proven, however, as Sadger and Hellmuth believe, that the fetish or boot in this case is a phallic substitute. The case was unfortu- nately not analyzed, but it is characteristic and transparent enough to be mentioned here.

An excellent example of how the symbol can completely dis- place the genitals is presented in Löwenfeld's next case which also concerns itself with high shoes.

Case 47. "As regards the sexual question, I must have seen some equestrienne wearing high boots as a child. It might have been in the theatre or on the street, I can't recall. But it left a lasting impression upon me, nevertheless, for even as a boy I had a curious desire to see equestriennes whenever I could, either in natura or on pictures. The chief factor was the boots, of course, but I was interested only if women were wearing them. When I grew to be a little older, such a sight would produce an ejacula-

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tion and I must confess that whenever and wherever I was able to gain the sight of a riding woman, whether in the theatre, the circus, a riding academy or in the park, I could not withstand the impulse to get near her. I invariably got an orgasm.

"As a result I never cultivated normal sexual intercourse, but preferred to gratify my desires in this manner. And since no other person took the trouble to advise me in the matter, I con- tinued to follow these impulses until I was twenty-six years old. At that time, I sought the advice of an Italian psychiatrist, Prof. A. R. in M. He advised me to find myself an attractive girl, dress her in conformity with my phantasies and then to try sexual in- tercourse with her. I followed his advice and was successful. In that way, I gradually became accustomed to coitus, but when I began to attempt intercourse without the dress and shoes, it would succeed only sometimes and sometimes it would not. It is simply because I am more sure of myself when the woman has the proper clothing on. The female genitals as such interest me little.

"In the course of time I developed the habit of observing the shoes of women on the street. Elegant high shoes provoke a prompt erection which can persist until ejaculation if I follow the woman.

"When I see such high shoes in the display windows of shoe stores, I am mildly interested, but I never get an erection nor ever an orgasm. It is only when a woman is wearing the articles that I am affected.

"Since I have found a way to effect normal intercourse, how- ever, I try to control my perverse desires and have heterosexual intercourse about once a week. This desire of mine is of the greatest detriment to me for I am easily susceptible to phantasies of equestriennes, and my business suffers from lack of attention. I have a business of my own and it would soon be advantageous for me to marry, so that I might have some aid. At present my father is still helping me out, but he is old. Marriage will doubt- less be an impossibility, however, as long as I am afflicted with such ideas. The Italian professor advised me another time to marry an equestrienne, an idea which might be of theoretical value, but practically it could not work. For what would I do with such a woman in my financial condition? In addition, I would first have to get acquainted with one. The very sight of such a female would so excite me that I would become orgiastic and thus weaker than ever." (From Löwen f eld, 1. c.)

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All these cases reveal an hyperbolic development of a specific sexual taste which may look absurd as long as psychoanalytical insight has not solved their eccentricities. The one loves only women who wear pince-nez and the other hates women who wear pince-nez. This negative attitude is a trait which Hirsch- feld once erroneously named "anti-fetishism." 6 Aversion must, of course, be looked upon from the same point of view as the desires. Whether the fetish is of a negative or a posi- tive value in the mind of the patient is an irrelevant matter to the psychologist. He finds in both forms of expression one and the same force. I could therefore no more accept Hirschfeld's anti-fetishism as a separate paraphilia than I can his transves- titism. Psycho-sexual partial aversion 7 is nothing more than a specially marked psycho-sexual partial desire. One of his patients has an insurmountable aversion to female breasts and even avoids the word breast in his speech. Hs is a physician and avoids percussing or auscultating women's chests in front, not to speak of palpating the mammae. That was the reason why he became a pediatrician. He says he does not know the cause for this antipathy and then he adds a phrase which is so typical of parapathics and especially of parapathic physicians : "I have probed myself carefully and find nothing which could be blamed as the cause of this aversion." Such a statement is, of course, no proof at all, as I shall be able to demonstrate in my own case of anti-fetishism described later on. Another patient, a woman, hates men who wear beards ; a third despises brown or yellow shoes and even damages them in hotels when- ever he comes across them before the doors of guests. The following case is such a one from the collection of Hirschfeld. It is a revealing study and shows that behind the anti-fetishism there lurk objects which are despised because they are uncon- sciously valued as sexual symbols, just as we learned was the case in the discussion of kleptomania.

Case 48. A thirty-one-year-old mechanic suffers from a "real hatred" of mother-of-pearl buttons. He cannot recall ever to have been free from the spell of this hatred of underwear or shirt but- tons, but it was only later in life that he came to realize that it had anything to do with his sexual life. He had otherwise always had normal and uneventful heterosexual intercourse. P. said: "All

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 299

kinds of buttons on underwear, shirts, etc., appear indecent to me and, according to my personal and by no means definitive opinion, they are also immoral. The larger and shinier they are the uglier and more disgusting I find them. Those covered with some white cloth disturb me less. I can still remember how furiously I went after the buttons on the underthings of my sister when I was be- tween seven and twelve years old. I couldn't tear them off be- cause I couldn't get hold of them, but I cut them off with a scissors and then kicked them about. My parents frequently punished me for such bad habits, but I could not refrain from the impulse, although I was otherwise quite a well-behaved boy. Even to-day I hate such buttons wherever I see them. If I see a woman who pleases me and then follow her, I find her quite uninteresting as soon as I discover a deficiently covered row of buttons on her dress or at the back of her blouse. The most monstrous example of ugli- ness for me are those new types of corsets which have buttons in- stead of hooks and eyes. A woman swaddled in one of those things would repel me, even if she were a paragon of female physical beauties. The more a collection of such repulsive buttons looks as if it were in a row, the more disgusted do I become. Curiously enough, ever since I have been seventeen or eighteen, the sight of such a row of buttons makes me think of a row of swine's or dog's teats. I should much prefer to see women's underwear and blouses tied or hooked, although I am not at all fetishistic about strings or ribbons; neither are hooks and eyes or snaps irritating to me, but I am revolted by the disgusting sight of open- ings in the blouses or dresses of some women. And yet despite my indescribable antipathy to these objects, I am always on the lookout for them and see them frequently enough. And if I happen to discover a naked, shiny button through the opening of the blouse or dress, the woman appears viler in my eyes than if she were naked. My disgust becomes acute at times and I could certainly never cohabit with such a woman, nor even speak with her."

It is easy to recognize that these buttons are only the sym- bols of nipples for this man and the anti-fetishist admits it himself in his phantasy. It is precisely in the case of fetishism that we can observe the colossal sexual significance of the sym- bol. The sadistic component is sufficiently portrayed in his cut- ting off the buttons on his sister's things with a scissors. He also kicked the buttons about afterwards. It appears that his

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conduct reveals a displacement of hate from the sister to the buttons, his sister having been his rival for his mother's love. "The mother swine" speaks for itself. That he is a repressed peeping Tom is clearly betrayed by his very emotional reaction to involuntary exposure.

Hirschfeld (Sexual Pathologie, Vol. Ill) reports the female counterpart to this case.

Case 49. "A most singular case of my observation concerns a woman who suffers from a fetishism of collar buttons. Her basic feeling is an intense hatred of these articles, and she is greatly irritated both by the sight of such buttons and also of the rings which their pressure so frequently leaves in the skin. But if her sexual appetite is aroused by a man — usually a 'pure line' roue, as she puts it — her fear of the buttons and her aversion to them transforms itself into a passionate curiosity to see them. She would like to put them in her mouth if possible and destroy them. This case is very instructive on the question of the transformation of a feeling from a negative to a positive type."

This case is quite as transparent as the one before. The fetish hate is ultimately shown to be a fetish love. In this case it is the repression of a fellatio phantasy.

I would also like to mention that in this treatise Hirschfeld has also mentioned the novel Fetish-Hass (Fetish Hate) by Gustav Adolph Weber (Berlin, York Verlag). That novel describes the life of a woman who had a decided aversion to full dress suits. She experiences all kinds of quarrels and troubles with waiters and the like, nearly chokes with her own passions and finally — falls in love with a full-dressed valet. The author then proceeds to describe how her hatred of his clothing strug- gles with her desires until she succumbs to the positive tenden- cies. When, after the first intimate scene between them, she opened her eyes and saw her lover again clothed in his black dress, she was "seized with a fit of terrible anger, a rush of hatred filled her brain. Like red tongues of flame through which the black suit shimmered sarcastically at her, the pas- sion danced before her eyes, and before she could realize what she was doing she had seized a revolver from out of the dresser drawer and had fired a bullet at Reinhardt head."

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 301

The analyst clearly understands such cases. They constitute one's psychological a b c's. One could easily cite a long list of such apparent cases of anti- fetishism. I recall a woman who once told me that she had but one real aversion : large, strong, self-possessed men with a ' 'Wilhelm II" mustache. Her first lover who had betrayed her was of this type and it was evident that her anti-fetishism was a self -protective mechanism for her.

I shall close the series of these cases with a history which Hirschfeld would certainly label with "anti-fetishism."

Case 50. For the past few months the eighteen-year-old patient W. B. has been suffering from a complete inability to study. He had always been an industrious and good student and had even found time for other things. For some time now he has found it difficult to absorb knowledge and to pay attention to his work. He cannot progress unless his tutor or his mother sit with him while he is studying. He is irritable and hypochondriacal, always dejected, shows no brightness and no interest in anything. He complains of pains in the back, sleeps poorly and only long after he has gone to bed, awakens late and is usually tired, and also complains of headaches which begin in the neck and radiate down into his back.

Since such complaints are frequently heard after some sexual abstinence, I questioned him about his sex life. He states that he has never masturbated because he was early enlightened by an uncle who described to him the terrible results of this practice. He has also never cohabited with a woman. At fourteen he was sexually enlightened by a schoolmate, told his mother about it, and she then referred the matter to his uncle again for the proper explanations. The uncle then preached to him about the frightful consequences of early intercourse. He said that nervous diseases would be the result, one succumbed to libertinage, there were frightful venereal diseases in store for one which would either kill one early or cause one to suffer for life. He had best control himself and wait until he could marry.

Latterly, however, sexual phantasies had overcome him at times and he was perplexed. He had frequent wet dreams, always about women and never about men. He looks after every woman on the street and weaves a romantic robe of phantasy about each and every one. Suddenly he said : I have one great aversion : women with large feet. They make me sick. I could never be tender

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to such a woman and when I accidentally note that some woman has big feet, I'm through with her.

He lays this anti- fetishism to one of his earliest infantile im- pressions. When he was twelve, a schoolmate of his pointed out a Slavish woman to him, one out of so many that are to be seen in Vienna. They wear short, peasant skirts, and their calves are exposed. His schoolmate said : "Look at those classy legs." He looked, but what he saw were thick legs that "hung almost over her shoes." Ever since then he has been conscious of an aversion to large feet in women.

"Does your mother or your sister have large feet?"

"No. My mother has lovely feet which are rather small."

He then related how as a child he was quite devout and went to church every morning. They had a very strict professor of re- ligion whom he didn't like. He hated this teacher and after some contact with a proselyted Jew, he became completely independent of the church and religious habits. He preserved a firm belief in God, but did not observe the forms of the Catholic church. He is, also, very superstitious and is the butt of all the family's jokes because of this. He has his unlucky days, believes in the dire influence of the number 13, the dangers of a Friday and the like. He also believes in lucky omens as, for example, that the teacher would always examine him on just what he had studied.

He claims to be distrustful and suspicious of everybody. His mother, he claims, supervises him constantly and does not believe him. He takes a walk every day, but his mother believes that he is sitting in some cafe or other or is wasting time with a colleague. He is easily influenced. He realized this for the first time when his friend weaned him away from his religious practices. He was easily turned against his family. Once he let himself be hypnotized and fell asleep quickly.

He likes art and is especially fond of the old pictures. He can't stand modern paintings and considers them to be a hodgepodge of paints. The old paintings, however, are full of lovely, soft colors and a delightful quiet. The modern ones are noisy and cannot elevate the soul.

He hates everybody. He is much attracted by the anarchistic literature and considers their tenets as self-evident and true. Any authority disturbs him and provokes his animosity. He is pleased whenever he hears that some anarchist has attempted an assassina- tion somewhere. I explained to him that this attitude was mani-

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 303

festly derived from a hatred of his father and this he promptly corroborated.

He is an illegitimate child and does not know who his father is. His mother has never mentioned his father's name to him, but he hates him passionately, nevertheless, and would kill him if he could only learn his name. How is it possible to bring a child into the world and not worry further about it? It is his deepest shame that everybody in school knows that he is an illegitimate child. But he can't help that. He is especially afraid that his father may turn out to be a Jew. He is an ardent anti-Semite and hates all Jews. He has convinced himself that his father is really a Jew. He fears that people may think he looks like a Jew and likes to wear a cross, so that his Christianity may be noticeable.

After a few hours of further analysis, he related how jealous he is of his sister. He counts the minutes whenever she goes out and says that he will kill the man who tries to become intimate with her. Finally, he confessed that he loved her himself and that he has often had to fight back the desire to make her his mis- tress. He is even conscious of the incestuous phantasies in regard to his mother and frequently dreams of intercourse with his mother or his sister. He is afraid to have intercourse with any other girl. Since he does not know his father, it might barely be possible that the girl he slept with would be his sister (parapathics love to travel in such roundabout paths when they see their sister in every woman). All these factors are driving him to homosexuality. He has become interested in handsome men and can follow and rave about a trim-looking officer just as if he were a girl. He is par- ticularly jealous of his sister in respect of officers because he be- lieves that their wooing is irresistible.

"Yesterday," he says, "I saw an officer who attracted my atten- tion and followed him for about a quarter of an hour."

"Did you also look at his feet ?"

"I never see them. I never look at boots.,,

"Why not?"

"Because . . . well, I can't say."

"Is it so unpleasant that you must hide the fact ?"

"Well, yes. I have never said anything about that. Men really don't animate me. It's only a Platonic attraction I have to them. But if a man has a well-formed foot or wears elegant boots with spurs, then I become sexually excited. I am then afraid that I could become a homosexual."

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"Must the officer's foot be large or small to excite you ?"

"To tell you the truth, it is only a large foot or a large nose which excites my passion. A colleague of mine once told me that men with large feet or large noses also had a large penis."

I may close the case at this point. The anti-fetish is really the memory of the large male foot. The analysis also showed that as a little boy he had been interested in the large feet of his mother. He tried to wear her shoes and would attempt to put his little feet into them. Although his mother had fairly small feet, her shoes were then always too large for him and that frustrated him. He wished to have a foot which was large enough for him to wear mother's shoes. This case also indi- cates an erotic symbolism, the fetish representing the phallus. His anti-fetish is a protection against his incestuous thoughts and the homosexuality which resulted from their repression.

In this case, which is distinctly one of partialism, we can observe the infantile roots of the illness (anti-partialism, Hirschfeld would say). His mother's foot appeared very large to him when he was a child. There is also a marked homo- sexual component. He hates a woman who reminds him of a man. It is the unknown foot of his unknown father that he seeks and hates. He would kill his father, he says, if he could only find him. He only knows that his father is rich now and is living in luxury. His mother had said this. She, too, had lived in luxury as long as she was the mistress of this man, but now she has to live from the interest of the hush-money he gave her. Every woman who looks elegant and appears to be living in the lap of luxury provokes in him the thought that she, too, is a kept woman. He is afraid his sister might become a kept woman also.

He is particularly animated by the sight of officers when he sees them tightly buttoned into their uniforms. Hussars are his special delight because they have plenty of braid, tight and narrow breeches and high riding boots. The large foot he likes to see compressed into a narrow boot. His preference for offi- cers is a derivative of his persistent infantilism. Women's sus- ceptibility to the colors is also partly due to an infantilism and partly to the belief that officers and soldiers are characterized by a specially great potency. The love for the colors is also to

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 305

be found among homosexuals who disclose all kinds of partial- isms. I have again and again heard patients praise the attrac- tiveness of a tightly fitting uniform. The soldier is, of course, the very apotheosis of compulsion which is euphemistically called "discipline."

So-called fetishistic leanings are to be found quite as fre- quently among homosexuals as among heterosexuals (we shall later on become acquainted with such a case), The particular case can be either one of partialism or of true fetishism, the fetish in this event then replacing the man in the homosexual's mind. The fact that soldiers are a singular object of these types points to the infantilistic root of the condition. Everyone knows what a tremendous role the soldier plays in the life of every child. The uniform is enough to provoke the senses and excite the phantasy. The criminal instincts of the child thus also gain expression since the soldier is after all the paramount carrier of weapons. Stabbing and shooting can best be played as a soldier without the oppression of growing social constraint. Hirschfeld has stressed these traits of the homosexual and I find his discussion sufficiently interesting and important to in- clude it here.

"But even here there are also very marked differentiations within each group. Thus, among the soldier lovers, we may find those who deal only with infantrymen, others who fall for non-com- missioned officers, still others who desire officers' aides and those who strive only after officers of higher rank. Besides, the kind of troops also plays an important role. Some look with favor only upon the infantry, others upon the cavalry, etc. I knew of a homosexual who became interested only in the special Uhlan guard, whereas the rest of the German army did not exist for him. Not long ago I had to examine a physician who displayed a love for cavalry officers only. Since his profession in no wise brought him together with them, he sought to entice them to his quarters by starting up some financial business or other with them. It seems apparent that fetishism plays a great part in all these cases and it would not be difficult to find indications of the same tenden- cies in almost any homosexual.

"That we are here actually dealing with fetishism may appear from the fact that whenever there is no fetish, the homosexual manifests indifference to the sexual object or even an aversion.

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Thus, for example, some soldier lovers have told me how 'com- pletely cool they were towards former soldier friends of theirs when they afterwards saw them as civilians or reservists/ The latter, on the other hand, are just as astonished at the conduct of their former lovers, once they have returned to that long-awaited state of the civilian. A young priest wrote me : *I am a thorough homosexual and my type is a strong, handsome man of about twenty-five to forty. I am not interested in whether this man be blond or dark, but he must have sympathetic features and wear a mustache. Men with full beards or clean-shaven faces leave me cold. Just how much the mustache has to do with it may be illus- trated by the following. My uncle, an important Catholic clerical with whom I lived during my student days, had a chaplain who possessed just the features I have described to you, but as a Cath- olic cleric he was not permitted to wear a beard. We were both quite friendly without my being in the least sexually animated by him. One day I bought a false mustache at a barber's and took it home. I gave it to him and begged him to try it on. He complied with my request and I must say that I was overcome with a rush of sexual excitement which cost me great efforts of self-control to keep from embracing him and kissing him/

"Just how detailed and specialized the tastes of a homosexual can become may be illustrated by the following infrequent cases. I have known homosexuals who have displayed an interest only in policemen, others who have loved only fraternity men. One of my patients loved only shepherds. He searched for them far and wide. 'Once/ he told me, T was in San Remo and spied a shep- herd at the top of a hill among his sheep. I had unfortunately left my binoculars at home, but since he appeared even at that great distance to be a young man, I set out for him, although the road passed into the valley first and then became very difficult. It took me over an hour and when I got to the top I saw that he was a very old man. I have often been fooled like that/

"Another man was always attracted by a specially prominent seventh cervical vertebra and still another by bald heads. I made the acquaintance of two homosexual brothers in Brussels once, the one of whom loved only hunters and the other chauffeurs.

"One of my patients never had anything to do with any men but those from the Rhineland, Westphalia or Pomerania. Saxons, Hamburgers and Alsatians were taboo for him. One man was excited only by men who smoked short pipes. Some homosexuals and Lesbians have told me that handsome men left them cold

THE SYMBOLISM OF COMPULSIONS 307

whereas revoltingly ugly men attracted them. I must stress the fact that the differentiation in taste goes just as far among the Lesbians as it does among homosexuals. One of my patients was interested only in married women, another only in house-maids, a third was attracted by furs and large earrings and a fourth loved women 'not under 200 pounds in weight/

"When the former minister of war, von Einem, said of homo- sexuals, 'I have read in papers and scientific treatises that such men always look for men who manifest strength and physical per- fection, as, for example, porters, drivers and beer wagon drivers/ he showed how one-sided his orientation on the matter was.

"A speculating military tailor in Berlin whose establishment was a frequented resort of homosexuals, kept a collection of all kinds of uniforms in his closets with which he was able to transform any kind of Uhlan or infantryman into a sailor or marine. There were also many other perquisites for the demands of homosexuals, e.g., apache bandannas, priest's collars, boots and spurs, etc. To follow the causes of such individual eccentricities as far as the endogenous limits set by the personal constitution, we must resort to psychoanalysis. On the basis of a rather exhaustive statistical study of the traits desired in the love object as compared with the homosexuals own make-up, I have found that about fifty-five percent look for characteristics which coincide with their own, whereas about forty-five percent seek traits of an opposite nature as a complementary consummation of their own ego.,, (Hirsch- feld, Die Homosexualität, p. 282.)

The author has made an absolutely accurate observation. The last patient we considered had large feet himself and was greatly pained by the fact. The very little foot of the child had become a very large foot later. Originally he had been very proud of this size, but then his polar attitude came to the fore. The psychoanalytical study of these cases will invariably dis- close an infantile cause of the individual's personal tastes.

Some of Hirschfeld's cases have nothing in common with true fetishism. They concern cases of partialism, the fixation of infantile impressions. But even such cases reveal the phe- nomenon of the compulsion. The partialist is, after all, caught in the corner of a certain and definite condition. He often fights against this obsession but he cannot overcome it. Is it possible that a single infantile impression should be capable of

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acting as a compulsion throughout an individual's existence? I am skeptical about Binet's theory ever since I have examined these cases analytically. It is too easy.

That the essence of partialism and anti-partialism is not to be explained in this manner is clearly demonstrated by the psy- chogenesis of our last case. There the large foot was the symbol of a mistress. Indeed, we also find a direct sexual interest in the foot and the indication of his mother's large feet. But an analytical examination of these cases shows how dangerous it is to bind one's self to a certain theory. Thus, e.g., there was no basis for the opinion that a sweaty foot had been etiologically important in the development of the partial- ism in the last-mentioned case. Nor is it a priori to be as- sumed. I have seen many cases of hand partialism which were not a whit less intense than the cases of foot partialism. And in no case was there any evidence of the role of a perspiring hand. It was the mother's hand which had played with the phallus during infancy, or the hand of a governess. Or the hand was an indication of masturbation and many other men- tal associations. Such cases are not to be confounded with fetishism. It is, of course, entirely different in the case of a glove fetishist with a penchant for kid gloves, who puts the ladies' gloves on only to feel their tightness and produce the phantasy that his finger is inextricably clamped into the glove. It is noteworthy that this patient was able to achieve an orgasm only when his penis, too, was tightly pressed.

But I would have to repeat myself endlessly if I were to trace the manifestations of hand fetishism as I have done for foot fetishism.

Both forms have the common feature of the compulsion, the phantasy of compression and being tightly laced in; the avoidance of and retreat from the woman and the harem cult.

The need for a coerced situation may often lead the patient to compress his own penis and we have frequently heard of parapathics who have bound their phallus with string or ribbon. Some do it at night in bed and others wear such articles by day.

Many otherwise puzzling phenomena find a solution by means of such an approach. Maresch once demonstrated a

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pathological case in the Vienna Academy of Medicine ("Ein Fall von jahrelanger Einschnürung des Penis durch einen Fin- gerring, Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1920, No. 5). At a post mortem a man was found with a ring around his penis. The wearing of the ring there had led to the development of an urethral fistula.

The catamnestic study of the case disclosed that the deceased, who was married, had not had sexual intercourse for the past ten years and that he had at that time, i.e., ten years ago, com- plained of unpleasant and painful erections. His wife had advised him to consult a physician and when she later asked him about his condition, he told her that he no longer needed the aid of a physician. The woman knew nothing of the ring. We are therefore not far from the truth if we surmise that the deceased applied the ring to his penis at about that time, es- pecially since the anatomical examination of the region dis- closes nothing which would stand in the way of such a supposi- tion. The man suffered the not inconsiderable consequences of the incarceration of his penis without the desire to consult a physician, nor did the urethral fistula seem to bother him either. For if he had gone to a doctor, he would have been freed from the ring at least. The nurse and the fellow patients in his ward also stated that he had visited the toikt with remarkable fre- quency during his residence in the hospital and that he had used up a great number of towels with which, as the pathologi- cal specimen shows, he had successfully protected himself against the development of an eczema.8

Simple persons choose a simple tool for the execution of their compulsion. The greater the individual's differentiation as a personality, the more complicated does his obsessional mechan- ism become.

One other circumstance necessitates a separate discussion. We have seen that the chief factor in all these cases is the im- pulsive conduct. Many of these foot fetishists are klepto- maniacs, they steal the shoes they desire, make a whole collec- tion of them; steal gloves, corsets, and all the rest. What is the relationship between these impulses and the compulsion ?

First of all, every civilized person would feel such an irre- sistible impulse as an unpleasant compulsion. The civilized

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person struggles against his instincts, he wants to overcome them, he wants to save himself from these compulsions and coercions. That inner freedom and independence which is the highest ideal of every individual can be attained only through the conquest of compulsion and constraint. The original com- pulsion can no longer be recognized in the fetishism itself. The impulse has become transformed, the affect is displaced, the compulsion has been transferred from a sexual to a sym- bolical object. The patient no longer strives towards the pos- session of a desired person; he succumbs to his passion, his compulsion, but in a symbolical garb. His ascetic tendencies are pacified by the fact that his striving avoids sexual inter- course or at least reduces it to a minimum. He has opposed an anti-compulsion to the original one. Obsessional symptoms are reactions to an unrealizable instinctual striving, the deeper, more primitive reaction changing to a quite atypical reaction of the civilized man. He succumbs to a compulsion, indeed, but it is an obsession which he has forced upon himself, only in order to avoid the demands of his own sexuality. The fetishist has forced himself into the clutches of one compulsion only as a means of freeing himself from an earlier one. He plays the paraphilic and remains ascetic. For him the compulsions of civilization, education, religion and ethics remain triumphant. This constraint, however, is no longer foreign to him because the paraphilia is his very own creation. In reality, he is not at all attracted by the foot. He acts only as if the foot were his sexual object (Vaihinger). He accepts the fiction only to flee from the reality of his own sex. The bipolar tendency of being a Don Juan, Satan, libertine, faithless husband on the one hand, and the priest, saint, and savior on the other, is fully expressed in his own creation. Once his system has been erected, he looks upon the instincts, the impulses as foreign elements and the fetishism is the heart's desire. The impulse is inactivated by the fetishism, as it were, and made forever innocuous. But the power of that original impulse is never lost. It is only deflected in its course and exerts an influence which is opposed to its original purpose. It becomes a part of that system which seeks evil and yet achieves good.

In the symbol of compression the patient thus expresses both

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tendencies: the impulses of his instincts and the compulsions of his obsessional neurosis.

I thus return to my old formula : fetishism is nothing but a kind of compulsion neurosis. Its psychic structure can be un- derstood only in the light of an obsessional neurosis. Erotic symbolism expresses this constraint in its choice of a fetish which is the manifest and visible symbol of the compulsion.

CASE MATERIAL

The result of our study thus far is the knowledge that fetish- ism is a kind of compulsion, which the patient forces upon himself out of the motive of atonement. It seems to be a paraphilia, but it is really a religion, a cult. The lords of this religion are the gods of childhood. The fetish itself must be capable of representing the compulsive character of this re- ligion, which invariably bears the stamp of constraint, sym- bolically.1 It must be something protective, covering or com- pressive. It is for this reason that shoes are so suitable as symbols because they do clothe and protect the foot from dirt. That is also the reason why tight trousers or corsets are so often chosen, simply because they cover or compress the body. It is understandable, too, how several fetishes may be used simultaneously as long as they all express the same tendency. It is as if the same thing were being expressed in different lan- guages. A shoe fetishist could thus also reveal other forms of fetishism and it is just such a case which Abraham has reported.2 I should like here to discuss his case.

Case 51. Abraham described a twenty-two-year-old university student who in puberty had already differed from others of his age by the fact that he displayed no interest in the opposite sex. He considered himself impotent. When he was 14, he began to bind himself in divers ways. At fifteen he began to observe the more elegant shoes of some of his schoolmates. And then came the typical change. He proceeded to transfer his interest from male to female shoes and was particularly fetched by the thought of how uncomfortable walking in such shoes must be.

He put the left shoe on the right foot and the right on the left just to find out on his own person what such discomfort could mean. This interchanging of left and right is a wonderful sym- bolic act. It means that he would like to make a woman out of

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313

a man, and that is probably derived from a deep identification with his mother. When he was sixteen he took one of his mother's old corsets, laced himself into it and then went out for a walk. Here again we meet with a case of fetishism in which the necessary implements are taken from the mother's arsenal. The patient re- lated: "When I see women and girls wearing corsets and then think of the pressure which is being exerted upon their breasts and abdomens, I get erections." Contrary to the cases which I have seen, however, his dreams, too, often deal with corsets and lacing them up, etc. He displays a marked coprophilic olfactory lust which is derived from his infantilism. One of his most fre- quently recurrent memories is a picture in which he sees his mother wading in some water. For me that seems to contain the nucleus of his foot fetishism. Until his tenth year he was very tender with his mother and often went to her bed. He yearns to be a woman and this desire palpably has something to do with his strong castration phantasies. He also manifests the typically in- fantile habit of retaining his excrements, and it was always in the toilet that he used to bind himself. These habits doubtless were due to the persistent effect of phantasies about being swaddled in diapers. Moreover, he used also to bind up his genitals.

Abraham also reported a dream from this patient.

He finds himself together with his brother on a ship which is passing through a harbor. In order to pass out of this harbor it is necessary for them to ride under a barrier which looks like a house built hanging over the water. They are then out in free water, but suddenly find themselves on land with the ship passing down a street, without, however, touching the earth. They seem to be riding in the air. A policeman was watching them.

The dream was not recognized by Abraham in its fundamental light since the author did not at the time of the publication know of the so-called spermatozoa dreams. The important association which the patient produced on the barrier ; the Colossus of Rhodes, explains the dream. The Colossus of Rhodes represents a giant who stands with outspread legs across the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes. It reminds him of his father urinating. The dream represents the patient himself as a spermatozoon riding through his mother's body, and that is also the basis for the curious fly- ing found later in the dream (Cf. also the womb dream of a pre- vious case). The meaning of the dream is: I'd like to be born again and start my life over. I'd like to be a child again. Once this patient also dreamed that his shoes were so run down at the

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heels that his heels showed through. Among other determinants, this dream means also that he feels himself losing his parapathia. Such is more frequently the case in an analysis than psychoana- lysts themselves believe. The reason is that, once the patient has begun to reveal the details and secrets of his parapathia, it loses its supreme value for him. The parapathia is his most intimate secret, and once he has decided to betray it, he has practically decided to give it up. Indeed, Abraham is right when he inter- prets the heel as a genital substitute, but every fetish replaces the genitals and is produced in the first place only because some erog- enous zone is involved. But that does not explain the essence of the fetishism, as we have already shown.

For the present, we shall leave Abraham's case at this point. I shall have an opportunity of discussing his theory of foot fetishism later on. We must remember one thing, however, and that is the tendency : I want to be a woman. It is a striving which is pres- ent in every case of true fetishism. It gives us insight into the curious avoidance of the woman. Whenever the fetish lover col- lects women's shoes, he phantasies how they might fit him. The same holds true of chemises, corsets, aprons, petticoats, hats, etc. The homosexual basis of the fetishism also achieves its ends in this powerful wish. Even the patient's spermatozoon dream might conceivably have had this wish as a basis, i.e., if I only had the opportunity to live my life over again, I should like to be a girl, like mother or sister. It is only a short step from such a wish to the transvestitism of Hirschfeld. As a matter of fact, all transvestites reveal the characteristics of fetishists. They collect female articles of apparel, cultivate a harem of such goods, and disappear into an otherwise inaccessible realm with all the power of a frenzied phantasy.

The following case displays all these signs in addition to some other interesting ones. It was reported by Otto Walther.

Case 52. M. K., a journalist, was thirty-six years old when admitted to the psychopathic pavilion of the general hospital. Nothing was elicited concerning hereditary stigmatization. He was only a fair pupil in school and graduated from high school at twenty. He then studied law in the Universities of Berlin and Marburg. After failing twice in his bar examinations in Kassel, he became a journalist upon the death of his father and managed to keep himself in rather fair pecuniary circumstances. His fam- ily had not supported him too well nor had they left him much.

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He was usually affiliated with the conservative papers, thus in W. where he was rather looked up to, moved in the best circles, be- came a member of the Conservative party, etc. In 1895 he mar- ried, but the marriage was not fruitful. For this reason, he adopted a little girl in 1898 at the urgent request of his wife. He had not cultivated sexual intercourse with his wife. 1899 to June, 1900, he was the managing editor of the paper in R. and appears to have done well according to the publisher.

K. was arrested and charged with repeated attempts at fraud, it being claimed that he tried to acquire a farm in Silesia under false pretences and that he had approached wealthy persons for loans with false promises of collateral.

It was only when the prosecuting attorney had asked a sentence of three years in prison and the judge had postponed passing sen- tence that he confessed to his attorney that he had not sought the acquisition of the farm solely for financial or economic reasons, but that he had hoped to satisfy his other desires easier in the country. He then related that he was possessed of an impulsive attraction to aprons and linens and that he believed his wife would find it easier to clothe herself according to his desires out there than in the city. He then confessed to the possession of diaries, letters, and to some episode with the police in Dr. where he was charged with disorderly conduct. The patient's attorney then asked for a stay of sentence and the psychiatric examination of the defendant. The plea was granted and K. turned over to an institution.

He dates his susceptibility to aprons from a very early period in his life and believes that one of the exciting causes was the fact that his nurse used to place aprons in his crib to quiet him. At first his passions centered on the aprons of his mother and sister. He would even take them clandestinely and hide them away. Despite frequently painful punishments for his habits, he continued to indulge his impulses and even as a student later in life he manifested these tastes. When as a student, he became engaged to his present wife, he would often take some of her aprons surreptitiously on visits to her home and bring them back to Berlin with him. It was during this period that his interest in washable goods awakened in him, allegedly because his fiancee and her sister wore them. But to this day his special delight has been aprons.

The aprons must be made of washable goods and must also be printed in certain colors and patterns. He prefers articles which

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have been worn and are dirty ; and he cannot suffer his fetishes to be washed. The thought that his "dear little aprons" are not carefully handled, even mistreated by washing, provokes almost physical pain in him. As a matter of fact, it even hurts him to see aprons and linens to his taste worn by strangers because the thought then bobs up that they are not being properly cared for. For this reason, and also because these articles simply captivate his fancy, he has often followed the wearers of them and has bargained for their purchase, despite the fact that he possesses trunks and closets full of them at home. It was during such an episode in Dr. that he was suspected of attempted disorderly con- duct. He had seen a little girl wearing an apron which attracted his attention, followed her home and then told her to ask her mother whether she wouldn't like to sell him the apron. He said that he would come back in the evening and get the piece. When he returned, he was arrested. He explained to the police that he had only wanted to buy the apron for a collection he had. The police made a search of his quarters and actually found a pile of similar articles, the origin and fate of which were carefully noted in books which looked like business books or diaries (beginning with the year 1897). In B. he had given an order to a junk woman, Mrs. U., to buy him an apron he had seen on a little girl and there was evidence of other orders for aprons, too. But he was not interested in old or worn goods alone. He would never miss the opportunity of buying new ones if he saw satisfactory ones in a store.

He gave the following information on his vita sexualis. He masturbated only during his student days, and then without much gratification. He cannot recall just how he came to begin the practice, but declares that his aprons had nothing to do with it. Soon, however, he gave up the habit after having read a book on the subject of the "terrible detriments" which follow it. He has never had heterosexual intercourse, not even during the eight years of his matrimony. That was, of course, a frequent cause of marital difficulty, especially since his wife wanted very much to have a child. That was the reason why he complied with his wife's desire to adopt a child. He feels that his doings with his aprons and linens has been a substitute for intercourse and that his desires have been spent in the one direction rather than the other. He feels tenderly bound to his wife, but his relationship has no more to do with sexuality than his interest in the women

CASE MATERIAL

who wear aprons he desires. He is ultimately attracted only by the objects which they wear. He states that he has frequently thought of meeting his wife's demands if only to have an heir to the farm he intended to acquire, but the aprons formed an ob- stacle to his intentions. It was as if they had spoken to him and said that he dared not do so for their sake.

He described his practices w-ith the aprons and linens as fol- lows. The sight and possession of his aprons and washable goods affords him a feeling of pleasant comfort and satisfaction. He never becomes sexually excited by these objects nor does he ever use them for onanistic purposes. He is pleased simply by the sight of a woman or girl wearing them. He also piles his bed full of these articles at night and takes the apron which is dearest to him at the moment into bed with him without, however, mas- turbating with it. By day he hangs them about the room, strokes them, kisses them and talks to them like to a wife or child." Even while travelling, he invariably has several of these pieces with him, thus also on his last trip to Pomerania (he actually had two aprons in his possession when arrested).

He was also happy in keeping books and diaries about the ac- quisition and qualities of his goods (ever since 1897).

Because his wife and daughter began to refuse to put the rather old-fashioned and often dirty aprons on, he conceived the idea that if he lived in the country, they would probably not need to be so ashamed and would not be reluctant to wear what he de- sired them to put on. That was the beginning of his plans to ac- quire a farm. But, in addition to the hope of achieving his desires in the solitude of the country, his plans were also motivated by a host of other notions which had developed in him during the past few years. He believes that the possession of a large piece of land will enable him to realize many of his ideas for the improvement of man's social lot. At first he was reluctant about discussing these ideas, but finally he was cajoled into betraying some of them. As a landed gentleman, he feels that his party connection would bring him in touch with the most influential of cabinet circles and that perhaps he might even receive a special dispensation from the Reichstag. He talked of ministerial affairs and even hinted at the possibility of becoming minister himself. Arrived at such a level, he would be able to carry out the plans for progress and social improvement which lodge in his mind. What they are, he is not yet ready to reveal. He did not speak of his activities as a

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managing editor of a newspaper with any shadow of boastf ulness, but stated simply that he thought he had executed his position with thoroughness and satisfaction.

The history of his further residence in the institution reveals that for about two years* (1898-1899) he suffered from periodic attacks of headache which affected the frontal and occipital re- gions especially. He was a regular addict of about three head- ache powders a day. For the past two or three years, he has suf- fered from disturbed and irregular sleep and often awakens with fright. He is always begging to be given the children's aprons to be found among his things and claims that he cannot live with- out them. He is frequently lachrymose.

The following is an extract from his diaries.

"Dark brown apron with the blue striped border. Upon my re- quest, tied it on again early this morning after it had been put on. But only to-day, after she had washed and dressed Marga ; so that the horror of seeing her washing Marga in the sweet apron was spared me. Breakfasted in it and then carried the dishes into the kitchen in it. Wore it while washing and rubbing Marga's hair with bay rum. Had it on when I put on Marga's puttees and rubbers and she touched the apron with her arm, so that it was again folded and creased. Much to my greatest pain, the little apron again hangs full of creases and ruffles. It is all crumpled and pulled and even the blue striped border is just covered with wrinkles and crumples left and right. I'm all disconsolate that the dear little apron has been so mistreated by being put on again.

LITTLE DARK BROWN APRON

"Sunday. J. made me completely happy to-day by tying on that little brown apron. On a Sunday, too, despite the fact that it's not washed and I had never expected her to put it on here in N-Str. The lovely little apron has not been washed or cleaned since the days in R., W., St., Dr., and St., nor even since that day in O. twelve years ago when she put it on the first time. When she put it on, she reminded me of the fact that that was one of my oldest aprons, etc. To my deepest chagrin J. then con- tinued by saying that the apron appeared shoddy and would prob- ably soon fall apart from decay." He then describes a quarrel with his wife about the wearing of the apron and his wife gives in to him.

There follow some tales about some other aprons, thus, e.g., the

CASE MATERIAL 319

white, ribbed apron with the little trimmings, the blue striped and ribbed apron, the dark blue ribbed apron with the red-ribbed hem and shoulder straps, the little blue one with the red flowered bor- der, the light yellow ribbed apron with the blue ribbed border, etc., etc.

Among other things his descriptions of his washable goods: blue striped blouse with the sailor collar, the blue striped and ribbed washable dress, the dark blue washable dress, etc., etc.

Even his letters to his wife indicate his worry about his dear little aprons and washables. He wrote her that she shouldn't dare to put on his lovely, dear, little aprons while he was away.

At the taking of evidence, his mother stated that as a boy and also during the period of his later high school days, he had mani- fested a peculiar leaning towards aprons, especially blue ones. She had frequently noticed that some of her own wearing apparel was missing, and later would find the articles crumpled away or laid out in some corner of one of her son's drawers. Admonish- ing or punishing him was of no avail. Her deceased husband had looked upon it as a sort of fooling, at least soon after the boy had displayed these tendencies. She herself believed that the whole thing derived from an old nursemaid who used to place these aprons in his crib with him and let him play with them. How his habits developed and whether he continued them later on, she was unable to say. She recalled, however, that her son's letters to her deceased husband at the time that he was going with his present wife showed that he was also subject to these tastes in respect of her (his fiancee), too. She was unaware that her son displayed a passion for any other form of clothing. She had not seen him for the past eleven years.

The patient's wife corroborated her husband's information in regard to his passion for aprons and dresses in almost every de- tail. She also agreed that that was the cause of much disaffection in their relationships, particularly whenever she had refused to dress the way he had wanted her to. She feels certain that his desire to have them dress themselves on the farm without feeling ashamed was the sole basis for his plans and attempts to acquire it. She described her husband as an industrious and saving per- son. As long as he had not had the idea of buying a farm, she said, they had been able to live free from debt on the income he had and had even been able to save a little money. It was only the loss through paying the brokers which had plunged them into debt. She repeats that she believes his desire for an unhindered

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enjoyment of his passions led him to think of buying the farm and not the hope of a more comfortable independence as a landed person. She also stresses the fact that in addition to the color, the aprons must also possess certain satisfying patterns. It has occurred that despite a satisfying color, such as blue or blue stripes, he has rejected an apron because the pattern did not meet with his requirements. He has also spent a good deal of money on such articles as have caught his fancy, a thing he usually never does. The only substitute for normal intercourse could be this relationship with his aprons and dresses and this enables him to gratify his leanings, his sexual desires, albeit in an unconscious form, without the necessity of exposing his genitals. It is the sight, the possession and the handling of his goods which alone afford him pleasure and the gratification which the normal indi- vidual can find only in direct sexual intercourse. The female as such is quite negligible as far as he is concerned and even his wife is a sexual entity only in the secondary quality of being the wearer of one of his aprons. (Fetischismus und Psychose. Ein Beitrag zur Kasuistik. Innaugural Dissertation. Otto Walther. Rostock. Carl Boldt'sche Hof -Buchdruckerei, 1905.)

This quite singular case reveals to us a pure culture of a typical case of genuine fetishism with all the traits and charac- teristics.

1. The fetish has completely deposed the value of the female. It has even displaced onanism and permits the patient to live in a state of comparative chastity.

2. The cult of the harem is particularly marked.

3. The infantile root of the evil is manifest. The first fetishes were some of mother's and sister's aprons. The inhi- bition which prevents him from approaching a woman appears to be a secret incest motive.

4. He himself wears the aprons, wants to be a woman, iden- tifies himself with his mother.

5. He did not take the road to homosexuality, but the result was the development of the fetishism.

6. His belief in a great historical mission does not reach the heights of divinity, etc., but he nevertheless has a secret hope of becoming a minister or a cabinet member. It is not definite whether or not a careful psychoanalysis would not have re- vealed the Christ neurosis and we have, unfortunately, none of

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the patient's dreams at our disposal. It is my experience, how- ever, that the apron here might stand for the apron which Christ so often wears in pictures. I would suspect that the patient had once seen a picture of the Savior dressed in an apron (blue, the color of heaven). This is, of course, only a guess and cannot be proved, but it is possible to conclude by analogy on the basis of a similar case which will soon follow. The very fact that he kept a diary creates in us the suspicion that he nursed an inner delusion of grandeur.

7. He possesses a secret which he is afraid to divulge to others, a sacred treasure.

His fear that his aprons will wear out deserves special comment. The apron is his symbol of the parapathia. It pro- tects him from the dirt of the world and he dare not lose this protection. His fetishism must never wear out, for otherwise he will lose his chastity. I am also of the opinion that his love for his mother played an equally important role here. The fact that he did not see her for eleven years means nothing. The apron stood for the mother and had already begun to replace her. And I feel that at bottom he also wanted to buy the farm in order that his mother might be able to come to visit him. I must admit that the plasticity expressed in this case excels any other that I know. It is actually a triumph of human phantasy, a stubborn struggle for chastity, an indulgence in a symbol to an extent that is seldom observed. K. even became a criminal for the sake of his symbol and it was only then that his awak- ening anxiety drove him to confess his secret.

I myself am in the favorable position of being able to present a similar case which has the advantage of having undergone a rather thorough analysis. I shall set it down somewhat later and it will show us how much more complicated the ramifica- tions of a fetish lover's soul are than we suspect.

This patient also discloses an animistic tendency in his rela- tions with his aprons. The aprons live and speak with him, they suffer on being washed. He does not look upon them as inanimate, but as a part of his own person.

The next case leads us still further into the labyrinth of fetishism and shows us how wonderfully constructed is the sys- tem upon which the parapathia is founded. It will show us how

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impossible it is to explain these cases simply on the basis of an infantile experience. A dream analysis here will also afford us greater insight into the psychogenesis of this disease.

Case 53. A twenty-seven-year-old man of considerable physical strength by the name of Kappa manifested a special interest in sport breeches. He consulted several physicians who had no good advice to give him and finally went to Schrenk-Notzing, who tried to hypnotize him and then in the poorly effected hypnosis gave him the suggestion to try a prostitute. He tried a prostitute, but with what miserable success ! As soon as he got into the brothel, a cold sweat broke out upon his brow, he was shaken as if with the chills and fevers, and finally ran out of the place in agony. He nevertheless repeated his efforts several times, but always with the same result, either half successful or a complete failure. But it would be best to have Mr. Kappa speak for himself, for he has been suffering greatly because of his sport breeches fetishism. In addition, he is a masochist and cultivates flagellation. We have asked Mr. Kappa to give us as detailed an account of his difficulties as possible because only a careful analysis of the situa- tion will be able to aid us.

"I experience sexual excitement whenever I see a man up to thirty years of age or so wearing trousers or any kind of cloth- ing which give the impression that their wearer is chafed or in- commoded by them and appears to be suffering in them as under coercion. My thoughts turn particularly to trousers or jackets or even whole suits of corduroy, but other cloths or imitations, such an imitation leather or genuine leather, animate me also. Schoolboys clothed in suits of cheap goods are specially preferred.

"The provocative effect is increased when, in addition to the kind of cloth, the cut of the clothing is considered, i.e., when the article is tight fitting to such a degree that the buttocks, the thighs or the knees are plastically revealed. The parts of the clothing which may be tightened beyond their natural position, such as belts and the like, are highly delightful to me. The same is true of the knee straps of sport breeches, high boots, boots with hob- nails or leather puttees. The effect of tightly fitting clothing is, however, quite independent of the kind of cloth the article is made of. This is of distinct advantage in the case of soldiers.

"The clothing which makes up my fetish takes on a still greater attractiveness when it shows the marks of considerable wear, my attention being riveted usually on the seat of the trousers. If I

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see a bicyclist going by I am provoked by the very phantasy of his anus coming in contact with the saddle. I must add, too, that even when such clothing has never been used and is on display in a store window, my interest is undiminished.

"But, quite apart from the conditions made by these fetishistic articles of clothing, my sexual desires are also aroused by any individual who looks like a member of a hard-working or serving family. I frequently try to examine the hands of soldiers sur- reptitiously to see whether or not their skin shows signs of their belonging to a social stratum not in accordance with their three years of service.

"I am, further, attracted to look upon boys and young men whose facial expression meets with certain of my requirements. They must have a countenance which reveals either something forward or reflective. They may be either clean-shaven or wear mustaches. Thick or interestingly drawn eyebrows, long eye lashes, small or lively or large dark eyes, dark brown color of the skin, wrinkled forehead, a row of regularly set and white teeth, hair which runs together in the nape of the neck to a point, all these are charming details for me. I prefer brunettes to blonds. A narrow waist is more desirable than any other advan- tage. Whenever I see such an individual, I have a desire to be as handsome and as young as the one I happen to be looking at.

"Another one of my sexual eccentricities is to put on some of the fetishistic pieces of clothing which I may have bought and show myself in public. These articles of clothing never titillate me for long, however, and I am soon searching for novelties. I am invariably looking for corduroy of an ever new color, this cloth being my unimpeachable favorite. I have seen and used all the shades of brown, grey, green, blue and black. I feel that the highest raptures of these fetishistic clothes will never be reached until I am forced to wear them every day. That would deter- mine their wearing quality and would also soon delight me with marks of their use. At present I make up for this deficiency in my fetishes by rubbing my buttocks on a chair or the floor and always avoids sitting on a well-upholstered chair when I am wear- ing my fetish trousers. But I am invariably disappointed in the wearing qualities of my fetishistic clothing. The coarsely ribbed corduroy is better in this respect than the narrow ribbed variety and it possesses the added virtue of shining more, too. Its odor it shares, however, with even less valuable cloths. I experience the supreme delight in a pair of long corduroy trousers when they

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are worn with well-shined black shoes. A further advantage of these common goods in my eyes is the fact that they are heavier than the better grades.

"As regards my leanings to flagellation, I can say that I usually like to see an ordinary stick being used, and often the very sight of the stick is sufficient to enliven me. When doing it myself, I hit myself on the buttocks if I can, but usually on the thighs; my parts are usually naked, but I get the greatest pleasure out of wearing a pair of riding breeches during the act. I pay especial attention to the skin lesions caused by the beating.

"An indispensable component of sadistic phantasies is the re- quirement that no utterance of pain or sign of wincing should be expressed during the process of being beaten. Frequently it may appear as if suffering these beatings is a form of becoming ac- customed to suffering pain in general. A further part of the phan- tasies is that prior to the beating the one being beaten prepares for the act by taking off his underwear or putting on a pair of tight trousers thinner than the usual kind, in short, donning what- ever uniform happens to accord with the desired category of his partner. In my mind I have constructed fantastic beating ma- chines and benches with a strapping arrangement. I am exces- sively thrilled by phantasies of whacking someone on the buttocks who has submitted only half willingly and half resistively. After- wards, and this is the acme of my pleasures, I think of him still bearing the marks of the beating underneath his clothing, but this all unknown to any but himself."

This description in the patient's own words clearly demon- strates the systemization. There are, of course, many rather confusing details here which demand a careful analysis. There is also manifest a tendency towards the formation of a harem of fetishes. Our patient has, for example, quite a collection of fetishistic trousers and breeches which he uses at his leisure. We also observe that the notion of compulsion is the specially provocative feature of the mechanism, just as was the case in the former patient. Kappa, too, must feel that the trousers are ill and tight-fitting. Even the fetish is a patent symbol of his own disease. He finds his illness just as constraining and irk- some as he wants others to find their trousers. Here we also meet with the preference for low-class cloths and people. The unused trousers, on the other hand, are a symbol of his own

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unexploited manhood, the virility which he has been saving, and this thought, too, is animating. The important point is that the fetish wearers must be servants or relatives of hard-working families or low-class soldiers, the present standing of the latter being a contrast to their former level. We must understand this attitude as follows. If he notices that men with delicate hands and well-formed features have been serving three years as common soldiers, he becomes impassioned to a high degree. But this is also a portrayal of his own life and his own tend- encies. He is the son of a wealthy man, possesses good intel- ligence, literary talents and has nevertheless arrived nowhere in life. He forcibly keeps himself back from any respectable or high station in life and serves as an example of the ordinary — in every sense of the word. His goal is different from the usual ones of this world. We see, too, the inevitable identifi- cation with the fetish itself. He imagines himself to be just as handsome and as young as the particular favorite he happens to be looking at. His avoidance of upholstered chairs is a sym- bolical representation of his wish to make life hard for him- self, not to have a soft bed. He is the expiator, the half-hearted sufferer who offers his buttocks to the stick. And yet he is tickled that no one knows the suffering he has gone through or the kind of life he leads, quite in accordance with his own phantasy about suffering the marks of a beating alone, because they are hidden from the world under one's clothing. His para- pathia delights him, he constructed it, it is his and no one knows a thing about it.

This patient was analyzed for fourteen months by an expe- rienced pupil of Freud's and led through the whole gamut of all the sexual symbolism. But what was the result? Dis- couraging enough. The hunt for infantile experiences, for a "trauma with short pants," had to be given up as a lost cause. The patient was disconsolate and the physician even cast blame upon him, claiming the psychoanalyst cannot do anything if the patient produces no material. The material this patient did bring consisted of a long series of dreams to which he had no associations. The patient finally came to me and I had the opportunity of analyzing him. This offered me the opportunity of analyzing his dreams and checking the associations which

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had been noted stenographically. That was an amusing collec- tion to read, nor did it lack for a tragic thread either. Some of the dreams he had produced before served only to express his sarcastic attitude towards his former analyst. Thus, one dream read :

"I am lying on a sofa and behind me sits Dr. X. dripping water on my head. I think to myself : as long as my helmet sits tightly on my head, he can pour the water as long as he likes."

The stenographic notes reveal the fact that this dream is to be looked upon as an expression of "urine erotism." An infan- tile desire to drip urine on the analyst's head. Hardly con- ceivable and yet true for all that. The dream means : I lie on your sofa and the luke warm water of your talk pours over my head. My parapathia, however (the helmet), is well deserved and I shan't listen to your talk.

An examination of his psychic life permitted the following facts to be elicited as significant for the psychogenesis of his parapathia. There was one very important impression in his childhood. If we look carefully, we shall always find that at some time early in the life of these parapathics some significant person has died and this individual was the source of the para- pathia. That person was the source of the patient's guilt feel- ings. The secret belief in the omnipotence of one's own thoughts, the trust in one's own supernatural powers, provokes the thought: that person's death is the result of your own wishes. You are really the murderer. And we must even as- sume that these mental mechanisms operate in earliest child- hood. They appear along with the criminal thoughts and phan- tasies of the child and form the heart of the parapathia. In this case, one of the patient's little sisters died of diphtheria when he was hardly three years old. He had unwittingly in- fected her. He must have greeted her death with unmixed malicious pleasure for even at that early age he had already manifested markedly sadistic trends. He beat on cushions and even on other little boys. He liked to kill insects, revelled in gruesome games and once bound a schoolmate of his when he was eleven.

As a reaction to this early and well-formed sadism, there

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developed his masochism. As early as his sixth year he was tying himself in bed with straps and ropes and at thirteen he was beating himself on the thighs and buttocks with a stick. His tieing and binding habits clearly indicate infantile phan- tasies of the crib, just as his habits of retaining his excrements are typical examples of the psychic infantilism we observe so frequently in fetishists.

He also reveals a characteristic of fetish lovers, viz., his desire to stand in front of display windows and gloat over the collection of whatever fetishes he may observe therein. This habit, as well as standing before a mirror, is expressive of his looking backwards into his childhood. He passes into a dreamy state.

His fear of bed bugs is also revealing. It discloses his un- conscious fear of infection, his anxiety that his conscience may bite him, that spots may appear in his clothing. He actually trembles at the sight of these insects because they symbolize all the faults he fears.

He masturbates excessively, has continued since early child- hood and sometimes practises this habit as many as six times in a night. There are also periods of protracted abstinence.

Although he is quite proud of his fetishism, he displays a highly emotional repression of his homosexual components. This resistance to their homosexuality is typical for many male fetishists. Even more than the female, the homosexuality is for them the sign of sin and depravity. As I explained in the last chapter, the fetishism is often a method of avoiding the homosexuality by flying into the arms of a compulsion. For our patient, too, the chief factor of delight is the thought that someone may be compelled to clothe himself in a common cloth. The pleasurable accent lies on the humiliating coercion. In the pregnant words of the patient himself, the parapathia is an over-compensation, a most consequential symbolization in which the symbol has totally replaced reality. The parapathia is a roundabout road to asceticism of which the patient is an ardent devotee. He is not really the man he appears to be. One might take him to be a paraphilic, but at bottom he is the pious ascetic. That is demonstrated beyond all doubt in a dream he had. He calls a black poodle towards him only to see the poodle change

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to a man with a black corduroy suit on. The black poodle is the symbol of evil, of carnality, as in Faust. He, however, transforms sin into atonement.

I could exploit the entire dream book of this patient in cor- roboration of my thesis. Each and every dream contains some reference to his struggle for purity and chastity and also be- trays his secret wish — the divine transformation of his carnal spirits.

His paraphilia also consists of beating himself. It is sig- nificant that he had often been beaten by his mother and these experiences are still retained in pleasurable dreams which desire a repetition of the old days. But, like the heroes of antiquity, the pain must be suffered without wincing.

One of his earliest impressions is of the first pair of pants he received. They were of velvet. He had envied his brother the fact that he had for some time been wearing pants and now that he had a pair, too, he felt somewhat outstanding as the only boy in velvet pants. This joy in singularity, this pleasure in being the only one, has marked his make-up to this very day and has entered into his parapathic system. But we note that he has transformed the tendency to valuable goods into its op- posite just as his primary sadism was changed to masochism. He also senses a degree of haughtiness in this masquerading : "I'm not at all the poor devil in cheap clothes for whom you take me. I'm a gem beneath all this dirt and filth."

And now I shall present one of this patient's four dreams. It unfolds before our eyes a panoramic view of the structure of his parapathia and the motives of his fetishism. I must add, however, that I first analyzed this dream without the aid of the patient's associations, although the associations which I then later had him produce under my immediate control more than verified my conclusions. This shows us distinctly that Freud's method of dream analysis is an insufficient weapon in the case of most dreams and that the method with which I work through the material is indispensable. It is, indeed, much easier to wait for the patient's own associations than to achieve the correct interpretation by means of one's own ability, but neither can it be said that every analyst is capable of the latter form of analysis. In addition, I must emphasize the fact that this

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dream material was in no wise influenced by me and that is what constitutes its special value.3 The reader will recall my repeated mention of the fact that patients dream in the jargon and dialect which they have learned from us and then exploit the dream analysis to laugh at and triumph over us. The dream reads :

"We moved out into the field for military manceuvers and I re- ceived the written command to report to the major at 7.50 o'clock at that point south on the Elster (a river — Trans.) where the road branches off towards the dragon's cave. I immediately stepped out of rank to straighten something on my uniform, and the com- pany continued to march in the direction that I was to take. I would have to arrange myself quickly if I wanted to overtake them and get to the appointed place before them. The time is so short that it seemed I would hardly get there at 7. Moreover, the changes I was making were progressing so slowly that it seemed as if I were being constantly inhibited in my movements. Finally, however, I was all ready with exception of having to change my shoes. In view of the lack of time and even in the face of the danger of wounding my feet in the attempt, I desisted from this change and decided to chance it. But I didn't know where I should leave my extra pair of shoes. Before me stood a soldier, perhaps my aide. He had a knapsack into which I had already stuffed divers things. There was no room for more. On the road, troops kept moving by. — I am with the major in a room which looks like a hall. He spreads a map before me which also contains a diagram for the reports of the coming battle. Some of the data on the map, such as dashes, marks, and the like, were very carefully drawn in red ink or colors (doubtless the work of the regimental clerk, I thought to myself ; my own hand would have failed completely in that job). The first printed question on the map asked about 'culture.' A heavy, red line signified the answer. That, explained the major, meant that his side was the ♦enemy. That was his notion of the correct answer to the ques- tion about culture. There followed on the map some letters and numerals which apparently indicated the troop groups constituting the detachment. I knew that, but didn't have the courage to speak up when the major asked me about the significance of the signs. He then had me turn to that section of the manual which ex- plained them, and I thought that even if I was not so clever in hiding my lack of knowledge I was at least quick in finding the

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right place in the manual of arms. But I felt pretty well cowed, nevertheless, and my discomfiture increased the more I came to realize that the major was manifestly taking me over the bumps. And then I saw that his aide was also present, a rather hand- some fellow with a blond mustache. It was held against me that he was there much more promptly than I. I protested against any depreciation in this particular, however, by affirming that I had appeared at the stroke of 7. — Then strange soldiers burst into the hall. It seemed to me that some of them were wearing yellow leather breeches. They made a prompt about face as soon as they saw us. The major, however, was greatly wrought up by their intrusion for some reason or other, and commanded me to lead them away. They, on the other hand, paid little attention to me although I yelled 'halt !' to them several times. Some of them did halt half-heartedly, but most of them pushed on through the door. I was altogether uncertain what I should command them to do, and before I could call out anything, like 'Company — about face !' or 'At ease ! March !' the major got after me and pro- ceeded to make a fool of me before the whole crew for the way I was commanding. — For a moment some men and women from Quedlinburg appeared on the scene, very much as I had seen them once at a congress of the Red Cross in Munich. They wanted to demonstrate the fact that they were idling. — Then, like some hat- check woman, the major was standing behind a counter and cir- cumstantially explaining to me on a map where I was to meet him. I heard something about a wall and a zigzag path, but, al- though I understood very little of what he was saying, I didn't ask him to repeat and managed to snap out my 'At your com- mand, major/ When he hesitated and wondered whether I wouldn't miss him after all, my knees sagged. His women were standing in front of the counter, and as I was withdrawing from him in strictly military fashion, I sort of bowed to them, too (and then thought that if that were altogether necessary, they would surely have noticed by the awkward manner in which I bowed that it might also have meant the opposite of the courtesy for which it was intended). — I then ensconced myself somewhere on the road, half hidden by a knoll, and was busy writing out a re- port of the progress of battle, that now being my chief duty. The major appeared and promptly found fault with the spot I had chosen. He claimed it was not the point he had ordered me to take up. He pointed to the group of houses in the right back- ground and said that that would have been the most advantageous

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place to establish my lookout. A tall chimney which rose above one of the houses should easily have convinced me of that. The major then executed his duties as a leader himself after ordering me to make my notes in a prone position and thus make myself unseen. I thought of some low desk or slanting board which might have served me well as a base for writing. The major on his horse then sprang up some stairs which led almost perpen- dicularly up a hill. He did this in a peculiar fashion, leaping up the stairs left foot first while the horse pulled ahead. All of us were astounded at this feat of the old man. He halted half way up, and the Quedlinburg crowd appeared again. There was talk about the possibilities of getting home. Some mentioned a train which took a circuitous route (there was mention of stations in Schleswig-Holstein). I thought of recommending that train, hav- ing once ridden on it, but I kept quiet. — I began my report of the battle by first looking up on the map which I luckily found in my coat pocket the name of the place where I found myself. It sounded something like Vita or Zita. — I had left my observation post for a while and now returned to it. I was worried about being seen by the enemy. My glistening helmet seemed especially betraying to me. God protect me from bringing the major down on me again by betraying our position. I live in the hope that they won't see a lone man. But to cap the climax, I now appear as a civilian with a straw hat on and a cane in my hand. The major general von Ende and his adjutant, von Festenberg-Rack- isch, come galloping over the field. The former was very angry and swore about an 'idiotic despatch.' How is it possible that the fellow knew the name of the major two days in advance ! The major then rode past me. I heard the words : 'Such an ass !' but thought that they might just as well have referred to the man the major general meant as to me. Back at my post, I started to finish the unhappy despatches, although I didn't know what to say and had to ask others about their observations. Several men were sitting at a table and my place was taken by a certain Sontje who, rather unwillingly, of course, gave it up when I asked him to. — Again the major appeared. He wanted to light a cigar and had already pulled out the box of matches. I hurriedly offered him a light and heard him mumble something like : 'Well, at least you can show me this favor/ My hands trembled fearfully, one match went out and another broke in two. He seized the box out of my hands, but I was of service in opening my coat and guard- ing the fire from the wind. Contrary to my expectations, he

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seemed not in the least annoyed by the odor of perspiration which radiated from my body. Suddenly he asked me: 'You're a homo- sexual ?' He was evasive when I looked nonplussed and asked him how he could tell. The Stuarts died from that, he added warningly, and advised that I beware of death. He withdrew and the thought flashed through my mind: 'Well, as long as the cat's out of the bag, there's nothing left but to commit suicide.' "

Such a singular dream demands a thorough analysis. Once we have found the key, the whole thing is easy. But there is no better way than to go at the dream sentence for sentence, and in that way we shall learn that sexual symbolism alone can- not completely clear up such structures.

"We moved out into the field for military manceuvers and I received the written command to report to the major at 7.50 o'clock at that point south on the Elster where the road branches off towards the dragon's cave."

The manoeuvers represent his life. That is corroborated by the word "Vita" which appears so suddenly later on. The major is a symbol for the major power, i.e., God. The "written order" means the written word, the scriptures, the Bible. He is a Protestant and is thoroughly acquainted with his Bible. His life is, in other words, a manoeuver towards another life. The dragon's cave symbolizes hell. The significance of the number 750 is apparent to him. He secretly believes that he will live to be seventy-five years old. The first sentence thus takes on the following sense : "At the end of my allotted span of years, I shall stand before the judgment of God, as is written in the Bible, and it shall be decided whether I am to enter heaven or be damned in hell."

To continue:

"I immediately stepped out of rank to straighten something on my uniform, and the company continued to march in the direction I was to take. I would have to arrange myself quickly if I wanted to overtake them and get to the appointed place be- fore them."

He secedes from the ranks of the pious who appear here as the legions of the Lord, i.e., as soldiers, and goes his own way. His clothes are not in order. It is here that we notice that his clothes 4 form a symbol for his parapathia and his beliefs. The

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rendezvous or meeting place is heaven, i.e., the place where mankind is tested and judged. He wants to overtake all his companions, i.e., excel them and be first. He wants to mani- fest an unusual and exemplary piety.

"The time is so short that it seemed I would hardly get there at seven. Moreover, the changes I was making were progress- ing so slowly that it seemed as if I were being constantly in- hibited in my movements. Finally, however, I was all ready with exception of having to change my shoes. In view of the lack of time, and even in the face of the danger of wounding my feet in the attempt, I desisted from this change and decided to chance it. But I didn't know where I should leave my extra pair of shoes. Before me stood a soldier, perhaps my aide. He had a knapsack into which I had already stuffed divers things. There was no room for more. On the road, troops kept mov- ing by."

Solution: All the troops march in one direction: towards heaven. Life is short. He must change his clothing. That requires a careful explanation. In real life he pretends to be a follower of Nietzsche and a freethinker. Now he must be- come converted and wander through life as a believer 5 (other shoes). But he is inhibited by his intellect which permits him to wander through the world as an atheist (the extra pair of shoes) ; he has another religion in reserve. That reserve re- ligion is his fetishism. His aide is a symbolization of his para- pathia, his other consciousness, his alter ego. Indeed, he has loaded him with so much that nothing more can be put in (the full knapsack). This is plainly the most revealing point of the dream. It betrays the whole structure of the parapathia. What didn't he force into that bag ! Religion and sexuality, assurance of his chastity and his entire psychosexual infantilism.

The dream proceeds and he appears before God, who informs him of what he wants to hear about the struggles of his life (the skirmish despatches).

"I am with the major in a room which looks like a hall.6 He spreads a map before me which also contains a diagram for the reports of the coming battle. Some of the data on the map, such as dashes, marks and the like, were very carefully drawn in red ink or colors, doubtless the work of the regimental clerk,

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/ thought. My own hand would have jailed me completely in that job. The first printed question on the map asked about

'culture.9 "

Like a teacher, the major underlined the mistakes with red ink. The colors indicate the blemishes which so frequently spot the life of man. The notion of the regimental clerk is prettily introduced. Many religious dreams contain the idea of God having a clerk or amanuensis keep a big record book of all the sinners. Our dreamer sighs at his lack of knowledge of his own life. He cannot answer God's very first question about culture which is underscored in red. God is very merciful, however, and tells him that culture is the enemy of God and the pious. This reveals the dreamer, who strives for as rich a cul- tivation as possible, as a hypocrite at bottom; he conceives all the things of civilization as the work of the devil.

"There followed on the map some letters and numerals which apparently indicated the troop groups constituting the detach- ment. I knew that, but didn't have the courage to speak up when the major asked me about the significance of the signs. He then had me turn to that section of the manual which ex- plained them, and I thought that even if I was not so clever in hiding my lack of knowledge I was at least quick in finding the right place in the manual of arms. But I felt pretty well cowed, nevertheless, and my discomfiture increased tlxe more I came to realize that the major was manifestly taking me over the bumps!'

The numerals and letters are the section references to the Bible, which is here represented as a manual of arms. He knows his scriptures well, but fears the questions of God, nevertheless, because he is to be taken over the bumps and asked about his sins.

"And then I saw that his aide was also present, a rather* handsome fellow with a blond mustache. It was held against me that he was there much more promptly than I. I protested against any depreciation in this particular, however, by affirm- ing that I had appeared at the stroke of seven/*

Who is this strange, blond fellow who was there before him ? It is doubtless his elder brother who came before him (the old theme of primogeniture). The religious element is, neverthe-

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less, the more important determinant. The aide of the major, who was there ahead of him, is Christ. This patient, too, suf- fers from what I have so often called the Christ neurosis. He believes in his great historic mission and will not give it up. He envies Christ for having become the Savior of man. He is forever recalling Schiller's verses :

"It is no vain, deluding thought, Which from disordered fancy springs. By hope our hearts are plainly taught That we are born to better things. That inward voice, if we believe, The hoping soul will not deceive. "

The expression "brothers in Christ" and being there ahead (primogeniture) are the bridges which lead to Christ. He also wants to suffer as Christ did and his parapathia is the cross upon which he has crucified himself. Later we shall have the opportunity of stressing the specific attributes of the parapathia which are due to the identification with Christ. Now we may continue with the dream analysis.

"Then strange soldiers burst into the hall. It seemed to me that some of them were wearing yellow leather breeches. They made a prompt about face as soon as they saw us. The major, however, was greatly wrought up over their intrusion for some reason or other and ordered me to lead them away. They, on the other hand, paid little attention to me, although I yelled 'Halt!' to them several times. Some of them did halt half- heartedly, but most of them pushed on through the door. I was altogether uncertain what I should command them to do, and before I could call out anything like 'Company — about face' or 'At easel March!' the major got after me and pro- ceeded to make a fool of me before the whole crew for the way I was commanding/'

This episode becomes understandable only when we look upon each of the thoughts as the soldiers which are struggling against each other.7 The hall thus becomes the symbol of his brain in which piety is struggling with the intellect. Strange thoughts crowd into his soul and demand enlightenment and re- nunciation of the old feelings. He wants to call a halt to these

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rebellious ideas of civilization. They, on the other hand, con- duct themselves diversely. Some seem to have taken root in his intellect. God, however, demands the whole truth, his whole soul and a complete purification of his mind. God is also dis- satisfied with the lukewarm manner in which he fights off civi- lization and enlightenment. The feeling of vacillation, uncer- tainty, is beautifully depicted in the dream here. It is this which makes it difficult for him to orient himself properly in life and forces him to construct the paraphilia as a protection.

"For a moment some men and women from Quedlinburg appeared on the scene, very much as I had seen them at a con- gress of the Red Cross in Munich. They wanted to demon- strate the fact that they were idling."

The Red Cross is an indication of the religious background of this organization. In addition to this, he recalls a pietistic church society in Quedlinburg which is very active in religious propaganda. The tone of the dream picture is well preserved throughout and the inexperienced interpreter could easily be misled into believing that this is nothing more nor less than the harmless and repetitive dream of a reserve officer. The others are the ones who do not have to undergo such a strenu- ous examination as he.

"Then, like some hat-check woman, the major was standing behind a counter and circumstantially explaining to me on a map where I was to meet him. I heard something about a wall and a zigzag path, but, although I understood very little of what he was saying, I didn't ask him to repeat and managed to snap out my 'At your command, major!' When he hesitated and wondered whether I wouldn't miss him after all, my knees sagged."

A connection with his paraphilia appears. The major, God, is a check woman. He hands out the clothes that one wears. He decides the station, figure, confession, in short he decides on the costume we shall wear on earth. It is only a loan for the short duration of our lives, like the mask or costume we can get at a costumers for the ball. But, although God has handed out the dress, it is not easy to find the right path to him again. He shows us the way in the holy scriptures, but how are we to understand them and know our way about ? What is the right

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path, after all? Whatever it may be, our dreamer certainly does not follow any direct road. He is bound to get to heaven by all manner of tricks and artifices. Here again he weakens at the thought of missing God and bliss because of his sins.

"Before the counter were standing his women and as I was withdrawing from him in strictly military fashion, I sort of bowed to them, too, {and then thought that if that were alto- gether necessary, they would surely have noticed by the awk- ward manner in which I bowed that it might also have meant the opposite of the courtesy for which it was intended) "

The women of this family are Mary, the mother of God, and some of the female Catholic saints. Like all parapathics who are not Catholic, he displays a singular leaning towards Catholicism, apparently because, for all of them, its mysticism possesses something very attractive. He manifests somewhat of a taste for Mary's position (the half bow), but also makes fun of this leaning. Whoever does not become acquainted with this singular form of religious symbolism, the type which de- thrones its gods and brings them nearer human kind, as was the case in the days of antiquity, that person will never be able to decipher the religious sense of such a dream. Here he has hidden the Catholicism which for him is the one and only path to the blessedness of the church. He would also like to change religions like changing clothes and thus undress the man he was. In addition, his (half-hearted) attitude towards woman is cleverly interwoven with the religious motif.

"I then ensconced myself somewhere on the road, half hidden by a knoll, and was busy writing out a despatch of the battle, that now being my chief duty. The major appeared and promptly found fault with the spot I had chosen. He claimed it was not the point he had ordered me to take up. He pointed to a group of houses in the right background and said that that would have been the most advantageous place to establish my lookout. A tall chimney which rose above one of the houses should have convinced me of that"

The path he took is false and doesn't lead to God, God him- self is dissatisfied with it. His secret devotion doesn't please God at all.8 He should stick to the right party (right back- ground), i.e., the conservatives. The high chimney is a symbol

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of the church tower. Back to the church, is what this part of the dream really means.

"The major then executed his duties as a leader himself, after ordering me to make my notes in a prone position, so that I could remain unseen. I thought of some low desk or slant- ing board which might have served me well as a base for writ- ing. The major on his horse then sprang up some stairs which led almost perpendicularly up the side of a hill. He did this in a peculiar fashion, leaping up the stairs left foot first while the horse pulled ahead. All of us were astounded at this feat of the old man. He halted half way up, and the Quedlinburg crowd appeared again. There was talk about the possibilities of get- ting home. Some mentioned a train which took a circuitous route {there was mention of stations in Schleswig-Holstein). I thought of recommending the train, having once ridden in it, but I kept quiet"

The war despatch, which is the confession of his life, is not finished yet, and God, as his teacher, shows him the right path. He should hide his piety and devotion, and do his writing lying down. This is a clever play of words because what the words really mean is : by lying. Let him lie to the whole world, de- clare himself a freethinker; at heart he is the devout cleric.9 The desire for some "slanting board or desk" indicates his un- conscious thought of the altar and the hassock. The major's feat is nothing more nor less than Odin's ride (as depicted in the ballad of the same name) to the bright heights of heaven. He is shown how one can do it even with the left foot, i.e., sin, forward. It is at this point that erotic elements begin to mingle with the religious ones. The experienced interpreter will al- ready have noted that the spermatozoon and womb phantasies here permit of other than religious determinants). The riding feat of the old man commands the admiration of his pupil.10 Need I explain this further ? The ladies appear again and there is a conference as to what would be the surest and quickest way to God (home). The dreamer betrays himself by knowing of a rather circuitous route. Indeed, the train he has made up is one of the most complicated one can imagine.

"I began my report of the battle by first looking up the name of the place where I found myself on the map which I luckily

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found in my coat pocket. It sounded something like Vita or Zita!'

Now he knows that this deals with his own life (vita). Zita is an indication of the other determination present, viz., the ex-empress who had married at that time.

"/ had left my observation post for a while and now returned to it. I was worried about being seen by the enemy. My glis- tening helmet seemed especially betraying to me. God protect me from bringing the major down on me again by betraying our position. I live in the hope that they won't see a lone man. But, to cap the climax, I now appear as a civilian with a straw hat on and a cane in my hand. The major-general von Ende and his adjutant, von Festenberg-Rackisch, come galloping over the field. The former was very angry and swore about an 'idiotic despatch.' How is it possible that the fellow knew the name of the major two days in advance! The major then rode past me. I heard the words: 'such an OSS'! but thought that they might just as well have referred to the man the major- general had meant as to me."

The glistening helmet of his devotion is his parapathia,11 the paraphilia which protects him against all dangers. It is the pur- pose and plan of his life not to betray his real piety until just the day or so before he dies, and then only to confess his faith in God. The major-general "von Ende" (of the End) is death itself. The names are taken from the military superiors he has known. The straw hat, an easily inflammable article, is a sym- bol of his paraphilia which, beneath the appearance of de- pravity, hides a life of devotion. He will confess his faith two days before he dies, and that enrages death who here assumes an even more important rank than God. Even God, who has more and more taken on a resemblance to his father, chooses to call him an ass, and this, too, he conceives as directed at him- self. Indeed, it is manifestly an asinine business to play the libertine and freethinker and be a hypocritical believer at heart.

"Back at my post, I started to finish the unhappy despatches, although I didn't know what to say and had to ask others about what they had observed. Several men were sitting at a table and my place was taken by a certain Sontje who, rather unwill- ingly, of course, gave it up when I asked him to."

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He is having more and more difficulty getting through his confessional, the story of his life. He has continued to stress the fact that he understood little, was poorly oriented in life and depended greatly on the leadership of others. Like a flash, he thinks of his brother 12 (Mr. S.) who, being the first born, has always stood in his way. Now he struggles with him for a place at the table, but we recognize this as another mode of expressing the spermatozoon phantasies mentioned before. As Silberer has so succinctly put it, all these phantasies mean one and the same thing : The beginning of a new life.

"Again the major appears. He wanted to light a cigar and had already pulled out a box of matches, but I hurriedly offered him a light and heard him mumble something like: 'Well, at least you can show me this favor/ My hands trembled fear- fully, one match went out, the second broke in two. He seised the box out of my hands, but I was of service in opening my coat and guarding the fire from the wind. Contrary to my expectations, he seemed not in the least annoyed by the odor of perspiration which emanated from my body. Suddenly he asked me: 'You're a homosexual? He was evasive when I looked astonished and asked him how he could tell. 'The Stuarts died from thaf he added warningly, and advised that I beware of death."

This portion is particularly important in the study of the dream analysis because it shows how strong is the patients tendency to make fun of the physician and pull the wool over his eyes. It would be easy to take this last part for a homo- sexual expression, and the other analyst, to whom the earlier portions of the dream had been an impenetrable darkness, ac- tually fell upon this scene with zeal, thinking it to be a trans- parent symbolization of the homosexual relationship between father and son.

We must be very cautious in the handling of the situation, however, when an intelligent patient suddenly broaches a trauma or sexual theme awaited by the analyst. And this patient was certainly intelligent; he stood head and shoulders above his former physician. It is a trap into which the analyst will fall unless he is on the lookout.

The meaning of this part of the dream derives from the

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sense of the whole structure. It can be only a religious one and such it is despite the presence of the sexual component. He desires to inflame himself in God. He wants to believe, and God demands but this one service or favor of him : faith. He wraps himself well in his clothes in order to protect himself from the wild winds of modern times which threaten to blow out the little spark of his faith. He trembles for the sake of his bit of faith. By the sweat of his brow he is supposed to be earning his living, but the paraphilia and his masochism have made life sour enough for him. Such bitterness cannot but please God and does not disturb him.

But now comes the unveiling. That question: Are you homosexual ? Behind it lurks a cunning play of words. The homo is nothing but a certain homo, viz., Christ. His most per- sistent memory is about the painting by Titian called "Ecce Homo." He even believes himself to be another Christ. He, too, suffers the sorrows of mankind and would like to be a savior. The question thus really means : Do you love Christ ? Are you Catholic ? The Stuarts died of it. A mysterious sen- tence the interpretation of which did not at first succeed. It may have alluded to Mary Stuart, who was reputed to be both an artist in love and a very pious woman.13 This also indicated reminiscences of Schiller's drama on the subject. God's added warning that he should beware of death now takes on a definite meaning, particularly since he now wants to become religious, i.e., openly to confess his faith.

"He withdrew and the thought flashed through my mind: 'Well, as long as the cat's out of the bag, there's nothing left for me to do but commit suicide/ "

God has finally recognized him as a devotee, a believer in Christ and the mother of God, sees that he was always a be- liever. His faith has finally been revived and now he can die in peace.

It is not difficult to see how the solution of this dream is essentially the solution of his whole parapathia and paraphilia. Never has a case more clearly refuted Freud's contention that the neurosis is the negative of the perversion. The perversion (paraphilia) is itself a neurosis (parapathia) and manifests the selfsame mechanisms as the latter. This patient's whole

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life was bent in the direction of heaven; he wanted to attain God's love. His entire conduct is explainable in terms of an identification with Christ whom he envies and manifestly wishes to outshine. It is simply that his secret wish, his faith in his "great historical mission" is imperturbable.

What factors in his parapathia corroborate our point of view?

His paraphilia is a self-made punishment for his faithless- ness and the sins he has committed. It fits him poorly, like an ill-fitting suit. That is the reason he becomes so animated by the thought of someone wearing clothing which discomforts them, compresses them. The cloth must be cheap, just as his illness makes him look like a sick, bad, cunning, cheap person. The cloth must be wearable, just as his parapathia is durable and lasting. The paraphilia completely surrounds him, so that; he is removed from life. It is a self-inflicted compulsion. It is for this reason that any piece of clothing which laces him and binds him also animates him ; thus, belts, boots, etc. We have seen these objects appear in dreams before as symbols which describe the parapathia. In short, the patient is animated by his own parapathia, he derives sexual pleasure from it, he revels in himself and his own clever constructions. Serving and obeying satisfy him because, as a soldier, he looks upon himself as a servant of the Lord.

Why, we must ask ourselves, has he, however, picked on sport breeches of all things? Is this choice really determined by some infantile experience? Was he so deeply impressed by his brother in little pants?

We shall not be able to comprehend this phenomenon unless we understand that the fetish degenerates in the course of time. It metamorphoses, so that it may better mask its real purpose. We have already seen how, in a previous case, the nailed and gory foot of Christ became a livid and sweaty foot and that, later, the other important attribute, viz., the nail, was dropped.14 In the same manner, this patient has also transformed the origi- nal character of his fetish. Initially, he had been provoked by cloths such as the orientals wear about their loins. Upon ex- amination, we found that this cloth derived from the phantasy of the loin cloth Christ wore. The helmet also has a double

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symbolical meaning, viz., that of his faith and that of the crown of thorns, the unseen thrusts thereby being translated in a phys- ical sense.

The meaning of the parapathia is thus: I am Christ, the Savior, and when I identify myself with Christ I derive the greatest pleasure.

Still another source of his difficulties is his magnified nar- cissism. He loves himself and even admires himself. He looks for and finds himself in every earthly manifestation. His self- love and egotism is almost limitless. He sees himself reflected in fresh and musing boys, in young men, and desires to be as handsome as the others. In short, he identifies himself with those objects which appeal to him.

Through the masochistic procedures we can still catch a glimpse of his ideas of atonement. He is punishing himself for the sexual pleasures he is getting and the punishment itself becomes a pleasure. Then he controls himself, but that brings him more suffering; the suffering, however, returns him even more gratification when he bears it without wincing. He is, after all, continually bucking the obstacles of life. He denies himself the least joy of living and the slightest success; he has chained himself to his paraphilia as to a torturing instrument. He voluntarily kneels before God and willingly offers his body for punishment.

His secret pride in his cleverly framed parapathia is betrayed by the sentence: "I am particularly provoked by the thought that the beaten person conceives the marks of his whipping, hidden beneath his clothing from all others as they are, as a sign of distinction/' That is his pride, too. He beats himself, suffers, and yet no one realizes what a devout and pious man lives among men, an individual who has been chosen for great deeds and the salvation of mankind.

The question arises as to how such a parapathia originates and what are the forces which consolidate it. The paraphilia is essentially a distorted caricature of up-bringing, with its com- pulsions, beatings, bindings, etc. The child's pants indicate the infantile period. The condition is at bottom a facet of in- fantilism. The patient would like to be a child again and wear boy's pants. Such wishes (which are also indicated by the de-

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termination of his dream as partly derived from spermatozoon phantasies) indicate a deep dissatisfaction with his life to date and a great regret. He would like to live his life over again and then he would have an entirely different report to write out. This dissatisfaction derives from the period in which he had wished his father dead. He felt that father's death would liberate him from every compulsion in life and make him inde- pendent. He hated his brother in the same way because the brother was an obstacle and rival in his struggle to gain ever more affection from the parents. He had therefore also wished his brother dead. It was only the full realization of these evil thoughts of his which provoked his feelings of inferiority and guilt ; then he began to feel that he deserved neither happiness nor freedom. His religious habits whirled him ever deeper into the treacherous eddies of his guilt feelings and soon there was no other form of salvation but the renunciation of his faith. He became an atheist and freethinker. The success of this step is sufficiently exposed in his dream and his parapathia. In- wardly, however, he continued to become more and more pious the more anti-clerical his external conduct appeared.

It seemed, however, that his parapathia was insoluble because of a certain condition he had made himself (Adler). As long as he would indulge this form of sexual gratification, his father would live. This condition naturally had the effect of remov- ing him completely from any relations with women. It fur- thermore proved to be the source of added conflicts. He had to wish the father renewed death if he were ever to achieve a woman. His anxiety of the female as the symbol of sin,15 how- ever, was so strong as to make this protective mechanism bear- able. That is, even if his father were to die, his freedom would be only an apparent one, because it was not an inner freedom. His guilt feelings would reappear, i.e., for example, you are guilty of your father's death (Freud's notion of the omnipo- tence of thought) . He would lay new years of atonement upon himself and thus continue to avoid the female who symbolizes death for him, too, as in the dream figure of Mary Stuart. One of the secret imperatives of his soul is : beware of woman !

In another dream he said: "Some man had treated others cruelly. The avenger appeared in the form of another, some-

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what older man. The latter commanded me to pick up a box which was so large that I had to carry it with both hands and, driving the evil doer before him, went up a flight of stairs which seemed to lead to the attic. On the way, he continued to beat the guilty one. Arrived at the top, the avenger took a large leather billy out of the box I was carrying and proceeded to flay the evil doer with it in a most cruel fashion."

He himself is the sinner and the box symbolizes the brain box which is the cupboard of all cruel punishments. The same is symbolized by the attic. The box is also a representation of his brain-child, the parapathia. He is his own avenger and judge, the source of his own chastisement.

He has finally found the key to his suffering and symbolizes it in his dream as his brother. Thus, in another dream, he says :

"I found the key to the closet in which my brother's things were kept. That was rather unpleasant to me because I feared that the key would be needed and looked for."

The first analyst conceived the key as a phallic symbol and overlooked the significant meaning which it indicated: I fear that the doctor might find the key to my parapathia and try to make me well. That would rob me of the chance for heavenly bliss. In other words, the dream really shows us his anxiety of being cured and his pride in his parapathia.

A fairly careful examination of his whole paraphilia will re- veal the fact that it is really not a paraphilia. It is a sort of frame-up in the sense that Adler means the term, an arrange- ment, a truce. He conducts himself as if he were a paraphilic. His fetishism is an artificial construction, a second religion which is intended to replace the first, a substitute for the joys of this world; it promises him heaven for his rejection of honor, fame and woman. The cohesive force behind this para- philia, or rather caricature of a paraphilia, is a resolve. That must be stressed. His father will continue to live as long as he continues to avoid women. A similar resolution was to be found in all the other cases I analyzed. It is this condition which makes the parapathia insoluble. This is the source of the punishment for all the criminal death wishes. Woman is the symbol of sin, but behind the fear of depravity there hides also

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the fear of woman herself, the apprehension that he may fail in the sexual struggle. It must be emphasized, on the other hand, that this case reveals no trace of any organic basis for the parapathia. I want to stress again the fact that this part of Adler's theory is, in my opinion, wrong and insufficient. The feeling of inferiority is solely due to the sense of guilt as far as I can make out, and not to any organ inferiority.

How remarkably our patient knows how to play the pervert and yet remain pious! As I have already mentioned in my paper on "Der Neurotiker als Schauspieler" (The Neurotic as Actor).16 "The neurotic is the actor and audience in one and the same person. His parapathic symptoms represent a definite scene." Thus this patient appeared to himself as a parapathic, he was a hypocrite hiding behind the mask of a satan. His paraphilia protected him from woman and sin, and in this man- ner his fetishistic sin became a religious and pious act, and the devotion, furthermore, a sin against his better intelligence.

We see, in short, how complicated the proper analysis of such a case of fetishism becomes. It is probable that this case, too, would reveal threads running back to a primary incestuous atti- tude. He emphasized the fact that corduroy smelled like urine and frequently mentioned his relationship with his mother. It is possible that he once saw his mother sitting in a pair of tightly fitting pantalets. Unfortunately, he mentioned nothing of the sort and his dreams contain nothing more than sugges- tions that he is cherishing some secret, but they do not disclose the nature of it.

Even granting this, however, the paraphilia of this patient is such a complicated structure that it is not to be resolved with such a simple key formula as incest. Nor does the strongly developed olfactory sense of the patient offer a satisfactorily exhaustive explanation of the religious superstructure. We can only say that there is here an irresistible tendency to cover up sexual activity with an appearance of sexuality.

Abraham emphasized the reduction in the sexual activity of his patient. I was able to find the same to be true in all of my cases. It was too great an activity which led to the choking off of sexuality by means of a fetishism. It was the patient's anxiety of his own sexuality which caused the apparent de-

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struction of it ; that was the beginning of his deviation from his own sexual guiding principle, the principle which always looks for the whole man and the whole woman. In agreement with such cringing tendencies, he produces castration phantasies, the mark of all fetishists. As a matter of fact, all of them have effected a sort of ideal castration on themselves, they even play with the thought of actual and physical castration, a step which would be equivalent to complete self-denial and the realization of their highest ascetic and hypocritical ideals.

Abraham has, however, already recognized the mixture of parapathia and fetishism and feels that Freud's theory — that the neurosis is the negative of the perversion — cannot be absolutely retained. He looks upon the parapathia as being caused by the foot becoming a genital substitute. "Scoptophilia and ophresio- lagnia, instincts which always have been directed at the excre- ments, have, in this case, undergone a marked although unequal transformation. The ophresiolagnia has been largely repressed, but the scoptophilia, on the other hand, just as markedly em- phasized. It has naturally been deflected from its original path, however, and idealized, so to speak. This process, to which only one of the two instincts is subject, deserves Freud's title of 'partial repression.' "

That's how far the strict Freudians will go in reducing all of the symptoms of a parapathia to the terms of repressed instincts. How would Abraham explain our case of sport breeches fetishism with his olfactory lust or a case of strict corset fetishism? We see how important it is to understand the religious motives involved in every one of these cases and also the mechanisms described by me. I am not afraid to de- clare that I have achieved a psychological understanding of these patients, whereas the concept of partial repression is noth- ing more than a clever hypothesis which has made a not un- important factor the chief consideration in the question.

Abraham also mentioned the fact that his therapeutic efforts were of no avail and that the analysis would only have produced greater resistance to the powers of the fetishism. But that only proves that such a method of analysis which cannot disclose the basic mechanism underlying the sense and the purpose of the parapathia, the secret ideal of the patient, cannot possibly be

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effective, just as I have pointed out in the case of Kappa, who was analyzed fourteen months.

Fetishism is not only a second religion, it is also a disease. It is a spiritual parasite which incapacitates its host for any other form of mental endeavor. Everything is exploited in the service of the fetishism and everything is expressed in its terms. Finally, the fetish lover is so totally bound up in the mesh that he is incapable of doing any fruitful work. He sinks beneath the surface of his dreams, cannot turn his attentions either to his social or business duties, all for the simple reason that, as Bleuler has expressed it, his emotions are bound up in other things. It is just such a circumstance which brought me the following interesting case.

Case 54. A thirty-year-old government official who was unable to continue with his duties because his pathological fetishistic notions gave him no peace and undermined his concentration.

His case is doubtless one of the most singular which has ever been reported. Our patient — we may call him Mr. Lambda — has become deeply interested in men who display a swollen or injured cheek or jaw and likes to see it bandaged. He prefers to see young, beardless men in such a condition or at least men who show only the earliest growth of a beard. When he sees a man with a swollen face, he begins to act rather queerly. For example, he may be sitting in a cafe and suddenly sees a man outside who has a turban or black cloth around his head; or perhaps some- one with a bandage around his face or head. He promptly yells to the waiter for the bill, and if the waiter doesn't come on the run, he becomes upset, frothy, irritable, leaves the change on the table and runs out to look for his desired object. If he has lost sight of him, he becomes dejected and disconsolate, excited and very tense. He will retrace his steps, wait, search the same street for hours at a time, in the hope that the man will return or come that way again. Indeed, he has often stood in the same place for as many as six hours, hoping that his object would return again. He will then return to the same spot or street the following morn- ing and keep this up for a week until a new object deflects his attentions from the old one. He is invariably convinced that the new object had particular and special sensations and thrills in store for him.

To take the case that he has not lost sight of his object. He

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then follows the man, proceeds ahead of him, at one side and then the other, in short, looks the man over from all angles as unobtrusively as possible. If the fetish walks into a store, he waits patiently, even for hours, until the man comes out again. Then he approaches under some pretense or other. Usually he says that he is a stranger and is looking for the right road to somewhere.17 At this point, he takes the opportunity to sym- pathize with his informant, to ask whether he is suffering great pain or not and what he does for himself. In this wise, he tries to pass as much time as he can in the man's company, and is particularly pleased when the man tells him that he (the object) will accompany him a distance in the same direction. As soon as he has left the company of the other, he goes into a store and buys himself a cloth or bandage similar to the one his late ac- quaintance had on. The lower the class and the simpler the caste of the fetish, the greater is our patient's libido. There is, how- ever, a faintly bitter and empty taste about the whole experience, as if a yearning had remained unfulfilled. He has not the least desire to be alone with the fetish or to have a homosexual rela- tionship.

Quite the contrary ! It is now that he makes use of this meet- ing with the fetish to provide himself with the most delectable ecstasy of his experience. He stands before a mirror, dresses his head or face as nearly as the fetish was bandaged and imagines himself to be the other man. As soon as he has consummated this mental identification, he fixates the bandage and proceeds to mas- turbate. He has collected a whole harem of such dressings and cloths, but they usually lose their charms for him within a few weeks or less. He then must find new ones or dig up one of the old favorites. His desire for such fetishes is insatiable and irre- sistible. He will jump from a moving omnibus, a street car, any vehicle, as soon as he spies such a fetish. He may have gone to some extreme to get a theatre or concert ticket, but that he will give up unconcerned if he notices such a fetish on the way to the performance. He will miss his meals, appointments, even his work for the sake of such an experience. He may be walking with some woman or a superior, but he will leave them abruptly. But it is interesting to learn that the compulsions of military service were stronger than his own inner demands. He never missed a single exercise during his year of service nor was he deterred from following a single fetish. That only proves to us that the only law under which these patients live is the law of

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least resistance. We will find this fact always to be true. Military service is the apotheosis of iron rule. Its pressure replaces the compulsions of the parapathia. The patient's own imperative is displaced by the military imperative.

This patient discloses many other curious phenomena besides his fetishism. The first day he was in Vienna, his father took him for a walk through the center of the city and past the cathedral of St. Stephen. For months afterwards, he could not bring him- self to take any other route through the city, and it was some time before he began to walk in other streets. He finally found the Mariahilf erstrasse (Street of the Good Virgin) also pleasant. He is always looking for streets with churches at one end. He denies, however, that he is pious and states that he never goes into a church "except when I want to hear lovely church music." He took an active part in the anti-clerical movement of his home country and was even furiously attacked in the church newspapers.

His sudden outbursts of anger are terrific. He himself fears his passions. For two years he was given to gambling and lost quite a tidy sum of money. His office banishes him to the solitude of the country and whenever he wants to indulge his fetishistic passions he has to ride to the next town. On such occasions, he puts on entirely new dress, goes through a regular masquerade. He is, after all, an official and must look to his position. For that reason, he disappears from the small town whenever the urge comes upon him, sneaks away to the next larger city, stands guard at some hospital or dentist's office, and awaits the appearance of satisfactory objects.

Transiently he wanted to become a drunkard, but was never able to become drunk, and so gave up the idea. He finds no pleasure in alcohol.

His one real delight is masturbating before a mirror after he has bandaged his head or face or bound some kind of cloth around it. But even without a mirror, he can drop off into hours of phantastic dreams. He gets a little thrill at the end of every urina- tion. He had been an enuretic for a long time and disclosed the bladder troubles typical of fetishists.18

His conduct with worsen is eccentric. He knows plenty of them and likes to talk with them, but the slightest indication of sexual contact stampedes him. He once had a vivacious interest in girls and was infatuated with a cousin at twelve. Six years ago he had fallen in love with a girl who liked him, too, and let him know by her attitude that she would never say no. He was about to be

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engaged to her and decided to test her devotion by introducing a gallant officer to her. In a few months, the officer had fallen in love with the pretty and well-to-do girl, but he had to wait some time for her, because she continued to wait for Lambda to make a move, expecting all the time that he actually wanted to marry her. When she finally decided to marry the other, Lambda fell into a protracted and serious depression. He felt unhappy, be- trayed, cheated and alone. The playful and hypocritical nature of these patients is here well manifested. He himself had brought on the whole debacle by cleverly introducing the officer. Why? Only to avoid the necessity of coming to grips with the situation himself, to find a way of hiding his real fear of woman and mar- riage, to retain the right to be unhappy. He wanted to say to himself : You have done your best to marry, but you can't be blamed when girls are so unreliable and fickle, so false and faith- less.

At the time when I saw him, he confessed that he was in a similar position with regard to his cousin. He could marry her, too, if he wanted, and believed that he would be potent with her (he hadn't the slightest doubt of his potency although it was never tested). But — marry? That would mean giving up his paraphilia, a thing that would be out of the question. An inner voice told him that marriage would be the right means of find- ing the way to woman, but he hadn't yet the courage to mind this advice.

Such singular attitudes are naturally characteristic of fetish- ism. The artificial structure of the paraphilia was originally intended to protect the possessor only against extra-marital coitus (sin), but in the course of time the sexual guiding prin- ciple is totally obscured, the road to woman is altogether blown over and the chances of reaching marriage become more and more distant. Marriage is nevertheless the one method of help- ing these men and I have seen two cases find their salvation in matrimony. It is absolutely false to base any therapy of fetish- ism upon any kind of intercourse with prostitutes, public or clandestine. The great, inner moral sensitivity of these men abhors the step, and whatever success seems to be gained in this manner is only transitory. The advice is usually followed by outright failure, however, and that more than ever shakes him

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in the belief in marriage. Sometimes the doctor is asked for a guarantee of potency or they themselves will suggest trying themselves out with a prostitute in order to make sure. Such attempts fail. And so they did with this patient, also. His family physician even went to the brothel with him, ostensibly to examine the girl because the patient feared he would be in- fected. Afterwards he wailed that he was unfit for marriage and thus again avoided a decision.

He did not want to give up his paraphilia, however, and manifested considerable pride in his illness. He was, after all, the only one he had ever heard of who displayed such an ab- struse form of sexual gratification. This resistance immedi- ately expressed itself in the course of the treatment in that the very first day he told me that he had little expectation of being cured. I had not, of course, been so rash as to promise him that, but I had assured him that he would be enabled to work again. I wanted to give him no opportunity of triumphing over me at the end of the treatment or of finding fault with me for not having kept my word. I nevertheless expected that he would be cured because I knew that this disease would collapse as soon as the patient had achieved insight.

The third day he had already run out of associations and later confessed that he had thought to himself : "I'll tell that doctor nothing, just to show him. What'll he do then? Let him cure me if he can, but I won't keep up this infernal talk talk talking." The fourth day he didn't even turn up. He had overslept. We changed the hour to the afternoon because he would oversleep every other day, but even then he came too late. He managed to sleep into the afternoon out of sheer resistance. The whole analysis was a constant struggle which inevitably showed him that he had but one goal in mind : to preserve his fetishism and triumph over the physician.

We must try, however, to answer the question as to how Lambda came to choose this one mode of expression for his parapathia and no other. His family doctor reported to me that as a child Lambda had a pretty governess who suffered frequently from toothaches. She often had a bandage about her jaw. The boy's attention was thus very early directed to this phenomenon. But how many beloved mothers and governesses are there who have toothaches and bandaged faces without their children being thus singularly

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fixed in their sexual habits ? The causes must be of a much deeper nature. Such an explanation as this would be far too superficial.

We learned the following about his early childhood and youth. He manifested an immense and insatiable desire for tenderness. Unfortunately for him, his brother was always ailing and in- variably attracted the affections and attentions of the parents. The father especially was always taking care of that brother. He was sent to baths and resorts of all kinds to restore his health and the patient suffered pangs of envy every time he returned to tell of the wonders and beauties of the new place. This brother always irritated and depreciated him. Whatever he did was child- ish and unimportant, but whatever his brother did was a priori important and clever, although the one was only a year older than the other. The result of this situation was that Lambda anxiously avoided any contact with his brother; he had his own toys and was unhappy whenever his brother disturbed him or them. Once he became so angered with his brother that he attacked him with a toy gun and nearly put out his eye. As a result, the brother had his eye and face bandaged for some time, and he himself was pain- fully punished for his conduct. They also chastised him by tell- ing him that he would be a criminal yet, everybody would be ashamed of him, God would punish him severely for his ways, etc. In short, it appears that a determinant is possible on the basis of his guilt consciousness. The lex talionis demands that the mem- ory of his criminal act shall always remain fresh in his mind and always persist in annoying him. In addition to this, one of his younger brothers had died then and at the time this filled him with malicious satisfaction. The memory of this malice clouded his conscience and the idea that there were such things as retribu- tion and the revenge of the dead began to take on a prominent role in his fetishism of which we shall speak later on as soon as we have completely unravelled the mystery of his religion and suf- fering.

At five he contracted erysipelas and was constantly attended by his parents for a week. Like all dangerously ill children, he was showered with tenderness and affection and each of his slightest wishes was promptly fulfilled. That was the most happy and de- lightful time of his life and he yearns for those days even yet. We have already mentioned that he always liked to walk the old paths and streets. He is really always looking backwards at his past.

He would enjoy those childhood days again when he was passed

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from one arm to another. His face was then smeared with salves and bulging with bandages. His fetishism is thus a yearning for himself and his childhood. The old ways and paths are the ways of youth. We shall soon see this corroborated by other material. He would like to pass his whole life as he did in those infant days, always to be ill and always to be coddled by the parents. In secret, he was tickled that his present serious illness had so worried his parents. His brother had long since become strong and healthy and filled a respected official position. He was now the handicapped one, perhaps he was even incurable. The family physician had communicated the severity of the patient's condition to his father, the latter had to support his son, had to give him a long period of rest and vacation, came through with the costs of the treatment, etc. In short, the patient was beginning to taste the sweets of long-awaited revenge and victory; he was now the source of anxiety in the house. Everybody at home began to pour out their sympathy. Parapathics blackmail their relatives for every ounce of love and affection they can get, all in the form of sympathy. It gives them the deepest gratification when their parents spend money on them. It is thus that parapathic children easily become spendthrifts by persistently testing the patience and affection of father or mother. In this case the same thing took place. He was ill ; the most handicapped member of the family ; he could not work; father had to support him. But he had a disease which presented a form the like of which his brother had never had. Nobody as a matter of fact had ever heard of such a curious condition. His illness became a feat, he was proud of it.

Still another experience had affected his youth. His sister, who was two years his junior, was passing by a store when she was eight and was injured in one thigh by a sudden explosion from within. The wound, which he saw later in the room as the doctor came to dress it, made a great impression upon him. There had been talk about her having been exposed to the danger of blindness if the explosion had chanced to strike her face. Whether or not this statement discloses what Freud calls a displacement from below upwards, is more than I can say. He mentioned noth- ing about it himself. But he did speak about another form of displacement.

He had cherished many phantasies about the process of birth and pregnant women always appeared to him as swollen. When he had a tooth pulled one day, he suddenly thought that perhaps J:hey had brought him into the world by means of a forceps and

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that he thereafter must have had a swollen head for a long time, just as, now, his jaw was swollen. He is greatly interested in the subject of reincarnation, and has often considered whether or not the great pressure of being born may not have injured his brain permanently and whether or not, as a result, his present condition is the forerunner of insanity. The swollen jaw thus reflects upon his birth phantasies and the question of reincarna- tion which so captivates him.

Sometimes he is possessed of very curious notions. He does not know, for example, whether he is still alive or has already died. He thinks at times that he sees ghosts or cadavers on the streets. He then recalls what a terrible impression the sight of a dead man made on him. They bound up the face or the jaws of the dead brother. Indeed, he recalls that they always bandage the face of the dead in order to prevent dropping of the jaw.

He's looking for his dead brother on the street, the dead who are to be resurrected from their graves. On the one hand, his death wishes against his brother, his ideas of revenge and the various methods by which he would have had his brother die pro- voked him; he was, on the other hand, shaken by the fear that the dead would return like vampires to revenge themselves upon him. Moreover, a superstitious nursemaid had told him all kinds of such blood and thunder stories and they had become engraved in his heart. He was really looking for such a resurrected person. He was looking for a miracle on the street. He was looking for his dead brother, i.e., for himself, that lovely and devout part of him which had long since died.

His parapathia was conditionally bound by his guilt feeling, however, and this made it almost indissoluble. I have already pointed to the fact that the death clause is lacking in no case of compulsion neurosis or obsessional ideas. Nor was it missing in this case of Lambda and I shall have to present it here. His father had lost his first wife and married the dead woman's sister. The child had often heard the father arguing with the family physician about mother's constant ailment and weakness. Father was always in mortal fear of her life. The boy had heard his father saying: "Doctor, I'll never stand the death of this woman. I'll send a bullet through my head on her grave." His brother had also heard this, and that was the one moment of brotherly harmony in their lives, that night when they whispered to each other in the dark about what father had said. For weeks he was sleep- less, thinking about it. When mother again became ill, he was

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already twelve years old. He promptly recalled what his father had once said and remembered the shudder that passed up his spine when he considered what would happen if both parents died. He would then have come to live with his grandfather, everybody in school would feel sorry for him, all the friends in town would sympathize with him. Something like a desire for this experience had raised its head within him. Now, when his mother lay again in bed, those terrible phantasies of earlier days returned to him and he resolved never to touch a woman as long as God would give his parents life. He offered God the sacrifice of his sexuality for the preservation of his parents. He had faith in this condi- tion, too. He, the freethinker and atheist, tells me that he cannot give up his "perversion" as he calls it, because then his father or mother would promptly die. It is this condition which bars the road to his cure. That is also the situation which I have chosen to call the puzzle picture of the parapathia. Even if his father should die, he would promptly produce another resolve and the female would then finally be so surrounded with fences and the barbed wire protections of his conscience that it would be im- possible to overcome the obstacles.

We must not forget that such resolutions play a most im- portant role in all compulsive conduct. They are seldom re- vealed by the analysis, for obsessional patients are geniuses in the art of dissimulation. They can talk for a year with a physi- cian without telling him anything of real importance. Thus, Abraham's patient kept on telling him endless details about his excremental interests as soon as he noticed that the analyst was looking for just such information. Indeed, the patients will even invent material in order to keep from talking about those things which are really basic for their condition, viz., their re- ligious problems. Our own case illustrates that very well.

The reader will recall that Lambda was distinctly anti- clerical. He had attended a parochial school where he had been taught by Catholic priests. Up to the age of fourteen, he had been devout and pious. He had fled from his aggressive and criminal tendencies into the arms of God and religion. In high school, he had been especially impressed when his religion teacher told of the saints and their miracles. The desire to become such a saint and also work miracles began to grow upon

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him. He would kneel for hours before an image in the church, ecstatically praying and begging for a miracle to be done, for his salvation from sin. The biological awakening which took place in puberty and the stories of his schoolmates about their relations with girls made his conflicts more acute, in addition to which the onanism which he practised and about which he had heard the most blood-curdling tales of punishment, en- hanced his guilt feelings. He was pleased then to imagine that he were ruining himself by masturbation, robbing himself of the future and happiness.

In his fourth term of high school, he became acquainted with a boy whose father was a very enlightened person. Through this boy, he secretly became acquainted with all kinds of books \of a modern trend. It was not long before he threw his whole 4tock of superstitious baggage overboard, but only apparently and not completely as we shall soon learn. He was soon read- ing the philosophers and holding long conversations with his friend's father. In his sixth term, that is, at sixteen, they had founded a secret philosophical society in which Nietzsche, Haeckel, Darwin, and the like were read, studied and explained. It was thus that he finally turned out to be a fervent anti- clerical.

We know, nevertheless, that every passion of this sort is suspicious. Such transformations are to be looked upon as attempts to liberate oneself from the all-powerful authority of God. The individual revolts against the monarchy and om- nipotence of the Lord. It is all a heroic attempt to shake off the feelings of guilt and become free. In the last analysis, this is a struggle to shake off every form of compulsion. Every parapathic struggles against authority and is almost dedicated to psychic anarchy.

The analysis of this case revealed, however, that all this free- thinking was, at bottom, only superficial. Lambda disclosed many traits which made it almost certain that he was simply hiding his essential piety, as I have explained in my paper on "Masken der Religiosität' ' (Masks of Religion).19 Up to a short time ago, he was still wearing the scapular which he had worn in school as a charm against evil influences. His

358

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

path always led him past churches and whenever he was tired he was in the habit of going into a church for rest. During the course of my treatment, he never failed to retrace that first walk of his in Vienna, simply because it led him past the St. Stephen's cathedral. He really wanted to retrace his first steps in life, the path of childhood faith, the road that led to God. In youth, he had been greatly impressed by the stories of the martyrdom which the saints had suffered. Subsequently he had tried many similar tortures on himself. For example, he would suddenly touch a burning cigarette to his hand without wincing. He hit his teeth with a hammer and became angry that he never suffered toothaches. He would have been happy to train himself in the suffering of pain. We note, also, that he carefully questioned his objects about the pains they suf- fered and what they did about it. He had beaten himself with a stick and often lay down upon the floor to sleep.

His chief interest was, however, dedicated to Christ himself. This was the figure which always ignited his emotions and he said : "I admire Christ as a man and not as a God. He was the greatest of men." It was plain that he envied this son of man who had been able to become a God.

In the course of the analysis, his inner piety came closer and closer to the surface. It was as if an old and hidden painting were being restored and the features of the ancient religious figures were beginning to shimmer through the fading colors of the false covering. The most important insight was achieved through the question of miracles. It was a miracle that he was awaiting from God, a wonder which should restore his faith to its former strength. The religion teacher had told them that the days of the wonders were not at an end; they had been seen only a few years ago and he proved it by read- ing of the miracles of Lourdes from his thick book. Why, thought Lambda, should he not experience a miracle.

It appeared that he was still awaiting the great miracle. Christ walks among men, and he shall some day see Christ. The man with the swollen jaw is revealed as a distortion of the suffering Savior, God with a crown of thorns. It was him whom he hoped to find among the suffering on the street.

CASE MATERIAL

359

What he really sought was Christ. It was Christ with whom he was identifying himself during onanism. His peak of libido was produced by his imaginations of the suffering he was en- during.

Besides this anagogic tendency, there was another, satanic, trend as disclosed by the analysis. He manifested both hetero- sexual and homosexual incest wishes and a distinct psycho- sexual infantilism. Many of his dreams clearly displayed a very strong fixation to his mother and sister. His deep homo- sexual attachments were expressed in his ambivalent and bi- polar attitudes towards his brother and father. Love and hate.

The following dream, taken from the stock of this patient, will further our understanding of the secret motives of the fetishism.

"On Easter Sunday I was invited with my entire family to take dinner with the bishop. We arrived at the bishop's palace and were admitted. They said, however, that the bishop was still at church. As we gave up our clothing in the hall, I noticed that my mother wore a curious apron of fur which she also laid away. 'What's that for?' I asked. My father answered me that it was to prevent colds. I looked at myself in the mirror hanging in the hall and saw that I was unshaven and unkempt. My clothes were dusty and my shoes dirty. I said: I must get a shave and have my clothes brushed. Looking at the clock, I thought I still had time to do this before dinner. I then left the palace with my parents and as we came out upon the street I saw a herd of pure white sheep and lambs coming out of the cathedral and thought to myself : the services are now over. I looked for a barber shop, but they were all closed. I then went home to find the house in great disorder. I looked in vain for a clothes brush but finally got one from my brother. I talked with my brother and said that our invitation to dinner with the bishop was probably due to our close acquaintance with the canon. We then returned to the palace and went immediately into the dining room where dinner was just being served. The bishop got up from his seat and, in all his regalia, went to the open window where in a thin feminine voice he began to call out commands in German. I was at first sur- prized, but then I thought that the bishop certainly had the right to give commands to the guard of honor which had appeared at the services."

3<5o SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

Without delving into an exhaustive dream analysis, I want to point out the essentials of this dream and also to call attention to the resemblances to the dream of Mr. Kappa. The keystone of the dream is the fur which the mother wore. It would be easy to impute a sexual meaning to this. But the mother is really the representative of his parapathia here.20 She wears a fur which is to be cast off in the anteroom, i.e., she must put away a covering, a shell. He has the phantasy of a wolf in a sheepskin and then interprets it laughingly : I'm just the oppo- site : a lamb in wolfskin. And that is precisely the riddle of his parapathia« How delicately does this dream express his guilt consciousness, too! He is dirty, unshaven, covered with the dust of the earth. Meanwhile the lambs and the sheep come out of the cathedral and he hardly finds time to change himself from a wolf to a lamb. The dinner to which he was invited represents the Holy Supper.

Again we come upon the picture of military service in this religious dream. Ecclesia militans! Just as the major com- manded in Kappa's dream, so the bishop does the commanding here.

But we have had enough of this analysis. It is not my pur- pose here to exhaust the possibilities of dream analyses, but to demonstrate the hidden and undisguised signs of religious tend- encies in these patients. The patient's description of himself as a wolf in sheepskin is the best characterization of these cases of fetishism.

We are conviced, however, of the complexity of these cases of fetishism and the difficulty of confronting them with any of our former methods. We have nevertheless been able to come to some very important conclusions about them.

Fetishism is a substitute for religion. In the form of a para- pathia it offers its possessor a new religion in which he can express his desires according to his faith. Fetishism is thus not a paraphilia, it is only a caricature, the fiction of a para- philia. It derives from a compromise between insurmountable sexual strivings and a deep-seated piety. It offers its possessor the opportunities of a more or less complete asceticism. Undef the guise of Satanism and libertinism there is hidden a piety whose goal lies far beyond the boundaries of this world. The

CASE MATERIAL

fetishist finds himself in open struggle with every form of authority, especially with God to whom, secretly, he submits and whom he hopes to appease by his divers forms of self- denial.

My own cases distinctly reveal the picture of a Christ neuro- sis. Further studies are, of course, desirable before we can decide whether this is a generally operative law or not. The fetish lover expects to find compensation in heaven for all his sufferings on earth. Fetishism should not be looked upon as the result of a degenerative constitution, but rather as the at- tempt of a strongly sexed individual to deviate from the path of his sexual guiding principle. The apparently primary fetish- istic instinct later appears as a secondarily transformed and distorted but primarily normal sexual instinct.

It must be emphasized again and again that these fetish lovers try their best to make the parapathia indissoluble. The basis of this is often a secret clause according to which the life of dear and near relatives is made dependent upon the continuance of the fetishism. The penalty for breaking this secret oath is death and eternal damnation. The condition originally was formed by the patient having wished some rival death in child- hood. It is this very individual who is then later absorbed into the condition in order that the asceticism of the patient may be protected. It is at this point that threads of an incestuous na- ture appear and I have never found them missing in any case. Fetishism is an infantile religion, but it is also an obstinate preservation of infantile sexual ideas.21

Our therapy must take cognizance of these facts. The analy- sis must lay bare the secret piety and religious trends of the patient; we must bring about a truce between the patient and reality and turn his eyes from heaven back upon this earth. The result will then be either open piety or unclouded atheism. The patient must make a decision between out-and-out re- ligiousness or real inner freedom. The only sexual gratification which seems feasible for most cases is the consummation of marriage.

NOTES TO VOLUME ONE

CHAPTER I

1 It would be more correct to say : retreat from the other sex.

2 Cf. the chapter "The Struggle of the Sexes" in my book Das liebe Ich (Otto Salle, Berlin, 1913).

8 Binet, Du fetichisme dans Vamour. Revue philosophique, 1877. 4 lieber sexuelle Perversionen. Ztschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, Vol. I, No. 8, 1014

6 Paul Gamier characterizes the fetishist as follows : "Timide dans les choses de l'amour, le fetichiste, bien loin d'etre un excite sexuel au point de vue des plaisirs veneriens, ets bien plutot un insuffisant que rien n'attire vers l'union des sexes, le plus souvent. Genitalement, il peche bien plus par defaut que par exces."

6 "Die Lehre von den Geschlechtsverirrungen (Psychopathia sexualis) auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage," F. Deuticke, Vienna, 1922.

7 "This is not to be confounded with the vague, general and absolutely un- specific concept of 'nervous disposition.' In this case, it is a very definite erogenous zone, the irritation of which is naturally more pleasurable than usual" (Sadger).

8 The reader will doubtless have noticed that I always speak of male fe- tishism. I have observed a case of jewelry fetishism in a woman and other rudiments of fetishism in females. Fetishism is, despite such cases, gener- ally a male disease, but it is natural that the same points of view hold good in these cases as for male fetishism. Howard has described cases of female clothing fetishism, a thirty-nine-year-old woman who stole trousers, a twenty-one-year-old woman who coddled the drawers of her dead husband, a seventeen-year-old girl who possessed a veritable harem of men's garters (Ztschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, Nr. 3, January, 1914). There are further examples of female fetishism in Chapter III of this book. In the last chap- ter I have exhaustively discussed the question as to why fetishism is largely a male disease.

9 In some cases of this sort, I have been able to observe a secondary psy- chic mechanism which I have called the principle of the "finished product." I borrow this curious title from a well-known joke which I must insert here because of its psychological value in reference to our theme. A match-maker offers the hand of a rich girl to a young man, but the young man reminds the match-maker that the offer suffers by the fact that the girl once broke her leg and now limps. "What of that!" said the match-maker; "just im- agine that you were already married to the girl. You take your wife for a walk. Along comes an automobile and your wife is run down. You imme- diately call an ambulance and have to take your wife to the hospital. The professor comes in. You go through a few weeks of the greatest excitement, and finally you have to come through for the big bills. But here you have a finished product!" This principle of the finished product plays a leading role in some cases of pseudo-fetishism, e.g., in the following case. A man meets with the wife of a friend of his. The woman had always left him cold. Now he finds her quite banged up from a beating her husband had given her. At this moment his entire sexuality rose up in a wave of passion and he practically fell upon her. The woman, on the other hand, nursed a

363

364 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

rankling desire for revenge against her husband. They both enjoyed a tre- mendous satisfaction during intercourse, but the enravishment did not cease with this experience. The man in the case was a sadist who had never per- mitted his cruel instincts to become conscious. When he met this woman he came upon a "finished product." Fetishists who search for women with am- putations have also repressed that bit of sadism which calls for the dismem- berment of the woman. The amputated arm or the missing leg is then that reality which offers an anchorage for their phantasy. It is the make-believe of red blood for the animation of their colorless schemes. It is also possible to gain new insight into the psychology of sympathy from this point of view. This feeling also operates according to the principle of "pleasure without guilt." The cruel deeds have been accomplished by someone else or by des- tiny, and we derive our enjoyment therefrom in a form compatible with our ethical conscience. The malicious joy which so frequently precedes our sym- pathy and secretly accompanies it is the conscious expression of the same tendencies.

10 Les Fetichistes, Paris, Beliiere et fils, 1896.

11 Infantile psycho-sexuality.

12 Peculiarities of Beliavior, New York, 1925.

CHAPTER II 1 Cf. The Language of Dreams, Chapter X.

CHAPTER III

1 De Clerambault, Passion erotique des etoffes chez la femme. Archives d'anthropologie criminelle et de medicine legale, 1908, 1910. I was unable to see the original, but have cited from an excellent critical paper by the sex- ologist, Dr. Kurt Boas: "Ueber Hephephilie, eine angebliche Form des weiblichen Fetishismus." H. Gross' Archiv, Vol. LXL

2 Ueber Warenhaus Diebinnen Mit Besondrer Berücksichtigung Sexueller Motive. H. Gross' Archiv, Vol. LXV.

3 One thinks here of Ibsen's Nora ("A Doll's House"). The playwright appears to have taken his observation from life.

4 Journal de Medicine de Paris, 19 14.

5 Reported by Kurt Boas in H. Gross' Archiv, Vol. LXVII, "Kleinere Mit- teilungen." "Weitere Beiträge Zur Forensischen Bedeutung des Puppenfet- ischismus."

6Laquer, "Department Store Thefts," Sammlung zwangloser Abhand- lungen aus dem Gebiete der Nerven-und Geisteskrankheiten, Halle a.S., 1907, Vol. VII, Nr. 5-

7Vinchon's literal reproduction reads: "Le^ fetichisme est une perversion sexuelle obsedante et impulsive conferant tantot ä un objet auquel nos usages pretent une signification sexuelle (fetichisme impersonel), tantot a une partie du corps (fetichisme corporel), le pouvoir exclusif de l'orgasme genital, le fetiche etant soit directement, soit par evocation ou representation mentale l'element ä la fois necessaire et süffisant de l'excitation sexuelle."

8 Cf . the very important case of Fere cited in Vol. II.

9 Une observation de fetichisme des etoffes chez la femme. These de Montpellier, 1912. Nr. 51.

!<>4 1. c.

CHAPTER V

1 Zentrlbl. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. IV, 1914.

2 Cf. the chapter on urine sexuality in Infantile Psycho-Sexuality in this series.

NOTES TO VOLUME ONE 365

8 Three contributions to the theory of sex.

L c, p. 328.

8 Cited after Dr. Veriphantor, Der Fetischismus. Berlin, Singer & Co. CHAPTER VI

1 This girl's analysis appears in Sadism and Masochism as a case of masochism.

2 His attorney wrote Elise that his wife would sue her for adultery. Hav- ing taken his money, she would have no case in court.

CHAPTER VII

1 Gabriele D'Annunzio dedicated his drama "Giaconda" to the lovely hands of Leonora Duse.

2 Cf. Freud, Totem and Taboo; and Levy-Briihl, The Psychic Life of Primitive Peoples.

3 Cf. the chapter on "The Race on the Street" in Masken der Sexualität. Paul Knepler, Vienna, 1922, 2 ed.

4 Onanism and Homo-sexuality, the chapter on "Don Juan and Messa- lina."

6 Medical Jurisprudence, Vol. I, i860, p. 732. •1. c.

7 Cf. also Dr. A. Hagen, Ueber die Geschlechtlichen Gerüche (on sexual ©dors). H. Barsdorf, Berlin, 1900.

CHAPTER VIII

1 "Mr. B. is a fifty-year-old business man with a distinct preference for red-headed women. He is not satisfied with the pleasures of the moment, however, and looks to the refreshment of his memory in the future by cut- ting a lock of pubic hair from every red-head with whom he copulates. The trophy is curled, bound with a black silk cord and pasted in an album where the treasured spoil of happy hours is labelled with name and date. His future gratification consists in paging the leaves of his fetishistic reminis- cences."

2 A vulgar Viennese expression for vagina.

3 A vulgar Viennese slang description of a cohabitatio inter mammas cum quinque ejaculationibus et cum erectione permagnarum mammarum.

Fellatio.

6 Titillare locum minoris resistetise.

6 While this book was in the press, the patient came for another appoint- ment. If the analysis succeeds, I shall publish it in another edition.

7 Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische Forschung, Vol. III.

CHAPTER IX

1 How often are medical fashions derived from fetishistic leanings ! Foot fetishism is unusually widespread and many of these fetishists make a pil- grimage to Wörishofen or such places. Exhibitionists rave about sun baths and the cult of nakedness. The masochists become devoted teetotallers of all kinds, vegetarians, apostles of chastity, prohibitionists and the like.

2 Freud's use of the term screen memory implies an important experience in the shadow of a harmless scene, but these false memories I mention create important occurrences out of unimportant events The archives of memory are searched and suitable scenes borrowed and revamped.

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

3 I no longer say that this wish was "unconscious" in Beta's mind. Freud looks upon repression as an ejection of material into the unconscious, as "not knowing." For me, however, repression is simply ignoring of material, "not wanting to know." At one of the congresses for medical psychology, Klages asked, "Is repression concerned with that which is unknown or with that which is not thought?" I declared for the opinion that repression is not thought material and defined the process as that psychic mechanism by which we refrain from thinking something we don't want to know because it is associated with certain unpleasant features. Such a thought or, rather, image, is pushed out of the center of consciousness by our inner judge, our conscience, as an undesirable. The thought must not appear and if it does, it is either in the negative form of astonishment, anxiety, etc., or in some symbolic shape. It is thus that Beta did not want to see that he had been waiting for the death of his father, so that he could live his life as he wished to live it

4 A part of these dreams is also contained in The Language of Dreams. 6 His mother died at his birth.

6 He used to call his governess an "old box."

7 For the sake of greater clarity in English, the translator has taken in- significant liberties with the German in some instances.

8 Aigremont also considers walking as a symbol of the sexual act. All languages also reveal some indications of this fact. Thus, the Latin coire for cohabit really means to go together. Congressus also means coming to- gether. To go with a boy or girl has a sexual background both in English and German. The expressions misstep, go straight, go after, all have sexual meanings, as well as certain other movements such as climb, jump and dance. This is true of the dream as well as of social usage. The French word marcher means as much as go after in English. Le vieux marcheur : the old masher. This collection is, of course, arbitrary, but it nevertheless indicate* the basic connection between walking and erotic ideas.

9 In this respect, I would like to cite a characteristic sample from Das Leben des Traumes by Karl Albert Schemer. "The general fantastic ex- pression for the human body is that thing which we build of bricks, mortar and beams, i.e., a house. It is easy to see chat our universal fantasy has chosen an apt symbol in this expression, in that the house, like the human organism, possesses an architectonic structure and also a number of hollow spaces and rooms. In addition to this, one could say that the soul lives in the body as in a house. Finally, it must have been perceived that all man's real activity is directed by the needs of house and hearth, just as the spiritual activities take place within the human structure. All these apper- ceptions together must have contributed to the choice of just this symbol."

10 Another determinant leads from the shape of the egg to the egg-shaped head of the phallus. The phallus is as brittle as an eggshell and might break if he put it in. Or, he thinks, some vein might burst. That also indicates an infantile sexual theory. He thought that the man lost a part of his penis every time he cohabited with a woman. It is the lost part which is put in the vagina. This particular infantile theory derives from comparisons with botanical processes and the method of inoculation. The connection is not at all seldom and frequently constitutes a basis for psychic impotence. The practice of circumcision, so mysterious to most children, is also connected with this theory. As a child, our patient had seen a picture called "The Cir- cumcision of Christ" which had made a lasting impression upon him (cas- tration complex).

11 Struwelpeter was quite a trauma for him. Especially the part in which the tailor or cutter (circumciser) cuts off the thumb-sucker's thumbs filled him with horror and trembling (castration complex).

12 His father died in Reichenhall from a pulmonary disease. That was

NOTES TO VOLUME ONE 367

his "great misfortune." Following his father's death, his guilt consciousness began to show its head, reproaches pained and lashed him with the feeling that he had foregone something which might have saved his dear life. These reproaches derived their emotional strength from childhood experiences in which the father had prevented his masturbation and thumb-sucking by means of threats (castration). At that time his thought had been: when father dies I can masturbate all I want. Furthermore, we already know of the relationship which existed in his mind between the awaited death of his father and his sexual freedom.

13 The homosexual attitude towards the physician as a father imago.

14 The symbols of "above" and "below" which Adler has so strongly em- phasized as meaning male and female, find a simple explanation in this case as in so many others. Children are little and adults big ; children must look up to them from below. Psychic infantilism finds its expression in "below." It is the burning desire of all children to "be big," and being "bigger than the grown-ups" is expressed in dreams by situations in which the dreamer is "above." Another determinant for "above and below" is to be found in the religious complex of heaven and hell. On the balcony he always saw heaven above and hell below.

16 Later it was found that the ball of the foot and the corns also provoked him sexually. His disgust was positive only in the early stages of the analy- sis. Corns were for him an anti- fetish which soon changed to a pro-fetish.

16 Indication of Nekrophilia. He even loves his dead father.

17 Addendum : This reminded him of an actor he had seen in a cabaret once, dressed in a thin jersey shirt. His name was Silvester Schaeffer.

18 Also his father.

CHAPTER X

1 Taken from the German edition prepared by Dr. Ernst Jentsch. "Die krankhaften Geschlechtsempfindungen auf dissoziativer Grundlage," Würz- burg, Kurt Kabitsch, 1907.

2 This case shows distinct signs of urine sexuality (see Vol. V). The full bladder enhances his pleasure. May not the original impulse have come from the bladder? It is probable that he has suppressed information about such tricks with his bladder,

3 A mother communicated the following relevant observation to me : "My little six-year-old son has, since his earliest infancy, had the habit of bind- ing his feet up under his knees. He then tries to walk, but this is, of course, hardly possible ; nevertheless, he derives the greatest fun from trying it. He loves to play with belts which he ties about his body in all kinds of ways. He is always pestering me to bind him. He likes to dress himself up in other clothes, especially in my things and finds powdering his face a rare treat. It is his ideal to be dressed up like a baby and he is always begging to be done up in diapers, put under a quilt and carried about on my arm. It is doubtless of importance that my boy clings to me and unfortunately con- tinued to sleep with me until he was two years old. He was very tender with me. Until recently he suffered from enuresis and pavor nocturnus. Since reading your books, I know that much of this is my fault because I gave him so much of my tenderness and thus bound him to me. He was also specially attached to the game of tying the awning rope around his neck and then calling : 'Look, mama ! I'm hanging myself V "

4 His active delight in odors and the significance of perspiration are dem- onstrated by the fact that axillary perspiration excites him sexually and that he likes to grip a girl under the arm pit, so that he can feel the sweat.

5 Ein Fall von weiblichem Fuss, richtiger Stiefelfetishismus. Int. Zeitschr. für arztliche Psychoanalyse. 3 Jahr, 191 5. No. 2.

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

6gince-nes (pinching) can also serve as a symbol of the compulsion.

7 Uber Horror sexualis partialis (sexuelle Teilaversion, antifetishistische Zwangsvorstellungen, Fetischhass). Neurologisches Zentralbl., 191 1. Nr. 10.

8 In the June number of L'Encephale, 1921, Jeanselme reported a similar case of self -mutilation. A twelve-year-old boy had so incarcerated the glans penis by a stricture about the suclus that it became gangrenous and fell off while the boy was urinating. In the Int. Zeit. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. VIII, No. 3, 1922, Saussure adds some interesting remarks on the case. He con- sidered the possibility of castration ideas, but rejected this theory because the boy would otherwise have constricted the penis at the root. It is my opinion that this was a case of symbolical compulsion which derived from the penis and had to be expiated on the penis. One must also think of protective mechanisms against masturbation in such cases.

CHAPTER XI

1 Cf. my discussion on the representation of the parapathia in the dream. Zbl. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. Ill, p. 66. The shoe is a very frequent symbol for the parapathia, as is also the glove.

2 Psychoanalyse eines Falles von Fussund Korsettfetishismus. Jahrb. f. psychoanalytische u. psychopathologische Forschung, Vol. III, 1912.

8 I possess four dream books of this patient which were written during the fourteen months he was analyzed. He was particularly interested in this dream because his physician was not able to analyze it.

As I have frequently found. The suit representing the individual's char-

acter.

5 As a barefoot pilgrim, like Beta, the foot fetishist

6 Church.

7 The soldiers dressed in leather breeches symbolize his paraphilia. God is incensed at them and blames him. These legions of his do not obey him and he is uncertain just how or whether he should command them.

8 His fetishistic stand is also frowned upon by God.

9 Lying down is also the position of humiliation and submission.

10 One must also remember that the analyst is a major or father imago, and the patient the pupil.

11 Cf . the dream about the water dripping on his head.

12 In a determinant we have mentioned before, the same as his ideal : Christ.

13 I came upon the interpretation later : Stuart is woman.

14 We recall that the other patient had a pet phantasy : walking on the main street in Vienna with a giant nail through his foot.

15 Nietzsche also emphasized the "eternal cowardliness of man before the eternally feminine."

18 Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. I, 191 1, p. 38.

17 This statement betrays the religious tendency of his parapathia. He is looking for a leader who might lead him in the right path. He has left the straight and narrow road.

18 Hitschmann was the first to point out connections between the bladder and compulsions.

19 Zentralbl. f . Psychoanalyse, Vol. III.

20 Cf . my paper on Die Darstellung der Neurose im Traume. Zentralbl. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. III.

21 It is not self -contradictory when I previously wrote that fetishism is a compulsion neurosis and now state that it is a kind of religion. The com- pulsion neurosis is itself a religion. (Cf. Freud, Imago, Vol. I, p. 332 : "Hys- teria is the distortion of a work of art, the compulsion neurosis a religion and the paranoid delusion a distorted philosophical system.") It is also true

NOTES TO VOLUME ONE 369

that in both the compulsion neurosis and religion, the heart of the matter is to be found in the relationship of the individual to his father. But in each individual case of obsessional neurosis or fetishism, we are not merely inter- ested in the basis of the situation, but in the whole structure which has crys- tallized about this nucleus, in the colossal psychic superstructure built upon the general foundation.

DISORDERS OF THE INSTINCTS AND THE EMOTIONS

The Parapathiac Disorders

WILHELM STEKEL, M.D.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS The Phenomena of Fetishism in Relation to Sex

Two Volumes — Vol. II

The sale of this book Is strictly lim- ited to members of the medical pro- fession, Psychoanalysts, Scholars and to such adults who may have a defi- nite position in the field of Psycho- logical or Social Research.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

The Phenomena of Fetishism in Relation to Sex

DR. WILHELM STEKEL

Vienna

AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION FROM THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION BY

DR. S. PARKER Senior Physician, Psychopathic Department, Bellevue Hospital, New York City

VOLUME TWO

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CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO Chapter XII

ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

The infantile experience. Infantile onanism — Impotence. As- ceticism. Asthma — The mother's aprons — Anagogic tendencies. His Christ neurosis. His love for pregnant women. His sister's aprons — His mother's habit of playing with him — Homosexual- ity, criminality and sadism. Infantilism — The true infantile scene. Analysis of his asthma — His repressed love. Summary. The causes of fetishism. Condensation 3

Chapter XIII

NAILS AND HEELS IN MAN'S LOVE LIFE

A case of shoe tack fetishism — Analysis of a heel phobia. The original trauma. Onanism. Infantile erotism. Birth phan- tasies. Relation to mother and sisters. Condensation. Anti- fetishism _ 82

Chapter XIV

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO)

Masochism of the fetish lover. Self-punishment. Three cases of pig-tail stealers. Ascetism. Impulses. Family fixations. The cannibalism of one pig-tail fetishist — The sadism contained in individual love conditions. Love for sick and crippled persons — Crutch fetishists. Identification with the fetish — Love for per- sons with amputations — The role of sadism in fetishism . . 113

Chapter XV A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM

The patient's own story. His picture gallery — His asceticism, onanism. His dentist phobia — The first memory — Identification with the fetish — Mother's, sister's and grandmother's clothes —

vi CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO

fr AGE

His martyrdom and his Christ neurosis — (Edipus and castration complexes. Cure of his dentist phobia. The conquest of his ascetism. The condensation. Summary 147

Chapter XVI

ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM

The patient's story and the first memories. Corrections of the first story. Narcissism — Castration complex — Fixation on the family — Analysis of this parapathic — Hirschfeld's conception of transvestitism — Summary — Relationships between fetishism and transvestitism 281

Chapter XVII

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

Conflict between submission and independence. Inner and outer freedom. The divers strivings in fetishism and their syn- thesis— Fetishism as a religion — The symbol. History of this concept. Condensation in the symbol. The affective value of the symbol — Fetishism as a fiction — The organic roots of com- pulsions— Fetishism as an attempt at cure — Prophylaxis — The re- sistances towards treatment — The criminality of the fetishist . 319

NOTES TO VOLUME TWO

351

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

VOLUME TWO XII

THE ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

Case No. 55. Alfred G., a thirty-year-old clerk, desires to be liberated from his unhappy passion for aprons and his torturing" states of anxiety. Up to a few years ago, he was able to accom- plish intercourse with his wife only when she would put on a damp and preferably dirty apron. Recently, however, he has noticed that his sexual interest in his wife has begun to cool and he is sliding back to that totally oblivious interest in aprons which constituted his "ideal" in youth. At fourteen he stole a number of aprons, among them one of his mother's, and hid some of them in the cellar and some in the attic. Whenever he would find the time to hide away and put on one of these aprons, he would masturbate, sometimes per manum, sometimes merely by rubbing. At twenty-eight he married a girl he loved and was able to have intercourse during the first few months without the aid of an apron, but soon found that he was impotent without the presence of that article. His wife knows his weakness and always wears aprons in the house, but he becomes very upset and angry whenever she changes them because he likes to see them quite dirty. This is, of course, a difficult matter because his wife becomes unbearably disgusted when the aprons are too filthy.

With the exception of slight signs on the ears and the suggestion of a pointed skull, he is quite normal physically. He developed normally in childhood, manifests a slightly asthenic habitus, but is well adapted and has a good position in a large firm where his exceeding organizing ability and his mathematical capacities make him a desirable and respected employee. He speaks several lan- guages, but is not much interested in the arts and sciences.

His one hobby is aprons. He can stand and watch them in

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store windows for hours at a time. A girl in the streets wearing a dirty or soiled apron provokes him and he finds himself fol- lowing her. In earlier years he used to masturbate before a mirror with an apron tied about him. He would imagine during the onanism that he were one of the girls whom he had followed.

This is the result of the first hour.

In the second hour he was already making changes in his yes- terday^ information. He relates the following interesting story about the genesis of the apron fetishism which is marked by a curious connection with water.

"I believe my condition to be due to a childhood impression. As a boy of ten,1 I went fishing in the high waters of the Isar (a river in the Tyrol and Bavaria — Trans.), but we had to roll up our pants in order not to get wet. While fishing once I suddenly stepped into a deep hole and got wet up as high as my abdomen. As I felt the water lapping at my belly, I had a fine, comfortable sensation which I could not at all explain. Subsequently, I strove to regain this extraordinary feeling, and thus came to search for ever deeper holes while fishing in order that I might, despite my rolled-up trousers, get wet again. That, of course, was possible only during the summer, but when the autumn came — o-oh — the water became icy and I didn't dare go in any more. They had begun to wonder at my going fishing in October when the days became cloudy and rainy, and finally I was forbidden to go to the river in such weather. But I wanted to get that fine feeling again and so I came upon the idea of taking a large tub up to the store- room and filling it with water. But I didn't dare get my clothes wet, otherwise they would find out the meaning of the tricks which I understood already. I therefore undressed and looked for some other clothes up there, and found them : one of mother's old petti- coats, some rags which may have been the remnants of an apron, and an old gunny sack. I bound these rags tightly about my body, so that I was well covered, and then sat down in the tub which usually held only as much as my trunk. When the water ran through the clothes and my phallus became wet I had an almost painfully hard erection. I splashed around so that the water could run, or rather tickle, through the cloth and after wet- ting my genitals a few times I reached the heights of gratification. Then my phallus got soft again and I felt limp (at that time I did not yet get an ejaculation).

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

"Following such acts, I felt very guilty, became anxious and ashamed and sensed an inexplicable feeling of regret as if I had done something bad. But I didn't stop. On the contrary, I in- vented new methods of enhancing my pleasures. I would tie the rags more tightly about me, climb with wet limbs and body about the beams of the attic room or slide about the damp floor of the cellar. My purpose was to make myself as dirty as possible. The dust and soot on the beams or the floor would stick to my wet rags and body and then I would add more water and smear it about to make it even more dirty. These climbing and wallowing parties increased my libido to ecstasy. For these purposes I preferred to use either one of my mother's aprons or an old sack which could be tied about the loins like an apron.

"I continued to enjoy myself in this manner until I married. I am really ashamed to have lied to you in the first hour, but I must confess that I continued this form of onanism even after my marriage, but I masturbated less and less frequently as time went on because I continued to struggle against the habit unceas- ingly. For the past two years I have not masturbated at all. But my wife had to begin wearing the aprons and I want her always to have one on.

"When they would become wet and dirty I would be able to have an orgasm. If the apron were not wet and soiled I would have either a minimal orgasm during coitus or none at all. And now even the apron is insufficient. I am impotent with my wife and for the past two years I have really been living the life of an ascetic.

"When I began to masturbate, I also became very shy and even to-day I find it hard to make friends or even to make acquaintances. This anxiety is particularly noticeable when I am alone, either by day or by night.

"When I am alone in the wood and find my vista cut off by trees or bushes I become fearful. The rustling of the leaves, the noises of insects or animals, the noise of steps far or near, even the falling of the leaves and the call of the birds scare me. I am also rest- less and anxious if I find myself alone at home or in the office. I simply cannot be alone.

"My anxiety increases at night. The slightest noise makes me quake ; the excitement becomes so great that my heart fairly bursts and my limbs tremble. I begin to shake and feel as if I am going to faint. At the same time, I haven't the courage to find out what may have been the actual cause of the noise.

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"I might also mention that I have often actually been followed ! But of that another time.

"My anxiety manifests itself particularly when I meet strangers, those unknown to me, especially if they are of a higher social class than myself or if I believe that they are better educated than myself ; I fear that I might make a fool of myself because they have gone farther in school than I have. I went to business school soon after my second term in high school.

"Under such circumstances, I often lose control of my thoughts or they cease abruptly as soon as I want to speak. Such a sudden lapse of thought also occurs in my daily life otherwise at frequent intervals and I find myself disturbed in my work. I'll be writing a letter and suddenly I forget a word which I have already formed in my mind. I begin to tremble, lose control of the pen, the writing becomes scribbly and infantile; the letter is a mess and I must write it all over again after having planned my thoughts carefully in advance.

"I am also anxious whenever I go into a restaurant. If I don't see a satisfactory place, i.e., a free table, I feel uncomfortable. I could never sit down with strangers. Fd rather run out of the place. The same is true in trains where I feel a desire to find a seat for myself. It is just as painful a business for me to buy anything, to walk into any store. I usually walk past the place about a dozen times before going in. Invariably I repeat the same actions several times. I may have something important to buy, something which I need very much. But I will first look in through the door to see whether there are many people inside or whether I may be alone, what the lay of the land is, whether I will be stared at by many people, etc. I become almost tongue- tied when I have to ask for some article in the presence of other shoppers who might overhear my request. Embarrassment seizes me, I blush to the roots of my hair, begin to perspire ; my voice trembles, I even stammer, my heart palpitates, and I feel so un- comfortable that I could rush out of the place.

"It is therefore my striving always to speak only with one person if possible, and if this is not possible I prefer to forego my desires. The result is that I often find myself running from one store to another, always looking in to see whether anyone is inside or not, trying to convince myself that no one will glare at me. Yesterday, for example, I had to buy a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and for that simple purchase I chased from one store to another for

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

two hours or more. When I was nearly exhausted, I decided to step into a little store where I spied only a single saleswoman, but as soon as I discovered the proprietor behind her, I was almost im- pelled to turn and run out. I mustered sufficient courage to ask for what I wanted, however, bought the first toothbrush she displayed, gave her the money and faded from the view as if I were a criminal who had just committed an evil crime.

"This trait, this fear of strangers, has already caused me plenty of trouble. But each new day brings me new tortures. In my interviews or dealings, I can't suffer the presence of any but my most intimate friends, i.e., those persons to whom I have become somewhat used. Every new member of the firm is another in- strument of torture and fright for me.

"I was transferred by the firm from T. to Vienna, and you can't imagine what groans and sighs that cost me. I have not yet been able to force myself to exchange more than formal greetings and absolutely necessary business with my associates in the office and the result has been that I'm looked upon as an inaccessible prig. They don't know that I'd be the happiest of men to be able to associate with them just as any normal man would. I try my best to overcome my inhibitions and hide my nervousness. For example, I'm always inwardly upset during the first few greetings exchanged with a new acquaintance, my voice trembles, but re- cently I have been able to control myself sufficiently to let no one realize my state.

"My greatest worries are my sleepless nights. I cough, cough, cough the whole night long, but nothing comes up except a little mucus after several hours of irritation. I sigh for air, roll from side to side, prop up my pillow, pull it down again, roll under the covers like a snail, only to throw them off me again. I groan and puff. In a word, it's hell.

"I first noticed trouble in breathing about six years ago during a vacation trip in Salzburg and a few days later in Traunstein. The symptoms were the following : After having slept about three or four hours, I would awaken from a dream which I could no longer remember and feel a pressure in the throat, and an oppres- sive sensation in the chest. My breathing was not as free as usual. I could not dispel the thoughts of a few harmless occurrences of the day before from my mind. They shadowed me like obses- sions. I got to the window, threw it open and gasped for air.

"That was my first attack. The second one occurred a few days

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

later, under the same circumstances and at the same hour of the night. But gradually the attacks increased in length, they got to be a few hours in length, were soon protracted into the morning or the day, and this last May the asthma continued for a period of three weeks. All the medicines I took were of no avail. At first only my palate was dry, but soon I was coughing, and when the asthma became protracted, I began to bring up a muco-purulent sputum which was filled with fine, wavy and pointed threads. Mean- while, those obsessions reigned in my brain. My whole body per- spired, my hands were weak, I finally became very tired, my thoughts were sluggish. It was like a narcosis. But always the attacks began in the same way. After two or three hours of sleep, I would awaken with the above-mentioned difficulties, torture myself until the dawn; until, on the way to the office, the symp- toms would begin to subside and disappear completely after about an hour in the office.

"I was the child of poor people and therefore never enjoyed a very good upbringing. During the vacation days, I always had to run errands for my brother-in-law, i.e., for my mother's brother- in-law.2 He had convinced my parents that it would be good for me to be busy and also earn a little money. That hurt me, par- ticularly when I would be seen by my schoolmates carrying bundles or packages through the town. But I was a good pupil and always brought good report cards home. At an early age, I changed to business school, but that I had to give up, too, because of the lack of money. I then became an apprentice in a business and had to work until 8:30 every evening; so that I had no further opportunity to continue my education.

"No one ever took the trouble to enlighten me sexually. At seventeen I found my way to another country, became independent and worked for myself. But there was no one to lead me, to be my guide in times of need. I battled with myself to overcome my bashf ulness and reticence ; I tried all kinds of ways. At twenty- one I returned to Munich and soon after joined several clubs and societies in the hope of forcing myself to make some friends and thus overcome my reticence. I even joined a dramatic club and took small parts in some of their plays. I learned to swim in a swimming club, bought books, took a snack from the cupboard of all the arts and sciences, among them, of course, many popular books on medical subjects. These last deepened my hypochondria- cal trends. But, for all the trying, I was as bashful as ever.

"It was the severest test for me to dictate my letters to a stenog-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

rapher. I usually prefer to write them out myself. My memory often fails, but luckily not in business. It is absolutely impossible for me to remember any jokes, stories, songs, verses and the like."

The report of the asthma attacks interested me more than anything else in the last session and I therefore asked the pa- tient what ' 'immaterial' ' details he had been thinking of ob- sessionally during the first attack.

He cannot remember the details, but believes it was a con- versation with his wife. He then reports a dream, the first in the analysis, and therefore of considerable importance.

"I was in the theatre, but decided I would prefer to see the performance from the stage. I therefore sneaked up onto the stage and found myself an advantageous position behind one of the scenes.

"A prima donna was just at the heights of her role when, step- ping further backstage, she discovered me behind the scene. She must have been terribly frightened because it seemed as if her voice faltered. But she caught herself immediately and continued her song although the depth of her feeling had been lost.

"I noticed all this and was just about to get off the stage when I saw a stage officer, with a rifle across his back, already coming for me. I excused myself with something like : ' Pardon me, but I think I have made a great mistake. I had an irresistible desire to get behind the scenes once in my life/

"At that the policeman drew out a pair of handcuffs and said that he had been ordered to manacle me and take me off, but it seemed as if the President had made a mistake. He did not manacle me. I also recall now having got into the cloak room, but whether or not a little bribe helped to set me free and out of the theatre is only a dim recollection."

This dream is interesting from every point of view. From the analytic point of view, first of all, we see that he is the singer who is supposed to observe herself. But he becomes captivated, charmed, and finally flees. That reveals the well- known flight reflex of all fetishists ; they can never bring them- selves to say a word about the essence of their fictions. The singer loses her voice the moment she feels herself observed, and from that moment on it's all over with her acting. This

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fundamental interpretation leads us to expect stubborn resist- ance from the patient, and indeed, his memory allegedly dried up the moment he was to talk about his obsessions (the cause of the asthma). He said he could remember not one definite or determining detail.

But the connection of this dream with his fetishism and his paraphilia are still more interesting. Fetish lovers frequently have dreams of plays and stage performances (as we have already seen, e.g., in the case of Beta), and, characteristically enough, such dreams are often the patient's first. They thus express the theatrical nature of their parapathia.8 He is playing a certain role and observes himself at the same time. But he recognizes that he has committed a serious blunder. He catches himself in time and his moral ego restrains him. Again the compulsive, constraining character of fetishism is revealed as in every other case we have examined.

But the most important source of this dream is doubtless the infantile one. We can recognize in the language of the dream the fact that in his infancy he had overheard and seen things which he should not have seen or heard. The result was that he was severely punished by his father (the president). In order not to create any suspicions in him or permit him to go off into a side-path, I asked him who the singer reminded him of.

He promptly answered : "It was Miss R. who has played a prominent part in my life."

He was requested to continue his associations on Miss R., but instead he fell into a fit of coughing, couldn't talk (like the singer in the dream) and thus passed through the hour.

The following day, he came with his associations all written out. I reproduce them here in his own words :

"The prima donna in the dream reminds me of that little Hedwig R. in Munich. I became acquainted with her and her family through my friend Otto, who has unfortunately since fallen in the war. He was engaged to her elder sister and wanted very much to have me as a brother-in-law, so that our friendship would thus become closer. I would have taken his sweetheart at once, but I was a little doubtful of Hedwig. She was too flighty, coquettish and fickle for me. In addition, she suffered from a slight flaw in her beauty; she had a somewhat red nose. I would neverthe-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

less have married her for Otto's sake if only in order always to be closely attached to him in this manner * Hedwig, however, was at that time infatuated with a well-known actor, Lothar M., and was always sending him flowers, post-cards, innumerable love notes and the like. As I heard from others, her infatuation was in vain. She was always telling me about Lothar, and it naturally piqued me that I was only playing second fiddle. I wanted to be the first in her eyes and this attitude of hers humiliated and hurt me. I wished that actor all the most evil things and always chuckled with delight whenever I read an adverse criticism of his acting.

"But I was also afraid of her passions. I had never before had any success with women and my onanism with my aprons had been my chief desire. Would I be able to gratify her? She im- pressed me as exceedingly temperamental, but I was charmed by her cheerful character, her keen intelligence and her natural humor. I was never bored by her company, but I did want to humiliate her, too. I began to find little faults ; she would be too forward, would make too many demands, be a poor housewife, etc.

"And so I vacillated until one day an unexpected experience nearly made me lose my poise. We had all the while been having our little erotic pleasures, of course ; our feet met under the table, we sat close to each other on the sofa, etc. But I had never had an erection when with her. It was simply that a woman without an apron never animated me.

"But one day we were at a swimming pool together. They gave us dressing cabinets next to each other, and I tried to get a look at her undressing through a crack in the boards. I was successful. I saw that she had lovely, small breasts, and I became a little ex- cited (this is the first contribution to the dream material. He had seen something forbidden : the prima donna Hedwig. This is the uppermost dream level). While undressing, Hedwig softly sang a cheerful song. She had a pleasant voice and I liked to hear her. The melody possessed a provoking air which seemed to remind me of intercourse. Outside, we played and chased each other about, but as long as she was still dry, I wasn't specially in- flamed. I joined her more in a spirit of boyish fun than from any ardent desire for her. But when we went into the water, my desires rose. I got prompt and even painful erections each time her smooth, wet body touched my own. I was losing my senses rapidly. We went off into the bushes and I hotly desired inter- course. That, of course, would have bound me to her forever.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

But my passions were so violent that I could no longer controi myself. I had an emission and the danger was past. The im- pression of her wet body near mine was so great that I shall never forget it. Even outside the pool, I was also excited because the wet suit stuck to her body just like a wet apron. I avoided going to a swimming pool with her again because I realized what the experience would mean to me, and soon afterwards I lost track of her because I had to leave Munich. I even communicated with my friend Otto infrequently."

In analyzing this story, we recognize that it was under the influence of a homosexual impulse (love and the friend) that he tried to become intimate with this Hedwig. But his fear of woman caused him to depreciate her and find all manner of faults in her. He felt humiliated because she preferred the attentions of an actor to his own; he thought her flighty and fickle. When he did have an opportunity to gain her, he turned and fled. He felt happy that "the danger was past." Moreover, he accepted a position away from Munich in order to complete his retreat.

He thinks that he nearly committed a serious blunder with this girl. (That explains the sense of having committed a great mistake in the dream.) His inhibitions were to be breached only by the impression of a wet body, but the ejacu- latio praecox acted as a protective signal to him.5 We shall soon see that there were still other motives for his flight from woman.

I emphasize the fact that the dream must also contain a more remote and infantile impression as a basis for the material.

"Had you ever tried to get a look at a naked woman before that?,,

After a short pause he says :

"I know that I used to try to catch a glimpse of my mother naked. I think I was about ten when I heard her washing her- self in her room one day. I crept into her room without knock- ing. She was standing naked before the wash basin and when she saw me she seized an old apron and covered herself in front. She became livid with anger and yelled: 'Get out of here ! You scamp ! Haven't I told you time and again not to come in here without knocking first V When she was through,

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

both she and her brother-in-law gave me a good beating and then put me in a dark room for having been so bold. Once I peeked through the keyhole and another time I eavesdropped behind a door. The brother-in-law came in and I was whipped by mother as a 'little spy.' "

This is then one experience which might explain his mania for aprons. But, as we shall see in the course of the analysis, this fetishism developed out of a diversity of components. The above-mentioned experience doubtless aided in the fixation of the mania, and we know that the prima donna of the dream rep- resented the mother, the policeman the father, and the brother- in-law (condensation). Meanwhile his associations continue in another direction.

"I am struck by the fact that I gave that policeman a tip or bribe. That point in the dream must have a meaning. My own attitude towards tips and tipping is pathological. I am always afraid that I have left too small a tip and am then ashamed. Not long ago I spent a fortnight at a hotel with my wife. I worried myself to death about how much I should leave. I finally decided to let my wife do the tipping, but I couldn't show my face about the place because I was ashamed of pos- sibly disappointed faces of waiters and maids.

"Nor do I ever know how much I should give the poor or beggars, and invariably pass them by blushing for shame. At the outbreak of the war in Trieste, there was considerable pov- erty and we were frequently called upon to aid in charitable undertakings for even well-dressed people. Such conditions are most painful to me. I feel like emptying my pocketbook outright. But, since that would be foolish and was not possi- ble, I chose to walk in alleys and streets where I knew I wouldn't be approached by beggars. Whenever I meet with one of them I cannot continue until I have given him something. For that reason I always try to go out of their way, cross the street or act as if I haven't seen them. But I invariably felt impelled to take one look, at least, at them.

"I cannot suffer injustice or coercion. That holds good for others as well as myself. If I see wrong being done to another or myself, I can lose my bashfulness as well as my patience.

"I would like to love all the world and be loved by all the

14 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

world. Like a saint, I would like to excel all other men in virtue. In the office, I have to control myself in order not to become too complacent to my own inferiors in the business. I would like to please everybody. On the other hand, I cannot suffer being unrighteously treated or ruled over by anyone. It is in that respect that I am at a disadvantage here in Vienna. In Trieste, I was a departmental head, but here I haven't yet fitted into any special position and feel as if Fm in prison, in chains. (See the handcuff scene with the policeman.)

The following day he begins to speak of his wife. "I de- rived the greatest pleasures from my wife when she bathed or was in a wet bathing suit. That was often the case in Trieste, where we frequently went swimming together. I would always sneak into her cabin at the beach afterwards and cohabit with her. It was an irresistible impulse and my wife knew that every time we went bathing, one or more embraces were sure to follow."

"Is a wet suit or dress more effective than an apron?"

"Well, I can't say. I often picture women and girls in wet bathing suits. They accent the body's forms so, you know. It's great to feel a naked or tightly clothed body. My attention to the wet clothing was aroused by Hedwig for the first time. Otherwise I always did and still do interest myself in any woman as long as she wears an apron. I am thus specially at- tracted by cooks, waitresses, housemaids, and other women who regularly wear these articles of clothing. But I invariably in- sisted that they have their aprons on when they surrendered to my passions because otherwise I was impotent. That was also the reason why I never let myself in for any permanent rela- tionships with any of them. I usually follow such women at night and try to avoid the busier streets. I never had any truly affectionate feelings for them and valued them only for the fact that they wore aprons, preferably dirty aprons, of course. Clean, white aprons leave me cold. I would feel irri- tated that the aprons could not always be damp or wet, and that led me to seek such company particularly on rainy nights. I would follow the girls until they were thoroughly wet (i.e., if they happened not to be carrying umbrellas), and would then offer them my escort with an umbrella. This usually opened

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

the way for my designs. Many of the girls would want to take off their wet clothing first, but I would plead lack of time and effect intercourse with them fully dressed in their wet dresses. That was, of course, the chief pleasure as far as I was concerned."

"Haven't you ever really been in love?"

"That I can't say. There are two impulses within me. As regards the apron affairs, there never was any love contained in them.6 I have sometimes felt myself in love with other girls, but it was a pale and diluted sort of love, a vague feeling of something pure and elevated. I have never really been carried off by a genuinely ardent and inflaming affection. My senses have never been completely overturned. I have, unfortunately, never experienced such an emotional sensation. As soon as I had anything to do with the ideal type of girl, the calculating, critical, astute, sharp-dealing man in me prevailed, And if I noticed that the contact would never be materially advantageous to me, I dropped the girl."

"In other words, you wanted nothing but a rich girl ?"

"That's right. I was the child of poor people, had bitterly learned what that meant, and wanted to climb out of my sta- tion. I desired that I should have an opportunity to make it better for my children."

"You also want money in order to be able to give it away to others?"

"That would be my greatest pleasure. But there is really something else in that. I'm afraid that I would be looked upon as a 'filthy' person."

"But your ideal is a filthy apron."

"Well, those are simply the curious antitheses in my breast. In my life generally, I'm the cleanest of men — also morally. I can't stand obscene language or suggestive talk, or vulgar jokes, nor would I ever be able to speak ambiguously or in suggestive language with a woman. I am a puritanical moralist. I told you that I would have married Hedwig if I had had intercourse with her. I never even 'diddled' her, as we say in my part of the country."

He remained quiet for a while and then began to speak about his mother. "When I was in Ala in my seventeenth

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year, I asked the elder daughter of our landlady for permis- sion to call her mother and to have her call me by my first name, but unfortunately she wouldn't have it."

"Did she resemble your mother at all?"

"Very much. I certainly needed a substitute for my mother, although I was happy to be away from Munich."

Suddenly his associations pass from his mother to the subject of water.

"Water always fascinates me. I'm always attracted by any body of water, and the larger it is the better I like it. For eight years I was a passionate bicyclist and every trip I made ended at some lake or other. I would look for some inn or cafe facing the lake and was happy to sit by a window or on the terrace lost in contemplation of the water. I would fall into a sort of quiet ecstasy or reverie from which my comrades always had to awaken me. That usually made me the butt of many jibes, too. In Trieste, I always had rooms facing the sea, and I took advantage of every opportunity to take a ride on the water and stare for hours into the waves. Rough water or stormy seas were a source of direct sexual pleasure.

"As a matter of fact, even a tub bath became a downright sexual danger for me because it always ended in masturbation. The temptation was too great. The water was warm, towels were handy which I could wind about my body. I was alone. How could I withstand that? I finally resorted to confining my bathing activities in Munich to public pools because there were always others about. That protected me against my path- ological habits.

"That also reminds me that I invariably scrutinize every woman I look at to see if she is pregnant or not. It seems that water and pregnancy are somehow connected in my mind. When I was a child, they used to tell me that the stork brought babies out of the water.

"I'm pretty sharp about whether a woman is pregnant or not. I can almost smell the fact. I can notice it in the brilliance of the woman's eyes, in her complexion, in a certain rounding out of the figure which is apparently hidden from the notice of others. And if I find that the woman in question is pregnant, perhaps only recently so, she becomes a source of tremendous

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 17

and irresistible attraction for me. I feel as if I could throw myself upon her and embrace her. I can follow such women for hours. I had the happy opportunity once of touching the abdomen of a pregnant woman and I became so instantaneously ecstatic that I had a convulsive orgasm with ejaculation.

"I was also very happy during my wife's pregnancy — es- pecially during the first few months — and was always wanting to touch her abdomen. During that period I had almost daily intercourse with her, much more frequently than I usually desired.

"I'm very much interested, too, in the hinder parts of women. Women in pantalets (my wife included) animate me particu- larly (homosexual component). At the beaches and in swim- ming pools, I always look at the women's bellies and if I see a woman who may be pregnant, I can't take my eyes from her. To appear decent, I look aside for a moment, but my eyes wan- der irresistibly back to her a moment later.

"That reminds me of an experience I had last year. On the way to the office one day, I noticed a woman who impressed me as being pregnant. I saw her thereafter every day and did not have to wait very long to have my suspicions confirmed. The indirect meeting began to be a happy occurrence for me, and I was deeply hurt one day not to see her as usual. I had had the desire to speak to her some time, but whenever I started to do so my whole body began to tremble, my feet shook, and I couldn't bring myself to approach her. I must mention that this lady (perhaps she was a miss?) did not wear an apron, but either a red jacket or a long velvet coat. Moreover, she was blond. My favorite type. Women with light blond, golden yellow or even a little reddish-blond hair have always been my weakness."

He says he feels dissatisfied in Vienna. In Trieste he was a departmental manager and in Vienna he has to take the place of the head bookkeeper who has joined the colors. But the latter hasn't been called yet, and so our patient has no regular position and dislikes to do any of the less important work. He emphasizes the fact that he cannot stand being bossed.

That is probably the reason why he can never come to the office on time. He even comes ten minutes late for each an-

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alytical hour as an expression of his independence and obsti- nacy. He prefers to walk around the block once or twice if he finds that he has come to his office or to my office on time. The desire for punctuality seems to have left him. But if there is anything important on, which demands his punctual appear- ance (such as a board meeting, an appointment with the direc- tor, etc.), he becomes restless, loses control of himself and com- mits some blunder or other. He likes to leave the office on the dot, however, and drops his work at the moment his working day is over. In Trieste that was not possible because he had to receive the afternoon's mail and sign reports. It always cost him a great effort, however ; he became angry and tried his best to arrange things so that he could be through on time. These traits clearly express his limitless tyranny, his exaggerated sen- sitivity and his pathological lust for power. Like all fetishists who suffer from an infantile fixation, he struggles for inde- pendence. The one compulsion is enough for them and they are not sufficiently strong to suffer the imperatives of another person.

He here produced the second dream of the analysis.

I went back to Trieste to bring my family to Vienna. Before the departure from Trieste, my attention was called to the fact that the Italians had advanced meanwhile, and that the grenades and bombs were already falling in the vicinity of or directly into the stations of Nabresina or Opcina (it wasn't very clear), as I was able to confirm.

I looked out the window — it was night — and convinced my^ self of the truth of the report. The bombs were throwing up terrible curtains of fire which made the night almost as clear as day.

I asked if the train had to pass through Nabresina or Opcina and received an affirmative answer. That made me change my decision to travel and I told my wife that it was impossible for us to leave under such circumstances. But my wife insisted on our leaving, and we left. The rest of the dream was very vague, but I believe that the bombs dropped near our train. I think that one of the cars was struck, but we got through safely.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

This dream portrays to us the important matter of his mar- riage. He appears to have no definite notion as to why he married altogether. He did want to overcome his paraphilia at any price. His wife had a little money, she pleased him, and he did want to have a virgin. The last factor impressed him as the acme of delight. But he seems to be unable to adjust to the marriage. He is too deeply involved with himself, too strongly chained to his phantasies. Any other woman can at- tract him as long as she fulfills the conditions of his sexual appetite, but the attractiveness of his wife seems to be fading in his heart. Thereupon he proceeds to produce four children, primarily in order to enjoy the figure of his wife during early pregnancy. The obstetrician finally advised them to have no more children and our patient practises coitus interruptus. His potency thereafter decreased and he has lost all his appe- tite for intercourse. He really doesn't love his children, for he is too much of an egotist to love anyone but himself. He is allegedly incapable of love.

The analysis of this dream reveals the fact that he is harbor- ing death wishes against his family. In this dream, the last chapter of which he has manifestly censored under the influence of a strong moral streak, he permits the destruction of his family. He is again a bachelor.

I ask him since when he has been suffering from fits of coughing and asthma. It appears that these complaints first appeared after he married. His wife was in her fourth month of pregnancy at the time, she was becoming less and less at- tractive to him and he hated to think of the idea of becoming "just a father of a family." He feared the loss of his free- dom. He hated any form of necessity, like all other fetishists who suffer from the compelling force of their violated sex- uality. He wanted his independence again, his liberty to travel and go wherever he desired. He also hated the compulsions of military service and was happy that his asthenic constitution made it possible for his firm to have him exempted from every form of army duty.

Just before his first asthmatic attack which he so well de- scribed above, he had been in a motion picture theatre. He saw a film in which a man had strangled his wife. This had

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quite excited him because he had always been secretly inter- ested in choking and strangling and had let his phantasy play with the act. He had even incorporated the act of strangula- tion in a little novel which he had written as an expression of his literary bent.

The little inconveniences of marriage irk him. He would like to take up the mandolin again, but he can't do so evenings because of the children. Why should he worry about his chil- dren? He wants to have his pleasures. He would like to sing, too, and have his wife accompany him on the piano. But she hasn't any time for such diversion. Everything for the chil- dren. Those hateful children.

He begins to see that he had really wanted to strangle his wife, and his own choking, coughing, spitting and wheezing had been unconsciously related with his criminal wishes. Just how disturbing any necessity is to him is well illustrated by the following notes he made the very next night. They depict his spiritual condition distinctly enough.

"Two thirty a.m. Last night my wife put the children to bed somewhat later than usual (quarter to ten) and came out of the bedroom with disheveled hair. This gave me a stab through my whole body because it seemed to me to be an indi- rect suggestion to go to bed.

"I was reading in Platen (Natürliche Heilmethoden — Nature Cure; a popular German 'doctor book* of the nature cure variety — Trans. ) . I was only paging through the chapter on 'Air and Light.' Just before, I had been looking up colts- foot tea which I had lately been drinking as a substitute for beer. I was showing my children the colored plates of the plant before they went to bed, and had advised them also to drink that brew when they grew up. My eldest son, who usually never drank such teas willingly, suddenly took my glass in his hand, had a sip and found the drink to his taste. I felt a curi- ous unpleasantness at the moment.

"At my wife's request to come to bed, I closed the book, although I had intended to read the next chapter : 'How Shall We Arrange the Home?' (I had already read it once before.)

"I must mention that we always went to bed together. But I couldn't fall asleep, and at two o'clock I got up and began to

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 21

write these lines. Strangely enough, my coughing has been considerably lighter.

"Thousands upon thousands of thoughts and ideas ran through my head like the threads of a shuttle. I wanted to fixate my thoughts in writing, but I thought to myself : you're a poor, conceited fool.

"The thing that cuts me most is the fact that I'm not original. I could die for despair. I strive to appear as original as pos- sible. I won't be an 'average man.' I will not end by being a Philistine."

We see here how he complies with the necessity of going to bed with his wife, instead of continuing to read as he would wish. He doesn't dare to face her in open rebellion. He is an anarchist who keeps his fists in his pockets. But his irritation is so great that he can't find sleep. I begin the hour with the subject of his originality and say to him :

"You have realized your desire for originality in your fe- tishism. That's why you're so proud of your illness."

He at first denied such a pride, but gradually confessed that he believed himself to be the only one who suffered from such an extraordinary perversion.

He would like to produce something unusual. The World War showed him how essentially evil humans were. He would like to be the prophet of a new religion of love. He would like to wander from place to place and preach love and faith to all. But his family stands in his way. He feels his spiritual rise inhibited since his marriage. Now is the time to cover oneself with glory, to shout for peace, to become a martyr, to die for one's ideas. But he has to live for his family.

From here I pass to the subject of the tea and ask him why he gave his children the coltsfoot tea to drink. He said it was to have them remember the terrors of the war, but he soon rec- ognized that there were more ulterior thoughts behind the act. These thoughts will help clear up the excitement and the symp- toms which followed the incident. He had the phantasy of poi- soning his children, his family. How easy it would be to mix a poison with that coltsfoot brew, or to mistake a poisonous liquid for the tea. How easy it would be to wipe out a family

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in this manner. A few days ago he read in the paper of an entire family dying after the ingestion of poisonous mush- rooms. How his heart had palpitated when he read the notice.

Thus the two tendencies struggled on in his breast : the reli- gious and the satanic. He wants to become a saint and is in danger of becoming a criminal. His criminal trends were, as a matter of fact, already indicated by his first dream, his guilt consciousness, his shyness and his fear of being alone with anyone.

He does not yet know — or perhaps he does not want to know — why he is so anxious. We expect the analysis to clear up this dark point.

He came with a strange dream.

I find myself in a church. The preacher is talking about love for man and one's duty to die for the Kaiser. I became excited and called out: "The duties to oneself and one's family come first !" Great buzzing and restlessness in the church. I jump up to the pulpit. My bashfulness has evaporated into thin air. I talk with such passion that all the people in the church fall to their knees. They crowd about me, kiss my hands, my feet, the hem of my coat. Some cry out : "A saint ! A saint!" One old man laughed cynically. I wanted to fall upon him. He holds a hatchet in his hand and points to an apron. "I've hacked this to pieces and that's how I'll disclose this impostor." The crowd becomes quiet and stares speechlessly at me. I begin to stammer and lose my strength. At that moment a bomb fell into the church. An airplane had dropped it. A piece of the shrapnel flies close to my head. I awaken in fright. . . .

His first association is that it was a Catholic church. He is a Protestant, but shows a great understanding of Catholicism. He would like to have his whole family become Catholic with him, but his wife is against it. He always attends the Catholic church because he prefers the services to the sobriety of Prot- estant religion.

What he would like above all is to found a new religion which should stand between the two. In his childhood, he had been very devout and had even thought of becoming a monk. He is

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

engrossed in the figure of Christ and reads voluminously in the Christ legends.

On the other hand, it was plain that his sexuality was to a great extent mixed with his beliefs. As a boy he had often asked himself if Christ may have been built like other men, and sometimes tried to look behind the loin cloth which hides the genitals of the Lord in statues. Once he saw a picture of Christ in church : "The Circumcision of Christ." It made a great im- pression on him and he played with the idea of castrating him- self and also becoming a saint.

He desired to become a second Christ ; he wanted to introduce the cult of second baptism. The water is for him the symbol of second baptism. The apron is a symbol of the loin cloth which covers the holy pictures of Christ.

From Christ, his thoughts turn to his father, who was also a pious man. His father was given to fits of anger and often came home drunk. He had been mistreated and fearfully beaten by his father.

His father frequently wore a dirty apron while at work. The patient had one day seized an axe and cut the apron into a thousand pieces. But he feared that the pieces would betray the deed, so he collected them and threw them into the Isar (an alpine torrent which runs through Munich — Trans.).

The dream shows us how this sinful act has continued to burden his conscience. In his unconscious, he knows well that this destruction of the apron was a symbolical patricide. And he, the criminal, now wants to preach the word of God! A bomb will destroy him just as he murdered his father. (The Kaiser is a symbol of his father also; the bomb had already appeared in the second dream. )

With considerable resistance he recounts an experience he had at seventeen in Ala. He had gone into the toilet and seen old feces there. He thought : that's the filth of the landlady or one of her daughters. He found an old cloth, rolled the feces in the cloth and ran to the Etsch (an alpine river — Trans.). At a hidden point on the shore, he spread out the cloth and then lay himself on the feces, so that the dampness wet his belly. He rolled in the filth until he got a violent orgasm and ejacu-

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lation. Then he threw the cloth into the river and washed him- self in the rushing waters. Afterwards he was seized with deep regret and shame (he was reenacting the part of a nursling in diapers). He can't find an explanation for this strange bit of conduct. He acted under the stress of an irresistible impulse. He felt as in a dream.

Then he tells me that he had originally been disgusted by his mother's dirty aprons. Allegedly, his mother's aprons had never been objects of sexual desire for him.

He hated his mother because she was coarse and had often beaten him severely. He thinks that his present condition is ultimately due to the unjust whippings his parents gave him at the slightest provocation.

He had two dreams.

1. In a restaurant, the waiter said to me: "I really like the Italians better than the Slovenes, because they don't dig in so deeply."

2. I was in Nuremberg and was about to take up a new po- sition. I said: with reservations! "My colleague Neuleben told me that the new job was an unpaid one."

The first dream expresses the struggles in his own soul. There was always trouble between the Italians and Slovenes in Trieste. He thinks the Slovenes too false and sympathizes with the Italians. The Italians impress him as being more honest. The Italians here symbolize the Catholic (pious) tendencies in him, while the Slovenes represent the satanic trends. The satanic habits are more deeply engraved (dug in). He doesn't want to dig them up. The second dream expresses the same sort of resistance to a new life (Neuleben is German for new life — Trans.). His reservation is that he will preserve his old position (i.e., attitude). He doesn't want to give up the enjoy- ment of his old paraphilia (money as a symbol for love and sexuality).

That episode with the feces in Ala is a sufficient indication of the strong infantile tendencies of the patient. In some fashion his mysophilic instincts are connected with his mother, with an infantile phantasy the significance of which we have not yet comprehended.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

At this point he comes with a memory which clearly explains to us the origin of his passion for pregnant women. I must digress to mention that I troubled this patient with very few questions in order to influence the course of the analysis as little as possible. I even did not question him about his family his- tory in the hope that he would come upon that matter himself.

On the way to the hour to-day, he saw a girl who reminded him of his four-year-elder sister. When he was thirteen, he noticed that there was something on her mind. For a year she had been having a secret affair with a student and he believed to have discovered signs that she was pregnant. He watched her very closely and became more and more convinced that he was right. There was soon a scandal at home. Father threat- ened to drive her out of the house, but mother took the girl's part. The student came of a very wealthy family and his father paid a neat sum as hush-money. The family took the daugh- ter's pregnancy as a sort of lucky business stroke after that, but the patient felt deeply hurt because the neighbors and his schoolmates talked about it.

He confessed, however, that he had really looked upon his sister all the while with lecherous eyes and had envied that uni- versity student. He would have liked to be in his place. He later recalls that he frequently watched his sister while she was dressing or washing (the singer of the first dream. Conden- sation).

At this point he also remembers having been present at a very young age (five years) when his parents were once having in- tercourse. The mother groaned a lot and father said : "It seems to me that the boy isn't asleep," because Alfred had coughed suddenly. Thereupon his mother became abruptly quiet. He didn't understand what it was all about, but guessed that it had to do with forbidden things.

In respect of the Nuremberg dream, he added that while in Nuremberg once he had been very much interested in the noto- rious medieval torture chamber in the castle. As a youth, the stories of tortures, inquisitions and martyrdom had ignited his fancy. The menials of torture all wore aprons and such bloody aprons appear to play a leading role in his parapathia.

Then he said :

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"My sister also wore clothes that we called 'apron clothes.' They were these large sizes to cover up the fact that she was pregnant. When such dresses are dirty or damp, they are doubtless of greater effect on me than anything else."

His preference for pregnant women is automatically ex- plained in these communications. No further commentary is necessary.

He is trying hard to recall as much of his early youth as pos- sible and thinks he has recaptured an occurrence from his fifth year. He had been sent to the store and suddenly came upon four elephants which had broken away from the Hagenbeck circus. They were being taken back to the circus in chains.

This appears to be a screen memory. It is of interest to note that the phantasy of binding or chaining which seems to interest fetishists to a great degree, appeared at such an early age. Can the screen memory mean: I have finally conquered my wild impulses?

The memory of having been present at the coitus of his par- ents came after that and then came a memory from a very slightly later period. Two boys were practising mutual mas- turbation in a public toilet and he was supposed to join them. He refused.

There follow some more apron memories. A friend of his who was working in a grocery at the time, also wore an apron. Alfred envied him and often asked for the privilege of putting the apron on himself. The other employees also had leather aprons and he often asked to help them out only for the purpose of being able to put one of them on.

The laborers in the oil refinery wore aprons made of sacks. The sacks were wet with oil in front. Great animation. Tried to get hold of one of these aprons.

Ever since he has developed the death wishes against his family, he has also displayed distinct suicidal tendencies. He thought of killing himself and his family if his condition did not improve. He is often dejected and depressed, especially since he has been in Vienna and finds himself a sort of extra in the firm. It begins to appear that he lost his position in

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

Trieste and that he doesn't want to put it in so many words. I persist in my strategy of awaiting all confessions instead of forcing them out.

He speaks of his pride. Even as a child he refused to say "thank you" to anyone and was often beaten for his obstinacy. They even spanked him in school for this resistance. To-day he will never thank his chief when the latter has promoted him or given him some bonus or other. He would rather die.

His attitude is well illustrated by the following characteristic dream.

Dr. Stekel was puttering around the window, lost his balance and threatened to fall out. Seeing this, I ran to his aid and, extending myself to the utmost and even endangering my own life, I managed to save the doctor from the fall.

I received the medal of bravery and also recall the words "Now we are square" from a conversation which we after- wards had.

This proud patient cannot suffer the notion of my saving him and his being thankful for it. He must square himself by sav- ing my life.

Freud has given us an acute analysis of the meaning of sav- ing dreams. To save someone means to use them sexually. In other words, homosexual feelings of transference are beginning to appear.

He continues :

"When I was in A. (seventeen years old), I took a meal in a restaurant where I saw two pretty girls who wore aprons. I sneaked into some kind of store-room, found an apron which I put on, and masturbated. It was a terrible situation for some- one might have caught me in the act.

"Once I stole an apron from a beer porter, took it home, where I rolled myself in it and tied it tight, made the floor wet, and then rubbed myself on the wet floor until the skin on my belly became wet. Then I got an ejaculation.

"The aprons must be tied very tightly, and the tighter they are tied the greater is my pleasure in them. Those pretty little aprons which don't even come together in the back leave me absolutely cold.

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"In A. I went to a brothel with two of my friends. Just be- fore, I had had a great erection, but when we got there I was impotent (homosexual distraction). One of the boys got so excited in there that he afterwards ordered some ice cream in a cafe and cooled his penis off with it before our eyes."

While living with a friend in A., he used to masturbate with the use of the coverlet. After every onanistic act, he was dis- gusted and anxious. Before that he would always go into the cellar and get an apron, but he was never fearful. After mas- turbation, he thinks he sees ghosts and turns on the lights or a candle.

These bits of information make us rightly suspect that his onanistic habits are connected with criminal phantasies. But he claims that he knows nothing of such phantasies. He's al- together too excited at the time to think of anything.

After a short pause, he relates the following astounding facts. "My wife is in the habit of playing with the genitals of both our boys (four and six years old). I asked her why she did that and she answered me that she had seen her foster- mother doing it and her foster-mother was very good to chil- dren, having reared many of them. She had always played with the genitals of the foster-children.

"I also recall that my mother once bathed a nephew of mine (seven years old) and thereby played with his penis.,,

Suddenly he said: "And now I have caught my very first memory. I may have been three or four years old. My mother was playing with my penis. She played with it for some time, too, and I know that I enjoyed it immensely. It seems that I learned it all from her, for when I was about eight, I used to pay a good deal of attention to my nephew. I would carry him to bed, and often slept with him and held his penis in my hand while asleep."

He begins to cough heavingly.

"Do you know what that coughing means ?"

"No — but I've just thought of something. I used to put my nephew's penis in my mouth. I think that my mother used to do that to me, too, when I was a baby. I think I can recall her having done that to my nephew, also." 7

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

His obstinacy is so marked that he even finds it hard to pray. He trembles and cannot be alone. When he finds himself alone, he becomes more fearful than ever. It is then that he senses the immensity of the divine power that breaks him down and shows him that the bold son of Prometheus is less than a crawl- ing earthworm.

Nevertheless, he is like all the other anarchistic parapathics who would rather recognize God in the form of some round- about and superstitious ceremony than in the direct manner of faithful prayer. He is the prey of any kind of nonsense which appeals to the mind in the form of superstition. Thus, for example, he had his horoscope taken and believes firmly that everything that was written down will be realized. That horo- scope promised him a superior position following upon great labors. It promised him a long life, and he has faith in the mission of his life.

Ever since the beginning of the analysis, his coughing had been improved and for a time had even ceased altogether, but now it is returning. It is always the same when a determina- tion for a symptom has been disclosed by the analysis. The symptom disappears for a time, but inevitably returns again for the simple reason that it is based upon a multitude of deter- minants. Aside from that, every parapathia, and thus every parapathic symptom, is not of one, but of several dimensions in the human organism.

He produces some new associations on his coughing.

"I was coughing as early as six or eight years of age. My mother had this asthma, too, and so did the brother-in-law,, (the mother's brother-in-law, who plays such a leading role in his parapathia).

"Then there was also a fellow living in the same house. He was tuberculous and coughed a lot. This fellow (it was at about the same age, i.e., between six and eight) played with my penis, too, and also put his own in my hands. He took me to the anatomical museum and to the picture gallery, where he showed me all the naked women.8 It was there that he showed me Adam and Eve. Both had fig leaves over their parts which looked like aprons to me. The man said to me: "Sure, you

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know what's behind those leaves/ ' That man was doubtless either a homosexual or a bisexual.

Now he is disgusted by all homosexuals. He claims he could never touch a man's penis again, let alone put one in his mouth. As a proof of this he relates a tale about an obese innkeeper who wanted to lead him astray, but the ' 'low devil" wasn't sue- cessful.

He says that during a coughing seizure, he has an obsessional thought which aids him in overcoming the attack. He must think repeatedly : "They're all forgotten !" Sometimes he even says this magic formula aloud.

In other words, we can see that he struggles against the memories of fellatio and must keep trying to convince himself that "they're all forgotten."

Another remarkable dream.

I saw a man down in a deep well in danger of his life. There was one person, however, who was giving him to eat and drink and thus saving him from hunger. Finally, one day, he was liberated from his living death by being hauled out with a rope. He half helped himself out.

The dream seems to have been interminable. I saw this man suffering, how they fed him and gave him water, and then the saving scene which also lasted very long.

The functional interpretation of the dream is quite clear. There lives in his breast a "better ego" which has never suc- cumbed. It has secretly been kept alive, it is the anagogic ego (Silberer) which will soon be saved. I am to liberate him from the deep well of his parapathia, and he will help along. The deep well is a symbol of his soul.9

The man in the deep well reminds him of a laborer in Trieste: Tiberio. He was an ex-athlete with a wonderfully herculean figure. He was very much feared because, although everybody knew that he was a thief, no one could do anything about it. But — his associations halt, as they always do when he begins to talk about theft.

Then he confesses that Tiberio quite attracted him. He had often wondered how big his penis might be. This reveals a

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

second meaning of the dream : the homosexual component of his life will gradually see the light of day. There follow sev- eral corroborations of his interest in the bodies of handsome men.

He had a bad night. He coughed so badly that his wife said to him : "I believe you must have the whooping cough." That reminded him of the fact that he had had a severe case of whooping cough when he was six. His mother had been touching and tender with him, got up innumerable times in the night, gave him tea to drink (see the dream about the colts- foot tea), took him to bed with her, and often soothed him by means of that old and never-failing method : she played with his penis.

His asthma and coughing spells may thus be conceived as the expression of a wish to have his mother repeat those old and pleasant performances.

His mother is still alive, but he seldom writes to her. He is angry with her without, however, knowing precisely what his deeper reasons are. He thinks it is all because she often beat him.

He dreamed:

I am again on the breakwater at Trieste and watch the play of the waves in the sea. It is just before my departure. A funeral passes by. Some persons near by talk as if the King of Greece had succumbed to the grave battles.

The interpretation is not at all difficult. His condition should die and be buried. He cannot stand the grave battles of the analysis very much longer. The word king reminds him of the fact that his name is Constantine and that he uses the word constant or constantly whenever he can possibly fit it in. It is simply because he is constantly thinking of certain infantile scenes.

He also thinks of the time when his elder son was suffering from an angina and he had thought to himself : if he dies, then . . .

He recalls a playmate who died of diphtheria (at eight) . He choked because the inflammation stopped up his windpipe. He himself suffers from a fear of choking on a bit of mucus in

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the throat (fellatio phantasy?). He tells me that a short time ago a prostitute in Vienna was reported to have choked in the act of fellatio.

He had formerly tried always to have intercourse every eve- ning because he believed that that would insure him a com- fortable and restful night. But at the moment that his penis began to get soft, his throat would begin to tickle him. This tickling sensation would increase until, late at night, it would break out into a cough. Yesterday was the first time in two years that he tried to have intercourse, and afterwards he again had that unbearable tickling sensation in the throat. (It is un- questionably a fellatio phantasy which appears softly at first only to increase in clarity and boldness in the course of several hours. Perhaps based on criminal impulses against his wife. Strangling? The latter suspicion was naturally not commu- nicated to him, and he himself came upon the first interpreta- tion. )

Unexpectedly, he begins to talk of the time when he was being nursed. He was not weaned from his mother's breast until very late, and claims that he was nursed for two years (he had told me that he often calls for warm milk in the coughing attack because this may stop it promptly) . Those old days have never been forgotten. Whenever he sees a woman nursing a child at her breast, he envies the nursling. He had even suckled at the breast of his wife occasionally when she was nursing their children. He got a great deal of pleasure out of doing it. He is an "eternal baby" and his fellatio phantasies are nothing but the substitute for the breast in the male.

His asthmatic attacks first appeared in Salzburg after a sleep- less night. He had accidentally seen a woman there who very much resembled his mother. He had also visited the pontifical palace, where they told him tales about the horrible tortures car- ried out there in the olden days. After that he went to the cinema, as already mentioned. He had harbored death wishes against his family and had thought that if he were free he would live with his mother again in Munich. It is only now that this has become at all clear to him.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

He is subject to fits of anger. He had once fallen upon his sister with a butcher knife and wanted to stab her.

He thinks he has a too narrow oesophagus and that bits of food get stuck occasionally after he swallows them (displace- ment from below upwards. He will probably come to speak of anal things soon). In a restaurant he is always unnerved when any men watch him eat. He must turn his head to the left (the homosexual side), and then he feels better. From eating he comes upon cunnilingus. He frequently practises this, too ; pre- fers sixty-nine, however (cunnilingus combined with fellatio).

To-day he feels as if something is sticking in his throat.

"What can it be?"

"A worm. As a little boy, I once vomited up a big worm. I'm terribly afraid of tape-worms. I once heard that they are several yards long and can be pulled out of the anus like a rope. Terrible ! Now I remember that last night I had an obsession on the number 1889, and had to keep repeating it over and over.,,

I ask him about associations on this number and he first re- produces the fact that he was eight or nine years old when that fellow in the house played with his penis. He states that he slept in bed with him.

He becomes very excited.

"Something must have happened at that time. Now I've got a frightful itching in the rectum as if I had a worm there. I think he tried to put his penis into my anus. I yelped. I was half asleep. I recall it only dimly; more as a feeling than as an actual memory. . .

His thoughts turn to blood. He can't look at it. A bloody butcher's apron disgusts him thoroughly. He could vomit at the sight of one and has the shivers. He is nevertheless at- tracted by the butcher boys, and has often had to put down the temptation to steal their aprons.

"How did you get from that fellow in the house to the butcher's?"

"Well, I left out something which I was ashamed to say. I mentioned something about cunnilingus, but I was loathe to tell you that I liked to do it especially during the woman's men-

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strual period. That was what really got me to talking about blood. That man in the house once made an apron bloody after having killed a chicken."

He has no knowledge of the cause of his fits of temper.

He brings me two more dreams :

1. It appears that I wanted to masturbate again, for I find myself in a cellar and was getting things ready; but I couldn't complete my intentions because the wash house across the way was full. The women in there had on pantalets, and they were washing dirty clothes. I looked for the store-room, but it seems that I was in someone's company for I gave orders for seating the company. Then I awoke with a strong erection and an un- bearable tickling in the throat which ended in a protracted fit of coughing.

Then I fell asleep again and had the following dream :

2. I went with a company of my friends to a ball and car- ried a cushion on my arm. Arrived there, we all seated our- selves and I said : "Sorry, but I must get back to my wife and my company." I found them all in the company of my younger brother-in-law whom I greeted curtly and coolly. My wife was sitting on the outside row and my mother with many relatives on the inside row. My mother said to me : "Have you greeted your uncle B. and aunt V. ?" I said softly to myself : "Cousin here and auntie there, uncle here and brother-in-law there," and felt uncomfortable in this crowd. I made a few paradoxical remarks and looked for a back seat. After a while I said to my wife: "Come on. Let's get away from this bunch."

This dream if of paramount significance because it will help us to arrive at the specific phantasy behind his onanistic habits. He wants to masturbate, but the women in pantalets disturb him. That already expresses the bisexual nature of his char- ( acter. We also note that the onanism has something to do with washing. The continuation of the dream in the following sec- tion shows that there are connections with his mother who sits in the innermost circle of his heart, whereas his wife gets one of the outside seats. His mother had been devoted to all her relatives and dedicated herself to them as to a cult. He, how- ever, was so fixated upon her that he wanted her for himself

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 35

alone. He always was cold towards the relatives because of this jealousy, and his attitude frequently brought him beatings which only increased his hatred. His most hated object was his mother's brother-in-law who is here supplanted by his wife's brother-in-law. His mother's brother-in-law had sent him to work when he was a boy, only in order that the patient might not be in the way of the amorous affairs. That was what the boy suspected, at any rate, when he once caught the brother-in- law kissing his mother. He told his father about it and re- ceived for these "lies" — more beatings. Ever since then that brother-in-law dislikes the patient and the latter despises him with an indescribable venom.

The cause of his fits of anger was the jealousy of the moth- er's brother-in-law and all the other relatives. That was also the basis of his hatred of his sister whom he wished to stab to death.

The following day he comes in with some more important dreams.

Mr. B. made some new suggestions which made it possible to continue our Trieste branch throughout the rest of the war without loss. He claimed that he already had considerable orders for transport, and that I could go back.

I looked the orders over and was able to corroborate the fact that there would be much work, but that there could be no talk of our getting any money out of it. The orders were from the chemical and pharmaceutical firm of J. S. in Trieste, and they were well known to have shopped from one agent to another until they had forced the costs down to bed-rock.

In addition to that, the orders were for pharmaceutical prepa- rations, the export of which was forbidden, and the transpor- tation could thus be carried through only under false mani- fests. Moreover, most of the shipments were destined for Italy (Verona and Milan), i.e., for our enemies in the war. The result would probably be plenty of trouble.

He then related the following :

"After I awoke from that dream, I recalled the following business deal we had last year. There was a middleman in Trieste who had formerly been a profiteer in groceries, and he

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gave us an order to clear two carloads of farinaceous goods in Italy and bring them to Trieste.

"The carloads of stuff came into Trieste shortly after each other. They were taxed, and then, after a regular procedure of payment of freight, taxes, incidentals, etc., were regularly put on our books. Shortly thereafter, the ministry of the in- terior sent out a notice to the effect that all wheat, flour and wheat or flour products could be imported free of duty and that the notice was retroactively effective down to a certain date.

"Now, our tariff manager found out that one of those car- loads that we had brought in for that middleman could be brought under the new ruling with the result that the tariff could be demanded in rebate. I reported the fact to Mr. B. and he said that would net us a neat piece of business, if the others didn't find out.

"The tariff bill was dug up, sent back to the department of the interior and the money was actually returned to us. But Mr. B. didn't want to return the money to the middleman be- cause the latter had not thought of the matter himself and had also gained a profiteer's price for the goods anyway. Instead, he divided the booty between himself, the tariff manager and me, with the condition that if the money should some day be demanded back, we were to return the spoils.

"I couldn't put this memory out of my mind for about an hour or two. Then I thought again, as I had often done be- fore, of settling in Syria, Beirut, Jaffa, and the pictures I had seen of these cities and places passed before my mind. My mind then went on to the King of Greece, who has been able to keep out of all the treacherous nets laid for him without losing his independence or disturbing the peace of the land.

"Parallels with my own life arose before me and I thought of how I, too. might preserve my independence."

We know already that he was disconsolate at leaving the pretty city of Trieste and the sea. Vienna is too far inland for him. The Danube is too far away from where he lives. This dream affords us an interpretation of the first dream he had in which he was handcuffed.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

He is a scrupulously honest man and has nevertheless been a party to a shady deal. Together with his friend B., who is a light-headed "skirt chaser" and gambler, he pocketed the un- deserved tariff rebate. His general mental condition and his shyness have been much more marked since that experience. He is beginning to realize that his transfer from Trieste to Vienna was not so unmotivated as he had thought, especially since B. was dropped from the firm.

He would like best of all to confess to the whole affair, but he is afraid that that would cost him his position. His suicidal ideas are thus objectively founded.

It is even more interesting to learn that he took the money in order to give it away as alms. This is a motive which we observed in the cases of kleptomania. His motive had to do with the enhancement of his egoistic feeling through giving to others (depreciating them) ; they are then in the position of receivers and must be thankful (a feeling he cannot produce in himself).

In short, our suspicion that there were real criminal factors present is found to be objectively true.

Discussion of this point and his confessions visibly eased him. He said that he would never do such a thing again and intended to send the money back to the other firm anonymously in order to make good the fraud.

His butcher phantasies become more and more noticeable. He dreams :

I was looking for some butter, but got into a butcher shop. There I found a big ball of butter which was half a tub full. My wife thought I had made a mistake, that it was not butter, but margarine. She was leaving me; I gave her ten crowns, but she put her hand in my pocket for more and said : "Let me touch it." I wanted to convince myself whether it were butter or not. I saw the ball lying on the block. It was margarine.

He had kept that occurrence in Trieste a secret from his wife (there seem to have been several such incidents). He is the false one. He is the margarine. But his chief and his wife had believed that he was as pure as butter.

He cannot explain the fact that butter is sold in a butcher

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shop. How did he ever get into that meat store? That must have something to do with his aprons.

Suddenly he recalls the fact that he witnessed the so-called butcher's ride in Munich every year. The young butcher's ap- prentices would come riding on horses up to a big fountain, pull hides over their heads, jump in and then come out all wet (see the fountain dream).

He is full of sadistic phantasies and memories. Once when he was about five or six, he threw a cat from the fourth floor of a house to the earth. She was alive, but he afterwards ran down and continued to torture her frightfully. He lived for days in the books of Karl May and his Indian tales (Karl May is Germany's Wild West author — Trans.). In his dreams, he killed or disposed of all his enemies. In Trieste, he was thrilled whenever scorpions were stuck on needles and burned.

He frequently recalls a fourfold murder and robbery which occurred in Salmdorf. Four women were murdered. He also talks of other murders or robberies which he can remember from the papers.

Up to his tenth year he himself wore an apron.

At twenty-two, he was a witness to the suicide of a mentally disordered person who had thrown himself to the pavement and lay there crushed, stone dead (compare with the dream about Dr. Stekel throwing himself out the window). He ran away from the scene in fright. He can never give aid at a moment when quick action is necessary.

In dreams which I have failed to mention, the word Ariel seemed to dog him obsessionally. The word has relations with his criminal fraud. He had also had sexual relations with a friend named Aurel when he was about twelve or fourteen. His sister-in-law provokes him sexually, and that is also one of the grounds for his jealousy of his brother-in-law. He feels sensually excited whenever she chooses to call him "brother." Recalls baker's helpers (at seven) who were half stripped and wore aprons.

Then he remembers the incidence of his paraphilia. He was twelve. He filled a tub with water, pulled off his pants, got into the tub and made rocking motions. The first time, he only

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 39

ducked his buttocks, and only after his sister became pregnant did he begin to get his belly wet, too. When he was four, his parents took him along to a vaudeville show where he saw a Hindu belly dancer who made quite an impression on him. Had the desire to become a belly dancer himself.

He liked to watch his sister nurse her child and envied the little one.

Likes to hear of murders and crimes, reads the court room notices and the murder stories in the paper before anything else. He was animated by the story of Jack the Ripper to an unusual degree and likes to read about his escapades even to- day. Once he slit open one of his sister's bathing suits and then masturbated through the slit (with the phantasy of a ripped-open woman). Whenever his aprons were useless, he would gleefully tear them in two; this always gave him an erection.

That may also explain the fascinating effect of the color red upon him. Once saw a palatable-looking cook in the kitchen of a restaurant; she had on a red dress with a white apron and he became sexually excited. Usually, however, white aprons leave him cold.

Dirty aprons do not interest him, but rather repel him if they are worn by elderly women (mother?).

Here he began to cough hackingly, his ideas began to be flighty and he was unable to say anything coherent.

Just before falling asleep, he had a hypnagogic picture : An open mouth and the number ten (teeth). He connects the pic- ture with the phantasy of fellatio (he is in a state of strong transference; he wanted to call me up in the night to have me come to see him because he felt so badly).

In Trieste he had seen pictures of orgies which had provoked him sensually. The naked men with their naked phalluses had particularly claimed his interest. Pictures of naked women usually make no impression on him.

He offers me a resume of his anxious states. He is afraid that he may fall or that he may drop out of a window. He never goes into the upper balconies of the theatre because he is afraid to look down. He is afraid to walk alone, to go into

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dark streets or alleys, afraid of burglars (even carries a loaded pistol). He feels uncomfortable when anyone walks behind him. Three times, he has already run for fear of men being behind him. Often hears noises at night, but hasn't the nerve to get up and find out what the cause of the noises may be. He is still a baby in every respect.

He produced the following dream :

I am sitting at table with my family. A cake is served which has a poisonous green color. I say : "That can't be eaten," and my wife replied: "Certainly it can. It's all right." My boy tried it first and changed color. The other children also change color. They've all tasted the cake. Even my wife begins to choke and vomit. I cry to her: "It's not my fault! You brought the cake home !"

He is patently struggling against his own murderous thoughts. He would like to poison his family. He keeps cor- rosive sublimate (under a death's head seal) at home, and trem- bles every time he gives his wife or children an aspirin tablet for fear that he may have made a mistake in the tablets.

He is also afraid that the gas might leak out of the kitchen some time, and frequently looks after each of the gas jets on the stove before going to bed (manifest wishes to kill the fam- ily by gas).

He begins to recognize the marked vein of homosexuality in him and now confesses that he is really more attracted by men in aprons than by women. His first apron loves were butcher boys in their bloody store aprons.

Suddenly he produces an important bit of information. It was at an uncle of his in S., the birthplace of his parents. From the back of the house, one could see into the courtyard of a butcher's establishment. He would often watch how they slaughtered the hogs and made the sausages (see the dream about all the relatives and about uncle and cousin B ) . He was about four to six years old at the time. He also recalls that he was about the same age when he saw that cook with the red dress and the white apron. The innkeeper of that restaurant was also a butcher and slaughtered his hogs and calves himself.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 41

When he is on the street, his eyes seem to see only aprons. At the present time, he is primarily attracted by blue ones. He is fleeing from his blood complex. That is why he has now become so sensitive about butcher's bloody aprons. He cannot look at blood, red sausages or rare roast beef. He cannot look at raw, chopped meat because he afterwards loses his appetite.

When he goes to the barber's, he becomes anxious that the razor might cut his throat. He therefore shaves himself. He cannot watch chickens or squabs have their necks wrung. There are times when he cannot touch meat, and has frequently tried to become a vegetarian, but the doctors always advised him to take to meat again for the sake of his weak lungs. As a boy, he had liked to walk in the cemetery, particularly the one near where his uncle lived. Now, however, he cannot bring himself inside the gate of a cemetery nor can he look calmly at a funeral (see the dream about the funeral in Trieste). It would be absolutely impossible for him to look at a cadaver (nekrophilia?). But as a boy, he had liked to run after the funeral processions and would even visit the biers of the de- ceased whenever he could.

During her pregnancy, he used to press his wife so strongly to his bosom that she would cry out : "Alfred, take care ! The child !" He knows that he wanted to kill the child in the womb. It was only a vague feeling during the first pregnancy, but it became quite clear to him during the second one. The second child suffered from an intestinal catarrh and he had "sympathy" with it. He hoped that it would die and be liberated from its suffering. He even harbored the secret thought of strangling it. The tickling in his throat became worse after that.

He is again potent with his wife, and was observing himself during coitus yesterday. He prods with all his might and feels as if he is in a sort of dreamy state. The penis, in other words, becomes a sort of knife or dagger for him. He phantasies that he is slitting his wife's belly open. He now recognizes the criminal nature of many of his thoughts and says : "How shall I free myself from these pathological ideas? Such notions look to me like old mummies."

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He was told that mummies frequently crumble as soon as they are brought to the light of day, and this visibly disturbs him.

Yesterday he saw a butcher wagon and had to fight himself to keep from vomiting. He tells me that that was very un- pleasant because at the moment he was caressing a very pleasant memory. When he was ten years old, he fell in love with a charming little blonde. The girl wore a lovely little cream- colored apron. He ran after her wherever he could and tried to be friends with her. She was sent to a piano school and he began to make so much noise about it at home that they finally had to send him there, too. It was during that summer that he once went fishing and got his pants wet. He became so sexually excited over this experience that he quite forgot about the girl.

It was, of course, no real infatuation, because he claims that he was in love only once in his life, and that was with his friend Otto, who got him acquainted with Hedwig. Nevertheless, he was quite precocious and had a girl as early as five years to whom he remained faithful until he was seven. As a boy, how- ever, he was interested in the penis of men more than in any- thing else. At four he would always run to watch the boys urinate in the courtyard behind the house. One of the neigh- bors with a very large penis caught his eye and he would always run to the window to see whether that man would come again.

He had another dream :

There was another raise in the restaurant and saloon prices. The raise was on lager beer. Just as if a child were being laid upon the doorstep. But one dare not press it too tightly ; noth- ing must happen. . . .

He is afraid of another pregnancy of his wife whom he rep- resents as lager beer. His house is the restaurant and saloon business. Thought of choking the new-born child because he could not satisfactorily keep it.

He confesses to a hitherto hidden paraphilia which derives from his infantilistic character. He has noticed with fright that small children interest him, especially when they are drop-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

ping their excrements. He made fun of himself for this in- terest, but he became annoyed whenever he saw children in such short dresses that he was able to see most of their bodies. "But," he says, "I looked at them despite my moral revulsion." He likes to watch the eight-month-old baby of his sister-in- law. The genitals are what attract him there. A few weeks ago he saw a little youngster defecating in a side street. He stopped and watched the boy with great interest, although he was irritated with himself for having done so.

And now the various expressions of his infantilistic nature begin to appear. The urine and anal sexuality of his children begin to take up his mind, and he also dwells upon these habits in his own childhood. In reality, he has preserved a good deal of his youth up to date. He has begun to watch animals with application : urinating or copulating dogs and cats. He derives sexual excitement from the show. He often feels as if he him- self were a dog.

A week passes with nothing but resistances in the air. He presents me with the opinions of opponents of analysis, declares that he is all through with the material, denies that there is any such thing as a transference and tries to make a laughingstock of the whole thing. Although I am very much interested in his analysis, I tell him that the analysis is over for the reason that he insinuates that analysts like to wring as much as they can from their patients (I must advise my analytical colleagues that they should never show their patients that the analysis is of too great moment to them. I recommend that they take on their patients conditionally, i.e., as long as there is a prospect of get- ting results). In short, I told him that he was free to leave the analysis on the spot if he wished, that further trial was useless in view of his resistances. But only because of his resistance.

The following day he returned full of regret. He knew full well that it was only because he wanted to say nothing about his relation to his mother. He feels altogether upset, states that he wants to remain what he has been and yet wants to get well. It appears that he cannot give up his taste for aprons. He is ruthless and soft-hearted at the same time. Just before the analysis began, he had had a scene with his wife and as he

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was about to say something nasty to her, he was overcome with sobs and fell into a fit of tears. He may be sadistic, but not at bottom. His mother is the one who made him bad, he says. He was nothing but the servant, the errand boy, at home. He had to run for milk, for beer, for tobacco and cigarettes, run to the store, get this, get that, go to the relatives, tell them this, tell them that, etc., etc. And always the beatings. Once some- one's watch showed one of the hands missing. He was to blame, of course. He swore and protested that he had not touched the watch, but it did him no good. He was told that he was a hopeless sinner who would end on the gallows. "I didn't do it," he cried, but he was kicked and trampled under foot and then beaten so mercilessly with the poker that he fell in a faint. They even threw some of the kindling wood after him at times. But the worst of it was that he would always have to beg their pardon after the beatings, otherwise they would torture him all the more. He was forbidden to play with the other children, and often looked yearningly out the window at the others playing in the yard or the street while he had chores to do in the house. His schoolmates used to laugh at him whenever he went by with his market bag. Hardly had he stopped to exchange a word with them, but he would hear the shrill voice of his mother: "Al-fred!" That "Al-fred!" rings in his ears to this day. The boys used to yell it after him in school.

The apron was the sign of his disgrace. He always wore it whenever he went to the store or worked in the house. He was really a housemaid and identifies himself with such a maid. Moreover, mother always had a stick hidden behind her own apron, and that stick would suddenly be whisked forth to be- labor him, even when he had done nothing to call down her wrath.

He portrayed some further experiences of his martyrdom, and I must say that they approached the severity of the heart- rending child tortures which only Dickens knew so well how to describe. This patient's upbringing was the richest garden earth for the cultivation of a sadist and criminal. It is a mark of his excellent constitution and character that, instead, he has developed a Christ neurosis.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 45

He dreamed :

I took an automobile ride without telling anyone at home about it. When I got home, my mother yelled at me and threat- ened me with the stick: "Where have you been." "What do you want, anyhow?" I replied : "I'm an adult already." I then gave her a long sermon.

It is manifest that he is still battling with the ghost of his mother. The auto ride indicates his autoerotism. He mas- turbates with thoughts of his mother. He has never dared tell her the truth, but in the dream he finds the nerve to preach to her on punishment. Curiously enough, he has never blamed her for anything since he has reached maturity. He had never become conscious of his lamentable childhood until the analysis had plowed up the heartless acts of his mother. He had an- nulled them all and wanted to forget them. That is why he became resistive in the analysis just before the true picture of his mother was to appear.

The analysis of this dream lasted about a week, but the ef- forts were richly paid for by the results. We learn that the patient was an enuretic in his childhood and that that was why his mother had beaten him. Wetting the bed was connected with definite feelings of pleasure. He felt fine lying in the warm, wet, steaming sheets ; but his mother flew like a fury into this beautiful world of tropical warmth and dreams. She laid him on the cold, hard floor, so that he might not ruin any more sheets, and there he froze pitifully.

His mother also intruded upon his first period of masturba- tion which now begins to crawl gradually from out of the well of repression. The dream becomes understandable when we know that he used to masturbate in the toilet, and that his mother used to ask him always why he took so long. She for- bade him to hold his hands under the quilt. He hated his mother because she deprived him of every form of pleasure without offering him any substitutes.

His paraphilia is also an obstinate attitude towards the mother. Now that he has grown up, he can do what he pleases. Now he'll masturbate all he wants! In many cases, we shall find that the root of the hatred of the patient against the par- ents is the parents' forbiddance of the onanism.

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Our patient never blamed his mother for her sadistic atti- tude in beating or punishing him. He suffered it all in quiet. Even as an adult, he had nothing to say against her. He often wanted to speak of the mistakes she made in his rearing, but became sympathetic at the thought of her and kept quiet. Should he really be thankful to her? Did he really receive her kisses, after all?

In this dream, he finally settles with her. Unfortunately by morning he had forgotten the contents of that long sermon. All this analytical work he carried out without my aid. He feels that he does not want to blame or depreciate his mother any further.

Dream :

I had a terrible quarrel with my sister because she butted into my affairs and said something against my wife. I yelled at her: "Mind your son and leave me alone!"

He awoke with a frightful tickling in the throat and itching of the glans penis. It is clear that in this dream memories of his sister announce themselves. She had also played with him when he was a child, as it seems. She represented his mother and he was her doll. She always put him on the pot and often took him to bed.

There follow various memories of his sister which only cor- roborate his fixation.

He dreams :

I see large letters : S. . . . T. . . . T. N. In the night he had had the fleeting thought : Stekel — trust — not.

He resists the communication of the following material. He offers the opinion that his parapathia is due to some organic cause. His mother had told him that his birth was a very diffi- cult one. He also fell out of the carriage as a baby and can show a scar on his head to this day.

When I insisted that his condition was due to psychic causes he paused for a moment and then said :

"I never mentioned to you that I watched my mother once very carefully while she was going through a pregnancy. I

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

was about six years old. She always wore an apron and was constantly looking to see that the apron was tied on straight be- cause we had a roomer who watched her and laughed at her. He kept repeating that one could see the tree growing through the apron. I was very jealous of him." "Why were you jealous?"

"Because my mother was very nice to him and frequently was alone with him in a room. I suspected that they had some- thing sexual to do in there."

"What happened to that child that was born after you?"

"It died at birth. I never saw it." (Pause.) "I think that my mother must have killed it because she didn't want to have any more children. The whole thing doesn't seem right to me."

He feels considerably relieved and improved. He no longer shows that "go-getter" spirit, nor does he feel impelled to run after aprons and pregnant women. He feels as if he had been liberated from some duress.

He says that the apron appeals to him as something holy, as a relic. An apron can move him to tears. Everything good that he experienced with his mother seems to be expressed in an apron.

Here we see the bipolar attitude towards his mother. I ask him what good he had ever experienced at the hands of his mother.

He is quiet for a moment and then he says : "I had a most curious dream last night."

"I heard a voice saying: 'Mother has it — mother can do it/ Then numbers seemed to appear before me : 408 or 802 or per- haps 208. Mother said to me : 'I can shine your shoes better than you and your wife, for I use a fatty shine polish.' "

His associations on the dream are the numbers 12 (4 plus 8) and 10 (8 plus 2). The association on shoe shining was mas- turbation.

It was with some resistance that he divulged the phantasy he had had of his mother playing with his penis ; once when he was ten and once when he was twelve. He was then lying next to her in bed. He had masturbated lying there and had thought of her. In his attack of whooping cough, he was always

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soothed by her playing with his genital. The apron is thus the symbolization of the good mother who plays with his penis.

The following day he brought me these notes which I shall reproduce in his own words.

My Love for Aprons and its Explanation.

"I loved my mother eternally, despite her harshness and cruelty towards me, and I suppose that I love her still with un- diminished tenderness. I await her letters with great expecta- tion and tremble as I open them. Almost any hour, I can catch myself phantasy ing that I am speaking with her, or that I am in her company. I count the days before the next letter comes, and I would gladly throw up everything and travel to where she is if she were ill or needed me. The love I bear my mother — to-day — is but a fragment of that tremendous child's love which filled every moment of my former life. Now there is too much hate and bitterness in it.

My love is not normal, it is disturbed, the stream is diverted. All my love has fled to aprons, they are my ideal; something grand and holy. They have absorbed all the old and ardent love which I gave my mother.

"What with aprons about me, I cannot offer my mother the love which is due her. I feel very near to her, I like to speak with her, but when she touches me I am filled with revulsion and disgust. It is a sort of negative electricity.

"I can explain this transformation of feeling only as follows : I was always the object of beatings, but between eight and twelve years of age I suffered these beatings at the instigation of that brother-in-law of hers. I hated him and he knew it; he knew, too, that I understood the nature of his relationships with my mother. No one took the slightest notice of either my physical or emotional condition.

"There was one beating especially that I can never forget, and not a day goes by, but that I think of it at least once.

"It is through this sort of unjust punishment that my mother tore my love for her from my heart. On the other hand, I was not capable of giving her up so easily and transferring my af- fections to someone else. And that is how my love for my mother chose the path which led through the medium of the

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

apron. The apron became my fetish, my ideal, my tyrant, the object which so tortures and mortifies me. I am now become the most unhappy and incompetent of men. My bashfulness, inferiority, reticence, all my confused states derive from this one source.

' 'More. I have proof for this pathological mother love. I always searched for some substitute for my mother. I have already mentioned that inn in Ala. They had two daughters, the younger of whom was lovely, pretty, good-natured, cheer- ful, friendly; but the elder of them was sour, repulsive, morose and devoid of any charms or virtues. Although, now, the younger one naturally attracted me more than the other, I asked the elder if I might not call her mother. She refused to help me and the result was that I returned again to my confusing habits. There was no other way out for me.

"I should also like to say something more about the apron masturbation. I was not satisfied simply with tying on the whole apron. I wanted something more. What I really de- sired was to bind and clothe my whole body. I desired to bind myself in such a manner that my arms and legs also would be clamped. That would force me to masturbate by moving and rubbing my belly, like a snake (this is a manifest revival of a nursling phantasy ; he is swaddled in diapers and achieves grati- fication by rocking movements as Henoch first described. It is also a memory of the belly dancer). I was not able to execute this act, however, for I might have been surprised at any mo- ment. In that event, I should not have had time to release my- self, whereas it was always possible for me to take off an apron or a sack quickly. Nevertheless, I always tied my knees tightly together. I think that as a baby, they swaddled my knees well, and now I tie myself just as if I were bandaging my knees. It is also possible that my mother was in the habit of touching my bottom, for I have observed her in the care of other children (my nephew, for example), and have noticed that she fre- quently coddled the child underneath the diapers. She would run her hand over the pubic region, rub its genitals, and that would please the baby greatly. From that I judge that she did the same to me in the crib and when I was in diapers."

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Aprons seem to have lost their attraction for him. He feels rather shamed, as if he were attached to patently childish habits. He had another very important dream.

I was in my apartment when the potter or repair man came and repaired the hearth in the living room. When he was through with that, he went into the next room and, with the aid of some other workmen, dismantled the stove in there, although it was in good condition and I had not asked that it be repaired. Without regard for the furniture in the room, they let the parts fall upon the sofa which was standing near by. When I pro- tested, they said the landlord demanded that it be done. The landlord was also present in the room, although I had not ex- changed a word with him.

Later, I discovered that one of the walls in the living room seemed loose, it looked as if it were slanting, the paper on the wall hung away and it appeared that the wall might cave in at any moment. I also discovered a hole in the carpet. Despite all these uncomfortable conditions, however, I did not leave the apartment, nor did I have the desire to do so. I even re- ceived visitors, although I can remember that part of the dream only vaguely.

He expresses his dissatisfaction with the analysis in this dream. His fetishism is compared with a warm stove. He feels that I have overstepped the bounds of my position. After all, what he came for was to get rid of his anxiety and regain his potency. What a poor repair man I am ! I am destroying the finest part of his paraphilia (the stove). I'm paying no attention to the protests of his inner soul. But, not only the stove, the whole house threatens to crash about him. Is the whole structure which he so carefully erected to be destroyed? And then there is that large hole through which he may con- veniently peer into his own spirit. And still he refuses to give up the paraphilia (his home). He arranges himself as com- fortably as he can, new ideas are added (he even receives visitors).

The next dream leads us even deeper into the riddle of his parapathia. This is a so-called key dream.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

I was in a theatre at a special performance. They gave "Faust." In the royal box in the corner at the right, almost against the wall, I saw the "queen" with a large, high crown on her head ; the crown seemed almost askew or cocked on her head. At the left, in the same box, I saw the "prince regent" ; in order to see him well, I had to bend forward in my seat somewhat.

The royal pair were to be given an ovation, and I saw a man in full dress approaching the box. Arrived there, he presented himself dressed in a large white apron, and I thought to myself : how does this baker get in here?

I recognized in the person of this baker, however, the proprietor of a landscape gardening establishment in Trieste. He was a member of a male choir which called itself "German."

Suddenly I also heard Italian being spoken in the gallery. I looked about and noticed two girls who were dressed alike in red checked dresses. They were playing with a young wild beast (lion?), and were constantly pushing it hither and thither.

It seems that I felt the preparations for the ovation were last- ing too long, for I went out to get something. As I went out, I noticed that the wild beast ran after me. In order to shake the animal from my heels, I made a wide detour and actually got rid of it.

I passed a bakery shop and noticed a sign in the window adver- tising a special kind of corn bread.

I went in to buy the bread, but an old woman told me that it was sold out. When I asked for another kind of bread, I also received a negative answer. I then looked about in the shop and noticed a few rolls in one of the glass show cases. Upon my asking whether I could have those, the woman answered yes, and I bought them. Then I saw a piece of coffee cake and bought that, too. When I came to pay, she mentioned the figure 5.237 and I found it too high. I asked for a detailed account and received the following figures: 4.22; .71; .93. When she said 4.22, I asked her how she came by that high figure. She said she had made a mistake and changed it to 2.23. I figured and figured, but couldn't get the right total. I had already scribbled a whole sheet of paper full of numbers before I arrived at the total of 7.1 1. But even that wasn't correct, and after some more calculation, I got the sum of 5.1 1 which was the final amount. As I was about to leave the shop, I noticed still another piece of bread lying there; fine, puffy, bread with large holes in it. At that moment, the baker

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himself walked into the shop and I told him my wishes and the negative result. The baker also saw the piece of bread lying there and wanted to hide it as quickly as he could. I noticed his inten- tion and said : "Oh, let it lie there : I've already seen it. It makes no difference to me. You may have had it reserved for some one."

Then I went out of the shop. It was raining. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 7 o'clock. Hang it ! Now I've missed the better part of the performance, especially the part with Mar- garet and those fine monologues of "Faust."

Here I awakened in a bath of perspiration, and got a fearful tickling in the throat with a subsequent attack of coughing. About an hour later, I fell asleep again.

We recall the first dream he had about the prima donna. In this dream, he repeats the same theme with a slight variation. The chief member of the audience here is the mother (queen). Indeed, her diadem sits somewhat askew on her head, but this is simply the first bit of depreciation in the dream. He must bend himself (bow) somewhat in order to see the prince regent (father and father images). We know, also, that he had wit- nessed his parents during intercourse. The ovation is to be introduced by a man in a black full dress who also wears a large white apron. He recognizes this man as a "German." This name reminds him of the name of his hated rival, that brother- in-law (Schermann) who apparently represents the king here and appears as the prince regent. He is, in short, doubly repre- sented— once as the man he is and again as the representative of the honoring public.

The two girls with the lion represent both the children of his parents, i.e., himself and his sister. He thus appears in a female role, but the lion is a symbolization of his restrained virility, his aggressive tendencies. He desires to be rid of the animal in him, the lion, and flees. We recall that he left Munich because he could no longer stand it there. The baker is his rival, the brother-in-law. The bakeshop is his mother. He can no longer get any love (the corn bread that was so de- sirable during the war). The bake woman only has a few rolls left. She certainly had his father well rolled up. The rolls are in a glass show case where everyone can see them; only his father could not notice.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

And now we come to those mysterious numbers which re- mind us of his other dream with numerals. In the other dream he presented the figures 208 and 802. 422 is the same, since 4 times 2 is 8 and that makes 82. 71 also discloses the number 8 in 7 plus 1, but the number 93 is still a puzzle. He notices, however, that the baker still has bread. He has seen something ("I have already seen it"). We know that the play in the first dream was also " Faust," but this dream becomes clearer when we learn that his mother's name was Margaret.

He analyzes on the numbers for a few days, and it soon ap- pears that they all have something to do with birthdates of his family members. The most important factor is yet to be told, however. He is not sure whether he has mentioned it to me already or not, but he is sure that he witnessed a coitus scene between his mother and her brother-in-law. One day in the summer — it was in August — he came home somewhat early and heard a suspicious noise. He saw his mother performing fel- latio on the brother-in-law and he performing cunnilingus on his mother. He also remembers the date now. It was the 2 August (8), 1893. He was born in 1887 and was thus seven years old at the time. His birthday is the 2 September (11), and that of his mother the 22 March (3), or 223.

This date engraved itself forever on his mind. He hated the uncle who robbed him of his mother's love. It was on that critical day that he made use of his well-known weapon. He coughed in order to make his presence known. His mother quickly stopped the love scene and, at the express command of the brother-in-law, who claimed that he had left the store too early, he was severely punished. The brother-in-law was not a baker, but he had a pastry shop and also sold bread and rolls, which Alfred, of course, had to deliver. And now we under- stand the basis of his resistances. He had always known of this scene, but he believes that he actually told me about it. His first tales, however, were either phantasies or screen memories.

He dreamed again.

I was on the way home (at night) and was carrying a chair of a writing desk set before me. I was nearly at the door of the house when I saw a man go in before me and soon after

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come right out again. He had no hat on and it appeared that he had no key with which to go in again, and was therefore waiting for me.

At the moment that I arrived in front of the door, I noticed a woman, dressed in a hat and jacket, appear at my side ; and before I could realize or notice who she was, I felt myself seized upon by her and grasped by the throat. I could not free myself immediately and began to yell for my wife, who ran out and helped to liberate me.

Then I wanted to continue on my way, but was attacked a few more times; suddenly I saw myself attacked from both sides, a man being among the attackers.

I cried for help again, but I can't recall whether my wife came to my aid or not. At any rate, I was able to shake off my attackers each time, until the woman was left behind. At least she didn't fall upon me any more, but only the man con- tinued pursuing me. I asked him what he wanted from me, what I had done to him ; told him that he should mind his own business and leave me alone. Finally, he went into some store — I think a fruit store — and used that opportunity to sneak off into some hallway. My wife came after me, calling my name. I think there was a cafe in the first floor of the house. I went into it later to look out for my attacker, but I saw nothing fur- ther of him.

In essence, this dream continues the subject of the former dream. To understand both this and the "butcher's apron," we must know that he wanted to kill the brother-in-law. He would have liked to slaughter him like a swine. He really left Munich in order that he might not give way to his murderous passions (the lion). He also wanted to let his father know about it, to write to him, but he didn't have the courage (the stool for the writing desk) . The man in the dream is the brother-in-law and the woman is his mother. He cannot free himself from either. He also wanted to strangle the brother-in-law (coughing), and in the dream it is he who is grasped by the throat (principle of the lex talionis. Singular similarity, also, to the Hamlet motif). His wife, i.e., his marriage is to liberate him from the bonds of his mother and homosexuality (father and physician). The brother-in-law also becomes the representative of homosexual-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 55

ity. The patient realizes now that he was originally attached to that brother-in-law and actually respected him. As long as he had been a little boy, the brother-in-law had played with him and had given him little gifts. He had changed his attitude towards the boy as soon as he noticed that the boy's jealousy had made him unpleasant; particularly since the boy was in a position to tell the father about the whole affair.

The pastry man also sold coffee in his shop and that explains the last part of the dream. In the first floor of the shop, he had a little cafe.

He wants to know why he can never write the letter 1 in com- bination with the letter d. When I asked him what first came to his mind on that matter he said : "Low down."

That was what he thought of his mother, but had never said.

He brings me another little essay entitled :

CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MY COUGH

"The basis of my unhappiness is my completely distorted up- bringing. It broke my back and also destroyed my self-respect. I have lost my sense of individuality. The worst of it was the manner in which my mother treated me. If I stopped to play with a comrade or if I did not return rapidly enough from one of my never-ending errands — and I could never return too quickly for her — she would put her head out the window and crow : 'Alfred! Where are you?' Her calls could be heard in the whole neighborhood. And if I didn't show up immediately, she began to curse, swear, froth in such a manner that all the neighbors laughed. My schoolmates all laughed at me and called after me : 'Alfred ! Where are you ?' That was my nick- name.

"Often she would get red in the face when she threatened me with: 'Just you wait, you scamp, you. You'll be tickled when you get upstairs. You'll get what's coming to you. Then I knew that I'd get it, and the whole block knew it, too. I whimpered and shrunk, I wanted to fade away or disappear into the earth. I bounded upstairs quickly, so that no one would see my disgrace.

"But I loved this woman despite all this mistreatment.

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"I became bashful and reticent, however. I suffer from a feeling of inferiority which I shall never overcome. Where would I not be to-day if I had not been burdened with the onus of this depressing feeling of imperfection!

"In Trieste, I was the head of the department, and yet I trem- bled before every new addition to the force, indeed, before every one of the errand boys. The matter of being introduced or having anyone introduced to me was very painful. I thought that every new person was far more educated or knew much more than I ; that they would recognize this at the first glance and realize that I was an inferior person. I would blush ter- ribly, stammer foolish words, gasp for air. Oh, I tell you it was unbearable.

"Receiving new customers or having to do with any other important personages was also a martyrdom for me. I trem- bled in my whole body, became weak to the point of being un- able to stand. Frequently I was so afraid that I had to run to the toilet every fifteen minutes.

"The whole thing began in Ala when I was seventeen and alone in the world. I was living with a rather well-educated family and soon saw that I knew nothing. I studied day and night in order to fill the breaches ; but I didn't have the proper guidance, the result being that I simply gathered a lot of un- digested facts together without having any systematic under- standing of what they meant.

"The almost insurmountable obstacle was the first step in becoming acquainted with a person. This situation forced me into a side path for aid. I began to cough discreetly. I would cough my way out of any embarrassing situation, so to speak. I didn't have to say anything right away for I had time during the cough to think of what I wanted to say. This method doubtless was discovered or invented by my second ego. It is only now that I am conscious that the other part of me chose this means perhaps in memory of my mother who used to soothe me so during my attack of whooping cough. It was as if I were actually inviting the sympathy of all mankind just as I had gained hers.

"I now recall many remarks I heard about my coughing

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 57

which should have made me think a little. But you are the first who opened my eyes. You said yesterday : 'You always greet me with a cough.' And recently you said : 'Whenever you have something important to say, you cough instead/

"That made me think and review my life a little. I saw that you were right. The cough expresses my embarrassment and my excitement. It helps me over the dead spots.

"I'm like the fire department, always ready and always put- ting something out. It is my cough that is always ready. The cough of embarrassment is about the best description for it.

"I make use of the cough as a defense of my weak position. It helps me change the subject of a conversation, it awakens sympathy, covers my faults, enables me to spar for time.

"More and more, I am retiring into myself. I don't seem to be capable of feeling my way into the spirits of others or of giving them any joy. I seem to live as in a dream and pass life by.

"I know very well that my reticence has something to do with my criminal tendencies, too ; that I have already learned from you. But why am I so shy in the presence of every new ac- quaintance? What is it that I expect? What do I fear from them?

"You see, therefore, that the beginning of my unhappiness was a flight into the coughing spell. I do not deny the sexual significance of the cough. I understand it completely. But I am speaking here only of the beginning of my condition when I exploited the cough as a disguise for my inferiority."

It is necessary to complete the patient's essay in some re- spects. The cough also represents a memory of his faithless mother, his good mother, his sins. The tickling in his throat is the desire for fellatio which he wanted to perform originally on the brother-in-law and in place of his mother. He is ob- sessed by the fixed idea : "Where can I find a friend whom I can love in this way?" That is why he is so embarrassed in the presence of every new acquaintance. He is full of the ex- pectation that his wishes may be realized, but one of the means he employs ambivalently, i.e., in a bipolar manner. He protects

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himself against failure by pausing in his speech to cough. The cough is a spiritual betrayal, it insinuates a desire on his part for a sexual contact.

During the first few days of the analysis, this asthmatic cough was always the preface to an impassioned eulogy of the new treatment, that was how he always introduced his expres- sions of transference. The stronger the transference became, the stronger became the cough.

The asthma and the cough are just as complicated in their sources and structure as his apron fetishism. Numerous com- ponents have combined to form just this coughing spell.

He now recalls that when he was a child, his mother always kept him close to her ; to such an extent that the neighbors all said : "That kid has grown to her apron strings !" He says that he sometimes has the feeling that an apron is not made of cloth, but is some sort of skin, something living.

He is the mother. He would like to be the mother.

The next dream explains the apron and the fellatip phan- tasy in another light.

I am in a circus which looks like a ball of crystal. Red light. I am sitting in a small loge and look through a small window into the circus which is as yet unlit. Suddenly some man stuck a long bar of sugar right through the window into my mouth. I bit a piece off . . . and awoke with a great erection.

This dream is a typical maternal womb dream. He is within his mother's body, peeps out of a small opening ; his father ap- pears and he bites his father's penis off.

His first association to this dream, the interpretation of which I did not disclose to him, is : flea circus. He once saw a flea circus and found it very amusing. Then he tells me that he once wrote a little story about a flea which is supposed to be sitting on the edge of a woman's vulva and relating in a humorous manner all the divers things that it witnessed. He also confessed to a phantasy of being a very minute little human, a Lilliputian, living in the body of a giantess.

Spontaneously he then continues as follows : "I am some- times very uncomfortable in small rooms. I get the feeling that I'm in a coffin, and fear that I might be buried alive.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 59

And yet, every evening before I fall asleep, I play as if I'm digging my way in. I literally bury myself in the bed, roll up like an armadillo and pull the covers over me. My wife has often told me that that was not good for my cough.

"I like to smell my own wind, too. I haven't the slightest disgust with my own body. As a matter of fact, I've tasted everything my body produces: what's between my toes, the cheesy formation under the foreskin, ear wax, my own urine, everything. I can't understand why a man should be repelled by his own physical products. One's mother doesn't feel that way about it."

From here his thoughts again passed to his mother and his infantile days. He thinks about his birth and says: "I was born with a lucky hood on my head, but I never had any luck in life. I think that the hood is also a representative of the apron and my mother's skin. When I think of apron, I often think of what they call the Hottentot apron [the artificially elongated labia of Hottentot women — Trans.] When per- forming cunnilingus, I like to look at the labia and would like to elongate them. I really desired a wife with long labia — with a Hottentot apron.

"I now remember several dreams I had in which I was buried alive. In many instances, I was very small in those dreams. It is as if I wanted to crawl back into my mother's womb. Yes, now I'm sure of it, the apron is nothing but my mother's skin. I remember a dream I had before I ever came to see you. It quite excited me without my having been able to understand why.

"I thought myself dressed in a wet apron which felt abso- lutely smooth, almost like silk. I could not have enough of feeling my belly, punching it, kneading it, stroking it, as if it were the Holiest of Holies, the dearest and most cherished thing I possessed. In the course of the dream, I wanted to have in- tercourse with my wife, but it did not succeed. Her vagina was too narrow ; and that because my wife began to get smaller and smaller, and finally turned into a child. . . ."

In this dream, the apron is really the skin of his mother. His mother actually was the Holiest of Holies for him, the dearest and most cherished thing he possessed. Before her, his wife

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dwindles and shrinks to nothing and goes through just those changes that he would like to experience, i.e., she becomes a child again.

He effects an identification with his mother in this dream, and when he puts on an apron, he becomes his mother.

He could pray before an apron. He would like to clothe all the holy statues in aprons and then perform his prayers before them.

His apron fetishism is at an end. An apron no longer pos- sesses a sexual appeal to him. He produces several corrobora- tions of his womb phantasies. He is now interested in canni- balism and revelled in the thought that the embryo in the womb really lives on the blood and tissue of the mother. Suckling is a substitute for such blood sucking.

Thoughts of necrophilia and vampiric trends announce them- selves.

He has become indisposed and sends me the following asso- ciations without being able to come to the office.

"A business friend of mine recently related to me his im- pressions during the transportation of cadavers, which he had to accompany, from Arco, Riva, Gardone and Salo [frequented resorts for the tuberculous on Lake Garda, Italy — Trans.].

"His descriptions of the things he saw there awakened a horror in me at the suffering those undergo who are afflicted with that disease. The result was that I had several torturous dreams during the days that I listened to his tales.

"Thus, I dreamed once that I was to receive a cadaver in Arco and accompany it home. The relatives of the deceased invited me to dinner which was to be served in the dining salon of the sanatorium where the patient had lived.

"I felt a surge of distaste come over me at the thought of sitting down to eat in that room filled with consumptives. I finally refused to come there and managed to get them to change the dinner to a private room where there were no consumptives. But I don't recall whether I was actually able to eat in the dream or not.

"Another time I dreamed again of being in some resort which was frequented by the tuberculous and everywhere I looked, on

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

all the walls, stairs, walks, and railings, there were nothing but spitting cups and more spitting cups. I watched the strolling guests coughing into portable cups or into their handkerchiefs. I was utterly disgusted and had a terrible fear of being infected.

"Still another time I accompanied a body in a freight car. Despite my certain knowledge that the cadaver was enclosed in the coffins, I was in mortal fear that the dead man would rise up again. The train also seemed to move so slowly ; there were always obstacles in the way.

"When it came to delivering the body, the relatives didn't want to pay the bill and said they would pay later. But I was not permitted to do this. My firm had given me strict orders in the matter. The result was a lot of bargaining, and such bartering over the dead body was very mortifying to me.

"It is probable that I had many more such dreams at about that time, but I can't recall any more very clearly. But from that time on, I looked upon consumptives as non-existent for this life. They excite my sympathy and I can already see them in their coffins, being eaten by the worms.

"The memory of this tale must have had some connection with my attitude towards my wife. It may have been the re- sult of the impression these stories of my friend made upon me.

"My wife's parents both died of tuberculosis; the father had often been a visitor in southern sanatoria; the mother con- tracted it during her puerperal period.

"These facts made me somewhat anxious about my wife; I feared that she might have inherited the deadly germ and would, perhaps, infect me, too. As I can now see it clearly, I was especially anxious during the first years of our married life whenever I would kiss her or have intercourse with her.

"Furthermore, it now seems to me that the apron which I so greatly desired my wife to wear during intercourse, and which I also invariably grasped firmly in one hand, appeared to me to be a sort of protecting spirit ; lying between us, it protected me from infection ( ??). [The question marks were added by the patient.]

"But when I was diagnosed last year as suffering from a 'pulmonary catarrh/ the very opposite mechanism set in. I circumscribed my sexual activities with my wife and also

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stopped kissing her so frequently — from fear that I might in- fect her!

"It is barely possible that this was also the basis for the criminal in me coming to the fore. Perhaps I wanted to act murderously towards my wife in order to prevent her death post partum.

"Frequently I was irritated and tortured by thoughts which made me fear that my wife and I would die as her parents had, and leave the children behind as orphans. Whenever I wanted to sleep with my wife, these tormenting notions danced before my eyes.

"My persistent anxiety about pulmonary tuberculosis is still indicated by the great interest I have in my sputum, my inces- sant desire 'to examine it/ look for things (bacilli?) in it, etc.

"I can put that even more clearly : I often see myself and my wife as cadavers. I see both of us dead, and often when I want to cohabit with my wife, these pictures of death and disintegra- tion arise before me. It kills my desire and my appetite, my erection changes to collapse, but I continue to clasp the apron firmly in my hand ; I fall asleep a little and dream something, then awaken with a renewed erection which I lose promptly when I turn to coitus. All that has been improved, however. I can now cohabit without the use of the apron, but the death ideas still torment me occasionally."

Here we have learned of another fact which he had hitherto withheld from us. It is that his wife had to wear an apron during coitus, otherwise he was impotent. This apron he would clasp firmly in his hand. He would crumple it. That means that he incorporated the memory of his mother in his cohabi- tation with his wife. His wife became his mother, quite con- trary to the situation in that other dream in which she was transformed into a child. He sees his wife dead, which leads us to surmise that he must have had necrophilic ideas about his mother. He is the worm (womb phantasies — being buried alive) who eats away his mother's body. Indeed, in the very next hour, he spoke about his fears that his wife might die dur- ing pregnancy and take a living child into the grave with her.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 63

His fear of cadavers corresponds to a desire on his part to have something to do with the dead.

It is a frequent habit for people to hold something in their hands during intercourse. I know a woman who must always crumple a piece of paper in her hand if she is to achieve orgasm. She thus expresses strangling phantasies.

"I notice that my ascetic tendency is becoming more marked. I have apparently lost my impotence and have no need of the apron any more. But Fm constantly wondering whether I shouldn't cut down on sexual intercourse; it's the fear that I might die of consumption, I guess. They say I have a touch of it. I can't say. When I was in the army, they said at first it was on the left and then they said I had it on the right side. It's probably all a fake. Nevertheless, I make use of every- thing that may excuse me from my 'manly duties/ and that despite the fact that I know my wife expects me to fulfill them.

"I have also observed myself a little more closely by day and I must say that you were right when you told me that the cause of my distracted state lies in the wealth of my phantasies. I never realized that I worked with only half my mind. But now I see that I'm always dabbling in my sexual phantasies. Yes- terday I caught myself humming some lullaby that I learned from mother. I often think of her and would like best of all to return to Munich and visit her. But I know that that would be foolish; it would only drive me deeper into my illness. I have also caught myself playing with innumerable other phan- tasies which I would have considered impossible not long ago. It seems that I think of nothing but my childhood and my mother from morn till night. I'm still dreaming of revenge against that brother-in-law although he is now an old and broken man."

And finally he begins to say something about his father : "I consider that my father's lack of love for me had a great deal to do with my present condition.

"My father was the only son of a rather well-to-do work- man. His father died when he was young and his mother mar- ried a second and then a third time (the helper in their own shop). My step-grandfather III was a crass egoist, a notorious

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brawler, gambler and drunkard. My father was nine years old at the time and had to live with strangers because his step-father drove him out of the house. Father became a goldsmith and had to work hard all his life, while my step-grandfather squan- dered all the money. The shop and the house came under the hammer. Father's life was a bitter one from the very start: deprivation, lack of love, need, constant fear and excitement. That may have influenced his character, too. His only pleasure was singing. He had a strong, clear tenor voice and was proud as a peacock whenever he could shine forth in his choral society.

"He was also very strict with me, but beat me very seldom. He was powerless against my mother and had nothing to say at home. It is possible that he was quite tender with me during my infancy, but I later heard nary a tender word from him. He was always quiet at home, and the only one with whom he spoke was my sister. He nevertheless took her waywardness very much to heart, and subsequently became more serious and shut in than ever. I think that he knew of my mother's habits, perhaps even of her relations with her brother-in-law. But he kept quiet because he didn't want any disturbance; he always tried to get out of the house and meet with his choral society. That was why I was always in my mother's hands, and never had an opportunity to enjoy my father's love. At present the relationship between my parents seems to be somewhat better; I suppose because they are old now and need each other more. I also want to mention the fact that despite my sorry financial position I still send them money. I always send it to mother, who never fails to write me thanks."

He brings me a dream which is a stereotype for him. He has already had it in various forms.

I have rented a room in a brothel, but I don't live or sleep there ; I only come occasionally to collect my mail. Arrived in my room on the third floor, I seem always to be awaiting some- thing special. The visit of a pretty girl who never comes. In- stead there always appears a woman from the next room, dressed as if ready to go out. She doubtless has designs upon me, for she invariably seeks to draw me into a conversation. But because this woman never interests me and I find her alto-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 65

gether repulsive, the conversation lasts a very short time. A few letters are carelessly strewn across the table which stands in the middle of the room. I catch sight of a marriage notice. In the further course of the dream, I always demand a glass of beer, but I don't get that either ; there's always some excuse for the delay or else something turns up meanwhile.

At the last visit to my room, I found the saloon on the ground floor empty; the bartender was not there. I took this oppor- tunity finally to get myself a glass of beer, got a glass, filled it at the beer faucet and wanted to take it up to my room. But I was unsuccessful for I spilt the brew on the way up the stairs, and arrived in my room with an empty glass. The empty glass didn't appear to be just an empty glass, however, but rather more like a large spoon, with beer running down the left side and then the right side.

Such stereotyped dreams usually contain a situation which is expressive of the parapathia. The symbolization runs accord- ing to the law of psychic parallelism.

We must first of all note the affective side of the dream. He is in a state of expectancy. But instead of the person he is awaiting, another appears to whom he is either indifferent or who is repulsive. The affect of the expected enjoyment which is never realized is then further portrayed in the second part of the dream by the drink of beer which he would like to have but never gets.

It is the spoon which runs over, which reveals the true in- fantile situation, however. He expects milk and gets, instead, porridge. It is nothing but the trauma of weaning which is being expressed again in the dream. He was two years old be- fore he was weaned, and at that age it was certainly a very emotional experience for him. The faithlessness of his mother is portrayed by his living in a brothel. Instead of the young mother (the pretty girl), he meets with an aging mother (who will soon die, i.e., soon leave him and pass out). This dream represents all his feelings of disappointment in his mother's lack of love for him. But he is still yearning for the days when she was nursing him. He is an eternal nursling. His affective attitude towards tips also is based upon his phantasies. He would want to drink of the love of every man.

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He then openly ventilates his criminal thoughts as follows : "When my first son grew to be able to stand up in his car- riage he would frequently jump about in such a lively fashion that he would fall out of the carriage when not watched. At such moments, two entirely antithetical thoughts would shoot through my brain. The first one was the hope that the fall had not harmed him, that he should not have received some injury to the brain and that I should not be cursed with an idiotic child as a result.

The other thought, however, plainly disclosed the hope that the child's life might be snuffed out; probably in order that I might thus be freed from the bonds of marriage.

"I went to a concert to-day. They played the 'Eroica' first and then the funeral march from the Götterdämmerung. Whereas I had been quite composed until the first intermission, the beginning of the funeral march provoked a strong tickling in my throat which I could not keep from developing into a cough. It all embarrassed me very much. I felt oppressed, the concert hall seemed too hot. The tickling sensation became worse. I felt shivers running through my whole body. Goose flesh.

"I caught myself in the phantasy of following the funeral of my wife and children. . . .

"Up to the time they were about two, both my boys had choking spells several times. The attacks were so severe that they would become livid and their eyes would bulge out. These attacks occurred every time they were required to do something against their will (fits of anger).

"We would hold the children under running water and beat them with wet cloths in order to restore them to consciousness, but I always helped only half-heartedly. I was usually no more than a passive witness to the scene.

"While, on the one hand, I would fear that they were about to die in such an attack, another thought would also occupy my mind, viz., 'that other man' in me seemed to feel that it would be better for them to die then and there rather than return to life.

"Every time I cough, I am afraid that I'm going to choke to death. I know now why I so frequently wished my children

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 67

to choke. Why am I such an unhappy man? I want every- body to be happy, want to help everyone ; I can't think of my- self doing anyone the least harm, and yet I find myself daily harboring wishes for the death of my family. Am I still en- slaved by the thought of returning to my mother to make the last days of her life happier? My intelligence makes me laugh at this idea of yours, but my unconscious recognizes it as true.,,

"Sometimes I think the apron is a reflection of my inner soul. I became infected with a venereal disease during my marriage and kept it quiet from my wife. It is ever since then that I notice an increase in my taste for dirty aprons. I always be- came irritated whenever my wife changed a dirty one for a clean or laundered one. Why do I droop my eyes whenever her own seek me out lovingly? Because I feel myself an unclean, vile man. It is really laughable that I should want to preach a religion of love to all the world. I, the criminal, who wants to kill his wife and children, his own flesh and blood; who wishes them death daily, simply for the sake of his own paltry egoistic ideas.

"Often I tell myself that I must be free before I can live for mankind. But now I realize that all that is nothing but a roundabout expression of my egoistic self, that which you call rationalizations. I've hitched my wagon to a star, I'm ambi- tious and would like to excel all men. My day-dreams are iden- tical with my dreams in sleep. I have phantasied that I could fly high above all other men without a machine, without wings, without even so much as the movement of my arms. I possess a magic cap with which I can fly through all of space; give orders which must be followed without being seen by anyone."

He dreams :

I found myself back in the old shop in Munich, only the office had been moved. On the side where the windows were, the room had an oblique wall, in short, it was like an attic room. I was just in the process of discussing a possible change of rooms with my former chief bookkeeper (next to it there was a large, airy room which caught the sun, but it had the dis- advantage of having a small window onto the office of the di<

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rector which meant that one would be observed all day) when a sickly and haggard-looking young woman started to hurry through the room. I immediately recognized her as a former office friend, Miss K., and called her back. We greeted each other. She: "Well, Alfred!" and I: "You here again? Is that the bit of baggage I thought I had left on board the Bohemia?"

" 'Yes, I'm unhappiness itself and that's why I didn't give you a good-bye kiss as you wanted to have me do.' With that she disappeared. I had a lot of sympathy for that girl, perhaps I even loved her. More than mere friendship might have come out of our relationship had she not led such a free and easy life. She was too good for me. I was after money, too, how- ever, and she had nothing. She, on the other hand, wanted wealth herself, clothes, good times, and all the rest. I lost sight of her soon, but I must mention that we often joked about get- ting married. I was afraid of her, however, and left Munich. I was after money. I had been in Trieste two years when in she walked into the office and told me about getting married to someone in India and being off on the Bohemia. She stopped over in Trieste for three days before she left, and I kept her company. She said that she was coming back in three years. It was during those three days that I noticed how much I liked her. She had a cheerful disposition which provoked me very much. I hardly believe that I had any death wishes with her, for last night I was constantly dreaming about the death of my wife and children; first one and then the next would go off."

The more he talked of Miss K., the more I realize that he had really loved her deeply, but had suppressed his affection for her purely out of ulterior intellectual motives. It is she who was represented by the singer, the prima donna, of the first dream, and Hedwig turns out to have been but a screen figure for this woman whom he wished to suppress in his mind. He confesses to dreams about her, many of them, dreams in which he was married to her. In the above dream, he changes rooms, his old home (marriage) is too oblique and bare for him. With this girl he would have a "larger and airier room which caught the sun." He praises her sunny disposition, her charms, her figure ; she was like a gazelle. To be sure, she was a little too

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 69

clever and sure of herself to suit him. But he would have been able to dispense with the aprons with her. She had suspected that there was something wrong with him and had often told him: "I'd first have to get your childish ideas out of your head." He felt himself transparent under her gaze (in the dream he felt himself observed by the director through the lit* tie window). He was often bashful in her presence.

But he is certain that his apron mania would have crumbled in her presence. And yet he fled from her, left Munich for another country (the second time; I am not now speaking of the first trip). He later married without love, but only to im- prove his financial condition. He chose a simple woman whom he could tyrannize and compel to submit to his apron mania.

And what was the result of this violation of his innermost desires? An unhappy marriage and the progressive develop- ment of his parapathia. He suffered the torments of the damned because he felt that he hated his family, wished them dead that he might return to Miss K.

In the dream she, too, seems to be suffering, she looks sickly. She yearns for him. She is unhappy. The Bohemia, that great ship, sped her away into the land of suffering. She is unhappy, just as he is. They belong together, to each other. She is the incarnation of unhappiness. And again the scene where she takes leave of him forever appears before his mind's eye.

After three days of utter happiness together, they found themselves aboard the ship. He was to bid her good-bye. They had been very dear to each other, but he had not touched her. She was too proud and said : "The man who kisses me is the man who'll marry me." But she nevertheless promised to give him a good-bye kiss. At the last moment, however, she refused to keep her promise and said: "I think it would be better if we didn't kiss each other. We'd never be able to part." She turned away and cried bitterly. He, too, was deeply af- fected and left the ship disconsolate. As the ship moved out of the harbor, he felt as if it were bearing his happiness away with it forever.

During those three days a terrific struggle had been going on within him. He wanted to tell her to stay and become his wife.

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He wanted to sacrifice his whole fetishism, his mother, his aprons, everything. But some demon within his breast com- pelled him to change his view of her, to depreciate her, to find little faults in her, to tell himself that they would not suit each other.

But now he realizes that she would have been the only one to cure him through the medium of her love. She would have made him forget all his old fixations. He destroyed his hap- piness and future when he let her go. Every man has an inner voice — a prima donna — which he must follow. His own con- science had told him: marry this girl (she would never have agreed to an affair). But he began to brood within himself, to introspect (he was the man who wanted to get behind the scenes). And the result was that the singer lost her voice. Love flew out the window. And he returned to the chains of his fetishism. That is the meaning of his first dream. In it he had told of the unhappiness of his love life, and how he himself was to blame for it.

He has committed the greatest crime which a man can com- mit against himself : he has passed up the opportunity of love for the sake of the base god Mammon.

Still another significance of the dream has reference to his relation to the director of the business. There are several things he has on his conscience and in this room he would feel himself too constantly under the director's eye. His work gives him no pleasure. He would much prefer to stay in bed and excuse himself on account of his asthma. Every morning he feels tired and weighted with lassitude.

I shall omit several dreams which had to do with the devel- opment of his criminal phantasies. The very fact that he crum- ples the apron in one hand while cohabiting is an indication of his phantasy of choking his wife. That is unquestionably a major component of his cough. One of his dreams makes it more or less plain that he was hounded by the impulse to attack a salesgirl in a shop, choke her and then gag her with an apron. He struggles manfully against the impulse, but he is compelled to play at least the first part of the phantasy, he seems to need at least a remnant of reality to satisfy him. That is why he is

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

always looking for shops where there is only one salesgirl. That is why he is so shy and reticent and full of guilt feelings. He has been indulging in criminal phantasies to such an extent that he has begun to see them in reality.

His mother had often said to him : "You're a light-headed kid. You ought to be hanged." He frequently had day-dreams of being thrown in prison, turned over to the executioner, etc.

The idea of becoming an executioner himself had often pro- voked his fancy. The henchmen of the torturers and inquisitors in the olden days all wore aprons while at work. The apron of the butchers is nothing but a more sociable expression of the executioner's apron (here again we meet with the sado-maso- chistic component of fetishism which never fails to appear in any case).

His asthma has finally disappeared completely. He knows now that he was simply manifesting the choking on himself. He has, however, also noticed that his wife's libido has cooled considerably. He has been paying attentions to his wife's sister (see the dream about the sister and his becoming a brother-in- law). She appeals to him, he is interested in her child and likes to watch her nurse the baby. As her brother-in-law he would like to start something with her, obviously as an expression of the old, old constellation in his own life.

He saw the baby once sucking on the corner of a pillow and recalled that he had sucked on the lappets of aprons as a baby. "As I have already told you, an apron was never an inanimate thing for me. It was a puzzling, mysterious bit of life. It was God and the Devil, Punishment and Lust, a warning and a temptation all in one. It is even more difficult for me to ex- press the feeling I often got that I myself were the apron. At times I was also subject to a mysterious confusion of all my concepts. The apron was I and I was the apron, an unto tnys- tica, which can only be felt but not described.

"I know also that one of the reasons why I held on so firmly to the aprons during coitus was because I didn't want to lose the old one. What you call autistic thought is very character- istic of me. Lately I have been torn by frightful conflicts. The aprons seem to speak to me with living voices: 'Don't

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leave me ! Don't give meup!' And I become weak and feel as if I'll fall back into my old ways and whims. But no! I must not give in. Last night was the first time I was able to have intercourse without the aid of an apron. I'll get my sister-in- law out of my head, too ; particularly since I have learned that I'm interested only in reviving the scene between my mother and her brother-in-law."

"Yesterday I went to the bathhouse and became sexually ex- cited. I was able to restrain my emotions, however, except when I was soaping my genitals. At that moment, I saw the light as if blinds had dropped from my eyes. My mother used to soap my genitals in the bath until I would get an erection. She did the same thing with my nephew, too. To take a bath was a real party. And that's why I get so excited in the bath. That's why I like the water so. I want to be a boy again, be splashed with water, and pleasantly soaped by my mother.

"While bathing me, mother would always wear a dirty old apron to protect herself from my splashing.

"Yesterday I thought all day about that girl I let go. You were right. I always was afraid of love because I didn't want to give up my old love. I married my wife, after all, simply because she was not dangerous, because she never threatened to monopolize my heart. But I have been bitterly disappointed. I yearn for my mother, for my childhood. I yearn for the im- possible. I'd like to see the dead alive again, the past resur- rected. A dead apron revived in the form of my living mother. I really must give up my phantasies, my day-dreams will be the ruin of me. I feel happy when I am not at work because then I can indulge myself in building castles in the air. I'm really struggling against my day-dreaming habits. I'm forcing my- self to work.

"I'm also plagued by a feeling of superiority in my work and am doing my best to get rid of it. I know that I'll never amount to very much. I'll be satisfied to be a man like other men. You have shown me my goal : I shall seek my happiness in reality and find it in some quiet corner of the earth. I'll live for my wife and my children. I'll be a forthright man in the office.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 73

My resolutions are of the best. I hope that I shall be able to realize them."

He visited the family physician who had been unable to find anything organically wrong with him and had advised a change of air.

He feels that his apron fetishism has been cured. He senses a certain new pleasure in his wife and can play with the chil- dren. He has realized that he was chasing dreams which were incapable of fulfillment. He still has the best of resolutions.

In the last hour he said : "I have just thought of something which doubtless represents the end of my apron fetishism. As a small boy of about seven, I frequently had to go to the cellar and get wood and coal, but I was always supposed to knock the coal in little pieces first and make kindling sticks out of the wood. They told me to wear an apron, but I refused to do so because I felt that the neighbors would see me. But I am sure that I already had a separate apron up in the attic at that time which I used for my onanistic acts. I can't tell, however, whether I had begun the habit at the time I was bringing in wood. But I do know that I frequently used to chop and cut my aprons into thousands of pieces with an axe or hatchet. I can't count the number of aprons which I sacrificed in this way. I was markedly vicious in this respect whenever mother was in the room with the brother-in-law and I was sent for coal and wood. Then I would furiously cut an apron to pieces and throw it on the coal pile or burn it up. I was jealous and wanted to kill mother and the brother-in-law. I even played with the thought of setting fire to the house while they were in the room together. But when father would come home at night and take off his working apron, I would get so depressed that I could have cried.

"My mother was really bad to me. It was only when I was ill that she would show signs of affection. That's why I got sick so often, and that's the reason why I'm still in the habit of getting sympathy by means of suffering. I can wriggle out of any responsible task by simply increasing my cough. Then

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I can lie in bed and indulge myself in day -dreams to my heart's content, as you already know.

"I have already told you the last detail : I wanted to kill my mother and her brother-in-law with the axe or smoke them out, i.e., burn them to death, but I was too weak and cowardly. Later I read the story of Orestes and Agamemnon. It scared me. That was just my conflict. I often have a feeling that I must revenge my father. Once when father was ill, I thought that mother had poisoned him. But I dropped that idea. I know that he will die a natural death, and he is probably not blind at all. He was probably glad that his brother-in-law had taken that wild and domineering woman off his hands and left him in peace. . . .

"But that woman ruined my life. Of that I'm sure. . . ."

He went to the mountains for a rest, resolved to begin life anew and shake off his past after the "breathing spell." But he was destined never to realize his intentions.

A friend invited him on an automobile trip to Mariazell, a famous pilgrimage in the Viennese Alps. On one of the ser- pentine roads in the hills, the automobile skidded, he was thrown out of the car, and died instantly from a fractured skull.

The analysis is at an end. For scientific reasons, I conducted the analysis in such a manner as to direct no leading questions at the patient. I wanted to use this analysis as an example, to show that we analysts do not read anything into the patient's mind, that we do not guide him in certain paths. This patient had never read any of my books. He produced his material in an entirely spontaneous fashion, and his most illuminating com- munications were his dreams. I interrupted his own words only to give him the most necessary interpretations and assur- ances.

And now the question of the diagnosis. This is manifestly a case of genuine fetishism. Alfred was, indeed, no ascetic, but he was well on the way towards becoming one. Certain recuperative tendencies always impelled him to cohabitation, but we may recall that he was able to effect intercourse only with the aid of an apron. He also disclosed a tendency to col-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

lect his fetishes, for we know that he had quite a stock of them at home and gave many of them to his wife who had to humor her husband's whims if only in order to gain sexual gratifica- tion herself. Most marriages are characterized by such com- promises. Alfred also reveals the typical compulsions and the artful system of a fetishistic parapathia.

The most striking factor is the very extraordinary condensa- tion contained in the apron as a symbol. We begin to realize how schematic and superficial is the explanation given by Binet that fetishism is due to a single infantile impression.

Freud 10 correctly writes : "Deep driving psychoanalytical studies have led us to a justified criticism of Binet's position. All of the observations I have mentioned have to do with the patient's first contact with the fetish, and that at a time when the fetish already possessed sexual interest without it being ap- parent from the attendant circumstances how the fetish ac- quired those sexual properties. Furthermore, these 'early' im- pressions are said to have occurred after the fifth and sixth years, whereas psychoanalysis has made us suspicious of the possibility of such fixations being formed anew at that late age. The actual situation is rather that behind the memory of the first appearance of the fetish there lies hidden a repressed and forgotten phase of sexual development which is represented by the fetish as by a screen memory. The fetish thus represents the remainder, the precipitation of that sexual phase. The transformation of this phase of sexual development in the earliest years of infancy to fetishism, as well as the choice of the fetish itself, are constitutionally determined."

In a later publication,11 Freud still clung to this point of view although he stated it somewhat more precisely. He writes here of a primary perversion.

"One of the components of the sexual function is to be con- ceived as having developed faster than the others, became inde- pendent sooner, became fixed and thus diverted from the further stream of development. This independent fixation, however, may be conceived as a sign of a special and anomalous consti- tution. We know that such a perversion need not at all be present for life, it may later suffer repression and be replaced by a reaction formation or transformed by sublimation. If

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these changes fail to take place, however, the perversion per- sists throughout the adult life of the individual. Wherever we find such a sexual deviation — perversion, fetishism or inversion — there we may justifiably expect to find such a fixating experi- ence in the early life of the individual through the means of careful anamnestic analysis. Indeed, long before the days of psychoanalysis, careful observers such as Binet were able to trace such sexual deviations of adults back to experiences in the fifth or sixth years of age. True enough, such explanations met with intellectual resistance on the part of some because the fixating experiences were in no wise traumatic in nature, they were, on the contrary, banal occurrences which lacked any effect on others. It was not possible to say just why the sexual life of the individual had become anchored to these experiences. But the significance of such experiences may be sought in the fact that they may have offered the precociously developed sexual component of which we spoke an opportunity for fixa- tion, albeit accidental in nature; and we must be prepared to see the chain of causal connections which we construct end somewhere, at least temporarily. It is precisely the concept of the hereditary constitution which appears to meet all the re- quirements of such a fixation point."

These theoretical statements contain a sound and solid nu- cleus. The allegedly first memory is actually a screen memory in most instances. But there are unquestionably cases in which the fixating experience may take place between the sixth and even eighteenth year, as long as the experience is sufficiently emotional. What I consider to be incorrect and unfounded in these elucidations is the concept of a constitutionally condi- tioned fetishistic leaning. Our case doesn't show a trace of the constitutional disposition which is always used as umbrage whenever the psychological puzzles are not solved.

Sadger's declaration that the fetish is the representative of the mother's (or the father's) genital is just as abstruse. But let us suppose that this statement contains a kernel of truth, especially in view of the fact that our last patient actually strove to return to his mother. What would we gain by the supposi- tion? Is the apron really nothing but a substitute for the mother's vagina ? We have seen that the fetishism in this case

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 77

was a myriad of components, a veritable mosaic of divers striv- ings. The picture is composed of innumerable stones, and only the composite of them all can form the true picture of the fetishism.

And now let us analyze the various component mechanism contained in the last case.

1. The apron is symbol of his infancy, of his psycho-sexual infantilism. The whole form of his masturbatory practices shows us that he strives to return to the first two years of his life, particularly to the time when he was swaddled in diapers. The apron is thus also a symbol of the diaper and the apron of his mother. The organic feelings of pleasure which he had when he became wet in diapers, smeared himself with feces and urine, are preserved and revived in his present habits (see the numerous examples in "Infantile Psycho-sexuality' ' in this series; but there the individuals did not reach the fetishistic stage). The apron is thus a memory of his nursing days.

2. His regression in phantasy goes even further. It goes back to his mother's womb. This phantasy cannot be conceived as an engram; it must have appeared later and expresses an anagogic wish to begin life anew (Silberer) and simultaneously the wish to unite with the mother without the guilt of sexual intercourse. The apron thus becomes a symbol of the mother's womb and of the mother as a whole (mother's womb phantasy) .

3. The phantasy of intercourse with his mother — provoked by the numerous escapades she had, and enhanced by traumatic observations of her — is emphasized by his crumpling an apron in his hand during intercourse. He clings to his mother. He desires intercourse with her.

4. The apron is for him distinctly bisexual in meaning. Men in aprons; thus his father as the first perhaps, although this was only vaguely expressed in the analysis ; but later there were ideal men in aprons. He is just as interested in the phallus as in the vagina. The apron is thus also the symbol of his father's phallus, of the phallus of men altogether, as well as of the vagina (the Hottentot skirt).

5. The apron is the symbol of his humiliation. His first humiliating experience was related to an apron. The apron expresses his disgrace and demands his revenge. It is an

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eternal mememto (Adler) and serves to irritate his ambition.

6. The dirty apron reflects to him the viciousness of his soul, full of criminal thoughts. The apron speaks for his conscience, it expresses his criminal tendencies (criminal phantasies), and simultaneously the protection against these trends as given in his moral denouncement of them.

7. The apron is also something holy and elevated, something to which he can pray. It expresses his yearning for the pure mother, the woman who could become the mother of God. It covers the genitals of Christ. It requires him to atone and practise self-denial. Bipolar tendencies just as in the case of a taboo. The apron is taboo, it is God. It is the symbol of his Christ neurosis.

8. The apron is a protective mechanism and also his very own invention. It is the creation of his own phantasies, the one thing which divides him from the general average of man (solipsism and autistic thought). The apron is the triumph of his personality, the symbolization of his individuality, his independence of all the sexual objects of the world. It liberates him from the tyranny of the female. The apron is his very own!

9. The apron is something alive and pulsating and simul- taneously the representative of the dead. He identifies himself with his apron. He is the apron and the apron is he (animism) .

10. The apron is covered with blood; it is the apron of the butcher, the executioner. It symbolizes the crime and his ex- piation, his criminal phantasies and his atonement (sadism).

1 1 . The apron must be tightly tied. It symbolizes the com- pulsion and his impulse. He simply must run after every apron and skirt he sees. He is firmly bound to the impressions of his childhood. His very attitude during coitus (holding and crum- pling the apron) is a distinct manifestation of this compulsive obsession, this fixation to his mother. The apron is a symbol of this compulsion.

12. The apron possesses a mystical significance. It has a magic power, a charm; it is a talisman; it makes him potent and impotent. It is not dead, but alive.

Out of a living human he formed a symbol and then infused this symbol with all the qualities of a human, indeed, with di-

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM

vine features. The apron is veritably a fetish, a secret god, his hidden religion. This religion finds its chief expression in the adoration of his mother. The combined figures of his mother and the Virgin Mary are fused to a mystic unity which contains the features of the father, the mother and the child. The apron is his trinity.

These determinants partly clarify his fetishism. But the condensation goes much deeper than that. He exploits every occurrence in life in terms of his apron. It is the hub of his mental universe, the center of gravity about which his thoughts gravitate.

We can arrive at an explanation of the genesis of this fe- tishism only by supposing that there was some greatly affective experience which became the crystallization nucleus for a sys- tem. So far we agree with Binet. But the crystallization is formed about the nucleus (Stendhal), there is systematization, layer by layer is added until there appears a complicated struc- ture which resembles a true compulsion neurosis. Each new apron impression is added to the structure like a new onion coat about the old onion. Finally, this tumor so pervades the tissues of normal life that the major portion of the normal spiritual life is monopolized by it.

When do such fetishists come to the analyst ? Why do they come altogether? Certainly never because of their fetishism, but only because their fetishism has made them incapable of working or enjoying life. Our patient, too, constantly empha- sized his distractability, his unhappiness, his lack of concen- tration. It cost him more and more energy to do the same amount of work. His day-dreams became more and more ac- tive, he needed an ever-increasing perseverance in order to keep himself from fleeing into the arms of illness (his cough).

But what is behind the whole thing? The repression of an affect, a pathological impulse, by means of a protective mech- anism; displacement and symbolization enter; distortion and theatricality. The whole problem is switched to a side track.

The nucleus of the syndrome is the impulse. This impulse is of a complex nature and derives from several other divers impulses. The most important basic impulse is doubtless his trend towards the past. The desire to revive a dead life. This

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is expressed in the hidden wish to return to his mother, embrace her, kiss her, recapture her and — perhaps possess her.

His mother is an old woman who would be distasteful to him if he could differentiate between reality and phantasy. What he is really acting upon is the memory of another mother, the woman who was his mother in his infancy, the mother who soothed him when he had whooping cough, and played with his penis. But such realities are ethereal to the parapathic ; he is oblivious of them. He demands the impossible. He reveals the prelogical thought which Levy-Brühl described so well as typical of aboriginal and primitive peoples. The impulse is an aboriginal, a primitive reaction with him. An unfulfilled wish strives towards realization, but expresses itself in the form of a symbol. The entire clinical picture, the illness, is an "as if" situation (Vaihinger), in which only the laws of the pleasure principle operate. The incestuous impulses are experienced in a strictly fictitious world of day-dreams. The reality principle appears to have been cast into oblivion.

Still other impulses are of a criminal nature. He would like to kill his mother and murder that hated brother-in-law (as well as the father) with an axe.

His upbringing destroyed his feeling of self-respect. He was humiliated and might just as well have become a criminal as a parapathic. A criminal who would revenge himself upon society for the crimes committed against him in his youth. But, instead, he saves himself in his religious faith and in savior phantasies. He is the good, the noble, the sympathetic and compassionate soul who would give a beggar all he had. This noble man has, however, never learned the one thing which characterizes the true savior : humility. He cannot bend to the desires and needs of others, he cannot thank anyone for any- thing. He wants to rule. Even in love he was unable to give himself up to the one he wanted to love, i.e., he was unable to bow to her, and fled. He recognizes but one mistress: his apron. He looks up to her, submits, acclaims her. This apron protects him against any and all other failures and humiliations. He can play the paraphilic and also live the life of an ascetic. It was not without foundation that he joined a dramatic club. He learned an art which was not in the least strange to him.

A CASE OF APRON FETISHISM 81

Has he not always been playing a game, acting before himself and all the world ? Who would ever suspect that this shy, reti- cent, trembling, embarrassed and bashful man were a bound- less tyrant at heart, possessed of the utmost cruelty? He has reason enough to be shy and retiring. We have seen how close to the surface of his soul his criminal intent against his wife and children came. We have heard that his uprightness was shaken only during the war — unfortunately just as in many other persons who had hitherto practised honesty and faithful- ness, and would have continued to practise them unto death, if the war had not shaken all our social feelings to their roots.

Unfortunately, too, death took him all too soon, before the stability of his reorganized spirit could be tested and tried. It was characteristic that his friend and he should have been on the way to a pilgrimage. On the way to his God, he met death. Secretly, he believed in miracles and had often told me that he expected his final cure to be effected by a miracle.

That also disclosed his relation to the primitive mind. All these fetishists await their salvation in miracles, through en- lightenment and sudden premonitions. Many of the wander- ings of these patients are nothing but pilgrimages into the land of wonders. What Alfred expected was the absolutely miracu- lous, the impossible : he expected to find his mother young, good and loving, as she had once been; he would begin life anew with her. He, who had wished his wife and family dead, had left her alone and had gone on a pilgrimage into the land where he had desired to send them.

XIII

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE

There is not an organ of the human body, not a single article of clothing or of daily use which may not become an object of fetishism. In the case studied in the last chapter, we observed an almost inconceivable condensation in the fetishistic symbol of the apron. The symbol, the fetish, is the focus of all the rays of the individual's consciousness. And as long as one has not understood this phenomenon of condensation, the cases of this kind will remain an eternal mystery.

In this chapter, I shall present two cases which will demon- strate a special type of shoe fetishism. The patients were at- tracted to shoe nails or tacks. The first case was not analyzed, but the second was thoroughly studied.

Case 56. Charcot and Magnan reported the case of an eccen- tric man who was sexually provoked only by the nails of women's shoes. His peculiarity drove him to most strikingly extravagant acts.

He strives always to get a look at the tacks or nails in women's shoes, carefully examines the traces of the nails in the snow or wet earth, listens for the sound of nailed heels on the sidewalk. He finds ineffable pleasure also in repeating words or phases to himself which may conjure up in his mind the image of these things. In short, he comprises the essence of his bliss in one phrase: "to shoe a woman" {ferrer une femme).

This patient also indulges in masturbation which, to use the happy expression of Binet, acts as a sort of resonance chamber for his feelings. Throughout his onanistic practices, he thinks constantly of shoe nails, and that with all the intensity which the sexual excitement of these habits is wont to evoke. It was thus that he was one day apprehended while masturbating before the display windows of a shoe store.

As early as six or seven years of age, this patient was impelled by an irresistible and instinctive impulse to observe the feet of

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 83

women in order to see whether their shoes had nails in the soles or not. As soon as he caught sight of a nail anywhere on the shoe, he was inexpressibly happy. Two female relatives of his lived with his family. He would sneak into their room after their shoes, tremblingly pick them up, touch and count the nails and become lost in rapture. At night in bed, he would conjure up the image of one of the girls and have her play a phantastic role in his mind. Thus, for example, he would see her mother taking her to a shoe- maker and hear her telling the cobbler to put soles on the shoes with nails. Then he would see the shoemaker nailing the soles on and afterwards give the shoes to the girl. Then again, he would try to imagine the girl's feelings on putting on the shoes and walk- ing in them. Finally, his phantasies would subject the girl to the crudest tortures, he would imagine nailing horseshoes on her feet W actually cutting off her feet (sadistic hyperbolism of his phan- tasies). Simultaneously he would masturbate, but not alone in order to achieve the direct physical gratification which it afforded, but primarily as a sort of accompaniment to his phantastic dramas.

All these habits were repeated through the years without the patient having made the least effort to overcome them. Without a single pang of conscience, he enjoyed these sensual pleasures, as oblivious of their significance as the child that he was at heart. After completing his studies, he went to live with a relative in the country and there had frequent opportunity to meet with two young women, nieces of his, who lived in the vicinity. Whenever he was alone, he would sit himself down upon a bench in the garden and begin to spin a phantastic tale aloud, his two nieces naturally being the heroines of the stories. At the same time, he would play with himself in the most lascivious manner, and even continued the practices for the next few days without actually masturbating. When he would see the girls again, he would always try to catch sight of the nails in their shoes. One of the girls, who had become aware of his desire, used to touch his foot with hers in order that he might also feel them. He had not asked her for the favor, but she took pleasure in doing this, especially when she had new shoes on. Such tactile sensations would provoke a prompt orgasm, but it must be emphasized that the nailed heels and not the girl were responsible for the result. Frequently, he would sneak a shoe away from the girls and then lay the head of his penis on one of the nails in the heel. Ejaculation was the im- mediate result, even though he may not have touched the phallus otherwise.

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At eighteen he came to Paris and there experienced the thrill of his life every time he passed a fashionable bootery in the win- dows of which the women's shoes of that period were displayed. Aside from his sexual excitement, however, the patient also finds himself frequently pursued by his phantasies at other times, too. Despite his attempts to put them out of his mind occasionally, they hound him like furies. At such moments, he feels as if a veil is cast upon his thought, his mind is plunged into the blackest night. His eyelids droop, his eyes become heavy and he begins in a croon- ing and hardly audible voice to spin one of his phantastic tales to himself. Meanwhile, he will almost automatically begin to mas- turbate, either directly per manum or indirectly by rubbing his phallus between his thighs or by sitting himself down upon it with all his weight. At the time when he may sense his being filled with the acme of creative ability, he gives the impression of exalta- tion. The hyper-excited condition of his brain is sometimes so marked that he suffers from illusions and almost from hallucina- tions. This is especially true when he struggles to put down his phantasies. It is then that he feels as if a second person were standing next to him and whispering the words into his ear which he speaks, giving him the advice to beat off this purposeless habit. As in most cases, this deviation of emotion is distinctly based upon a biological degeneration.

Now, it is easy and comfortable to brand such cases uncon- cernedly as degenerate, and to let a psychological explanation go hang. It seems to me, however — and that quite apart from any other determinants in the case — that this man was suffer- ing from an identification of the female with the horse. Never- theless, it may be idle to throw up questions about the matter without an exhaustive analysis. One thing, however, is cer- tain, and that is that a monomania for nails must have a plu- rality of determinants in order to achieve the rank of an auto- cratic fetish.

In pleasant contrast to this purely descriptive case, we have the "Analysis of an Hysterical Phobia which was reported in exemplary and exhaustive manner by Ludwig Binswangen1

Case 57. This concerns a twenty-year-old girl who came to Binswanger because of a phobia which has been present for fifteen years. She was afraid to go into any shoe shop, but was never-

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 85^

theless impelled to look at the shoes of every person she saw. Her prime fear was that the heel might drop from the shoe and thus disclose the nails or tacks. The time the condition first mani- fested itself is well known and can be related to a definite ex- perience.2

"It was one January morning on the ice that our (at that time) five years and nine months old patient — we shall call her Gerda — went with her sister and governess to learn to skate. Suddenly the girl's sisters laughingly called her attention to the fact that her heels had been torn off by the skates and were barely hanging to one side of the shoes. Gerda looked down at them and began to cry bitterly. She was soon taken home by her governess and on the way they met her youngest brother Max, who was being taken for an airing. Gerda began to cry again. She hardly re- members how she got home, but once arrived, she fell upon her mother's neck and cried out: 'I saw the nails!' Hereupon her mother took off her shoes, and Gerda promptly fainted. She awakened on the sofa. Afterwards, her sisters and brothers laughed at her for the way she acted.

"According to the mother, Gerda again fainted while skating when she was seven. This second time, she lost her heel com- pletely. From that time on, they had her soles nailed well and the heels were attached with screws. And yet, when she was nine, the same experience repeated itself."

I must interrupt the report to call attention to the fact that Gerda began to cry again when she met her youngest brother Max as she was on the way home. It is also very significant that she fell in a faint at home, and repeated the scene several times afterwards. When she was eleven years old, she became dizzy on the occasion of losing the bottom layer of leather and a few nails off one heel. She felt "as if she dragged a tremen- dous load on the foot," and twice when she was fifteen, she fainted at the sight of loose or run-down heels. Even new shoes made her dizzy. She continues herself :

"Once when I was seventeen, I fainted while trying on new shoes in a boot shop, and ever since then I cannot enter one with- out a certain feeling of anxiety.

"Standing on the rear platform of the street car one day as it was going around a curve, I had the feeling that something had

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happened to my heel and promptly fell into a protracted faint. Of course, I looked down and assured myself that everything was all right, but it seems that my feelings in the matter were too powerful. When I was eighteen, I lost the heel off one of my shoes at a ball, but I did not faint, because the heel was not nailed but glued on, and so nothing really was torn. Secondly, the heel was of one solid piece, and also, it was not from a shoe, but from a pump.

"In the train about a year ago, I overheard a woman say to her husband : 'Your shoe is torn.' I didn't look to see, but the very words cut me to the kidney, and I had to struggle to keep from fainting. The thought of having to sit for two hours in the same coupe with that man and his loose heel was torturing. I couldn't stand it any longer and fell in a faint. I could hardly remain con- scious until the train finally reached X. And for the next three or four days after that experience, I was absolutely incapable of thought ; my whole body, and especially my head, was as heavy as lead ; I could neither eat nor sleep. — Ever since that attack, when- ever I am in the street car or in any room together with strangers, a feeling of anxiety comes over me as if something might happen. The same is true when I take a trip or a hike with several others. And once the anxiety has taken hold of me, it doesn't leave me for the day. I'm terribly upset and restless, and must be left alone to quiet my nerves. It is at such times that I feel totally unhappy and repelled by everything.

"While in the faint, I have the feeling that my legs are gone, that they have been left on the ground. As if my body reached only to my hips, the rest having been removed.3 No one dared approach me. I was not in the least responsible and did not need to worry about anyone. I was afraid to awaken from my sleep and feared that I might fall to earth."

This restlessness in the company of strange men is undoubt- edly derived from sexualized expectancy mixed with anxiety. This also explains the last fainting spell that Gerda had, viz., when a friend of hers told Gerda of a proposal she (the friend) had received.

When she was eleven or twelve years old, Gerda was sexually enlightened. Consciously, she has no sexual distaste. She claims, also, that she is not noticeably interested in sex differ- ences or in the process of birth.

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 87

"Whenever Gerda hears the word 'heel' or so much as thinks the word herself, she imagines a half-torn heel hanging by a thread to the shoe and showing the nails or tacks ; she is simul- taneously provoked by the clean, light color of the inside leather thus disclosed. Or she may imagine to herself that a skate has been torn from her foot, leaving some part still attached. Or she produces the phantasy that some man grasps her foot between his legs, quickly puts a skate on her, and then turns the screw clamps. She feels anxious that he might turn the screw up too quickly and tightly. And this is the worst thought for her. She feels that such a situation in reality could end in nothing else but her fainting. Another time she says : The very worst is to feel the clamps slowly biting into the heel when a skate is put on.' She feels as if she herself were being clamped. This displace- ment of feeling from the foot to the whole person is noteworthy. It is also interesting to learn that when she walks in the street, Gerda feels impelled to look at the heels of everyone who is walk- ing ahead of her. But she feels quite embarrassed if anyone else looks at her feet." 4

If Dr. Binswanger even placed a finger on the heel, she would become upset and threaten to drop into a faint. It was also a feeling as if someone had pressed a button, as if a stroke of lightning had passed through her body. She has no more con- trol over herself, she feels absolutely without will, as if she were completely at the mercy of someone else. She fears that she and heel could not be compatible. She closes her eyes when she sees one loose and has no more knowledge of what is being done with her.

This, of course, is manifestly the description of a sexual feel- ing. The heel appears to have taken on the importance of some erogenous zone ; indeed, her strongest erogenous zone.

She experiences most singular sensations in her fainting spell ; she has no legs, only a trunk, can feel only her hips, thinks the rest of her has removed itself, etc. No one can approach her. (When she thinks of a birth, her own * 'bottom" becomes weaker and seems to be no part of her. ) She feels herself with- out responsibility.

But she would like to lay her hand on the heel. She has a feeling of being "open" at the sole. She would like to rub and

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press her heel, she says. Her foot often itches and tickles her, and sometimes it feels numb and dead.

It is plain that she has sexualized her heels. She has taken a sexual attitude towards them. Her conception of them has become animistic.

"As a child, I liked my shoes so. I can't say why. When a heel fell off, it hurt me as if the heel had been a living thing."

Before that trauma on the ice, Gerda had been in the habit of masturbating with the aid of a shoe. Binswanger looks upon this shoe masturbation as an expression of her anal erotism. Since childhood, she has been suffering from obsti- nate constipation, has a tendency to vomit, but also an insane fear of actually doing so. She never uses any but the toilet at home, and is even afraid of that one. She is afraid of the black hole, and, of course, afraid that she might fall in.

"Even as a child, Gerda had already disclosed a distinct phobia for human and animal excrements. When a friend of her sister's once accidentally stepped in feces in the woods, Gerda refused to go further. When her sister was teased by her brothers because she had happened to smear one knee against some filth, Gerda ran out of the room.5 In the dark, she was afraid to walk because of a fear that she might step in some filth, and to walk across a meadow was enough to 'scare her to death.' She paid meticulous attention to her shoes and kept them spotlessly clean. Her phobia in the matter of filth went so far that she would refuse to play with other children in the garden if any dogs had been there before them. And dogs themselves were a source of dislike to her be- cause of their 'uncleanliness.' 'Thin stools' are the limit of dis- gust for her, and whenever she suffers from a diarrhoea, she be- lieves herself on her death bed. In view of this marked anal com- plex, it would pay us to present a symptomatic act of hers from the period of her life when she had not yet effected this trans- formation of her instincts and when her interest in anal things was still an undisguised one. Gerda related how she and her brother Albert, two years her junior, had torn out the tail of their rocking horse, and had then dug around in the hole until the saw- dust fell out upon the floor. 'We were interested to see,' she said, 'what was in there when the tail was gone.' Then they got on the horse and rocked on it as hard as they could to see how much more

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 89

would come out. In the evening they put the tail back and took it out the next morning in order 'to examine' the thing again. This all took place before the scene on the ice."

She often complained of itching around the anus and tried to alleviate the condition by "pressing and opening" it. Defe- cation was pleasurable6 because it stopped the itch. She had the habit of pressing so hard while defecating that a governess told her she had better stop because otherwise something would "burst." She compares the itching about her anus with the sensation when a foot falls asleep and then the blood rushes back into the limb. She would often induce this prickling sen- sation by sitting for a while with her legs crossed. "I often sat in the most abstruse positions, and then I would have to stamp to get the blood back in my legs."

"Here we come upon connections between the foot and the alimentary canal (the rectum) for the first time. In both places she would get the prickling or itching sensation, and in both cases Gerda resorted to the same methods of relief. She presses against the organ, i.e., she either stamps on her feet or contracts the rectum.

"Now, the warning of the governess that if she pressed too hard, something would burst, seems not to have passed by Gerda un- noticed, for she later related that she frequently felt during de- fecation that 'my rectum couldn't do it ; it felt as if it would burst, be torn ; it simply would not go.' But these are precisely the words she used so frequently in respect of heels and shoes.

"Gerda also had the 'same feelings in the head' when defecating as she had when falling in a faint : her eyes seemed dimmed, lassi- tude set in and she felt a dull, tired feeling in the body. The dif- ference being that these feelings disappeared more quickly after defecation than following a faint. She also cries easily after both acts when she is spoken to and she is also afraid to speak about either of these experiences. When she sees a shoe pulled open before being put on, she becomes afraid that 'something will crack.' 'Oh ! please don't step into it ! Please, don't stand on it hard or else I'll feel it in my head !' "

Binswanger then goes on exhaustively 7 to elucidate the re- lationship between the defecation and the fainting spells. The belly filled with feces becomes a profitable point of departure

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on a study of her pregnancy complex. Both the feces and the heels show close connection with her anal erotism. Gerda had imagined that the feces become attached to and grow in the in- testines as with roots. Some glue makes it stick to the intes- tinal wall. The tearing away of the heel finds its prototype in the tearing away and protrusion of the feces in the abdomen (infantile excremental theories). Before that event on the ice rink, she had occasionally dirtied her bed. She manifests patent anal erotism, but also a distinct urine sexuality.

"In connection with a remark that she must frequently urinate when she becomes excited, Gerda mentioned that urinating had always made her feel 'good/ particularly if she would press. At seven she often played with those parts, usually when she was sitting on her pot (one of her favorite pastimes). She said that she had been in the habit of compressing that region just as she contracted her rectum. 'I really didn't want to do it, but I did it just the same. I have the feeling that it wasn't right.' She was still doing it as late as eleven or twelve years of age.

"Here we gain a new relationship : that between the 'front part,' as we called the vulva during the analysis, and the anal region (pressing). Both regions are erogenous zones for her, as becomes progressively more clear in the analysis. The third erogenous zone is that of the ankle and heel. The closer connections be- tween all three of these will become still more clear to us later on.

"First she would press in front, then she would put her hands down there, then came the urgency to urinate, and lastly an 'open feeling/ as if something in front were not closed. Gerda would be impelled to enhance this feeling by the use of her hands, she 'simply could not keep from doing it.'

"Involuntarily we recall the 'open feeling* she had upon pulling at the heel, and also her 'irresistible impulse to press against it/

"In the process of those manipulations on her parts, Gerda was able to increase the intensity of her feelings by working herself into a depressed state, by thinking that her parents would die, that something might happen to Albert, etc. The feelings were also intensified if she would think of yellow shoes."

Whoever knows the relationships between sadism and anal sexuality will easily recognize that Gerda's fears that some- thing would happen to Albert were nothing but the transposed wishes that something should happen to him (her first attack

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE

actually was related to her youngest brother). She liked to cower together in such a fashion that no one could approach her. In that way she would press her shoes between her legs. But as soon as she tries this trick, she gets the feeling that her heels slip away, and she must cry (death of her brother?).

As in the case of all fetishists, the compulsion is repeatedly expressed through the medium of a symbol. Gerda's obses- sional compulsion is expressed by the skate clamp.

The heel is her ideal, her child, her fetish ; she feels she must sit on it to derive pleasure from it. But later she felt she could not sit on it any more for fear that it might break off. She confesses :

"I must have created an ideal out of the shoes. After that accident on the ice, I thought to myself: I liked them so once, and now I must preserve them in my heart because they're so weak. It was simply my duty. That is, duty replaced love.8

"I : 'But you must also have hated your shoes, too, because you could no longer use them in your practices/

"She: 'Whenever I later saw worn-out shoes, I'd throw them away ; my hate broke through. I had the feeling I didn't deserve that from them. I felt that I had taken just as much care of them as others of theirs and yet others didn't have such troubles, although they didn't pay as much attention to them as I. I felt unjustly hurt. I looked upon the shoes as something alive. When the heel fell off it was a true disappointment.' "

It becomes rather clear that the shoe represented the mother and the heel the child which was pried loose and torn from the mother's body. That will soon become clearer. There was her hatred of her brothers and sisters, especially of Max. That is why these thoughts are attended by a marked feeling of guilt. Pressing out feces and losing a heel appear psychically equiv- alent here. Binswanger continues :

"Hitherto we have considered only the genital component of her masturbation somewhat closely, but the anal component is just as important. We must remember that Gerda used the shoe to masturbate both in front and behind simultaneously. Pressing against her anus was also a 'pleasant sensation' for her.

"T knew that nothing could come out (feces drop out) for I

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had my anus covered up with my shoe and the feces were too hard anyhow. That was why I was so scared when it did come out at night and that's why I'm now so afraid of dreams.9 I must admit that I busied myself with my intestines, feces and the shoes largely when I was alone. These things went hand in hand, they belonged together in my mind. They were my personal form of amusement. When I dirtied the bed that night, I was terribly ashamed, and feared that the others would learn of it. I avoided them. Then two months later, the same thing happened with the shoe. And I thought that it would be able to stand anything (I had taken such good care of the shoes), and yet, just like my rectum, it was not able to be firm and came apart, opened up. Now it was the shoe which disappointed me. One after the other they fell apart and I lost them, and everything that I had con- ceived so surely was turned upside down (refers ultimately to her infantile sexual theories as we shall see later). When my rectum had failed me, I felt that the heels were my sole resort (i.e., in order to be able to masturbate). But as soon as those, too, collapsed, I felt myself quite forlorn. I had nothing more with which to stop up the bottom ; my foot alone was not sufficient/ "

Bins wanger conceives the heel trauma on the ice as the re- jection of her genital and anal shoe masturbation. "This re- jection must, however, signify much more than that. It is probable that the heel represented mother and child to her. Shortly before the above-mentioned trauma, her little brother Max was born."

"The experience which influenced Gerda's life greatest before that occurrence on the ice rink, and the one whose traces we shall be finding more and more clearly in the analysis, was the birth of her youngest brother Max. Gerda was five years and three months old at the time (the trauma on the rink occurred when she was five years and nine months).

"Before we can get a clear notion of the effect of this event upon Gerda's spirit, we must consider her infantile sexual theories which, on the other hand, were also greatly aggravated by the birth.10 The event after, came at a time in her life at which such studies and researches on the part of the child are at their highest. In Gerda's own words: 'I always considered children as offshoots of the mother. If she wanted to have a child, she had to eat 11 something special, rolled oats or something like that,

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 93

in order to get fat. When her body became big enough it would burst. First the belly button 12 would protrude, then the belly would rip open and tear along that dark line down the middle (linea alba) . The child would then gradually push its way out 13 — a fully formed human, only very, very small.14 At one point the child was still connected with the mother, and that part didn't loosen up by itself but had to be cut off. The doctor would then sew everything up. As soon as the child would see the light of day, it would begin to grow very rapidly until it would reach the size of a normal baby. I imagined the spiritual relationships be- tween mother and child to be a sort of counterpart of the physical connection as I have described it/ "

The belly button is, of course, the navel (does the word navel sometimes act as a screen for the word nail?). We will recall that the pressure of the heel sometimes made her feel as if a button were being pressed. One should pay especial attention to the sadistic conception of birth in this infantile theory. The mother's body is supposed to burst at birth just as she supposed the rectum to burst. The child tears itself away from the mother just as the heel from the shoe and the feces from the rectum are supposed to do.

"Gerda's conception that children were the offshoots of the mother derives from her observations of flowers and plants.

" T feel myself absolutely a branch or offshoot of my mother,' she writes. T often found that to be the case in flowers; the young plants grow out of the mother plant. When they are large enough, they are then cut off and put in a pot by themselves. I distinctly recall an amaryllis from whose bulbs new sprouts grew out. I looked after them every day, and hardly had the patience to wait until I could separate them from the mother plant. It was really a small wonder. The small one was an exact facsimile of the large plant. Gradually the little plant tried to gain a foothold in the earth ; its roots already touched the ground, but it still had to be nurtured by the mother plant. Then leaves gradually appeared on top and slowly pushed their heads up towards the light. By then I was ready to cut them loose. Carefully I separated the sprouts and tried hard not to tear anything. Having covered them with good, rich earth, I put them in my little hot-house so that every ray of sun would strike them. But I waited in vain for new shoots. The plant gradually wilted although I watered and fer-

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tilized it assiduously. Just that may have been my mistake. The little plant probably did not have the capacity for assimilating all the rich nutrition which was offered to it from without. It drooped and disintegrated. I had torn it from the old plant too early; while it was still being well nourished. It would have been better for it to have been naturally cared for, but instead I choked it with too much care and attention/ "

More material for the explanation of the symbolism of nails and tacks comes to light. They are small and white; they gleam through the cracks between the heel and sole. She is pained by the thought that they are alive (a child?).

"During a walk in the wood one day, we came upon an old and torn shoe on the ground, and when, the following day, I asked Gerda why she had manifested no signs of feeling, she answered : T had the feeling that it was no longer alive; the nails were no longer alive and fresh ; they were not bright, but dead and de- cayed.'

"In contrast to this she recalled that the nails she saw in her own shoe when the heel came off on the ice were 'snow white.' Tt's curious/ she continued, 'but I felt yesterday as if we had come upon a fresh green branch or even an old and dry one that had been cut off. It is the fresh scar which reminds me of everything, the white line. And what a color contrast in that black shoe ! And the yellowish part of the heel ; everything looked alive there. When one cuts off a branch, the inside is white, there is a marrow there, and that reminds me of the nails in shoes. As children (Albert and she) we used to cut off branches of elder wood and make whips of them. When the long branches have died, they dry up, the marrow and the strength is gone and they're no good any more. They're dead. That's what an old worn-out shoe reminds me of. The nails don't bother me then. But a shoe that's worn, that has shiny nails, they're alive. Like a stick with fresh marrow. The tacks remind me of fresh marrow full of sap. I have often thought that there is more sap, more life in the nails of baby shoes. In men's shoes they're stiffer and more dried out ; they're older and stronger. I imagine that when shoes become old, the nails become old and lifeless, too. But that's not so bad. Children's shoes are worse, because they are younger. When I have worn a pair of shoes a long time, I get the feeling that now they can last. I felt that I could judge what they were worth, what they were good

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for. That was especially clear to me yesterday when I saw all of nature so alive, and that shoe dead.' "

Her sadistic phantasies (killing of newborn babies?) betray still further associations which become understandable when instead of elder juice we read blood. Elder branches are bo- tanical genitals, they look like nails. In this connection, she declares : "I never wanted to hear anything said about heels in terms of reproduction or creation."

"The following (seventy-nine) day, we learned more.

" 'In the Spring, everything still looked alike in nature, but it was only when one cut off branches that one could tell whether life were present or whether the limbs were dead. We were not supposed to cut off the budding branches, and we were told to be careful how we cut roses, for they might easily 'bleed' and lose much sap. Especially when the flowers are torn off, and not all of the stem comes off but some of it remains hanging by a shred. That really kills them, ruins the plant because the sap cannot rise. I couldn't take it with me, however, because the stem clung so tenaciously to the bush. Otherwise I would have put the roses in water. Instead, I had destroyed the plant without having any use or pleasure from it. Whenever I would see such a broken twig the following day, I would get a pang of guilt.15

"Eighty-one day. Elder ? 'It was a riddle to me how the leaves and blossoms came out of that ordinary wood. And red blossoms, too! One must certainly be able to find some sort of red color and blossoms in there to begin with. They used to tell me that the sap did it, but I could not get it into my head how that were possible. I often used to ask them how they knew what kind of a flower would come out on the branch, e.g., how I would know what was coming when I would sow seeds in the ground. I in- sisted upon the question just because they had told me that such and such a color or flower would always appear and that was all there was to it. That then made me feel that I could determine the color that was to come. I was terribly irritated when they cor- rected me. I was always of the opinion that whenever I wanted anything badly enough I would get my wish.16

We are thus forced to the assumption that she was distinctly pained by Max's birth and produced all kinds of sadistic phan- tasies as to how she might be rid of him. But how does that

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rhyme with her request of her mother that the latter should present the family with twins? On the one hand, we could assume that, in addition to her bipolar attitude, she may have displayed a certain hypocrisy or theatricality such as we often may see in children. One the other hand, she may have imagined that her mother's body would then surely burst. Her animosity must then reasonably have been engendered by the birth of the little brother.

It must also be mentioned that Gerda made use of a shoe as a hen would a hatching egg; she sat on it, hatched it, and hoped that an egg would come out. The bursting of the shoe is thus even more clearly the bursting of the mother's body. We will recall again that she always conceived shoe nails, heels and shoes as something alive.

"We thus come to the realization that at this level of the analysis, the heel phobia means : It is the protection against the appearance of a birth phantasy in consciousness. The heel or, rather, that connection between the heel and the sole, is disclosed as a sort of incubator or, as Gerda put it, a seed, an organ from which new life is created. This organ is usually hidden by the attached heel, but when the heel is loosened and the crack is widened, the new creature begins to grow and become ready for birth. The further analysis will corroborate this conception in divers ways.

"In this connection we may mention a dream of hers which will occupy us later on again. At this point it will serve simply to show us that Gerda also transferred her theory of the develop- ment of chickens to the creation of humans. The dream reads :

" T was bathing with mama. As we got out, a piece of mucus dropped from mama and remained in the water. But there was something else, something dark; I don't know whether it was feces or not, but it was stuck together with the mucus. Then I looked at it for just a moment and a child was suddenly developed out of it. I saw it becoming more and more distinct. I asked mama what that was, and she said it was a dead child that she had had in her. I thought that was awfully gruesome when mother said that she had had that baby in her. It floated in the water. Then I awoke.'

"Addenda: 'Everything developed from the nucleus and the limbs from the shreds. The baby sat there with limbs drawn up against its body, just as I had seen in the pictures in our doctor

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book (at twelve). The very moment when mother said that it was her baby, I no longer felt that I was hers. I was astounded that she could have said such a thing, I hated her. I thought it atrocious of her to say that. I was shocked that she showed so little feeling. Moreover, I believed in the dream that the child really had been in her, perhaps for years, and that it was only by accident that it had fallen out.' "

The first part of the dream clearly reveals her various birth phantasies, and also her fear that mother might really give birth to another child. She transfers her own heartlessness to her mother in this dream, becomes her mother's antagonist and rationalizes her hate and revulsion. It was she, however, who awaited each new baby with hatred in her heart, and manifestly was all trembling for fear that it might become just another rival. According to her infantile sexual theory, also, the babies may remain within the mother's body for years.

It is she who is gruesome, she has no feeling for the child and wishes it might be born dead. Her eldest sister's preg- nancy was also a time of trial and tribulation for her. She was afraid her sister would fall, stumble or trip ; that her foot might slip or her ankle give way while she would be climbing stairs.17 Gerda herself felt weak in the knees and legs when- ever she was together with her sister during the latter's "criti- cal" period. Her heels especially seemed wobbly to her.

When the child was finally born, she felt that something was finally accomplished, that something had died within her. She felt as if she were again burying something. That was mani- festly the wish that the new rival (a nephew) might die or be born dead ; that she might bury him. Her whole pregnancy complex leads, in the analysis, to the discovery of her sadistic attitudes : operation, appendicitis, slitting the belly open during consciousness, tearing something to pieces, disembowelment — defecation, fainting. If, experimentally, the heel is even so much as touched during the analysis, she gets the prompt feel- ing that her intestines are being torn asunder, that she is being stabbed through and through, that she is being disembowled. Touching the heel makes her feel as if she were undergoing narcosis, and some other feeling in addition.

It is apparent that the heel primarily represents her sadistic

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complex. The masochistic element is introduced by her fear of punishment (talion principle).

It is at this level of the analysis that she arrives at the great trauma of her life, in my opinion the original trauma: the birth of Max. The heel is later shown by the course of her analysis to be her brother Max.

" T did have the feeling that I was privy to something that no one else knew. I had always listened with such innocence while the others had acted so incautiously. Mama left us for about three weeks, and it was especially at first that I missed her. Then she returned and I was overjoyed, but the relationship was quite a different one. From that time on, I had a little brother who monopolized all of mama's attention. I was only his elder sister. I had the nurse show me exactly how he was cared for, so that I might do the same with my dolls. She also taught me how to care for my little brother and told me that it was my duty as his older sister. She said that being older, I was also responsible for him. And so I gradually came to like my new position and felt much more independent. Realizing that I was responsible for him to some extent, I also became somewhat better behaved. But when they began to attempt to break me of my obstinacy and un~ willingness in certain things by exploiting this responsibility, I began to mutiny and found the whole business irksome and onerous.

" 'Following the birth of Max I seem to have been displaced from my former position in the house. I began to demand less of my mother, apparently because a strong motherly feeling also awakened in me. I became less selfish and felt entirely responsible for everything that occurred in the nursery. I wanted to become indispensable, to mean something to my brothers and sisters. For that reason, I didn't dare say anything foolish or ask any silly questions ; simply that they might not laugh at me/ "

The trauma on the ice becomes clear. The brother is born and dies. She is insanely jealous and in love with her mother.

"Gerda originally possessed a very strong mother transference. As a small child, the mother or some substitute such as the nurse- maid or governess, had to look after her once more after being put to bed, otherwise she would cry for hours on end. Often she had embraced her mother after the latter had fallen asleep. She liked especially to 'climb upon her mother's lap, so that no one

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else could approach mama/ Whenever she was depressed or tear- ful, she would make herself as small as possible, so that she might be petted and protected by mama. Then she would like to lay her head on mother's breast, almost under mother's arm. That made her feel very happy. She 'pressed her head against' her mother's side while mother would have to tell her sad tales. Gerda was proud of the fact that her mother had nursed her herself, whereas the younger brothers were not nursed by mama. As an expres- sion and further proof of this strong transference, we find that Gerda manifested a neurotic anxiety of other people, of life itself, and especially a fear of any change in her environment. 'When I would thus be sitting with mama, and would think of the possibility that it could ever be otherwise, I would be seized with a fear of the world, life, all people. That was why I always wanted to be at home.' When her mother talked of death, Gerda became nearly wild with anxiety and pain. She wanted always to be 'small/ and always 'to keep mama/ That was also why she hated to change any bit of clothing, especially any of her shoes. It made her feel the passage of time, that she was ageing."

In other words, she identified herself with her shoes.

Her attitude towards her mother, however, is not solely posi- tive, but bipolar: Love and hate (the hate being due to her jealousy).

"Before Max's birth, Gerda spent most of her time with her mother. She often lay next to her mother on the sofa of an after- noon and would devotedly follow the latter's regular breathing. Then mother might suddenly go down town and Gerda would be left alone. 'No one was able to substitute for my mother/ said she, 'and I liked to be only with her. Aside from that, I was sup- posed to look more like her than any of my sisters or brothers. We understood each other perfectly, and I was devoted to her with all the fibres of my heart. But with Max's birth, something seemed to come between us.' 18

"Gerda told me how impressed she was by the following tale which her mother told her. She heard it for the first time when she was about four, i.e., before the episode on the skating rink. When her mother was about six, her grandmother died. In order to get a look at her grandmother lying in the coffin, her mother had to stand on a chair, but some one pulled her down off that and said she shouldn't be so curious, that it wasn't proper, etc. 'That

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was the story which always impressed me more than any other,' said our patient. Alone in bed at night, she often thought shud- deringly of that and felt very sympathetic towards her mother. But then she began to have these thoughts as if she were the suf- ferer, as if she had lost her mother ! She would imagine that her mother lay in her coffin, that she herself had opened the cover of the coffin and crawled in beside her mother. She had made herself as small as possible and closed the top.

"Although this makes us only suspect that phantasies of a return to the mother's womb are here presented, we find them manifestly expressed in Gerda's statement that she had imagined as a child that she had died and would again be born by her mother. A sort of night would steal upon them, everything would be at an end and then, in the morning, everything would begin anew. 'I wanted to know how everything was created, everything that was being done during the time that I could not recall anything — when Max and Albert were not yet born/ Then she wanted to recall her — baptism (?) !"

A typical womb phantasy, such as we have been able to find in all of our cases. Yet let us hear how she was affected by Max's birth.

"A strange bit of conduct on Gerda's part at the time her mother was pregnant became known to us through a dream she reported on the one hundred and forty-seventh day of the analysis.

" 'A pair of black button shoes which belonged to my mother stood before me. The heels were quite good, but the leather at the ankles showed holes.19 In a way, that disgusted and repelled me, but I was also so hurt by the sight that I would have liked to cry. I must say that I was so deeply hurt that I awakened and could not fall asleep again until I took my mind off the subject and thought of other things.' "

In this dream, which speaks for itself, the patient thinks of a certain scene from the period when Max was born. She de- scribed it as follows :

" 'I can still see mama sitting herself down in her comfortable easy chair and pulling on a pair of shoes, but they weren't the usual button shoes ; instead they were again those laced shoes. I wasn't used to change and didn't like it. At any rate, I at first

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sort of avoided those shoes. Mama laughed at my resistance to changes and explained to me that she was given to swollen feet and therefore had to wear laced shoes which she could lace either tightly or loosely, as she chose. But a certain something seemed to glide between mama and me during the few days following, something strange. It seemed that the strangeness was attached to my mother, too, and that was why I often looked askance at those shoes of hers.'

"Gerda must therefore have conceived her mother's swollen feet as a sign of pregnancy, and that was actually the case. The swollen feet may simply have attracted her attention at that time a little more than the swollen body of her mother."

A subsequent appendix to that dream is also important.

" 'The thought that I might some day have to have my shoes made by some other shoemaker, or buy them ready made, or per- haps wear laced shoes rather than the ones I had, was in itself horrifying to me. That was why I paid special attention to my shoes, that they might not be spoiled/ " 20

This dream reveals a quite transparent symbolism. The black shoes are apparent death symbols. The child (the heels) is saved, but its mother dies (the holes in the leather), and the shoe is torn. Feelings of disgust and revulsion (disgust with herself !), and deep sadness (sorrow at the loss of her mother). This all overcomes her and she awakens. The swollen feet may have reminded her of disease and death, but also of phallic erection (although this latter is not yet proven, since practically no phallic symbolism has, as yet, appeared in the course of the analysis). The shoemaker is probably her father, who, symbolically, produced new shoes in his children. She will not leave her parents' home. Even the thought is horrifying.

"Further associations on Max's birth: 'With Max's arrival, something new cut into my life.21 Mama left all the old things behind her.22 She had nothing further to do with old habits. All of a sudden, something new and strange was upon us ; something that really didn't belong ; something I didn't want at all. But that was all the more reason for my clinging to the old more than ever ; just because mother had given it up.' Gerda was supposed to go to Max's baptism clad in new shoes. They had to fight with

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her for some time before she would consent, but when the parents weren't looking she quickly changed them for her old ones. 'It was simply impossible for me to wear new shoes. As if the rest were not enough !'

"In reference to that episode on the ice, she says: 'My shoes tore, too. As soon as I looked at the torn shoe, something seemed to tear within me. The shoe seemed to go to pieces suddenly. Everything had been all right up to then. I liked those shoes so. It was at that moment that a veil seemed to be lifted from my eyes, I don't know just how it was, but I seemed to understand for the first time. I know that I began to remember things when Maxie was born. Up to that time, everything had been nice and quiet in the house.'

The last few explanations have made the coming psychic conflict of the girl more understandable to us, but before we proceed, I must call attention to one more experience which Gerda had just before Max's birth. It concerned her greatly. That was the death of a cousin which occurred a week before Max's birth. She had seen her cousin two days before he died. At his death she ' 'asked heaven itself how that could have happened, and the answer was that he would never awaken again."

"'I couldn't grasp the meaning of the word: "forever asleep." I asked everybody all kinds of questions in order to get a conception of the death of a human.'

" 'I wanted to know the exact cause of his death. It was just like a hole ; something was suddenly missing. I couldn't get away from the "never again" part of the fact ; it was awful. Moreover, why are they put into the ground while they're still whole ? I tried hard to get a notion of what it meant to have everything over with/ "

It is easy to see from these statements how birth and death monopolized her thought, and also how all these ideas returned in the symbolical form of the shoe-heel pictures and thus again forced themselves upon her mind.

There is something more to be added to the question of her pregnancy complex and its relation to the shoes.

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"Whenever Gerda sees an obese woman who is laced in, she must think: 'Just n^e a skate clamp cutting into a heel. Some- thing is being destroyed, something protrudes above or below. The same with a heel. The leather is stretched. That's why I can't stand curved heels on ladies' shoes. It's just as if they had a belt on. Whenever I see a woman with shoes like that walking or running, I get the feeling that she's simply cutting herself to pieces. I'm especially affected if I see pregnant women wearing such heels.'

" 'When pregnant women wear belts or lace themselves, some- thing must tear, something is destroyed, and the child will be born either prematurely or will die.'

"Another indicative expression of hers is : 'When a woman laces herself, her pelvis begins to wobble like a loose heel.' Gerda has never worn a corset except once for about a half hour. She was afraid she would die. She has always worn her dresses very loosely. 'Nothing tight around the body, otherwise they'll all see right away as soon as your body begins to swell.' She positively hates those corsets that cut into the inguinal region."

The reader who has understood the discussion of the rela- tionship between fetishism and compulsion in the earlier chap- ters will understand the significance of the above and also the following excerpts.

"In short, neither the body nor the heel may be laced or crowded or cut into. Nothing of either must be injured or destroyed. In this connection, another observation is interesting, although it oc- curred some time before the episode mentioned above. Gerda had seen a heel torn loose on a little girl in the street. She had the feeling that she must tell that little girl to stand still or else other people would be able to look into the crack ; that they shouldn't see what had happened. But she seemed paralyzed and thought:

" 'That child is going through an experience which must over- come it in short time. It can't understand the importance of the whole thing because of its youth and naivete. If that kid walks any further, trouble will start ; her heel will come off ; that'll be the catastrophe.23 The child is certainly exhibiting itself. I should have thrown myself lipon it, covered it with my own body, with my own clothing/

"It is striking, but illustrative, that Gerda never had a thought

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of the same thing happening to little boys. Naively she states : 'Girls are not so protected as are boys and that's why it's easier for something to happen to them.' It need hardly be stressed that such statements clearly reveal a connection between the heel phobia and sexuality."

Indeed, boys can't bear children and thus their bodies cannot burst. On the other hand, we have here indications of her castration complex and an attitude which, further developed, leads to her "struggle of the sexes."

The heel is a phallic symbol ; tearing it off is castration, and disclosing it is exhibitionism.

" 'When something happens to a man's heel, it means that the nails show. Then I'm excited, I can't help or protect myself. I simply fall. I'm down. I'm weak and completely in his power. In my faint, I have no idea what happens to me. But I must always look to see what has happened. The attraction is too great. But I fall immediately after having looked. He, too, has some- thing like that in him. As soon as I see it, I'm gone. I was twelve or thirteen when I first saw a loose heel on a man's shoe. I had a sudden feeling that that must be a rude and ordinary fellow. I also couldn't help telling him (the exhibitionist in her eyes) that.' "

But Gerda's symbolism is not restricted to shoes alone. It affects anything which comes in contact with shoes. Thus, the skate becomes a symbol of the child which clings closely to its mother. Binswanger executed the following experiment with her. He put on a skate and then, by a sudden movement of the hand, lifted off a part of his heel. She became deathly pale, her pulse sank to forty-eight, she became nauseous and vomited, and beads of perspiration stood out upon her fore- head. But she took both the skate and shoe in her arms and held it as if she were holding a little baby to her breast.

Her nail symbolism is also variously determined. The shoe is a bisexual symbol, but the heel is a phallic representative. She is a male and possesses a penis. "The shoe and heel are one and inseparable; one without the other is useless."

" 'That I realized when Mama took Maxie to her heart and figuratively became united with him. That displaced me. As long

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as I was so close to her, nothing strange should have come between us. Max was like some foreign body between us. I was pushed aside.'

" 'The shoe nails meant the same to me as a sort of destiny which intrudes upon one's life and disturbs the smooth running of some whole. Max's birth was a fatal intrusion which displaced me/ "

And now we see clearly and unambiguously in her own words that the nails are nothing but a symbolical representa- tion of her little brother Max. The determination of the symbol goes much further, however.

"Referring again to Gerda's conception of the shoe as some- thing whole, indivisible and inseparable, let us make mention of just one more point. 'One must wait until what is inside the heel is mature and full grown ; then it'll die off and then it's quite im- material what happens, whether the shoe is torn or ripped or what. The life of the shoe is then naturally at an end; everything has been all right; but finally the life of both the shoe and its contents is at an end ; both clung together and suffered all shocks in com- mon.'

"I : 'In other words, you wished to die with your mother ?'

"She : 'The thought that my mother would die first was unbear- able to me. There would be nothing left for me.'

"If her mother would die before her, that would free her com- pletely. But that was precisely what bothered her. Something new would happen, life would be fraught with problems, would have to begin all over again.

" 'I always had the feeling that mother stood over me, that I was beneath her; that I clung to her with all my heart. Those were the nails which bound the heel to the shoe. If mother had died or were to die before me, I would have to take her place. I would have to be on top, as it were. Then I would have to get a child. At such a moment my feelings would settle on my shoes, on my bottom. The moment the nails in shoes would show, that was a sign that I had been delivered of something. But how could I do that ! I didn't dare ! Max had just been born. Mother was still very much alive and wasn't even beginning to die.'

"Gerda graphically described these conditions as follows: Life is like a vertical circle (later she said 'like a perpetual steam- shovel') around which the various persons took their positions ac- cording to their age. At the top stands mother, at the evening

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of her life. In the middle is her sister, and at the bottom the patient. After that episode on the ice, however, the positions are changed ; so that her mother had passed beyond the vertex of the circle and she herself had practically approached the position her mother had formerly occupied.

" 'In this second position, something seemed to follow me (from below). That should not have been. I had almost reached mother's former position. That pushed mother further along; shall I say further along towards death? That makes me her rival. IVe taken an immense stride forwards. That's all so clear to me. I don't understand why I couldn't have said it right away.' " 24

We begin to see how the patient's attitude towards power begins to appear; the relations between "over" and "under" (Adler). She steps hard on the shoe. She is "over" the heel. The shoe and the heel thus take on the meaning of that which is tyrannized and trod, and that actually corresponds to the practices of many peoples. The Slavs, for example, have the custom of permitting the bride to tread upon the bridegroom's foot during the wedding ceremony. That appears to be a good omen, for afterwards they shall become the "masters" in the house. Treading with one's feet also has the significance of taking possession. She cannot stand her mother being above her. When she faints, something down below grows more rapidly. She falls from above downwards, i.e., she gives up the mastery (of herself?).

Her dream about the dead child takes on a new meaning in the following :

" T would rather have been the child that was still in her. Then everything would have been different. But we two were beside each other and that which was in her was dead. That is how she injured me. I was practically pushed aside. In the dream I had to give up the position I had formerly held. Formerly I had been beneath mama, and I was also her pet. But I had to give it all up. As a recompense, I demanded that she be alone, but she went ahead and created an extra, something of which she gave me no knowledge; she never told me what it was and how it lived. If she had only told me that she had a child within her body, or if she had only told me of it when it came out. If she

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had only told me about it in another way, then everything would have been all right. As it was, she ripped asunder the last shred of feeling I had for her, and I began to feel that something had cooled within me/ "

She submits to her mother, she loves to be beneath her, but she wants to be paid with love and can't stand her love being disturbed by another rival (Max). She can't divide or share her affections. In the dream, she stands beside her mother, she is her mother's equal. Her attacks have particular refer- ence to this relationship with her mother. That is why she cannot speak with her mother about her seizures. She cannot be approached.

And yet she clings to her mother with every fibre of her soul. She cannot be separated from her.

" 'In the course of years, something came between us and sep- arated us. Nothing seemed to bind us together as formerly. It may be that mama didn't influence me sufficiently, that she let me go in the course of time, pushed me aside ; and that is just what I can't stand. That is why I became more and more withdrawn. I went my own way. And yet I am not entirely independent for deep within me — perhaps repressed and pushed aside — there is still a feeling that I am very close to my mother. It is a feeling which gives me no peace but always seems to be dragging me along after it. I can't seem to shake it off, perhaps because I feel too strongly about it.' "

The reader should observe the tone of this passage carefully, note the choice of words. She is like a heel which has been torn from the shoe, but still clings by a shred and can't come off. She cannot separate herself from her mother. It is the separation of the heel from the shoe which is shocking to her. "The nails tear wounds in the shoe leather — in mother's heart."

The shoe is thus also the mother's heart ; she is the heel, the appendage, that hangs and clings to it. The nails are, however, also fingers (phalli?). She says of hand-shaking: "The fingers of one hand mix with the fingers of the other. The closer friends the two people are, the more intimate are the things they talk about and the more closely do their fingers entwine when shaking hands."

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She realizes that she was somewhat precocious, and that the problems of birth and death agitated her too early.

" 'Destiny entered my life too early and overcame me with its power. I had little understanding as yet, nor was I strong-minded enough or sufficiently resistive to have the right conception of what was taking place. I only felt the power of fate and was afraid of life. It became my fable about the shoe and the heel. That con- tained the most horrible and at once the most beautiful part of life for me; life and death.

Indeed, the shoe was for her the loveliest of things: love. And the most horrible : death.

It must not be forgotten that in this exemplary analysis, her relation to her father also appeared. The death and burial of her father were horrible experiences for her. She noted that her feelings at her father's funeral and during that last heel experiment were very similar. The heel is thus also her father. Her mother had often laughingly said that her father was in love with her. She felt that she had to care for him and min- ister to his wants, but then she had also the feeling that she was mama's equal and had the same rights as the latter. The shoe and heel thus become the symbol of marriage: the shoe is mother, the heel is father, and both together a lingam.

Binswanger goes exhaustively into the sexual significance of the shoe.

"In the course of her masturbatory practices, the shoe had be- come her friend, her darling, her worry, her loveliest plaything, her ideal. She showered attentions upon the shoe, cared for it, indeed, one could say that she spoiled it. She sheltered it from the profane glances of others and practised a veritable purity cult with it. Her shoes were her very own, they were inseparably bound to her, almost attached to her person. Whoever injured her shoes, injured her, too. Her deep attachment to the shoes was so beautiful in her eyes, that she could lose herself in blissful dreams about them, lose all contact with the world in her in- dulgence.

"With legs crossed like a dervish, her shoes pressed close to her perineum, so that they touched her vulva and her anus, there she sat. The cutting and pressure of the hard sole or the heel

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE 109

gave her pleasant sensations (as a gratification of the masochistic component of her sexuality). This we find in both the autoerotic and the alloerotic phases. Her feet would naturally fall asleep in that position and that would provoke a pleasant prickling and tingling. Urinary urgency would set in and urinating would then become very enjoyable. Whenever Gerda sat thus and pressed against 'her bottom/ she had the soothing feeling that every- thing 'down below' in the vulva and anus was well closed. That no one could attack or approach her. Especially since her legs and trunk were well covered with clothing. But the shoe was not only a sort of cork which might relieve her feeling that 'every- thing was open' ; it was also to serve as a sort of stopper, which expression recalls something that is used to stop up an opening. It also brings back to mind the symptomatic acts which she mani- fested when examining her rocking horse.

"But this shoe erotism was not at all the most primary form of anal erotism with Gerda. This must have been preceded by those voluntary acts which consist in opening and closing the anal sphincter and thus holding back the fecal masses in the rectum. Gerda also described these habits very carefully and stated that they were provoked by an itching around the anus. But this is a frequent etiology for that type of onanism. She told us that whenever she defecated, the itching ceased of itself, a circum- stance that was very pleasant to her. And by holding back her feces she could postpone this pleasure as long as she wanted.25 Only after she had learned this trick can the shoe and heel have been added as aids. Aside from the direct irritation of the anal region in this manner, the shoe could not but have promoted the habit already established in view of the fact that it closed off the rectum and prevented the possibility of involuntary defecation."

This brings us to a new determinant in the matter of the heel. Like a column of feces, it closes off the anus. But we must add the experiences of her upbringing which enlarge upon the determination of her symbolic life and increase it.

"This autoerotic practice soon found all manner of obstacles, however. Once the governess had scared the poor child by telling her that if she pressed too hard something would burst (and what the governess said was as good as the word of the Bible). Then there came that involuntary defecation in bed which so frightened Gerda. That experience showed her that she could not depend

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upon her control of the muscles alone while masturbating. And yet she had to feel that no feces would come out. Firstly, because she did not want to become the laughingstock of the other chil- dren; secondly because she did not want to be punished by her parents ; and thirdly, and primarily, because she had by this time become fearfully disgusted by feces."

I must refer the reader to Binswangens original paper for the rest of the exhaustive details on the sexual history of this patient. We can present only the most important points in our summary. He recognizes that the entire instinctual and social life of the child is changingly represented in the symbol- ism of the shoe. He sees the origin of the phobia clearly.

"Now that we have worked through the symbolism of the heel in this case, have shown the byways of her associations, it is time that we demonstrate the occurrence which we must conceive as the origin of this whole phobia ; the experience without which her heel phobia would not have been possible, i.e., the birth of Max. I need not go into too great detail since all the more important points in this connection have already been presented exhaustively in the analysis itself.26 We find here Gerda's 'family romance,' the kernel of her neurosis, everything that Freud so long ago set down in his interpretation of dreams and his infantile sexuality : the relations of the child to its parents and to all the children born after it ; everything which is to be found in the child anal- yses of Freud and Jung.27 In short, that the four- or five-year-old girl noticed her mother's pregnancy, that it became set against the new rival in the family and actually wanted to kill it ; that these impulses were soon veiled in a motherly sort of care and interest in the child; that she could not forgive her mother the secrecy about the pregnancy; that she felt herself pushed aside, lied to, disappointed; that she blamed her mother severely for having taken on something 'extra/ a new being with whom Gerda had to share her mother's love. And the results: that she wants to revenge herself for her mother's faithlessness and betrayal, first by creating children herself in her phantasy (dolls, friends, the new-born child itself, and, in our case, the heel), and secondly, by disposing of the mother (the child, the father) and putting herself in her mother's place ; degrading her, making an evil step- mother of her or an animal, as in the fables or, as in our case, symbolizing her in the degraded form of the shoe.

HEELS AND NAILS IN LOVE-LIFE in

"That is how the first great psychic conflict arose in this child, an expression of her love and hate for one of her parents. Her attitude towards the repaired shoe after it had come back from the shoemaker's following that episode on the ice is very illumi- nating. She would rather have had the old heel back on the shoe, despite the bent condition of the nails, because it belonged to the shoe in the first place. 'Rather than this strange heel, anyhow, which doesn't belong to such an old shoe.' She would have been glad to be more than careful of the old heel, until she would have been sure that it was all right. Gerda thus expressed a desire to take up her old position again with respect to her mother. She was willing to make up, forgive her mother, and try to regain her old confidence. But the heels persisted in coming loose, all at- tempts to make up and restore the status quo were in vain. We can also hear her saying to her mother: 'What do you need an- other child for at your age V "

The birth of Max was her original trauma. Max was the intruder, the stranger, the foreign body which came between her and her mother. She wanted to be everything to her mother, even a man. It appears that she even wanted to dis- place her father. She feels that she is just a castrated boy: "Mama is at fault for my being a girl."

Binswanger emphasizes the wealthy over-determination of the heel symbolism, and adds valuable pointers on foot and shoe symbolism.

The success of the analysis was complete. Two weeks after the end of the analysis, Gerda was able to walk into a shoe store and buy herself a pair of shoes. She was engaged to be married within six weeks. She married and was able to over- come many other hysterical symptoms.

Binswanger does not look upon the case as one of shoe fetishism. He says : "This is a case of simple sexual symbol- ism. The shoe, and particularly the heel, is simply a repre- sentative of the phallus." Gerda reacts to the symbol as if she were reacting to a phallus. That, he feels, is something different from the value taken on by a shoe or any other piece of clothing belonging to a beloved person. In such a case the object is sexually over-rated, becomes a fetish, and achieves an independent sexual standing. He considers this case as one of

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negative fetishism and adds it to the cases of anti-fetishism which Hirschfeld described.

I am of a different opinion, however. This is a somewhat atypical case of fetishism which was cured and straightened out by a thorough analysis. What would have been Gerda's fate if she had not been treated ? Would she have been capable of liberating herself from her psycho-sexual infantilism and her fixation on her family? Would she have returned to her shoe as to a sexual object? Or, in other words, would she not have remained in the situation she was in? The shoes con- stituted her sole interest. Her sexual life was bound up in them, tied up in the negative components which they repre- sented to her (disgust, anxiety, shame and horror).

Gerda definitely revealed a deviation from normal sexuality, just as we have been able to see in all our other cases. But I refrain from repeating myself endlessly. The reader will find in this case all the signs of condensation to be seen in the previous case of apron fetishism. The shoe is her ideal and her sorrow, her god and her devil. Her outlook on life is determined by the shoe and the heel.

I am therefore not afraid to consider this case as a cardinal example of genuine fetishism. Binswangens success indicates the path we must take in all similar cases. It is true that most patients come to us when it is almost too late. It is also much more difficult to readjust a man sexually for the reason that his natural role is one of activity in contradistinction to the natural passivity of the female. It would be important to know whether Gerda was frigid in her marital relations. One might almost fear that she were.28

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THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO)

In all the cases of genuine fetishism we have been able to note a marked admixture of sadism. At first sight, they all look like distinctly masochistic persons. They torture them- selves, subject themselves to compulsions, deny themselves the joys of life. But the analysis reveals this masochism as the superstructure founded upon a highly original form of sadism. Guilt feelings and the pangs of conscience are added to make of the fetishist a lamentable picture of humanity.

The fetish lover's suffering derives from an almost invincible spirit of expiation and atonement. But, we ask, what does he have to expiate ? What is his great sin ? The previous analyses have given us the answer: fetishism is a self-inflicted punish- ment for the individual's cruel attitudes and phantasies. We were also able, in every case, to demonstrate the presence of this sadistic component in the fetishistic ideal itself. The compulsion must be marked by unpleasantness, pain or coercion if it is to fulfill its fetishistic purpose.

This disguised sadism is the key to many otherwise insoluble psychological puzzles in the field of fetishism. I am in the favorable position of being able to present to my readers the complete analysis of such a case, but before we undertake the study of this patient, it behooves us to go into the literature of this form of fetishism to some extent. In this chapter I intend to consider such forms of fetishism which cannot be included in the categories we have discussed hitherto.

In general, the fetishist is a passive character. He may steal handkerchiefs, corsets, collect all kinds of objects, in short, he may follow his object religiously, but he rarely acts, he almost never injures the object in question. He is satisfied with the possession of a harmless symbol and in most cases he is even gratified by the sight of that which inflames his

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easily ignited phantasy. Like most parapathics, the fetishist is a criminal without the courage of his impulses. His actual criminal acts are merely symbolizations, substitutes, pale and lifeless schemes as compared with his bloodthirsty phantasies.

Sometimes, however, he seizes upon some easily gained part of the body. Hair and pig-tails are preferred objects in the world of fetishists. Cutting off hair or pig-tails is already a great step forward in the serious damage of the object which may thus lose one of its chief adornments. It is just as un- pleasant for a woman to have her clothing damaged or soiled.

The last-mentioned form of fetishism is manifested in divers forms. Recently there was a man in Paris who created quite a furore in the city by going about and ruining women's furs by means of some acid. The police were unable to get hold of him. Still other fetishists of this type sprinkle vitriol on finery, while others may be found who enjoy cutting holes in clothing by means of small scissors.

All such acts are effected under the stress of considerable affect in a hyponoic state. The individuals themselves are rarely conscious of the sexual nature of the act. The occur- rence usually takes place, like theft or pick-pocketing, in crowds, preferably in public places such as theatres, street cars, busses, trains, etc. Pressing against the object is often at- tended by manifest pleasurable excitement, while other in- dividuals, such as the case described by Jastrowitz, deny any thrill whatever. This case hardly belongs in this category, but it so excellently illustrates the excitement I mean and is so distinctly marked by an absence of the conscious sexual motive that I must mention it here.

Case 58. "A thirty-one-year-old father of five healthy children, who lives in compatible relations with his wife since their mar- riage nine years ago, has been impelled of late to acquire the be- longings of women, although he denies that this stealing gives him any pleasure. It was thus that he found himself picking the pocket of a rather pretty woman behind whom he was standing one day. As he touched the woman, his nerves twitched and vibrated, he felt oppressed in the breast and sensed a choking in the throat. He began to shiver as if he were ducked in cold water; wanted to find another place for himself in order to shake off this feeling,

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 115

but in the crowded car, he could hardly move. Witnesses cor- roborated his excitement during the act. He was a piano tuner and had been working rather hard of late ; this, it was said, had caused a nervous breakdown. He was acquitted of the charge of theft." (Jastrowitz, Deutsche med. Wochenschrift.)

The shivering and the anxiety reveal this act as a symbolical one. In his phantasies, this man undoubtedly goes much further than in reality. He approximates the type of patient whose deeds I have called "pars pro toto." It is a characteris- tic of that type that they aspire to the possession of objects violently separated, cut or torn from the person of their object. It is here that we must class the finger nail collectors who amass a pile of women's finger nails ; the collectors of genuine and false teeth; but primarily the pig-tail fetishist who shall constitute a paradigm of this type of fetishist.

Petersen reported the case of such a switch cutter in the Münchener med. Wochenschrift, Vol. 69, No. 14, 192 1.

Case 59. "A thirty-year-old business man, single, was caught on Easter Sunday, 1920, just as he was in the act of cutting off the pig-tail of a blonde girl. This man is greatly stigmatized in his hereditary line. Two aunts are in an asylum, an uncle is feeble-minded, and another uncle is a drunkard. Of ten brothers and sisters, five died in infancy as a result of convulsions, and of the five alive, one is feeble-minded and four others have eye dis- eases. The patient is physically negative, but somewhat retarded mentally. Ten years ago he fell into a fifteen-foot hole, landed on his head, and broke his arm. The fracture healed so poorly that he was operated on a second time. The result was that for months he suffered from a state of excitement and insomnia. During the war, he was in the field for four full years, took part in twenty-seven battles, but was not seriously wounded once.

"Referring to his paraphilia, he gave the following information : When he was eight years old, he had to fetch food from a saloon- restaurant for several months. There he was a witness to the regular care which an eight-year-old blonde girl gave her hair. In the course of time, his desire for the girl's hair increased to such a degree that he was often physically and psychically unbalanced for days at a time. Every time he would see a blonde, he would become excited, sleepless, anxious, would get headaches, perspired freely, breathed heavily, etc. He could not work, and his emo-

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tional disturbance led him into difficulties with his employer who was otherwise satisfied with him.

"No one had the faintest notion of his paraphilia — nor of the conflicts in his bosom — until that Easter Sunday, 1920. On that afternoon, he had drunk a half bottle of wine in a restaurant and saw, as he stepped out of the place, a pretty blonde girl. In a flash he was so overcome by the surging impulse to gain posses- sion of the blond hair, that he blindly and obliviously pulled out an ordinary pair of scissors, seized the girl by the hair, and started cutting off about two inches of her coil. He was, of course, promptly arrested. He was able to give no information about the motives behind this act, either at the moment or later at the police station. He was certainly not drunk, although the alcohol may have washed away some of the inhibition otherwise present. He persisted in his story that the desire for the possession of that blonde hair came over him with such irresistible suddenness that he involuntarily acted as if under coercion. He said he felt at that moment as if he had to do it.

"The magistrate's court sentenced him to a month in jail on the ground that the attack constituted physical assault with a danger- ous weapon, and battery ; it was added that the attack must have included a painful injury. The appellate division was not able to find that a 'painful injury' was present, but also decided — that is the usual judicial conception of such a matter — that assault with a dangerous weapon was present and fined the patient on the ground that his mental retardation was a mitigating factor.

"A striking feature of the patient's history is the hereditary stigmatization. The later circumstances of the man, the accident he had suffered as well as the many battles he had been in, were also of indubitable influence upon his nervous system. Alto- gether, these factors must seriously have shaken his integrity and reduced his psychic resistances. Special attention must also be paid the fact that his impulse first appeared in childhood and then gradually developed. It is seldom that one is in a position to find the first appearance of a perversion without the aid of psycho- analysis, as in this case. It is interesting, furthermore, to note the clear description the patient gives us of how he was simply over- come by his impulse at the time of the act, that he was so suddenly and so completely overwhelmed by his emotions that, at least at the moment of 'the act,' there was no question that his conscious- ness was clouded and his free volition considerably circumscribed if not totally abated. It was like a transient psychic disturbance ;

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 117

all the ingrained inhibitions of his upbringing, education, religion and social status were simply cast overboard, and his natural im- pulse, like a mountain torrent, swept everything before it with a primitive force.

"It is of further interest to mention that when he caught sight of the eight-year-old girl, he had a violent erection, and later, whenever he saw blondes, he would afterwards masturbate.

"It is noteworthy that he denied himself intercourse out of religious motives, but permitted himself masturbation; a phe- nomenon which may frequently be observed in fetishists.

"Following his sentence, he submitted to a completely success- ful course of hypnotic treatment.

"Three months later, he married and is now said to be a nor- mal, steady father, without any interests in the hair or switches of blonde girls."

Thus the report. It is, of course, questionable whether the eight-year-old girl with the blonde hair was really the first definitive impression of his life. We must say that the hair cutting is much deeper determined than that and probably de- rives from his castration complex. I have unfortunately never been able to analyze such a case. The overwhelming nature of the impulse is, however, beautifully described here. He allegedly went out without any special intention to cut off any- one's hair, but we must state that that does not rhyme very well with other information. Many of these patients always carry a little scissors with them. It is, indeed, frequently the case that the impulse may occur at home, the scissors may then be taken from a drawer when the individual leaves to run in search of a satisfactory object.

I take the following case from the collection of Krafft-Ebing.

Case 60. "A pig-tail cutter, P., forty years old, locksmith, single, is the son of a man who was transiently insane and a woman who was very nervous. He developed well, was intelligent, but early manifested tics and obsessional ideas. He claims never to have masturbated, loved only in a Platonic fashion, intended many times to marry, had intercourse very seldom and then only with a prostitute, but found coitus rather unsatisfactory and rather re- pulsive. Three years ago, he was the victim of serious financial losses and also suffered a severe febrile disease which provoked

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delirium. These experiences distinctly damaged the nervous system of one who was already stigmatized from birth. On the evening of the 18th of August, 1889, P. was arrested in flagranti in front of the Trocadero in Paris just after he had cut off the coil of a young woman in a crowd. He had the coil in his hand and a scissors in his pocket. He excused himself on the ground of transient confusion, unhappy and irresistible passions, and con- fessed to having cut off ten coils or pig-tails at different times which he collected and enjoyed at home in blissful happiness.

"When his quarters were searched, sixty-five switches, pig-tails, coils of all sorts, were found carefully packed away in separate paper sacks. P. had already been arrested once for a similar act on the 15th of December, 1886, but lack of evidence had acquitted him.

"P. stated that for the past three years he would always feel unwell, restless, anxious and nervously dizzy when at home alone of an evening, and that he would then be overcome by the desire to touch and feel female hair. Once he had actually held a girl's hair in his hands, libidine valde excitatus est neque amplius puella tacta, erectio et ejaculatio evenit. Arrived at home, he felt ashamed of what had happened, but the desire to hold a coil or switch in his hands, quite lustfully colored in his mind, became ever more powerful. He wondered to himself that he had never previously been animated in this way during intercourse with women. One evening, finally, he could not resist the impulse to cut off a girl's coil. Arrived at home with the spoils, his previous lascivious experience repeated itself. He felt impelled to stroke his body with the hair, to wrap his genitals in it. Being finally exhausted with these practices, he felt very much ashamed of himself and didn't dare to leave the room for several days. After an interval of a few months, he was again impelled to acquire some female hair, regardless of whom it belonged to. Once next to his prey, he felt himself the cat's-paw of some supernatural power, incapable of letting go of his possession. If, however, he was unable to achieve his end, he became deeply dejected and dis- consolate, worked his passions into a violent orgasm and satisfied himself by masturbating. He was, by the way, not at all interested in the switches displayed in barber's or hair goods stores. The hair he desired was the living coil of a woman's head.

"At the height of his attack upon a woman's hair, he claims to be in such a state of excitement that his powers of volition and knowledge are only incompletely active. As soon as he would

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 119

touch the hair with his scissors, he would get an erection, and the moment he had cut the hair off, he would have an ejaculation.

"Ever since his losses and his illness of three years ago, he claims to suffer from a weakness of memory, rapid exhaustion, insomnia and nightmares. P. claims to regret his acts deeply.

"A search of his collection disclosed not only coils of hair, but also hair pins, ribbons and other female articles of hair dressing. These he had received as gifts, he said. As long as he can remem- ber, he has had a mania for collecting such things, as well as newspapers, pieces of wood, and a lot of other articles which were of no earthly use to him. He also expressed a totally inexplicable resistance against passing a certain street in the city. Whenever he tried to go there, he became quite ill.

"The forensic opinion stressed his hereditary make-up, the com- pulsive, impulsive, definitely involuntary character of the act. The attack had the character of an obsession, provoked by an obses- sional idea which was further irritated by abnormal sexual emo- tions. He was acquitted but committed to an asylum." (Voisin, Soquet, Hotet. Annates d' hygiene, April, 1890.)

In this case, we see again the disgust the patient has for women. He has intercourse only infrequently and even then he is not satisfied. Pie is rather repelled. He reveals the characteristic cult of a fetishistic harem, but this does not in- clude coils or hair alone. The deed is effected in a hyponoic state. The next case is partly by Leppman, a leading specialist of this type of material, and partly by Wulffen. The first part is taken from A. Leppman's report in the Aerstliche Sachverständigenzeitung.

Case 61. "The twenty-three-year-old university student A., dis- tinctly stigmatized from heredity, was charged with having cut off the coils of divers females, especially little girls and children, during the past three months. Sixteen cases are represented in the charge; thirty-one switches and coils of hair were found in his rooms. The explanations he offered the police as an excuse for his eccentric acts corresponded in detail with the information he gave me in regard to his sexual history.

"He was always a dreamy, withdrawn and shut-in person. Al- though he was a good and unselfish son, despite the fact that he was well liked by everyone, he never confided his feelings in any- one. None of his friends had ever become intimate with him on

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this subject. He never gave the impression of self-complacency, but was rather always modest. The attorney in the case received letters to the effect that friends of his in the best classes of so- ciety found his actions a complete riddle.

"Recently, following a sea trip, he appeared more than usually quiet and reticent. His conversation revealed that he was one- sidedly interested in mathematical and technical subjects. He had little interest in literature and public events. His social contacts seemed markedly lifeless and devoid of interest of late. He even manifested a distinct loss of his former capacity to play chess well.

"He had never shown the faintest trace of sensuality. Nothing in the way of sexual talk or conversations about girls seemed to attract his attention. At the request of a friend of his, he joined a fraternity which made it obligatory to remain chaste. He de- clared that such a promise was the easiest thing for him. He nev- ertheless manifested no trace of fanatical fervor when discussing the matter. One occurrence, however, has turned up in the minds of his friends as singular now that he has been discovered. Once when he had become drunk at a students' affair, contrary to his usual habits, he was brought home by his colleague and when his landlady opened the door for him, he sprang at her and began to ruffle her hair.

"The interview with his mother which had particular reference to any possible nervousness he may have shown, revealed the fol- lowing: He had always slept lightly, and sometimes not at all. Even as a child, he often complained of headaches, but he had never suffered from spontaneous dizziness or fainting spells, ex- cept when he saw blood. He was not able to carry on any exer- cise which necessitated his bending over or hanging head down- wards.

"He himself gave the following information with respect to his emotional life, mentioning the basis of his quiet manner and reti- cence particularly.

"As far as he can remember, he always had a feeling of op- pression and sadness. He was under the impression that he was not noticed by young people, either male or female; as if, as he put it, he could not get into them, although inwardly he felt that he was capable of almost anything. Indeed, he felt that he was cut out for something great. This feeling of depression increased after the sea trip and his studying for his examinations. He felt somewhat freer only when in the company of elder persons.

"He never sensed any sexual attraction to a person of the op-

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posite sex. This first became quite clear to him when, one time, a discussion on the difficulties of resisting temptation was started in his society. At that time, he had honestly declared that he could guarantee his chastity, and that he had not conceived how difficult it was for others to resist temptations. Nor had he ever had any sexual attraction to males. He had really never thought of the possibility that his feelings were perhaps abnormal as regards the sexual side of man. It had never occurred to him that he was probably so different from others in this respect.

"He gave the following description of these feelings: "As early as his eighth year, he had been pleased to look at the hair of a friend of his sister, and, as he now recognizes, this pleasure provoked unconscious sensual stirrings within him. He then got the same sensations from the hair of his sister and it must be added that his lust was primarily aroused by cutting off some of his sister's locks. It was thus that at about twelve or thirteen he first came to masturbate. He would indulge in phan- tasies about hair and rub his phallus on the bed. He never used his hands for that was unpleasant and disgusting to him. Nor did he later ever touch his genitals with the hair he collected. As he put it, those coils were much too holy in his eyes for such prac- tices. He would wind them about his head, lay them on his heart or lay himself upon them. In earlier years, he was seldom aroused to such habits, but his feelings became more marked after a trip at sea and after his studies for the examination, i.e., after con- siderable physical and mental exertion. He then got the idea of cutting off locks of hair or coils in order to acquire material as a basis for his sexual phantasies. He had never given a thought to the fact that such an act would damage the person from whom he had cut off the hair or disfigure her. He claimed never to have been sexually animated by the thought that he might harm or pain a person. As a matter of fact, the persons from whom he wanted to get the hair were quite negligible quantities in his mind. Whether they were old or young was immaterial to him. He had chosen children and young girls for the simple reason that these individuals more frequently wore loose locks or coils of hair which he could easily grasp. He would feel a lustful thrill run through his body at the moment of cutting off the hair, but the most important part of his practice came when he would later coddle and play with his booty.

"The habit of masturbating in his manner so increased in strength during the past year that he began to masturbate about

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twice a day. Each time, he would lose himself in a world of phantasy. He would imagine that he were a powerful potentate with a palatial castle on an island ; that he had the power to make himself unseen and was thus able to fetch himself lovely girls from all the lands of the earth, especially, of course, girls with blonde, silky hair.

"These girls would serve him at table and afterwards he would cut off their hair and let them go. The hair he would then use to excite his sensuous feeling, a most provocative thought being that he might collect enough of it to cover the walls of his rooms. It is to be stressed that he did not conceive the service of the girls as something humiliating or unworthy.

"His striving for the possession of girl's hair finally became so importunate that he would have given way constantly to his desire for stealing it had he not occasionally been caught and arrested. Just now he feels as if he had awakened from a drunken spell. Now is the first time in his life that he has reflected upon his conduct ; he thinks, however, that he will be able to control him- self. He says he cannot blame himself for having acted as he did ; he feels that he was but a child, devoid of any understanding of the emotions to which he submitted. He now speaks of them as 'crazy.*

"A. was indicted, but, on the report of the forensic psychiatrists who looked upon him as mentally unbalanced, he was acquitted. During the proceedings, the court asked A. whether he could guarantee that he would in future desist from cutting off girl's coils. A. answered that he could not guarantee anything of the kind, since his instincts were more powerful than his will. This proved also to be the case. After A. was released from the asylum (as recovered), he moved to Hamburg and there again began indulging in his old habits. He had made the following statements to the psychiatrist about his sexual life ; they complete the information we have heard thus far, and afford us a rather deep insight into the psychic make-up of the habitual hair thief.

"The real motive for his being susceptible to these hair cutting episodes had not been clear to him before. He was sure, how- ever, that it was the hair alone, and not the person, which at- tracted him. That is one of his explanations for the fact that he cut some of his sister's hair off. Like most of the other boys, he had also paid attentions to the girls in school, but denies that he had any sexual feelings or thoughts in doing so ; indeed, not even when he once kissed one of the girls. He was still very young

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 123

when he began to dream and day-dream of hair and coils and switches.

"The following vivid dream is an example which he gave: "He found himself in a very lonely, mountainous region sur- rounded by much underbrush. There were many hidden caves in these cliffs ; before the caves stood blonde girls with long pig- tails; and in the girls' locks and pig-tails hung the keys to the caves.

"Plaits and tresses had begun to play a leading role in his emo- tional life while he was still a little boy. Just when this first took hold of his mind is something he cannot tell, nor was it at all conscious when he first took to cutting hair off. He felt as if it were rather some physical urge to which he had to submit. His? first real enlightenment on sexual matters came to him during the first trial against him. He claims never to have had the slightest intimate contact with a woman and even felt estranged and re- pelled by male friends of whom he knew that they cultivated inti- macies with women. He was particularly revolted by obscene or vulgar conversation about such things. That was the real reason why he had joined that chaste society called Ethos. Following his acquittal in B., he had firmly resolved never to succumb to his habits again, but he was adamant only for a year, and in 1917 he had a relapse. He now fears that he can never withstand the pressure of his abnormal feelings and would embrace help from wherever it came. He feels considerably relieved here in the hospital, but he cannot say that he is completely at rest in his heart. He always asks himself when peace will come to his soul. During the spring semester of 1917 in Br., he was quite alone, and that was when things became more acute with him. There was to be a party, and for weeks in advance he had suspected that the situation would afford him a real opportunity to cut off several tresses ; this knowledge tortured and tormented him. Ever since that time in Berlin, he never carried any scissors with him, not even a nail clipper. About a fortnight before the party, he walked up and down in front of a cutlery shop, struggling with himself whether he should buy a pair of scissors or not. Finally, how- ever, he was able to master his impulse. Nevertheless, a few days later he did buy himself a pair of scissors and that, he feels, was the end. From then on it was all up with him. He then often felt like throwing the scissors away, but decided that despite the presence of the instrument in his pocket, he would convince him- self that he could withstand his impulses just the same. Also, it

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would be easy to fool himself into believing that it wasn't a real pair of scissors, but just a nail clipper, which he had to have any- way. On the day of the party, he wandered about the streets look- ing at all the tresses and coils of the ladies, avoiding any friends whom he may have met casually. But, despite his great emotional tension on that day, he had been able to control himself. The next day, however, he succumbed. There was a great ovation in front of the palace in the evening, and in the crowd he took the oppor- tunity to cut off several coils. The first attempt didn't succeed completely, because the switch was a little too thick to be cut through. The second was easy. The third was a girl with strik- ingly long and beautifully combed hair which reached almost to the knees. This inrlamed him to the highest pitch of excitement. He begins to feel the luxuriousness of the crop ; the girl switches it all over her shoulder forwards. That was a slap in the face, but he did not budge from the spot, hoping that she would soon throw her plaits back over her shoulders. When he saw that this would not be the case, he finally tore himself away from her and looked about for other prey; but all the girls had thrown their hair over their shoulders towards the front. As a last resort, he pulled some hair back over the shoulder of one girl and quickly cut it off. Towards the end of the ovation, he was in a terrible state of excitement which was doubtless partly anger at not hav- ing been able to get what lovely hair he had seen.

' 'Arrived at home, he took out the hair and looked it over lov- ingly, coddled it, pressed it to his face, kissed it and finally cut it to a powder with his scissors and threw the pieces away. Why he did that is beyond him. He went out again and ran into a few friends who invited him to come and have a glass of beer with them — and he actually went.

"It was apparent that A. was quite excited and nervous as he was telling all this to the specialists, and even the following day, he stated that once having reactivated all those memories he was now constantly plagued by the memory of that beautiful long coil. He would see the thick cue in bed, hanging over him, keeping him from falling asleep. He got painful erections. 'Is it possible that there are such long and thick pig-tails ?' He would measure on his body about how long such a cue could be. He would imagine the proud possessor of such a tress sleeping, he approaches her bed, takes the magnificent cue in his hands and feels its gorgeous thick- ness, presses it to his lips and nose, inhales the perfume of the hair ; and finally takes the scissors and cuts it off. Then he would

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 125

groan and moan, struggle not to succumb to that awful impulse. He can't sleep. He rolls over on his back, on his side. Nothing helps. Out of the blackness of night come the pictures and mem- ories of all the hundreds of pig-tails and cues, the real ones as well as those he has dreamed about. His excitement grows upon him, he becomes terribly restless. All in vain. The phantasies, the old pictures, arise again in his mind : His castle ; the girls with tresses are brought in, whole cities are plundered for girls with cues ; Berlin, Hamburg, London, Stockholm ; only the loveliest of pig-tails ; from the schools, the streets from all over, the prettiest girls are brought in. They are cared for by the girls he already has. Their hair is combed and plaited, pretty ribbons are tied above and below, and little labels are attached telling of the age and birthplace of the girl, the color of her parents' hair, her name, and the information as to whether her hair has already been cut or not. Then fifty at a time are brought into a special hall. For- merly he had passed them all in review and had cut off the locks of each, but now he has invented a special machine in his phantasy with which all fifty heads are cleared like lightning of their hair.

"The cues and tresses are then placed in a special glass case where they are hung up in rows. Beside these girls, he would have favorites whose hair he would cut off himself, with great ceremony and then place the locks with his own hands pompously in a special wooden chest lined with colored silks. Then there would be his wife, who would have two of the loveliest blonde pig-tails in creation, much longer than her own height. At night he would sleep next to her, play with her tresses as she slept, and in the morning he would comb and plait her hair himself on a spe- cial stool which could be raised and lowered like a barber's chair, so that her hair might hang free. Then he would have her die young and at the bier he would cut off her cues and close the coffin. He would have similar orgies on a private yacht, but of that he would rather not speak. Sometimes he has the feeling that his whole pillow is made of switches and that several per- fumed locks have floated onto him. Into the pillow he would bury his face and breast ; his arms and face played with the locks and whirled them about. After he had had an ejaculation and had masturbated, he would feel weak, and when his excitement had died down, he would be able to fall asleep, but this was usually only after several hours. Not infrequently he would have an ejaculation several times in a night. He never touches his penis with his hands, but lies on his right side and rubs it on the bed.

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That may take some time before he will achieve satisfaction, but if he would bury his face in hair, he would get a prompt ejacula- tion. A. was declared to be irresponsible. (Communication of the Police department of Hamburg.)

"The further destiny of Robert St. is to be found in Vol. X, No. I, 1921, of Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character). St. went from Hamburg to Buenos Aires as an engineer and there again was brought to court. He begged his judges to sentence him to life imprisonment in order that he might be protected from his pathological impulses. But he was again acquitted. The thirty-seven-year-old man was later again arrested in Berlin as he was jostling young girls in a crowd. They found one hundred and fifty ( !) pig-tails in his rooms which he claimed to have collected in Valparaiso. But there were also eight women's pocket-books. He appears to have become a pickpocket since last seen ; perhaps altogether a kleptomaniac."

This is a typical case of fetishism. A. avoids heterosexual intercourse, he has collected a harem of fetishes, he indulges and revels in characteristic phantasies, such as we have de- scribed in our chapter on the "Bible of the Fetishist." It is probable that every fetishist has a stock of such singular and eccentric phantasies.

His avoidance of sexuality is also demonstrated by his alleged indifference to obscene talk. He can't stand vulgar jokes. It must be stated that this trait is characteristic of most of these patients, and they are just as prudish and modest in their exterior lives as their phantasies are extravagant and lascivious. That is just why their friends are so astonished to find Joseph or John suddenly disclosed as a fetishist or exhibitionist. We see, however, that a little alcohol dissolves the outer man and reveals the true fetishist in A. He begins to ruffle his landlady's hair. On the occasion of his last act, also, he even manifested violence (he cut some stolen hair to pieces). He manifests just that type of over-compensated sadism which we analysts, who study the reverse sides of psychic experiences, know only too well. Even as a child, he fainted whenever he saw blood. His first memory seems to be the sister's hair. It was her friend's hair which attracted the eight-year-old boy, but he confesses that his sister's hair

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was his chief source of delight, and that he actually cut off some of her locks. But there seems to be a fixation on his mother, too, for he says that he was indifferent to whether the hair came from old or young.

He manifests a rather marked feeling of inferiority which is probably what sent him along his fetishistic path. He does not believe that he could please any woman or man (sic!). But his sense of power exhausts itself in his phantasies. He is a potentate, has castles, the women are in his power. That is a sufficient testimony to the fact that he is afraid of them in reality, and that his fear of the female is a contributing factor to his paraphilia.

The dream, too, is interesting. His real goal is hidden. The pig-tail is but a symbol. The keys to the caves hang in the tresses of the girls. The hidden caves are doubtless the caverns of his soul into which no one may peep.

The cues which contain the keys to his paraphilia also lock the door to normal sexuality for him (the caves with the girls).

The theatrical character of the paraphilic is also beautifully expressed here. He buys himself a pair of scissors just to show himself that he can control his passions despite the in- strument in his pocket. And yet this assures him that he has it ready in case of need. He stages a real comedy, and even rationalizes the situation by saying that it is a nail clipper and not a pair of scissors. But why, we must ask, doesn't he leave this "clipper" at home? Simply because he really wants to have it with him in case of need.

That the cues are distinctly phallic symbols is revealed by his divers descriptions of them. The plait must be long and thick; he even measures to see how long they might be. He gets the feeling of their "wonderful" thickness, and presses them to his lips and nose (fellatio?).

His abstinence shows that he is suffering from a psychic castration. Is it possible that that is the poena talionis for a castration which he desired to carry out on a rival? It is probable that womb phantasies are present in these cases, as we have already observed so frequently. I would suspect that he had the phantasy of castrating his father while he himself was lodged in his mother's womb. That, however, is only/

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a supposition which may be buttressed by the strength of much experience. Nevertheless, only an exhaustive analysis could give us complete insight into the singular motives behind such a case. The signs of sadism are rather clear in this man, however. We remember that his phantasy constructed a special hair-cutting machine which could shear fifty heads at a time. The pig-tail appears to be a substitute for the head in this case, and the phantasy would thus ultimately mean decapita- tion. We must not forget that this patient hates women be- cause he feels that he cannot cope with them. He is excluded from normal love, ostracized from the community of pleasure. It may be assumed that his cue fetishism is a complicated con- densation such as we have found to be the case in all our other patients.

Nor is it improbable that this may be a case of self-castra- tion. In many of our previous cases, we observed that the patients masturbated with the fetish in front of a mirror. That is a sign that they are seeking themselves, they cut off some- thing from their own bodies, they are the girls, they rob them- selves of their own virility. They identify themselves with their object, just as with their reflection in the mirror. And the lex talionis has its effect here, too. Whoever wanted to attack another, here attacks himself. This is the explanation for such cases as the following one.

Case 62. Pt. is overcome by a marked depression which is as- sociated with indifference and inactivity described by him as a "crisis of lifelessness." In order to tear himself out of this state, as he says, he tried for six months to keep himself drunk and well amused. But that was unsuccessful. Then he decided to commit suicide, but from the moment that he had decided to kill himself, he felt much relieved, and happier. The excitement engendered by the decision to die, put more life into him than all his other attempts to awaken his interest. He felt much better while writ- ing all his friends the most touching letters of farewell. He even amused himself by firing at his reflection in the mirror. When he finally fired a bullet at his own breast (which, incidentally, caused him only a scratch), he felt better than he had for several months. The usual suicidal impulse is certainly not of this char-

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acter, but it is possible that such abstruse attitudes may be pres- ent on occasion (Janet).

The underlying relationships between plait cutting- and sadism are illuminated with the clarity of lightning by the following case of H. Gross (Gross' Archiv, Vol. XII. "Ein Fall von psy- chopathischem Aberglauben"). (A case of psychopathic super- stition.)

Case 63. The product of an orphan asylum, under constant and severe disciplinary measures while in the army, marked by a psy- chopathic inferiority, attacked a ten-year-old girl at the age of twenty-nine for purposes of rape. He threw her to the ground, pressed one knee against her throat, pulled a knife out of his pocket, and — upon a sudden impulse — cut off her tresses. He did not attempt coitus, but simply put his finger in her vagina. He claimed that he cut off her hair because he needed it for a brush. At fifty-four, after having served a sentence, he comes out and sees a sixteen-year-old girl whom he desires to attack. He de- sisted, however, "because the lightning hadn't struck" him as yet (acute symbolization of the impulse). Shortly thereafter, how- ever, he attacked an elderly woman and demanded intercourse with her, which she refused. Thereupon, he choked her to death and cut off her breasts and genitals. These he took home and cooked into a sour stew which he ate in the course of the following three days (cannibalism). His excuse was an inordinate inner desire and greed. He also manifests a pathological reaction to whistling. Whenever he hears someone whistle, he flies into a fit of rage.

Gross correctly calls attention to the invalid and weak ration- alization of the cue-cutting episode and feels that this was due to superstition which demanded certain parts of the human body for certain mystical rituals. What a classical case of transposi- tion! The cue cutting as a substitute for cutting out the genitals.

Various cases of picacism (Eulenburg's expression for sexual "gourmandise" ) are to be explained on a sadistic basis; they derive from a sudden feeling of superiority whenever the object is an inferior or weak person (see the chapters on "Special love

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conditions" in Vol. Ill and "Conditions of male potency" in Impotence in the Male in this series). Hirschfeld (I.e.) has many cases of picacism in his broad experience.

One of my cases of hermaphrodite fetishism is mentioned in Bloch's Sexual Life. This man, a riding master, was com- pletely filled with the striving to find any and every hermaphrodite he could. These he would approach with a view to starting up sexual relations. I also know of men who felt especially attracted to women with speech defects (such as lisping), and there is a woman in my collection of cases who preferred stutterers to all others. Indeed, even serious diseases such as anemia, jaundice, consumption, may be the bases for pronounced fetishistic tenden- cies, and, what is more astounding, even venereal diseases have been known to be the condition of a sexual attachment. An ele- gant lady who consulted me once was attracted sexually by the presence of warts, callouses and corns. Fetishists for wooden legs and women with beards have also been observed. Not long ago I saw a most interesting case : a man who had an irresistible passion for pregnant women. He always looked for them on the streets and would follow them for hours. And the more pro- nounced the pregnancy was, the greater was his passion.

This collection of Hirschfeld's tends to create some confusion in the understanding of the deeper motives behind the several cases. Men with marked homosexual components will seek a bisexual ideal", such as hermaphrodites and bearded women (see "Onanism and Homosexuality" in this series on "Masks of Homosexuality"). Other cases may be based upon a fear of the sexual partner (Adler), the infantile impressions being of paramount importance here. The attraction to pregnant women often has a sadistic basis as I have found in two cases of my own observation. There was present the phantasy that the child in the mothers womb might be spiked on the penis. It may also be that the early impressions of one's own preg- nant mother have been fixed. Nevertheless, such cases should not be conceived as fetishistic ; they belong rather to the cases which we defined as being marked by specific love conditions. It is only when the patient has become fixed to the symbol itself that we may be permitted, as I have often repeated, to speak of fetishism.

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Now, there are curious cases which have already achieved a certain notoriety in the literature. For example, a mania for crutches or amputated persons. I shall present such cases here because I am able to illustrate the material with a well-analyzed case of my own. But, before we go into the details of this case (in the following chapter), I would like to pave the way by mentioning some similar cases from the literature.

These are, particularly, men who feel attracted by crutches and prostheses or false limbs. During the war a wealthy Englishman published advertisements in all the papers of the Continent. He had prostheses made for all girls who had lost a limb and is said finally to have married such a girl. The susceptibility to crutches may appear as true fetishism. The crutch then monopolizes the man's interests or it offers a mode of approaching certain women. But in both cases we have to deal with a masked form of sadism. Such patients are subject to the unconscious phantasy of injuring someone else, ampu- tating a leg (displaced castration complex) ; but, by circum- venting their direct sadism, they arrive at what we have already called the principle of the finished product.

Hirschfeld (I.e.) has given us a description of a case of crutch mania :

Case 64. Dr. S., an author of Dutch extraction, thirty years of age, was sent by his wife for a consultation. He insists that she use crutches in walking and demands that she take them to bed with her during intercourse. The patient states that his first sex- ual animation appeared when he was about five years old ; at that time he was watching another little boy walk on crutches. Ever since then, the sight of crutches has a fascinating effect upon him and provokes him sexually. For many years he never considered woman as a sexual creature. Since puberty he has been revelling in phantasies of crutches and even bought himself a few pairs at various times, only to throw them away afterwards because of disgust and shame. But it wasn't long before he had bought him- self another pair. To go out of an evening on these crutches was a great pleasure for him. He emphasizes, however, that it was not the sympathy awakened in others which gave him such en- joyment, but rather feeling of the crutches and the soft crutch caps under his arms. Until his marriage, he had lived in abstinence,

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and he states that his wife is his first love. She is sixteen years his senior and, aside from her character, attracted him because she always wore so much fur, this being also a thing of powerful influence on him. In the beginning, he says, his wife seemed to understand him completely, and he was especially happy when- ever she would seize him under the arms (he is somewhat weak) or whenever he would be able to help her up a flight of stairs in this manner. Now, however, his wife feels that the crutches are his primary love objects and she is but a secondary thing in his life. This is, of course, one of the most frequent complaints of the wives of fetish lovers.

Let us hear the words of this crutch fetishist now. He writes :

"I was born the 15th of May, 1890. My father was about forty-six at the time and my mother thirty-three ; both, as far as I know, quite normal. When I was about five and a half, father moved with us to R. There I was able to watch a little boy from our windows who walked about in front of the house almost every day on crutches. His right leg was crippled. I could not take my eyes from him and sensed a curious thrill which, of course, I could not understand at that age. I can also recall several walks which I took with my mother in that city. We would often see a well-dressed man who also wore crutches. As I now recall it, he probably used them in the same way that I have come to use them. In short, they were false.

"After the death of my father, my mother moved to Berlin, and it was there that my first attempts to walk on crutches were made when I was eleven. I'm not very sure of the time. It may have been later, when I was about fifteen. The latter date is more probable. At any rate, it is only from that time on that I have any clear recollection of the progress of events. At fourteen and a half I passed through a severe attack of epidemic meningitis. From that time on — of course, at great intervals — I began to manu- facture my own crutches out of broom sticks and the like, and would hobble about the room on them. Later on, as a student in Kiel and also on three other occasions, I bought the usual type of crutches and would use them to walk about on at night. That is, with one exception which occurred just before I met my wife. I had overcome my bashfulness during the winter of 191 7 to such an extent that, while I was a legal clerk in L., I hobbled about on crutches for over a fortnight and went everywhere with them ex- cept the few steps I had to the court house.

"Until I was twenty-six, I never had the slightest intimacies

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with a woman. Nor did I have the faintest suggestion of homo- sexual attractions. I was very much afraid of normal intercourse and this was due to several different factors. First of all, I was afraid of infection; I was shy; and I felt that I lacked the neces- sary wherewithal to seek a 'friend' on the street. So I mas- turbated. Usually only once, but sometimes it was twice in a night. I would imagine lovely women, dressed in furs, and hob- bling on crutches."

Kronfeld also reported on this case as follows :

"Extracts from the autobiography of a curious case of fetishism. The author is a not unknown writer, highly talented, but sexually abnormal. He is a marked neuropath, of Christian extraction, stigmatized by a disorganized instinctual and emotional life, shows a tendency to phantastic and hysterical aberrations, a susceptibil- ity to hyperbolic affectivity and obsessive thoughts. He is tall, but of asthenic habitus ; has a curvature of the spine and several signs of degeneration. His psycho-sexual make-up is an unusual combination of infantile traits together with the residuum of over- emphasized pubertal impressions and marked, but unfortunate, sexual repression. He reported the following about his life.

Childhood (from five and one-half to fourteen) : As far as I know I was born of quite normal parents 1 in 1889, and moved with them in 1895 to B. In front of our ground floor apartment there played a twelve-year-old boy who was crippled on the right side and wore crutches. My parents never noticed that, instead of playing like any other boy, I would stand at the window and watch this cripple. My mother was also oblivious of the fact that, during our walks, I would stare as if hypnotized after a man whom we often met walking on two crutches. Both these figures, the boy and the man, were forever engraved in my brain.

" 'Autumn of 1896, we moved to F., February, 1900, my father died, and in October, 1900, my mother and her sister opened a boarding house which continued until October, 191 8. Until the Spring of 191 1, my 'mothers' and my uncle — who was the director of the home for the crippled — cultivated a regular Sunday visit, and there in the home for the crippled I also had further oppor- tunity to observe officers and others walking on crutches.

" 'Summer of 1903 I became dangerously ill with epidemic meningitis. During the course of the disease, I was totally para- lyzed on the right side and could neither speak nor hear. Follow-

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ing my miraculous recovery, I limped on the right side for some time. In addition, I was unable to keep up with the regular course of work in high school for another year, and had to leave for a convalescent stay in the country.

" Tt is since that period of illness that my first active abnormali- ties have developed.

"'2. Youth (fourteen to twenty-one): October, 1904, we moved to C, but even during the six months preceding this time, my "second nature" was getting the better of me. I had been manufacturing primitive crutches out of broom sticks which I would split lengthwise, connect by cross-pieces of kindling wood and cover with remnants of cloth. Simultaneously, I developed a fur fetishism which I indulged secretly, while the guests of the boarding house were at table, by sneaking into their rooms and feeling the divers fur clothes which they had hanging or lying about, snuggling into them or putting them on. My "mothers," being economical women, had practically no furs at all, and all that I had was a little beaver collar. A fortunate accident moved the widow of a physician to leave her deceased husbands fur coat for sale in our place. During the weeks that the coat hung in our house, it was a source of pleasure and torture for me. Hidden in it, and hobbling about on my primitive crutches, I would revel in my already awakened erotic phantasies and indulge in sexual gratification once or twice every evening, and sometimes even during the day.

" 'Thus time passed until I graduated from high school (Au- tumn of 1910). When, a year later, I left home for the first time, my second period of activity began.

" '3. Period before beginning work (twenty-one to twenty- eight) : In the winter of 1911-12, I was in K. There I bought my first pair of real crutches, but, with one exception, I never used them except in my own room. When, in the Spring of 1912, I returned to B., I first burned the crutches. From the Spring of 1913 to the Spring of 1914, while I was in G., I also bought my- self crutches and used to hobble in the park on them at night, but before I left that city, I burned them. I did the same at home after I came back from G., but then I would walk even in the busiest streets at night. The outbreak of the war did not influence me any less than others. Although I was not able to go to the front, my patriotic feelings so overwhelmed my personal desires that I thought of furs and crutches only occasionally at night, simply as a means of gratification. December, 19 15, I entered

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 135

the army and remained there until the Autumn of 191 7. Janu- ary 1, 1916, was the first time I had ever had intercourse with a woman, and my masturbatory habits became considerably de- flated after that. But they returned in full force after I reported at the front again as a voluntary soldier in March 191 6. My "girl" turned up again when I went home in May 191 6 to take my examinations. Then my onanistic habits became stronger and re- mained powerful until I had completed my twenty-eighth year.

" 'September 191 7 I was called back by the courts and assigned to the National division. Back again, I soon bought myself crutches, and during the first fortnight I used them even by day, with the exception of the time I had to go to court (used some nervous disease as an excuse). When I left my position, I con- signed the crutches to the reserve hospital of the place.

" 'My fur fetishism also became stronger during the years be- tween 1909 and 1918, i.e., as far as that was possible. This ec- centricity was furthered by the fact that ever since 1909 I had had a beaver collar, and in the Autumn of 19 16, my mother sent me a regulation fur coat to the trenches. In the Autumn of 191 7, back from the front, I had a tailor transform this infantryman's coat (without a collar) to a regular civilian fur coat with a collar (he added my beaver collar). That relieved me of the necessity of "floating loans" among the guests of the house, but my abnormal tendencies expressed themselves only passively, i.e., only when I would look at the fur.

" 'December 1917, my mother died, and in January 1918 I made the acquaintance of my wife (she died in May 1920). Ever since then, my eccentricities have taken somewhat different forms.

" 'Adult (up to the death of my wife) : February 1918, I left the service of the state and took up writing. Simultaneously I began to cultivate rather frequent intercourse with my future bride. One relapse occurred in November 19 19 when things were nearly broken off between my bride and me. I then bought a pair of crutches. I later took them into marriage with me, as it were, and had them made over to fit my wife. I bought a new pair after our marriage, and still have them.

" 'My wife had received a gift from the front : an airman's fur lining of musk-rat. Since my own fur coat was well worn, she made me a present of this gift from the front and, out of consid- eration for my tastes, bought herself a heavy seal coat, while I had the tailor make me a heavy winter coat of the musk-rat. Nov* that my wife is dead, I have had her seal coat turned into a seah

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lined coat for me, which gives me two rather heavy winter coats. My crutches — which were well padded to begin with — I had cov- ered with an extra layer of well-padded plush. Succinctly, I have everything that I need, now that my wife is gone, and perhaps the only thing that is lacking is a long and severe winter.

" 'Sex life during the past few years (since about 1916) : I sha'n't speak again of those periods in which I indulged myself in onanistic practices. I should like to mention in passing that, aside from my peculiarities of feeling, there were two factors which kept me from normal intercourse. The first is my natural abhor- rence of bought love which I have never yet been able to over- come. And the second is my inability to start up anything — even a Platonic little flirtation — with any but my social equals. The very sight of the thick coarse hands of maids, etc., instills an incon- querable disgust in me.

" 'But aside from that : I had my "wooden ladies," what use did

I have of the ones of flesh and blood? Thus it was that my defloration, as it were, was more the result of the woman's activity (the wife of an industrialist) than my own. Along with these heterosexual activities, however, I did not leave off my onanistic habits. Nevertheless, those were happy days. That woman, with all the astuteness of a female, soon got wind of my eccentric tastes and began to visit me in her sealskin coat. Afterwards, however, I was again without a woman until I met the one who became my wife in March 1919. She had already transformed me to some degree when she unfortunately died and left me alone again. Or — may it have been for my good that she died?

"'From February 19 18 to December of the same year (when I moved to my wife's), my masturbatory activities diminished con- siderably and all my other abnormal habits also were nearly wiped out entirely.

"'25 December, 191 8, we were officially engaged and on the

II March, 1919, we were married. During those three months — but only by means of the worst nervous eruptions and hysterical crises — I was so far able to blot out my masturbatory habits that it is only now (in June 1920) that I am beginning again ; and even so only about once every week.

" 'In many respects, my marriage helped me considerably. I became intimately acquainted with that intercourse which springs from the natural love of both the man and the woman. I was able to overcome a compulsive habit which had tormented me

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 137

for so many years and my success was of such thoroughness that I have relapsed only occasionally when I needed physical relief.

" 'My crutches have lost their attribute of provoking onanism. They now serve only the purpose of supporting me after ex- haustive and protracted work of a nerve-racking nature. I need them to let myself go in my moments of physical weakness. Their soft padding gives me an unspeakable feeling of well-being and rest, but I must admit that this feeling also thrills my genitals and gives me a prompt erection, although I am not otherwise provoked. Aside from that, I am no longer afflicted by my for- merly anomalous habit of looking after everybody who hobbles along on crutches, except, perhaps, when the cripple may be a young and well-dressed woman. That is probably due to the fact that my wife also had to use crutches for a few months. I learned that fact quite accidentally from her during a conversation. And no matter what might have separated us, I firmly believe that the crutches would have reunited us. Occasionally, when my wife would suffer a nervous breakdown, she would make use of the crutches I had made for her. I may add that her seal coat also poured oil on the flames of our sexual attraction.

"'But, in contrast to the crutches, my fur fetishism has re- mained unchanged. As always, I look at every girl who wears a fox, and get quite a thrill in winter out of the long fur coats with the great collars. In my room at home, I have collected all kinds of skins and furs. I sleep under a panther skin and in the sum- mer, I lay a light woolen coverlet over it (in the winter I use a feather bed). My summer and winter slippers are lined with fur, and my smoking jacket has a broad seal collar.

" 'My former bashfulness in the matter of using crutches pub- licly has disappeared to the extent that I often go out on crutches towards evening and even use them at home despite occasional visitors. I must add that these practices are made easier for me by the presence of the daughter of my wife's first marriage, a twenty-six-year-old widow to whom I am sexually indifferent. She understands my habits and keeps house for me.

" 'That is thus my present condition : fur fetishism of the crass- est sort. Crutches are now for me only a means of supporting me in times of nervous weakness and not, as formerly, purely erotic objects. Crutches in others : only when worn by young, well-dressed women (preferably also dressed in furs). Masturba- tion : Formerly every night and now about twice every three weeks

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or about once in ten days. During my work, I occasionally think of my "wives," but this does not spur me to any form of activity and leaves me without any great animation.

" 'But, aside from that, I cannot forget the memory of the happy two years with my wife which have just passed. I yearn for her ; the woman of my heart. Her coarse brunette features, her slender figure, the deathly sad and mystical eyes, her small hands and feet. But my woman would have to have an under- standing for my other "wives," even if it were but the understand- ing that comes of all powerful love. This woman who could in- flame my weakened passions by clothing her naked figure in furs and wearing softly padded crutches, such a woman would be my true savior. She would be my heaven on earth, the happiness which my furs and crutches can, after all, only partially afford me. For, to tell the truth, both these objects lack soft arms to embrace me, red, hot lips to kiss me and invite my love.

" 'Crutches and furs ! And yet my wife was certainly wrong when she said to me : "You don't need a woman."

" 'But where am I to find the right one, and who is there to help me find her ?

" 'I am perverse ; and yet it seems to me, With all that makes me "satisfied/' With all the means, the glee, My deepest spirit is never gratified. Furs and crutches are my salvation, But only when the heart, my breath, do hold. An unearthly love, the heart's pure gold, Will be my final liberation.' "

(Taken from "Sexualreform," supplement to "Geschlecht und Gesellschaft." Edited by Ferdinand Freiherr v. Reitzenstein, Vol. X, No. 2, Oct. 1920. Verlag Richard A. Giesecke, Dres- den. I.e., pp. 20-23.)

This is a case of rudimentary fetishism. It is quite indic- ative of his character that he never had intercourse until his twenty-fifth year and that his wife feels herself playing sec- ond fiddle to the crutches. Like all such patients, he indulged in much onanism, but weaned himself of the habit with an iron will during his marriage. His relations to his mother are pretty

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 139

clearly defined. Normally built persons who walk on crutches provoke a prompt erection.

It is this point, which will appear later in the long analysis to follow, that I want to emphasize.

It is the healthy individual hobbling on crutches which catches and provokes the fancy of these patients. That reveals the fact to us that the patients are ultimately attracted by a reflection of themselves; they occasionally play the cripple by hobbling about, too.

He also suspected that the man whom he had seen while on walks with his mother also played the cripple. Beggars and those with amputated legs did not interest him (we shall see an analogy to this later). He claims to use the crutches, not because of their sexual interest, but because of their use as support when he is tired. . . It was not the sexual attrac- tiveness of the crutches which caused me to yearn for them again. It is the tired feeling I get when I have had to stand for some time, the weariness I suffer from so much walking in my position as an editor. . . ." This is the most ludicrous type of rationalization. For we know that hobbling on crutches is a most tiring form of locomotion. But the patient needed the sexual stimulation which this afforded him, although he was not conscious of that fact.

Of his potency he tells us that it was not so great as that of a normal male. It took him quite a while before he achieved the first ejaculation, and sometimes even this was impossible until his wife would begin to tell him of the time when she was suffering from rheumatism and wore crutches. That means that only his specific phantasy was able to provoke or- gasm. He happily awaits the day when his wife's age will enable him to live in abstinence, and already he sees her hob- bling on crutches. He denies that he deflected any of his affections from his wife into such phantasies ("that's untrue"), and yet it is a palpable and saddening fact.

Another form of unique aberration reported in the litera- ture is the type of man who can love only amputated women. Lydston's case (a lecture on sexual perversion, Chicago, 1890) is well known. His patient had a love affair with a

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woman one of whose legs was amputated and when he lost her, he greedily looked for a substitute. Transitions to such cases are those in which a limping girl is the love object; cases in which the limping is the conditio sine qua non of the love affair. Two characteristic cases may be taken from Krafft-Ebing.

Case 65. X., twenty-eight years old, claims that since his seven- teenth year, his sexual passions are aroused only by the sight of female cripples, particularly by women who limp and have crippled feet. Ever since puberty he has been the subject of this fetishism which is of the deepest mortification to him. A normal exerts not the slightest influence upon him; his love is inflamed only by a female with a limp and crippled and crooked feet. Any woman, quite regardless of whether she be pretty or ugly, may ignite his passions if only she fulfill the fetishistic requirement. In his wet dreams, he sees pictures of only such crippled women, and occa- sionally he cannot resist the temptation to ape such a female him- self. While doing such tricks, he will get a violent orgasm fol- lowed by a prompt ejaculation, attended by the deepest gratifica- tion. The patient complained that he was very passionate and suf- fered from a lack of satisfaction of his instincts. He first had coitus at twenty-two and has since cohabited but five times. De- spite good potency, he claims that the intercourse gave him no satisfaction whatever, and he feels that if he ever had the good fortune to sleep with a lame woman, everything would be different. He is sure that he will marry none but a lame girl.

Case 66. A similar case. V., thirty years of age, government official, comes of very neuropathic parents. For several years after he was seven, his sole playmate was a lame girl of his own age.

At the age of twelve, without having been introduced to the habit by anyone else, the hypersexed and nervous boy began to masturbate. At about the same time, he began to show signs of pubertal development and it is beyond a doubt true that his first sexual animation was connected with the sight of lame or limping girls. From that time on, only limping or crippled women pro- voked his fancy. His fetish was a pretty woman who (like his childhood playmate) limped on the left side. V., who was ex- clusively heterosexual, and also very passionate, tried his best to satisfy his needs, but found that he was totally impotent when with normal women. His potency and gratification were greatest

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 141

when the prostitute happened to be lame on the left side, but he was also potent with such as limped on the right side. Sincek however, he was able to satisfy his fetishistic demands only occa- sionally, he resorted to masturbation, despite the fact this appeared to him to be a disgusting and unhappy surrogate. His sexual dif- ficulties so depressed and dejected him that he often considered suicide, but only his devotion to his parents held him back. His moral suffering culminated in the fact that although he had cher- ished the hope some day to marry a sympathetic and limping woman he felt that he would never appreciate the woman so much as her lameness, and this attitude seemed to him to be a profanity against the holiness of marriage, an unbearable and impossible form of existence. This situation had frequently made him think of having himself castrated.

Case 67. Z., a man of a rather stigmatized family, claims that he manifested a special sympathy for lame and limping people even as a child. He would hobble about the kitchen on two broom sticks as crutches, but had, as yet, no open sexual excitation as a consequence. He would also play the cripple in an empty side street. Gradually the idea developed that he, as a handsome, crippled child, would approach a pretty young girl and thus gain its sympathy. The sympathy of men would have been repellent to him. Z., who was reared privately in the best of homes, claims to have known nothing of sex or intercourse until he was twenty- one. The feelings he had were as yet innocent in his eyes; they consisted of phantasies of being pitied by a healthy girl while hobbling on crutches or himself expressing sympathy with a lame girl. Gradually, these phantasies were more and more sexualized and, at twenty, he succumbed to masturbation under the force of such day-dreams. His increasingly onanistic and phantastic life developed into a sexual neurasthenia and he was finally so hyper- irritable in this respect that the very sight of a lame girl on the street would excite an ejaculation. Of course, all his onanistic activities and his wet dreams were also accompanied by such phan- tasies. Z. himself came to realize that the person who was lame was quite a negligible factor in his eyes, and that his interest was directed solely at the lame foot. Z. has never yet tried to have in- tercourse with any of the women who manifest his fetishistic con- ditions. He does not feel in the mood to attempt such a thing nor does he trust his potency. His phantasies are strictly confined to masturbating with the feet of lame women. Occasionally he

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collects himself sufficiently to think of gaining the love of a limp- ing girl, and believes that overjoyed at the fact that he loves her very greatest handicap, the girl would free him from his fetishism by lifting his love "from the soul of her foot to the foot of her soul." That would be his salvation, he thinks. In his present con- dition, he feels himself the unhappiest of men.

In all of these cases we see a characteristic retreat from the female, from active sexual duty. Z. never attempted coitus and H. fled from the possibility of marriage under the hypo- critical rationalization that he would probably not love the woman but the lameness.

V. bases his paraphilia on a protracted experience which began when he was seven, but both the others have no good ground for the incidence of their present condition. X. iden- tifies himself with the limping woman; he even apes her. He fails to achieve orgasm in intercourse.

In all these cases sympathy, the cruelty of the weak, plays an important role.

The following letter from a colleague gives us a good idea of the picture of an amputation fetishist.

Case 68. "Dear Colleague : I shall leave it to your good judg- ment as to whether you may be able to use the information con- tained in this letter for your scientific writings. In order first to give you an idea as to who I am and, as it were, introducing myself, let me preface my statements with a sort of curriculum vitae.

"I was born in 1894 in N., the son of an official. My child- hood disclosed nothing of special importance. I went through public and high school with success, I might even say with ease. My upbringing was the best possible. I honor and respect my parents greatly, my father particularly. From an early age, both my brother, who is four years younger than I, and myself were reared to become capable men, if I may say so, by a life judiciously divided between work, all kinds of athletic exercise and noble diversion. Through a number of trips and hikes, undertaken with my father, I came to know and understand both man and nature at an early age. After graduating from high school, I served my year of military time and then entered the University of Innsbruck to study medicine. My studies were suddenly inter-

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 143

rupted in August 1914. I was called immediately to the colors and served for four full years at the front as an artillery officer. It seems that my luck carried me through considerable danger with- out injury to the end of the war. It was with a veritable voracity that I returned to my studies and graduated in medicine in 1920. As a student I had been either a voluntary or second assistant in various theoretical departments. At the present time I am an assistant in a surgical clinic. I may add that my professional activities satisfy and fulfill all the hopes of my life.

"As regards any further medical information, I could not say very much more. My parents are alive and well, as is also my brother. No one of my relatives has ever been seriously ill. I myself was also never seriously ill, aside from the usual children's diseases. At present I find myself in the best of physical health.

"After this rather long-winded introduction, permit me to speak of my pathological vita sexualis. To begin with, I must say that I sutler from a most eccentric form of fetishism, although I know, my dear colleague, that you no longer call this form by the name of fetishism. Any woman who has had a leg amputated exerts a most marked sexual influence upon me. Like all other fetishists, I have also become specialized: I am most deeply affected by a pretty young girl who has been amputated at the thigh and wears a wooden leg. Amputated men do not interest me at all. If I may put it in such terms, I have 'practised* this specialty only very seldom. Occasionally, like the foolish pup that I was, I followed a girl who may have worn a wooden leg or a prosthesis. Once, I can still recall the day clearly, I sat on a bench in the courtyard of the hospital and greedily watched a young girl with a wooden leg walking about the yard. I was always too bashful to start up a flirtation with an amputated girl. The case of that medical student cited by Merzbach always used to excite my envy because he had a girl. I have never practised masturbation, but I have often achieved erections and ejaculations by prolonged and oblivi- ous indulgence in phantasies of my idol ; in other words, a purely psychic form of masturbation. Otherwise, my sex life has been the usual thing, i.e., I have frequently and satisfactorily effected intercourse. I never went to prostitutes, but took the opportunity whenever it presented itself with so-called 'nice girls/ If no op- portunity for intercourse presented itself, I would be subject to pollutions about every two weeks, and these wet dreams would frequently, but not always, be attended by dreams of amputated girls. Finally, I would like to say that my eccentric sexual habits

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have begun to wane, particularly since I have become acquainted with a girl whom I love dearly and whom I intend to marry soon. As soon as our relationship had become somewhat more intimate than usual, I confessed my whole condition to my girl, and I was overjoyed to find a love of my person and an understanding of my weaknesses which gave me courage. I now know that this marriage will completely cure me of my perversion.

"Now, my dear colleague, you will doubtless have several ques- tions to ask me, being a specialist in these matters and a psychol- ogist. Nevertheless, I shall try to answer some of these questions in advance if possible. I am, to be sure, not at all specialized in the field of sexology, but I have looked through the literature for similar cases, and I could cite several cases of the same type. And yet, with all my reading, I am still in the dark as to the nature and origin of my sexual or psycho-sexual condition. First of all, as regards the initial appearance of this disease. Try as I may, I cannot possibly find an 'infantile root' to this thing. I can only remember that, as a fourteen-year-old boy, I saw a girl lift her skirts and fix something on her wooden leg. I got a prompt erec- tion without, however, realizing what the connection was. Later, when the sight of a person with an amputated leg invariably pro- voked an erection, I began to be puzzled, searched for an explana- tion in all kinds of writings and books. To-day I am finally in a position to judge the condition a little better."

Since this colleague was not able to come to Vienna for an analysis, I sent him a questionnaire to fill out, among the more important questions being such as would evoke answers about his earliest memories; these usually containing the nucleus of a paraphilia.

After some time had passed, I received the following an- swer :

"Dear Doctor :

"You have put a number of questions to me which I shall now try — as well as I can — to answer.

"First of all, I cannot quite share your opinion that my condition consists of a disguised form of sadism. I can answer all your questions in that regard (pulling out insects' wings, breaking toys, etc.) with a definite 'No.' Your next question as to whether a naked leg ever caught my fancy in youth must be answered in the affirmative, if I am to consider puberty as equivalent to youth. J

THE MASKS OF SADISM (PARS PRO TOTO) 145

must add, however, that an elegantly stockinged leg acts with greater effect upon my sensibilities than a naked one. I must also mention the fact that my 'love condition' further insists upon having the single leg of the girl well stockinged and shod ; this holds for my dreams as well as for my phantasies. And yet I am positive that this is not a case of fetishism which has to do with the idolatry of these articles of clothing. Still another factor appears to be of significance : the sight, image or even intercourse with a woman amputated on both sides would leave me absolutely cold. As regards your request for dreams containing images of amputated women, I must say that it is impossible for me to offer you dreams of the past for analysis, but I assure you that I shall promptly inform you of the very next dream of this kind that I may have, all the apparently unimportant details included. Your last question about my earliest memories is not quite clear to me for I think I mentioned what appears to me to be my earliest mem- ory in my first letter to you. It is possible that that experience simply reactivated memories of a much deeper stratum, but I cannot at present recall any special occurrence of an earlier age which might be of significance in this respect.

"Thanking you for your interest in my case, I remain

"Yours truly,

"N. N."

After sending a second letter which specifically explained the meaning and intent of my questionnaire, explained the castration phantasies and searched for his daily dreams, I received no answer.

Aside from these cases from the literature, I have nothing further to say on this theme. One thing is manifest: there is a colossal difference between the descriptive period of psy- chopathology and the analytical. Once we have undertaken a thorough analysis of such a case we are able to arrive at roots of the condition, the sources of the condensations, and the motives of the parapathia.

All the cases we have studied in this chapter reveal to us an intimate welding of fetishism and sadism. As I have men- tioned at the outset, the fetishist may look like a lamb, a masochist, at first sight. He administers pain to himself, in- flicts all kinds of punishment upon himself, binds and chains Jiis body and limbs, he suffers for his paraphilia. But behind

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this masochism is hidden a boundless cruelty and sadism. The aggressiveness which was originally directed towards objects in the outer world has been turned upon the individual him- self. It is precisely this gruesomeness which drives the fetish- ist into the arms of religion. God must protect him against himself and his wild impulses. We now begin to understand why the fetishist avoids a partner and remains satisfied with a symbol. He is like a homosexual who, because of an ag- gressiveness towards the opposite sex, flees to his own. That is also the reason why fetishists reveal a combination of both paraphilias. They become homosexual fetishists. The next case will demonstrate to us such a combined paraphilia.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM

The patient whose analysis follows is a twenty-seven-year- old physician who comes from Riga. His mother is Russian, his father German. His grandmother was a Jewess. Ten years before the outbreak of the war, his father moved from Riga to Germany, where he founded a factory and amassed a fortune sufficient for him to live well and educate his children in the best manner. Our patient — we shall call him Otto — was always a very healthy child. He was very sensitive about his ancestry because he wanted to be a "real German."

Because of a very complicated form of fetishism which shall be exhaustively described later on, he turned to Professor X. for advice. Professor X. referred him to me. Otto had already become acquainted with several volumes of my works and himself understood that nothing but an analysis could help him. He decided to undertake treatment, but wanted to do so without the knowledge of his father which would then make it financially difficult for him to carry out.

Before we go into Otto's analysis, let us hear what he has to say about himself. He wrote me a long letter, in which he treated of the psychogenesis of his difficulty at great length. This letter is very valuable because it was written by a physician who understood the significance of various psychological fac- tors. In this letter he stresses certain details which will appear as important high lights in his analysis.

Case 69. "Dear Doctor :

"Having read through several volumes of your works on Dis- turbances of the Instincts and the Emotions, I have gained an entirely different attitude towards my own sexual difficulties.

"In consequence, I visited Professor X. to-day and asked him for his advice. He told me that, according to the information I

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gave him, you would be the person who could advise me best; that he himself was not in a sufficiently experienced position to treat me with specialized knowledge.

"In the following, I shall try to give you as accurate a description of my present sexual situation and its development as I can.

"I am twenty-seven years old, physician, and intend to start upon an academic medical career. At the present time I am in the midst of preparing a rather large work on orthopedic subjects.

"My parents are alive and well. I love my mother very much, but have always been troubled with considerable inhibition in the presence of my father who is a rather nervous man.

"I lay this to his complete inability to understand my sexual states (masturbation, homosexuality) and to the rather strained relations which existed between us during my school days. That was due to the fact that, despite my talents, I had great difficulty in advancing without outside aid.

"I also have three sisters : twenty-eight, twenty-two, and seven- teen. The middle one is happily married, the other two are still unmarried.

"I can remember that as a child I liked to play with my sisters* dolls and also found enjoyment in doing girl's work (such as knitting and the like). I believe that that was before I went to school. I was closer to my eldest sister than to any of the others.

"When I was about nine or ten, we always used to wrestle and fight about in bed every morning, and also amused ourselves at night (our rooms were next to each other) by playing through the door; I was the king of ghosts and she was the queen of the elves.

"In the course of the subsequent years, I suffered from noctur- nal fears which persisted until I was about fourteen years of age. As far as I can recall, these conditions were connected with two houses which my parents lived in, one after the other. I would get certain visions which introduced the nightmares. Far out on a plain I would see a little bundle of something which would gradually enlarge like a hurricane, approach me and take my breath away, so that I finally awoke in frightful anxiety. Before this would occur and before I fell asleep (at about thirteen or fourteen), I would have the feeling that my fingers had become very thick, everything seemed to sound unusually loud, my body felt pathologically large, and the room seemed to have turned into a great plain with all the furniture very far off. The latter feeling later appeared by day, too.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 149

"I can distinctly recall my first emission. I was about ten and a half years old. I dreamed that I jumped up on the step of a coach which was in motion and pressed my body against the coach door.

"I cannot recall having had sexual experiences before that time.

"When I was about eleven, I got up nights and would walk about in a state of somnambulism. They usually found me crying in the dining room. I must have banged myself against the edge of the table, awakened, and begun to cry because I was afraid and didn't know at first where I was. One night my parents came into my room to find me standing on the edge of the window sill.

"When I was eleven, a schoolmate who was several years my senior took me along with him to some place and had me mastur- bate with him. I can't very well remember just what he did with me or what the first moves were.

"He also satisfied his leanings on several of the other boys of my own age, but with me he only masturbated. I was somewhat shy in complying with his demand that we practise mutual mas- turbation. I think the feel of his phallus must have disgusted me as much as his whole person did. What attracted me about him was the thrill of the thing and the fact that he did me many little favors. He would give me postage stamps for my collection, a penny now and then, bits of cake or cookies, etc.

"When we masturbated, he would bind me fast. I can't recall anything else that was in my mind. He would tie me to the sofa with ropes and straps. That only heightened my pleasures (I must have been about twelve). Once I had ejaculated, I would demand that he untie me again. Once we bound a third boy in this way, but performed no sexual act on him.

"One psychic filip still remains in my memory : A boy came to our school who, because of a crippled condition, had to wear nickel shanks on his legs. They used to tease him a lot. The vision of this boy provoked my fancy every time I would mas- turbate.

"I also recall the day I finally refused to continue those practices with my friend. That was probably due to certain rising ethical and moral or esthetic feelings. But I continued to masturbate alone as usual. It is probable that I exploited both methods to- gether for a while, but gradually neither his promises nor his pleading could get me to continue serving him. By that time, however, he must have been using me for his onanistic practices for years. Always per manum. Neither he nor I ever demanded

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

pederasty. It is also possible that he took my phallus into his mouth, but that must have been seldom.

"The autoerotic period which followed my fourteenth year was marked by my binding myself, tying myself in bed, bandaging, beating, hanging myself between two ironing boards, etc. One hand, of course, had to remain free for the masturbation. I also dressed dolls, and found especial interest in the bust of a youth which stood in my room. After carrying out my manipulations on myself, I would use this statue as a substitute and take it to bed with me. It was life size. Then I resorted to my imagination which I naturally augmented by divers printed matter that I had collected. I was markedly provoked by any kind of description of binding, tying or anything which put a human in a very un- comfortable position, regardless of whether the victim were man or woman. The chief thing was that they had to be young and handsome persons. I would also complete the pictures in the books to my taste by sketching chains, bandages, and the like.

"Very dimly I recall having seen a boy come out of the house of an orthopedist in my home city, and it seems to me now that he must have worn an orthopedic corset. I was struck by the lack of movement which it permitted in the neck especially. I must have searched for a picture of that for some time. I can't recall how old I was. But often, when I would ramble in the streets in order somehow to get away from myself and my impulses, this memory would shadow me. That boy was accompanied by a woman who held him with her left hand.

"For the sake of clarity, I sha'n't go into the struggles and men- tal conflicts which have burdened me ever since my fourteenth year. They are the conflicts which arise from the upbringing and the esthetic and ethical attitude that one grows up with ; they are also typical of the state of most onanists.

"I wish only to mention that I constantly collected provocative material, and although I was always burning my collections on the occasion of a reactive depression, the collection of books, papers and cuts grew steadily larger and the burnings just as steadily less frequent.

"And as my desire for new material grew, I would become in- creasingly irritated by the loss of the old. For my autoerotic prac- tices were by now completely occupying the time I had to myself and my whole life during those school days was taken up with the striving for new material.

"In my worst days, I probably masturbated three times daily.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 151

Later, I began to have more to do with my schoolmates than formerly, when I was rather withdrawn. I began to avoid being alone and tried hard to rid myself of my habits. Now my memory fades.

"I can hardly recall any sexual practices, either of a heterosexual or homosexual nature. But between 191 2 and 191 4, I lived in a period of marked erotic experience. First of all, I joined the Boy Scouts, where I came in close contact with several other boys. As far as I am concerned, these contacts were distinctly physical in nature. I even tried to touch the genitals of a comrade of mine one night in camp, but he prevented this.

"Somewhat later, I again had opportunities to touch the genitals of another comrade, but that was a wish of mine only in so far as I was altogether desirous of a physical contact. I was be- ginning to strive towards some physical feeling, that contact des epidermes.

"That is to-day the only desire I possess aside from my auto- erotic activity. But now that wish presents itself only in the presence of my friends. And if it should present itself in the presence of a woman, I promptly and forcibly repress it.

"But first as to my heterosexual experiences. A twenty-three- year-old married woman who had started up a friendship with me, finally achieved her ends on Good Friday 191 3, after having tried in vain during my visits in Berlin (i.e., vainly for her, for I had amused myself considerably). We were sitting together on the sofa. The moon was full. She suddenly fell upon me with all her blonde weight (four children!), pressed me to her bosom and covered me with kisses which I ardently returned. I fell into a violent but paralyzing excitement, my whole body trembled, and it was all very easy for me because of this state to resist sleeping with her. I gave divers moralities as an excuse. Following this, we cultivated an intimate, ardent and sexually provocative cor- respondence for over a year. My burning sexuality drove me to verses.

"This affair broke up at Easter 1914 as I was falling into my third affair.

"After her, there was a short-lived affair with a small blonde with whom I had acted in a little play. On the stage we had kissed each other and continued to do so afterwards. But she did not satisfy my discriminating esthetic tastes and since her mother irritated me, too, I gave her up after a week.

"The third one took place just before I graduated from high

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

school. She was a friend of a friend of mine who was plentifully supplied with girls. I laid siege to the castle and scaled the heights in one grand sortie. She pouted and I gave her an ultima- tum. After that I had all the bodily feeling and contact I wanted, as well as kisses and hugs.1

"Nor was this affair lacking in the spiritual superstructure which I so desired. We liked each other and my sexuality (the physical contact) was completely gratified.

"I then went off to the university and she to a girls' school. The separation was so hard on me that, when my father called me down for my actions, I ran out of the room bawling (nineteen).

"In addition to these, there were a few other girls who attracted me, physically as well as otherwise, but they were so surrounded with boys, and so coquettish, that I had to leave off. Whenever I was with a girl, I wanted her wholly, i.e., totally in my way, and if that were not possible if I had to flirt with her, then I was dissatisfied. Aside from all these, I was friendly with a lot of other girls, without having any physical contact with them. They were usually friends of my sister.

"My heterosexual period was criss-crossed by divers attractions to men, too (e.g., the twelve-year-old brother of my third girl). During this period, my autoerotic habits raised their head again, but were easily put down. The whole phase was finally ended by a farewell letter which my girl wrote me at the instigation of her mother. She gave me up and I felt very down-hearted and depressed. Thereupon my autoerotic practices came to the fore again.

"The books I read were mainly from the sadistic press in Leipsic. But I also found some expression for my spirit in the friendship of young fellows and boys with whom I was living as a Boy Scout. That was a happy time for me, as I recall. I felt very much attached to several boys of my own age, some of them younger and one of them also older. But I had a deep sense of responsibility and rejected every homosexual offer that came from one of the other boys. The ideals which I had been forming ever since the last days of my school period were being more clearly fixed in my mind.

"Keep clean ! That means : don't masturbate, as well as any- thing else. Ascetic! Even in school, I had been the only one among all the boys who was abstinent, didn't smoke, didn't fre^ quent the cafes and didn't swap dirty stories.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 153

"Keep clean for the great love of your life ! A very pretty ideal, I should say.

"Well, instead of the great love there came the great war, to- gether with a whole horde of divers homosexual and sadistic at- tacks upon a man's person.

"I went in as a volunteer. The close-fitting uniform was a provocative agent for me, and the downright sharp treatment we got in the army was nothing short of pabulum for my autoerotic strivings. Among the traumata for my sexual make-up, I might mention the special exercises for punishment, the harsh com- mands and cursing, being hauled up before the commanding officer, and, later, the divers punishments and sentences which led to one's being bound, chained or handcuffed. Not the least of my de- lights was the sight of wounded soldiers who, of course, were well represented and fully satisfied my autoerotism or, rather, sadism.

"After this period began, I ceased to have any contact with women altogether. From December 1914 to January 19 19, I was constantly at the front, and from May 1916 on, I was a lieutenant in the artillery.

"My heterosexual affairs were thus made more difficult during the war. I also threw my principles of abstinence overboard, and the longer the war lasted, especially after I had become an officer, the more I drank and smoked in my attempt to keep up with my comrades in arms. Later on, also, I had to do something to fight off the growing necessity to revert to onanism.

"I masturbated particularly during the winter of 1917 at a time when we were in the midst of terrific close encounters. But I would also surge through a period of onanism whenever I suffered any sexual trauma, such as those which affected my sadistic com- plex particularly.

"I never found it necessary to torment anyone unusually, and although I was firm and resolved in my military manner, I never acted like the sabre-rattlers and rowdies that some of the men were. On the contrary, I sublimated my lust to sympathy and astonishment that such things could pass as handcuffing when simple arrest would have been enough. As a matter of fact, I would have loved nothing better than to see handcuffing all round, just in order that I might express my sympathy and sorrow all the more. This sympathetic and helpful attitude is what really determined me in my choice of a profession.

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"I am very clear on that point. The deciding factor was : you must become a doctor, so that you may sublimate your sadistic tendencies to sympathy and help. There is, of course, the question as to whether, because of this attitude, I might be forced to do something that would be strictly unethical and dangerous.

"But I believe that the spark of self-preservation would prevent me from any aberration in that direction. After all, I have no real need of a sadistic activity, and the normal professional work (agreed that it might also be replete with sexual provocations for me) would doubtless satisfy me even if it turned out that my present condition were incurable.

"Now, please pardon me if I seem to digress somewhat. But I must tell you, in reference to my medical activities, that my present situation is such that my autoerotism gratifies me completely, but the autoerotism is solely directed towards irritations and prov- ocations of an orthopedic nature — the orthopedic corset. Not fetishism, but simply an animation which is connected with the conscious relationship between the corset and a person. Formerly, the female played an equal role in my phantasies with the male ; as a matter of fact, in my binding and tying phantasies, she was preferred. But now she has been almost completely displaced. She's now only a surrogate, a sort of walking on crutches. The splint on an arm. By the way, splints, etc., are most delectable provocations for me. Bandaging a patient can form one of the most consciously pleasurable experiences, i.e., if the patient satis- fies my homosexual attitudes. He must be between fifteen and twenty-five, although the age limit is constantly changing as my own age changes. Formerly, e.g., I was attached to much younger men. I must add that a mustache is disturbing, but a few hairs are not so bad.

"When I consider my abhorrence of women now in the light of the information I have gained from a perusal of your works, I must admit that my sister was right when she said : 'You're afraid to be together with a woman.' Women are not simply indifferent material as far as I am concerned. On the contrary, the more sexualized and attractive they may appear, the more they repel me. I myself often feel that I'm anxious because something might happen. I might really do something. Summer of 1919, I was together with a highly sexed girl, a friend of my sister's, who sort of 'thawed' me out. It went so far that I finally got some pleasure out of tormenting her, a thought which almost made me

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 155

feel that I might, under this influence, be able to effect intercourse with a prostitute.

"I acted in the same way in the winter of 1920, when a female student of rather libidinous make-up made advances to me, and also got me excited during a dance.

"Just because of her markedly sexualized and erotic attitude, I am moved to a strong dislike. And when we were to do some tableaux, I expressed my feelings in the matter by packing her into a box which was supposed to be my appurtenance as a Hindu fakir, I then proceeded to play as if I had the swords these fakirs are supposed to have, and stabbed through the box several times. But I wasn't thrilled or delighted at being able to express my feelings in this manner ; it was rather a feeling of disgust that followed my having given way to my distaste to such an extent that I was able to humiliate her in this fashion.

"I frequently get the thought: What use is a woman to you when you can't live with her as a woman would live with her.

"But I'm always becoming infatuated with young men, i.e., with more or less intensity. Regular homosexuals, i.e., men who call themselves that, are repulsive to me and do not animate me in the least. My whole attitude is summed up when I say that I have dedicated myself entirely to my own sex, but my potency and erotism stop with the achievement of spiritual and bodily contact. All my attempts at homosexual intercourse, such as frequently took place during the war, were just as much a failure as any attempt would be to have intercourse with a prostitute. I tried the latter method twice without success. Nor could any form of perverse provocation bring about sufficient libido as to promote even an erection.

"Succinctly, I emphasize the old Greek relationship in its ideal form, without, however, desiring it to arrive at the final erotic goal of actual intercourse. The libido which is signified in the erect phallus, the desire which drives me to masturbate, is no wise related to my attachment to men, despite the fact that in those relationships I may also get an erection. It is, rather, related strictly to myself, I produce it only through my own phantasies and thoughts and satisfy myself on myself by means of onanism.

"I have noticed that these autoerotic and sadistic phantasies may be diluted and diminished in force through the agency of love, such as was the case in the affairs I mentioned before (heterosexual as well as homosexual) ; but the homosexual forms

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

of attachment were less effective in this respect for the simple reason that they were directed at heterosexual men with whom it was either difficult or impossible to gain any contact.

"Furthermore, all these autoerotic complexes, i.e., my obsession on sadistic phantasies, died away whenever the opportunity pre- sented itself to sublimate my sadism into sympathy, e.g., during my activity in the surgical clinic. I must say, however, that those persons who acted as the objects of my sublimated feelings, there- after played a leading role in my autoerotic phantasies and images. I could give you good examples but I need not do so at this time.

"All the men whom I like to any extent, also drop out when it comes to my sadistic notions. I protect them, as it were, from myself, and if I do try to include them, my libido fades.

"The objects of sadistic phantasies are the people I may have seen on the street ; patients who have been seen by me in the hos- pital ; and pictures which I have collected from medical text-books and magazines.

"In the period of my having succumbed to one of my obsessive attacks, I feel impelled to collect whatever books and magazines, pictures or sketches I can lay my hands on. I buy up books only after considerable struggle with myself and perhaps after days of restlessness ; and often I even steal what I want.

"One of the greatest bits of print in this respect is, e.g., Wull- stein's monograph on the treatment of scoliosis. I acquired this big book along with many others when I was in Berlin for a post graduate course in January 1918.

"A book which contains a prototype of my essential phantasies is Neumann's John Bull as Educator; another is Rüdiger's A Bitter Childhood. The chief virtues of the latter, as far as I am concerned, lay in the descriptions of the upbringing of the young boys by severe governesses who use corsets, straight-laced gloves, stiff collars, female dresses, etc. R. H. Dohrn's stories about the witches' tower also excited me, although I had to trans pose the masochistic language into sadistic terms.

"The attitude of the masochist is thus plainly foreign to me, but the attachment of masochist ideas to the objects of my sadistic pleasure is distinctly advantageous to my feeling.

"Since about the end of the war, I have been living m a world of the following composition:

efI extended my ante bellum ideas and said to myself : there was no war. Every sign of sexual aberration that you show is due to

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 157

hyper-irritability of the nervous system. So, see to it that you cure yourself and get busy.

"That I would become a physician if I ever got out of that war alive was a determined fact with me.

"When I did come out, I went into divers social reform and 'Jugend' movements with all my soul and was thus able to subli- mate my sadistic strivings to some extent. Being with those young men and boys helped me considerably. But, unfortunately, a few months of success was usually followed by a depressing relapse. But I held out. You're not homosexual, I said. The foundations of your conduct are noble and pure, and not dictated by a perverted sexuality. Reform activities, uplift, abstinence, vegetarianism, etc., were all a wide field for my sublimations. And I had good reasons, too. Blüher attracted me, and I was able to support him well, just as I had always been able to support anyone who preached a sound and sensible attitude towards onanism and homosexuality. But I could not support his ideals of manhood.

"And with all my searching, loving and hating, I missed the one person from whom I separated myself more and more (my mother). Perhaps because I feared that I might exert my sadism upon her, too. I believe that a woman, femaleness, could save me and bring me peace. She could be my salvation, whereas my autoerotism and my love for men cannot afford me that peace which I seek. The unselfish love of a woman is simply something which is not an attribute of a man.

"I believe that I am one of those infantilistic individuals whom you say you can help. Consciously, I am in love with neither my perversion nor my homosexuality. How much I am unconsciously attached to these tendencies is something I cannot tell. I suffer from my thoughts while at work, although I realize full well that I frequently revert to them in order to provoke some tension in myself.

"Whether I am sufficiently socialized to produce inhibitions and repressions, or whether I may yet develop in this direction, is something I cannot foresee.

"The human in me is suffering, and it is my greatest wish to do something for humanity, a desire which I cannot believe to be related in any way to my phallus.

"I now remember that I have completely forgotten to mention anything about my dreams. I have already mentioned my first wet dream. For years afterwards, I never had such a dream, but ^in the past few years, that is, when onanistic activities did not

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intervene, I have had emissions with considerable regularity. As far as I can recall, these emissions were attended by anxiety and the feeling : don't you dare to masturbate, or : now you've mas- turbated again ; but later these reproaches were dropped from the dreams. I accepted the wet dreams as something which relieved me from tension. The provocative origins of such dreams were usually taken from autoerotic tendencies.

"In future, I shall try to note down my dreams in order to be able to put them at your disposal. I might add that I dream very much. Hardly a night passes that I do not dream something, many of them being of a sexual nature, but some of them often having an asexual tinge. Frequently, I awaken in the morning with a full recollection of what I have dreamed.

"Many times I have dreamed of the war, that I had to return to my company, was looking for it under great excitement and couldn't find it. Then I see myself as an infantryman again, although I am an officer. Very often I dream that I'm on horse (one of my dearest wishes, even consciously, is to ride again). Again, I am seriously wounded ; horrible wounds which, strangely, don't hurt me.

"Or, I may have one or two wooden legs, but my walking seems unimpaired. Everybody is happy to see me back again. We are attacked. The artillery begins a furious barrage, etc., etc.

"The periodic dreams attended by anxiety and awakening, which occurred after my pavor nocturnus had ceased, were marked by a regular and schematic make-up. I would be in a certain house, and would feel that now those men would be coming, usually Indians, but frequently also other men. I try to hide and always run into the same room where, although I know that I shall be found, I crawl under the bed. The room does not exist in reality. I hear the men coming closer and closer and finally, with the greatest of anxiety, I am discovered and awaken.

"I believe that this dream has not occurred since 1914. Re- cently, however, I have had more frequent dreams which are marked by my unprincipled habits of smoking and drinking. At first, I tried to resist these habits in the dream and would awaken in despair. But gradually I accustomed myself to smoking and drinking in the dream, the reproaches became less frequent, as if I realized that it were all a dream. Lately, these dreams have also disappeared.

"It seems that dreams of a heterosexual nature were seldom, but

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 159

they also occurred. Following upon a rather wild dream full of guilt feelings, I would see myself pursued because of some delinquency, would get away under difficulty ; I married a certain Nelly K. whom I had met in the Wandervögel (a German youth movement — Trans.) and whom I found very sympathetic. We were coming from the justice of the peace, I had given her my arm, and my sister was also present (who also studied in Riga and with whom I had just previously had a conversation on sexual questions). I was quite happy and felt that everything would now be all right

"On another day, I took a look at the girl and I must confess that, of all the girls I know, she is the most appealing to me. Why? Nevertheless, these conscious feelings do not corroborate my dream. I promptly produced a manifest resistance against all this by saying to myself that she could never become my wife even if I did have a physical striving towards her, etc., etc. I must also have had a dream not long ago in which a woman excited me sexually, but I haven't the faintest recollection of what it was all about.

"But I can assure you that when necessary I could manage to re- member all my heterosexual dreams. Recently, after I had busied myself with the library of a masochist (for 'scientific reasons') in which I found many references to flagellantistic scenes, I had a military dream in which I was a witness to a whipping scene. Otherwise I am not given to the ideas and strivings of flagellants, although my onanistic passions are heightened by the mental pic- ture of having the loved object whipped as a sort of stimulant.

"Otherwise, I may dream that some young man is lying next to me in bed, presses against me, seizes my genitals; and I softly repel him (just as I would do in reality) although I find the advance very pleasant. I must add that scratching around my genitals is never unpleasant to me. It must have been even more delightful in those days when I was more uninhibited in my homosexual trends than I am now. Nevertheless, I must have possessed a budding inhibition against further advances even then.

"That was all during the war — winter of 1916 and spring of 1917.

"Before I became infatuated with my third girl in 1914, I had a little affair with a schoolmate of mine who was three years my junior. I had him sleep with me twice. Although I was power-

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fully impelled to fondle his genitals, my inhibitions were so strong that nothing more happened than that we simply lay there next to each other. I later prided myself on having been so full of control.

'There is something more I would say about my perverse tend- encies. I may be walking on the street and feeling in the best of moods; optimistic. I may suddenly see some youngster who may be wearing an apparatus on the right leg which is intended to prevent a contracture of the muscles following an inflammation of the knee joint. I am suddenly overcome with a strange feeling. If I were able in that moment to speak with the boy, treat him medically, I would have an opportunity to react my feelings. But I am moved to follow him, to note his walk. In the marked cases of this kind, in which the object also corresponds to my usual homosexual fixations, I feel as if drunk.

"Although I was very regular in my clinical attendance, such an occurrence would drive my industry and conscientiousness out of my mind. Regardless of whether school kept or not, I had to follow the boy, I had to try to dispose of my emotion, and if I didn't, then it would follow me and ruin my days. I would have to go out in search of the same boy again or try to relieve myself in autoerotic manipulations or find some other reaction. But if I am in a position to start up a conversation with the boy and express my interest, then the effect is marvelous. My excitement ceases immediately and the obsession is removed. I feel at ease and restful. That's just an example. I could tell you of many others. Whenever my autoerotic complex begins to rise within me, as it does after I have been abstinent in that regard for some time, then I get the feeling: if I could only see somebody now who would really provoke my deepest sympathy. But if that is not possible because I am at home or because for some other reason I am not in a position to catch sight of just that type of surgical or orthopedic case which is necessary to me; and if, on the other hand, I don't wish to succumb to masturbation for relief, then I am impelled to ramble in the streets, to wander about town until I find just the sort of person I want. And then the whole thing starts all over again. That is, I either act as I have described to you above, or I am actually forced to masturbate, although this step is always depressing and repelling to me.

"Of course, I have a whole stock of methods whereby I can help myself. I take long walks, ride a bicycle, exercise, or seek the

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 161

company of nice men the sight of whom may take my mind off the other things.

"But inevitably my delight in painful conditions and the desires of the sadist will break through.

"I am in the best of physical health, stand almost six feet, and am considered to be a fairly handsome fellow, even among men.

"One of the chief points I have to make is a pathological anxiety which I manifest. I have for years been suffering from a fear of dentists. I disguise the anxiety in every possible manner, but always excuse myself from visiting a dentist, with the result that all my teeth, especially the rear molars, are in a poor condition. But the very thought of the drill nearly prostrates me, and I am sure that I could never get further than the dentist's door.

"My mother ceased trying to take me to the dentist after I was thirteen. I must have created the wildest scenes in those days whenever she tried.

"I must also tell you that whenever I would masturbate I would invariably interrupt the manipulation in order thus to prolong the pleasure antecedent to the ejaculation. This was especially the case ever since I have been trying to rid myself of the habit. It would sometimes last for hours, and in this manner I would often be able to stop it altogether. Infrequently I would extend the period of manipulation and interruption for days and then end in ejaculation and orgasm.

"As soon as I might feel the first prickling sensation of the orgasm coming on, I would seize the penis at the deepest portion of the pars cavernosa, in order thus to stop the flow mechanically and also interrupt the nervous thrill, run about the room to deflate the orgasm and then begin all over again. I was disgusted by the specific odor of semen. In this manner I have been able to pre- vent a free spurting of semen ever since I was fourteen.

"My phallus is unusually well developed, also the testes. I had a slight phimosis, but this was so stretched by my onanistic manipu- lations, that now I can pull the foreskin back over the frenulum even when the penis is erect. When it is not erect, the foreskin will not stay behind the corona, but is in infantile position.

"I usually awaken in the morning with an erection. Depending upon how I feel about my sexual complexes, I either disregard it or give myself a taste of introductory pleasures. To the thorough execution of a complete masturbatory act, it is necessary for me to draw up the complete artillery of my collection: all my pic- tureSj sketches and accounts of sadistic scenes (now about fifteen).

1 62 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

"Such habits are definitely fixed with me ever since I have been about eleven or twelve, and certainly since my thirteenth year. One of my schoolmates suddenly became important and interesting in my eyes when he broke an arm and had to carry it in a sling. Even at that time, the image or the sight of this boy carrying his arm in a splint was very pleasing to me. Then, too, the sources of my provocation were boys of my own or a slightly younger age. An older student in the school attracted me but once and that was when we all went out to the beach one day. There I noticed that one of the boys was wearing an orthopedic corset (brass rack with some sort of cervical support). I could see only the neck part of it, but it animated me immediately. At that time, I was not yet so intimately cognizant of all the meanings of my emotional life, and it was easy for me to turn my eyes from the sight under the influence of other things ; but even so I would have liked to look longer. Later on, I missed this picture very much.

"On the basis of a long series of such experiences, the phantasies which made up the basis of my onanistic practices were founded. They gradually took permanent shape and tended to displace the female entirely. I was always striving to transform the image of the female to that of a male. The only type of woman who found any consideration at all was the full-breasted, buxom type that is so often used as an illustration in the cheap novels which I, like all the other boys, read so assiduously. But even that type is im- portant only because of its relationship to the male.

"I am also very susceptible to the influence of catheters, and the thought of a permanent catheter attached to the object of my phantasy greatly enhances the effect of my feelings. If the virility of the male is emphasized in a picture, it should be through the clarity and size of the genitals.

"The female element in my own sketches (of which I have only a few at present) is invariably a governess, a severe teacher or nurse. Occasionally bound and tortured women were also an essen- tial addition to my pictures of tormented men; to heighten the effect, as it were. But never alone ; only together with drawings of the men.

"I may add here that during my student days, I was always pained by the necessary visits to the gynecological clinic. I had but one feeling during a gynecological examination : disgust ; and that was especially true whenever I would get a whiff of the vaginal odor. Gynecological operations, blood, the pains of the patients,

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 163

the examination, all these are possible to me only when I paralyze my feelings by a scientific seriousness. Here, too, any unnecessary brutality on the part of the physician irritates me, and I am not at all excited or sympathetic in such situations as I would be if the same thing were happening to some man who appealed to me.

"I never have the feeling that such a thing is necessary and simply suffer that part of the curriculum because I know that I would never graduate if I didn't learn it along with the rest. I might add, however, that my ideas about helping humanity include women as well as anybody else, and I took the trouble to learn everything well, so that I might be of service to mothers and women as well as men.

"Nevertheless, I can't help but feel a distaste for the female and the skin specialties. My strivings are directed primarily at surgery and also indirectly at psychiatry. Ever since I have collected some knowledge of my condition, however, and have privately burrowed into books and works on this subject, my taste for psychiatry has been dulled somewhat. I am afraid that a psychiatric practice would have a bad effect upon me ; and since I cannot be very ob- jective because of my greatly neurotic tendencies, I am afraid that my psychotherapeutic and suggestion treatments would be a failure.

"As regards surgery, the technical part of major surgery bores me to death, and even years ago, my tendencies were well ex- pressed by my desire to become a nurse or a stretcher bearer in the war. But other influences and my fight against such ideas made that impossible.

"In short, I find a great pleasure in my surgical practice because of my psycho-sexual sadism. The study of medicine was infused with interest through my attachment to this branch of medicine alone ; at times, this even instills a greater capacity for work into me. But my desire for care and treatment of the crippled and wounded does not extend to women.

"At the time when I was about to become a clerk or interne in the surgical department, I thought that I would expire if they ever sent me to the obstetrical or gynecological clinic. I decided that if that happened, I would excuse myself by saying that I didn't know enough about the technical methods, or something of the sort.

"Although I prefer my men to have a trace of the girlish (though not of the womanly), I am not at all repelled by men of a more robust nature as regards the indulgence of my sadistic com-

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plex. The type I favor, i.e., the somewhat feminine type, is a rather common thing among the students of my part of the country.

"During our military advance in the Ukraine, I was sexually at- tracted to several of my subordinates, without, however, ever hav- ing given way to my desires, excepting in one instance when I would wrestle with one subordinate officer and thus react some of my emotions. I might say that I found this an excellent method of relieving myself whenever my tension became too great, and I made frequent use of it with prompt and satisfactory results. The effect lasted for days, I would regain my composure and my strivings would abate.

"In the Ukraine, I had an affair with a girl who attracted me, and practised the same habits that I have described above with the other girls. The reason for this attachment was that the girl had a brother who was quite a handsome male. I loved the brother through the medium of his sister, and that enabled me to over- come my inhibitions. I soon separated from her, however.

"I was forever impressed by what my parents had once told me : 'Whenever you have anything to do with a girl, think of what you would say if some other man were to do that with your own sister.'

"I had more than my share of morality. My father always preached to me about chastity to the day of my marriage. He doubtless hoped that I would achieve the aim which he, as he once intimated to me, had not been able to achieve. Always told me I should fall in love and marry. Even wanted to help me (during the war) to find a wife. But, unfortunately, every avenue was closed to me and there were a thousand reasons besides the one chief factor which made it impossible for me to love. All my attempts to fall in love with one or the other of the women who appealed to me, were wrecked by the resistance offered by that other part of my soul.

"I enclose a photograph of myself. It was taken in November of last year. There is another man in the picture, a friend of my own age who also once tendered me intimate feelings. I wanted to have full possession of him, but he was engaged. He married soon after this was taken and is quite infatuated with his wife. I visited them once and noticed that I developed a hatred of this woman. Or, perhaps, I was only envious of her. At any rate, I had lost him to her. I removed myself from the scene.

"I am sending you the entire picture. I feel that I may do this,

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 165

but I beg you to destroy that part of the photo which shows my friend. I am the blond at the left, and my friend is the one at the right without the mustache. I have a small beard, a closely cropped mustache and parted hair. I am afraid to shave off my beard and mustache because I think that I will look feminine.

"I have never consulted a physician, and my visit yesterday to I Professor X. was the first of its kind.

"Yours very truly,

"Otto N.

"P.S. I have just remembered that when I was about fourteen, in the summer of 1910, I tried to realize my binding phantasies in playing Indian and robber with other boys. I sensed a certain excitement in this, but I think I was able to control myself by some conscious volition. I tried these experiments in other plays and games, too, but the most I felt was a slight erection, but never orgasm or ejaculation. In one of my earliest memories, I see the lovely park at home where we boys used to play : A girl is tied to a tree and the boys throw burning pieces of absorbent cotton at her. It seems that the girl wore a vaccination bandage about her arm (as is usual in public schools), and I think that they were all larger and older children than I was. This memory quite thrilled me.

"The very earliest memory that I have is the following one : As a very small child, I was sitting on a blanket in the woods. My nurse had on a light colored washable dress, probably linen. She had been picking huckleberries, and had accidentally sat down on some of the berries with the result that there was a big stain on her light dress. She was bent over and I could see the dark purple stain on her dress. I have always remembered that scene."

This closes the patient's first confession. I invited him to come to Vienna and undergo gratis treatment — but with the condition that I might be permitted to make use of his case in my works. He accepted.

I would like to add a few remarks to his letter. We see here a distinct tendency to collect his fetishes and form a sort of fetishistic Bible with them. Then he destroys the Bible, regrets his act and forms another. We also note an accom- panying parapathia which, in my opinion, is never missing in any case.

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At an early age, anxiety states appear as a sign of the inner conflicts of the boy. His dentist phobia is a kernel of his con- dition. It reveals to us the fact that his mouth was one of his erogenous zones and that there must be a connection be- tween his genitalized buccal zone and his fetishism.

He also reports noteworthy somnambulistic states (such as we have discussed in Peculiarities of Behavior) and these states indicate the presence of an impulse which must be constrained by the fetishistic impulses. There is also the onanism with its characteristic sado-masochistic make-up; the avoidance of the female and the development of a homosexuality. His ex- periences with women were very few and the ones he did have stopped short of intercourse. Coitus is a sin, to which is added the strict preachment of his father who appears as a condition between his sister's purity and his own (the patient's) ex- periences.

His father had commanded him to remain pure and chaste and he had complied with the aid of his paraphilia. The com- pulsions and obsessions he executed upon himself are beau- tifully symbolized and effected in the choice of orthopedic in- struments. He is like a horse with a curb-bit.

His stereotype dreams are quite characteristic. He must return to his company, i.e., he wants to get back to his past, his childhood. As in all of our cases, he manifests a retro- pulsive tendency. His artificial legs in another dream sym- bolize his parapathia. In his dreams of Indians, he is attacked by males ; the well-known traits of pubertal dreams. Naturally, he also breaks all his good resolutions in the dreams and drinks and smokes to his heart's content; indeed, he even marries, but the presence of his sister seems to indicate that the girl is but a substitute for the sister.

A noteworthy piece of virtuosity is described in his mas- turbatio prolongata, in which he is able to protract or even to circumvent the ejaculation. That cannot be due to the fear of seminal loss alone. In the course of the analysis we shall learn that this was a sort of preparatory game, a playful act, such as the preparatory character which Gross has been able to demonstrate in the games of humans and animals. Even in the onanistic act itself, we meet with the use of pressure which

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM i6>

is so well known to us by now. He clamps his phallus so hard that he prevents not only the ejaculation, but also the orgasm, from coming on.

His first memory — a spot on the dress of his nurse — will be revealed in the analysis as having the greatest significance.

The specific form of his fetishism shows a development which could be produced in hardly anyone else but a physician. It is doubtless true that his paraphilia determined his choice of a profession.

The analysis will probably meet with the greatest obstacles and resistances, since the patient already has a good idea of analysis. The preliminaries themselves give a taste of the struggles that are to come.

Under considerable resistance, the patient arrived for treatment. The first thing he did was to start derogatory measures. He gladly accepted my invitation to come to Vienna and receive treat- ment gratis as a physician. But he finds my letter ludicrous and its appearance indicative of self-advertisement.2 He wrote a special delivery letter which didn't arrive (the address was probably incorrect, so that it was sure not to be delivered. Symptomatic act). He becomes furious. I let him wait. Finally, he writes a second letter which was received. He promised to note down all his dreams with assiduity and without my having asked him to do so. But from that moment on, he can't recall a one. In the morning they've all faded.

He can recall nothing but his guitar dreams. He lives entirely in the guitar now, and acquired the instrument in order to have some sort of diversion which might keep him from sinking be- neath the waves of his fetishism. He strives towards the ideal. Just because he is half Slav, he wants to become an exemplary German to the Germans. He wants to excel the Germans them- selves and for that reason he would like to rid himself of all his pathologically sensual feelings.

Let us begin with three dreams which constitute all that he could save from the period between his first letter and the time he arrived in Vienna (three weeks !). These were dreamed before the treatment, of course.

I. I had given my mother my guitar to have it repaired. She came back and returned the guitar to me, and I saw that false pegs had been inserted. I said: those are not the right pegs. I

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must go down there and see that I get my right pegs back. On the corner, I passed a music store in front of which there were piles of old and dirty snow and filth. Two men from the street- cleaning department were standing there. All kinds and sizes of pegs were lying in the piles of dirt. Most of them, however, were of the size of bass pegs. I asked if I might look for my pegs and they said yes. I began to search for them, but couldn't find the right ones.

2. There were lots of people in a crowd. It was like a con- gress of the Boy Scouts or the Wandervögel. We were about to break up, but I couldn't find my guitar. I searched and searched but all I saw was innumerable guitars of the most unusual sizes and shapes lying about. Among them, too — as far as I can re- member— there were also parts of cadavers. Suddenly I had my guitar back, but some youngster, whom I didn't know at all, took it away from me again, and refused to return it despite my protest.

3. I am standing in front of a company. I'm the subaltern. The grand duke with his wife and some others were standing at my right and before the front. I was supposed to hold a sermon, but I knew that they would all laugh at it. But I went ahead. I don't know whether it was my purpose to be comical, but they all laughed continuously at what I said. Then they all left and I was alone. I followed them, but I couldn't find the way although I knew it well. Once I thought that I was in the offices of the North German Lloyd or some ship company. Then I found myself on the path, but it led to some privy, some dark and hideous struc- ture. . . . Interruption. ... I am walking on a (right) path with three friends. We are on a hike. For some reason, I suddenly had to run back down the path. They waited for me, and as I came back, I noticed, to the right and left, that the remains of Ernst Haeckel were erected there. It was all a pile of bones and bronze figures — like a museum. I wanted to take something with me, but the pieces were all too heavy. I was already heavily laden. Finally, I picked up two small figures and a centimeter rule and went back to my friends who were waiting for me.

These dreams are largely resistance dreams, and become clearer when we know that the guitar represents his soul and his sexuality. In the first dream, he notices that his soul hasn't the right pegs; they are all hidden in the dirt among other pegs. His soul is tainted. He can't find the right pegs. That expresses his malad- justment in life. He hasn't yet found the right path. His volition

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 169

and his capacity are shown to be markedly maladjusted. The pegs he does find are all too large for his guitar.

Also, relations between his condition and his mother. His mother has given him life, but he cannot seem to make use of it properly. The interpretation of the materials in the dream is still unclear.

In the second dream, life is represented as a walking tour. He cannot find his soul. Life produces the most inconceivable men, the most divers forms (he is interested in psychology). His guitar possesses young offspring (his infantilism, his youth). He has lost his soul and his sexuality in youth (fixation on infantile im- pressions).

The third dream begins with an indication of his piety which, as we have seen, is present in every case of fetishism. But he is afraid that he will become a laughingstock. He is afraid I might be amused by his eccentricities. His family (the grand duke) doesn't understand him. His father hasn't the faintest idea of his condition. The patient didn't tell him why he was coming to Vienna. He would have laughed or been in despair. That is why he feels alone and cannot find his way. He must undertake the trip (North German Lloyd) of his life into the new world (Stekel) alone. His conscious thought tells him that he may be preached to by the analyst. In the dream, however, he fears that I shall lead him to a privy, lead him to a woman and conduce to his immorality. He must return for a while (the analysis, the road to childhood). But only for a short while. Then he returns to his old habits (the three friends are a symbol of his parapathia). Ernst Haeckel should be read as Wilhelm Stekel. He likes Haeckel for the bold political stand he took. But Haeckel is dead. Before he begins the analysis, he is already consigning me to the dead. He doesn't want to be burdened with all my knowledge and science. He will be satisfied with a couple small figures and a small measure (the rule; an infantile measure). Then he will return to his former practices.

Poor analytical prospects, indeed.

Like most fetishists he has, of course, a Bible, a collection of pictures and sketches and excerpts from books, which he uses during his onanistic practices. He had already burned six such collections, but only after considerable inner struggle and resistance. A short time ago, he put aside such a collection and now turns it ^over to me. It consisted of cuts from orthopedic books and maga-

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zines. His desire makes him nearly mad, and he will do almost anything to get hold of a fine example of his taste. He is not afraid to steal if necessary. He suffers the tortures of the damned and finds no peace until he has acquired the book or picture he desires. Lately, he has been making sketches of his own, such as are illustrated in the text. And if the pictures he gets don't suit him, he makes changes himself. Women are changed to men and girls to boys. He says that he avoids all pictures of women be- cause they don't provoke him sexually.3 Women don't attract him. His collection contains a great number of transformed pictures. He cuts off the heads and legs of the figures and puts others in their place. Cutting things out seems to give him pleasure (dis- guised sadism). Hair is shorn off the illustrated head, and thus a girl is transformed into a boy.4

In his own pictures and sketches, the cardinal role is played by a domineering woman. It is in such pictures that he submits to the female, although he seems to scorn — and fear — her in reality.

Our patient introduces his analysis by what we may call a "dream diarrhoea." He reproaches himself for having dreamed so little all the while, resolves to watch out for his dreams, sleeps restlessly, even criticizes the dream while dreaming and begins to analyze it as soon as he recalls it. These dreams are not very valuable, and that is just the difficulty one meets when one analyzes physicians who have a knowledge of psychoanalysis. The naivete is not there. Instead, there is an antagonist awaiting the analyst. Nevertheless, these dreams present us with some material.

These are the dreams brought to his first hour :

1. I have a lot of porcelain figures which I made myself. They are varicolored, and many of them look like small religious idols or large tin soldiers. They are very brittle and fragile.

One of the series has a book of sketches and drawings. A trumpeter is blowing his trumpet and behind him stand God and the devil. The effect of the blowing is to be seen in three of the groups fashioned. Three drawings, one of which shows a trump- eter who has had to blow his horn just as he was about to defecate. That made me say at the end of the dream: if Freud were to see that he would certainly say: hole. Otherwise, I noticed nothing erotic or sexual in the groups of figures.

2. I feel my chin and find that I'm already rather rough in the face again, although I had shaved just yesterday.

3. I am on the way towards a little company that is sitting out under the trees in a cafe. We arrive at a broad river where

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 171

there is a breakwater of great planks. As we climb up on it, some of the planks rise up vertically and I become afraid. The other fellow gave me courage. Then we crossed a swamp, and I pur- posely acted funny in order to hide my anxiety. I fell several times. From the other side I see the Wagner family coming to- wards us, and at their head is the deceased Mr. Wagner himself. Mrs. Wagner said: My husband is not dead. I get the feeling that I must not speak to him. Then we were across and that dream about the porcelain figures followed.

4. <(]ugendtr meeting. I am wearing a sailor blouse, knee pants and short socks and feel very well in that get-up. Gradually, how- ever, I noticed that the blouse didn't fit me. It seems to change its size. I then have my gray shirt on. I wanted to buckle a belt on, but it was too short I awaken.

5. We are lying out on the grass. A girl is supposed to make up her mind as to which one of us she'll take. I wanted her to choose me. Dim memory of Miss Sanger. When she finally de- cided, I noticed that it was Rosa, a girl I knew in the "Jugend1* bunch. She never meant the least bit to me. And then I said to someone else who had passed a remark to me : Why, I've known her since I was two years old.

The first dream is quite characteristic. His neurotic playthings (his infantilism) are symbolized by porcelain figures which are half playthings and half religious relics (religious idols). He's very much afraid of what may happen to his idols. They are fragile, these fictions of his. The drawings refer to the collection of drawings he gave me yesterday, doubtless only after a great inner conflict. A normal person could never understand the im- portance of such a step in the life of one of these patients. The bipolarity of the soul is expressed in the figures of God and the devil. The trumpeter is an anagogic expression, the voice of God which calls to him to destroy his parapathia. (The trumpeter of Jericho.) The three groups represent defecating individuals, and it is probable that the symbolic form here has it that the trumpeter calls to them to give up their dirty habits. The connections with his anal complex are quite clear. The patient declares that Freud's triad of miserliness, obstinacy and f ussiness as the sign of the anal erotic quite fit his character. As a child, he liked to control and play with the passage of his wind ; he even collected the hydrogen sulfide of his wind in a bottle and had a lot of fun lighting it with a match. He also liked to make bubbles rise in the bath tub by letting wind, got a great deal of pleasure from defecating, and

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even withheld it for long periods in order to increase the pleasure of the act. His remark about Freud in the dream is really directed at me and is intended to depreciate the anal indications of the dream.

The second dream expresses the fact that the analytical shave he has had but yesterday has not cleansed him as yet.

In the third dream, his sexuality is represented as a broad river. He has protected himself against the currents of his soul by erect- ing a great breakwater (his parapathia), but the planks are not very solid and he is afraid to give up his parapathia and run the risk of falling into the swamp. Up until now, he has desisted from any form of sexual activity, and he is afraid the analysis may conduce to his immorality. The meaning of the fetishism is clear : a protection against woman and active sexuality. He finds that this anxiety has made him ludicrous and that all his attempts to disguise it are laughable. The Wagner family is his family. He had often wished his father, who lorded over the house and domineered his mother, sudden death. Even as a child, he had often dreamed that his father were dead, and he would have great feelings of guilt as if he had been the cause of his father's death. He would then be relieved upon awakening to find that it had all been a dream.

His relation to his father, which had already appeared in the first dream (addendum : behind God and the devil stands the king) was a rather curious one. He feels a physical abhorrence of his father; he manifests an inexplicable shyness in his father's pres- ence and cannot remain in the same room with him. Whenever his father embraces him, something in him congeals. He cannot be tender with his father at any time. From afar, he was willing to recognize his father's virtues and merits, but when he saw him naked once he felt a chill shiver run down his back. He also reproaches his father, claiming the latter made certain mistakes in rearing him; he blames him (unjustly, as he realizes) for having conduced to the development of his present condition. At home, father was a papal lord, and his word was law. Mother always loved Otto very dearly and invariably took Otto's part against father. His older sister is parapathic (washing mania), has noth- ing to do with men; the middle one is the only really feminine person in the family ; that is doubtless why she married early. The youngest is also "peculiar" (washing mania, infantilism and naivete mixed with cynicism) . In this part of the dream, he reaches dream 1 only after he has passed the barrier.

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The fourth dream is manifestly infantile. He is dressed in boy's clothes. The shirt doesn't fit the collar and the belt is too short. This is a symbolical representation of the antithesis between his parapathia (infantilism) and the demands of life. The belt is, furthermore, a symbolization of a compulsion. He is growing' out of his infantile attitude and wants to coerce himself somewhere else. Gray shirt and belt are equivalent to penance garb and monk's cord.

Now to dream 5. Miss Sänger is the one girl whom he has known in the last few years who made even a slight sexual im- pression upon him. But we know that he always tried to depreciate the value of women who impressed him, acted in a derogatory way with them, desexualized them. The same occurs in this dream. She becomes Rosa, who never meant anything to him. Later dream analyses will show us what relation Rosa had to his sister complex.

He realizes the extent of his resistances. He feels as if he had had a key to his soul before, but that now the key were lost. He is succumbing more and more to his phantasies and is retreating accordingly from reality — even in homosexual respects. He has so arranged his masturbatory practice that he never achieves orgasm (we know that he interrupts the onset of the orgasm and the ejaculation by means of squeezing the phallus very hard at the root; this expresses his compulsive obsession). His last ad- venture was with a patient. A man who wanted to be liberated from his homosexual and masturbatory habits consulted him in regard to hypnotic treatments. The hypnosis was easy, but during the treatment our patient experienced the full force of his own homosexual phantasies. He undressed himself and masturbated, but he withheld the orgasm. The patient then tried to grasp the physician's penis — and the later at first permitted him to do so, but when the former became bolder, he gave him the command to stop.

Otto manifests several distinct signs of infantilism. He cannot stand the odor of certain persons, e.g., his father and his sister. The odor of some of his comrades nearly drives him mad. The specific vaginal odor of women is abhorrent to him. Yet he likes to smell of his own smegma and the odor of his feet. His para- philia is closely connected with his olfactory instincts.

Naturally, the patient is aggressive towards me in his attitude. He dislikes anything that reminds him of Philistinism. He classes me among the Philistines and bourgeois, of course. I smoke a

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pipe during the analysis. That's the mark of a Philistine. Every- thing that indicates adjustment or satisfaction is humdrum. If a fellow is ambitious he's a Philistine. Whatever happens, he doesn't want to be like the rest. He wants to be different and go his own

way.

The resistance to the treatment is expressed in the following: dream.

In front of the mail boxes, I meet with Lieutenant Colonel Vor- mann. He extends me his left hand and grips my own left hand hard. I feel how weak my own hand is in his palm. He thinks that's lamentable and grabs my right hand with his left. I try as hard as I can to resist him, but he crushes my right hand, too.

Then he takes hold of both my hands with both his. I feel as if he's going to tear my hands from my wrists and want to protest. I awaken with the feeling that my lower jaw has been dislocated forwards.

He dreamed this dream in the afternoon, after he had written two letters. One of the letters was sent to his father and de- manded that papa send a larger monthly allowance. The second was sent to his sister and discussed the question as to whether — as I had advised him — he should let his father know of his condi- tion or not. He also told his sister that I had prophesied to him that he would leave the analysis within a fortnight.6

But let us turn to the dream analysis. Vormann is an officer, handsome, slender, blond, energetic, the very picture of a German. He's a spirited fellow. In the dream, he was at least two heads taller than our patient, who is dissatisfied with his stature. He would like to be much larger. Whenever he looks in the mirror, as is often the case, he will admire his naked body, but frequently he will find fault with himself. Vormann is his ideal. He would like to achieve the almost impossible, i.e., the control of his pas- sions. His instincts, especially the left side of them (homosexual- ity) are held in check by his ideal demands which make him follow, although he submits unwillingly. Now, however, both his hands are tied, the normal (right) satisfaction, as well as the para- philic (left) one. His ascetic tendencies impel him to complete self-denial. He doesn't smoke and would like to be a vegetarian. But he knows that he has totally deformed himself through his ideals and resolutions. He is certainly no Philistine, but what was the price! His wrists are twisted, his jaw dislocated; he can neither act nor speak.

The second determination of the dream is that Vormann is his

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father and the analyst his father's representative. His father bound both his hands. Otto associates that Vormann uses his left hand because he wants to do something which is not right. We can thus assume that this physical contact was something forbid- den, something which he expects of the physician, too, just as all patients with a father transference. He really admired his father and was unhappy at the strictness which ruled at home. This com- pulsion is pictorially represented in the dream. It also indicates the compulsions he feels at my hands, I who have given him cer- tain orders, against whom he is powerless. With a dislocated jaw, of course, he cannot talk, and that ends the analysis. In addition, he'll become even crazier than he already is if he stays with it. That is the true sense of the dream ; the point of it is directed at me. He wants to protest, but his weak voice is not heard. He must sacrifice his parapathia. I must call the reader's attention to the beautiful illustration in this dream of the pressure and coercion character of fetishism.

A number of associations follow. He first tells me about some stereotype dreams he had. He often dreams, he says, of swim- ming through water with the speed of a torpedo ; swimming dreams are altogether frequent with him (spermatozoon dreams?). His typical railway dream is that he has climbed into the wrong train, that he has forgotten his baggage or has failed to pack up the most important thing. As he is about to get in the train, he finds all his suitcases and bags opened by strangers. These are quite characteristic fetishist's dreams. The train is the ride of his life. He cannot find the right road, cannot reach his destination; he hasn't even prepared sufficiently for the trip. His fear of being betrayed and recognized for what he is shows up in his anxiety that all his bags have been opened.

Like all ambitious people, he produces flying and gliding dreams. He also dreams frequently about falling into a deep hole or fall- ing off something. He still remembers such a dream which he had before the analysis began. It made quite an impression on him. It is a stereotype riding dream with him.

First I ride past a company and salute its officers. The road then becomes progressively narrower, and I find myself sitting atop a former schoolmate of mine as a horse. We find ourselves then on a bridge which is dizzily high above the bottom. It is built upon the highest of conceivable tree trunks as piers, and the bridge itself is only the thickness of a tree trunk. I hold fast, but he springs off into the bed of the river. It took us four seconds, and

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despite the rock cliffs, he landed unhurt. I didn't know whether I should jump or not. I was terribly afraid and couldn't go back.

In this dream, he expresses the violation of his second ego by a schoolmate whom he uses as a horse (a homosexual picture). The whole scene is completed by his great drop, the gradual fall of the other boy and his great anxiety. Similar dreams showing a gradual drop from dizzy heights occur frequently.

He possesses wild instincts against which he must protect him- self. What are these impulses ? We may get an idea as to what they are through the fact that before he falls asleep he must bite into the coverlet or the blanket ; he bites his nails or a handkerchief. He is also afflicted with the evil habit of crunching his teeth in his sleep. He presses the blanket close to his abdomen before he falls asleep (memory of being swaddled in diapers?).

As a boy he used to steal a good deal, and would then buy hitrK self candy with the money. He cannot bear to throw anything away (fear of losing his parapathia). He was practically reared to his anal sexuality by being the subject of constant purgatives and enemas as a child. At the slightest sign of some malaise or indisposition, they would take his temperature per rectum.

Up until very recently he manifested all kinds of infantile habits. He would put nasal crusts into his mouth and interested himself in all his excrements. He would stick everything he possibly could into the external cavities of his body; beans would be hidden in his nose or rectum or ears. Once an ear specialist found a bean in one of his ears which must have lain there for years.

We have just mentioned his cannibalistic tendencies (biting into the blanket). In conformity with this, it may be stated that he liked to lick his own blood, called the various meat dishes at table "animal cadavers or corpses," and always used to say to his col- leagues at lunch : "Now I'll have the corpse of a steer," etc.

Even when he was fourteen or fifteen, he still had the habit of talking to himself before he fell asleep. He would address him- self and then a dialogue would ensue, he being both parties. Some- times he would begin to bawl, and his mother would either come running into the room or call him to her.

He would like to be a hero. At the front, he would take a walk while bombs were falling, just to show how brave he was, but he wasn't sure whether he were really brave or was just showing off.

This reveals to us a primitive type of sadism which has been present in every case of fetishism that we have considered.

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The tendency to splitting of his personality is disclosed in his monologues in which he plays the part of both parties. This is a phenomenon which is observable in many compulsion neu- rotics. It expresses their peculiar type of thought. It deals with the two poles of their make-up: primitive or civilized man. The meaning of his dropping off dizzy heights is that he has dropped from the heights of civilization to the depths of bestiality.

He dreamed:

I met my patient on the street and he wanted to be hypnotized again. He became importunate, but I coolly refused him.

The physician who is a patient of mine sees himself as the master in the dream. He also discloses the ability to resist the homosexual advances of his patient. He is again at home. His own analysis is over and he is analyzing others.

He then touches upon his pathological anxiety of dentists. It began to plague him when he was yet young, and now he has a mouth full of carious teeth. In his phantasies, he always sees him- self going to the dentist. About three months ago, he got as far as the door of a dentist whom he knows, but didn't have the courage to ring the bell. Among his phantasies, a sarcoma of the jaw takes on an important part. An important question with him is whether, in such a case, he would permit himself to be operated on by an oral surgeon. He is ashamed to go to a dentist. What would the dentist say when he saw this row of rotten teeth ? Fur- thermore, the bad teeth are also a protection against his kissing anyone. What would she or he think upon smelling such a foul odor before a kiss ? Wouldn't his partner be disgusted ?

During the war, when he was showing off his bravery, he always had the notion that if he would permit any of his teeth to be pulled, he would fall the next day. This reveals an association between tooth and death, quite in accordance with a general super- stitious belief (see my Language of Dreams, the chapter on tooth dreams).

He is very religious and superstitious. Although he is a Protes- tant, he loves to go into Catholic churches because they excite his "mysticism." With the aid of his religion and his superstitious beliefs, he has formed all kinds of conditions which keep him from going to the dentist. It appears that the dentist is altogether one of his basic problems. He frequently has tooth dreams ; someone

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hits him on the mouth and knocks out a tooth. Or : he is supposed to go to the dentist, but there are all kinds of obstacles; he gets as far as the door and then fails to go in.

Even toothaches afford him pleasure. He likes to suck on the aching tooth. He is tickled by it and also gets a thrill at the tip of his penis.

He has thought of extracting his bad teeth himself. The longer he procrastinates, the more ashamed he is of himself. His carious teeth are symbols of his foul spirit. He could not stand the thought of being under the power of the dentist, being betrayed to^ him. He is more afraid of the drill than of the forceps and even the sharpening of a knife or scalpel is unbearable, not to speak of the boring noise of a trephining drill. He cannot stand the noise of skull operations.

In early youth he already manifested a "skull complex." He would knock off the heads of thistles as he walked along and would imagine that they were the heads of his enemies.

He is marked by a distinct destructive tendency. He would frequently break bottles, pots and other fragile objects and get a tickling sensation in the urethra. On visiting the torture cham- ber (in Kastan's puppet cabinet in Berlin), his feelings were those of lust mixed with disgust and horror. As a boy, he had a Hermes head which he loved very much ; he painted it and dressed it up to make it look more like real. Dissecting the anatomical speci- mens at first interested him greatly, but later on — as with all his interests — his appetite became jaded.

He is always restless and can't sit still anywhere; he seems to be driven. When he first entered the dissection room in the anatomy laboratory, he was calmed by a great peace, but this, un- fortunately, soon fled.

He again became unstable and fought a constant battle between his duties and his paraphilia. Then he suddenly stopped studying and began to dedicate himself to his drawings and cuts. During the war, he masturbated before a book on oral surgery, opening the book to the plates which showed jaw wounds and dressings.

His particular mouth gag shows his interest in buccal and pharyngeal things. He is distinctly of an oral erotic make-up. For a long time he sucked his fingers or a baby sucker ; he loves candy and sweets, smoked heavily during the war. Then, with some friends, he resolved to keep away from sweets. His ascetic tendencies invariably conquer his desires. But he frequently has

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dreams of candy. He sees himself walking into candy stores and taking bags and boxes full of it with him. He has the same kind of dreams about stamp-collecting stores. He used to be a pas- sionate stamp collector and even stole some examples that he wanted.

One of the first books he ever had in his hands was the Bible illustrated by Dore. He made out the letters with difficulty at that age, and was always awed by the words God or Jehovah which were printed in large letters. He would then spell it out G — O — D. Dore's pictures excited him terribly. They showed him all kinds of fiendish deeds and he believes that this may have been one of the infantile sources of his condition.

He dimly recalls (at four) having crawled under the skirts of one of the maids in the house. He often wrestled and fought with his elder sister with whom he shared the room for some time. For many years she was the stronger of the two, until he grew up. After that she didn't find any fun in the matches and their playing stopped. Lately they wanted him to share the room with her again, but he was against it. He can't stand her odor. The air in her room is revolting to him. She is apparently the proto- type of the governess in his sketches. For a short time she wore a lorgnon and now wears a pince-nez. She complains of all kinds of ailments.

She once wanted him to hypnotize her and, according to the method of Forel, cure her of her dysmenorrhcea. But the hypnosis was a failure. Manifestly, the patient of the hypnosis dream which he related to us was not the man, but his sister.

He had a vivid phantasy as a child and was always asked to tell the other children fairy tales. That used to take place in a garden where there was an open privy for which he disclosed considerable interest. He would run in and look to see the differences in the color and size of the feces.

One of the earliest of his memories (two to three) is of a babies' home. His sister had been ill with the measles ; they took him to this babies' hospital and there he saw a little boy who had no arms (they had been amputated) ; this made a lasting impres- sion upon him.

He fights against a ridiculous thought. He came to Vienna after all, in order to cure himself of his paraphilia. But he's always thinking: What have I got out of life? How shall I find

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satisfaction? I can't stand women, or at least they don't attract me. On the other hand, I would be disgusted by a homosexual act. So what shall I do ?

He was an habitue of the movies at an early age. As a twelve- year-old, he would sit and be filled with pleasurable excitement whenever the film would show some woman being tormented by a villain. But now he is interested only in males.

At seventeen, he experienced his great disappointment in love. He had been insanely infatuated with a girl and was even a laugh- ingstock at home. He had been able to repress his satistic habits for a time, and they were well in the background of his sexual in- terest. He recalls the circumstances of his collapse very clearly. It was at the railway station. His ideal was about to go away and he was on the verge of tears. She suddenly handed him a letter and then climbed aboard the train which left almost immediately. The letter contained an unambiguous rejection of his attentions. That was a severe blow for him. At eighteen there was a rather pale affair with an English girl — and then he was through with the ladies forever.

He wouldn't permit himself to be humiliated any more.

Two ways were open to him. One of them led to woman, but that road was impassable now. The other led to the male. But he had a terror of homosexual intercourse. Thus, he chose the middle path of chastity. He would keep himself clean, pure and chaste for his ideal.

He began to live a life of abstinence which was extended to smoking and drinking, too. Formerly he had liked to drink. Drinking per se made him feel well, and somewhat elevated after- wards. But he was able to stick to his resolutions.

In Vienna, he was once offered a glass of brandy and drank it down with a feeling of satisfaction. Then he began to think of giving up his abstinence altogether. I smell a rat in this and feel that he intends to carry out his ideas only in order that he may squander his money in drink, women and all the rest, and then go home because he has run out of funds. I call his attention to this and tell him that during the analysis he is not to make any changes in his usual habits. I have no wish to be made the instrument of his seductive anagogic tendencies.

He is horribly afraid of loneliness, nor can a woman banish this feeling from his heart. There is nothing he could discuss with a woman. Small talk at the best and that's soon over. But with comrades, he can talk for hours. He really stages this attitude to-/

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wards women whom he hates ever since his rejection at seventeen and a half, only because he wants to keep them at a distance. That is betrayed by the fact that he can very well converse with older women. But, he says, they don't count. Only sexual pos- sibilities count. As a result of his attitude, he avoids company and hates to go visiting. As long as he gets into a conversation, he likes to spin out his sociological problems and opinions. He talks about the nonsense in modern conversation. Everybody thinks about something else and talks about something else. He likes to talk about this point. He is also interested in the vicious- ness of our sexual morals. He stands for sexual freedom and openness. But, like every true prophet, he demands this freedom for the others but not for himself (e.g., Nietzsche). The dis- crepancy between what is preached and what is practised is un- bearable to him.

Otto also likes to talk about the sexual hunger of youth and about the failure of teachers to understand their pupils. He found the first trace of uprightness in these matters in my books.

When sleeping, he always lies on his right side, rolls himself up like a snail, takes up a foetal position and then pulls the covers over his ears.

One of his early memories is also a kind of orthopedic appa- ratus; his first suspenders (four). He went to the toilet, but couldn't undo his suspenders ; he began to cry and the nursemaid came and helped him. When he was about six or eight, he was mortally afraid of water and hair cutting. He was always very sensitive and afraid of pain. Once when his sister had an upset stomach and vomited, he ran about the house bawling and crying that his sister was going to die. He was told that when he was born they were afraid he was going to die. He was lying on a bundle of old clothes and cried fearfully. When they unwrapped him, they found that his whole body had been bitten by bed-bugs. But these bed-bugs had really saved his life, for when the nurse unwrapped him, she saw that his navel dressing had come off and he was bleeding to death. They had to dress him again in a hurry and later told him when he grew up that he had nearly died from the loss of blood. This accident seems to have been engraved in his memory and appears also to have determined his interest in bandages to some degree.

He was precocious, very phantastic, susceptible to every form of passion, jealous and given to fits of temper. He often pro-

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duced phantasies that his father had died and he would become the head of the family and support his mother. He greeted the advent of his younger sisters with mixed feelings, for they robbed him of some of the attentions of his parents. He recalls how angry he was one day when he came into the nursery just in time to see his father kissing his newborn sister on the buttocks (he cites Wilhelm Busch — the German humorous poet : "Auf die Backe mit Genuss, drückt er seinen Vaterkuss").

The death of his younger sister, who succumbed to the measles, appears to have constituted a severe shock for him. He sees the picture clearly. The little one in bed, his grandmother, who touch- ingly nursed each of the children during diseases, sitting at a table, a lamp burning. He also recalls how, after his sister was born, he went up to his mother's bed and she told him that the stork had bitten her great toe. Then she showed him her great toe which was dressed with some bandage. It was really some old rag. He was somewhat dubious about the truth of the story, but wasn't able to learn the truth, despite the fact that he had always pored over the encyclopedias in his father's library and had dragged out all kinds of old books.

That seems to have been his first period of curiosity, but it was soon repressed. While he was in the army, he had been made the butt of many jokes and jibes because he couldn't differentiate be- tween a stud, a stallion and a gelding. He would have to lift up the tails before he could tell the difference. He claims that he couldn't tell what the difference between a man and a woman was when he was ten or twelve years old. That, however, does not rhyme well with the fact that he used to watch them bathe his little sister and manifested a curiosity mixed with envy and jeal- ousy. He was taken at an early age to the picture gallery and found one painting in particular of great interest : Konrad's fare- well before his execution. The paintings of battles and executions all attracted his attention. He also recalls a painting of a caravan full of slaves who were being taken to the slave market. What in- terested him most about the execution of Konrad was the lopping off of his head.

Many of his memories indicate a markedly developed castration complex. First of all a dim memory in which he thinks his mother said to him: "If you don't stop that or that, I'll cut something off you !" It may have meant the penis or perhaps the thumb. The story of Struwelpeter (who had his thumbs cut off), the verses of which he can repeat to this day, made a powerful impression upon

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him. In that story, there is a little boy, Wupps-schwupps, who had his thumbs cut off by the tailor because he sucked on them. He felt that all this little boy's bad points were reflected in himself. Nor has he given up any of these bad habits yet. Whenever he catches flies, he tears their heads off. He has always been an im- passioned fly catcher and in the field, he became a past master at the art, sometimes using his hands and sometimes the fly swatter. When he catches them with his hands, he tears off their heads out of "sympathy because they die more quickly that way."

Another root of his orthopedic mania : in childhood they threat- ened him with all kinds of apparatus if he didn't behave. If he didn't sit straight while writing, they would draw a fearful machine on the board which was called a straightener ; if he tipped his letters too much to one side, they would threaten him with splints and the like. In short, his attention was called to orthopedic ap- paratuses at a very early age. He made a joke of all these threats, i.e., he took the sting out of them by depreciating their effect ; he would also imagine them being attached to other boys and would derive pleasure from these phantasies. He finally began to wish himself placed in one himself. Like the old Dutch beggars, he turned a threat into a promise, a curse into an honor.

I want to stress particularly this very principle of transform- ing all feeling into its opposite. It is a mechanism which plays a leading role in every case of fetishism and constitutes one of the chief psychological methods of self -protection.

He is afraid of illness and of the female nurses that might care for him. He appears to hate the thought of being ill at home and having mother and grandmother pamper him. Out in the field, being ill meant being among men with male nurses, and that pleased him. He hates nurses (or the Catholic "sisters") with their sym- pathy on their sleeves. He takes care to show no sign of his feel- ings at home. He masks and hides his true emotions ; if he feels sentimentally about something, he will talk in a cynical or ironic manner. He manhandles his sentiments just as if he were reducing a joint and laying on the shackles of an orthopedic instrument.

One his early memories (between three and four) is about his lying in the grass with his nursemaid. His parents came up on bicycles, got off, exchanged a few words with the girl, got on their bicycles again and rode off. He envied their free and rapid movements.

As a child he had yearned to become big and grown-up. He was burning with a desire to possess the rights of an adult, to

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be able to do something. Then the phantasies appeared which we have just mentioned. He would have his father die and he would become the head of the family. Of course, in all these phantasies he played the part of a child wonder. His mother had a much better time of it in his air castles than in the home his father had built.

His resistances are on the job. He can't remember a single dream. Like all physicians who are treated by me, he begins to take an interest in my differences with Freud. He expects me to give him a lecture on the subject. He is deeply absorbed in the conflict. I explain the matter to him in a few moments. I tell him that this is only another form of resistance, and he is able to corroborate that by another example. He had been in the uni- versity library where, to help me out, he was to look up a certain criminological article for me. He liked that. But it wasn't long before he had them bring him the Zeitschrift f. Chirurgie und Orthopädie which pleased him much more than helping me out. He enjoyed himself hugely over the pictures, but had sufficient control over himself as not to cut out any of the magazine.

He is tired the whole day long and would like to sleep. To-day he went to a park and wanted to read, but fell asleep instead. He is under the influence of his innermost complexes. The pictures from the orthopedic and surgical magazines dangle before his eyes. He also knows definitely that he has had rather pleasant orthopedic dreams lately. He remembers one such dream, and would like to dream it over again. He had this dream before he wrote to me.

I am at home. I have to climb several stairs and then enter a hall which is filled with all the figures of my phantasies. There are young men shackled in divers orthopedic instruments. I get the feeling that there's nothing for me in this place. I don't belong here. I'm an intruder. For this reason, I didn't dare open my mouth. Suddenly my mother appeared and brought me something (blankets?). She then retires to have her lunch. Meanwhile I write. Then she returns. I don't know what happened after that. I think I had an emission.

His feeling was : What's my mother doing here ?" The inter- pretation is not at all difficult. The hall is his brain which is filled with all his phantasies. But there's something about it all which doesn't sound genuine. He transforms the fact that these phantasies are not his, that they are intruders, that they hide some- thing (blanket) from the passive into the active. He is the in-,

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truder, he doesn't belong to these phantasied figures, which is, of course, somewhat of a truth. He doesn't dare open his mouth. That also corresponds to the facts, for he has never had the courage to talk with his father about his paraphilia and now feels some- what relieved that he can talk it over with me (his conscience re- fuses to acknowledge this euphoria. He feels that he's having it too good in Vienna). He did say something to his mother about masturbation and homosexuality, but he doesn't dare say too much because he knows that she'll tell his father everything.

The dream shows us that he has touched upon threads which lead to his mother. The emission at the end of it could be an indication of incestuous strivings of which he has no conscious knowledge. As a little boy he had been taken into his parents' bed, and whenever he was ill, they put his bed in their bedroom ; but he never was the object of too much petting or pampering. On the contrary, his mother was rather cool and reserved. She even became strict, energetic and aggressive at times. Whenever his parents did beat him, they hit him on the head, to such an extent, as a matter of fact, that he once told his father that the latter had knocked all the intelligence out of his head.

They would suddenly hit him in an outburst of temper over some little thing. Once he had misbehaved and they spanked him. His father caught him just as he was standing before the wash basin in his night shirt and brushing his teeth. Papa lifted up his shirt and spanked him so hard that the toothbrush knocked against his teeth and he thought he had knocked a tooth out. It is pos- sible that his habit of sketching a gag into the mouths of his figures is a fixation of this scene. The gag would thus be a memento of resentment against his father. Otherwise he can speak only well of his mother. She possesses control, is cool and haughty, submits to her husband and is therefore the object of her son's sympathy. She is said to have been a beauty.

He also recalls an Easter custom of theirs which gave him quite a lot of fun. As early as his fourth year, he and the other children would come into their parents' room carrying cat-tails which they would then use to beat on their father and mother; the parents would then crawl under their covers and play as if they were suffering terrible pain. Then the parents would lay an Easter egg for each child ; sometimes they were quite large. They gave him a book-case for Easter once and claimed they had laid it.

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We have learned here that his dentist phobia is at least partly a fixation of the time when he was beaten by his father and nearly lost a tooth. It is as if this were his childish way of showing resentment against his father and punishing the latter for what he did. "It's all your fault that I'm losing my teeth." It is at least plain that the dentist is for him a father image and that his anxiety of the dentist is really the fear and bashfulness he manifests before his father. The dentist extracts one's teeth — the father either did or nearly did knock out one of his teeth; he can't remember just what happened. But that scene is forever engraved in his memory. Unfortunately, he cannot give us the exact cause for that little tempest, but he thinks that he had perhaps spoiled or broken some- thing that belonged to his sister.

He is too peaceful now to do any work. He has to have steam up to do anything and without considerable emotional pressure, he can't live in comfort. He always used to make his sketches in a sort of ecstatic state. The series of drawing used as illustrations in this text were drawn from four in the afternoon to two in the morning. Then he went to bed, got up, and worked until two in the afternoon again. After that he was exhausted and felt de- pleted emotionally. He couldn't do any more.

It is only in such moments that he can express any artistic talent. If he should try to execute some fetishistic sketch at a time like the present when he is at peace with the world, the result would turn out to be a lamentable failure.

He dreamed :

i. I am standing in the street and watch some men working in a garden; one of them looks very familiar to me. He is a certain L. who was one of the subalterns in my group. While I am considering whether I should address him or not, the others turn out to be acquaintances, too. We recognize and salute each other and then a lot of other soldiers suddenly appear on the scene also. They are all familiar to me, all from the front. They're all glad to see me, and I feel the same. Suddenly they all get into formation because the colonel wants to review them. There's a lot of running about. I consider the matter of getting into line myself. I'm an officer, indeed, but at the present I'm a civilian physician or something of the sort. Just as I was going through both halls in which they were lining up, the lieutenant, an im- possible fellow in a hussar's uniform, lunged past me. Every- thing awaits the colonel. But he doesn't appear. The lieutenant's aide is said to have spread the rumor.

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2. I am standing on the corner with Mr. W. He talks with several other people and I get angry that he keeps me waiting and doesn't say anything to me. Then I go with him to a family known to both of us and spend some time with my sister and her four children. Later on, grandfather, who is a little senile by now, comes along and asks me about my physique and whether my penis is well developed or not. I boast and tell him : "I couldn't wish for a better one." He asks my eldest sister the same thing, and she answered him something or other. My second sister then said to him : "You know that we always get hysterical fits at such questions.,, The old man laughed. Suddenly he became a little weak and I had to support him. He acted as if he were going to collapse, but I held him up and he was soon better.

His association on the first dream is that the men were working on a high wall surrounding the garden. Then they sprang over the wall and it appeared to be only a fence. It looked like an orchard. That subaltern L. was a middle-aged, weak sort of man who was quite intelligent and an excellent conversationalist. He had the habit, however, of talking in his sleep, and it was thus that the patient once heard him say: "Oh, God! What have I committed now !" He thinks of a few addenda to the dream. When the soldiers got into the hall they first went through some very curious exercises. He was not sure whether he should join them or not. On the one hand, he felt that he should line up with the rest, and yet, on the other, he felt that the colonel had no jurisdiction over him whatever.

The lieutenant was blond and looked like a very unpleasant German nationalist. The aide was even larger than the lieutenant, but was dark. The beginning of the dream was marked by a happy affect at being together with so many friends again. But in that hall, most of them seemed strange to him (feeling of lone- liness). Then he thought: "The colonel will be here soon. What are you doing around here ?"

The interpretation of this dream follows the general lines of the other soldier dream we analyzed in an earlier chapter apropos of the case of the breeches fetishist. The expression made by L. in his sleep is in itself an indication of the patient's evil conscience. The soldiers represent the pious who submit to the word of God and pray assiduously (exercises). The lieutenant is the spirited man who bends to the will of God and creates an example for the others; he is himself a demi-god in the eyes of the others. The aide represents the Slav (or Semite) as a contrast

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to the Christian. He is fearful of the last judgment, the truths he will learn before God. Anxiety in the analysis. Guilt con- sciousness and doubts as to whether he should tell the truth or not speak out from the dream (the will to power against the will to submit). We shall learn of another determinant later on.

The W. of the second part of the dream was a tutor who gave him lessons outside of school. He was the patient's favorite teacher. Otto liked him because he knew how to attract the boy's interest in the work. W. was a parapathic who suffered from anxiety of examinations which was the reason he never became a professor. Like the grandfather, W. is a representative of myself. He has a transference to me and is jealous of my other patients ("he speaks with the others and lets me wait"). Yet as a physi- cian he has received much more than the usual consideration from me. He makes me appear as a parapathic. In addition to which, I'm the impotent old grandfather, suffering from senile dementia, needing his aid and support. Whereas, in the analysis, I seem to pay no attention to the question of his genitals, he has me ask about them in the dream (primitive reaction). I'm also interested in the sex-life of his sisters, a circumstance that seems to dis- please him. He has his second sister in the dream repel my curiosity. Feebly a little glimmer shines through the network of the dream and throws light on the fact that the hysterical attacks must have had some connection with the sex-life of his sisters. The colonel, W., and his grandfather also represent his own father. He always wanted to catch sight of his father's phallus, but it was not a pleasant sight. It was "a worn-out" member ; the fore- skin entirely covered the retracted phallus. He doesn't like to look at a penis. It disgusts him (and yet the penis is always em- phasized in his sketches). Old members are disgusting. He pre- fers to look at fresh young bloods. As an officer, he always was thrilled by the so-called "prick parade," and was thwarted at the thought that the men were not permitted to wait in line with their penis hanging out, but were required to show their phallus only when their turn arrived. It sometimes looked as if the company doctor permitted himself all kinds of jokes (projection of his own wishes?). Recalls a comrade in arms who always got an erection when bathing. He crawled into this fellow's bed one night, but he was ticklish and squeaked every time Otto touched him.

His own grandfather has been dead many years. In the dream, this grandfather represents his father and me. There appear to be relations between the father and his sisters. The dream pre-

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sents a striking collection of deceased persons. The father of the four children fell at the front. W. is dead, perhaps also L., and, like his grandfather, he has me represented by a dead person. He has me die, but also has me collapse. That would keep me from being a danger to him and his paraphilia. He'll have me dead before the analysis is over. His appreciation of death is deter- mined by his infantile impressions. His father is very pious and suffers from a fear of death.

After the question about the size of his own penis, there follows a question addressed to his eldest sister. Is it pos- sible that something was up between the two? Such a ques- tion is visibly unpleasant to him. That's why he had me die. That would insure the secrecy of what ever passed between them, and he would be able to return home uncured.

We begin to see clearly that his parapathia is closely related to his sister complex.

He is well aware of his great resistances. Before he came for treatment he was a productive and vivid dreamer, but now he finds it very difficult to preserve even a part of a dream. Last night he dreamed that he was training recruits, i.e., that he was a commander. He feels ill at ease and coerced in the analysis. He knows that it is his plan to remain here and resist any changes ; so that he may then say : "Well, you did the best you could to get well. You even went to Dr. Stekel, and it's not your fault that you're still ill."

He knows very well that he cannot count on my company or intimate friendship during the analysis, but he is nevertheless affronted that I do not permit him the liberty of my society out- side the treatment He feels alone, needs a friend who attracts him homosexually, and with whom he would not need to have in- tercourse. He denies the possibility of a transference to me. He refuses to see it, just as he refused to see his love for his father. He nevertheless admits that up to three years ago, older people attracted him (see the grandfather dream). He had a manifest transference to his tutor W., to certain officers, and to several university professors. But he knows how to repress any feeling or emotion which may cause him unrest. Unfortunately, he had read all of my works before beginning treatment and came to Vienna with the ready-made resolution not to transfer to me.

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He understands fully that what he seeks in these orthopedic figures is himself. When he had finished the series of sketches which we have used as illustration here, he noticed with astonish- ment and fright that two of the pictures betrayed his own features distinctly. He erased them quickly and changed their features until they were unrecognizable.

He had formerly masturbated before a mirror, but later gave up such "foolish tricks." He once fell in love with a fellow who resembled him remarkably; he says they might have passed for twins.

He is told that his paraphilia is the expression of a compulsive obsession which he has effected upon himself. His spiritual or- thopedics have the purpose of preserving his asceticism. What does he do with men? The worst that he will permit himself is a little fondling and lying next to his object (fully dressed) on the sofa. He has already found himself a friend here in Vienna ; some one with whom he can take hikes, a person for whom he can yearn. He is looking for some experience which may put an end to the analysis.

He dreamed :

I was somewhere in the kitchen. We were doing target prac- tice. Someone else was with us and was holding up various targets for us. I aimed, fired and set again. Then the shot would ring out, and each time the bullet would fly in another direction. Once through the mirror which was hanging from the ceiling like a candelabra. Then I shot again. Then there was a forest outside and I felt as if I had done something wrong. I think I must have shot at a deer. We were in a blockhouse. A man came running through the wood with his trunk and head all aflame. That was my fault. He tried to force his way into the house, but I pro- tected myself.

I came upon a married couple that was sitting out in the garden having lunch. I was invited to sit down with them because my parents recommended me. The man was at first rather abrupt, hardly noticed me. In a little while, he became friendlier. Then I found myself riding in an auto through wonderful parks and fine, old castles, everything very medieval. One of the castles be- longed to the married couple. They must have been very elegant people. The auto rides through very narrow paths, and I won- dered that we were able to pass. Then I looked to the right and saw a very curious landscape: jagged cliffs with deep ravines, castles and eccentric buildings. We rode on. I think we arrived

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and forces him to shoot at his own brother (the paraphilia). He doesn't really want to kill his inner ego, but, against his own will, he hits valuable objects (the mirror). He also hits his little brother, that antagonist of his, who is half dead, half aflame. On the other hand, we see him struggling against his paraphilic im- pulses which threaten to overcome and inflame him.

A second meaning of the dream appears to refer to the death of his sister. He must have had death wishes against her. Still other references to his elder sister will become clear later on.

The second part of the dream is understandable when it be- comes known that he came here with the phantasy that he would live in my house, eat at my table, and enjoy my company. But these beautiful phantasies have faded. Not far away from here, however, there lives a wealthy uncle of his. He wanted very much to look him up. He calculated that his own money would soon have run out, and that that would put an end to the analysis. He would then still be able to visit his rich uncle S. whom he had visited once already. Besides, his mother had sent him several recommendations and introductions to fashionable and wealthy people in Vienna. In this dream he already sees himself as the guest of a married couple. This couple represents, of course, myself and my wife. He takes a trip back into babyland (the baby carriage). Uncle S. has been dead for some years; he was very dear to Otto. But the identification shows that he has had me die, too. He is also rather stingy with his tips. He likes to tip only young and handsome fellows who excite his erotic sensibilities. He also makes a servant out of me and gives me a tip for the trip. The payment is an expression of his guilt feelings. The fenced- ofT garden lies between him and his uncle (who is in the ceme- tery). But this last part is still somewhat vague and must be analyzed further.

Like all physicians undergoing analysis, he talks about it to all his friends and colleagues. He is tickled whenever he hears a derogatory opinion. Yesterday he made the acquaintance of a physician who stated that analysis was nothing but a big swindle. And, of course, there are plenty of criticisms of Freud and Stekel. He snaps up every such declaration in the interests of his re- sistance and then exploits them against me.

His dreams betray his resistances.

I. Dr. Stekel sits in front of me, looks at me, and at his left

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on the wall hangs my guitar. I see the sound-hole particularly. Then he says to me: "You can drink beer just as well as your guitar."

2. I am supposed to go to a funeral. A boy is supposed to be buried, younger than myself, perhaps a schoolmate. But I don't go. Then that old H. is sitting there and asks me why I don't go along. Everybody else was going. I told him I didn't feel like going.

3. I'm lying lengthwise on a man's back. He's a husky fellow and sometimes it seems as if he is much larger than I. I try to swaddle him in a sort of cloth or diaper, and get quite a thrill. He struggles to prevent me, and just as I thought that I had bound his arms tightly, I see that he gets away from me.

Whenever he becomes excited or nervous, he likes to play the guitar. In reference to the first dream he says that the last sen- tence may very well have meant: "You can drink beer just as well as you can play the guitar." He evidently wants to play his guitar for me, and is a little hurt that I haven't invited him to do so. The guitar betrays its anal significance by the "sound-hole." He confesses that he has had the desire and phantasy of having pederastic relations with a man, but he adds that he could never agree to any passive pederasty. Beer is a symbol of virility, but it is also urine here. As a child, he often put his finger in his urine and tasted it. This dream is a distinct sign of transference.

The second dream, too, is an expression of his unwillingness to have his paraphilia buried. The schoolmate is his alter ego. That old H. is their former family physician, a confirmed celibate. His name is also indicative of the patient's religious complex.

In the third dream, he embraces his antagonist and will not let him go. (His father was accustomed to permitting the children to roll him tightly in the covers before he fell asleep; manifestly a reminiscence of the infantile days when, as a baby, he was well wrapped in the diapers.) Otto naturally doesn't want to give up his infantilism, either. He embraces it and fears that his second nature may yet shake itself off. As a matter of fact, the only part of his sexuality of which he does make use is what Moll calls the contrectation instinct, i.e., he is satisfied with simply coming in tactile contact with the partner, and, as with his masturbatory habits, never letting himself arrive at detumescence.

There must be some experience in his childhood which causes him to hold so fast to his paraphilia, some occurrence which he

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cannot forget. As he was thinking of the second dream, he re- called an old dream which had so excited him at the time that he could not forget it.

I see one of my sisters, probably my youngest. She has wounds all over her body, like pricks. She is bleeding. She is about four years old. I'm supposed to have killed her; I'm in a state of ter- rible anxiety as the family comes together for a conference. Our family doctor is also there and I begin to feel much better when I hear that she is still alive. My father suggests that they take up a collection with which I may go away for a rest. Dr. H. said he would give fifty marks, but then he only gave me two, red and white one-mark bills.

Again we see the family physician and the burial. That was his youngest sister who died of measles. In the dream he also saw his father laying a large sum of money on the table. But the dream really annuls the death of the sister, and we will re- member that when he was in the hospital with measles he showed the first signs of his paraphilia. It was there that he saw the boy without arms. His little sister has spots on her skin in this dream, spots which look like bed-bug bites (this is also an indication of the bites that once saved his own life). She has the measles, the lesions are bloody and hemorrhagic, such as the exanthema fre- quently is in lethal cases of morbilli. His sister died when he was four ; this number is further indicated by the amount of the mark bills, whose color also emphasizes the color of the measles. The fifty might be a reference to his father, who is in his late fifties. It seems that the money in this dream is an indication of his guilt consciousness. A small guilt for the sister's death (perhaps he's also blaming Dr. H. to some extent for her death) and a large obligation towards his father. The guilt feelings are derived from the fact that he had wished his little sister dead, and was there- fore guilty of her decease. His conscience is bothering him.

I believe that this occurrence was the nucleus of his subsequent paraphilia. The death of his little sister is the guilt which he must expiate in his illness.

He claims to have no recollection of the burial, but suddenly he sees an old picture : his mother in a black dress and a black funeral hat. In this moment he goes off into a peculiar mental state, a sort of trance. He says that he used to have such states when he was a little boy, but even when he was fifteen or older he would also get dreamy periods.

He begins to feel as if space were limitless and that he is in an

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infinitely wide and broad room. His legs become longer and longer, his arms are stretched immensely (in the earlier attacks, his fingers would become very thick, but this doesn't seem to be the case in this period). Everything seems to be far off and away. My voice seems to come to him from great distances, and his own voice sounds unusually loud to him. All the noises which come from without seem to be a roar. He feels a little dizzy ; as if all his limbs had been elevated and his trunk, which lies upon the sofa, had remained grown together with the furniture. It seems to him that his limbs float in the air. Something seems to be turning in his head; like a tornado. I and everything in the room appear to him as if he were looking through the wrong end of an opera glass : very small and far away.

In earlier years, these states would invariably preface an attack of great anxiety. First his fingers would begin to feel as if asleep, then his anxiety would begin to develop and he would say to him- self: "Say! You're dreaming, old boy. Wake up!" But it was of no avail. The anxiety continued to develop like a rising tornado, he felt a terrific oppression in the breast and would sink gradually until he was able to free himself from the spell with one yell.

He had frequently complained of micropsia and macropsia as a boy (twelve). They took him to the eye specialist who said that he was tired out and needed glasses.

He states that he gets a similar attack sometimes which trans- forms his usually friendly face into a militaristic glare. He goes about with a dark visage and can't seem to shake it off. It is like a compulsive state which will not liberate him.

The explanation of the first described attack is quite difficult. In part, it is probably a symbolical death with infinite dissolution. On the other hand, we see that he becomes the great one and the great (in real comparison with him) become small. He feels as if he could fly and yet is attached to the earth. The violent feel- ings of anxiety show us with greater clarity that this attack is a phantastic representation of death. The anxiety is thus a fear of death. Is it that he is dying together with his little sister? I hope that the analysis will help us solve this problem.

Yesterday's attack is disclosed as a sort of retreat into the past. Everything of the present, e.g., my voice, seems so far away to him. Every distant thing, on the other hand, appears to be very near. He seems to be looking through the large end of an opera glass. He's looking at his childhood.

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

Yesterday he had a decided relapse. We were taking a walk together when a very crippled man hobbled past us. He seemed to be suffering from a coxitis. The patient said: "You see. Formerly this man would have been an ideal of mine. But he is not handsome enough. " Nevertheless, he later reproached himself for not having gone after that man and taken a good, long look at him. He even produced phantasies about him. He was quieted only after he had come upon the sympathetic face of a young criminal in a criminological magazine. The photo showed the fellow's hands bound to an iron bar in the middle of the picture.

I had noticed that his attack of the other day and his sub- sequent excitement were introduced by a letter which he had received shortly before from his eldest sister. It must be recalled, too, that the dreams about his sisters both referred to a living sister. He evidently desired to overcome his sister, to bury her in his mind, as it were, but this he was not able to do.

The patient then confessed that he had lately become a little suspicious himself of his affective attitude towards this sister. First of all, the very marked physical disgust and secondly, the embarrassment which he manifests in her presence. When he was a little over ten, his sister had a serious case of rheumatic arthritis. She often had many bandages about her limbs. He also remembers that Dr. H. once laid on a cardboard splint in order to immobilize one of her legs. This same sister also suf- fered from a disease of one ear later and had to be operated on, with the result that for a long time she wore a head-ban- dage. He doesn't recall the bandage itself, probably because he was himself in the hospital at the time with the measles. His sister had her head closely cropped, and he remembers this because he himself had long locks. He was a very handsome boy and was very much pampered and even taken for a girl occasionally. He also remembers that both he and sister used to be bathed together and that in later years they always bathed after each other. At night they would tell each other stories in which she would be the queen of the elves and he would be the king of the ghosts.

When his youngest sister was born, they tried to take the

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sting out of the arrival of another rival by presenting him with a large bag of candy. They said that sister had brought it with her for him. During the first few months, he would always be on hand when she was bathed and powdered. They called the powdering "miller tickling,, (yesterday he felt a tickling sensation in the genital region all day long; that was mani- festly his desire to be a nursling again and be well powdered and swaddled). His phantasies often take him back to the days when he was a baby and was bathed and powdered. He envied his little sister the pleasures of "miller tickling."

It is striking that corsets play such a leading role in his or- thopedic phantasies. His mother had always worn a strong and large-sized corset, but his sisters wore only well-fitting elastics. When he was having that affair with the married woman, he found her corset very disturbing and unpleasant. She was quite an obese and luxurious woman and naturally kept herself tightly laced up. The feel of the corset and the scraping sounds it made were quite a pleasure to him in the case of that bound-up girl in the park, but touching the corset of the married woman gave him precisely the opposite feeling. The married woman was a mother image, but the girl had a mother herself who was probably well laced together. In the one case, the corset was an attraction and in the other it was an inhibition. He states that he has never put on a corset himself, but supposes, since he bandaged himself, that he also had corset phantasies and wishes.

His dreams of last night are characteristic.

We are in a room and there is a war raging. Whenever we open the door, the others shoot in. The first shot hits my baggage. Then I'm supposed to pursue some one together with a third person. I'm supposed to disguise myself with a false beard. But because it looked so unnatural, I trimmed it down with a nail clipper and turned it up a little. The revolvers don't function properly. Besides, there is no ammunition and I can't find any. Then we were in a large house and I had to get down from some roof. I was afraid, and I don't know how I got down altogether. Finally, I dreamed that I was looking at some orthopedic maga- zines and masturbating.

He is always struggling with himself. Now it is I who is his

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enemy. He is afraid my shots might hit him whenever he opens the door of his soul. He wants to keep it tightly closed. The pursuit is against his other ego, of course, and his companion and aid is none other than myself. He pastes a sign of virility on his face which he doesn't possess in reality (it is false). Yesterday he suddenly got the idea that he ought to have his beard shaved off. He would like to be a woman and a child. He is no man, for his revolver (phallus) doesn't function properly and he has no ammunition.

But, aside from this impotence feature, there seems to be an- other complex which is worrying him. We know that all these fetishists are really seeking to preserve an infantile impression. Originally, it seems, his desires were directed against his sister with whom he wrestled and fought so much. That alone might explain his need of simple tactile relationships. His so-called bodily feeling is nothing but the fixation of those pleasurable scenes with her. It is she that he is pursuing, she whom he desires to catch. He sees her with all her bandages, just as she lay in bed that time. Did he have anything to do with her at that time ? Otto believes that behind his dreamy attacks, there lurks some ex- perience which he probably dare not reveal or bring to conscious- ness. This experience and the repetition compulsion appear to be his symbolization of the original sin. He has had dreams in which he falls or drops or has a great fear of falling. In the present dream, he is supposed to come down off the roof ; he is afraid, but finally he lands at the bottom. Just how he got down is hidden in memory. But he also dreamed of masturbating with the aid of orthopedic magazines. The original sin and masturbation are thus identified, i.e., he masturbates with the aid of a specific phan- tasy. It is important to record that he did not have an emission nor could he find any trace of one on the bed clothing. The dream shows only the relationship between his onanism and the orthopedic picture behind which his sister seems to be hidden. The trim- ming of the beard recalls his castration complex which is further indicated by his desire to have himself clean shaven. He doesn't want to be a man. He is afraid of his virility, but he didn't shave off his beard because he is consciously resisting his ever-growing feminine tendencies. He wants to display himself as real he-man. The failure of the pistol shows that he probably has had failures with his virility. The impotence, on the other hand, is a self-pro- tective mechanism against the forbidden sexual desires.

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I want to stress the relations between his paraphilia and his sister. That man in the splints represents to him his sister who also had to wear splints for a while. The false beard in this dream also shows us that he wants to disguise himself from his analyst.

Before the hour yesterday, he was sitting in a cafe and looking expectantly out the window, when along hobbled his ideal. He followed him for the simple reason that his tension had become unbearable and he felt the need of a little reality. Then the struggle within him was sharpened. But a voice said to him : "That's pure nonsense. You're running after your own reflec- tion. Remember what Dr. Stekel told you." But another voice answered: "If you don't follow this man, you'll be impelled to steal and cut pictures out of books ; so go ahead." He followed after the man and, sure enough, it wasn't a coxitis at all; the man went into Prof. Lorenz's orthopedic dispensary. Our fetishist went into the waiting room and looked over the patients who were sitting there, but saw none who met with his approval. Then he waited outside for over an hour until his ideal came out. Then he continued to follow him, happy at the fact that the cripple had picked up the company of another. They both went into the city hall. He thought he would wait again, but it was lunch hour and he had to give up his shadowing. Meanwhile, he had indulged constantly in phantasies which were heightened by regular ob- servations of the men. He said to himself that if he had not suc- cumbed to his impulse, the memory of the cripple would have plagued him for weeks. He would have to begin a new collection. Or he would have to masturbate, but onanism with his specific phantasy would only drive him deeper into the underbrush of his fetishism. When he masturbates before the pictures of his col- lection, he has at least a semblance of reality before him, but, un- fortunately for him, he has given me the entire collection. He now has been fighting off the tendency to start a new one.

Ever since the sight of that cripple on the street, he has not been provoked by the picture of that criminal with the handcuffs. He did not address the cripple, however, nor would he do such a thing now. Moreover, the man was not handsome enough for him. His friend had one leg amputated and wore a prosthesis. He is not attracted by such types. He is provoked only by hand- some young men with whole limbs which are pressed into splints

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or trusses of some kind. Crutches also animate his fancy. But if a man has only one leg then his pleasure is but a tithe of that which he derives from a whole man.

In the afternoon he wandered about the Prater for a while and then went to some performance which the Wandervögel were put- ting on in the evening. It didn't please him. But he can't work. He is waiting for me to force him, admonish him, press him to go to the dentist, but that is just what I have been avoiding. Last night he had a toothache again and wondered why I didn't send him to the "tooth plumber." He envies the crocodiles because when they get old their teeth fall out and new ones grow in again. This crocodile complex must be of some importance to him for he said : "If some much more vicious evil lurks behind my fetish- ism, such as a desire to eat little children or suck blood like a vampyre, wouldn't it be better for me to stick by my fetishism ?"

He is then told that even were the analysis to disclose such roots at the basis of his paraphilia, he would never actually succumb to those desires; in addition to which, he is expressing his para- philia in some symbolic way at all times. He had to understand and then openly give up his idea.

I then told him that his paraphilia somehow had to show con- nections with his sister's suffering (the mastoid operation). It seems also that his dentist phobia is covered in the maze of these memories. The beginning of the paraphilia must have taken place on some part of the head. He then corroborated this suspicion by telling me that he had begun by making himself several head bandages. And then he divulges this important bit of informa- tion:

His first bandages had been made of some flannel pieces which belonged to his mother ; she had once used them for something or other.

The most important question we would have to ask would be : did his mother use these flannel cloths to bind her legs during her pregnancy? Or: whether these bandages were not used by his sister during her rheumatism? He said he couldn't answer those questions, but he would write and ask.

It is of great significance that his first bandages were pieces of flannel which had lain upon his mother's body (see the guitar dream which disclosed relations to his mother).

He was about twelve or thirteen when he began to make ban- dages industriously. He would also gag himself and walk about on home-made crutches of broom sticks. He fabricated all kinds

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of fantastic dressings out of handkerchiefs, towels and other linens. His mother seems to have suspected him of something for she would often burst suddenly into his room; but this only gave him greater practice in divesting himself quickly of his ban- dages. Once, however, they found a bundle of knotted towels behind the stove, and he had to stand up under a rather uncom- fortable cross-examination. At eleven he was introduced to mas- turbation by a schoolmate and afterwards his mother used to find the well-known stains in the linens. She would also observe him at night, but she never spoke openly with him.

One of his greatest sources of excitement during masturbation was the so-called stretcher-bed. When he was about nine, he received a calendar as a gift from the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. One of the pictures on the calendar showed a man with a curb-bit in his mouth. This was a metaphoric manner of showing the inhumanness of the curb-bit as compared with the regular snaffle-bit. The curb-bit in the man's mouth made a deep impression upon him (curb-bits pull the jaw up- wards). His first drawings were of men with curb-bits in their mouths (a contribution to his dentist phobia, also).

At eleven his kleptomaniacal tendencies were at their height. He stole a great deal from his grandmother because she always left her pocketbook lying about. Always he would take a single gold piece (twenty marks). Only once did he take a one-mark piece and then they caught him. And whenever he would go visiting with his parents he would steal, too. He would steal stamps in the collector's shops to such an extent that his stamp collection consisted almost entirely of stolen goods.

He dreamed:

A small boy had a stamp collection which I wanted very much. He was willing to sell it and finally demanded two one-mark pieces. I was willing to give him five marks, but in reality it seems that I gave him a ten-mark bill. I thought that was quite swell, giving him more than he had asked; but in my heart I knew that he deserved more.

I find myself at a big congress, a Socialist congress, I think. All kinds of important personages and leaders are there. Tchich- erin and others. It seems that the others there looked up to me ; I was somebody ; clear and composed. I even spoke sometimes.

I follow the captain through the rooms and everything seems to be dropping from my arms, all kinds of trivial things from the service. The captain is a very nervous man who has lost most of

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the respect he commanded by his yelling and cursing. I resolve with clarity and firmness to see that the situation is remedied.

The first dream shows that he is battling against his paraphilia. His fetishism is represented as a little boy (infantilism). He doesn't know whether the price that he is paying for his cure (the loss of his collection) is not too high for the loss of his pleasures. The numbers are quite characteristic. They have already appeared to some extent in the other dream about numerals. The two ones are to be explained by the fact that he was born on the eleventh. The number fifty also appears again. We have already seen that it was connected with the family physician. Is it possible that his sister died the fifth of August (ten) ? The most he can say is that it was in the Autumn. He had a secret calendar at home, how- ever, and he will write and ask. It is possible that the date was preserved.

The second dream fulfills his wishes for a great historical mis- sion. He is a famous leader and talks very little, in contrast to the analysis where he is a follower and must talk a great deal. In the dream he is a respected and honored man.

He thinks the captain in the third dream is his father. The latter was a very nervous man and so tyrannized the house that everybody had to be as still as a mouse when he was home. Mani- festly, Otto has resolved to be different from his father and not have so much to say. His attitude towards me is clear ; he doesn't respect me and doubts whether the analysis is going to be a success.

Yesterday he again followed an "ideal" type, and afterwards felt very industrious. He thought he would work and study a great deal, but he was quite distracted.

He had the following dream:

I had the scabies. All over my body little mites crawled about. They were like little wood-ticks, but they sat there on my skin and I seized them between my fingers and cracked them.

I am at home. My mother must have had quite a lot of cake. I was in a room at home, lying in bed. A girl of about the size of a twelve-year-old, with red hair, came in, approached my bed, then crawled into bed with me and put her hand on my phallus. She had a pimply sort of rash with large red bumps. It seemed to be on her trunk. Over that she had a loosely knitted jacket of heavy wool. Then she seemed to be large, but still of an infan- tile appearance. I told her to get out of the bed, but I was quite pleased at her being there. Then the door was opened and a still smaller girl, about three or four years old, came in and also

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wanted to get into bed with me. I let her come in. She also had a rash on her body. She knows that her sister had been there before her. She, too, put her hand on my genitals, but just before the ejaculation, I collected myself and pushed her out of the bed. My second sister came in and said that mother had been angry that I had had the first girl in bed with me because diphtheria was going around. I got up and went into the dining room to talk with my mother. She was packing away the silverware. I took a piece of coffee cake and then, because she didn't speak to me. I left the room.

After thought : The little girl said to me just as she was leaving : "You have to come down now because we have got everything ready for you, hot water and everything.,,

Upon awakening, he told himself that this dream must certainly be of considerable importance ; that it probably contained the key to his paraphilia. But he promptly began to undermine its value and would have forgotten it entirely if he had not put it on paper immediately.

He can hardly understand how it was possible that "the fine tickling feeling" was provoked by a girl in the dream. He believes that he is a thorough "homo," and that only handsome youths and young men could animate his senses. He often gets that "fine feeling" in the genitals when he is following his ideal type on the street and imagining that they were touching his genitals. He finally comes to the realization that he has come to this attitude by a displacement, a transposition from the female members of his family to men.

It is remarkable how frequently infections and rashes occur in this dream. He himself has the scabies, the itch. Ticks are well dug into the skin and whenever they are torn or picked out, wounds and inflammations are left. It is thus that evil and vicious thoughts hide in his brain, and he shall suffer much pain before they are picked out.

Associating on "cake," he says that he was always a passionate cake-eater and never seemed to get enough of it. He valued the divers birthday visits he used to make on the basis of the amount of cake he used to receive. He used the money he stole as a boy either for stamps or cake and cookies. In the dream, his mother is the mistress of the cakes and sweets, a circumstance which further indicates her relation to his parapathia. The red-haired girl first reminded him of a red-haired nursemaid they had had> Rike, by name. That was the girl under whose dresses he had

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crawled or wanted to crawl when he was four. She seems to have appeared twice in the dream, for he had the impression that both girls who played with him in bed were one and the same person, only at different ages. Her rash looked almost like a furunculosis. One could see the boils through the netting of her loosely woven woollen jacket. But her face was quite clean and healthy. He had a curious certainty that the people lived under them. The very first time he was touched he was somewhat as- tonished at the oncoming orgasm, and this astonishment grew with the second girl. Even in the dream he had thought: "You imagine yourself to be nothing but a homosexual, but here you see very well that you get a thrill out of women too."

For the past several years his wet dreams have had to do only with youths and he cannot recall having seen girls in any of them before the analysis began.

He believes that both the girls in the dream were his sisters. Indeed we know that they were conceived as two sisters in the dream. We also recall that Otto and his sisters used to visit each other in bed as little children and even continued these cus- toms when they grew up to have separate rooms. Later still, the visits in night shirts ended at the edge of the bed where one or the other of the children would sit down and talk with the one in bed. Even as late as a few years ago, his second sister, who often offered her services as a hot-water bottle, would come to his bed for a little chat with him.

In reference to the family silver, he states that his mother liked to put it away herself, especially the fine silver which would appear only on special occasions. His mother reproaches him for some- thing in the dream. He did something he should not have done. He thinks of the little sister who died of the measles and how he <*iiay have crawled into her bed and done something. As if his mother had said to him: "You shouldn't do such things. Your little sister could die that way and then you would become sick, too." But such a memory is very hazy in his mind. Perhaps not even a memory but only a construction, a fabrication. He is struck by the frequency of rashes in his dreams ; a red exanthema which reminds him of the measles. He can't recall any more just how the children lay next to him in bed ; he says also that they didn't exactly play with his phallus, but only somewhere in the perineal region — only soft touches of the hand. He had the feeling in the dream that he could not be responsible for such acts; that they were forbidden.

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His mother had also had a miscarriage, but he hadn't even mentioned that until to-day. It was a little brother who was named Archibald by the family. He has no recollection of when the abortion took place.

He now states that those flannel bandages of his mother's at- tracted him because of their odor. He is always animated by the odor of linens or clothing belonging to persons who appeal to him. The jackets that some of his favorite "Wandervögel" wore excited him greatly; he would virtually drink in the odor of the sweat His friend's suit also had a strong odor, and this was a direct sexual stimulant for him. One of the most provoking parts of the masochistic books would be a scene in which the masochist would have to put on a woman's petticoat. He would frequently think of a worn petticoat and what a pleasant odor it must have (especially a certain scene from the memoirs of Viscount Rob- inson).

We begin to see the contours of those infantile experiences which have engendered his parapathia somewhat more clearly.

What is it that passed between him and his sisters ?

What was the role of the nursemaids who appear in his memories? It also seems that he must have had some sweet experience with his mother (the cake and sweets).

We will patiently await developments in the further course of the analysis.

He had a terrible reaction yesterday. Memories struggled to the surface but he fought them back. He reconnoitred about the streets again for a vision of his ideals and was quite disconsolate that none appeared upon the scene. He didn't know what to do next. In the evening he went to a concert and soon caught sight of a handsome young fellow — blond, of course, and slender. But the man showed him no receptivity. He envied others who seemed to have discovered each other there. Finally, he approached a nice youngster and looked over his shoulder at the score. But he got a little dizzy and felt faint. He lost track of the music and struggled hard to put down his heterosexual strivings in favor of the homosexual ones.

Let us return to the last part of the last dream he had ("Come down now, the water is hot"). He thinks it might also have meant: "Hurry, the water will get cold." That reminds him of his third sister who always sneaked things when the soup was on

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the table. She was a reddish blonde and was four years old when he was twelve. That then explains the numbers in his dream. Vague and hazy memory of her having often come into his bed of a morning. Even to-day she is "terribly delicate." She was dubbed the "hot pack" or the "hot- water bottle" in the family. She could kiss and pet the whole day long. That was the sister who said : "I have to have a man or I'll get a stick to hug." She suffered from nocturnal frights as a child. His second sister was also in love with him. She was terribly cut up whenever he did anything which spoiled his good looks. She thought him the dandiest of men and was especially infatuated with his photograph in uniform. Once he stuffed a pillow under his vest and danced about the room as the caricature of a Jewish banker. His sister cried because he looked so ugly.

This stuffing of a pillow under his vest leads us to the subject of pregnancy. Formerly pregnant women were abhorrent to him, but he seems to have overcome that attitude of disgust. He also states that there was a time when he was attracted by breasts. He had seen the photograph of a negress who was so tightly laced about the abdomen that her breasts stood forth plastically. This quite excited him.

Suddenly in the middle of the analysis he begins to sing an aria from Troubadour: Oh, dearest mother, thou shalt not die!

If we are to believe the indications of this last dream, it seems that the turning point in the development of his parapathia was his twelfth year. He had doubtless masturbated even earlier than that and had had masochistic phantasies, but the systematization began to take place at about this time. Did something take place between him and his sisters which burdened his conscience? In the dream, his sister appears aggressive, she is warm; it's high time (the water is hot).

At home, he is always inhibited, moody and very susceptible to great sexual excitement. He masturbates frequently and practices his special habit of protracted onanism. He has sometimes been able to masturbate at short intervals for three weeks at a time without actually permitting the orgasm to come on. He thus forces himself to go about in a state of permanent expectancy and irritation. He stages a yearning the realization of which is post- poned. It is probable that what he is waiting for is the miracle which will bring his sister back into his bed as in the dream. But he wouldn't do anything even then. That is why he is always upset, unhappy and excitable at home.

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But if he gets an opportunity to take a long walk or outing with a comrade, then he is able to react every vestige of his feel- ings. The most superficial intimacies are enough to make his days happy.

Yesterday was Sunday. Since it had rained on Saturday, I had arranged that he might come for an hour on Sunday, and that was to hold good for any week-end when it was bad weather. He enjoyed the coming Sunday hour in advance, indulged in all kinds of phantasies about getting better acquainted with me, that I would invite him to afternoon tea, etc., but it appears that his phantasies overstepped their bounds. He seems to have put an unconscious stop to them himself, for he suddenly got the idea that he would go to the opera to hear Tristan with a friend who had mentioned that he was going. He went very early to get tickets. The weather became doubtful, the sky overcast. What to do? He decided to stay. Then it began to rain and he thought he had better come back to the appointment with me. He struggled back and forth in his mind and finally decided to stay at the opera. But he was manifestly torn between the two tendencies and did not enjoy the opera at all.

He treats me just as he did his father with whom he would have liked to become somewhat better acquainted. But he de- preciates his father at every opportunity. From the front, he used to write the warmest of letters, but at home it seemed as if an insurmountable wall stood between them. This wall is his sexual attitude, and I took the pains to explain to him that it was just the same type of inhibition which was disclosed in his trans- ference to me.

He related the following fragmentary dreams about war and imprisonment :

The colonel wanted to return with us to our quarters. The road becomes narrower. On the left stands a house and at the right there is a wire fence. The colonel told us we would have to get through. In the house we found an old and withered woman who cursed us. I wanted to get past, but I seemed to be caught fast in that barbed-wire fence. My suit was caught. I would wriggle myself loose and then get caught again.

And still more war. I was taken prisoner once by the English. I was deathly afraid of the shooting. But I felt safer after I was taken prisoner.

This is the third time that we meet with the motif of the

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fenced-in field. He has manifestly fenced off a certain part of his soul, and this is the part which represents his parapathia. I (the colonel) command him to climb over the fence. But he can't suc- ceed. The old woman reminds him of some working woman, a neighbor, but she has the features of his mother as well as the figure. We recall that his last dream included some reproaches on the part of his mother. It seems as if his mother stands in the way of his getting into that fenced-off piece of land.

The second dream-portion represents the struggle (the war) in his soul. He has been taken prisoner by his pious tendencies (the English) and is happy that he has been taken out of danger.

He is afraid of the struggle for existence. He is afraid of sin and the pitfalls of life. His parapathia protects him from tempta- tion.

The fetishism becomes more distinctly a protective mechanism whereby he may ward off his evil strivings. He feels that he would be entirely at a loss without this protective mantle. Fol- lowing upon the exciting emotions of the past few days, he is now in a state of apathy. In the theatre the other evening he got the phantasy: how would it be if everything just crashed now? He then got behind a pillar in the foyer to make himself feel that he were protected. Then he imagined the ceiling gradually sink- ing lower and lower (womb phantasies?).

He can't imagine himself ever becoming cured of his condition and demands a number of theoretical explanations about analysis. Why do I conceive the parapathic as an example of regression? What is the significance of the constitution, etc., etc.? I tell him that all these questions are manifestations of resistance, but he won't have such an answer. He wants to be clear on these matters.

Then he begins to speak about his phantasies. The past two days he had been on the lookout for his love objects, but hadn't been able to find any. He is beginning to get a clear idea as to just what these objects mean in his mind. He uses them as a basis for spinning his phantasies. The objects themselves are only illustrations, as it were. They are the bit of reality in the stories.

He dreamed :

Somewhere and somehow I got to a dentist. There was a middle-aged man there with a Vandyke who was to have a couple teeth pulled. He conducted himself lamentably. Then I looked through a glass door into the dentist's office and saw my sister in there. I recognized her distinctly as my third sister being treated.

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Suddenly she became frightened and tried to run out, but I caught her at the door and brought her back. Then I had a fragment of a tooth in my hand and, for a moment, believed that I had already been in the chair myself. I ran my tongue over my teeth to feel for the hole, but I soon realized that the fragment was not mine.

I'm in the army again, have an officer's uniform on with short jacket, silver epaulets; a regulation uniform. With several others I'm standing about a pile of regulation equipment: haversacks, bags, belts, etc. I looked for a knapsack for myself, but found nothing suitable. There were many old shoes and inlay soles, but everything was worn out. Inspecting the articles a little more closely, I find that the knapsacks and bags are also narrow, like small cases. Certainly not suitable for the purposes of a knap- sack. Suddenly a lieutenant said to me: "Are you some officer's representative?" I asked him how he got that idea and he ra- marked that I had no mirror on my collar.

Then I was with Captain Vormann. He discussed my future with me. He seems to have talked with my father previously. He looked disgruntled, wore a second-hand loden suit (a special woollen weave used for mountaineering in Germany — Trans.) His colored shirt and collar were very dirty. He seemed to be of the opinion that I ought to return to the army, but I wasn't able to explain my reasons against the idea very well. Finally, he got irritable and said, as far as I can remember: "You'd do best to become a cook!"

Then I was somewhere in the company of corps students — not a very clear recollection. It seems I was a robber, too. . . . Then we were in my grandmother's bedroom, but it all looked entirely different. There was a young fellow with me, dark-haired and shorter than myself. My father came in, we played robber and my friend playfully went after my father with a knife. Just trying to keep him from coming into the room. I also had a knife in my hand, but the knife my friend had was very familiar to me. It was a Swedish steel blade with a horn handle and is like the knife my father has in his dressing table. Father was very amiable during the game.

Then the question : did you cry, too ?

And the numbers : two times one . . . six . . . ten . . .

This dream brings us a good step forward in our understand- ing of his fetishism. The first part of it deals with his fear of the dentist. The old man he saw there is myself. I act lamentably, i.e., I seem to be afflicted with the same anxiety he has. Then he

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forces his sister under the dentist's care. He finds a fragment of a tooth in his hands which is apparently not his own.

At first the dream seemed unclear and he had no associations. In the second part of it, he expresses his feelings of uncertainty and inferiority. Nothing seems to suit him in life. In real life, Captain Vormann, who appears in the third part, is quite elegant, but in the dream he is shabby. He reminds the patient of his father. He himself had similar conversations with his father. The fourth part is quite vague in his mind. He felt as if his little blade was quite inefficient as compared with his father's big knife. That knife had always appealed to him and provoked his phantasies. Thereafter there seemed to be a gap, and he recalls only the ap- parently irrelevant question as to whether he had cried or not.

We recognize in this dream his attitude towards his father. That is the basic theme throughout the whole (the large and the small knife). The anxiety in the dentist's office is a symboliza- tion of his castration and impotence fears (displacement upwards). The extraction of a tooth is psychically equivalent to the destruc- tion of his penis, castration. His fear of the dentist is his fear of castration. He must have suffered some serious castration threat in early childhood. He recalls his grandmother once walking behind his third sister who seemed to be getting forward too slowly for the old lady. Grandmother thereupon pushed her and said : "Get on with you ! If you don't move a little faster I'll poke a hole in your behind with this umbrella!" His sister answered her : "I don't care. I've got one there already !"

In the first part of the dream, he makes me impotent (I've lost all my teeth). His sister is a castrated male and the tooth frag- ment is a part of her or his penis. But he can't find any hole. This relieves him. The fragment is the lopped-off penis of his sister. This now illuminates the second part for us. The knap- sack is a symbol of his scrotum. He feels that his scrotum is too small, and we learn that as a boy he had suffered from the thought that his genitals were too small, an expression of his sense of in- feriority. Even to-day he sometimes will suddenly touch his geni- tals to make sure and relieve his mind that they are quite large enough. The father, however, is the real hero with the mighty phallus (the officer). He himself is only an officer's representa- tive, a second fiddle. That means, of course, that he would like to represent or substitute for his father in respect of his mother. Yet, something is missing on his collar (always a phallic symbol). His father advises him to take up a feminine position in life : to

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become a cook. His father had frequently complained of the patient's lack of virility, his flaccid posture and character. But he will now revenge himself for this his father's attitude. He will attack him with a knife. It seems that he plainly phantasied him- self castrating his father.

The cook is also an indication of a poison complex (did he have the phantasy of poisoning his father?). As a child he had had the ardent wish to become a cook.

And now we get an even clearer bit of insight into his dentist phobia. The dentist is his father who threatens to castrate him. Father will see his rotten teeth (his vicious thoughts).

Manifestly, a deep sense of guilt lurks behind his paraphilia. He wanted to emasculate his father. We remember that he always over-emphasized the size of the genitals in his sketches (it was necessary to tone this down somewhat in the reproductions in the text). The genitals are contrasted with the size of the delicate figures. Is it possible that the bandages were calculated originally as a protection to the phallus and were only later displaced to other limbs and organs ?

They talked a great deal about death and burials at home. He was seven and was suffering from a pleurisy when his tutor died. They took occasion at the time to puncture his chest. Hardly had he recovered from the pleurisy but he had to visit the tutor's grave with his father. As a matter of fact, his father's preferred walk always led to the cemetery. And that was how the subject of death and burial was brought up in his mind at an early age.

One would think — if one were inexperienced in analysis — that a physician being analyzed would think about the gain in insight which he had experienced in the course of the treatment and either produce associations to corroborate our constructions or manifest signs which would undermine them. But words flow off this patient's back like water. Indeed, he digs himself deeper into his attitudes and develops new resistances which are calculated to disrupt the analysis. Thus, of course, he ran yesterday to the old stand where he thought his ideal must pass again; looked out of the cafe window in order not to miss him. Then he walked about the streets and was happy to find some other cripple. It was only a girl, to be sure, but since the beginning of the analysis he has become somewhat friendlier towards females in his thoughts. At a concert in the evening he had even found some pleasure in looking at a couple of flappers.

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Apropos of the dentist phobia, he divulged some information which showed that his buccal region is an erogenous zone of the first water, as we had supposed in the first place. First he dis- closed relations between his toothaches and his onanistic habits. Whenever he suffered from toothaches, he would masturbate and thus gain relief from the pains. It cannot be determined whether he provoked toothaches in order to have an excuse for masturba- tion. Defecation also was related to his bad teeth. For instance, whenever he would retain his feces for a long time and then defecate, he would experience a sort of "pleasurable pain" in his teeth. That means : a pain which is distinctly pleasant to him.

He often sucks at his carious teeth and that causes him a sudden, sharp and shooting pain which also feels pleasant to him. He even likes to suck at the foul and abscessed roots. The sweetish taste is enjoyable, he says. He often spits into his handkerchief afterwards in order to be able to smell the odor for a longer time.

He confesses to the most violent death wishes against his father. He also had phantasies such as: "If I were to die now, how they would sympathize with me." He feels himself in a state of per- manently delightful expectancy which is expressed in his dreams.

For instance:

I live in a hotel and have a room for myself, but others seem to have got in there and that is unpleasant to me.

I come into the dining room and see a richly spread table. Cakes, cookies, sweets of all kinds. Acquaintances of mine sit at the table, among them a certain G. S. I would like to eat with them, but none of them invites me to sit down and avail myself. And when I wanted to partake, I found that everything was eaten. . . .

I am standing in the bed of a rivulet which seems to be partly dried up. The ground is stony. I notice that the dorsum of my right foot is swollen considerably and there is a small opening in the middle of the swelling, like a fistula. I think that I had best go to the surgical clinic, when suddenly a thick stream spurts out which reminds me of the fluid evacuated from a punctured abdominal dropsy. There seems to be more than could possibly come from such a swelling on the foot. There seems to be a thick and disgusting clump or shred hanging to the foot, like a clump of maggots; I want to wash the foot off in the running water, but that clump clings tightly and I have to brush it off with my hand. It turned out to be a very long, rolled-up tapeworm which has already begun to disintegrate.

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On the road there, I came upon a broad ditch, filled with water. It was fenced off with barbed wire, and I couldn't get across. There were several buildings on the other side and a man with a "sister" was over there calling to me. It seems that I heard something about the shocking treatment of the Alsatians. The sister corroborated the information. Then I was holding two beams, one of them about fifteen feet long and the other about half that length. I threw both of them across the river. One fell through the gate into the courtyard. Then I was over there myself and went through the houses at the left looking for the way out. I found myself in a babies' hospital or home which was managed by a certain doctor in R. whom I know. I was looking for the exit; it seemed that I was in the wash room or laundry. Then I met the doctor. He said: "That's not permitted, you know, running around here like that." I ran into the next house, got into the toilet and climbed through a little window and thus got out into the open. The doctor said : "It seems to me that you're a little old to be running and wandering about like that." (Wan- dervögel passage.) I said that I would get rid of the habit soon enough. My habits of clothing myself like that and wandering about were quite old. Then I found myself together with some friends drinking coffee in the garden of a cafe. They served me with some of the cake they had, but it wasn't specially good. It seemed to be a certain Mrs. P. and her family.

These dreams are resistance dreams. The pleasurable feeling of tense expectancy refers to me and he transfers the feeling to his paraphilia. He expects me to recognize his sexual urgency and to fulfill his secret wishes. But what are his wishes ? The second part of the dream betrays that. I should conduct myself like his comrade G. S., who taught him how to masturbate, i.e., I should practise mutual masturbation with him. I should play with him. That is what he evidently expected of his father, and because this hope was not fulfilled, he became obstinate and resistive.

In the first part of the dream, he has himself living in an elegant room in a hotel, whereas in reality here in Vienna he has to live in a sort of crowded tenement. In the hotel, he could receive visitors ; he also could analyze, a thing he cannot do now. At the same time, this expresses his displeasure with the fact that I am becoming privy to the secrets of his soul.

In the second part of the dream, he stands before the richly decked table of life. The sweets are the joys of love; that is what G. S. pointed to. But he seems to be prevented from oar-

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taking of these sweets. He is an ascetic. In the third part, then, the analytical cleansing which he is experiencing is symbolized by the burst abscess. The quantity factor indicates that he is full of more complexes and experiences than he had imagined. And, also, there is always a drop of pus or dirt left clinging to him. The analysis is compared with a tapeworm. His paraphilia is a disgustingly long and rolled-up tapeworm (I might add that he had actually had a tapeworm in his youth). In the fourth part we again meet with a fenced-in plot of ground, a ditch. A sister appears on the scene and he is mistreated by me. (Mistreatment of the Alsatians.) I don't take a walk with him nor do I invite him to take tea or coffee. I let him run about alone. But he also declares symbolically that he has no intention of letting his paraphilia go (his Wandervögel habits). Finally, his passion for coffee and cake is gratified in the company of a family which is, unfortunately, not mine. He is not very well satisfied. Mrs. P. is a former landlady of his whose son is a physician and mistreats her. Her daughter had died suddenly. There are also indica- tions of birth and pregnancy phantasies.

The mistreatment of the Alsatians is disclosed in his associa- tions as a mistreatment of Elsa (Elsa of Brabant from Lohengrin — a sister imago).

The plenitude of dreams which he produces (dream diar- rhoea) makes it impossible to go into them very deeply and this is his method of making it desirable to lengthen our analytic sessions. It was up to me either to analyze a single dream thoroughly or to finish all of them every day as they came along. I chose the second method because it would be easy to overlook the resistances if one abided by one dream alone. The success of the analysis finally justified my tech- nique.

All patients who suffer from a fear of the dentist reveal some sign of a nursing complex. The associations tend towards either the mother's breast or the father's phallus. Our patient was asked about fellatio phantasies and confessed to a few experiences of this nature. The friend who first taught him to masturbate used to collect his semen in a saucer, it appears, and even tasted it or swallowed it (he was eleven or twelve at the time). He then hesitatingly tells of another friend whom he had at sixteen. That boy also took Otto's penis into his mouth. That this experience

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actually corresponded to a wish on the part of our patient is re- vealed by the fact that when he later hypnotized a male patient (of which we learned above), he gave him the suggestion to take his (Otto's) phallus into his mouth. In the first case, it was an easy matter because the boy actually wished to perform fellatio on him and was very susceptible to the thought of large phalluses. In the second case, the patient at first resisted the suggestion but finally capitulated to our patient's wish. ( This shows us very clearly what the foundations of hypnosis are and how, under certain cir- cumstances, the situation may be exploited. Many parapathics hope for just such experiences. The patient mentioned here felt very indebted to our patient who, he claims, improved him con- siderably, and even writes him long letters.)

We obtain further information from the dreams he had last night. Again he produces them at great length.

1. My guitar has been seriously damaged by somebody to such an extent that it comes apart at the joints (I think it was my father's partner, N.). At first, I produced a few crocodile tears, but then I gradually began to cry as if something very serious had happened to me.

2. I was back with my company after having been absent from trench duty for some time. I'm a substitute officer. I'm supposed to conduct setting-up exercises in some room, but my commands and orders are very faultily executed as if I weren't quite sure of my authority. Several men who didn't have to join the exercises came into the room and stood near the windows and the beds.

Then A. came in carrying his penis in his hand. It was very large, about a half yard long and over two inches thick. It looked like a large worm or snake. He showed us his phallus and I said : "You've got a phimosis and I also see a red pimple on your penis, like a rash." The phallus was not straight, but irregularly curved and winding. I was quite disgusted, and astounded at the whole proceeding. Then I became afraid of the coming rifle exercises because I hadn't been on duty for so long. I feared that I would probably make a fool of myself at the targets or something of the sort.

3. Twice I had to pass down a road which ended in a steep incline (between the two times I seem to have had another dream which I forgot). From my experience with other dreams of the same kind, I knew that a girl would soon come roaring down that incline in an automobile. It was some kind of motion picture being filmed. In the previous dreams, someone always came

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riding right behind her in another car. The second time, she would always come down the hill more slowly than the first. And as she would pass by the second time, I would step into the inn. I'm a guest there and go up to my room. There is a double bed in there (the bed of my parents). On the right side of the bed, there lies a young fellow of about sixteen ; it is J. H. I am happy at the prospect of lying down with him. Then his father comes into the room and, much to my astonishment, seems agreed with this act. Later, it seemed to me that his father was the professor of political economy, M. Both H. and M. were very big and strong.

Dream I is one of his very typical guitar dreams. He adds that his father's partner, N., sat down on the guitar and crushed it with his buttocks. The partner represents his own father. Father is the cause of his condition. Father is an enemy of that guitar, he feels that his son exaggerates his condition. But Otto desires to captivate everyone with that guitar. He wants to sing to me, and is hurt by the fact that I have not yet invited him to do so. In real life, he also identifies himself with his guitar. It is a living instrument for him (animism). He communes with it, talks to it, coddles it and wraps it up when he puts it away, as if he were putting it to sleep. When the guitar screeches or gives off a false note, it is as if his soul were out of tune. When he had decided to come to Vienna, he "tore open the belly of his guitar." He likes to sing to someone and is jealous of the fact that father prefers to have some woman sing to him. He firmly believes in the magic of his voice and feels (half consciously) that I would promptly fall in love with him if I would only listen to him sing. At present he prefers to sing melancholic songs and melodies. For instance, his favorite just now is the "Three Gypsies" by Lenau — people who play or sleep or dream their lives away. And yet some active tendencies seem to break through here. For instance, he was impelled to call out a certain doggerel thirty times in a row :

" 'Twas great that that did happen ; When God of me did think. A bird of silk and satin ; But oh ! how he did drink 1"

He loves his guitar like he loves himself. He can even bring himself to sing and serenade girls. That is, he could do it very

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well once upon a time, but now he's somewhat inhibited: "Man) What good does it do you ! You can't even kiss !"

In regard to dream 2, he remarks that the cardinal feeling there was that of distinct inferiority. He wasn't the true officer, but only the substitute; not the man who possessed the real au- thority. The men whom he was supposed to command were all younger than he; friends and comrades of his. Those who were not included in the exercises were all older than he. It appears that there is a distinct difference in his mind between the young and the old. But how do these elders conduct themselves? Indeed, that tutor A. comes along with a mightily erect penis. It is the same teacher to whom he had once complained of the masturbation and his sexual hunger. The teacher who had manifested such an un- derstanding of his plight. He seems to have been a homo, but there never was anything between them. In the dream, A.'s phallus is considerably depreciated. It is infected (pimple-lues) and, despite its size, disgusting. It is bent and twisted, wriggly like a snake. Otto is astounded at its size, but disgusted never- theless.

This teacher is, of course, a representative of his father and myself. He would like to see me exhibit myself (primitive re- action of undressing). He expects some homosexual gesture from me. He would like to perform fellatio on me and at the same time bite off my penis.

The last-mentioned phantasy derives from his castration ideas and appeals to him as a most natural thing. He confesses to it. He recalls that he has repeatedly imagined such sadistic scenes. And yet he cannot see that he would like to execute one of these scenes in his transference situation, and, furthermore, that in the dream he divests himself of the phantasy by depreciating it. After all, I am infected and my phallus is a disgusting, snaky thing. He would much rather execute that so-called M. G. (machine gun) exercise with the girl ; but M. G. stands for machine gun exercise, and that is thus the same thing. There he feels himself impotent.

In the analysis of the third dream he associates on "hill": "mother's hill," i.e., mother's abdomen, and then gets around to womb phantasies which are as yet rather dimly outlined.

The extent and power of this parapathia may be guessed from the polar tension between his conscious and his unconscious per- sonality. Consciously he would reject any advances on the part of either myself or his father. But unconsciously (in his phantasies),

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he indulges his infantile wishes. In his phantasies, he is a child with the wishes and strivings of a child, but in reality he is a man and wants to be a man. The tension between the conscious man and his antagonist in phantasy in tremendous. The bridge be- tween them is the fetishism.

He adds to dream 3 the fact that he felt as if he knew what were coming. It was like a motion picture set; something was being filmed. The girl is about to come shooting down the hill with the man in another car right behind her. The girl's car was red and the man's black. The road was steep and winding. He was quite tense, waiting for something to happen.

Last night he dreamed :

I was in company somewhere with Professor R. and the crown prince. It seems as if R. didn't want to introduce me to the srown prince. But later I talked with the heir to the throne.

The German crown prince was always a favorite figure in his mind [the ex-crown prince of Germany was a universal favorite among the population of Germany, and especially among the youth of the country — Trans.]. But Professor R. was not very appeal- ing in the dream. Otto thought that he was impotent and that his wife had an affair on the side. Otto begins to think all kinds of things about my family and would like to be introduced in my house. He realizes that all these ideas are being exploited by him for resistance.

One of his chief characteristics is a jealous nature which he will not admit to himself. Nevertheless, he was amenable to a little insight in respect of a few points. He had noticed that his elder sister had been pampered and preferred to him by his father, his grandmother and an aunt. It is she who speeds into the vale of life ahead of him. He envies her the fact that she was born first. He thinks his father mistreats him and doesn't take enough interest in him. That is why he cannot suffer his father's com- pany. When he was three years old, he stole the cake that was baked for his sister's first birthday. He had thought to himself : "What'll she know about it, anyhow ?"

Then come memories of the painter who painted a life size por- trait of him. That man was also adept at "magic." When he was sitting for his picture, the painter would pull gorgeous candies out of his mouth and ears. Otto was also in his studio and received apples, too.

Once when he was a little boy, he slept with his father in one room. He had always wanted to have either father or mother for

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himself alone. He can't share anything. There were large twin beds in the room and also a child's bed. He refused to sleep in the child's bed and insisted on getting into the bed next to his father.

When he was fifteen, they were together in the Saxon hills south of Dresden. They took a room together. He wanted to keep the light burning all night, but his father wanted to have it dark. He was terribly afraid and excited in the night. Finally he caught sight of a glimmer of light through a crack in the door and felt easier that there was light somewhere.

Two years later he was in Switzerland with his parents. That was an unhappy period for him. He felt so bored, he could hardly decide what to do next. He was always alone and seemed to find no one to play with. He seems to have hoped that father would dedicate some of his free time to him. Distracted, he began to play with a toy bank which they had and stole the money. Then they forbade him to do that. So, what should he do ? He wanted desperately to be home again, and hated his whole family. Those well-known family outings on Sundays were hateful to him. He wanted to have one member of the family for himself.

His love for hie father was mixed with a dash of wonder. Father had been a sporty and spirited student in his day and had had many friends and admirers. Otto would secretly read his father's letters as they lay on the writing desk or in the drawers. He wanted to possess his father's affections all alone, and if that was not possible, he would act stubbornly. He paid no attention in school and brought home poor report cards. The result, of course, was renewed scenes at home and the situation became impossible. His father would preach lengthy and moral sermons to him, pointing to his own past record. But father was after all, an unapproachable ideal. Father seemed to be so "terribly moral." Out of pure opposition, because father was a Social Democrat, he became a Communist; the result being that his father was deeply hurt by his action.

He can't stand riding in aerial railways (such as they have in the mountains), nor can he suffer rocking motions. It gives him an unpleasant drawing sensation in the pit of his stomach.

His mother replied to his questions by informing him that the death of his sister occurred at a time of the year which actually corresponds with the numbers in his dream.

When he was thirteen, he underwent an operation for adenoid

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growths ; that wasn't so bad. But his anxiety of dentists seems to derive from that illness which necessitated his transfer to the babies' hospital (at three). He suffered from diphtheria as we know. It is not impossible that he was often plagued with ex- aminations and the frequent discomfort of tongue depressors and laryngoscopes.

He cannot suffer the noise of knife sharpening, chalk on boards or the drilling of teeth or the trephine. He begins to suffer as- sociated toothaches at the noise of such operations and manipula- tions (he himself crunches his teeth at night). Further question- ing on the matter of cannibalistic strivings divulged some open- ings. He cannot stand crunching or creaking of bones, nor could he eat nuts when he was a child. They had a large nut-cracker at home (king nut-cracker they called it). In his eyes, that in- strument was a man-eater. He himself played the part of the man-eater last year in an amateur performance of "The Brave Little Tailor," by the Wandervögel group. At eighteen, he began to oppose meat eating and became a vegetarian. And yet, in a dispute with a vegetarian, who claimed that he was a vegetarian because he did not wish to make man a murderer, he himself had argued that such an attitude only revealed that the man was ex- ecuting a reaction formation to his own murderous impulses.

In Otto's phantasies, amputations played an extensive role as a means of punishment. He claims that such phantasies had noth- ing to do with castration impulses, since he always felt the need of imagining the sight of the penis at the same time. This seems, however, to be a form of defense. For we know that formerly he frequently indulged in fellatio sketches and drawings which were unpleasant to him as long as the phallus was invisible. He would then erase and sketch anew until at least a part of the phallus had become visible again.

Only recently did any suggestion or indication of feces or urine phantasy appear in his pictures (this indicates a distinct move* ment and advance in his regression).

He then recalls that as a child, he always tried to be tender with his father, but father would be busy and would send him off.

To-day he has been bothered by the guilt feelings he had when his third sister became ill with a diarrhoea and vomiting. He threw himself on the floor, clasped his hands and prayed: "Oh, dear God ! Don't let her die !" He had the feeling as if he would be guilty of her death. Had he given her something suspicious to eat ? He can't remember very clearly what had gone before.

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A dim recollection of father sitting at his writing desk. He himself is a very small boy and approaches father to embrace his legs. Father appears upset over the annoyance.

In the analysis, this desire for fatherly tenderness becomes a serious impediment and resistance. He is not satisfied with my medical interest in him alone. He is very desirous that my in- terest in him take on a more personal tone, that I send him to the dentist; he is finally appeased when I give him the name of a dentist acquaintance. He tries to give the impression of having collected himself; he's determined to have his teeth fixed. He believes that they have determined the course of his life. If they had not been so bad, he might have become a singer or an actor. And yet he knows that when he was in high school he had thought : you must become a doctor ; then you can indulge your tastes, other- wise you'll do something foolish.

His attitude towards the female is illustrated by what he did yesterday. He had a friend here in Vienna who entrusted him with the company of his girl while he went off on a trip. Yes- terday Otto went on an outing with the little Jewess. He felt discomfited by the fact that she was small and a Jewess. Jewesses are not his type (but she was very intelligent, educated and sweet, and that had attracted him). They lay down on the grass. Sud- denly she seemed to irk him. He felt physically uncomfortable. Disgusted. He almost wanted to say: "I wish you'd leave me. I'd like to be alone." — This disgust also overcomes him even when he is with a real German blonde ; with any woman. Also when he is with his sister whose odor he cannot suffer. Her room is insufferable to him in the winter time when it is rarely aired. It was also the "little Jewess's" odor which primarily annoyed him — her whole femaleness. He got a sudden toothache. The tooth- aches seem to act as a sort of moral watchman for him ; they occur whenever he wants to be distracted. He is afraid of woman. He is afraid of his potency more than of his impotence. He denies his virility because he needs his inferiority and wants to stress and emphasize it at every opportunity.

Yesterday a very husky fellow moved into the tenement where he lives. He felt thoroughly cowed. Hitherto he had been the strongest man in the place, but now he was only second fiddle, and that annoyed him. He envied the virility of the newcomer.

He dreamed :

Last of all, there was a dancing lesson. We were running about the room in a circle. I was in civilian clothes, but, in addition to

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myself, there was a substitute officer there from the artillery, a man who had been present in previous dreams. I wanted to sit down at a piano which was somewhat in the way. I ran over the keys and everybody seemed amused. They asked me if that was dance music, too.

Before that there was a riding lesson. It seems that I rode a good deal in the dream. We galloped about in a circle, but we were out in the open. I thought that it would be nice if we would gallop about on the ring. Finally, we were all running about in a circle without our horses.

His feeling in the dream was that he was being scoffed at. He tried it with a small piano (the small Jewess) and made a fool of himself. The riding and dancing movements resembled coitus movements. He is incapable of effecting intercourse, but the sub- stitute officer understands his business very well. He feels humiliated by the potency of the other man just as he felt op- pressed by the virility of the newcomer in his house.

Asked to associate on the dream, he first mentioned his sister and then his jealousy. He dislikes to dance with his sisters al- though it was from them that he first learned how to dance. His eldest sister dances too heavily for him. She makes such curious motions and has such a queer look in her face while doing it.

He recalls watching his mother with absorption when he was a small boy as she was swaddling his sister in diapers. There was an aunt with a lorgnon there, too, but he can't understand why she was so unpleasant to him. He hated her. It seems that she was the prototype of his harsh governesses in his drawings. It also appears that he envied his sister especially because of her baby carriage. He couldn't resign himself to the fact that he was sud- denly pushed out of the center of things and that his little sister became the chief source of excitement in the house. The baby carriage seems to have remained a vivid memory with him. Whenever he has a belly ache, he presses himself to a chair and makes some rhythmic movements ; and whenever he gets a tooth- ache he either knocks on the tooth or executes rhythmic move- ments of the body. He drowns his pains by an infantile form of pleasure. Up to the time of his parapathic troubles, rocking and riding were always very delightful to him. His first wet dream (when he sprang up on a moving carriage) thus becomes clear as a memory of the baby carriage. The pillow which covered the bottom of the baby carriage also attracted him. He often played

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 223

with it and pressed it to his face. The diaper commode had also been engraved in his heart.

He sees not only the reflection of himself in his objects, but also his swaddled sister. He identifies himself with his mother and the object is a child which he has bundled in diapers.

As we have already mentioned he seemed to have no real under- standing of sex differences, although he had been an interested witness of the bathing of his little sister. And to this very day this willful ignorance has remained with him. He is a physician, but he has no very clear idea of the topography of the vulva. It is as if he had forgotten the time when he was proud of his phallus. He cannot recall whether or not he envied his sisters because they were already castrated whereas he, with his appendage, was ex- posed to the threat of the knife. Since his first anatomical studies were carried out on his sisters, it is plain that the memory is un- pleasant to him and was therefore repressed. The thought of the vulva is associated with distinct disgust.

The inconceivable became a fact. Our patient visited the dentist to whom I had recommended him and permitted a lower molar to be extracted without the least resistance. He is supposed to return again to-day and I advise him to get the whole business over with at once.

During the night he had a strange dream which he promptly put to paper.

The motto of the dream appeared to me in the morning in green print ; like a cinema title.

Ah, Martha, but we could — Or are you so —

Ah, be so — After Easter (the third line questionable). Content of the dream : My eldest sister and I are on a pleasure trip ; we come into a place which seems to get progressively more elegant, and finally takes on the character of a cabaret. My sister wants to wait for the second show and talks me into saying. There would also be a discussion about . . . student ...(???). I de- cide to remain. But when the ticket girl comes around, sister takes two tickets and I see the price : 23,000 crowns apiece. I say to sister in horror : "But we don't need a loge ; they must have cheaper ones, too." The girl showed us tickets at 8,000 crowns, gray ones, and still others of a rose red color (price?). But I wanted to get up and leave. The ticket girl seemed to understand that I had

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good reason for leaving. I wanted only to drink a large glass of champagne that was standing on the table. But my sister wanted to remain even if she would have no money left for the rest of the trip. I had to walk around the table and stand while drinking the champagne, but I could hardly stand on my feet. But I drank, although I could hardly keep from swaying. Every- body in the place could see that I was drunk.

My father reproaches me because I'm always finding fault with him, whereas I . . . ???

I wanted to bring down some gifts from my parents off a high cupboard (chocolate, boxes with something in them, etc.). It was very hard for me to crawl or reach up so high; something sticky and sweet fell down and broke.

Some one ( ?) wants to become my servant.

As I came into the barracks, I found all the cots and beds taken. I went over to the left side of the long barrack room and there found a few empty children's cribs. They were of no use to me because they were too short; (nevertheless) I took possession of a press because the first five (or seven) from the left were still free. Another one just in front of mine was promptly taken by another fellow. Then I wanted to stow away my luggage, but because I was deficiently provided with goods, I returned home to fetch my knapsack which was already packed. Now I was dressed in a comfortable officer's uniform, with a soft cap pulled down over my neck. I bounded up the stairs and on the second flight I saw the party from the floor below, blond, about forty, with a red, vexed face, and dressed in a white doctor's gown, looking through a white lacquered door. He did not greet me, but withdrew im- mediately behind the door, for I was on the way to war (despite my previous notion to the contrary). Arrived at the top, a girl opened the door for me and I promptly began to pack up (a pair of socks, an extra pair of shoes, etc.). I meet a young soldier and ask him where he is posted. He said : with the Thirty-third Regi- ment, where his brother was. That made me feel a little down- hearted because I would have liked to have him in my regiment.

When he awakened, the first three lines of the dream floated before his eyes in large letters. Martha is his eldest sister, but how are the lines to be completed? Are they infantile memories or are they wishes ? Are we to read : "Ah, Martha, but we could do something ! Or are you so sad as I ? Ah, be so good and let's get together after Easter." With the aid of the patient's asso- ciations, that is about how the lines were able to be completed.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 225

The thing that strikes him most about the dream, and that which imbued him with the greatest affect, was his swaying there at the table with an immense glass in his hand. He first thought of his mother. He seems to stand there like a little child that cannot yet walk steadily, but wants to walk towards its mother and falls. The dream makes it appear as if he had experienced something with his sister in his childhood (the first show) . Then there comes a second show, but the price is too high for him. In reference to 23,000 crowns, he says that he wrote his mother that he had been struggling unconsciously for twenty-three years and con- sciously for the last ten years (the time of his paraphilia). He explains the 8,000 by saying that from the time of his trauma (at three), eight years passed and then he began to masturbate (eight plus three equals eleven). The girl reminded him of his mother. The liquid in the glass was golden yellow and efferves- cent (urine?).

The discussion which was announced was to have been on the subject of "The Student as a Devil. " The manager of the cabaret, who was also to have conducted the discussion, was quite a dandy. He looked like Mr. F., a former partner of his father's who was a dipsomaniac, married and soon thereafter put a bullet through his head and died. This man appears to him as an "eternal warn- ing." While at the front, our patient drank a great deal, but now he has been living in total abstinence. The meaning of the dream is that he paid a high price for his first pleasures with his sister. The sister is willing to remain in the pleasure palace. She has no love (money) for another. He is drunk, but that only ex- presses his intoxication over the fun. He is intoxicated by a phantasy, a wish or the memory of an actual experience.

In the next part of the dream, his father reproaches him. He feels that he has unjustly reproached me and that he has been doing nothing to advance the analysis. He is ready to give up his infantile habits. He is willing to serve again, become his own servant ; he is willing to struggle ; to return to the war.

He realizes that he doesn't fit into the child's crib any more. His infantile traits are antithetical to the demands of real life. The compulsions of his neurosis must cease. He is dressed in a comfortable officer's uniform and has a soft cap. "The party down below" reminds him of phallus. The white lacquered door is a pair of white trousers. He sees a penis which immediately withdraws. The soft cap and the phallus which withdraws from

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battle indicate his resistance against the female and intercourse. The maid reminds him of a nursemaid of his sister.

The young soldier from the Thirty-third Regiment looked like his sister. He would have liked to have his sister with him in the Thirty-third Regiment. Thirty-three reminds him of a doggerel :

Thirty-three years — for thirty-three years

we've gone into action. Down with the dogs, the dogs of reaction ! The blood must rain, rain and rain thick, To water the soil of our German Republic.

Here the analysis closed for the day. To-morrow we continue with this interesting theme.

We continue with analysis. He looks upon the child's crib in the barracks as a retreat from the female to his childhood and homosexuality. In the army, among the soldiers, he felt very well. Nothing but men about him.

His associations on "Easter" were : green — mother menagerie — zoo. Then he pictures his eldest sister with closely cropped hair ; she looked like a boy. That was after her mastoid illness. He himself wore long curly locks, so that he looked like a girl and his sister like a boy. He prefers young men or boys who wear their hair like the Free Germans, i.e., when they look like his sister did when her hair was closely cropped. That fascinates him. Yesterday he saw a woman with bobbed hair like that and couldn't take his eyes from her. She was sitting on a park bench and he waited until she got up to make sure whether she were a man in female clothing or simply a male type of woman.

Easter reminds him of Faust, and so does the cup. Easter time is the time of examinations and advancements in school. A time of transition. He thinks that means the transition through the analysis. He had again visited the dentist and sacrificed two bad teeth.

His eldest sister tried hard to marry him off to one of her friends. That's what he thought of when he was asked to asso- ciate on cabaret. Then he talked about the color of the tickets. One type was of a dirty white (gray) color which reminds him of soiled linens; the next was of a dirty purple color and the last was rose red. Violet is his favorite color. His fixation on this color is doubtless a relic of his childhood days. His sister had a violet dressing gown. Rose reminds him of the delicate

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 227

blushing of girls, and of red grits. Lilac reminds him of a lovely melody about lovely Lila. She was drowned in the sea and called out at the setting of the glowing sun: not red but lilac. But ever since his sister sang him that song, he dislikes the color. He manifests a distinct capacity for what the French call audition colorL He can see the color violet, for example, whenever the bass or wooden wind instruments play deep notes. Lilac or violet often pass into black in his mind and disclose connections with his death complex.

It seems as if he is filled with a desire to revive some in- fantile scene with his sister (the first show), and thus put on a second performance. But the price is too high for him. We cannot find any other guiding motifs. There is then also his fear of his father's reproaches and his military service which again discloses a religious significance. The dream again be- trays his deep attachment to his sister.

He displays tremendous resistances towards the dentist and is also dejected. He has become restless again and is afraid to lose his paraphilia. He finally hit upon a compromise : "You can have your teeth fixed and still remain ill."

He dreamed :

It seems that we were in the field, and it was towards evening. We were at the edge of a sparsely wooded forest (alder or birch trees). On the right is the castle which houses our staff and on the left is the enemy. But the military character of the scene is not immediately noticeable. Lightning flashed. The bolts strike closer and closer. One of them struck behind the house. One of us said : "He thinks he made a bull's eye." The next shot really struck one of the out-houses of the castle. Attack ! The enemy comes ! I dash into the hiding where we have our machine guns. I was the first there. The whole scene is enacted in our school yard. The machine gun nest was behind one of the basement windows of one of the school outhouses. I drag up the machine gun and we set it up at the left of the little toilet house. In reality, a little group of birches used to stand there. I get out my guitar and lay it up on a little ledge to the right which was also near that privy. I think I fetched the guitar out of my room where two vice color-sergeants and aspiring officers were sitting at a table. They seemed to be dejected. Then it began to rain and I feared the guitar would get wet.

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This dream expresses resistances to the analysis. I am the enemy and my shots are beginning to become uncomfortable for him, especially after he had started by scoffing at my attempts. He arms himself for the repulse. He doesn't want to go to the dentist any more. He gets out his guitar and is afraid that it may be ruined. The guitar, as we know, is a symbol of his para- philia which is now causing him great worry.

Nevertheless, the dream does help us along a little. The mention of the privy is an introduction to his anal sexuality. His father, too, was a distinct anal erotic. He would sit for long periods of time in the toilet, read newspapers and books, and would thus blockade this most important of rooms. There were frequent quarrels over this valuable place in the family, especially between him and an uncle who had the same habits as he ; they finally had to build another toilet in the house. His sister protested con- stantly that father would drag her books off to the toilet.

As a child, he had often retained his feces and got a great deal of pleasure out of it. Even to-day, he gets a great degree of satisfaction from defecating or urinating after protracted reten- tion. It may be that this is the basic factor in his compulsive make-up (according to Jones, possibly the basis of every obses- sional neurosis). It is at any rate the first compulsion which a child exerts upon itself with pleasure as the result.

His anus is an erogenous zone for him. He is filled with de- sires for active and passive pederasty. But, as we have already mentioned above, when he attempted (at eight) to indulge in active pederasty, he became impotent.

Further analysis shows that his mouth is a substitute for his anus. The foul odor of his breath further enables him to com- plete the identification. He also confesses hesitatingly to wishes for active and passive anilingus. Behind his orthopedic phan< tasies, there was hidden an important wish which he had not hitherto disclosed : he desired to be bound hand and foot and then forced to acquiesce in homosexual acts.

He speaks of a book released by the German League which reports the horrors perpetrated by the enemy. The Due de Ven- döme is said to have sexually mistreated a defenceless German prisoner (a vice color-sergeant). That gives a clue to the mean- ing of the vice color-sergeants and the aspiring officers of the dream. The castle in the dream is the toilet. He had a soft spot in his heart for the toilet and up to the present he has spent hours sitting on the toilet and reading.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 229

The picture is completed by a fear he has of rats. A rat might bite him while he were defecating. He claims that while he was defecating once at the front, he was touched by a rat. The long tail of the beasts is particularly disgusting to him. That clears up his fear of the dentist somewhat more. The dentist is the man who gets into one's mouth (read anus) and messes around.

As a boy he had heard a tale about a caged lion. He often feared that a lion might spring out of a wall at him. Such an anxiety is easy to understand in its symbolism. He has walled off a burning passion and is afraid that it might burst the walls of its cell.

I shall pass over a few dreams in which he continues to express his resistance to the analysis. He is constantly bothered by the matter of the dentist and fears that he shall not be able to go to him any more. But he effected the following symptomatic act. He came to the hour and then excused himself under the pressure of an urgent necessity. Or he stops the session with the declara- tion that he has to go to the toilet. I tell him that he evidently desires to use the same toilet as his master (tertium defecationis) . The dream material of the following two days, which I naturally could not know as yet, corroborated my suspicion. He never liked to go to the toilet after his father had made the seat warm by sitting on it for a long time. But he agrees that before that period of dislike there had been a period of positive attraction. He also liked to use his sister's toilet. He believes that every time he went to that toilet, he became sexually excited and that the sexual provocation gave him the urge ; an explanation which cer- tainly cannot be refuted.

The following dream brought us still further forward in the analysis.

I dreamed: . . . Then I am at home and see my collection of stamps. I said to myself : "Great, now you can take them back to Vienna with you and sell them." And yet, without manifesting it specially, I seem to be surprised to be at home (in Riga).

I was walking with some other people and, coming from the left, got into the following situation. At the left was the city wall and out of the gate there came a train of monks in gray garb. At the right (on the other side of a stream?), there stood a group of clerics who held the Holy Image before them. There seemed to be an angry sort of tension between both groups, although nothing was said. Along the outer side of the wall, -£rom the left, there came another train of monks which also

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picked us up. We now belong to the group from the left. Some- thing was demanded of us, but we refused to comply. Someone called to let the younger people fight it out with weapons. Two or three knives flashed among the excited crowd. Then someone from the other side killed our young men and strode among the crowd cutting deep wounds in the arms and legs of the men with a large razor. Panic. Fear. He was a well-nourished, twenty- five-year-old, with a red face and blond locks.

My fear turned to wrath and I killed not only him but about three others in all. The last victim is very clear in my mind. After slitting his throat, he sank back with a gaping windpipe and groaned terribly. I became frightened and gave him another that sank to the spine. A grayish-pink fluid gurgled forth. Re- markably little blood. He was slender, of a grayish pale com- plexion and about eighteen years old.

The ones I killed were slit from right to left across the throat. I was surprised that the carotids didn't spurt blood.

Immediately upon awakening from this dream, he noted down a few slogans for it, some sort of outline. Then he wrote out the dream without looking at his notes, but afterwards he took a look at the lines he had written first, and noticed with astonish- ment that he had put down a cannibalistic scene which he had completely repressed by the time he wrote down the whole dream. The following are his first notes :

The winner, a somewhat obese young man, had cut the throat of our man and then began to attack defenceless ones.

Anger seized me ; I picked up the dagger and proceeded to slit the throats of three or four young men.

I felt a gruesome oppression. I had to stab them several times before I cut the arteries. Something swelled forth from the wounds. Then we ate of the meat (liver). But I had enough. Two other men began to argue about it, but one of them was in agreement with me.

And now to the analysis of this dream. The stamp collection represents his fetishistic collection. He is ready to give up his paraphilia. Thereupon there starts a mighty struggle between his ascetic tendency and his normal trends. He battles on the left in the ranks of the ascetics. The leader of the Rights has blond locks. Otto thought: he looks like Amor. During the battle, he thought of the Bride of Messina (the fraternal enemies), and of the two choirs that march upon the scene. The razor frightens him somewhat ; he never likes to have himself shaven. Yesterday

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 231

he suddenly went into a barber shop and had his fine locks cut in order to make a more male appearance. His sister had often ruffled his hair and whenever he would have a fight, he would first seize his antagonist's hair. He manifests an affective atti- tude towards hair. The pubic hair of both men and women dis- gusts him, especially in women. But the pubis of young girls excites him. Yesterday he wanted to make himself look bad be- cause he was afraid he would attract me and the dentist too easily. He wants to be a man (perhaps as a substitute for his castration ; bipolar tendency).

In regard to the battle scene in the dream, he says that he vol- untarily helped in the slaughtering of the animals at the front. Once they tried to kill a cow by slitting her throat, but they found they had to put a couple bullets into her besides that; and yet they were forced to kill her finally with an axe. He was covered with blood like a butcher boy.

The cannibalistic scene points to that early cannibalistic period which later appears in the form of an oral parapathia (Abraham).

He is surprised that his dreams do not now lead to emissions. There is always the same excitement and emotion as before an emission but the relief of ejaculation does not turn up. It seems to be some hidden parapathia which has not yet come to the surface. The ejaculation appears to be conditioned by a certain sexual con- stellation.

Yesterday he had seen three of his love objects, men who had formerly quite excited his passions. Two of them provoked no emotion whatever in him, and the third excited him only very slightly. The whole thing appeared strangely distant to him and had evidently lost all its emotional value for him. He looked at the man and even turned around but did not follow him; nor did he retain the man further in his phantasy.

The dreams of the following night were very characteristic :

Nebulous dream : much riding and stabbing.

Clear: 1. Two figures wrestle with each other in the half-light of an areaway within a block of gray houses of several stories' height. I thought in the dream : my father and I.

2. I am a lieutenant and back in the war again. I was with the Austrians. Dr. H. comes past the hut before which I stand. He does not recognize me at all. Then he seemed worried by my war-like intentions, but accepted them.

3. I met my father, who also wanted to go to congratulate the

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man on his birthday. I thought to myself that I had better go with him. But, after a short while, he left me for a toilet that was near by, and I went on alone.

4. Dressed in a military coat and a sport cap, with my collar thrown up, I walked through the poorly lighted streets of the city at dusk. Some people stop to look at me, especially a certain fellow. Then I recognize that the reason why I wanted to remain unnoticed was because I was biting on my handkerchief which I had knotted together.

5. At the congratulation ceremony (Margy Kolbert). Who are we waiting for? Later I notice that I am blindfolded, but I can nevertheless see everything. Gerty Ziegenrucker comes to the party, too, but her face is all stuck up with a white plaster, especially the nose. She brought her children along. She nods towards me, but it seems as if we don't care to notice or know each other.

6. Old park in Riga. But an electric street car seems to be running through there now. The neighborhood is very lovely (meadow), although much digging is going on. We rode under some ramps and stands covered with dirt and dumpings. I thought : I hope that doesn't come through. Then we ride through the low hills. Everything is light and I see the large rocks stuck in the sand, hanging from the ceiling. Here, too, I had a fear that they might fall down. By that time, we got off.

I am alone on a wide plain. To the right is a forest and bushes which do not attract me. To the left the road leads up a hill. A narrow path leads up the side of the hill (vineyard). At the top there is a gate in a barbed-wire fence.

Down below there is a sign which reads: "Beware! Dog!" Somewhere else I read: "The gate is closed." I turned on my heel and went away.

7. And came to several tremendous blocks of stone. Red sand- stone. They were chipped and worked. One of the stones was like a little house, and in its shade the museum commission was having its meeting. The blocks of stone lay in front of the museum. Well, there are all my friends and acquaintances, too. Professor N. was especially clear to me, but there were others.

In the previous battle dream, I had already had a suspicion that he was having symbolic dreams of the mother's womb. In that cavern, he kills all his sisters and eats them up. In this dream, he fights with his father. At the bottom of his soul (at the bottom of the areaway) there is the struggle with his father.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 233

Perhaps also a womb phantasy, this areaway. He now says that the monstrous action of the dream before may have signified the holy love of the son for the family and his parents, or love in all its meanings. The Amor would help buttress this interpreta- tion.

Dream 2 refers to his present struggle against the paraphilia. I am Dr. H.

Dream 3 offers a toilet scene. He uses the same toilet as his father. Inter feces et urinas naschnur. The toilet is also a symbol of the mothers womb.

Dream 4 betrays the fact we have already heard, viz., that he bites a handkerchief every night before falling asleep. He puts the handkerchief between his teeth in order not to crunch during the night and also in order to protect his teeth. He first bites hard into the cloth and then he can fall asleep. He himself asso- ciates fellatio phantasies and cannibalism to this fact.

Dream 5 shows a sticky face. Perhaps the memory of his sister's gummy umbilicus when she was born.

Dream 6 a clear-cut womb phantasy with indications of re- lations to his sister. The illustration of the situation explains the dream. His sister is a virgin, for which reason her introitus is barred by barbed-wire (hymen — thorny rose). The sign: "Be- ware ! Dog !" refers to him. He is a wild dog and must beware of himself.

The resistances become stronger and stronger. They concen- trate upon the dentist. The analysis shows that the dentist, the analyst and the father are a single trinity. He was expecting me to show him some sort of special attention and praise because he had gone to the dentist (a thing which he conceived as the greatest heroism). He doesn't understand why it is necessary for him to have his teeth fixed in order to be healthy. Every day I have to admonish him: taa res agitur! He does it for my sake. He had also hoped that I would go there with him and help him overcome his resistance. He wants affection and praise. He is again hurt by the fact that I haven't invited him into my house. Consciously, he realizes that such practices are not pos- sible during an analysis, but unconsciously he cannot but insist upon his phantasy. The "pathos of distance" which is so neces- sary during an analysis dissatisfies him.

It is his eternal complaint: my father doesn't understand me. .He doubtless feels that I understand him, but he also realizes that

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behind his complaint about not being understood there is the feel* ing that he is not being loved.

Despite my explanations and interpretations, he comes to me in the greatest excitement and claims he must use my toilet be- cause his excitement has "gone to his bowels." He says it is all because of the dentist. He doesn't care for the dentist at all because he doesn't talk with him or praise him for his heroic attitude. Although he permitted a tooth to be filled and didn't have any pains, he is nevertheless mortally afraid of the drill. In vain I interpret to him the sexual symbolism of drilling and the affective displacement which makes that operation so fearful for him. He simply will not understand. But the results are never- theless better. He continues to visit the dentist and his treat- ment is progressing.

Yesterday he had another tooth extracted. He even brought it with him and said : "Look at my little pocket penis." He looked at it himself long and lovingly and then put it in his pocketbook.6 Then he ran about restlessly the whole day ; went to Schönbrunn, the famous summer home of the kaiser, and threw the tooth into a trash can.

I pointed out to him the motives behind his use of my toilet. Depriving him of this privilege provoked stubbornness in him. To-day he is quite excitable and gives me all kinds of reasons why he had to use my toilet and no other. The others were dirty, the public ones are expensive, in the cafes one can get an infection, etc. I explain his rationalization to him and he begins to see that he did the same sort of thing with his father. His attitude to- wards his father has improved considerably. He wrote a sensible letter home and told his father how he had come to realize that he had conducted himself ridiculously because of his misunder- standing of the situation, and hoping that they would yet arrive at a reasonable understanding of each other.

In the dreams of last night he was the officer, i.e., the normal self-possessed man. All the dreams began in an interesting man- ner, but they stopped short of action. He remembers only a single short dream.

I take a walk with the little one. But he looked so small, wrinkled and vexed.

He promptly associates penis to the little one. That was very plain. He had once declared that the phallus of old men did not interest him because it was wilted and wrinkled. He likes only full and youthful members. But in this dream, the original attitude

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 235

comes to the surface. He claims always to have disliked a hang- ing scrotum and feels pained by the fact that his own hangs down pendulously. In the army, they had matched each other to see who could stretch his scrotum out the furthest and he had won. It seems that they were altogether given to disguised expressions of homosexuality in the army. Recruits had to "shake down the nuts" of the older soldiers. He had even dreamed of this game one time.

He had watched children playing in the street yesterday and thought to himself : "You'd like to do something to them." This something would be to tread on them, crush them like worms, kill them.

Whenever he actively pictures the situation at the dentist's, i.e., when he thinks of what he tells the dentist to do, his restlessness grows. He feels better when he is perfectly passive and lets the dentist do what he pleases. He manifestly produces phantasies at the dentist's of being shackled to the chair and at the mercy of the man. He unconsciously expects fellatio, pederasty or castration.

His original phantasy comes to light: Hidden in his mother's womb, he shall bite off his father's penis. But he cannot say any- thing further about his castration anxiety. He is only a little more struck by his former indifference to the difference between the sexes, and how little he apparently was interested in the geni- tals of man and woman. He believes that this indifference may have been the result of an early repression.

His paraphilia manifests several variants. Two divergent atti- tudes may be noted. He seeks the glowing young man; that is his purely homosexual attitude. In that role he plays the father dallying with his young son. In that there is no hate. Then there is his orthopedic mania. The young man is a symbol of his sister. First he wounds her and then he lays on bandages. His growing tendency to differentiate himself from his sister is in- dicated by his recent act of having his hair cut.

The patient is in a state of great excitement. He runs about purposelessly the whole day long and tries to invent some reason for coming to see me more frequently. His objects have lost all their attractiveness for him. He feels very tender towards me and his father, and his thoughts are also full of his dentist. The dentist gave him a day of rest, but that doesn't give him any satis- faction. He is afraid that he may lose his courage. It becomes more and more clear to him that he is strongly fixated to his father. He has not been able to establish himself, to become in-

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dependent and do the work he had intended, because the umbilicus of money which kept him attached to his father was never sepa- rated by him. He wants to remain dependent upon his father. He is very modest in his demands, walks about with an old mili- tary coat on, has his shoes hob-nailed to save the leather, looks dilapidated ; but he need not live like that because his father would send him all the money he wanted, and even praises his extreme modesty. But behind this reticence there lurks the fear that his father may some day say: "Let's have an end of all this."

The day he was free from the dentist he nevertheless returned to him and had the dentist drill around in one tooth and extract another, so that he might the sooner be through with the job. He felt that he had done something great in going there. It was a heroic deed and the beginning of his independence.

He then went into a church and sat himself down in a corner. The verses Christ had spoken in the temple kept going through his head: "Shall I not be in the house that is my father's?" He got a sudden rush of delusional grandeur. He seemed to himself to have swollen to such imposing proportions as to fill the entire cathedral.

The following night he dreamed :

G. S. writes me that he has become a specialist for kidney and gall stones. But that fellow is not even a doctor! If he doesn't get on, some man ... (?) will help him (?).

I'm an English officer, a Hussar. Killing uniform and courage- ous horse. There is a young English soldier with me, whom I am taking to his company. I alighted and we started towards the firing line. It was towards evening. The streets looked like those of a city in the French sector. Everywhere great numbers of soldiers look out of their quarters. I ask where the English troops are and they tell us, but we have difficulty finding them.

G. S. is the boy who was mentioned at the outset of the analysis as having taught him how to masturbate. Here he symbolizes his own paraphilia. The disease is represented as a granular deposit which must be crushed. The crushing process is the analysis. He wants to become an analyst in order to free people from their stones (complaints). I'm to help him. He is not yet a doctor, i.e., he doesn't yet know enough about analysis.

In the second part of the dream, he is an English officer in a splendid uniform. The English symbolize his pious and religious tendencies whereas the French represent the sinfulness of men. His alter ego is here portrayed as a young man.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 237

We begin to discuss his piety and it appears that up until a short time ago, he was still in the habit of saying his prayers at night and of going to church. Exploring more deeply, it turns out that yesterday in church he identified his father with God the father, and himself with Christ.

In one of my books, the following sentence made a great im- pression upon him : "The neurotic has nailed himself to the cross of his neurosis."

He understands now that what he wanted was martyrdom ; he wanted to be a second Christ. His toothaches served him in this purpose. Every tooth was a nail which painfully nailed him to the cross. His fear of the dentist was his fear of losing these de- sirable instruments ; his fear of dropping off the cross and falling into the depths, i.e., into the world of human weaknesses.

The handkerchief which he stuck into his mouth every night also indicates his Christ neurosis. It is the sweat cloth. He has lately had a desire for sharp and acetic foods (mushrooms with vinegar — from the New Testament).

He considers that the root of this attitude is to be found in a Bible by Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Therein he had seen the pic- ture of Lazarus. Poor Lazarus lay there before the door of the rich man, covered with ulcers and nibbling a few crumbs. Then he was sitting in the lap of Abraham while the rich man was being tortured in hell.

At that time, child that he was, he thought of becoming a poor Lazarus and sitting in the lap of Abraham in Heaven. We will recall that he walks about in the poorest of clothing even to-day, and in the hottest or the coldest weather he will never wear a hat.

Every patient or beggar with crutches or splints is a living Lazarus for him. His toothaches and his parapathia also make a Lazarus of him. But the most important thing is : he avoids woman and sin ; he even struggles against his onanism. Here in Vienna he has been completely abstinent.

Yesterday it seemed to him that he was larger than the new- comer in the house whom he had envied because of his size. He had gained his own soul and all his pains were the tortures which he, as a martyr, had to suffer. But for that the kingdom of heaven was assured him.

His dreams disclose a most obstinate resistance to the discovery of the sexual foundations of his desires. He cannot achieve an emission in his dreams because he observes them too closely. He may begin to develop a wet dream but it breaks off too soon.

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The following is such a dream:

My eldest sister approaches me. She was together with some other woman, I think it was my mother. Sister is large and grown up. Her face is somewhat male ; her hair pale brown and copious. She seems to have a rash. At first it seemed to affect her whole body, but then I noticed that it was present only on the lower right side of her face and neck ; it looked like a trichophytiasis or an actinomycosis profunda. Her dress looked curiously orna- mented like antique friezes.

His first association is : Lionel the Lion-hearted. The idol of women and children. Then he recalls the furunculosis from which his sister long suffered (see the dream above in reference to this). She has a poor complexion and also suffers from acne. For a long time he himself suffered from a syphilophobia. He re- peatedly reverts to poor Lazarus ; how he fashioned bandages out of rags. The dream was marked by pleasure and seemed to be leading up to an emission.

We shall skip a few dreams which continued to display the dif- ficulties of the present situation. He has had all his bad teeth extracted and is now having the rest filled. He is also preparing an exhaustive scientific paper.

I call his attention to the fact that one detail of yesterday's dream has not yet been cleared up: the sister's dress. He says: "At first I thought the rash was all over her body ; then I saw that she had on a striped dress. Her breast was marked as with meanders, like the breast of the sphinx."

This sphinx reminds him of (Edipus, who suffered a severe period of stress. (Edipus had been left to the elements after his tendons had been severed. The curious fact appears that his love object represents (Edipus.

He confesses to full-blown murderous impulses against his father (at fourteen), and as late as a year ago he had dreamed that he had killed his father. He attacked him with a knife or a saber in the dream. Many other such dreams followed. As a boy, he had thought : "The dog treats me as if I were not his son. Perhaps I'm an unwanted child, or maybe he hates me because I'm not his." (Family drama.) Of course, he had also phantasied that perhaps he was descended from the kaiser. Or he would day-dream how he might save the kaiser's life and receive a medal for his act.7

Otto also produced the rather ridiculous and complicated phan- tasy that his father were thankful to him because he had been so

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 239

good as not to kill him. An important factor in these phantasies was an old army revolver which lay in his father's dresser. This all leads us to a new and exceedingly illuminating conclusion : the cripples of his phantasy and striving are father murderers who have overcome their impulses and subjected them to the shackles of the surgical instrument.

A short dream returns us to the subject of his onanism.

I went to S.'s house without being seen by anyone. There was a stamp collection in the room, containing one hundred and sev- enty-four stamps. They didn't belong to S., however, but to some- one else. I then met his mother in the house. . . .

S. is the seducer who led him into all sorts of affectionate little games. S. had tied and bound him, too. S. is the representative of his onanism and his paraphilia.

The number one hundred and seventy-four is explained in the following manner: one hundred and seventy-four is the number of the criminal statute which just precedes the statute pertaining to homosexuality. Section one hundred and seventy-four refers to prostitution and lewdness. There was an officer in the one hundred and seventy- fourth regiment (called Gibraltar) who was a fatherly friend to him ; it was he who had sung that ditty about the free German Republic. He says that one hundred and sev- enty-four is half of three hundred and sixty-five (not quite). He had masturbated about every other day; so that this number represents his yearly output, as it were.

Otto is now quite at ease whenever he goes to the dentist. On one of the first days he had gone there to have a tooth extracted, he had produced an arc de cercle (opisthotonos), and felt a sort of pleasurable thrill because it seemed to pain him.

The roots came out easily and he thought to himself : "Well, that went remarkably easy."

The dentist phobia is over, and he feels like a conquering hero. But he arms himself for new struggles. The devil isn't dead yet. Yesterday he saw a girl with a four-in-hand tie and, looking after her, felt that he was getting an erection. He considers it a bit of progress that he is manifesting heterosexual interests.

It is a strange fact that he himself cannot suffer the wearing of a bandage or dressing. At fourteen he gave up his self -bind- ing and tying habits forever and has ever since then been unable to wear a bandage even if he has a severe cur or wound on his body.

At that time (fourteen or fifteen), his ideals were still women.

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He read many robber stories in serial form because they invari- ably carried pictures showing bound or shackled women. He bor- rowed the books from a circulating library but had no compunc- tions against cutting out pages and pictures at will and using them as a basis for his first fetishistic album. He was particu- larly attracted when the female's breasts would stand forth no- ticeably (as when women were bound to the mast). In one of the stories he read, there was a torture scene in which the breasts of the woman were torn out with a large pincers. This was the favorite picture of his fetishistic harem (his own words) for some time. (Indication of his castration complex.)

But how can he approach women when his father demands abstinence and chastity of him? His father had repeatedly told him to remain pure and clean to the day of his marriage. — When his father heard of his onanism (his mother had naturally told the father of the son's confession), he cried like a baby and said that he would be completely ruined. Whenever papa spoke of women he would invariably repeat: "Treat every girl as if she were your sister and every woman as if she were your mother."

We next begin to speak about his homosexual period. He had also confessed to his mother of some intercourse or relations with another boy. He was twenty-one at the time and a lieutenant. His father was beside himself with rage and said: "You'll land in prison yet, young man. You'll bring down the greatest shame upon your family. Your sisters will never be able to marry and you'll ruin my own career, too." He could have choked the old man, but he also felt love and sympathy for him and the family.

The type of sexual enlightenment which he received from his mother was also strange, to say the least. First, she told him the story of the stork and then she said that a child grew beneath the mother's heart, especially when two people loved each other dearly. He himself had a fear of childbirth, however, for he must have heard somewhere that they take children out with a forceps. He corroborates this suspicion. This brings us to an- other determinant of the dentist phobia : The dentist is the obste- trician and the tooth is the child.

His attitude towards his father is betrayed by the following rather highly emotional dream:

I am on a gradually sloping hill, a green meadow. Far in the background, the horizon is cut off by the sharp outline of forest and brush. It seems that I was alone at first, and even later I

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 241

was alone ; or was I, after all, the leader of a band of men? Some- one pursues me; no one aids me; I must reach a hole in the barbed-wire fence which runs across the hill halfway up its side, otherwise I am lost. But it is very difficult. Just before I arrive there, "he" catches up with me. The leader of the enemy ! The king ! It was one of Alexander's battles, and I was right in the middle of it. He stood upon his chariot, with a blond, square- cut beard, and threw his lance at me. He looked like Mr. N. It seems that I threw lances, too; we alternated in the throwing and spearing. The spears were very narrow and had long iron tips. Would I never strike? It seems not. Or did I throw at all? He lanced me every time. Arrows were shot out of the milling crowd, too. I was terribly afraid of the shots, but it seems that I felt no pain. Hägen has betrayed me.

The barbed-wire fence looked like the balustrade in the opera house — antique frieze figures. The leader of the enemy was like Christ. He looked serious and pale, and threw his spears as if to say : "I must do this against my will. I must kill you." "He," however, was invulnerable. He was a God ; God the father, and even more — his better self which was killing his paraphilia.

His most important association is that of his father. He is afraid of a quarrel with his father. He would like to find a girl and begin to cultivate normal intercourse. But his father is dead against any extra-marital intercourse. Will I be his ally in this battle, or will I betray him like Hägen betrayed Siegfried ? When he was twenty-one, his father wanted to marry him off and sup- port him in his attempt to cure the boy. But that would be much more difficult to-day. He would want to support his own wife. How shall he solve the sexual problem ?

He also recalls the famous Pompeian relief of the battle of Alexandria. The battle between Alexander and Darius. That is a symbol of the struggle between him and his father. And then the interpretation suddenly dawned upon him. The rising hill, the barbed-wire fence (also the parapathia in which he feels himself secure), the brush and the wood: He stands before Ther- mopylis and defends his mother's genitals against the attacks of his father. He had formed the notion that each time his father had anything to do with his mother, there was rape, cruelty afoot. But here he stands in the narrow pass, a second CEdipus, and defends his mother. The motif of the battle is jealousy. He doesn't want any sisters. He wants to have his mother for him- self. Mother must not be exposed to the danger of pregnancy.

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Aside from this, the dream is also a sperma dream (feathered arrows fly about his head like the swarms of spermatozoa). He is in his mother's womb and kills all his sisters.

His mood vacillates between delusional grandeur and depres- sion. He clearly feels how the second soul within him struggles against cure. He has been working scientifically with an industry which is suspicious even in his own eyes. He has begun to ob- serve his own day-dreams. Some of them find nourishment in his ideas of grandeur. He has his own feelings of fulfilling an historical mission. He will become one of the greatest of psychia- trists. He will open new pathways in psychoanalysis and will be the salvation of innumerable people. Another part of him is strictly sadistic. He knows now that he has been dreaming that his family would die out, that he would inherit all the money and would then be able to live as he pleased without any consideration of their desires, especially of the intentions of his father. He had often seen his father being shaved by the barber and had thought: "If only he would cut his throat." Almost every day he would have his sisters run over by the street car in his day- dreams.

He had a restless night with many dreams of which the follow- ing are but a few.

Breakfast table. We're sitting there and Fm across the table from father. The atmosphere of the place is somewhat depressed. Father in his dressing gown and skull cap as usual. And, as usual, I'm in irritable spirits. Finally I say to him: (Franz Moor) "Do you feel better, father dear?" And he answers: "Better than you, at any rate." I feel guilty. Then he says: "But I like you a great deal, and we'll let bygones be bygones. I expect you to take the same attitude."

I'm in a corner to the right and am just pulling on my rather soiled shirt in the process of dressing. Suddenly someone says to me : "Say, the king is sore at you again." But that makes no difference to me. Then the king comes in, short, obese man with a short, dark beard, and says : "You shall immediately leave and overtake Brunhilde. I give you twenty-four hours' time. Ten golden eggs are thine if thou art successful. As a counsellor, I give thee ..." I think to myself: "What! This false hound!" and feel little assurance of success.

I'm in a buggy riding on the street. There was someone with me whom I did not recognize at first, but then it turned out to be my youngest sister. We turn to the right into a blind street

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which is closed off by a church or mosque or Greek Catholic prayer house. They turn us away. I turn about and ride back to the main street. On the other side of the river we see the city rising before us. Mighty buildings which tower one above the other (Lucerne?). I point out one building which I call the palace of Cardinal Richelieu. It rises in several stories, a yel- lowish brown pile, at the foot of the cliff. Over three gates or windows, there was to be seen some shiny red stucco. Those were the cardinal's emblems.

I'm alone on the street ; there is a house to the left and one to the right of me. The landlord and his wife are just leaving the house on the right. I say to my aunt (?), "Shall we go into the house they've just left, or shall we go into the other one?"

The first dream anticipates the coming reckoning with father. He manifests the curious superstition that the opposite of his dreams is bound to come true. He frequently used to dream of good marks in school and then naturally got bad ones. He looks upon this dream as an evil omen.

The Brunhilde of the second part of the dream is the repre- sentative of femininity. He, of course, is Siegfried. The ten golden eggs are ten one-thousand-mark bills which he had de- manded of his father for fixing his teeth.

In the third dream he stages the difficulties put up by religion and symbolizes his parapathia as an artfully constructed building. He is Cardinal Richelieu and thus again expresses his great his- torical mission. Louis XIV is his father.

In the fourth part, he is about to leave his old house (the parapathia) and move into a new one. The landlord resembled me.

He is no longer the football of his fetishistic emotions, for he can look at his former objects and not feel the least animation, at least not the importunate sensations of before. He recognizes his attitude towards his father as the nucleus of his parapathia and then relates to me various happenings which betray his father's latent homosexuality.

He conceives those infantile wrestling matches with his sister as a serious trauma in his life. They even lay naked next to each other. During the wrestling he would feel her breasts and the "bodily feeling" of her breasts next to his long afterwards excited his memory. He feels afraid of the woman with luxuri- ous breasts (the sphinx).

Still another bit of insight has dawned upon him: The guitar

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is also his father. It has the same baritone note that father has. He can play with it, sing with it, walk with it. He can string it whenever he wants (a new symptomatic act of the last few days).

Hope: Will father sing a different tune with me? He dreamed :

In the half-light of the room, I find myself digging about in a middle-sized wooden chest. My eldest sister is also there. She is watching me. Among the rubbish that I have stirred up, I find the ten thousand crowns which I have been missing, and a pile of other money, too. I never knew I had it.

I clearly recall a five-thousand-crown bill of a pink color, a one-hundred-mark bill of blue, and some of the new, grayish- green one-hundred-mark bills. I was quite tickled at the find.

While I was digging around in the money in the chest, B. came in from the right. He looked pale and dejected and said that he would have to sell the watches. Then he showed me three (?) ladies' watches, one lovelier than the other. The last one was the finest. It had a black moire band attached. He said the watches had cost two hun- dred and sixty marks (apiece?). I said that if that were the case, he had better not sell them for now no one would give him that price for them. Then I thought of my own gold watch and that I wouldn't sell it.

Then I was (in the barracks?) together with my friends again. Suddenly somebody hit me over the head with a square stick about a yard long, or perhaps he hit me with both sticks in the form of an X. I felt the whack on my cropped skull. Shall I demand a duel of the fellow? I must do something, I can't let a thing like that pass. But I shouldn't like to demand a duel of him, and yet I must do some- thing about it.

Unexpectedly, he finds treasures in the old chest. He has dis- covered the beauties and wealth of the past and will not let them go. In reference to the colors, he repeated several experiences he had had of audition colore. Rose or pink reminds him of the weave of children's clothing and the style of baby carriages. The three watches are his three sisters. The two hundred and sixty stands for his twenty-six years.

The second part of the dream symbolizes the vehement struggle he is having with his paraphilia (the Christ neurosis). He is possessed by two divergent tendencies. He is restless because

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 245

he had not received a letter from home, but to-day he received one after he had written a full confession home. His father said that he was quite shaken by everything that his son had written, but that he desired very much to see him and could assure him that all misunderstandings would be cleared away. The money for the dentist naturally came, too.

This letter plunged him into a state of considerable excite- ment. He tries to picture the return scene to himself and feels that he could not stand it. Father might talk with him about his paraphilia — and that would be insufferable. Whereas he had formerly hated his father and loved me, he now turns the spear about. Unfortunately, he saw me walking with a lady and his jealousy is at a high pitch. I also insulted him by clipping my nails once during the session. I wouldn't have done that if there were money in it. He has recognized my deviltry at last. I intend never to have him get well. I intend to keep him a para- philic as otherwise he might excel me in the business. I must surely be suffering from some severe parapathia myself, only I know well how to disguise the fact. I am afraid of my pupils. But he will revenge himself yet. He will show the world what a real analyst is like. He will excel me and then the world will forget me and get down to business.

His dentist phobia has completely evaporated. Filling teeth is a pleasure now. Whenever the drill begins, he gets a tickling sensation in the penis. As a matter of fact, he seems to have a permanent thrill in that organ. He cannot work because he is filled to bursting with emotion. He has recognized a multitude of his infantile habits for what they are and wants to overcome them. But he would nevertheless like to retain a part of his suffering, and has begun to act so obstreperously that he is court- ing the danger of being thrown out. His intelligence conquers, however. He realizes that he is going through a period of stress and strife.

Last night he had a very curious dream :

N. . . . (chief porter of the surgical clinic in Riga) or A. . . . (my last aide in the war), comes and says that I had better tell my sister what that means to appropriate my waste-paper basket (?). I go off into the room (association: of the nurse- maid) and there stands the bed, across the middle of the room, and on the other side of the bed, is my parents' clothes hamper full of soiled clothing and linens. The bed, too, is not yet made. There was no one in the room which, by the way, was rather

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bare. On the bed, I saw a box which, among other things, con- tained a self-winding tape-measure, like the one I lost. It had a yellow brass case. This one was much larger than mine, how- ever. Then I saw several more such tape measures, and on the second one there was engraved : Sehr. Neuburger. I wanted to take it with me, but it wasn't mine, after all. Finally, I found mine, but it was a little dented and I feared that it would not work. My name was engraved on it. I pulled the tape out and then let it fly back in again. But, although the ring on the end had been torn off, the tape didn't fly all the way back, but about an inch remained hanging out ; so that it could be pulled out again. The metal case seemed to become larger and there was a lot of engraving on it. Then the circle seemed to become smaller and smaller, changed to an ellipse and finally became a bolt or stick.

He recalls that old or soiled linen and clothing always fas- cinated his senses. He used to sniffle in the clothes hamper and smelled each piece he found.

Neuburger is a soldier who is dead ; he had nine children. He is thus a representative of family life and the patient's ideal of the future. Otto wants to be a man again. He wants to find his true measure again. He has been measuring life with the wrong tape and needs the old one which he lost. He now has found it. The circle (vagina) is transformed into an ellipse (the phallus). Something in his sexuality has changed. The ring which bound him to his family seems to have been lost.

He went on an outing with his little girl again, played with her, got repeated erections, but shrank back from the final step. He would prefer to have her actively approach him ; so that he would not be responsible. He wants pleasure without guilt. Occasion- ally he would be plunged back into his old phantasies and then the whole thing bored him.

He is still plagued by that constant tickling sensation in the penis.

A marked narcissism begins to appear in his analysis. His family had always indulged in considerable praise of their only

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 247

son. His grandmother always remarked upon his handsomeness and his sisters had their walls covered with his photos. That must have struck other people because the pastor had warned him against "the desires of man" when he was confirmed.

Gradually memories come to the surface. There was a wag- goner who delivered vegetables. He would sit on the box and observe the horses defecating. Also : grandmother had a scratch. Scratching was a direct source of pleasure for him.

He envies bears and lions. He evidently used to bite his sisters.

He then describes a dream he had and adds his own analysis. The following is the analysis in his own words :

Night of twenty-fifth to the twenty-sixth. Interpretation and associations.

I am with others at lunch. The girl who serves us comes along with a platter of all kinds of good things : lemons, oranges, pep- permints, desserts. I wanted the others to partake first ; then she came around to me, and by that time, it didn't look as appetizing as before. I took half a lemon and a handful of the dessert which was soft, sticky and warm. But none of it stuck to my hand. The girl then said that I should take the orange, too ; that it was for me. But I said that I didn't feel like eating an orange, and refused her offer despite her exhortations. I can't remember whether I took it or not.

When I awoke, it seemed that only the rind of the lemon was left and the same of the orange. I promptly associated feces to the dessert and then : my father's feces. Then I recalled the fol- lowing dream of the same night :

I am in a grocery where I had just previously bought some- thing. But I had left it there because I wanted to look for a new quarters. A half pound of lard was included. I then went back to fetch it. There were several packages on the counter, but I thought that mine wasn't there. I was particularly struck by a certain piece of bake goods among the wares in the store. It was a white, shortened crust. There was marmalade in the middle of a cake about the size of my hand. I had the feeling that that must taste good and sweet.

The cake reminded me of that red spot on the linen dress of my first nursemaid. Then I thought that that experience must screen the memory of my father defecating.

Further associations : My desires as a child always to sit on the box. Whenever I had to ride inside the carriage I was unhappy and pouted.

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With distinct pleasure I can recall looking at the swelling buttocks of a horse in gallop. The tail is lifted, the rosette of the rectum is pressed out and there follows the expulsion of the dung. I was tickled at the stiffness of the animal which was forced to defecate while galloping. Also the sharp and tangy odor of horses and everything connected with them. Thus it was that my first homosexual trends were directed towards men who had something to do with horses. Tough stable boys, cavalry- men, coachmen, etc. When I was a soldier I also liked the odor of horses and the stable. I would always tear out the tail of my rocking horses as a boy, put the tail between my legs and play horse with that. But my chief source of delight was the black horse's tail on a rug-beater or duster we had at home. I would clamp that between my legs with the handle in front (erect penis) and the tail behind. I even coddled that beater, pressed my face in the horse hairs and tickled myself with it. That was a magnificent horse for me.

I love horses to this day and I would like to be riding again. The only conscious zoophilic tendencies I can recall were my affections for my horse. He was my comrade, I liked to stroke his neck and press my head against it. Both from the saddle and when I would stand next to him. I always liked to be in a stable, but in the city I rarely had occasion to be near horses. Only during the summer in Misdroy when I would be together with the gardener who delivered the vegetables. I liked to steal fruit from him, too.

It would be a great day for me whenever we would take a ride to Lake Jordan and I would sit on the box with the driver of the omnibus or coach. I am left cold by the thin lips of the women I kiss because my ideal would be the lusciously thick lips symbolized by the great, red anal rosette which the horses used to bulge out when defecating. I like the meatier zones. I prefer to kiss women's breasts, but the best would be the anus, if that would be permitted. When I was fourteen, I got into a furore of emotional excitement one day when I had to fetch my mother some fertilizer from the creamery with which she wanted to leaven up some earth on the balcony. I reacted with such dis- gust, however, to my original attraction that I later lost all desire to continue with the business. I always liked to feel the bellies of the horses when we would curry them. The hair of men and women is a powerful stimulus to my senses. I like to bury my face in the hair and to kiss women's necks. This reveals other

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 24g

parallels. But I am always dissatisfied, however, despite my comparative enjoyment.

The horse is yoked; the iron curb is put in his mouth. Is it that I feel the iron on my own teeth, the clatter of forks or the dentist's drilling in my mouth? I always found a lot of fun in annoying others.

Again I see in my mind the picture of a man yoked and in the traces like a horse, his head thrown back into his neck by the pulling, his face a lamentable sight. Such an image can still animate me.

This is a picture I saw (when about eight or ten) on a calendar given out by the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The horse is terribly laced and whipped. As a boy I often played the coachman on chairs (rocking chairs especially) and on iron- ing boards. They would wobble and shake but never fell over. I got even more fun out of being the horse myself (little Claus and big Claus: Hee-up! my seven horses!).

After I had overcome my fear of horses as an adult, I liked to have them eat out of my hand. The feel of the thick, soft, wet lips gave me a thrill.

That's why even to-day the most exciting phantasy for me is an orthopedic picture of a corset which hinders the head and neck from any movement because it reaches that high up (get strong erection). I get the thought that I must promptly run out and look up such a picture in a text-book of orthopedic sur- gery. But I fled from school at the appearance of that thought, although it was not yet midday or time for lunch.

The platter is full of symbols of various sorts.

The half lemon : 1 — Symbol of the pointed female breast. 2 — After the first sharp taste, the acid of the lemon is pleasant: a lemon is sour but the sharpness can also be a pleasure.

The lemon as a symbol of masochism : it is pressed dry ; tend- ency to depreciate or an indication of the influence of the young- est sister.

The dessert which progressively takes on a more and more fecal appearance symbolizes the infantile oral and anal erotism. Noth- ing sticks to the hand: self-protection and censoring. No one eats feces. Whoever touches it dirties himself.

Orange: symbol of fruitfulness, of mother, of female. Par- ticularly : coitus, the fruit that must be broken open.

The girl even offers the fruit to me herself, she exhorts me to take it, but I can't do it. The same as with my little friend,

250 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

the difference being that she is small and dark and the girl in the dream is tall and blonde.

From some more dreams :

"... I am with a girl to whom I am engaged in a bare and white room. At the right near the window, there stands the mother and the imposing gentleman. It isn't my mother, how- ever, for she is blonde and has a nose like a vulture's beak. She mistreats the girl and is aided and abetted by the 'faithful ser- vant/ The man is kindlier, however.

"The shameless dog finally leaves the room and is about tc go downstairs with me after him. He has on a sky-blue stiff cap. Then I see that it has a broad red silk band. I grab him on the stairs and crush him so in my embrace that he squawks and loses the last vestige of breath within him. That satisfied my thirst for revenge."

Associations : Following this dream, I awakened with an erec- tion and, as is usual, pressed it to my body with both hands.

Dr. Stekel "called attention to the identification of the person with the penis and vice versa. The man in the corset is an erect penis, a rigid symbol." I agree and cite the erect position of an impotent man. The goal is, therefore, to have a permanently erect penis.

Dr. Stekel : "The desire to meet every emergency. The ejacula- tion is avoided and only the anticipatory pleasure of the mas- turbatory act is enjoyed. The ejaculation is never permitted."

I recall the attempt once to bandage my penis in both the erect and then the flaccid state ; the latter in order to be able to enjoy the pain when it became erect again.

The attempt was spoiled, however, when the dressing came off as soon as the phallus began to become soft.

I cannot be provoked by the thought of that sliding mechanism they have for impotent men.

But a catheter! A permanent catheter! What delights!

Another dream :

A bedroom in which I am sleeping with several other young fellows. One of them who was sleeping at some distance from me so irritated me that I got up, went over to him, and crushed him so in my embrace that his limbs and trunk were squeezed together. He was quite powerless. I carried him about the room and then bumped his head or his buttocks several times on the floor. I continued to press him until I thought he had enough.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 251

He is half dead, but I am satisfied, although I had a little touch of a guilty conscience.

Associations : I promptly thought to myself : that's how people carry little children when they shield them while they drop their excrements. The memory of having been held in that manner must have been pleasurable. The legs are spread (as at a gyneco- logical examination), the abdomen is compressed and the back and head lie against the holder's clothing. A very uncomfortable position, at any rate. Had pleasant sensations whenever I crouched on military toilets and defecated in a squatting posi- tion. Even to-day I get some thrill out of seeing women hold their children that way while the latter defecate or urinate. The wiping that comes afterwards was very important and pleasur- able to me.

I always used to get a terrific effect (and still get a pleasant feeling) out of the imagination of two fellows being chained to- gether, transported under the supervision of another in a train to a reformatory, and seeing them have to go to the toilet to- gether. They would also be dressed in some sort of corset or strait jacket. I get this especially when riding in the train. I used to repeat this phantasy regularly, both in word and picture. The matter of unbuttoning the trousers, especially the flap, the neces- sary touching of the penis, and the necessity of looking on while the other did it; perhaps the necessity, the coercion to perform anilingus ; all under pressure. All this excited me.

Then fellatio, or one of them urinates into the other's mouth. The other always younger. Had many pictures of this type, but they are all burned.

The fellow with red bandage is the erect penis. He squeaks. Desire of emission ? He squeaks like the little Teddy bears. The rubber balloons that look like sausage. The little toy pig into which you plug a rod to ignite ; the result is a long ash-sausage which looks like feces. And then the favorite game of pouring alcohol over some cellulose wafers and then igniting them to watch the long, snaky ashes.

I used to like the trick scissors which would stretch out when they were closed. Was one of my special delights as a child. In other words, all symbols of erection.

I am represented three times in the dream.

1. The dream-ego: the neurotic who yearns for a woman and engages himself to a blonde ideal.

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

2. The serious gentleman : the male, analyzing part of me that desires my cure.

3. The coarse fellow : my physical sexuality which strives for

coitus.

The woman with the vulture-like beak who pitilessly banged away at my blonde ideal is Dr. Stekel, who has made it clear to me that I shall never be satisfied with this woman because I seek something entirely different. You will never find gratification in this Platonic ideal because you need physical satisfaction. The coarse fellow, that third ego, bellows his approbation.

The serious-minded gentleman has nothing against Dr. Stekel's attitude and is much more kindly disposed towards my wishes and myself. Just as the third fellow, the phallus, begins to go down stairs, i.e., into the vagina, and the glans is red instead of bluish-gray as before, the neurotic chases after him and squeezes him until the erection, the desire for physical gratification, sub- sides.

The whole situation is taken from a detective story which I had read just previously. In the story, the mother of a son tries to deter him from marrying the girl by saying unpleasant things about the girl's past in front of him.

The second part:

The young man. A neurotic I know. Irritates me. Provokes homosexual feelings in me. But I am energetic and strive to put them down. The young man is thus the symbol of the con- quered homosexuality. It is half dead by now, and that makes me feel a little sad; perhaps anxious that I «ha'n't be able to have any homosexual pleasures any more.

The compressed young man is also my own penis which I used to compress until the erection subsided; just as he did.

I have already mentioned the associations. Here are some more:

Went to a wrestling match once with a friend of mine, a short, rotund, husky laborer, who was so susceptible to the emotions engendered by the match that he frequently became over-excited and seized me about the waist and butted me with his head and shoulders until I would fall to the floor.

The arc de cercle, the bodily stiffness during the tooth extrac- tion. The resulting pleasure.

Did I bang my sisters to the floor like that or did I, perhaps, have notions of killing them ? Where I live, they knock the fish

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 253

against a sharp edge, so that their necks will be broken and they will die faster. I often watched them do it at the beach.

Dreams from the twenty-eighth to the twenty-ninth.

The day before the dreams, I had developed an increasing anxiety that my family would not understand me. A letter which arrived the twenty-seventh incited the emotional tension in the form of a disaffection from woman, marked recharging of my old homosexual and fetishistic feelings. The amnesia I produced of the dreams in the night of the twenty-seventh to the twenty- eighth speaks sufficiently of my resistance. Then the following dream :

I am at lunch and two corps students from Riga whom I know sit opposite me. One of them is red-faced and I don't like him. He asks me: "Are you a Catholic or a Christian?" I: "I'm a Christian." He: "Is it possible that you are not a Christian?" I: "Yes, I'm a Jew." He: "And you dare to sit in here?" The other one who was a little more sympathetic also said that I would have to leave. I : "I've paid for my ticket and I intend to stay," but I thought to myself that to-morrow I wouldn't come back.

In the night between the twenty-eighth and the twenty-ninth, there were only a few fragments to 4:15 in the morning. "Con- tinuous and marked depression and lack of courage." "Examina- tion anxiety." "The part of a tooth that was remaining, which the dentist wanted to use as a sort of anchor for a bridge, has fallen out ; I've got it in my hand and think how angry the dentist will be."

I noted these few fragments down after I could not bring myself to write down anything during the first time I had awakened. Then I fell asleep again and had the following dreams in the order in which they are arranged.

1. I am with my father and experience the scene which gives me the greatest anxiety. He doesn't understand my condition. Dr. Stekel is a charlatan. He understands as much about analysis as Stekel. I'm lazy and good for nothing. With some misgiv- ing but plenty of energy, I defended Dr. Stekel. My father walks up and down and the tension seems to be getting worse.

Addition: This dream contains the same emotions which I tried to express in my letter answering my parents ; it is some- what more theatrical here, and the tension is not alleviated.

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

2. I am in a room and seem to be in a peculiar position. I seem to be in it from above. The room was filled with young- sters; it is a Jugend society and there is but one other adult there; the Turnverein leader. It seems that I was on a sort of balcony under the ceiling.

I seized a young boy and held him hanging in the air by one leg. At first I was afraid I might let him drop, but then his kicking and twisting amused me. He tried to catch hold of something, but I let him do it only after considerable wriggling; then I let him go and he was very much afraid. I repeated this several times and each time I saw a penis at the end of the play ; a child's penis : small and phimotic, so that when it is erect only a small part of the glans shows through the foreskin. One or two light-colored, urine-like drops hung on the end. I thought that the penis must be mine.

3. I see an officer whose trousers are too short ; he has a dagger in a nickel scabbard on the left side and a broad silver border around his cap. . . . Then there was a flower store there. The officer is in some bushes at one side. I found a silver tie clasp and gave it to the girl in the florist's shop; by that time it had become a silver opera glass. — Then I am supposed to have in- sulted the officer. He approaches me with his retinue, several men and some girls. But they are not sure whether they should demand a duel of me or not. I recognize in the officer one of the brothers Rehtaler, the younger one is also along. I beg his pardon, we make up and then proceed conversing with each other.

Then I am together with the younger brother. Homosexual tendencies awaken in me ; we lie close by each other and he puts his hand on my forehead. I feel his body and look through the cracks between his fingers which lie across my face. As he takes away his hands, I turn over on my back and a girl lies down upon me, his sister. She pulls up her dress in front and lies down upon me. I am surprised suddenly to feel the soft parts of her vagina about my penis; she writhes with pleasure but I don't seem to have the slightest feelings. My thoughts were of two kinds: 1. I hope she's not diseased and infects me. 2. I'll show her how potent I am. Just a little technique, and I'll give her a real orgasm.

The girl seemed to be satisfied; at any rate we had got up from the sofa, and I wanted to wipe off my phallus which was still half erect. The head was all smeared with semen or some-

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 255

thing of the sort, and even the shaft was covered with some cheese-like bits. But the faucets of the wash basin were not to be reached because the basin was too high. It seemed as if I was to have slept with her friend, too.

While the girl was lying on top of me and I was trying anx- iously to push in rhythm with her, my friend seemed to be get- ting much larger. He was still sitting at my side, but he appeared to be a much larger person than I.

It was about 6 o'clock when I suddenly awakened. I thought that I was actually wet, but upon looking, I found everything dry.

I felt certain that the girl of the dream was my eldest sister, especially because she so resembled the childhood pictures of my sister. The happy laughter during the cohabitation was particu- larly that of my eldest sister. My first association about the big person next to me was that it was the nursemaid. I also noticed during the washing in the dream that my penis was phimotic, the glans could hardly penetrate the foreskin. But the member was not as infantile as it had been in the second dream.

That was what made me feel that the basis of both the third and the second dreams must have been infantile experiences.

The reaction displayed in the course of my few associations was a very marked one, but, buttressed by other unanalyzed re- sistances, my own analysis produced no further associations.

I must mention further in this connection something you already know, i.e., that I had formerly been afflicted by a moder- ate phimosis which was stretched only by considerable onanistic activity. Before I was 12, I was not able to pull the foreskin back over the head of my erect penis, and even to-day it is not an absolutely painless business. But after the little band of skin had been stretched or torn at about 13, it became easier for me, and I enjoyed pulling the foreskin back over the swollen glans, despite the pains.

Dr. Stekel calls my attention to the possibility of interpreting my corset fetishism as a symbolism of the phimosis which con- stricts the penis just as the orthopedic corset the patient ; espe- cially the head and neck. I agree with this and wish to empha- size particularly the constriction of the lips and cheeks in the Glisson straps or in Wallstein's apparatus or in the corsets which have head and neck supports. Dr. Stekel thinks the phimosis may have been the basis for the development of the compulsive fetishism.

He also points out that the masturbation is a preparation for

256 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

later life. Whatever one wishes in adult life is first tried out during onanism. My habit of prolonging and avoiding an ejacu- lation during masturbation would thus be a sign of my desire and ability to cohabit with women and satisfy them without im- pregnating them. That would also be an explanation for the fact that I have not had an emission for over two months now and am yet constantly under sexual pressure and constantly plagued by a stiff phallus.

My desire not to capitulate to any further psychic experiences at the dentist's has transformed itself into a hypersensitivity to- wards drilling phantasies and the noises which I can hear through the door from his office.

My wish not to discover anything further also expressed itself in the fact that, despite my intention to ask Dr. Stekel for some paper, I desisted from doing so. But one day when he was not in, I happened to come into his room and took five sheets. The five is the symbol of the hand and everything that one might do with it (masturbate, grasp the phallus). I must say that I am hounded by the desire to have some "bodily feeling" with him, even if only externally, as in going to the theatre together; but my disappointment in this matter is naturally quite marked. When Dr. Stekel offered me a theatre ticket which he had bought (i.e., for myself alone) I was quite overjoyed, but I thanked him and refused to accept his favor. I was still waiting for an invi- tation to tea.

Dream three also aided me in the understanding of the most impressive part of my physical contact with women. I always think: now she's going to start something. In the dream, I lie on my back, close my eyes (they were closed for me in the dream), and wait for her to climb upon my penis.

It seems, also, that "lifting up her dress and lying down upon me with her clothes on," as in the dream, is an indication of my sexual desires. It is not impossible that the dream was but a coitus-like act and not actually cohabitation, although it seemed so to me afterwards. Nevertheless, the feelings in the dream were so pleasant that I am inclined to lay them to the fact that I was actually in the vagina.

Rehtaler, the officer who wants to duel with me and whom I am supposed to have insulted, is a mask of Dr. Stekel. After- wards we got along rather well and at the place where he led me I became rather intimate with his brother and sister. The com-

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 257

plicated splitting of the figure of the officer is doubtless due to many factors of which he is a symbol. For example, my own neurotic ego, Dr. Stekel and my father.

Let us follow up one of the interpretations. My father hidej in the bushes at the left and keeps watch over the flower store, the virgins, my sisters. Under the impression of the opinion I have gained of father (the silver clasp) and grandmother (who was always associated with that silver clasp whenever I thought of it), I decided to go into the florist's shop. That insulted my father, who watched me from the bushes but didn't dare come in.

In other words : I dare not communicate my new knowledge to my sisters because that would insult my father. Material : going into the flower shop, i.e., the defloration of the sisters. After the dream, I felt that I had been in there; at least I went in to give up something I had found. That is, it seems that I made use of some infantile experience as far as my infantile under- standing had conceived it.

My father hides in the bushes, i.e., he has mother, the bushes being the pubic hair. But he's always on the lookout for what happens to the daughters, for he is jealous of them.

Conceiving the officer as my neurosis: the short trousers, the shining dagger which was not a battle dagger at all (the penis) ; the cap is gray (the head of the penis), silver-gray. He stands there like a cock on a dung pile. That, in reference to my father and Dr. Stekel, would divulge important material on my present attitude towards them and on my present emotional situation altogether.

As regards the second dream, one could imagine the basic in- fantile experience about as follows: I may have seized upon my littlest sister and played with her while she writhed and kicked. Or is that only a wish? And yet, the repeated phantasy and dreaming of the infantile penis with the couple of drops of urine clinging to the end, makes me feel that such a situation must actually have taken place and afforded me considerable pleasure.

Exercises on the cross-bar, or any kind of gymnastics, always filled me with anxiety, and I would invariably lose my balance and fall over. I liked to toy with frogs and caterpillars and see them writhe. The frogs I would dangle by one leg and the caterpillars I would let drop from the particular thing to which they would want to cling.

To Dream 3: I was a voluntary soldier with the Rehtaler

258 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

brothers. I liked the younger a lot, but he was cross-eyed. We never had any intercourse because he, and also his brother, ran after the girls.

At this point I should like to interrupt the patient's material in order to make a few clarifying remarks. It is of interest that he has forgotten a few things. First of all, he did not express the fact with any clearness that Pauline, the nurse- maid, held her hands over his face after she had staged the coitus scene between him and his sister. His very first mem- ory (the stain in her dress) would rhyme well with this. He seems to recall this rather vaguely.

He also forgot to describe satisfactorily what masturbation as a preparation for his sexual duties means. He was afraid that he might impregnate his sister, and that was why he practised masturbation without ejaculating. He was able, as we know, to prolong his onanistic act without ejaculating for hours or days. That means that he can learn to cohabit with his sister or any other woman without running the danger of impregnating her. His masturbation is thus a preparation for his sexual practices with his private harem, i.e., with his sister and her friends. The whole period of the analysis in which he has erotic dreams without achieving ejaculation also indi- cates that he suffers from some fixed notion. That is to say: I have learned how to provoke an orgasm in the women with- out achieving more than the anticipatory pleasure myself. That protects me from danger. The danger is his father. If his sister should ever become pregnant, his father would learn all.

Last Sunday he went out into the woods with his girl. He played with her but did not succumb to the temptation of coitus. He was expecting the same situation as in the dream, i.e., he wanted her to take the active role and climb upon him while he remained passive. That is why he always stretched out upon the grass and awaited the activity and aggressive- ness of his partner. She, however, remained passive. She wanted to be taken and overcome. She told him that she could not meet him this Sunday, manifestly because she could not stand the sexual tension without relief.

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 259

The patient reports:

The night produced a mass of dreams of which, against the flood of marked resistances, I shall report three.

1. I am in a kind of surgical lecture hall in which an operation has just been completed. The patient, a Lithuanian from my bar- racks (castrated stallion) looks at me and goes out. I saw a large wound on the side of his right thigh just above the knee. Then I was supposed to be next, but I thought : I certainly won't per- mit myself to be operated on; I'll wait a bit first.

The right hand was to be sutured to the thigh or the knee and then be lopped off. "But I don't want my right hand hacked off. Can't I have it yet. I need it." "No, but you can have it done in two stages." Then I awoke.

2. . . . N. N. comes to me and says that a court martial awaits me. The kaiser (Napoleon) is ill. I think to myself: "just irri- tated." I'm sure that his indisposition is due to irritation.

I'm supposed to have disclosed treasonable information to the Russians through the medium of one of my men by the name of Atophan ( ?). I said: "I can't even understand the fellow, how is it possible that I can be responsible for what he said."

3. My father and I together in a room. Something seems to be hanging from the ceiling or standing on the table in the old room. Then I thought that it was a large bell (a child's bell) which hung in a frame. It couldn't ring because it would always bump against the frame. I wanted to look into the matter, but my father took a hammer and chisel and went after the pretty bell until it was all bent and twisted. I cried: "You're breaking everything to pieces !" He was angry that I had butted in. Finally, the bell was all dented and ruined, but it seems that it could still ring.

Dr. Stekel considers one and three very important because they indicate my castration complex, but I find only a few well-known connections in this respect. Dr. Stekel is dissatisfied with me be- cause I can't help him. My desire to stop the analysis has been growing. I sing: "Blow, blow, blowing wind," and "The wind blows me home" and other similar songs.

Then there was a feeble attempt to have myself thrown out by remarking skeptically about his telepathic dreams. Nevertheless, the last time sharpened my wits. Dr. Stekel grimaced again. His old Medusa face.

In short, I recognize my resistances to the analysis, but that helps me very little and the inhibitions are still there. My ex-

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perience with my sister also remains fruitless as regards the analysis. Dr. Stekel believes that I want to hide the importance of the nursemaid. I wonder that he doesn't pay any attention to my grandmother. As far as I can see, this also covers unpleasant notions about the analysis. Am sorry for the old lady.

But as regards the analysis itself. That Lithuanian really looked castrated. The right hand was always related to the penis in my mind, the left much less because I never liked to use it in masturbating. Possible that the hand is a symbol of the penis itself. It was supposed to be sutured. Like the auto-transplanta- tions in two stages. That operation invariably forced the patients into a stressed and uncomfortable position which frequently pro- voked me to masturbate.

Dream 3. First of all : father : Dr. Stekel. The child's bell of my infantile days must be made to fit the frame of reality in order that I may be able to do something. For that purpose he makes use of the hammer and chisel of the dentist. The dentist always uses that to pound upon the crowns and make them sit fast. A hellish pleasure.

In short, more resistance to the analysis. Or anxiety that father might — or rage against him because he wants to force me to adjust to reality by education and strictness (banging against the head). Whereas I am trying to find out where the inhibitions lie, he wants to cripple me in the attempt to have me live accord- ing to his wishes.

Dream 2. Father has heard that I have given his enemies information about his affairs through the medium of Atophan, i.e. (taken etymologically), through the medium of a healthy person, i.e., without tophi. He is sick with fear and will revenge himself yet. His enemies are all those who have derived new in- formation about my father and my family. On the other hand, I myself am Napoleon, the great man who so impresses me; the man who also treated women so badly. I have betrayed myself and am putting myself on trial. In that case, the enemy would be Dr. Stekel.

The courts-martial can also make one lose one's head (penis). According to the way one looks at it, this might also be an indica- tion of the castration complex.

That which I don't want to divulge is again about to be born. These written notes are becoming stagnant. I am strongly moved to get out. No special fixation ; only marked restlessness.

In the evening: A restless day behind me. I had to go to the

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 261

library, but was unable to work with any directness or purpose there.

After lunch, my path took me past the number thirty-eight street car line. I obeyed an impulse and got on the car, but promptly wanted to get off again. But I rode out to Grinzing (a suburb of Vienna — Trans.). The last chapter of your Infan- tile Psycho-Sexuality increased my depression. But number one was brought back to me again. I returned to the city.

The following is a resume of all that may have reference to the castration complex:

1. The tailor with the shears. I liked to suck my thumbs and was afraid that they would be cut off. They often threatened with just that.

2. My father is circumcised. At an early age I found out that the foreskin on my penis is something valueless. I would pull it back, but it always slipped forward again.

3. At various times I wanted to bind away my penis, the first time, as far as I can recall, being when I was in my bandaging period. I also had the desire to tie it up when it was erect be- cause the constant erections made me feel uncomfortable in the trousers. On the other hand, I often felt sorry that I was not a woman ; so that I might have some place to put the penis of my partner. Paedicatio in anum was not at all desirable to me, but I would have considered the matter from in front. I always used to be afraid of all cutting and cracking instruments. The noisy ones especially. Fire-crackers were a nuisance to me, and I was afraid of them. I was altogether a coward and overcame my cowardice only very late. I can't say that I am at all courageous even to-day.

I might say that I had others cut and manicure my nails for the longest time. My oldest sister was not able to light a match until she was about twelve or thirteen ; before that time, she could not be brought to take one in her hand. — Now I'm all out of associations again. Shall I smoke a pipe? Is my persistent abstinence from smoking a method of retaining my infantile period? I'm much less sexually excited; rather dull and indif- ferent. Occasionally energetic in speech (talking myself into it) but then soon quiet. Now I am seized with a fear (the wish) that I won't dream anything to-night. Fear of Riga. The lone- someness. The examinations. The growing power of the re- turning fetishism and homosexuality there.

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Succinctly. Under par. No appetite, no desire to play the guitar. Talking gets on my nerves. Dull tension.

I would like also to mention that the right hand in his last dream is also a symbolization of his sister. He has been fixated to her and must now be separated from his fixation. He re- acts to my attempts in this direction with the development of hatred. He doesn't want to give up his phantasies. He is in a state of deep dejection and is trying to analyze himself. He is told to stop this mulling around in his own ideas. I rec- ommended diversions to him (theatre, lectures, work, etc.).

The following dreams are variations on older themes.

I remember the following from a series of dreams:

... I was with my father for some time. I am finally plunged into despair that nothing but quarreling and irritation come of our being together; that he simply cannot and will not under- stand me. Finally I say to him : "Do you know that I had a dream last night, that I bled profusely, and that . . (the memory of the dream breaks off) ; then I went out.

And met T P in my parents' bedroom. A large girl

of about twenty-five (in reality a friend of my aunt). In reality she is also very pale. She lies down upon the sofa and I rub her forehead with Eau de Cologne ; she complains that it burns her. I dip a towel in some water and place it on her forehead. She feels better.

Our last nursemaid stands near by throughout the proceeding and grins idiotically with her mouth agape from one ear to the

other. Then I went into the next room again. H came

in and asked me what my diagnosis was. I said: "Maybe hys- teria, epileptoid or organic in nature." He answered: "But she was a kleptomaniac.',

Then H appeared clean shaven and became more and

more intimate. We are in the Academy of Medicine (i.e., the company of doctors). Suddenly he seizes me about the middle and begins to wrestle with me. I find the game rather out of place and the bystanders are also surprised. Then he stopped. We spoke of the patient. He said that she was quite well or- ganically, with the exception of a small swelling on her back which permitted of the palpation of a small lymph gland. I said : "That doesn't mean anything because then I would have a sarcoma of the jaw; I've always had glands under my jaw which were^

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 263

described in surgery as symptoms of just that." I tried to push

the glands out over the edge of the mandible. H palpated

them quickly and said: "Yes, but that's in the text-book of sur- gery."

Again I see the woman in a bluish linen dress. I think she was pregnant. But Benno said she couldn't possibly be pregnant any more.

Otherwise, I might add that I'm still as sick as can be from that pipe I smoked yesterday. It's up to my neck.8 I haven't any associations, except that grinning nursemaid is always before my mind. My grandmother has awakened my interest. I consider what relations I might have had to her bedroom. Also remember that whenever we visited her we children used to sleep there of an afternoon. This derives from the Eau de Cologne which always stood on grandmother's dresser. It always attracted me. My grandmother also had saved one of Uncle Carl's teeth, a canine, in a little wooden box. To her great astonishment, al- though it was quite a healthy tooth, it had been extracted long ago. It had the same long roots as my own little pocket penis.

After the extraction of my own tooth, I recalled this tooth of Uncle Carl's. Dr. Stekel's opinion that this dream is a screen memory of my coitus experiences with my sister provokes re- newed resistances in me. I'm always thinking of other things. I'm especially vehement about my departure. The thought that Dr. Stekel will transfer me after Pentecost hurts me very much. A visit to the torture chamber of the Museum of Lower Austria relieved me somewhat; also the dentist who has tormented me a little. Otherwise frequent feelings of lassitude and an implacable appetite and thirst. I drink a seidel of beer ; that makes me feel better than many glasses of water taken before. But even that's not just what I wanted.

To-day the dentist talked for hours, it seemed, with the patients ahead of me. With me only a couple of words. Of course, he probably is irritated by the fact that he is treating me for less money than the others. Why doesn't he talk with me? I have also begun to be jealous of the little oby who comes after me. He's a newcomer at the dentist's. In other words, a nice bouquet of resistances again. Transferences. I had a desire to be parental and fatherly to that little boy. I can't make up my mind to see that girl again, either. Since I see in her my sister, i.e., want to cohabit with her, my position, in view of my present inhibitions, is very unenviable. And since I may not busy myself

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too much with the analysis (it's easy enough for Dr. Stekel to say so), I'll leave the dream interpretations to him.

The patient is stuck in a morass of resistances. Last night he had a dream, but he recalls only a short bit. Dr. Stekel plays my guitar. . . .

The dream shows that he has not given up his original wish that I play with him (guitar — genital). As the dreams of the night before show, he conceives the analysis as a sort of wrestling match. I dare not conquer him. He will not give me the satis- faction of having triumphed over him, cured him. His emo- tions are transferred from his father to me. He bleeds for this affection. (See dream 1.)

Dream 2 is a variation on the theme of his sister experiences. But no new material is produced. Nor can he say anything further about castration. He sees the approach of Pentecost with a sort of fear because he knows that we shall have two holidays then and there will be no analyses. What shall he do? Shall he go out with that little girl again? He is afraid to make a fool of himself. He fears coitus. It appears that he insulted her, too. He said: "I'll call you up when I haven't anything else to do." Then he was angry with himself when she refused to meet him again. But he received a friendly letter from her afterwards and now he is again faced with the necessity of a decision. Should he give up his old attitude? The moment he takes the girl, an old phantasy will crash in ruins.

He has a fixed idea : As long as I remain abstinent, my sis- ters will remain abstinent. As soon as he should become intimate with his girl, he will have to give up his sisters, his harem. But that's what he doesn't want. He cannot give up his past and his fantastic plans.

The resistances have become so great that the analysis doesn't budge. He tries all kinds of tricks. Yesterday he said to him- self : "You will cohabit with the girl just to revenge yourself on your father." He visited her and they were alone in the room. He played with her, got an erection, but it subsided again. He constructed divers inhibitions and began to depreciate her in his own mind. It was easy for him to discover that she had a bad breath. He had seen another girl in the street car who would have appealed to him had she not also had a bad breath. He then tried to change the disgust to desire. He tries to make the odor a

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 265

sort of stimulant. It had once been possible in the case of a soldier who had sweaty feet. After he had overcome his disgust, the odor had provoked him. As a soldier, he had loved the miasma of the company; the mixture of sweat, filth and other bodily odors. He was sorry to become an officer because that meant that he had a room to himself. He would then return to the soldiers' quarters with the excuse that he wanted to make a tour of inspection, but the truth was that he wanted to enjoy the odor of the place again. He recalled his mother's odor in the morning; it was a peculiar one indeed. His uncle termed it: the sour morning odor. That sour morning odor was also a stimulus to him.

His little girl couldn't kiss very well yesterday, he said, because her lips were too thin and he could feel her teeth. He also complained that she couldn't find a comfortable position. In short, he finds all kinds of rationalizations because it is one of his neurotic conditions not to have intercourse. The condition is : As long as I remain chaste, my sisters shall also remain chaste.

In order not to make the analysis an endless repetition, 1 shall pass over most of the other dreams. The patient opens the ses- sion with a declaration of war to the hilt. Yesterday he visited his girl again and thought of all the possibilities involved in in- timacies, including a possible pregnancy. He concluded : "Only unscrupulous people can be healthy. Ergo. Become unscrupu- lous."— But that was easier said than done. In a dream, he had a duel with his second ego, his Christian ideal. The Christian ideal is ascetic, but the Semite enjoys life unscrupulously. The Christian has a sense of responsibility, but the Semite is egoistic and asocial.

Finally, he began to think about his conditions anent cohabita- tion and the honor of his sisters. He realized that his father had given him instructions to be a sort of watchdog of their vir- ginity. Were he not to remain chaste himself, he should never be able to demand satisfaction from any other man who might dishonor the chastity of his sisters. He is the ciistos virginitatis sororum.

His bandage symbolizes the loin cloth of chastity and his object is an ascetic. We know that the first bandage was intended as a covering for his penis and that it simultaneously was to prevent any activity on his part.

It is probable that he thought his abstinence would also make

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him stronger and conduce to greater mental productivity on his part.

Yesterday he indulged in plain coitus phantasies with his eldest sister. His mother had corroborated the suspicion that she had been born with the aid of the forceps. It had been a difficult birth ; the umbilicus was wound about her neck and she was nearly asphyxiated. They had talked about this birth for some time at home, for he recalls having heard much about it when he was a little boy. This gives us a new determination for his fear of the dentist's forceps ; and the same holds true for neckties. He had also made several attempts to hang himself. He seems to have overheard several conversations when he was a child and it was this period of his life which gave rise to his anxiety.

The patient requested that he be permitted to continue the description of his analysis himself. He has finally displayed his virility.

"The description of my first night of love." 9

Having resolved to practice coitus interruptus, I undertook the trip with her and we were lucky in being able to get a room with one bed at some peasant's house. She was quite excited and tense with anticipation, but she was determined "to make me happy." The painful part of the business was quickly dispatched. Instead of love, which seemed to fly further away the closer I came — I was like a stick ; no erection at all. I touched her heart by relating to her my lamentable position and my inexperience.

Thereupon we got into bed and there began a 6 hour stretch of exercise. She was very impassioned, but I was very cold, though determined. We began with protracted preparatory exercises of the simplest sort. She wanted to be accepted as my mistress under all circumstances, but I protected myself with all kinds of emotional bulwarks. Then I decided to go at the business with determination. Couldn't find the entrance. She helped me, how- ever, and I tried to preserve my erection. I was quite without feeling and worked only automatically. Every time I entered, she constricted her muscles in pain and begged me to be careful because it hurt terribly. After considerable effort, the impulse faded. The second attempt was somewhat better. I had rejected the aid of phantasies the first time and the second time they were present only temporarily but with effect. The erection was better, too. Some feeling, also. But I thought only of myself.

Then we just lay there together like two children. Rest anö

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 267

peace. She thought that was nice, too. But I was somewhat de- pressed. Feeling her touch my perineum and genitals, I became greatly impassioned and, after a protracted and powerful erection the softening of which I overcame both physically and mentally, I tried a third time and achieved a moderate orgasm but a tre- mendous ejaculation. She was constantly worried about whether I would pull it out in time, and as a result I withdrew four times, each time, too early. Every time I put it in again, she expressed considerable pain. Occasionally she produced movements, too, but then I would lose the rhythm.

Final result: I achieved ejaculation, was rather depleted but satisfied. Glad that it was over ; felt a little tired the next morn- ing and was susceptible to relapses.

Second night :

Since we had exerted ourselves greatly during the day as well as the night — she too was dog-tired — we decided to go to bed early that night. She in the bed and I on the floor. I thought to myself : "I hope she doesn't start up again." But I was deter- mined to collect all my strength and show her a good time. I had even told her as much during the day. She had claimed that I didn't love her enough, but I refuted that by telling her that she was too hard to satisfy and that she had fabricated some reason or other for not getting an orgasm. I myself was desirous of giving her one good dose in order that this would satisfy her for a while and keep her from wanting to pet and hug all the time. So I gathered strength and even felt a thrill, a desire for coitus ; wanted to demonstrate my virility. About half -past ten I crawled into bed with her and we slept together until about five in the morning without getting into any affectionate scenes. Then we began again and I found that her ticklish parts began just below the mons veneris and passed all the way into her vagina, especially if she pressed her legs together. She tickled my genitals, but I soon told her to stop that because I felt that it was childish. I had a continuously strong erection. Worked around cautiously and kept tickling her clitoris which she seemed to like very much. That continued for a long time. A few times I thought I heard her say something about pains and that it was all useless.

Although I tried hard to satisfy her, it began to get on my nerves and I finally completed the act with great gratification for myself. Then we washed and put the bed in order, only to get in it again and repeat the process. I tried again and had a great

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erection which was aided by her touching my genitals and tickling me in the perineum. Finally, after the interruption and ejacula- tion, I remained upon her for a time. But we didn't move be- cause she feared that she would be contaminated by the semen.

At about 8 o'clock I went into the Danube and had a swim. When I returned, I wanted to do it again, but, unfortunately, the best I could do were what I called gynecological manipulations. Influenced by the thought that she would be dissatisfied the whole day long, I executed just the movements she wanted "very lightly, slowly and deeply." Then she got a terrific orgasm and I desisted from cohabiting with her a third time. She even asked me to, but I suppose it was foolish of me.

I would like to add to the report of the first night by saying that I tried the supine position, but had no erection whatever. I would have liked to try the side position, but it didn't work.

As we rode back in the evening, I felt very happy, but the Viennese atmosphere and her sharp-eyed landlady somehow de- pressed her and we parted without saying much to each other.

I must mention in addition that (true to my principles in analysis) I did not advise him to test his virility in hetero- sexual heroics. The decision to try heterosexual intercourse was his own, and he came by it only after the conquest of con- siderable resistances. The girl wanted him to say that he loved her, but he refused to say this. He avoided every mani- festation of spiritual contact and satisfied himself with the purely physical relationship. His fixation to his sister was too great for him to say such a thing. His conclusion (uncon- sciously) was: "If I have capitulated physically to this girl, I can at least retain my spiritual love for my sister and consider that part of me hers."

His description cannot possibly convey the greatness of his sacrifice and the ravages of his mental conflicts. He drags the whole thing into the ridiculous and assumes a cynical tone which is far from the truth of the actual situation. I might add that I have edited the actual report somewhat. He then continued his description of the analysis and brought another dream.

I. ... I am with Prof. B in some place or other. At

the right there was a window through which one could look into

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 269

something like a scientific closet. He asks me if I have already seen the new collection. The door is closed, but next to it there hangs a box with all kinds of shimmering butterflies' wings and beetles.

He said that somebody must be in the place and then we went around to a second window. There, too, was a mounting with all kinds of colorful biological preparations. Ergelett came out, but we didn't go in.

2. Instead, we stood out in the open and I noticed that I had on a tie. One of the men, large and virile, looked me over with a curious glance. I began to joke with one of the assistants and cudgled him in the ribs with my fists or elbows ; as if he were a drum. He seemed to find fun in it, too, but I soon ceased, especially because of that other man who seemed very much surprised.

3. Then I was in my grandmother's dining room. My aunt was behind me. On the buffet lay some new, violet-colored silk stockings which belonged to my grandmother. I wanted to tie one around my neck like a tie. I heard my aunt behind me say- ing: "Don't you dare to take one of grandmother's stockings." But I took it anyhow and then went through the hall to my grand- mother's bedroom. There I found a sock on a chair. It also belonged to grandmother. It had small black and white checks. But I didn't tie that on.

When I had returned to the others, I suddenly noticed that I already had on a black tie; it was under the other one, only I hadn't thought of it. So, I can present myself to my father after all.

Associations : It is certainly strange that my grandmother's bed- room, the violet color and my aunt appear together again — the aunt as the threatening governess. Also that the dream recalls me to my grandmother's room which, as I have already repeated, exerted a great attraction upon me. I used to sit on the foot rest and doubtless observed grandmother's feet and calves. My grandmother was quite heavy (my distaste for obese women).

Even later, I used to put on and take off her shoes for her occasionally. I was a regular cavalier whenever I visited there, and the old lady didn't have to bend herself. She had an abdomi- nal hernia. It's curious that I haven't remembered that she has worn a truss as long as I can recall. She also wears a corset and I know that I used to watch her lace it together. My mother also wears a corset, but my sisters never have taken to that. I

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now remember that one of my greatest disappointments was the feel of a corset stay on the body of one of my first loves.

Dr. Stekel is "delighted" 10 and claims that the truss must be the origin of the whole fetishism. I must have observed the appli- cation of the truss because as early as 8 years of age I used to rummage around in her room, especially in the night table, after something, and wasn't quite clear in my own mind what it was that I was looking for. When, after the war, I saw the truss again for the first time with any degree of consciousness, I was disgusted. My disgust with the odor of old people's bodies is and always has been considerable.

Dr. Stekel believes that behind this memory must be hidden some birth phantasy, e.g., that the belly bursts when the child comes out, and that that is the reason my mother and grandmother have to wear corsets and lace themselves together.

The infantile appreciation of these observations then must have led to the fear that I could also get a child and that that could be prevented by lacing and corsets. This then could have led to the later lacing impulse and the fetishism. But the truss has been totally repressed and never appeared in my phantasies. The corset had to be long and very stiff before I could exploit it in my phan- tasies and then it would be applied particularly to boys and young men reared as girls.

Dr. Stekel also sees the tie as a fetishistic symbol. It is the compulsion executed upon the neck. One ties it on oneself.

Aside from an actual experience of the sort displayed in the dream (a hawker in the market who used a woman's stocking as a tie about his neck) I also recall having made use of odorous and worn stockings in the early period of my masturbatory practices. I would tie them about my neck, over my eyes, or stuff them in my mouth. They were my own stockings, how- ever.

I can't seem to place the violet color of the stockings, but I do recall that mother, grandmother and aunt had at some time worn some violet-colored article of clothing. I can't get any fur- ther on this track, however.

The feeling of inferiority or weakness may be explained by the fact that my grandmother's great size must have oppressed me, little child that I was.

I can't remember whether or not I may have been surprised by my aunt at some time while I was digging and searching around in my grandmother's things. It is possible that she also used the

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 271

expression mentioned in the dream. But I do remember another scene from later. My aunt substituted for my parents at times. I had stolen some chocolate and when she asked me whether it had been I or not, I answered no, although I had my mouth full of it. She handed me a box on the ear.

Dream:

First a vague recollection of noisy halls in some hotel and then at home. Much good food, but I didn't come to the table. Then I was standing on the balcony of our house, the second floor, looking down on the street where I saw Lena Kreidler with some one else. She carried a large bag on her left arm which weighed a half (pound? stone? kilogram?). She was to leave that with us. I went directly from the balcony to the street and took the sugar from her, but she had to leave promptly.

Then I notice a rough crowd coming around the corner. I was afraid that they would come into our house, but they stopped in front of the house and I went across the street because I was very much afraid. Then I saw the policeman. He was on a horse and had a beard. The crowd annoyed him, but he said nothing and rode off. I went around the corner to the left and the policeman, like a fool, came after me with the crowd following him. Then there was a little boy there, dragging a hand-cart after him loaded with empty boxes. The boy began to pull the horse's tail with all his might, but instead of the policeman defending him- self, he stretched out full on the horse's neck and the mob began to throw snowballs at him until both he and the horse were all white. But then he mustered some energy and turned upon the boy. I thought : there'll be some shooting now ; but at that moment two uniformed men sprang between him and the mob. I knew that that was the neutral committee. They jumped about excitedly and whenever the policeman wanted to shoot, they yelled : "Hey ! Wait ! It's not your turn yet !" I wanted to say : "Gentlemen! All Germany is astounded at your injustice!" But I reconsidered, thought that that might be of evil consequence for me and said instead : "True neutrality is expected of you." The rest was hazy. I awoke.

One of the neutral commission reminds me of a Frenchman who sat across from me in the car yesterday. He had on a Greek uniform and his movements reminded me of the funny motions of a motion picture constable.

Lena K. is a girl I know in Riga. That reminds me of my

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friends Rolf B. and Kurt M. It was said once that the latter was engaged to her.

Dr. Stekel thinks she represents my sister, but I take more stock in her homosexual significance (because of the associa- tions). I always missed my friends at home, and the two I men- tioned were especially dear to me.

Functionally, therefore, it would mean that all the women and pleasures (the rooms and good food) I seek at home are not enjoyable at all. I prefer to keep to my homosexuality which, on the other hand, gives me only half an anchorage and also exposes me to the attacks of my instincts (the mob). The police- man (Stekel's presiding conscience) and my asceticism are mobil- ized against my impulses, but they retreat before the latter and are afraid. That means that this protection is no longer sufficient, the fetish is depreciated. The policeman doesn't control the in- fantile playfulness and pranks with sufficient energy. The little one makes a fool of him.

But let us go a little more deeply into this dream. The patient had frequently had dreams of restaurants and hotels. He comes into a restaurant and sees many people eating there, but he doesn't get a chance to fill himself. He cannot remem- ber a single dream in which he had satiated himself. He stands before the enjoyments and opportunities of life and hasn't suf- ficient courage or power to partake of them. On the other hand, the dream also indicates clear-cut relations to his mother complex. Mother is the first restaurant we experience in life. He then produces a mass of memories in reference to his child- hood eating habits, and finally we arrive at the significant fact that his love object represents the nursling. Every fetishist expresses the compulsions of being bound and swaddled in diapers and cloths by the symbolic method of a representative but coerced ideal object. He also remembers his baby chair in which he was frequently tied down. It appears that he has not forgotten his earliest years. He often watched his mother nurse the younger sisters and the business of pressing the breast from out the blouse or corset was particularly provoca- tive. His phantasies reproduce something similar.

He seems to have suffered the period of weaning greatly. For a long time afterwards, he remained a thumb sucker; they

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 273

smeared his thumb with mustard, but that only produced the opposite effect: he became an impassioned lover of mustard. But puree of peas, which he often received as a baby, has ever since been a disgusting dish for him.

His sucking bag and the mother's breast were forcibly torn from him. It is possible that that also aided in the determina- tion of his dentist phobia. That is : I sha'n't let them tear any- thing more out of my mouth. His objects represent the well- diapered nursling, the symbol of his happiest days. He follows these men and thinks of his childhood. He is following his past.

Dream :

We are on parade and await the kaiser and the empress. I am with the Elizabeths. I am a captain, but somewhat em- barrassed because I don't just know whether my position and stance are correct or not. Then we were arranged in groups and the empress Auguste Viktoria and Kaiser Wilhelm ap- proached. The Empress promptly addressed me. The first of all. I do her the honors, but instead of keeping my helmet on my head, I held it before my face and looked at her through a hole about the size of a quarter. Suddenly I realize the error I have made and take my helmet in my right hand. The kaiser looks gloomily at me. I can hardly hold on to the helmet, it is so crooked, the edge so thick and the point so unsuitable for a hold. I can hardly stand any more, I feel dizzy, although I felt some- thing supporting me from behind and leaned back upon it. The empress inquired if our garden were now in better condition and I answered: "That I cannot say, Your Majesty." She asked me again whether the dirt and truck had been removed, and I an- swered again that I didn't know. Then a hungry little Austrian whom we had taken into the garden with us out of sympathy was sitting there. The kaiser told him to remove himself. Mean- while, place cards had been passed among all the soldiers ; so that I had no place among the Elizabeths any more. I return to the Nines, my old regiment and have a soldier (Harry) show me one of the cards. It was a ready-written picture post-card.

. . . I'm running down a steep hill with my little girl. I have a belt in my hand. She is very fearful and soon begins to cry about not getting to school on time. There is another fellow behind me and I'm afraid that he's a gossip. The road is on

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the left, and we are on the meadow to the right with a garden bed of about a yard and a half breadth between us and the road. I jump across the bed and land clear, but the girl jumped onto the bed.

I tell her: "If anybody should ask you, you just tell them that it was my fault. I'll take the blame." She bawls lustily, but then she dried her tears away and we saw that school hadn't begun yet. The teachers weren't there yet, either. They were supposed to hold a lecture for parents and adults, with lantern slides, and I wanted to be present. The preparations had not yet been com- pleted, however. I saw an almost endless number of small girls (school girls) in the hall, and there was also a group of teachers in a corner.

Then I left.

Associations : The kaiser and the empress stand for father and mother. Strange, because the Empress Auguste Viktoria is dead. Death wishes against my mother? I look through the helmet: mother's breast. In other words, I look at my mother from the point of view of my infantile state. As I am about to do my virile honors, I get dizzy and can hardly stand. The helmet has become a vulva. I can hardly hold it properly. Lately, I played with my little girl's vulva. My mother dare not learn of that. Or is it that, having laid aside my helmet — my fetishism — I cannot face my mother? She must see that I had my hands in some- one's vulva. I also had a dagger in my hand. Am I bisexual ? I have both the penis and the vagina in my hand. Does that peek- ing through a hole indicate infantile peeping habits? I used to like crawling under the table, my father's writing desk included, and would then play bow-wow. I used to get great fun out of peeking through holes in curtains, portieres and blankets. The garden in the dream is doubtless my own soul. I once had to dig up a small garden plot at home for my mother, but I kept putting it off. At the same time, however, I helped a friend of mine dig up potatoes in their garden. My mother reproached me and I felt the sting of it. But I can't answer the question about how I know that, either. After all, I haven't been home for a long time. But I know very well what she means. I cannot tell her that I am healthy and cured ; I doubt it ; I have the desire to leave all the dirt and truck in the old garden because it is appealing to me in its original and overgrown state. I'm afraid of the question : "Are you cured ?"

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 275

The Austrian is Dr. Stekel. He is humiliated and I feel ele- vated for having accepted him out of sympathy. My father tells him to go, i.e., I tell him. And now comes the dilemma. I was with the Elizabeths or the Frances regiment, i.e., with the Aus- trians. I had gained a contact (the little girl), and then I sacri- ficed my infantile habits for homosexuality again. And now I can't return to her. Ergo, I return to my old sexual habits, my old regiment, the Nines. The post-cards remind me of the cari- cature post-cards of confirmation with the facsimile hand-writ- ing on them.

The soldier who showed me the post-card is Alfred Kor, an Alsatian, who died during the war from pneumonia. He is doubt- less a symbol of his friend Marly who was my aide for some time and with whom I cultivated rather intimate physical relations. I also loved him very much. Ergo: return to homosexual prac- tices. Depreciation and derogatory attitude towards heterosex- uality. I evidently didn't feel very sure of myself in this hetero- sexual role because I didn't feel very much a part of that Eliza- beth company.

The little girl in dream two reminds me of Frieda G., a friend of my sister's. We played bride and bridegroom on the sand- piles and hooked arms. I suppose we also played doctor together, but all I can recall is games with dolls. I must reiterate my fun in crawling under the tables.

I was very much interested in dolls ; what they had inside their bellies and why their eyes could clack so. On occasion I used to make a thorough examination of this situation, with the well- known results.

The girdle in my hand: a penis symbol.

Dr. Stekel asked me whether playing school, hitting or being beaten were memorable to me or not. I'm sure that we played school, but I can't recall any free hitting parties. The doll-chil- dren surely received whippings and beatings, however.

Is there an infantile experience behind these memories? Anx- iety that something may be found out?

Dream :

I am lying with my head in Dr. Stekel's lap or rather on his left thigh. I feel very happy and get the warmth of his body. Rolf Riemer, whom I had sought for a long time, came in and said he had heard from Dr. Stekel. He said: "I was such a happy fellow before. I'd like very much to have a friend to

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love again." Dr. Stekel said something to him. . . . He seems also to have been very happy. I now wish that Dr. Stekel had laid his hands on my head in the dream.

That must have been the end of a protracted, excited, search- ing series of dreams.

His relations to his father crop up more and more clearly in the analysis. He is transferring all his affect in this respect to me. He still expects me to change my attitude at the last minute. He wants to spend an evening with me and become more closely acquainted with me. He realizes how much time and energy I have sacrificed for his sake, but he wants more. In the last dream, he has his wish fulfilled. He lies in the lap of Abraham. R. R. is a representative of himself. His sexual relationships are quite normal. He is a very potent fellow with all his girl friends and can gratify them all with a good orgasm because he knows how to prolong the act. Otto's teeth are all in order now and the missing ones have been replaced by bridges. He is now prepared to continue with his important scientific paper which he had neglected for the past two weeks.

Otto continues his report.

Dream (the associations in parentheses).

I am at the main depot which seems to mingle with the city through all its great entrances and stairways, a complex of houses and courtyards (like my neurosis) ; behind a fence (barracks) I see a fellow who, I know, is learning how to ride and is being tormented and tortured in the process (I see only the trunk and head over the fence). (Before the war they used to tie a bucket filled with water to each leg of a soldier and make him gallop that way). I go below and the picture is gone. Then I went up into the depot again and saw the entrance to the barracks. A fellow was being led in by two men. He is bound and wears a singular sort of strait-jacket (reminds me of the Chinese Kang). His eyes are blindfolded and there is a gag in his mouth. He is driven into the gate. (I think the other fellow who was on horse was also fixed up in some manner; with blinders, I think.) I try to get a closer view of the scene but get lost in the maze of streets and houses.

Then I am on the railway platform. My train is about to leave. It is already made up, and the cars are full (nothing but rich foreigners). An extra-fare train. I see the diner. Then there

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 277

is a barber there and a clothing store. That can't be my train, I think, and then, to be sure, I see the sign on the train: "Switzer- land" (in the hills there is liberty). I have to take the next train. That carries a sign: "Berlin." But that one is filled to the top, too. I looked for a seat in every coupe and finally found one in the last car. There we sit, as if we were on the poop of a ship. Outside the protecting decks. It rains, but I don't get wet. I begin to speak with a man and the train starts backwards. The cars in front of us have open platforms and they seem to dis- appear in the water as we move, but they remained with us never- theless. We sailed around the end of the breakwater and I thought that was marvelous. Then we made fast on the other side of the mole. Then I missed my baggage. I opened one door after the other. Full of young fellows, lots of people (Wander- vögel, Boy Scouts and pathfinders). They lay in piles; all asleep. Whenever I bumped against one of them I was afraid he would awaken. Then I came into a room where there were only two women. The room seems light enough, but in the middle of it there was a pile of dirt (Soviet Russia, Bolshevism). The woman at the left had her blonde baby at her breast. She herself was blond. The one at the right is dark (later I imagined that the dark-haired one had put her child on the pot. She is Anna, my eldest sister).

The next door opened on a bath tub in which was sleeping some fellow with his clothes on and rolled in blankets. The tub was full of water. His face turned into the face of a Catholic sister, my eldest sister (she is dead. She is in her coffin. She is compressed within the uterus; swims in the amniotic fluid). I am afraid to awaken him. Keep on searching for my luggage. It's not in the depot, either. My family must have it with them in the train, they're all in there, too. I run back, meet a picket-fence, and climb over it. Just as I had jumped over it, I saw the train pull out.

Hang it! Now you're left! But, I say to myself, your bag- gage must have been put in the baggage car. You'll just follow with the next train. All you've lost is a day.

My mother asks me : "Is it true that you have had intercourse with Anna (my eldest sister) ?" I said: "Yes, and there was an adult there when I did it." My mother: "That must have been that maid." I was afraid the presence of the adult might mortify my mother (before that my father seems to have been there and we discussed my condition quite peacefully with each other).

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Otto, whose reports and associations had been getting more and more sparse, didn't take the trouble to analyze this last dream. The dream indicates clearly enough the patient's tendency to drop out of the analysis. He goes home and leaves Vienna. His para- pathia is portrayed as a maze of houses and streets. He is the poor fellow who is learning how to ride. But he describes it as if I were teaching him how to perform homosexual intercourse. His sexual adventure is also represented as the tormenting of his parapathic (ascetic) ego. The compulsiveness of the parapathia is replaced by the coercion of the normal man and the analyst. He is gagged and put in a strait-jacket.

He can't ride very easily, i.e., he doesn't know very well how life will treat him. He tries to penetrate the darkness of the future ; he's as free as a bird and doesn't even carry luggage. His sister is married and has a child which creates envy in him.

But still he would not like to give up his sister and his para- philia (his luggage). He has himself and his sister die, but only in order that they may be resurrected. The dream leads him back into his fetal state where he begins life anew. His sister, too, is reborn. That gives them an opportunity to avoid any sin- ful acts.

He misses the train and has to remain another day in Vienna. He must wait and that gives him a chance to return to me. He has saved himself the necessity of confessing anything at home. His mother knows everything. He has nothing more to con- fess. He can converse quietly and sensibly with father. So why be afraid to go home ? Everything that bore down on his soul at home has been taken care of in the dream. He can look father full in the eye.

The analysis is finished. Otto cannot remain any longer in Vienna. The practical result is an excellent one. The dentist phobia has been overcome, he can perform heterosexual inter- course and his objects have lost their effect on him.

Time alone will tell how permanent the result is. But we achieved a great deal in two and a half months. Theoretically, a further analysis would doubtless be of great interest. But have we physicians the right to demand that ?

This case is an excellent corroboration of every one of the theses I have expressed in the foregoing chapters. Let us col- lect the chief features of the case in a resume.11

A CASE OF ORTHOPEDIC FETISHISM 279

We have here a man who attempts to repress his sexuality and live the life of an ascetic. He retreats from heterosexual - ity and considers himself a homosexual. Indeed, he even brought a boy home and confessed to his mother that he had had intercourse with him. His father learned of it through the mother, and that was doubtless the purpose of the confes- sion. He revenges himself on his family, in other words, for refusing him the gratification which he desires. The nucleus of the patient's condition is his love for his father to whom he is homosexually fixated. This affection seems to have been transformed to hate and that is the thought which is most deeply repressed. Nor was he conscious of his fixations to his mother, sisters and grandmother before the analysis.

Two traumatic situations may be considered as the source of his condition. One is the death of his youngest sister. He felt guilty of this death because he had wished her dead, he had thus been the one to kill her. This is the source of his inferiority feelings and his tendencies towards expiation and atonement. His burning ambitions are well checked by these feelings of inferiority. He dare not achieve anything in life because he doesn't deserve it. He must reject all the enjoy- ments of life (his ascetic tendencies expressed in his avoidance of women, tobacco, alcohol, his self-denial and his poor cloth- ing, etc. ) . He hopes to weaken the wrath of God by this ascetic tendency and to achieve the status of one of the saints (his Christ neurosis). The other serious trauma was his inter- course with his sister when he was a child. His very earliest dreams indicate this trauma. This analysis should be read twice. Only then does one get an idea how frequently the early dreams announce the knowledge which we achieved only later. The determining influences in the specific form of his fetishism were several infantile impressions. 1 — His first suspenders. 2 — The rescuing umbilical dressing. 3 — Grandmother's truss. 4 — Mother's badges. 5 — His memory of his happy infant state. 6 — Christ's loin cloth.12

His fetishistic objects are a condensation of the divers com- ponents of his parapathia.

The object represents :

1. Himself. He is crippled and protected by the bandages.

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2. His sister and her skull bandage.

3. Some spirit, his dead brother, his dead sister.

4. Christ.

5. A victim of castration.

6. A swaddled baby.

7. (Edipus and the patricide.

8. Poor Lazarus. The eternal warning (be happy that you have your healthy limbs!).

His other diverse impressions were also of importance. The boy he saw in the hospital when his sister died. The picture of poor Lazarus. The bandage on his mother's toe when his sister was born. The gag as a memory of his sucking bag and the forceps. The splints his sister wore. His mother's corset. His identification with the horses (the curb-bits). The phimosis and the anal compulsion.

The most significant impression was probably the picture of poor Lazarus. He is Lazarus himself and, as such, will some day lay his head in the lap of Abraham.

The therapeutic effect in this case proves what I have always stated : The fact that these conditions are independent of any- thing that has to do with the internal secretions and that homo- sexuality and genuine fetishism are curable.

XVI

ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM By Emil Gutheil1

Case 70.

Introductory remarks : This patient agreed to an analysis under one condition: that under no circumstances should we destroy her particular sexual strivings. She was only desirous of en- listing our aid in gaining permission from the police to wear men's clothing.

Elsa B., thirty-four years old, government clerk.

Physical status: Slender stature, sloping shoulders, asthenic thorax, pale skin, female larynx. Primary and secondary sexual characteristics of normal appearance. Menses regular, onset about thirteen years of age. Claims to be able to undertake the hardest of work even during her period. Self-possessed appear- ance, male type of walk with long steps. Hesitates to give her correct age and blushes when she speaks of her sexual history. Alto voice. She claims that she had a tenor voice but that it be- came lower during puberty. She urinates in a standing position. No special signs of degeneration. The following are her physical measurements in centimeters.2

The patient is of average intelligence, shows good grasp of mental content, and some artistic interests (plays the violin).8

The introductory letter to Dr. Stekel:

"Dear Doctor : When I last visited you, you asked me to write you a description of my character. Although I cannot consider myself an accomplished writer, I shall nevertheless try to give you as clear a picture of myself as I am able.

"I had a distinct dislike of girls' toys as far back as I can re- call. I played only with boys* things, e.g., sabers, guns, soldiers, etc. My favorite toy was a large rocking horse. A doll which I received for Christmas once was destined to destruction at my hands, and a box of knitting goods was thrown into the fire. My desire to ride an animal, which I indulged one summer during a vacation in M. on the back of a St. Bernard dog, was made memorable by a scar which I still have. I also recall a winter coat

281

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SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

of dark blue cloth which I once had. It had ties instead of buttons and I cherished it very much. It is possible that the resemblance between this coat and the uniform coats of the hussars was what influenced my taste ; to such an extent, indeed, that I insisted on wearing the coat even in the spring and summer.

"As I grew older, my dislike of girls' toys increased. But, since my destructive tendencies earned me severe punishment, I learned to rid myself of them simply by hiding them in the dark- est corners of the house where they would be left to their fate. I was actually ashamed to have anything to do with them.

"I cannot recall having had any girl friends or playmates dur- ing the time I went to school. I had no desire to confide in them, nor were their games at all to my taste. And since, in the course of time, my favorite playthings were taken away from me, allegedly because they did not suit a girl like me, I began to cast about for other forms of amusement. From that time on my best friends were not people, but books.

"As the years passed, the question of clothing became a serious dilemma. To go out dressed in airy skirts and hats with ribbons and lace made me feel like a dressed-up monkey. Following promenades or visits in such clothing, I would be overcome with a deep depression and was glad when I reached home again and could tear the stuff from my body. Even then I felt just as dissatisfied with such clothing as I do to-day. Every new dress was the signal for a bitter struggle, and if I did submit to the necessity of putting it on, I felt rather like hiding myself away in a corner than being seen among people in it.

"Naturally enough, these differences finally led to an increas- ing estrangement between my family and myself and in the course of time this break was not to be bridged any more. My relatives could not understand my peculiarity and I myself was not yet clear as to the foundations of my feelings.

"For these many years now I have been living alone and am dependent upon that which I myself can earn. But I am still forced to wear clothes which make me just as unhappy as ever and frequently lead to the most embarrassing experiences on the street. During the war, I was often stopped on the street be- cause I was taken for a man, but even to-day, it is unpleasant enough for me to walk in public. I can often not avoid walking with my fellow workers, both men and women; and I need not describe to you how painful it is for me when people stop and gossip so that even my friends can hear.

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 283

"But this occurs in the street car and the trains as well as on the street.4 The frequently insulting remarks to which I am ex- posed in public have made me circumscribe my movements to the very most necessary errands. Thus, for example, I have now got to the point where I go only to my work and back again. For the sake of avoiding unpleasant occurrences, I have given up walks and outings entirely. Just what the effect of all this on my mental and physical state may be, you yourself may best be able to judge.

"But please do not believe that I have over-stated anything in these declarations. I would be only too glad if you would check this matter by consulting with a person who has been a witness to these things only too often.5

"And now I would beg you, dear doctor, to help me gain per- mission to wear men's clothing and thus enable me to live a more human and happy life. I am sure that I shall not infringe upon the rights of anyone thereby, and I can assure you that I should forever be thankful for your generous aid/'

I. Anamnesis and Dream Analyses

First Session. Memory from third to fourth year [see intro- ductory letter].6 It is said that I was a seven months' baby. Was weak and had all the children's diseases. When I was two, father died at seventy of paresis. He was a teacher in a normal school. He had married mother at thirty-eight when she was seventeen, and this difference in their ages later often led to quarrels because she was full of life and liked clothes, whereas he was a serious- minded and settled man. Looking for a good time at every oppor- tunity, mother naturally had little time or interest in my care. The result was that I had to be brought up by my grandparents. But grandfather (an ethnologist) and grandmother also paid little attention to me, the result being that I grew up more or less by myself. Four years after the death of my father, mother mar- ried again. With the development of my present habits, the re- lationship between my grandparents and myself, which had been bearable until then, was broken up, and I left home to start life on my own. Luck was with me ; I was able to get a position in a government bureau, and for the past ten years I have been living on my own earnings apart from my family. When I was twenty- five, my grandfather died, and two years later my grandmother.

I do not suffer because of my make-up (*). Usually played

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with boys as a child and disliked the company of girls. Had no girl friends until I was fifteen or sixteen and my first friendly relations consisted of playing musical instruments together (*). The only woman towards whom I feel any friendship is Mrs. Jus- tine, who is my landlady. She is sixty-four years old and I love her like a mother (I also call her "mother").

My relations to men are strictly those of a comrade or com- panion. No erotic background. On the contrary, the thought of intimacy provokes disgust in me [in answer to my question] even if the man wears female clothing. Sexual enlightenment came late, about eighteen or nineteen (*) and at about the same time my sexual instincts appeared (*), although I had no actual sex experiences (*). My sex interest is directed towards women, but I always conceive the love relationship as something ideally Platonic and abhor the thought of physical union (*).

As regards clothing, I may say that simply putting on men's clothing gives me pleasure. The whole procedure is comparable to that of tense anticipation of pleasure which subsides in relief and gratification as soon as the transvestiture is complete. I even experience lustful satisfaction in dreams of this act.

Dream one : I walk about freely dressed in men's clothing and accompanied by my "mother" (Mrs. Justine).

[In answer to my question] I feel so well and comfortable in my men's dress that I haven't any desire to look in a mirror and as far as I am concerned I wouldn't worry if there were no mir- rors (*). I have, however, had myself photographed in men's clothing. People tell me that in this photo, I look very much like my father.

[Does that make you happy?]

Yes!

I have a great desire to have a family, but I would want to be the provider. In my phantasies, I often see myself as the father of a family, caring for a wife and children. That is also our present relationship between Mrs. Justine and myself. I pro- vide for our mutual existence; she cooks, sews and tends to the other details of a wife's duties.

Second Session. I consider my condition as doubtless consti- tutional and perhaps abnormal, but not in the least pathological. Nor have I ever had any nervous complaints (*). In my thir- teenth or fourteenth year [in the last session it was the fifteenth or sixteenth year] I had my first affair with a girl named Marie.

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 285

Between twelve and sixteen we went to a convent school together. There were kisses, hugs and embraces — but no more. I think the girl had just as passionate feelings as I did [(*) Cf. the state- ments of the last session on this point].

My stepfather often bought me dolls, but I broke them and destroyed them and demanded boys' playthings. I was always hurt by the fact that I did not know my father, and envied the children I saw in the company of their mothers and fathers. My own company was usually that of my grandmother. The first experience of a transvestitic character was the winter coat I mentioned in the letter (*). I can't recall any more, from whom I received it. When they tried it on me I got a distinct feeling of pleasure.

Mother married again when I was six or seven. I couldn't stand my stepfather and later suffered many unpleasant experi- ences as a result of this situation.

A maid offered me sexually enlightening information when I was about eleven or twelve. [Cf. with the last session in which she stated that the enlightenment occurred when she was eighteen or nineteen. Her sexuality is being gradually dated back.]

Third Session. Dream two [the first in the analysis and for that reason of considerable importance]. I ride home in a train from a concert or a church. Some people come into the coupe who are hawking pictures (artist's photos with autographs). A picture was offered to me and I asked the price. It was twenty- two thousand crowns. Since the price was too high for me, I refused.

[The associations refuse to rise. Resistance. The dream could therefore be interpreted only later. It has two determinants. The first concerns the resistance and means : We — Dr. Stekel and I — offer her pictures of her future in payment of which she will divulge to us the secret of her twenty-two years ; but the price is too high (the zeros in the figure twenty-two thousand can be neglected. At twenty-two she broke with her femininity, bobbed her hair and began to wear men's clothes ; see below) . The second determinant contains the reproduction of a traumatic experience. The patient's resistance prevented the full and final resolution of the dream which became possible only later.]

It appears that the relations between my father and mother were not of the best for after he died she spoke in derogatory terms of him. During the last several years of his life, they lived quite

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apart from each other. My mother is supposed to have "worn the pants" at home.

With the passing of years, I seemed to become more and more antipathetic to mother, probably because I reminded her of her deceased husband.

By her second marriage, mother had two sons. The first, Edward, was eight years younger than I, and the second, Otto, ten years younger. I liked them both and we often played to- gether. When I was about twenty-three or twenty- four, mother had her ovaries removed and I thought: Aha! That's the con- sequence of love! [There follow irrelevant details which bring the patient off the track. In order to bring her back to the dis- cussion and association of her sexual themes, I ask her what dis- appointments she may have had with men.] None whatever. I have had no sexual experiences with them. The most memor- able sexual experience was with Marie (thirteen or fourteen) (*).

Fourth Session. My position at home became more and more acute in the course of time. At the outbreak of the war, August 1914, my insurmountable difficulties drove me out of the house and I rented a room with a single woman. Meanwhile, my step- father tried to take me to court because he wanted to place me under tutelage. Fate then had it that I was suspected of being a Serbian spy because of my striking attire, and the result was that I was once severely beaten by people on the street. That was then the first time that I begged the police for permission to wear men's clothing. The request was answered by a notice for me to visit the police officials. There the police surgeon turned me over to the psychiatric clinic for observation. But they found no basis for placing me under guardianship and released me after six days with the statement: condition improved! There followed considerable financial privation for me.

The patient brought another dream:

Dream three. I am married and have a wife. I am having in- tercourse with her and am happy at the size of my penis and the male form of my chest. Then ejaculation and following that an orgasm which lasted for minutes.

[This is a distinct wish dream; the large phallus of which she dreams can also be nothing else than a wish phantasy. The striking point of the dream is the fact that the orgasm follows the ejaculation. Now, we know that this succession is not to be found in either man or woman. It is possible with women that

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 287

the orgasm last longer than the ejaculation, but the latter is always to be found at the parabolic height of the former. The patient evidently desires to experience a "male" orgasm in the dream, and we learn that she believes that a man first has the ejaculation and then the orgasm. This affords us a very instruc- tive example of the dependence of the orgasm upon the specific images concerning the same. For further discussion see Stekel, Impotence in the Male] .

When I was eight or nine years old, I noticed on my brother that he had other genitals than myself and I envied him because of this difference. I also had dreams at the time which showed me in possession of a penis [these statements are incomplete. She is hiding an important and significant complex]. I recall getting beaten (by mother?) during some outing when I ten or eleven years old. An unknown teacher who was with a group of her children near by felt sorry for me and lay her arm pro- tectingly about my neck. That gave me a thrill, a lustful pleasure which was like an electric shock. I didn't know why that was at the time, but later, when I was eighteen or nineteen, it became the basis of onanistic phantasies. My masturbatory activity used to be performed by my lying prone on my abdomen and making the movements of a male in coitus. I have never suffered any physical ill health from my onanistic practices and consider it quite a natural expedient for me. [We also see through this statement that it was not the sexual enlightenment which occurred at eighteen or nineteen, but the onanism. Cf . also the first session : "There were no sexual experiences."]

Fifth Session. [No dreams. Resistance. Probable beginning of the transference. All her data are beside the point.]

Sixth Session. Since I had a great desire for tenderness and affection in childhood, but never got satisfaction from any of my relatives in this respect, I used to phantasy another mother to myself who, I was sure, would not refuse children this necessary attachment. For example, I would imagine such a woman lov- ingly slipping her hands down about my head and face, or over my cheeks ; or she would press me close to her, etc. As I grew older, I came to feel these phantasies so intensively that I could almost sense them physically and a shudder of delight would run through me. [Mother and sexual object appear here to have been con- densed to one parapathic person.]

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After many years, I wrote letter after letter to mother, but I never received an answer. That was then the end of my attempts to make up with her. At the time, and even to-day, I suffered greatly because of this indifference. Many times when I am walking on the street, I think to myself : How would you act if you should meet your mother now ? I don't even know what hap- pened to my brothers in the war ; whether they fell or whether they simply broke with me.

I am not religious, but on the holidays I go to church. I got this habit from my grandparents, but my parents were very pious.

Seventh Session. [Out of a series of several dreams, I choose one which is a transference dream and shows a trace of her cas- tration complex.]

Dream four. I am at the dentist's and find myself in his oper- ating room. He begs me to wait in the waiting room. But since that was a little too boring for me, I decided to leave and return later. I left and then noticed on the way that I was carrying a long sort of object in my left hand. I cannot recognize what this object might possibly be, but I said to myself that it must belong to the doctor. I therefore promptly turned about to go back and return the article before its loss should be noticed; for the thought began to trouble me that the doctor might easily be- lieve that I wanted to steal it from him.

[As we shall see later on, the castration complex is the most important sign of the patient's erotic attitude towards the opposite sex. My own person thus easily enters into the scope of her strivings, and it is just this fact which turned out to be rather productive in this case. As we have already mentioned, the patient hadn't the slightest desire to become cured and, on the other hand, we could not make any use of the usual methods to provoke the aid of the patient in the progress of the analysis. It is alone on the basis of this transference that we were able to exploit the deeper levels of her unconscious. — I must call atten- tion to the erotic charge of the mouth in the case of the dreamer. I appear to her as a dentist, i.e., the scope of my activity also in- cludes the buccal cavity.]

I cannot imagine my condition being curable. If anyone came along now and told me that he could make me feel like a woman, I would reject his offer.

[To what extent can you call your transvestitism erotic?]

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 289

It affords me downright sexual pleasure. Simply putting on my suit can provoke an orgasm.

[I can very well believe that your homosexual tendencies make the wearing of this apparel preferable. But is it not rather the pleasure of forbidden fruit which makes this clothing so delight- ful?]

Not at all. The question of clothes is a very special one with me. It has nothing to do with my character. The transvestiture has a far greater pleasure-value in my eyes than any intercourse, and I could easily forgo the latter in favor of the former.

I long ago thought to myself that it would be hard to make acquaintances for the sake of homosexual intercourse, and seduc- ing a heterosexual woman would have had the direst consequences for my own state of mind for I should have thought that my act would determine the subsequent course of her love life. That is then why I was satisfied to indulge my striving in the trans- vestitic habits and my autoerotism.

That reminds me that when I was about eight or nine years old my fifteen-year-old cousin told me that he wanted to marry me when I grew up. I thought of such a future condition and found the phantasy quite satisfying. When I was between five and seven, we children played "father and mother." I often played the part of the mother ( + ), and dolls and playmates were my children. I also had a "husband" who went to "work" while I stayed home and cooked. In my phantasies I had identified myself with my mother, and even tried to fix my hair in the same way that she wore it [Cf. second session].

In my childhood, I had to suffer very much from my feelings of inferiority. No one paid me any attention at home and I was afraid of the present and the future. I didn't understand why I should be so disregarded by everybody. Nor did the derogatory remarks about my father, which I usually heard from my step- father, help me any. I thought to myself that I was borne by my mother just as well as his children. I often harbored death wishes against him.

Eighth Session. [A dream gives us a clue to the fact that the patient has not yet achieved the strictest uprightness. She still feels annoyed by the fact the "strangers" want "to peek" behind the scenes of her soul.]

Dream five. It seems to be morning. There is a bed in the

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room I'm in and a woman is lying in it. I myself am up and dressed, but I have on only a shirt and vest, but no skirt. Dressed in this fashion, I was sitting on the edge of her bed and covering her breast, neck and cheeks with my kisses. As I was about to get up from the bed, I looked behind me and noticed with some degree of painful surprise that there was no wall there, but that I could look without hindrance into the open. There I saw strangers looking up at us. The thought of having been observed is very unpleasant.

[No very complicated analytical technique is necessary in order to recognize the woman in bed as the "mother" from a similar phantasy (Cf. sixth session). The dream is an expression of a mother fixation. The male attire of the patient in the dream reflects exactly the attire she wears by day, with exception of the fact that the skirt was left off ; but this is precisely what com- pletes the effect of the male in the dream. The next dream is produced under similar emotions. Other dreams of this series were unimportant.]

Dream six. I go on an outing with my mother (Justine). We had just arrived in a fair-sized village and, because we were both hungry, I went into a delicatessen store, where I bought long rolls, salami and a package of ginger-bread. I paid the bill, put the package away in a brief case I had with me, and stepped out of the store to resume our walk. We stopped across the way from a church and many people filled the market place. We decided to await developments. It did not take long (mother had meanwhile disappeared) before I noticed that this was a singular procession which was passing before my eyes. The line con- sisted of men in red costumes who were carrying flags. Then suddenly I was back in my office, bending over some figures at my desk. After a while, I took the brief case into my hands to search for something inside, and found the untouched food there. I became irritated that I hadn't eaten it with mother.

[This dream is equally as important as dream two. As in that dream, we have here the motif of watching and the costumed men. Also, as in the case of the other dream, her persistent re- sistance expressing itself in the form of halting associations pre- vented me from arriving at a definite solution. But the dream did contain the following: the outing with the mother is a cor- rection of reality, for she had never gone on an outing (Mrs. Justine is but a screen object). She buys long rolls, salami and ginger-bread cakes : all phallic symbols which, like the delicatessen

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 291

store and the brief case (vagina) into which she puts the things, clearly reveal the sexual basis of the first part of the dream. The dreamer is then a witness to a singular procession. Men in red costumes march by her carrying flags (again the phallic symbols). This part is to be conceived as follows : The patient's soul is torn between two tendencies. She vacillates between the inn (oral erotism; note the choice of phallic symbols: rolls, salami and ginger-bread cakes) and the church (religion) ; between sensuality and asceticism. The men in red costumes are men in general, the dangers of the street 7 from which she is protected by her male attire. But why does she protect herself against men? — The church in the dream is a condensed symbol of the religious tend- encies in her soul. The answer to the above question is: she dare not — for reasons which become clear later on — come in contact with men. That is why we see her back in the office again after the scene at the inn and the church (she is an official). The symbolic meaning of the office is that of duty; in a more general way that of compulsion in the wider sense of the word. We shall speak of this again. — The third part of the dream re- produces an onanistic act ("I took the brief case in my hand"). It also indicates the sexualized oral zone (the food and the brief case) and expresses her dissatisfaction at not having shared the phallic symbols with her mother. — This session as well as the ninth and tenth did not produce anything essentially new.]

[Following upon obstinate resistances, the patient relates this strange memory:]

When I was about ten or eleven our maid told me the following tale with the purpose of sexual enlightenment [Cf . the first session where she said that the enlightenment occurred rather late, i.e., "between eighteen and nineteen].

A father sleeps with his daughter in order to protect her from violation of her chastity (!). But one night she crept out of bed and ran into the courtyard where her lover was awaiting her. There, leaning against a wagon, they performed the act (detailed description of the same). But the shaking of the wagon caused a scythe which was lying there to fall down between the two of them in such a way that it lopped off the boy's penis ( !). The daughter fled with the bleeding phallus still in her vagina, and crawled back into bed over the sleeping form of her father. But as she crept over him, the penis dropped out of her vagina and straight into her father's mouth (!!!).

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This tale impressed me terrifically and continued to pursue me for some years afterwards.

[Don't you find this scythe, this deus-ex-machina, sort of strange ?]

Indeed, but I never considered the logic of the story; I only had an indefinable feeling about the matter: sheer anxiety.

[In answer to my further questioning] I imagine now that the contact between the penis in the girl's vagina and her father's mouth may not have been such an accidental one. It is possible that it was a form of sexual intercourse.

[This tale indicates a castration complex and a fellatio phan- tasy. If we are to believe the patient, then we must assume that the maid — who was doubtless a psychopath — incited the paraphilia of the castration and fellatio complex in the child or at least aggra- vated the paraphilic tendencies already present. At any rate, we later find the patient afflicted with both these complexes, although they doubtless derive from a much earlier period. For that reason we are inclined to consider the story a fabrication, an hysterical wish-phantasy, despite the fact that this could not be directly got out of the patient.]

Twelfth Session. In the first few years of my life my mother often showered me with tenderness, and even as a little older child I yearned for her kisses and hugs. But, unfortunately, after my third or fourth year, they had fled forever.

Dream seven. I am just coming out of a railway station. At that moment a carriage which had been standing before the depot began to move. Two of my girl friends were in it and one of them called to me that I would have to go on foot because I had tarried so long. And, despite the arguments of both the coach- man and the other girl, they proceeded. So I began my long walk and, since a young fellow was just passing by me, I took the opportunity to ask him the way. He gave me directions and even accompanied me for a short distance on the road which led through the place. Arrived in the town, he said good-bye and I continued alone. A steep road lay before me. On the right there is a forest and the meadows lie on the left. The road becomes steeper and stonier and I proceed with difficulty. The carriage which had disappeared from view before now reappeared before me. The coachman happened to turn around and saw me ; he then turned towards the girls as if to ask them whether they wouldn't have me ride with them. But by that time I had approached the

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 293

carriage and before my friend could answer the coachman's ques- tion, I refused the courtesy with thanks. I thought to myself : I won't presume upon your company ; you let me walk alone and now I will continue alone; the more so since I find it much more satisfying alone than otherwise. After a rather hard climb, I finally landed in a little mountain village. It seemed as if I had wandered far from home for the people and their customs were foreign to me. The villagers seemed to be celebrating some holi- day for they were all crowded on the market place and dressed in their gay peasant costumes. I stopped and watched their cere- mony. They had formed a large circle, leaving a free space in the center, and most of them carried two small, square, red ves- sels which they then threw to the ground. As the vessels crashed on the earth, out sprang a red-costumed figure ; alternately a male and a female. Their costumes were about those of Satan and Satanella. And then these little pairs, which were about ten inches high, began a funny battle to the delight of all the onlookers. I watched the proceedings for a short time and then removed my- self, shaking my head at such a queer custom.

[It is not difficult to see that the dream is a symbolic repro- duction of her own family situation. The young fellow who shows her the way is her analyst and the "steep road" is her own para- pathic life. Her obstinate attitude is easily gleaned from the words she used in the dream. The second part of the dream is also quite important. Two vessels are thrown to the earth from which a little man and a little woman spring. These then begin a "funny struggle" with each other. This the conflict between the male and female trends in her own soul. The word holiday, however, also means a creative holiday from which both men and women spring. The dreamer is both together, a psychic hermaph- rodite, a kind of Lingam (Stekel). It appears that the psychic hermaphroditism is the basis of her transvestitism.]

Thirteenth Session. My step-father had early strived to edu- cate me to the task of helping in the household duties and be- coming a good housewife. That always made me angry. He purposely bought me girls' playthings and knitting goods and hoped in this way to excite my love for such things. But I hated every- thing that came from him. My mother always reproached me for not being friendlier to my stepfather, and I know that such an attitude would have spared me many a conflict. But I just couldn't do otherwise. Moreover, I recall that both my grandfather and

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my stepfather had a low opinion of household duties. I always looked upon a housewife as an unpaid working woman. [Other material irrelevant.]

Fourteenth Session. When mother engaged herself a second time (I was six or seven), I learned that she had never wanted to have a daughter, that my being born disappointed her, as it were. She said that it was her dearest wish to have boys, at least in her second marriage. Now, don't you think that a mother's wish has some influence on the constitution of her children?

[That I can hardly answer you. But it seems plausible to me that a child who realizes that to be the parents' wish, and strives to attract its parents' affections, may, under certain circumstances, be very much influenced in its character formation by such a wish alone.]

Until I was about twelve or thirteen, I wore earrings and girls' clothes. It was at about that time that my desire for men's clothes first appeared. But both my stepfather and my mother looked upon such an idea with the greatest disapproval. And that was why I first bobbed my hair and occasionally put on men's cloth- ing in my room only after I was twenty-two, i.e., after I had lived apart from my parents at my grandmother's for about seven years. Meanwhile, i.e., between twelve and twenty-two, I suc- ceeded only in wearing my hair trimmed, and putting on starched collars, ties and cuffs; it cost me considerable effort to keep my girls' clothing on, however. [Cf. the information in the first session and the introductory letter, in which the impression is given that her transvestitism began with the blue winter coat. It will be necessary to examine the notion of the transvestiture a little more closely.]

[Will you please try to give me as clear a conception of your feeling while wearing the winter coat as possible.]

Oh, yes! Now I remember that I would look in the mirror. Cf. her remarks about the mirror in the first session and when I put on that coat and was very well pleased with myself.

[Did you get the impression at that time that it was similar to a hussar's coat?]

No. That is my present notion. At that time, I was only satis- fied; I was proud of my handsomeness. Everybody who looked at me then, praised my looks.

[Could you tell me whether that was the reason why you always wanted to wear that article of apparel ?]

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 295

I can't recall that, but the idea seems very plausible to me. It was an extraordinary gift, and a bit of clothing which quite ele- vated me above the other children. I thought myself very superior, doubtless for the first time in my life.

Fifteenth Session. From my earliest childhood I had heard frequently enough that my mother had been irritated by the fact that she had not borne a son. I felt sorry for her, and later I thought that this must be the reason why she neglected me. If I had been a boy, everything would have been different.

[You said the last session that it was your vanity which pro- voked you to the constant wearing of that winter coat. Didn't you have an opportunity to indulge your vanity with any of your other clothes?]

I hardly think so. No article of apparel, no manner of fixing my hair seems to have suited my person. My hair often plunged me into such fits of rage that I wanted to cut it off on the spot. I later found that having it bobbed fitted me much better than having it long.

Dream eight. I am at home in my room and look by chance at my bird only to find that he's lying on the bottom of his cage in the sand, his eyes closed as if something's happened to him. I call mother (Justine) in, open the cage-door and pull the bird out. Meanwhile, mother has brought some water. I dipped a sponge into the water and began washing the bird. As soon as I noticed that he began to move, and opened his eyes, I put him back in the cage again. At this move, the animal soiled my arm, and I also had the feeling as if my mouth were full of feces, too. The feeling of disgust awakened me.

[The dream is determined by a plurality of motives. The be- ginning of it indicates masturbation ("I wash my bird"). It is a characteristic of the homosexual trend of the patient's thoughts that the genital symbol is bisexually exploited : the bird is usually a phallic symbol. — But the onanistic phantasy is controlled by her mother fixation. — Finally, the dream corroborates our supposition that her mouth represents an erogenous zone. This part is a manifest fellatio phantasy. — As later information shows, this phantasy is expressed in both the negative or phobic form (dis- gust and revulsion) and the positive form. The second interpre- tation leads via bird — blue bird — the romantic, to her parapathia. The patient here prevents the death of her parapathia. "I have feces in my mouth" expresses her disgust at having to speak of

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such "vile" things in the analysis. In this sense, the dream is a resistance dream. — Koprophilic tendencies need not be considered. The dream may also be interpreted as meaning that her apparently dead sex life awakens during the analysis, but she locks the cage again as soon as she notices this.

Finally, there is another problem to be considered. The dreamer waking her "birdie" means: she revives her phallus which has remained undeveloped (dead) ; it is easy to see how this must be one of the most important phantasies in the infantile life of this girl. The notion of the mother ("mother fetched some water") appears significantly related to the revival of the phallus.]

Dream nine. I am walking on the street and soon go into a large house. I climbed up the stairs and then stopped before a closed door, as if I had to buy something and were waiting. As my eyes glide down over my clothes, I notice that I have a man's suit on. Since I had intended to go to the office after my purchase, I now had to remove myself because I feared that someone from the onfice might come and see me in this dress. I decided to take the street car home in order to change my clothes. On the street, however, I was pleased to note that I felt quite free in these clothes; I was not annoyed by anyone; and I was happy to see how much better I looked. I climbed aboard a car and rode home.

[Here again we meet with the problem of the street. As the associations showed, the purchase concerned love ; in a more specific sense, the male genitals. The patient's attitude towards the male attire in the dream betrays a mechanism which we already know. I consider that part about not being annoyed on the street as the most important. It means that the male attire protects her against the onslaughts of daily life, i.e., against men in par- ticular. The word "free" explains the complex suggested in dream six. Assuming male clothing dispels a compulsion: the necessity of being a woman. She feels free; she revolts against the destiny of being a female and constructs a fixed idea, the compulsion to be a man.

The mechanism of this case reveals significant relationships with that of a case of compulsion neurosis. The narcissistic background of the parapathia is also clear.]

Sixteenth Session. Dream ten. I am taking a walk along with a number of other people. We turn into an old house ; first into the courtyard and then up a flight of stairs. The persons accom- panying me persist in teasing me. As we are going up the stairs,

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 297

1 look into a window off the hall and seem to see a tailor's shop in there. I walk in and a woman approaches me to ask what my wish may be. I ask her if this is a tailor's shop, and she answered that it was. Then I asked whether it were a ladies' or men's tailor. At that moment a young fellow of about twenty years, pale and sickly, came into the room. She pointed to this fellow and said that her son was primarily a men's tailor but that the slack season had forced him to take on work for ladies, too. I then asked how much a suit would cost and left. I went down- stairs and out into the courtyard. Some of my friends were standing on the open porches of the halls above and began throw- ing leaves, stones, waste-paper, etc., down at me.

[The dream contains a womb phantasy (the trip through the old house). But the meaning of the whole is that the patient has herself tailored over (tailor — clothes — sexuality). The sickly son is the patient herself. Formerly, she used to take on "work for men" (i.e., she was heterosexual in her childhood), but now that the season is slack, she must take on work for ladies (i.e., become homosexual). And again we meet with the question of what the price will be. — The persons who throw all kinds of waste and stones down upon her, primarily express her guilt conscious- ness, but they are also the plastic symbolization of the derogation of her femininity. The scene also affords us an indication of her Christ identification which we shall discuss later. — What is the meaning of the womb phantasy? Giving up her utopic dreams of happiness, turning back the wheels of time, going home, returning to "the old house" in order to start life anew in a manner more suited to her. The feeling of having failed to make use of the days of her life is expressed in a poem she wrote during her puberty :

They are not empty, hollow words You hear in my sad song. One cannot know the yearnings Into my heart did throng.

Nor know the many tortures I voicelessly did bury ; And all the ugly vultures About my soul did tarry.

I yearned for love and tenderness, But plucked the flowers of pain. Whilst the brightest days of youthfulness Untouched, unused did wane.

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Oh ! That I should find the heart That beats for me alone. That on my soul the sun's rays dart Before I'm dead and gone !

The son of the woman in the dream is also the patient's brothe; with whom she seems to identify herself in her parapathia.]

Seventeenth Session. [I pass over an unimportant dream.] At times I have the deepest dislike of sausages. Between ten and twelve I couldn't touch them. I couldn't stand the fat in them and threatened to vomit the sausage if I ate it. It is possible that a case of ptomaine poisoning which I had as a child may have had something to do with that. But, curiously enough, I also feel a similar disgust of fat men.

[What has caused you the most violent disgust in your life?]

That makes me think of a really revolting experience. I was about fifteen or sixteen at the time and was riding home in the car one day. The car was empty with exception of an older man who was sitting across from me. Suddenly the car went through a little tunnel and he stood up, exhibited his genitals and masturbated right there before me. [Cf. the third session in which she denied having had a traumatic experience with a man.] The suddenness of the act paralyzed me with fright at first, but then I became sick with disgust and left the car. I think it is this coarseness which did much to cultivate my dislike of men.

[What did you think of the moment you saw the man'& phallus ?]

I can't recall. I was simply weak with fright.

[Perhaps you will think a moment. Such questions cannot be answered immediately.]

Ah, yes. But it was quite a banal thought. I had the idea: Cut it ofT with your scissors ! This is just what you want ! Seize it ! My disgust was so great because the size of the penis seemed so unusual to me. Don't you find it rather queer that I should have been so disgusted and at the same time so desirous of having it?

[She persists in distracting my attention from the castration complex. For which reason I ask her directly:

Did you have the thought of cutting off a penis in any other situation?]

Yes. When I was about eight or nine, I remember having

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 299

seen my brother's penis. I promptly realized that that was what made the difference between myself and boys. That was what mother wanted to see on me. And then: You're stronger than he. Cut it off and take it for yourself. But these thoughts were as transient as lightning. They disappeared immediately. I thought: Well, you've been ill and you're still smaller and sicklier than the others of your age. Your penis will grow yet. But when I began to menstruate, I realized that all was in vain, and then I was depressed for the longest time.

I can also remember that up to the time I was eight or nine, I differentiated between the sexes only according to the difference in clothing. In my mind it was only the clothing that made the difference between boys and girls.

[This information contains important details. The interpreta- tion of dreams two and five becomes more clear; the " watching" and the "red-costumed men" become more understandable in their significance. Dream two is a symbolic reproduction of the traumatic experience she has just described. The costumed figures as well as the flag-bearing red-costumed men are all phalluses which she has observed. Red-costumed men also mean those who are sensually desirous or simply men. The word autograph indicates her autoerotic habits : the onanism and also a trait which she has as yet failed to mention. The "price is too high" refers to the great size of the phallus and the taboo character of the castration thought. — The dream, in short, indicates the patient's sexual attitude towards the opposite sex: the picture of disgust, and anxiety of her own criminality. — Dream five is also trans- parent from this point of view. — I also wish to call special atten- tion to the expression which indicates the patient's infantile notion of sex differences.]

Eighteenth Session. Did I say yesterday that the sight of genitals disgusts me? Well, I must correct that statement. Only male genitals excite revulsion in me. If I had a woman whom I loved, I should even be able to perform cunnilingus. [( + ) Cf. second session.] I must even add that such things have happened, too. The woman with whom I lived after I left home was a former actress and a confirmed morphine addict. She was ab- solutely unreliable as to mood and one day she suddenly sug- gested that we perform mutual cunnilingus. I was agreeable and from that day on we satisfied ourselves frequently in this manner. She also received many male visitors. But the very thought of

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those men coming into the house sickened me. And since this disgust robbed me of my pleasure in the cunnilingus in the course of time, we satisfied ourselves simply by mutual masturbation (in lying position). It was at this time that I realized that I was totally anaesthetic in the vagina. — That which attracts me most about women is the breasts, particularly the nipples which I like to kiss and suck during intercourse. The sucking is one of my most deeply gratifying practices.

Nineteenth Session. It is not just any kind of male clothing, but only the European type of male attire which interests me. In any other part of the world I would feel comfortable only as a European. [Other details irrelevant.]

Dream eleven. I am walking with another woman on the street. We come to a large building on a corner and it gave the impres- sion of being in the oriental style. I thought it was a mosque. We go inside and it looks like the interior of a shrine. We kneel in short prayer and then I wanted to see the image of the Holy Virgin. But since I did not know where it might be found, I asked my friend. She pointed to a great staircase where many people were going up and down. She said I should go up those stairs ; at the top I would find a novitiate nun to whom I should mention my pass-word. Then she would show me the way that led to the image of the Holy Virgin. I complied with this direc- tion and started up the stairs where I met a woman to whom I made my wish known. I also greeted her by taking off my hat. She asked me for my pass-word which I told her, and then she began to lead the way for me. The path led us through halls and halls, in one of which there stood a number of beds. She stepped up to one of the beds and I noticed that papers were lying on it. She searched for something among these papers, but we soon continued on our way. Finally, we arrived at the image. It looked like a madonna, and I heard it crying. Then I pulled out a pouch and scooped up some tobacco with a little vessel within the bag and placed it in a vessel standing just before the image. Then I removed myself in search of the woman who had brought me there.

[Two other dreams were of no special importance. — But the above dream is one of the most significant in the whole analysis. It reveals her mother complex and her religious tendencies in a single condensation: the cult of the madonna. In her phantasies the dreamer makes a pilgrimage to her mother in order to beg for

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 301

her blessing. Grace for her rebellious actions during childhood and grace as an expression of love. The patient now suddenly realizes that her ideal type of woman is a madonna. The nursing mother of God had always passed before her mind's eye as a most rapturous phantasy. And it is quite clear that she herself is the nursing child.8 In other words, we have here another case of the Christ neurosis (Cf. dream twelve). She bears the cross of her parapathia upon her back and has also remained chaste as Christ himself. Her parapathia protects her from inchastity, i.e., from any contact with men. Gradually she also develops grandiose ideas about earning a great deal of money, giving to charity, building hospitals and schools, etc. Marie, her first homosexual love, was just such a madonna type. She remained in a convent, however (the novitiate9). Associating on the pass-word, she thinks of the word Laurentius. She had made use of the first name of the violin maker Storioni as a pass-word for the postal savings bank books which she kept. The associations then pass to Stradivarius and then to her father who was also a violinist. When I told her that the pass-word in the dream, which had been repressed, was probably "father," she suddenly recalled a part of the dream which she had forgotten : "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost !"

The fact that she then greets a woman on the stairs by taking off her hat (as the men do it) rhymes well according to this in- formation with the interpretation of the dream as her act of gaining admittance to her mother "in the name of the Father." The woman who leads her to the image is probably her phantasy, i.e., her parapathia in the stricter sense of the word. On the way to the mother of God, she passes through several halls where there are beds with papers on them. According to Stekel, the halls are memories. The beds indicate onanistic acts which were performed with the mother as the phantasy-content (beds on the way to mother; the masturbation performed in bed). It is prob- able that the letters unanswered by the mother were also of symbolical effect. — The madonna cries, i.e., the mother cries re- gretfully at her daughter's unhappiness ; she is ready for forgive- ness.— The final scene represents a sacrifice with a sexual motif. The spilling of tobacco into the little urn is also an expression of her maleness.]

Twentieth Session. Because of my condition, i.e., because of the discrepancy between my physical make-up and my spiritual

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trends, I have often suffered deeply. [( + ) Cf. with the informa- tion in the first session.] And curiously enough, it was always at such periods of stress and depression that the thoughts of cutting off a penis would appear more frequently, usually in the form of delightful and grandiose phantasies. I have also phantasied my- self slitting open the bellies of snakes and the like. In general, I must say that I cannot stand the sight of a penis ; the castration idea is promptly provoked thereby. Ever since that scene with my brother I have reacted in this manner.

[This information gives us insight into the deepest foundations of the patient's homosexual parapathia.]

Twenty-first Session. My stepfather used to tell me as long as I knew him that I was ugly. I heard it so often that I finally believed it myself and was very much hurt. At eleven or twelve I had myself photographed, but I looked so badly in the picture that I burned it. I believe that my vanity plays a large part in my life ( + ). That was especially prominent when I bobbed my hair.

[How do you feel as a man?]

I believe myself to be a rather handsome male. When I was twelve or thirteen, my grandfather was once away from home and I secretly put on his suit. I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed that it quite fitted me and made me look much better than in female attire. Then I desired to have such clothes. The same thing happened one New Year's Eve when I tried on a suit of my brother's (about fifteen or sixteen). I found myself rather attractive in that suit. It seems that the impression of my step- father's words must have been very great, especially since I began myself to believe that I was the apotheosis of ugliness. This feel- ing has no basis in fact. But in men's attire I do not feel so; a great oppression leaves me and instead of feelings of inferiority, I feel free and easy.

[We have just f ocussed another source of her parapathia : her narcissism. Later on we shall have further opportunity of ex- amining this factor in the etiology of transvestitism somewhat critically.]

Twenty-second Session. An interesting dream. N. twelve. I go to a celebration along with several colleagues of mine. After a while we arrive at some village where there is a large inn on the market place. We walk in and sit down in a hall which is very large and filled with many people sitting at tables. We can see

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 303

the market place through the windows of the room. We ordered something to eat and drink, and in a little while the crowd seemed to become happier; began to sing and laugh. The market place, too, seemed to have become lively ; someone was making a speech, there was a crowd out there, an orchestra played and then a choir sang some songs. Just as the people had dispersed and the market place became free again, a sacristan appeared carrying a cross which must have been very heavy because he was plainly having great difficulty in carrying it. He strode across the market place and then disappeared from view.

[After what we have learned in the interpretation of the other dreams, the interpretation of this one need not be difficult. Again we see the contrast between inn and church. While indulging her sensual pleasures, she sees the "sacristan with the cross" through the windows of her parapathia: that is the reflection of her own spirit.10 Her striking attire brings down the jeers and the enmity of the crowd and every road through the city becomes the road to Golgotha.11 She is a martyr in the cause of her parapathia. She has actually bled for her passions (see session four).]

Twenty-third Session. At twenty-five or twenty-six I bought a man's suit with my own earnings and that led to an open break with my family. I knew that that meant a decision on my part as to whether I would remain with them or capitulate to my in- stincts. I decided in favor of the latter. I tried both in my external appearance and in my character to identify myself with my father as far as I had any recollection of him. My mother's second marriage went against my grain for I considered my step- father a robber who had taken my mother.

[How do you feel about your mother to-day?]

I hate her. But in my phantasy, I created a situation in which I did not feel her faults so much.

Twenty-fourth Session. As soon as my secondary sex charac- ters began to develop, I was forced to bury my original hope that my phallus would yet grow. It was at this time (about twelve years) that I began to strive to develop the male character of my clothing. I seemed to have the desire not to be a woman if I could not be a man. My yearning for my father became distress- ing, and I often thought that if he were only alive, things would not be so bad for me. Nor did I want the usual cut-and-dried

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education and that was why I turned to the study of music and history. In respect of the latter studies, I might say that I was interested in the various cultural epochs, particularly, however, that of antiquity. [Even here, parapathic motives were definitive. Father had been a good violinist and that was one of the reasons why the patient took over this characteristic in her identification with him. This trend was also a manifestation of obstinacy to- wards the educative efforts of her stepfather. The distress of the present as well as the riddle of her father's person caused her to seek relief in a search through antiquity.]

For a long time I was subject to serious depression, but in the course of time, the whole question of sexuality was revolving about the matter of the dress, until to-day the dress forms the external appearance of my maleness which, together with my feeling of being spiritually male, also, enables me to forget the actual constitution of my person.

Twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh Sessions [brought nothing of importance].

Twenty-eighth Session. I often thought of why I needed a stepfather at all. I was frequently very jealous and whenever mother would do me some injustice I thought that my stepfather was the one who had stolen her affections away from me.

After her marriage to him, mother and he went to the station to begin a honeymoon trip to S. I cried when I saw her go off with a strange man and felt very angry that she had left me behind (at six or seven).

I now remember a habit I had when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I collected autographs of famous artists and had already brought together quite a number from the hands of the most famous of them. I did it by sending the individuals their own photographs and begging for their autograph. It was really noth- ing but vanity. I was proud to have come in contact with such personalities. I also collected the post-cards of the famous paint- ings of famous artists. Among my most prized possessions was a series of madonna paintings.

[This gives an important aid in the interpretation of dream two. In that dream she is offered pictures with autographs, but their price is too high for her. In Stekel's Peculiarities of Be- havior there is an exhaustive description of this collecting mania, and he there indicates the sexual background of such tendencies.

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 305

We know that in addition to the vanity the patient mentioned, this case also discloses erotic phantasies as a basis for the mania ; her "contact" with the artists thus became much more "intimate." The price for the male sexual object is too high for her (for twenty- two years she was a woman externally, and after that she took on the appearance of a man). This means: You must remain a woman. — Her collecting mania is also an attempt to sublimate her incestuous erotism. — I would also like to call attention to the fact that this habit of the patient's is quite typical of the harem cult of fetishists.]

Twenty-ninth Session.

Dream thirteen. Went with my older brother into a hiding place to see whether everything were all right or not. Arrived there, we opened the door and stepped in. We looked to see if everything was still there (coal, and materials for burning), but discovered that divers things were missing. We were just on the point of leaving when we noticed that someone was hidden there. Since we took the person to be a thief, we stepped out and locked the door behind us. I told my brother to stand there and see that the thief didn't get away, but that I had to run off to the office.

[As we might well expect, the dream brings us a corroboration of her sexual fixation to her brother. She betrays to us the fact that she desires to "lock up" her brother, the thief of her burning coals (real love). Let us hear her associations.]

My first recollection of Edward is from my second or third year. He had run a nail into his foot and the whole house was in a turmoil of excitement. I also remember that when he was about five, a gander wanted to pick at him while we were playing in a meadow and I was very anxious on his account. When he was six they had to operate on him for some nasal polyps. When- ever I thought of the operation and its pains and tortures, I felt sick and feared he would die. When he was eleven and I nine- teen, I accidentally saw his genitals as he lay sick in bed. I envied him.

Thirtieth Session. I believe that I was already distinctive in my clothing at the time I was going to the convent school with Marie. The men, of course, paid me very little attention because I was not very attractive to them. The beginning of my trans- vestitism also occurred at this time (between fourteen and fifteen),

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and I experienced my first orgasm in a suit belonging to my brother Edward. We had all put on costumes for a ball, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, I found that I resembled my father remarkably.

Thirty-first Session. I was greatly impressed by the opera "Madame Butterfly.,, The woman who played the role of Madame Butterfly exerted a great sexual attraction upon me. During and after the performance, I developed the most vivid phantasies in which I was either being coddled by her or wooing her myself as an officer. Any woman with a pathetic strain in her character quite captivates me.

These sessions ended our anamnestic examination of the woman. The thirty-second and thirty-third sessions were dedicated solely to general considerations.12

II. Analysis of the Parapathia

The dominant feature of this woman's sexual make-up is the electra complex which is parapathically expressed in her iden- tification with her father. Her relation to her brother Edward is simply another edition of the earlier incestuous orientation, which contained the most curious and deeply psychological de- terminations. As a rule, this identification, this "introjection of the object into the ego,,, occurs at the time in which the electra-attachment is to be given up (Freud).

When, now, the individual cannot find an extra-familial sub- stitute for her incestuous object because of one reason or an- other, two possibilities arise: Either the infantile attitude is preserved in sublimated form, the result being- any kind of a parapathia, or an identification with the object to be given up is effected, the result being that (a) the dissolution of the in- cestuous attachment is frustrated and (b) the basis for a homo- sexual parapathia is laid.

Because of certain other circumstances which we shall discuss below, the result in this case was the last one mentioned above. Indeed, it even took place at a much earlier period of her life than is usual, and this because of the early death of her father and the singular circumstances which characterized the patient's youth.

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 307

Her mother turned away from her in her earliest infancy, neglected to satisfy her need for affections and soon gave her to understand that she was not wanted because a boy had been desired. But what was the difference in the girl's eyes ? Her first answer was : the clothes. But, regardless of what the real difference may have been, she did not want to be a girl. When, later, her stepfather kept telling her she was ugly, she resisted the humiliation doggedly, long before she even realized what may have been the basis for it. She simply wanted to be pretty.

That the girl's final sexual striving derived solely from her psychic make-up is shown by the fact that as a girl she had occasionally also accepted the role of the female (the mother) ; had cooked, played with children and thought of marriage (seventh session). But the feeling of femininity and the sense of personal ugliness soon injured her infantile narcissism to such an extent that her healthy psychic orientation was re- pressed.

One day she recognized the real basis of sex differences and then it first dawned upon her why she could not achieve her mother's love. Her infantile mind was then convinced that the only attribute which attracted a mother's love was the pos- session of certain physical adnexa.

If, as has been assumed, a depression is the consequence of the frustration of a secret wish (N.B. : Freud's super-ego) (Stekel), then we should expect that a depression would have set in at this point. The foundation for it would have been the hopelessness ever of achieving her mother's affection. But the infantile make-up cannot suffer such conditions as a rule and that is why in this case there occurred an almost reflex exacerbation of the castration thought ("That's what you want. Cut it off!"). It served to compensate for the thing she lacked (seventeenth session).

Her memories of her brother Edward (twenty-ninth session) are almost solely under the influence of the castration thought ; there is not a single association in respect of him which does not touch upon this complex (the nail in his foot — the wound — the gander snapping at him — cutting off the penis — nasal operation — nose for phallus, etc.). All these associations also

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contain dangerous situations for the brother and are derived from manifest death wishes against him. These death wishes expression jealousy on the one hand, but on the other they are the expressions of the polarity of her fixation to him. The impossibility of this persistent sadistic situation was the cause of its repression.

Instead of the repressed castration complex, then, there ap- peared the consoling feeling that the phallus was only rudi- mentär ily developed as a consequence of ill health and that it would develop in the course of time. With the onset of men- struation and the development of secondary sex characteristics, however, this conception had to be given up. It is at this point that the depression which should have appeared in infancy turns up, but it is now further loaded by marked feelings of guilt. It is at this point, too, that the crisis in her psycho- sexual orientation took place. She was finally forced to forgo the last glimmer of hope of becoming a boy by natural means.

But even the depression was gradually effaced by the positive tendencies of youth. Her actual ineffectiveness in the face of destiny disappeared in the developing fiction of her own male- ness; the feeling of maleness which served to express all the elevating notions of handsomeness, similarity to brother and father and, not least of all, her being different.

With the aid of her parapathia, this woman transformed the depths of despair and mental anguish into the heights of self- possession, pleasurable state of mind, comparative euphoria.13

Like all children who express the parental matrimonial state in their parapathia, this girl, too, manifested a double attitude towards father and mother in her fetishism. The transvesti- ture affords her the sexual contact with her father (orgasm in putting on the clothing) and impels her in her male attire to seek a mother substitute as an object. There is, however, still another psychological motive involved. It is of the greatest im- portance to us that, after several transvestitic trials, her orgasm first came when she put on the suit of her brother. This scene manifests all the characteristics of fetishism and portrays the phantasy that she has finally achieved equality with her brother and may now aspire to her mother's true affections. She had

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 309

seen clearly enough that her mother preferred and favored her brother. Thus, the object of her identification and sexuality is at once the condensation of both her ideals : father and brother (Cf. Madame Butterfly in the thirty-first session). From here there are many threads which lead to her religious complex and to the phantasy that she is the son of the Holy Virgin Mary and simultaneously her lover.

This fixation is patent in many of the patient's dreams and day-dreams. She calls her landlady "mother," but their rela- tionship is more like that of a man and his wife or a mother and her son.14

The patient's hatred of her stepfather is easily traceable from her earliest childhood. She protested inwardly against her mother's second marriage for the simple reason that she herself wanted to play the role of the husband.15

Looking at the problem from this point of view, we see that the transvestitism is an anchorage of the patient's hetero- sexuality, the difference being that instead of the forbidden incestuous object she has fixed upon a symbol : the clothing.

The basis of the homosexuality lay in her total identification with the object of the opposite sex; the further development of this sex deviation was then enhanced by factors we shall discuss somewhat further on. This woman was a manifest homosexual, but other cases (see below) show us that it fre- quently appears in latent form, with expressions of hetero- sexuality being interspersed.

Stekel states that homosexuality is a flight from the opposite sex promoted by paraphilic and sadistic attitudes. This case is a neat corroboration of his point of view, the chief cause of the flight being an active castration complex expressed in a manifestly sadistic phantasy. We understand the sources of the castration complex with considerable clarity, but its signifi- cance and, particularly, its place in the homosexual parapathia will become plainer to us when we realize that this girl could not suffer the sight of the membrum virile at all ; that the cas- tration phantasy became immediately associated with the sight of it (twentieth session).

Under such circumstances any direct contact with a phallus

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

was unthinkable. Her anxiety of her own criminal thoughts and the guilt feelings which resulted from them were certainly contributory to the repression of her heterosexuality.

I must stress particularly the fact that a passive castration complex was not discoverable in the analysis. It was not pos- sible to elicit the fact that the patient had imagined herself once in the possession of a phallus and thought that she had some- how— either in utero or in early life — lost it ; and this although she had womb phantasies. We were, however, well able to elicit the fact that an active castration complex was of the greatest etiological importance in her flight from the other sex.

It is not out of place to recall the fact that even the homo- geneous flow of sexuality in one direction is subject to inhibi- tions ; so that we may well speak of such a state as a diminished copulatory desire. But to say that this were due to the fact that sexual attraction is conditioned by clothing would be super- ficial. Nor is it in point to speak of somatic distaste in this respect for it is not with a defection of sexuality that we deal, but with a displacement of the libido to another object. The analysis shows that this displacement is an expression of the flight from the opposite sex, and the motives of this retreat are the deepest psychological problems involved in the case.

The cardinal motive among these is the religious, the ascetic complex. The solution of dream eleven gave us great insight into just this problem. The transvestiture is in fact effected "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." The "father" is the primary infantile ideal, "the son" (brother Edward) the actual object fixated, and the "Holy Ghost" is the great miracle which the patient awaits ; the miracle of her sexual metamorphosis which is parapathically realized in her transvestiture. Outwardly she appears to be a freethinking nature, but inwardly she is deeply religious. We begin to realize that the terrific polar tension between instinct and in- hibition must have had a dire effect upon the mental mechan- isms of the girl. We gain a deeper perspective of the frequent coincidence of public places and churches in her dreams : In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, she dare not permit herself any erotic relations with the other sex.

And now let us consider two other, somewhat accidental and

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANS VESTITISM 311

androphobic impulses which were not unimportant in the de- velopment of her parapathia. They were also helpful in the successful repression of her heterosexual strivings. These are the forces which derived their strength from the fellatio phan- tasy and that experience with the exhibitionist when she was about fifteen or sixteen. The first one was expressed in her divers eating phobias (seventeenth session), in her sexual en- lightenment (eleventh session), and the pleasurable habits per- formed on women's nipples (eighteenth session), not to men- tion her identification with the suckling child Jesus (nineteenth session). In this category belong also her acts of cunnilingus (directed towards the female membrum) and the contents of dream seven. We must suppose that the sight of the male member not only provoked associations of active castration, but also associations of fellatio; indeed, the latter may have been the primary ones. But this association, too, is calculated to augment her anxiety of the male member, to increase the dis- tance between herself and the opposite sex, and thus to have a pathological effect.

The effect of the traumatic experience with the exhibitionist is sufficiently described in the seventeenth session itself.

Hirschfeld's biological theory of transvestitism has already been refuted by psychoanalysts (Stekel, Frigidity in Woman, an analysis of a transvestite). Nor could this case serve as a basis for Hirschfeld's theory. On the contrary, we were able to find a psycho-sexual foundation for the genesis of this in- stinctual tendency and also defined the divers relationships.

The patient's claim that the transvestitism originated in the attachment to the winter coat (in her third year) must be con- ceived as false memory. This notion was a development of her feelings of ugliness.

The first real thought of transvestitism appeared between thirteen and fourteen (see fourteenth session) following her depression at the realization of her lack of a phallus.

The normal road to the male was blocked for this girl by tremendous feelings of anxiety and disgust. Her self-assurance was greatly undermined by criminal thoughts, coarse mistakes in upbringing and alleged hatred of her person. But her in- jured narcissism found a way to pleasure and beauty. At the

312 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

age of three, she first tasted the full feeling of beauty and vanity when she donned the winter coat. It was not the im- puted similarity between this coat and a hussar's jacket which caused her to wear it so persistently (fourteenth session), but the naive fact that she conceived herself to be beautiful in it. The connection between "handsome" and "virile" dawned upon her only later. She had once noticed that she was a hand- some man. The resemblance with her father was a welcome impulse towards the complete metamorphosis, deriving from her electra attachment. If we did not know this and clung to the impression that the clothing were but an expression of a special constitution in these cases, of a sort of intermediate type (Hirschfeld), we would not be able to understand the orgasm which takes place upon the change of clothing. The incestual sex-pleasure as well as the vain feeling of beauty were represented in the clothes; the infantile narcissistic ideal had been recaptured. To be a man, or at least to give the appear- ance of being one; but to be so in the face of destiny, to the glory of God, and after the manner of the beloved father (brother) : that was the deepest motive behind this girl's trans- vestitism.

III. Critique of Hirschfeld's book Die Trcmsvestiten 1Ä and our conception of transvestitism

Hirschfeld was the first to give us an exhaustive series of cases on transvestitism with an attempt to analyze them crit- ically. But he overlooks the manifestations of latent homo- sexuality in his analyses and treats of this aberration as an in- termediate sexual constitution. In his book on Onanism and Homosexuality, Stekel refuted this approach. The reason why such a capable scientist as Hirsch f eld could have over- looked this important trait of transvestitism in his voluminous and exhaustive studies is to be found in the fact that he dis- pensed with the technique of deep psychological analysis. Some of his patients affectedly denied homosexuality (cases I, III, and VIII) ; or they dream (nearly all) of sexual embraces with individuals of their own sex, e.g., cases II, III, IV, VII, and others; or (nearly all of them) they claimed that they

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 313

could cohabit only in actu succumbentes (I, III, V, XIII and others) ; or, finally, they were manifest homosexuals such as cases VII, XII, and XV. We know 17 that so-called hetero- sexual transvestites have only masked their homosexuality.

In our case, we found only a slight tendency towards copula- tion, and when we examine Hirschfeld's series we find pre- cisely the same conditions prevailing there.18 Case I performed his first coitus at twenty-four and then lived in abstinence for four more years; II cohabited only after he was twenty; III never cultivated intimacies with women until after he was thirty-five; IV "didn't even dream" of having intercourse with his mistress during the six years he knew her. And all the rest of his seventeen cases cultivated intercourse just as infrequently. We have already pointed out that these traits are primarily de- rived from the patients' religious or ascetic tendencies and from their narcissism.

In Hirschfeld's descriptions of cases, we also find frequent mention of masochistic tendencies, which, as we know, are re- versals of the true state of the patients' mind and revolve about the asceticism of the individual.

According to the law of the bipolarity of all psychic phenom- ena (Stekel), we cannot consider masochism as a separate and indivisible entity as Hirschfeld does when he assigns a special role to this factor in its relation to transvestitism. Masochism is a pendant to sadism, a parapathic, ethically determined re- versal (the hatred which is turned upon the individual's own ego). It is, after all, the inner conflict with the sadistic trends which drives the patient's sexuality, openly or latently, into the arms of homosexuality; this is what constitutes the most im- portant factor in transvestitism. Hirschfeld speaks of manifest masochism, i.e., the attitude overtly expressed to the partner. But we know, on the contrary, that these patients are very active and that they occasionally manifest sadistic tendencies. The masochism Hirschfeld describes is a specific trait of male transvestites, and it seems to me that this particular expression on the part of the individuals is a portrayal of their passivity, of their femininity.19 But a deeper driving psychological analysis will always elicit the sadism which is casually con-

SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

nected with the latent or manifest homosexuality of the trans- vestites.

Hirschfeld's treatise also gives us a good picture of the im- portance of imitation in these cases ; the role of identification with the objects of the opposite sex ; and how influential is the effect of the infantile narcissism in the development of the parapathia. But he has unfortunately left the problem of in- cestuous attachments untouched, although many of his patients spoke a rather unambiguous and clear-cut language.

Thus, for example, case 1 : 20 "My mother and sister did a good deal of sewing and knitting and I manifested a great in- terest in these activities. I even learned to knit myself and made some rather fine pieces in wool and yarn . . ." Also : "... I can also whistle well, but in that I am just my mother's son, for she could whistle excellently. . . ."

Case II reported that his sisters' aprons cast an irresistible spell upon him. Case IV had his first experience when he secretly put on his mother's cream-colored satin dress. Case V had tried to put on his sister's dress when he was four and per- sisted even in later years in the same habits. Cases VI, VII, XI, XII, XIII, XVI, and XVII reported similarly. The argu- ment that the patients had had no other opportunity to develop the transvestitic habits except during such experiences in child- hood is quite correct ; just as the argument that one desires to acquire the characteristics of the other sex only when one pos- sesses a psychic predisposition. But, as our own case dis- tinctly showed, and as Hirschfeld's cases would certainly dis- close if their analyses were in the least deepened, the basic and driving motive behind the metamorphosis is an incestuous at- tachment. This is what constitutes the psychic predisposition. To what extent the wish can affect the subjective feelings of the individual may be illustrated by the report of a transvestitic Hungarian physician to Kraff t-Ebing : 21 ". . . Every four weeks when the moon is full, I have all the physical and mental molimina of a woman, except that I don't bleed. But within me I have the distinct feeling that fluid is being lost, that my genitals are swollen as well as my belly. A fine time. . . ." ( !)

In many a case, we learn that the patient had acquired a thin, high voice by practice, or that exercise had enabled him to walk

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANSVESTITISM 315

in the best feminine manner, swaying the hips and imitating the walk (case V). But even the dreams express the wish ful- fillment of the patients ; thus, for example, case VII : "I was a high-born damsel in a large, medieval German room. I was dressed in a light blue girlish bodice and had a child at the breast, while a clumsy girl played with a doll at my feet. From the wooden balcony I could look far over forests, hills and dales. I laid the baby in its crib and sat down at the spinning wheel. The little girl grasped my skirt and said : "Mama!" 22 I kissed her on the forehead. Then a flourish of trumpets re- sounded and my conquering hero, my husband, came in and embraced me in his strong, manly arms." 22 — This dream is so unambiguous in meaning that it hardly needs an analysis.

The expressions of Hirsch f eld's case VII are particularly in- structive however :

'There developed in the little boy a special attraction to his sister who was but a few years older. He was particularly attached to her throat or the low cut of her dress and all her clothing.22 He actually experienced this attachment as erotic for he soon kept it as a dark secret. 'When my sister came home from school and sat down to lunch, I would climb up on her chair from behind and cover her neck with kisses . . "

Furthermore : 23 ". . . But he also had the 'pleasure* of see- ing the daughter of the school principal2* occasionally enter his class. On the way home afterwards, he would follow her at a distance, and the wish awakened within him to be a girl like that 'in a fragrant, deeply cut dress.' "

". . . When he was nine, dreams and phantasies 25 set in. T had the illusion as if a whole row of the most beautiful women were standing before me in deeply cut-out dresses, and that I would kiss and lick their necks and breasts to my heart's con- tent: " 26

". . . At ten he once was overcome with great excitement at the sight of a Very decollete little girl of six or seven/ 27 This impression was still vivid enough to enable him to mention all the details of the dress in his description. T was sorry that I, too, was not dressed so airily about the neck, that my hair was not permitted to grow so long, etc." 28

Further : 29 ". . . In the summer of the same year I could no

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longer resist the temptation : I sneaked up to the hamper when no one was about and pulled forth one of my sister's soiled dresses or chemises in order to dress myself in it. It had such a fine odor of perspiration. My heart seemed to be bursting, shivers ran through my body and I trembled like an aspen leaf. I was so thrilled that I bit into the hem of the chemise and beat happily on my breast, shoulders and arms.' " 30

It is not hard to trace in these excerpts the transition of the incest motive to fetishism and then to transvestitism. Another passage from the report of case VI is also interesting :

". . . But finally I became bolder and complained that my shoes hurt me when skating ; so that mother was moved to lend hers. This did not attract special attention. I was so impas- sioned in those days that I could have attacked any girl whose shoes appealed to me. I could have robbed them of their boots. . . ."31

The mirror and the habit of looking at oneself in it also play a special part in the cases of transvestitism, and on occasion we even note marked acts of exhibitionism (a deeper driving psychoanalysis would probably disclose a vanity or beauty com- plex in these cases). Hirschf eld's case III says: . . When- ever I . . . stand before the mirror and see so much femininity in myself, I become perfectly composed ... ; it is like a re- freshing rest after much exertion, the feeling of being com- pletely at home in the role of the female." And case XII : ". . . I have spent whole nights sitting before the mirror and making a woman out of myself by means of my mother's dresses." Case VII stated : "... I had a flush of pleasure in my breasts then and would often open my shirt and feel them and stroke them." 32

The author writes in respect of the same case: "On warm summer days, he would wander about the paths of the vicinity without a vest on. Soon he would put roses or daisies in his hat and put his collar, tie and cuffs in the pocket of his jacket which he would carry on his arm. Now his shirt was a blouse and he would make his 'swan's neck' still more appealing to chance passers-by, by tying a black velvet ribbon and a golden medallion of some kind about his neck."

And now we must consider the question as to whether trans-

ANALYSIS OF CASE OF TRANS VESTITISM 317

vestitism may be conceived as a form of clothes fetishism or as something distinct. Hirschfeld denies that it is a form of fetishism 83 by stressing the fact that "the object of (the trans- vestite's) striving is, first of all, connected with a second per- son; in some more pathological cases even separated from that person and loved for itself alone (e.g., a cut-off lock of hair or a stolen handkerchief). But the object is never a part of the individual himself." He also declares that "the marked striving" in his cases, "to acquire the form of the beloved object, to identify oneself with it," is not present in cases of fetishism.

Separating transvestitism and fetishism in this manner, Hirschfeld necessarily touches only the surface of the problem. The true foundations of the difference lie much deeper.

CONCLUSIONS

Dr. Stekel and I have arrived at the following conclusions in this question.

In transvestitism, we do not find the systemization, nor the marked condensation of the symbol in the service of a certain trend characteristic of fetishism. The clothing is the expres- sion of a very deep desire, a controlling idea : I want to be a man (woman).

Whereas fetishism is really a religion exploited for the pur- pose of avoiding the dangers of sexuality and active sexual in- dulgence, in these cases, the dress is used for the purpose of avoiding the complex of appearance and ugliness by flight to the opposite sex (by identification). It is certainly possible to find different mechanisms in different cases. But Dr. Stekel has been able in almost every case to reveal the nucleus of the condition to be the beauty or ugliness complex, e.g., in the case of an otherwise heterosexual actor who would dress himself in female attire in order to see whether he were lovely enough thus also to attract attention. This appears to be due to a feeling of rivalry with the other sex which, as it were, is beaten upon its own field.

The marked impulsiveness of fetishistic conduct is softened in these cases to a simple desire to be dressed in the attire of

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the opposite sex. In such transformation, the transvestite feels himself a sort of bisexual creature; fulfills an old, infantile ideal (the "lingam principle").

The impelling infantile motive here — in other cases similar principles seem to be present — is an incestuous attitude ; in our own case, the wish to replace the man as the partner of her mother. It is this primary basis which transvestitism shares with fetishism; also the concentric reduction in the scope of erotic activity, and in many cases also the ascetic tendency, i.e., the striving to avoid the true expression of one's sexual make-up. We also find in the cases of transvestitism a certain trend to become a martyr (to suffer for one's ideas), that curiously libinal expression of parapathic religion which we found in our cases of fetishism. The fixed idea is common to both forms of parapathia.

Despite its striking inner resemblance with fetishism, we cannot consider transvestitism as a form of genuine fetishism. It is a special form of a compulsion neurosis in which the patient's desire for the genital of the other sex is displaced to the clothing.

The transvestite satisfies himself with the appearance of belonging to the opposite sex ; he makes use of the clothing in order to possess some rudiment of reality in the fictitious trans- formation which he has accomplished. Whereas the fetishist reconstructs an infantile scene and becomes a child again in order to experience something definite, the transvestite projects his wish into the future and anticipates the great miracle, the miracle of his sexual metamorphosis.

Fetishism is thus retrospective and transvestitism prospec- tive in purpose.

XVII

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

Ein Narreng'wand wird immer besser 'zahlt als ein ver- nünftiger Anzug.

Nestroy.

Fetishism is a curious combination of synthesis and antith- esis. The singular fact that the parapathic does not under- stand himself is due to the splitting of his personality. Every fetishist goes through a period in which we can observe his parapathic ego and his moral self in a bitter struggle, and the total personality sometimes takes the part of one side and some- times the part of the other. The final outcome is a compro- mise, a synthesis of both tendencies. In order to understand this synthesis we must dig down into the psychogenesis of the moral ego of the individual. Every human possesses some kind of moral imperative. It is both congenital and acquired, consists of inherent and adapted material. Much of the ex- ternal influence (upbringing, precept, religion, law) is assimi- lated mentally and made one's own. This moral imperative then demands realization. It builds an ideal-ego (Freud) in our mind the goal of which often reaches up into the heavens. Divinity is the projection of this ideal-ego into infinity. Op- posed to this ideal-ego or divine-ego, there stands the animal- ego or primitive self. The animal and the ideal-ego, instinct and moral imperative, are always in a state of struggle.

The ideal-ego demands submission to ethical law, the sacrifice of instinctual conduct, in favor of social habit ; but it also im- pels to elevation of the individual above the usual and average.

The striving for independence which resides in every one, manifests itself irt two ways, i — Independence of the pres- sure of the external world (outward freedom). 2 — Inde- pendence of the instincts (inner freedom).

In the first case, the individual confronts the demands of the

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world with an attitude of resistance. The moral imperatives of society are countered by amoral imperatives which raise the instincts to a divine position and tend to a full expression of the self.

On the other hand, every man strives to overcome his own impulses, to achieve mastery of his own ego : inner freedom. Everyone lives in hope of outward and inner freedom, but the moral and amoral imperatives acquire in the process the role of the enemy and tyrant.

The fetishist stands between these two powers. His soul is torn by both the moral and the amoral imperatives. He finally arrives at a compromise which achieves the impossible: he satisfies both demands at once. He founds himself a new re- ligion. He smelts his animal ideal and his divine ideal into a new concept. His fetish becomes a god to him just as it does to primitive man. But it is really a caricature of a god. The analyst, however, can retrace the divine features under- neath the grotesque lines of the caricature. It is precisely this amalgamation of the religious and the ideal which makes the fetishism almost indissoluble. Thus, we arrive at a formula which at first sight may appear paradoxical : the fetish repre- sents the divine ideal as well as the animal ideal. The syn- thesis between God and Satan has succeeded. Both rule over the individual, but the division of power is the one guarantee that neither the one nor the other may achieve complete tyranny. Love and religion have been molten into a single, mystical union. If love means nothing more than the discovery of one's god, then the fetishist has found his lost love-ideal, which his conscience as the representative of the moral imperative wanted to tear from him, and has reunited it with God. In his love-< ideal, he has found his god, and in his god, his ideal love. He has fused heaven and hell to a new intermediate realm which has access neither to heaven nor hell.

But there is a wonderful fusion of two other bipolar tend- encies in fetishism: the impulse to public activity and the desire to keep the paraphilia a secret. It seems as if every secret contains a latent urge to be transformed into public knowledge. This impulse drives the fetishist into public. Finally, he either masturbates publicly or he commits some

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breach of orderly conduct which betrays his secret (the fer- menting forces of secrecy). This impulse also corresponds to the counter-impulse to be rid of the compulsion. Following court action or analyses, we often observe improvement in the patient's condition which is due largely to the fact that the secret has finally become an open one. The fetishist lives in a state of terrible social isolation. He is proud of it and also suffers thereby. His yearning for the normal battles with his pride in being extraordinary, unusual, eccentric.

The secret guilt consciousness, without which there is no true fetishism, drives the fetishist into situations in which he must suffer for his paraphilia. We have already seen how strong is the primary sadism in all these cases, but we have also noted how it turns upon the ego itself and thus becomes a masochism which enhances the flctitiousness of the martyr- dom.

All our cases manifested a circumscription of the erotic horizon, a pathological faithfulness to the object. This reduc- tion of erotic interest also leads to a diminution of the total mental interests of the individual. In this we find a corrobora- tion of an old truth that our erotism feeds and fires all our affectivity, i.e., that interest and erotism are intimately bound together. Ever and again we can see that sexuality deter- mines all our thinking and feeling, our lives and our social adjustments. The fetishist is controlled by a cardinal idea (idee fixe), and such an attitude is determined by a fixation of affectivity. Behind this emotional tone there lies a certain wish. The fetishist is a parapathic who cannot and will not give up his infantile ideal. His trend is retrospective. He strives to achieve the impossible : the revival of the past in the present. This tendency separates him from reality and forces him to construct for himself a fiction. The primary experience seems to be of paramount significance in this fictitious scheme, but it is a question whether or not this primary experience is a screen memory in Freud's sense and thus covers a much more important attitude. It is in his day-dreams that the fetishist re-lives his past, and that is perhaps the reason why the dreams of these individuals so seldom correspond to their system. One would imagine that the fetishist would always dream of his

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fetish and there experience the realization of his wishes, but our analyses have disclosed the opposite to us. The dreams are only rarely an expression of the basic system. On the con- trary, they usually manifest the hidden ascetic tendencies; they are a warning, a threat, a vain attempt to overcome the para- philia. They are usually prospective in scope. This is the contrast between the nightly dreams and the day-dreams which forms one of the cardinal characteristics of the genuine fetishist.

But how can we conceive the genesis of a case of fetishism ?

One of the never failing bases is the incest wish. This in- cestuous striving is directed at some article of clothing or some object which, because of the displacement of affect, has become the representative of the wish. The wish itself is unattainable and impossible of realization because of the resistance of re- ligion and the ethical feeling. Man is always filled with un- attainable desires. The hope of realizing these wishes is then transferred from the world of reality to the realm of phan- tasies. There is developed a fictitious life in which the fetish assumes the role of the desired person. The repression deflects the original wish from the object and transfers it to the fetish. The impulse is displaced. As a consequence of the resistive attitude towards God and destiny, the following formula is evolved: If I cannot attain the desired object (mother, sister or some substitute), I shall also reject any other partner.1 The transient obstinacy shown towards God, the blasphemous period of life, the depravity, all are repressed; the guilt feelings are increased; the ascetic tendencies stressed; and the fictitious scheme takes on a religious character. Religion itself is re- placed, just as the incest wish was replaced following the re- pression. The marked affectivity of the situation leads neces- sarily to a diminution of the scope of consciousness and all of life is expressed within the narrow circle of the fictitious set-up. As a result of the repression, the displacement and the con- densation, the fetish assumes the part of a symbol and thus increases the appearance of reality. The original incestuous nucleus is surrounded by a constantly growing number of layers ; for all the paraphilic impulses and feelings are gradually adjusted to the scheme. Such a fictitious and schematic form

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of life finally leads to a splitting of the personality ; the affective value of reality grows constantly smaller and the compensation is found in a world of dreams. As a result of the poverty of emotional tone, the real things of life lose their interest and the repetition compulsion behind the fictitiousness of conduct leads to such a consolidation of the fiction that it acquires the char- acter, the appearance of reality, and the individual begins to be- lieve in it. He has, like a poet, evolved a new form of life for himself out of phantasies.

In every man's breast there lurks a poet who expresses him- self in dreams. Our unconscious speaks its own language in our dreams. The riddles of dreams may be interpreted only when we understand the archaic and symbolic language of the soul, the mechanisms of transformation, reversal, displacement and condensation which Freud has taught us with such out- standing mastery. We have had surprising evidence of how the fetishist exploits the same mechanisms. The specific value of the fetish lies in its symbolism, and it is in the displace- ment, the condensation and conversion that the symbol achieves its invaluable quality. The fetishist builds his system just as if he were constructing a dream.

The close study of fetishism has netted us a by-product whose value or appearance we had not originally considered. We have come to understand the prime importance of symbol- ism, and it may well be our hope to achieve an understanding of normal symbolical usage through a study of pathological symbolism. We must not forget that the "parapathic symbol" and the concept of a "normal symbolism" are to be strictly separated.

A parapathia is a tyranny of the symbol. That is an old dictum of mine. But fetishism is that form of parapathia which manifests this tyranny in its crassest expression. The normal individual is also subject to the power of the symbol. Indeed the world is full of symbolical acts and habits. But it is only when symbolical conduct over-runs our adjustment to reality that we have the right to speak of "parapathic sym- bolism."

It will be well for us to consider the essential nature of the Symbol for much is spoken of as symbolical which is not truly

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characteristic of symbolism at all. What is a symbol, after all?

The concept of "symbol" is somewhat indefinite. Some have given it a broader, some a stricter, meaning. The change of meaning which words usually undergo in the course of time, ulmost invariably leads in a degrading, downward direction; they sink to their lowest possible meaning.

The word symbol is an infrequent contrast to this fate. Originally, it was quite common in a rather banal sense as meaning sign, seal, contract, pass, or tax receipt. But, in the course of time, it lost this low significance and developed the finer and more spiritual qualities of the philosophical or re- ligious (which vacillated between the meaning of omen, sign and revelation) until the word — aside from its purely ecclesias- tical meaning of "symbolum" or "symbolon" or this or that church — took on that many-sided and fashionable, but often protested, meaning of aesthetics which we know to-day. To say that is the meaning we "know" to-day, is stating a great deal in view of its frequently uncertain connotation. But it is not difficult to see that since its earliest development, the con- cept has gradually achieved definite characteristics which we may consider as distinctive. Before we attempt to define these characteristics in a few words, it will be well to hear the con- clusions of some authors who have been identified with the more recent development or definition of this concept. In this summary, we shall be greatly aided by the excellent treatise of Max Schlesinger, Geschichte des Symbols (A History of the Symbol), Berlin, 19 12.

Of inestimable service in the revival and clarification of the concept of symbolism was the work of Friedrich Creuzer, that romanticist and mythologist who has been so well mentioned in the psychoanalytical papers of Herbert Silberer. Creuzer sum- marized the development of the symbol in his own gifted and extravagant manner, but he also added several new points of view to what was already known. He was particularly in- terested in the symbol as a vehicle of the transmission or con- veyance of knowledge. ". . . It (the symbol) contains in its meaning the relationship between the gods and men which is not susceptible of explanation, but only of interpretation. The.

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 32^

oldest form of the Christian church took it from the still more primitive forms of mystical service for the expression of spe- cial, elevated mind-pictures, formulae and signals; the visible signs and indications of the invisible salvation. Still another basic conceptual meaning was given to it by our physical lan- guage or mimicry, the essence of which is brevity; it served the purpose of immediate plasticity. . . . Since, in earliest times, the physical was not yet separated from the spiritual and the intuitively perceptual and pictorial were not willful but ab- solutely necessary, it is clear that the pictorial character of thought, the symbolical nature of it, was inevitable. . . . The elements of the symbol disclose its dual origin in the world of ideas and the realm of the senses and that is the cause of its volatile, vacillating meaning; such shall always be its fate because of the plentitude of meaning as compared with the brevity of expression. . . . Only the most important things should be clothed in the honor of the symbol. That which makes us suspect and fear, which gives us great thought, which occupies our whole soul, reminds us of the secret mystery of existence and fills and motivates life . . . love and hate . . . those are the things which demand the use of the symbol. . . . In art and religion it (the symbol) must swell to the propor- tions of the infinite and boundless. . . . It either assumes a mystical character or it becomes . . . the symbol of God. It speaks everything which is characteristic of this category : the immediate, the totality of the thing, the necessity of it, the in- explicable. . . . This one word indicates the appearance of the divine and the clarification of the mortal. . . . In the sym- bol, the concept {i.e., the idea represented therein) somehow passes into the realm of the physical."

Creuzer was especially noted for his masterly treatise on the symbolical elements in mythology (Cf. his work Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker — Symbolism and Mythology of Ancient Peoples. In its mythological aspects this work has naturally been outmoded by more recent developments, but in its conceptual foundations it has remained unshaken). Just prior to Creuzer, Dupuis also emphasized the natural sym* bolism of the myths, but he had a political end in view and manifested considerable demagogic verve. In his writings, thr

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symbol was also recognized as a developing form of knowledge of pre-conceptual material, but his attitude is somewhat dif- ferent than Creuzer's. Dupuis also thought of the pictorial basis as consciously developed rather than natural in man's nature, a point of view which is certainly incorrect.2

According to Hegel, the voluntary connections between the expression and the idea, which is sufficient for the development of a "sign" is contrary to the purpose of the symbol ; for ex- ample, the colors of a flag. These colors are later, of course, given certain thoughts and feelings, but they were originally not present. The symbol, he says, is a sign whose very exter- nals contain the content of the idea which caused it to appear. The form of the symbol need not always carry the same mean- ing. (In other words, the symbol possesses a plurality of meanings. As Silberer put it, it is "pregnant with meanings.")

That great aesthetic philosopher Friedrich Theodor Vischer calls the concept of symbolism "difficult, a plastically changing proteus." He considers it the function of the symbol : to in- fuse the physical world with spirit and the spiritual world with substance. . . . The symbol derives from our desire to fuse the spirit and substance of the world, despite their apparent divergence of character. It serves the purpose of unifying the universe before our mind and phantasy.

Usener derives symbolism from the two "elemental" or "un- conscious" processes of imagery: inspiration and pictorializa- tion.

Jodl states that "all activity of thought and poesy strives towards materialization by means of symbols (in the widest sense) because these alone permit of conveying the idea to others and because their use helps to fix the transitory structures of our tertiary consciousness.

Rene Ghil (in his Tratte du Verbe) called symbolization a synthetic form which creates pictures for the purpose of link- ing the objects to be considered in thought. Verlaine also stressed the synthetic quality of the symbol.

HöfTding states that all forms of symbolization make use of images derived from circumscribed but perceptual states for the expression of relations or states which are not directly ex- pressible because of their grandeur or ideal nature.

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The historian Lamprecht stressed the dynamic element in symbols. "The symbolical instinct invariably created symbolical conduct. . . . The symbol is the mental picture of the act, closely connected with the peak of conduct."

Joseph Hillebrand speaks of a symbolism of the senses, imagery, or thought. It is especially in point wherever con- ceptual expression fails to fulfill the need ; wherever feeling has not yet developed into thought ; or where the deepest and most puzzling questions apropos of origin, existence and death, of pre-historical time or the future, have not yet been answered.

Friedrich Albert Lange sees in the symbol "that complement to reality with which man cannot dispense."

Together with Creuzer, Silberer 3 stresses the fact that we can achieve an understanding of some of the main features of symbols if we compare it with the allegory. At least in its simplest emblematic forms, the allegory is a sort of symbol and can be solved with a simple equation as its formula; e.g., "that woman with the wall-like crown is that or that city." The symbol, however, despite its modesty of form, is of almost in- exhaustible content. It is never emptied by the indication of but one example. Silberer mentions Goethe who, in his "Sprü- chen in Prosa" (Proverbs in Prose) says : "The allegory trans- forms the appearance to a concept, the concept to a picture, but in such a manner that the concept within the picture is still intact and well defined and can always be expressed. — Sym- bolism changes the appearance to an idea and the idea to a pic- ture, but in such a manner that the idea within the picture re- mains infinitely effective and unattainable ; expressed in all lan- guages and yet ineffable." According to Silberer the allegory possesses a more static, the symbol a more dynamic, character. He also finds that the symbol acutely or intensively unites all the feelings which strive towards it. It manifests a certain quality of necessity as distinct from the accidental convention- ality of the sign. He also treats of the symbol from the point of view of a temporary (surmizing) form of knowledge (mythological knowledge) ; he thus naturally considers the sym- bol as present in all those forms of thought or knowledge which have sunk to a relatively low capacity (dream, exhaustion states, etc.). On the basis of his experiences with hypnagogic

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pictures, he then proceeds upon paths indicated both by the xnythologists and the Freudian and Zürich schools of analysis.

With this step we have arrived at the psychoanalytical study of symbolism. Freud, in his Interpretation of Dreams stresses the primitive feature of symbolical expression. He was the first to recognize the sexual background of dream symbols. But he still conceives them in their material aspect and fails to see their functional significance. Nevertheless, he was the one who first opened our eyes and taught us to read the hiero- glyphics of this language. But, now that we have learned the principles of this gifted method, we can dig even deeper. Freud compares symbolism with an ancient tongue which has almost died out, leaving stray remnants of its former fullness here and there.

Psychoanalysis became especially interested in the connec- tions between the symbol and the unconscious or the repressed. Riklin ( Wunscherfüllung und Symbolik in Märchen — Wish fulfillment and symbolism in fables — Vienna, 1908) was doubt- less the first of the analysts who undertook to augment the material collected by Freud himself. He "shows that the human mind quits universally produces a form of symbolism which is based upon unconscious material and expressed in the primitive poesy of fables, dreams and psychopathological con- duct." Not only he, but also Abraham, Rank, and, in a some- what different manner, Jung describe the effects of the re- pressed material in the symbol ( in addition to the strongly em- phasized over-determination and condensation). Silberer also believes that the symbol is ultimately connected with the re- pressed material as a part of the unconscious system, but he considers that that is not the most essential quality of the sym- bol. He does not agree that "only that is symbolical which ex- presses repressed material" as many psychoanalysts, of whom we shall speak presently, state.

In their paper on "The Significance of Psychoanalysis for the Mental Sciences" (Wiesbaden, 1913), Rank and Sachs at- tempted to summarize the value of psychoanalysis for the study of symbolism. It is practically called "a form of expression for the unconscious." The characteristics of "true" symbols are, "according to the points of view presented in the lectures

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of Professor Freud," "The representation of unconscious material, the constant and never changing significance, theif independence of individual conditions (?), their phylogenetic basis, their speech relations, and their parallels in phylogenesis (mythology, cults, religion, etc.)."

As we have already seen, this alleged independence of in« dividual conditions does not meet the facts. Nevertheless, we must stress the fact that Rank and Sachs have come very close to creating an accurate picture of the symbol when they say : 4 'By symbol we understand a special kind of indirect expres« sion which is distinctly separated by virtue of certain peculiars ties from any other similar forms such as the simile, the meta- phor, the allegory, the allusion and other types of pictorial ex- pression or thought. In a way, the symbol seems to be an ideal union of all these other forms of expression : It is a repre- sentative, perceptual, substitutive expression for something hidden with which it is related either by means of noticeable characteristics or by association. Its essence lies in its plurality of meaning, just as it has itself sprung from a condensation or union of several discrete elements. Its tendency from the con- ceptual towards the pictorial gives it a primitive character, and it is as such that symbolical thought belongs essentially to the unconscious. As a compromise between divers tendencies, however, it nevertheless does not dispense with the conscious determinant which varyingly influences both the formation and the understanding of the symbol."

A rather more exhaustive and excellent summary of this problem, with a touch of the critical, has been written by Ernest Jones ("The Theory of Symbolism," Brit. Journ. of Psychol., Vol. IX, Part 2, Oct., 1918). Jones comes to the following conclusions: "All of our psychoanalytical experience goes to show that the only experiences which can be susceptible of symbolical treatment are our most original and primitive ones, i.e., those experiences which relate to the body itself, our rela- tions to our family, birth, death and love. These experiences persist in unconsciousness throughout our lives and it is from them that the more secondary interest of conscious life derive. Since all energy flows from them and never towards them, and since, also, they represent the most deeply repressed portion of

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our mental life, it becomes understandable that symbolism can be created only in one direction. Only that which is repressed can be symbolically expressed, and whatever has been repressed cannot be expressed except by symbolization. This conclusion is the keystone of the psychoanalytical theory of symbolism.

In a rather detailed critique of this paper (Psyche und Eros, Vol. I, No. i, p. 53 and Vol. II, No. 4, p. 249) Silberer shows that the statement that only repressed material is symbolically expressed is correct only when the symbol is previously defined as the expression of repressed material, and when the proofs are chosen on the basis of the petitio principii. Nor need it be proclaimed that the repressed material is the meaning of the symbol simply because some repressed strivings may often be found to be in the shadow of the symbol.

Jones writes : " Symbols serve to represent the individual's own ego blood relatives or the phenomena of birth, love and death. In other words they express the most primitive of ideas. But their actual number is much greater than one would expect on the basis of this summary. They probably number about 100. . . . The ego represents the whole of our body or any of its parts, but not our psychic life ( ?). . . . The field of sexual symbolism is surprisingly rich, the great majority of symbols belonging in this group. There are probably more symbols for the phallus alone than all the other symbols together (?) . . ."

Silberer justifiably criticizes the declarations noted above by our question marks. The first statement to the effect that our psychic life is not an object of genuine symbolization may be summarily discarded. In respect of the other questionable statement, Silberer points out that it is a characteristic of symbols to express abstract notions in concrete form. The male member as such (or any other part of the body) is not abstract; for which reason it is not permissible, strictly speak- ing, to talk of its being symbolized. There are, indeed, phallic symbols, but no symbols of the phallus, unless, of course, the phallus itself is considered as the representative of a whole complex of un-perceptual ideas, feelings, etc. But that would bring us back again to the field of psychic life.

An important category of symbolism which Silberer has de- fined is that class of symbols which express the life of thoughts

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themselves and the processes of the soul (the unconscious ones included), and not thought content.

Jones did not overlook this well-founded class of symbols which is so contrary to his theory ; indeed, he corroborated its presence. But he sought to dispose of it by separating this type from the field of genuine symbols and adding them to the class of metaphors, a step which is simple for him because of his original definition of symbols.

For Jones, and perhaps for most psychoanalysts of the Freu- dian school, the power behind the formation of a symbol de- rives from repressed affective thoughts and images. Silberer stresses the more general condition of "apperceptive insufi> ciency" (Jones correctly adds the less important factor of in- sufficiency of expressibility) and thus makes it possible to con- sider this insufficiency as due to repressed affect (or affect alto- gether) or to a relative deficiency in the capacity for under- standing. Both create an expression of the (difficult or re- sistive) real in the form of the unreal (which is more easily understood, portrayed or digested).

Another very fruitful conclusion of Silberer's is that many symbols represent, in addition to the psychoanalytically ap- proachable, "titanic" content, a corresponding "anagogic" tend- ency: a striving upwards, towards the metaphysical goals of mankind, as it were. Thus it is that many symbols (of myths, dreams, poetic creations, etc.) possess not only an analytical meaning, but also an ethical or religious meaning, and it is only from that point of view that their human significance may be achieved.

Finally, we must mention that several analysts, notably Jung, are of the opinion that symbols may be acquired directly from heredity. They conceive the symbol as a sort of archaic form of thought. Symbols are the language of a lost period of our lives ; a point of view which corresponds in many respects with that of Freud.

To summarize : The symbol of the normal human and that of the parapathic are two entirely different concepts. The parapathic exploits the symbols of the normally adjusted human, but he fills them with new meaning. There, also, general and individual symbols. We have already observed that erotic

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symbolism and fetishism pay no attention to the general sig- nificance of their objects or to their original symbolical value. These trends create their own primitive and original symbols, e.g., the apron fetishist whose case we discussed. The apron is a symbol of femininity, but in his system it is exploited in a myriad of ways.

Every symbol is created by three different factors: Repres- sion, condensation and displacement. The authors mentioned above have not even mentioned the factor of displacement, and have only suggested the role of condensation. A parapathic symbol manifests the attributes of a genuine symbol in mag- nified form.

1. It trades plurality for unity (condensation). That is true of very many symbols (the flag represents a whole regi- ment, the cross the whole ecclesia müitans). In the fetishistic symbol, all the separate bundles of a ray of light are focussed as by a magnifying glass. The same is true of the cross, for example. It represents all of Christianity, but it also stands for the suffering of Christ himself.

2. The fetishistic symbol is derived from a displacement of affect. One could also say repression. For it is only an un- pleasant, i.e., affectively loaded thought which is repressed. Even the symbols of normal humans must represent the pres- ence of some secret if they are to be more than similes. The affect is deflected from some forbidden or taboo object and attached to the symbol. The mother is symbolized by the apron whenever the thought turns upon painful incestuous strivings which must be veiled before our consciousness. But it is dis- placement which first creates such a mechanism. We have spoken of innumerable examples of how articles of clothing achieved a sexual significance through the mechanism of dis- placement

3. The symbol expresses a wish fulfillment. The repressed wish is realized in the symbol.

4. The fetishistic symbol acquires its first affective value as a screen memory. It represents a long lost scene from the individual's past.

5. The anagogic tendency of the fetishistic symbol is ex- pressed in its religious meaning. We have sufficiently discussed

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the high ideals of fetish lovers. They rival Christ and even identify themselves with the Savior. The symbol is an ex- pression of the religious component.

6. The symbol is characterized by something mystical. It is the sign of the fetishist's secret. But, in order that the mys- tical element may not be destroyed by the criticism of reality, the original symbol is transformed to a greater or less degree. It is distorted by degenerative changes and then reconstructed by a new type of regeneration. By means of circumscription and augmentation, displacement to a small part or to a great whole, by the mechanism of estrangement and approach, the symbol is so continuously changed that it is finally a riddle to the fetish lover himself; the fetishist himself finally fails to understand its meaning.

7. The symbol represents something alive and pulsating. It has been elevated to the level of a living thing by animistic tendencies.

8. The fetishist identifies himself with his symbol, and through the mechanisms of identification or differentiation, the symbol is either a reflection or a caricature of the individual's ego.

9. The symbol is exploited for the service of functional symbolism. It represents a condition, a state of the soul and that, as I wish to stress with Silberer in contradistinction to Jones, is perhaps its most important function.

10. The symbol is primarily exploited in hyponoic states (the apperceptive insufficiency of Silberer). The fetish lover is a dreamer and that is why the symbolism of dreams is so closely related to that of fetishism.

11. The symbol becomes the sign of a "pathological faith- fulness." Many examples of cases have shown us how difficult it is for the fetish lover to separate himself from his symbol. The plurality of his collection serves to replace the one and only for him. The cult of the harem is but the mask of an obstinate erotic monotheism.

The fetish becomes the symbol of all his feeling. It repre- sents the man's faithfulness to the objects of childhood. Since, however, resolutions are often hidden behind these fixations, the fetish can also represent these resolutions. In that case,

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every onanistic act would be a repetition of the resolve to pre- serve this faithfulness throughout life. ('Til remain true, even if all others betray you.") The fetishistic symbol is thus the eternal element in the stream of life.

12. The significance of the symbol in the parapathic system of the individual finally leads to the breach of reality by the symbolical values. The question as to what the fetish repre- sents to its possessor is clearly answered by Sadger (I.e., p. 328) : "The real and original fetish which is always sought and seen, whatever may be the external form of the object, is the naked genital of the mother or the mother imago." Now, we have come to understand the complex significance of the fetish, but we have not observed one single case in which the fetish represented the genital directly. If Sadger had said: The fetish is a substitute for the mother, his declaration would have had some basis in fact. But is it really possible that the shoe, the handkerchief, or the glove can replace the genital? Certainly, the fetish substitutes for the whole person of an object, represents the possession of the beloved ; and the com- plete possession of an object for the purpose of pleasure doubt- less includes the genitals, too. We must realize that the child often expresses its fetishistic tendencies at a time when it has not yet achieved any clear understanding of the significance of the genitals. — At such a time of life, the "erogenous zones" are still in the ascendency. Freud relegates the primacy of the genitals to the pubertal period. He writes : "With the onset of puberty, those changes occur which have the purpose of transforming the infantile sexual life of the individual to its final and normal character. Up until then, the sex instinct was primarily autoerotic; but at that time it is transferred to its sexual object. Up to this period of life, the sex instinct ex- pressed itself in individual instincts which derived from sep- arate erogenous zones affording independent pleasure as inde- pendent sex goals. But now a new sexual goal is conceived, and its achievement depends upon the combined activity of all the partial instincts together. The separate erogenous zones are subsumed under the primacy of the genital zone." — Freud states quite unambiguously that the child seeks only a certain pleasure which it can gain from the different erogenous zones.

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335

It is a well-known law of sexual life that we seek our pleasures in those zones of our partner which have been a source of pleasure in our own bodies. That would show that the child only seldom seeks the possession of the genital before puberty. In most instances, it is satisfied with the gratification of the olfactory or visual instincts (osphresiolagnia and scoptolagnia), with pleasure in defecation or micturition, in short with one of the forms of infantile gratification such as I have described exhaustively in Infantile Psycho-Sexuality. Freud seems ac- tually to consider fetishism as the preservation of one of the original partial instincts, as, e.g., Abraham bases his case of foot fetishism on a repressed olfactory instinct. That, of course, is something quite different from the conception of a fetish as a genital. Sadger has confounded two concepts which must be strictly separated. The fetish lover genitalizes his fetish, i.e., the fetish supplants the genital which otherwise is the object of love and the source of pleasure for an adult. But genitalization is nothing else than an expression and means to say that the fetish lover finds his gratification in the fetish instead of in the genital. At the time when the fetishism is being developed, the genital is not as yet a sex goal. We have already heard of the importance of the odors of soiled or old clothes. They smell because they are soaked with the odors of the wearer's body. They replace the odor of the wearer, they create the illusion that the possessor is being smelled. This is the phenomenon of displacement. But that Sadger hasn't the faintest notion of the significance of the symbol is sufficiently revealed by his writings.

The essential importance of our newer knowledge lies in our emphasis upon the affective value of the symbol. All previous students of symbolism have completely neglected this point of view. The symbol is distinguished from the emblem, the alle- gory, the metaphor, the simile (all of which are only compara- tive in form and indicate one thing by another) by virtue of the affective moment and the mechanism of displacement. The relationships of the symbol are not determined by its content, but only by the emotional trends. The emotional qualities being repressed, however, the content of the symbol is not readily appreciable by the recipient.

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Certain banal symbols, such as the flag, also contain some degree of emotional tone; they reveal the phenomenon of pre- Hum affectionis. But such feelings are worn on the sleeve. We know that the flag represents the regiment and thus also the homeland; that the honor of the regiment, for example, is crystallized in the flag.

But the parapathic symbol derives its affectivity from the unconscious. It is the fetish lover's support for his fictitious scheme of life. He conducts himself as if the symbol were the living object which it really represents. It is this "as if" which explains the animism directed at the fetishistic symbol.

It is only in a fictitious world of dreams that the symbol could develop to such proportions. Adler has correctly stressed the significance of fictions in the life of the parapathic, but he has made the great mistake of conceiving the patient's sexual attitudes as a fiction, too. The parapathic acts "as if" he were desiring his mother, but that is a great distortion of the facts. He loves his mother and forms his dreamy plan in order to act as if he did not love her.

It is the incest complex especially which drives the parapathic to the construction of a fictitious principle of life. Sexuality as such is no "as if." The fetishism is developed in order to create an "as if" of sexuality.

In fetishism, the parapathic's tendency towards the forma- tion of a fictitious form of life is raised to the nth degree. He becomes a fetish lover, represses his religious piety and acts as if he were a parapathic. The tendency towards the fanciful and phantastic derives from infantile habits.

Hans Vaihinger, to whom Adler expressly refers, has rec- ognized the origins of fictions in the play of children. In a popular paper, he discussed the "As-If in Daily Life."

"It is a preconception to say that the philosophy of the As-If is a hyper-modern discovery of mine. I have frequently shown that fictitious forms of thought and conduct, i.e., consciously false attitudes, have often played a leading role in the history of man from the earliest times. It is thus also a biassed attitude to say that the as-if point of view is a matter of abstract philos-

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ophy. On the contrary, it plays a tremendous part in our daily life.

"I purposely choose some banal examples. Whoever rejects an unpleasant visitor by having the maid tell him that he is not at home or whoever hangs out a sign 'Not In,' although he may be at home, is not expressing untrue facts, committing fraud or telling lies. On the contrary, the individual exploits a well- known, recognized and much used conventional fiction. It may be that he has someone else in the house with whom he desires to be alone; or he may be preparing a lecture which he has to give in another hour; or he may be writing a letter upon the immediate dispatch of which the most serious consequences hang ; or he may be physically or mentally exhausted without actually saying that he is ill. In short, there are a thousand and one reasons which need not interest the other party, but they give us the right and even the duty to reject the visitor. Neverthe- less, to be rejected when the person is home and not ill is a most painful and insulting experience. That is the reason why society agrees upon the convention or fiction that one is 'not at home.' The recipient of the visit acts 'as if' he were not at home.

"Another example from an entirely different field. Aunt Frieda has a charming little niece whom she would gladly see at the altar. To this end, she arranges a tea to which she invites a young man whom she met recently during a trip and who, at present, has just looked her up during a short stay in this city which is far from his home. She is convinced that both of them are quite suited to each other and even tells each of them so before they meet. And surely enough, after about a half year, the threads of affection have been spun between them. Amor has bound both hearts in the deepest of love. The engagement is to take place at Easter. 'We are both destined to have met each other from time immemorial. It is not chance, but some eternal fate which has brought us together/ etc., etc. This is the feeling of both the two young people and it can even become a religious belief with some. But it can also be a conscious form of self- deception, a purposeful auto-suggestion, a conscious fiction which pleases both parties.

"Ten years later. They have a little daughter who plays with her dolls. The eight-year-old child knows very well that the doll is made of leather, porcelain, saw-dust or some other filler. But, for the playing girl, the doll is something alive. The child

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speaks with the toy as if it were alive and had movements and sensations. All the play of children, e.g., the 'robber games' of boys, is based upon such fictions. It would be a gross mistake of education and upbringing to stand upon the form of adult logic and tear these children out of their 'conscious self-deception/ their clearly recognized day-dreams. Only a coarse pedant could ever commit such an error upon the temple of youth. The chil- dren would drive such a person away with the greatest of re- sentment.

"The couple of whom we speak also have a son. Another ten years later and he has entered the political arena. What does he find there? Our political life is based upon parties whose pro- grams are biassed and one-sided structures. But despite this one- si dedness, they are necessary in just this form and must be so preserved at least for a time. The spiritual leaders of the divers parties often recognize this fact themselves, but they may never- theless stand for such a platform as if they fully believed in its present form ; and they may treat the program as if it were still full of its original meaning. It is also a fiction when each political party declares that it 'speaks the will of the people/ The will of the people is also a fiction which does not become more real by receiving the fashionable name of 'la volonte-general/ But this is nevertheless a necessary fiction in the affairs of state. Our lives are pervaded by such political fictions of more or less bad charac- ter. The most potent fiction of this kind in modern times is the notorious section of the Versailles Treaty which conceives Ger- many as the sole instigator of the war. A portentous fiction, in- deed.

"One of the strangest fictions of our times in this respect is the so-called imprisonment of the pope. Everybody knows that the pope may and can leave the Vatican at any time that he chooses ; that no one would hinder him from walking, riding or going wherever he pleased in the world. But the Roman church sup- ports the fiction as if he were a prisoner. He may not leave the Vatican, i.e., the gardens of the Vatican, even in the hottest months of the year; nor may he visit the cool and pleasant palaces of former popes in the hills. The entire Catholic world lays down its life for this fiction.

"Like everything else in life, the fictions may also be abused, but this is covered by the old proverb : abusus non tollit usum: misuse is no ground for rejection of a usage.

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"A justifiable use of fictitious attitudes is universally common to religion. The language of our religions and our clerics is full of pictorial allusions the greater or lesser accuracy of which is more or less conscious in the minds of those who exploit them. In France, there once developed, on the basis of Kant, the Prot- estant sect of 'Simbolo-Fideis/ That was a school founded by Sabatier which made use of symbolical or pictorial elements in their belief. The same is true of the Modernistic' element of the Catholic church founded by Le Roy, who was preceded to a great extent by Renan. They all openly acclaimed these fictitious usages and thus recognized the mystical element in religion."

What a wonderful example was here chosen in the child playing with the doll ! The fetishist first conceives his fetish as a sexual plaything. He creates the fiction and then plays with it so long that he no longer is able to recognize the fetish as a toy. He is an actor who stages a comedy for himself. It is thus really erroneous to speak of fetishism as "erotic sym- bolism." It is just a simple form of symbolism. It is an "erotic fiction" in which logic is misapplied to further the fiction. Logic becomes the slave of passion. The irrational commits a rape upon the rational. The fetishist rationalizes his fiction until he has made it compatible with logic. He even knows how to think up motives which are far removed from reality simply because he will not see the true motives at hand. We are concerned in these cases with a state of not wanting to see, and it would be a gross mistake to assume that these patients cannot see.

The fetishist achieves this "apperceptive insufficiency" be- cause he is able to work himself into a sort of trance. The ecstasy of this state is achieved by virtue of a stasis of affect which is then suddenly released. In the early stages of the fetishism, the fetish lover doubtless lived in two separate worlds. He was able to differentiate between the world of dreams and the realm of reality. But as soon as the phantasies began to over-run the world of reality, the dreamily playing child is transformed into a full-blown fetishist. The fetish lover is an eternal child ; he holds fast to his infancy and pre- serves the dream-world of childhood. The psycho-sexual in-

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fantilism of the fetishist represents the dream world of the normal child.

Indeed, all these cases of fetishism can be understood only if we remember that the fetish lover lives in a world of phan- tasy in which the borders between reality and the dream have become very hazy. They are all day-dreamers. The little of their system which they permit to trickle into consciousness is but an infinitesimal part of their constructions. Their phan- tasies stand in abrupt contrast to their waking life. But that is precisely the great danger which besets them. It incapaci- tates them for the burdens of the real world, they are incapable of real work, they withdraw all interest and attention from their business and sink more and more into the morass of their dreams. Their system is to be compared with a neoplasm ; at first unseeming and small, it spreads and grows until it has supplanted healthy tissues and endangered the life of the organ- ism. The comparison goes even further: we have been able to show that in this case, too, we are dealing with "embryonal cells,', the infantile cells of the mind — infantile strivings which displace the individuals from the present. The impulse to revive the old is what drives these people to their impulsive acts.

All children manifest rudimentary forms of fetishism and a tendency to systematized structures of the mind. The fictions are their very own inventions and they cling to them obsti- nately against all outside influences. The system is a secret Which loses all its piquancy once it is revealed, The child sym- bolizes and lives in a fictitious world of phantasy. The child still possesses the wonderful capacity of drinking from the primitive fountain of poesy. It is a poet blessed by God. The fetishist, too, has preserved a part of his childhood and has retained as an adult the system he formed in childhood.

The uninitiated can hardly conceive the efforts which go into the formation of such a system. A most intense creative energy is necessary to the construction of such systems; a wealth of phantasy is needed to live in such a world and still influence the unbending nature of reality. But that is possible only by means of a persistent annulment. The fiction can be preserved only at the cost of a complete destruction of the

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forces of reality. That is why this parapathic constantly trans- forms the meaning of all values ; he simply rejects or annuls everything which does not fit into his system. He effaces time and space, refuses to recognize the majesty of death or the limits of the possible. Everything is possible and even the death of a beloved object does not hinder him from exploiting the experience in the interests of his system. It is not im- probable that every fetishist is a lost poet. If he had but the gift of sublimation and the outward projection of his con- flicts, he could save himself from the bonds of his paraphilia. But he does not project; on the contrary, he introjects, as Ferenczi acutely put it. He exploits the outside world in aug- menting his system, whereas the poet or creative writer uses his system for the enrichment of the world. With every piece of creative effort, the poet rids himself of one more complex, whereas the fetishist makes use of every external impression to increase the extent or scope of his psychic structure.

But a creative spirit is necessary even in the construction of a fetishism. I believe that this is one of the reasons why there are so few women among fetishists. They do not mani- fest this phantastic and intuitive constitution. In his own way, the fetishist is a symbolistic genius. I have not personally analyzed a case of female fetishism and the case which Bins- wanger so exhaustively studied is an exception. It is possible that the reasons may be found in the fact that women lack the rich creative capacity of men. But there is, of course, another circumstance to be considered. For a long time I was struck by the fact that, with one exception, all the fetishists whom I studied were Christians. My material otherwise regularly shows about thirty to thirty-five percent Jews who make up a large proportion of parapathics. The only fetishistic Jew whom I analyzed was not circumcised and manifested a dis- tinct tendency towards the Christian religion. These facts may well be related to the presence of the Christ neurosis in these cases. We have already observed the importance of the patient's identification with Christ in the psychopathology of fetishism. Women and Jews achieve such an identification only with difficulty. But there is even another factor to be considered : the identification of the parapathic with his phallus.

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Strangely enough, most of my patients suffered from a more or less marked phimosis and every one of them had been an enuretic. Hitschmann has already called attention to the re- lationship between urine erotism and compulsion neurosis.4 The circumscription of the penis by the tightened prepuce and, furthermore, the compulsive attitude which these enuretics had to take towards their bladders, may well have been the bases for the development of the fetishistic compulsion itself.

It seems to me that the compulsions which the child exerts upon the rectum, with its sources of pleasure in the retention of feces, are also a predisposing factor in the development of fetishism. These cases reveal a curious form of conversion: the organ sensations are translated into psychic mechanisms. It is just the reverse of the conversions which Freud first de- scribed. The conversion of mental mechanisms in organic symptoms leads to an organic form of expression of the soul which is already well known to us. They were especially treated in Volume I of this series. But in fetishism we meet with a transposition of organ sensations and compulsions into the language of psychic compulsions and obsessions ; a phenom- enon which I choose to term the "phenomenon of psychic super- structure."

An excellent example is to be found in the case of the phi- mosis. The child must certainly feel the tightening of the penis as a result of the phimosis as a pleasurable sensation. The rubbing of the foreskin over the sulcus coronarius wakens sensations and creates irritation which demand repetition. In addition to this, we must not forget that most men identify themselves with their genitals. There must also be added the factor of memories of the blessed time when one was well swaddled in diapers. In dreams, the genital is symbolized as a child. The phallus (the little one) represents infancy. Other thoughts and images are then grouped about this nucleus. The compulsions which are exerted by the organs on the bladder and the rectum become the symbol of upbringing and obses- sions altogether. In earliest infancy, the child doubtless capi- tulated to the impulse and released the pleasure of retention by defecating or micturating. But our analyses show us that these functions were originally very pleasurable. It is only under

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343

the stress of education and punishment that the child can be brought to control itself and defecate or urinate only at certain times. Education begins with the first compulsion in this direc- tion, the first demand to control the eliminative functions. It is the first compulsive influence from without. The psychic compulsions which the fetishist then develops are reflections of these organic ones. For immediately following the struggle over the child's unbridled indulgence in the eliminations and ex- cretions, the battle over its sexuality begins. The parents note that the child strives to gratify itself in onanistic (autoerotic) manipulations, and they strive to repress them. The first strug- gle against onanism usually ends with a victory for the parents or educators. But we have seen that all true fetishists are true onanists. They revenge themselves for this first violation by a later persistence in their earlier habits.

The question now arises as to whether the individual feels his sexual instinct as a compulsion or not. We must answer it in the affirmative. This obsession then allies itself with the others, and is not the least important. We have observed how bitterly the fetishist struggles against his own sexuality. His system is a compromise, the net result of this very struggle. His basic tendency is an autoerotic one. He thus becomes progressively asocial, retreats more and more from his partner, experiences his sexual orgies in his distorted phantasy and be- comes increasingly more introverted. His asceticism is mani- fested in his flight from the partner. To the male fetishist, the woman is a symbol of sin and depravity, whereas onanism is stubbornly preserved as a form of atonement and expiation, but also as a means of self-punishment and pleasure. Nearly all of these patients believe in the deleterious effects of onanism and yet they persist in the practice, perhaps just for this reason. They place themselves consciously under the influence of a compulsion which insures, however, that they must avoid coitus. The system is then extended as an expression of resistance to society. It is the patient's own creation which triumphs over society.

Even religion is conceived as something foreign, obsessive, coercive. That is why they throw the conventional religions overboard and create a religion of their own which gives their

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own sexual expression plenty of elbow room. But the antith- eses rub against each other here just as in every other form of compromise. But these are closely bound and unified. That is why we must not be astonished to find the paraphilia and re- ligion occupying the same mind, being expressed in a single symptom. Fetishism unites heaven and hell, the high and the low, the past and the future, but it also indicates the regression and the progression, the final tendency of asceticism and the neglect of the present as well as all teleological trends.

In this sense, the fetishism is a curative tendency. Indeed, for the patient it signifies a protection against their own sadistic trends. It is pleasure and pain in one. They all feel them- selves to be the martyrs of their own instincts. They seem to sacrifice as much as they enjoy. The symbol of their martyr- dom is Christ who saved the souls of men through his own death. I am, however, convinced that still other identifications with the martyrs occur in such cases. That shows us how potent the guilt feelings of these patients are. We have already emphasized the relations between sadism and fetishism in this book. The cruelty which was originally projected outwards is later turned upon the individual's own personality.

The recognition of this aggressiveness, the introspective knowledge of his own inimical attitudes towards society, the fact of his asocial-autistic tendency leads the parapathic to the formation of his guilt consciousness as the most biting expres- sion of his conscience. Primitive man had no conscience. He knew no other guilt but that towards himself. It was only after the formation of social units that conscience arose as a measure of social protection. Conscience was originally anti- conscience — a knowledge of the imperatives of the external world which are directed against our striving for pleasure. The guardians of the law which protect society against the in- dividual were originally individuals. The king or chief was also the judge and executioner. Since, however, the chief could not have a knowledge of all transgressions, he had to have help in his name. The law is directed against all asocial tend- encies. A second, a higher judge, was erected : divinity. God is omnipotent and all-seeing. There is no hiding and no flee- ing from His justice. The fact that asocial creatures might

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 345

easily delight in the oversight of their transgressions, neces- sarily led to the concept of an even-handed justice in the Be- yond. This heavenly justice could then punish the earthly transgressions which had led to pleasure and had been over- looked.

The fetish lover fears the punishment of God and bends himself in humiliation before His commands. But he himself becomes a god. He punishes himself and thus saves his soul. He creates a hell on earth for himself in order that he may be sure of a place in heaven. He creates his own heaven of pleasure by suffering the tortures of hell while alive.

The conflicts of the fetishist represent the conflicts of every civilized man; the difference being that they are very much magnified, caricatured and distorted by condensation and dis- placement. His religiousness is infantile in character. It is anchored in his feelings, hammered in by the impressions of early childhood and indestructibly fixed for life. Intellectually, the fetishist lives beyond the pale of his own faith. He cannot understand his beliefs ; he can only feel them. His intellect is ashamed of them, and he is thus forced to hide them from him- self and play the part of the freethinker. He acts towards God as towards his own father. Most of these patients seem to have overcome the influence of their fathers, but they never- theless cling to them. Our case 69 was an instructive example. Behind the hatred of the father, or the indifference towards him or the depreciation and derogation of the father, there lurks the infantile over-estimation of the man, the pride in him, the rivalry with him, the envy of him which the Freudian school has so well delineated for us. Father, teacher, God, the higher-ups and society all run together in one single complex : the complex of authority. The fetishist is an anarchist and yet a slave of society and social custom. As I have repeatedly emphasized, there is room for all antitheses in his system.

The fetishist is thus a distorted reflection of our ailing times which vacillate between faith and faithlessness, between the past and the future. He is the sacrificial lamb of education which creates religious foundations in our youth that only live to be destroyed. The education to a fear of God leads to this most curious of all the masks of religion.

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We have placed our hand upon a festering wound. Long ago the friends of man recognized that we sorely need a ref- ormation of our religious education; and they attempted to solve this problem by the introduction of free schools. But the question is : shall we educate our children without any re- ligious teaching whatever or shall we rather inculcate in them a general religious background which supplants the fear of God by the love of God?

The chief feature of our education to-day is that it is an education under anxiety. Fetishism is a self -protective measure against this anxiety. As long as the fiction of a hell and a punishment in the Beyond of an almighty judge in heaven are supported, we can hardly hope for a general alleviation of these paraphilias. The world does not yet seem to be ready for a replacement of the religion of fear by the religion of love. That is, to love the good because of a pleasure in the good and not because of a business arrangement whereby one receives a special reward in heaven. If we could educate our young to the religion of Ethos, we would certainly be able to prevent the development of most fetishistic cases. But such an educa- tion to-day is an Utopia. Agreed that we had a whole mass of free schools, what does their number mean in the face of the power of the church which shall undoubtedly preserve its mighty power for a long, long time ? I believe that the sudden recall of the religion of fear would lead to a catastrophe in which the aboriginal and primitive animal nature of man would go wilder than during the World War of unhappy memory. It will be many thousands of years before the bulwarks of anxiety have been replaced by the solid pillars of human affec- tion. It is even questionable whether mankind will ever achieve this goal, despite the fact that it strives to attain it by means of all kinds of roundabout routes.

The prophylaxis of fetishism can be carried out only within the family. In the previous volumes of this series we have sufficiently outlined how such a free upbringing may be ex- ecuted. In this book, I wish only to stress the fact that the chief duty of all educators is to plant the love of Ethos in the hearts of all children, but without enslaving the young by feel- ings of anxiety. I have sufficiently shown how the false notion

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of sexual intercourse as an hereditary sin may be one of the motives in the development of a fetishism. Sexuality must again be enthroned as a natural, human event in the realm of biology. That can be ensured only by an open and properly gauged enlightenment of the child, but even more by an avoid- ance of gross mistakes in upbringing. But the road from our present moral hypocrisy to the rehabilitation of normal sex life is a long and winding one.

Looking over the panorama of our present day social condi- tions, we must confess that we are witnessing a struggle be- tween Clericalism and Socialism, the sharpness of which was hardly suggested before the war. The two parties often barely hold each other at bay and then again they may alternate in their leadership. But which party will become the final con- queror ?

The metaphysical needs of the individual and the broad masses are considerably under-estimated. We have not yet witnessed the creation of a religion of Socialism. Perhaps every religion begins as a religion of Socialism and ends by serving Conservatism and Capitalism. Christianity began in this way. There was a time when it was preached that a camel could sooner pass through the eye of a needle than that a wealthy man might enter heaven. Has this axiom prevented men from seeking wealth and becoming rich? And does not the church rest upon the broad backs of the poor to-day as well as upon the arms of the rich? And does it not protect the wealthy against the suspicions of the poor? It is easy to see why Communism looks upon Socialism with a suspicious eye and considers it as an even more insidious enemy than the bourgeois himself. And yet Christian teaching, like its Hebrew forerunner, was originally a Communistic one. Shall we wit- ness a repetition of history and the actual decline of the West?

Fetishism is a social disease. But since the struggle between the freethinkers and the faithful believers will doubtless be- come more acute with the passing years, it is probable that the number of fetishists will increase generally. Every man is free to build a little chapel at home for his prayers if he feels that he will be scoffed at or scorned on the way to church. Fetishists are seekers of God. They approach God by dark

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and devious routes. As in a dream, they wander among the depths and the depravities of life. But, for themselves, they have found God. He also gives them the love which they desire. In its bipolar tendencies every one of their onanistic acts is at once a sacrilege and a prayer. They possess the faith of primitives and children, the belief which permits them to beat their God when he scorns their wishes.

Cure can be effected in two ways. The fetishist recognizes the deeply religious foundations of his condition and replaces this mock-religion by a more instinctive and adjusted one. He forms a compromise between his infantile faith and his present philosophy of life. Or, he may try to overcome the infantile religion and arrive at agnosticism or atheism. But I openly confess that I have never been able to observe a fetishist take the latter path, although an agnostic, reserved, observing atti- tude often takes place.

In all these cases we have been able to note the presence of a tremendous ambition, a pathological will to power which found its cardinal expression in their Christ neurosis. But always, we were able to disclose the presence of infantile, sexual roots ; in a word, the Freudian mechanisms. The cure of the fetishist demands his inner separation from his family, the con- quest of his psycho-sexual infantilism and the rejection of the fixed idea which may be expressed in the formula: "If I may not achieve my secret sexual goal, I refuse to be satisfied witn any other form of sexuality." By this I mean the satisfaction gained in the object. The dangers of masturbation may be read in this obstinate retention of the fixed notion, the original phantasy. The physical detriments of masturbation are about zero. But the psychic detriments in these cases are very ex- tensive. Every onanistic act re-opens the old wound, the primal scene of Freud. It is the nail which fixes the man to the cross of his paraphilia. If the fetishist has been able to give up his autoerotic habits and has taken to alloerotic grati- fication, then we can speak of a practical cure. But I have seen many cases which manifested another type of conduct. The fetishist may marry and indulge in alloerotic gratification and yet persist in his onanistic habits with the aid of the fetish. These are the men who are in danger of a relapse at any time.

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Especially if the marriage becomes incompatible, a situation which is easily constructed in view of the man's incomplete cure. Psychoanalysis alone is in a position to break up the infantile fixations of the patient, his distorted sexual guiding principles ; it alone can help him to return to the habits of normal gratifica- tion.

But the patient answers the physician's attempts in this direc- tion with obstinate resistances. He does not want to give up his infantile sources of pleasure. He has, after all, built up his system in open resistance to all authority, especially against his father. It is the eternal admonition that his educators in- truded upon his sex life and either made his pleasures hard or bitter for him.

This hate now turns against the analyst whom he begs for cure although he fears it. The analyst becomes a representa- tive of the father who intruded upon the patient's secret sex life. It takes considerable technical skill to steer through the rapids of this torrent of emotion. The patient must be told again and again that he is resisting the accomplishment of his cure, that he scoffs at and scorns the physician and wants to triumph over him just as he triumphed over every other author- ity with his system. The patient must learn just how he has made himself socially impossible. He must learn the meaning of that simple but, to him, inexplicable truth : Tua res agitur.

The physician has a great aid in the fact that the communica- tion of the fetishist's phantasies promptly deflates their value. Ridiculous situations or ridicule itself kills. And all these fetishistic nuances have something ridiculous about them. If the patient has come to criticize his own phantasies during the ventilation of them ; if he not only understands, but also feels the foolishness of his phantasies, then he is able to withstand the power of the emotional deluge created by his fetishistic phantasies.

We must not overlook the forensic side of this question. In many cases in the text, we have shown how the neglected act leads to substitutive conduct. These men are subject to the power of irresistible impulses. They easily become klepto- maniacs or exhibitionists, and the question of punishment or exculpation is not easy to decide. If we should demand acquit-

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tal for all these men on the grounds of transient loss of re- sponsible knowledge or the presence of an irresistible impulse, without afterwards considering the patient's condition further, the number of such transgressions would certainly increase. The fear of punishment keeps many of them from capitulating to their impulses.

But we can demand this : Every one of these men should be turned over to an analyst for treatment after a preliminary examination. If the analysis reveals the presence of a genuine fetishism, then, instead of having the man spend time in a cell or an asylum at the expense of the state, let him be treated at the expense of the state. Case 59 by Petersen shows that such patients can be cured without an analysis if the shock of legal proceedings is strong enough to mobilize all the defense mech- anism of the personality. But how much more potent would it be to have the man undergo an analysis which would reveal many other more important motives and fixations behind the so-called primal experience — motives which resist cure until they become conscious.

The forensic psychiatrist of the future will be a psychiatrist and analyst in one. Indeed, the time is not far off when psychoanalysis will be an integral part of psychiatry. That is why I close all my works with the one demand : Sexology and psychoanalysis must become an integral feature of the cur- riculum in every medical school ; or, at least, it must become a distinct part of the obligatory post-graduate courses for all physicians.

NOTES TO VOLUME TWO

CHAPTER XII

1 Note the contradiction. He had said at first that he began at fourteen. Many parapathics disclose this tendency to falsify their anamnesis.

2 He calls his aunt's husband his brother-in-law.

3 See my paper on the neurotic as actor, I.e.

4 Later we shall find another motive for this attitude : he also wanted to be a brother-in-law.

5 Cf. Impotence in the Male, the chapter on "Ejaculatio Praecox."

6 This statement was found at the end of the analysis to be false.

7 These occurrences are, unfortunately, not so seldom among our lower classes and even in the "best circles" I have been able to find such misdeeds on the part of mothers.

8 I often see little children in picture galleries. I once saw an English father explaining the horrors of the infanticide of Bethlehem to his three- year-old son. Other children like to satisfy their peeping instincts there. The sadistic elements are also stilled.

9 See Die Träume der Dichter (The Dreams of the Poets) ; Chapter I on "Der tiefe Brunnen" (the deep well).

10 Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, p. 21, footnote, 4 ed.

11 " Ein Kind wird geschlagen," in the Sammlung kleiner Schriften 2. A'eu- rosenlehre. Five series, p. 198.

CHAPTER XIII

1 Jahrbuch f. psychoanalytische und psycho pathologische Forschungen, Vol. III, 1911. m

2 The direct excerpts from the analysis will be found hereafter in small print.

3 Later, Gerda said: "When I think of a birth, I get weaker down below, as if my bottom didn't belong to me."

4 "When the foot is lifted, one sees the crack (between the sole and the loose heel). It doesn't bother me while standing, but when the person walks, it's unbearable. Lifting the foot is the worst part, then one can see that something is wrong. It's all open." In short, she is not only afraid of heels, she is impelled to look at them.

5 Cf., the heel phobia.

6 The only other factors which indicate her original delight in defecation, etc., are the statement that she liked especially to sit on father's large pot, and a dream in which she was suddenly surprised by her father while she was defecating. The patient manifests a marked exhibitionistic instinct, whereas her peeping instinct is very much repressed. The latter reappears, however, in her impulse alwaj^s to look at people's heels and feet.

7 I can warmly recommend Binswangens original paper to every analyst.

8 Cf., later the transformation of her mother complex.

9 She had once dirtied the bed at night.

10 We recall that Gerda had another younger brother, Albert. She was two when he was born. Just how much she still remembered of that birth and then reactivated at the time Max was born is hard to say. It seemed as

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if he had always been here, the inseparable and always preferred escort of his sister.

11 Another time she used the expression "take in."

12 Her usual expression for navel.

13 It must be stated that Gerda wanted to appear as slender as possible, clothed herself tightly, etc. She liked to feel her intestines full only at times ; then she would feel : "Now it'll go through, it'll push its way out." She would then eat with an appetite inexplicable to herself.

14 As small as a "little doll."

15 Patent onanistic phantasy with strikingly "male" tendency.

16 Gerda had often begged her mother to present her with twins, and when this wish was not fulfilled, she blamed only her mother's unwillingness and was angry with her.

17 The heel and the shoe as infanticidal instruments.

18 When Gerda realized that this was the point, she felt much freer, "felt joy in her soul," as she put it, and cried out : "Now we have it !"

19 This is doubtless an expression of "female" shoe symbolism.

20 As we have already learned, Gerda had once fainted in a strange shoe shop. She explained that at that time she felt as if she had renounced some- thing, committed an injustice. We must also remember that Gerda had fainted just as the salesgirl was opening the shoe and widening it, so that Gerda might more comfortably step into it.

21 This expression recalls the cutting of a shoe into swollen feet (see above), and the experience in which the skate clamp cut into the heel.

22 The symbolic use of shoe for something old is illustrative.

23 I.e., birth.

24 This expression shows that we were not dealing with newly created ma- terial, but that the patient was divulging infantile material which had never really been forgotten. It was nevertheless necessary to go to the pains de- scribed in the monograph in order to bring all that to light. Once this has occurred, the patients believe they "have known it all the time," and seem to depreciate the value and effects of the analysis.

25 The constipation which she still has must be looked upon as a conse- quence of this long-standing habit.

26 Nor shall I go into the means by which we achieved this knowledge (operations, pregnancy, her own pregnancy, etc.).

27 Freud, Analyse Eines 5 Jährigen Knaben ; and Jung, Ueber Konflikte der Kindlichen Seele. Jahrb. f. psychoanalyt. und. psychopathol. Forsch, Vol. II, p. 33 ff-

28 Dr. Binswanger communicated the following to me regarding her fur- ther destiny: "I have not seen Gerda since the analysis and have heard but seldom from her directly. In the beginning, I corresponded with her hus- band, who sent me good reports. Then I didn't hear about her for a long time until I learned indirectly that she had had a relapse. I learned the reasons only later. Her husband disappointed her severely, squandered her money, and appears to have turned out to be a very inferior person. They were divorced after about four or five years of married life. Both the chil- dren and the mother are again living with Gerda's mother. ^ I can't say whether she desisted from writing me because of unanalyzed inhibitions (her entire attitude towards the male sex remained, unfortunately, unanalyzed) or be- cause of her pride which prevented her from communicating to me her dis- appointment and unhappiness. Both reasons are probably valid."

CHAPTER XIV

1 Incorrect. Patient is greatly stigmatized in the direct maternal line. He also states now that he was born in 1889 whereas before he said 1890.

NOTES TO VOLUME TWO 353

CHAPTER XV

1 By bodily contact the patient means the simple contact of the two naked bodies. That was the limit of his sexual activity and beyond that he never attempted to pass.

2 I confess that I wrote on some old and poor quality paper which carried the letter head of my American monthly "Psyche and Eros."

3 This is incorrect, as we shall see later on. Formerly he used to include various female pictures in his collections.

4 This change is important and shows us that on occasion the boys may also represent girls.

5 Such a prophecy is a good means of preventing the patient from leaving. They remain out of obstinacy. Some patients even arrange to run out of money and then want to borrow from the analyst.

6 One can frequently observe that people find difficulty in parting with parts of their own body. I know patients who have looked longingly at their excised appendix and then wanted to keep it (Cf., also the bottling of gall stones). This is an expression of narcissistic love of one's own body. Per- tinent remarks on this subject may be found in Schilder, "Ueber eine Psy- chose nach Staroperation (Psychosis following cataract operation), Int. Zeitschr. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. VIII, No. I, 1922. Leonhard Frank's book, Der Mensch ist gut (Man is good) also describes in moving terms how diffi- cult it is for wounded soldiers to part with their amputated limbs.

7 The bipolar tendency of these rescue phantasies (rescuing and killing) is discussed in the Int. Zeitschr. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. VIII, 1922, by Abra- ham : "Vaterrettung und Vatermord in den neurotischen Phantasiegebilden" (Father rescue and patricide in neurotic phantasy).

8 He had tried to smoke a pipe which I had given him. Fellatio phantasy !

9 This whole scene took place on an outing into the Wachau (the valley of the Danube above Vienna. — Trans.).

10 There was no talk of this in reality. I always avoid such demonstra- tions of emotion. But the patient thus expresses the wish to have satisfied the analyst by these disclosures.

11 Otto was too much under the influence of the analysis to be a reliable guide for prognosis.

12 Dr. Missriegler suspects this to be a memory of a menstrual cloth, but there was no relevant material. One might consider the bandage as a custos virginitatis, however.

CHAPTER XVI

1 This analysis was carried out under my direction and with my aid I would like to emphasize, however, that my aid consisted only in helping to deepen the dream analyses and in formulating the conclusions. — Dr. Stekel.

2 The measurements were done according to the system of Dr. Arthur Weil. Geschlechtstrieb und Körperform (Sexuality and Physique). Sup- plement to Vol. VIII, No. 5, 1921, of the Zeitschr. f. Sexualwissenschaft, edited by Dr. Max Marcuse. Verlag A. Marcus and E. Webers, Berlin and Bonn.

TABLE I

Shoulder breadth 1

Hip

breadth 2

Pelvic breadth 8

Height *

Arm length «

Trunk length 6

Limb length r

162

354 SEXUAL ABERRATIONS

TABLE II

Sexual Proportions

Asexual Proportion

Shoulder : Pelvis

Shoulder: Hips

Trunk : Limbs

Height: Arm Length

103 (94, 97) 8

in (82, 86)

110.4 (106, 91)

42.5 (44, 44)

1 Distance between both processus coracoidei.

2 Distance between both trochanters.

8 Distance between both spinae iliacae anteriores superiores.

4 Distance from vertex to the floor.

5 Distance between proc. coracoideus and the tip of the middle finger. u Distance from vertex to the coccyx.

7 Distance from the coccyx to the floor.

8 The figures in parentheses are taken from Dr. Weil's paper (I.e.). The first of his figures refers to homosexual women of his observation and the second to the heterosexual women. As can be seen from the above figures in our case, the relation- ship between shoulder-pelvis and shoulder-hips is markedly displaced towards the pelvis- hip side of the comparison which denotes a distinct heterosexual trend. The woman's asthenic thorax is, of course, considerably at fault for these figures. But the proportion between trunk-limbs and the asexual proportions are almost typical in this respect.

3 The following pages contain an abridged statement of the patient's own information as collected in the succeeding sessions. This will give the reader an idea of what may be expected of the information received from parapathics before the transference has been fully established. Those who are not analysts usually fall into the traps laid in the initial information of patients. The statements followed by an asterisk (*) in the text are not true in fact and were later corrected by the patient herself. Those declara- tions followed by a cross (-f) are correct. The former are due to the pa- tient's usually unconscious tendency to distort (gain through illness). This circumstance alone gives one an indication of the difficulties met with in analysis. And this despite the fact that the patient had no desire to be cured. The material, also, was collected by sessions ; and although this neces- sitates a lack of unity, it gives us the advantage of plasticity.

4 The patient's appearance is, indeed, striking. Upon a bobbed head with parted hair there sits a man's soft felt hat. A raincoat reaches nearly to the ankles and makes it questionable as to whether trousers or a skirt may be found beneath it. But she wears a skirt, the only female attribute on her person. Over a blouse or shirt, she wears a man's vest, a starched collar, tie and starched cuffs. All the rest is men's clothing: shoes, pocket-knife, cigarette lighter, cigarette case, etc.

5 She means Mrs. Justine (see first session).

6 My remarks are in brackets, hers in parentheses.

7 Her associations on "red" are interesting : blood — operation — surgeon — steer — bull fight — toreador.

8 Origin of the fellatio phantasy.

9 Cf ., also : Holy Mary.

10 She is a faithful sacristan of her own church.

11 Cf ., dream 10. The patient's willingness to give us her photos is doubt- less also due to her desire to show the world and posterity (especially her mother) her martyrdom.

12 While this book was in the press, we received information from the pa- tient to the effect that her request of the police department had been satis- factorily passed upon and that she was already indulging her transvestitism to the full.

NOTES TO VOLUME TWO 355

13 My assistant found these mechanisms without knowledge of Adler's theory.

14 The patient was said to have resembled the deceased son of Mrs. Justine very much ; so that the relationship seems to have been sexually determined from that side as well.

15 It is of interest to learn that she wore a marriage ring on her hand. She claimed that she had bought it because it had appealed to her.

16 Die Transvestiten, eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungs- trieb. Verlag Max Spohr, Leipzig. Here are explained Hirschfeld's four stages of intermediate sex: Hermaphrodites (I degree) ; Androgynes (II de- gree) ; Uranians (III degree) ; Transvestites (IV degree).

17 Stekel, Vol. II.

18 I.e., p. 167.

19 According to Krafft-Ebing, sadism is "an increase in male psycho-sexual characteristics" (cited after Hirschfeld, I.e.).

20 I.e., p. 7.

21 Cited after Hirschfeld, I.e., p. 246.

22 Italics mine.

23 I.e., p. 59.

24 Sister imago. Italics mine. Principal for father.

25 Day-dreams, the typical symptom of parapathia and split-personality.

26 Italics mine. We can see in this a harem-like construction. Plurality takes the place of the forbidden unity.

27 Manifest sister imago.

28 Italics mine. Identification with the unattainable sexual object.

29 I.e., p. 61.

30 A narcissistic feature. The breast, shoulders and arms have a partial- istic significance for him. Cf., above the chapter on partialism. Note also the sado-masochistic significance of the transvestiture in this case.

31 I.e., p. 55-

32 I.e., p. 67. 83 I.e., p. 203.

CHAPTER XVII

1 And the affect intended for these persons is also transferred to the object.

2 Cf., also Schopenhauer, Vol. I, pp. 316 and 321.

3 See Die Zeichen des Tempels (The Signs of the Temple). His other papers striving towards a deeper psychological understanding of the symbol are: Probleme der Mystik und Ihrer Symbolik (Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbols). Durch Tod zum Leben (Through Death to Life), Leipsic, 191 5. The essay entitled Phantasie und Mythos (Phantasy and Mythology) and the studies on symbol formation which have been continued in the Freud- Bleuler Jahrbuch für Psychoanalyse.

4 "Urethralerotik und Zwangsneurose," Int. Zeitschr. f. Psychoanalyse, Vol. VI, p. 263, 1920. Hitschmann postulates an "urethral character" whose chief features are "burning ambition" and a preference for work dealing with water. The burning ambition may be looked upon as a trait of every parapathic, whereas dealing with water is doubtless present in enuretics but is rather a sign of psychosexual infantilism. Hitschmann's paper only points out the coincidence of compulsion neurosis and anal as well as urethral erotism.

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Sexual Aberrations (Wilhelm Stekel)

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VII PARTIALISM AND THE HAREM CULT

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