Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/147

Rh female foot or shoe, as the masochist’s fetich, has acquired an independent significance.

Next come two cases in which the female shoe possesses a subordinate interest, but in which unmistakable masochistic desires play an important part (comp. Case 44):—

Case 61. Mr. X. aged 25, parents healthy, never sick before, places the following autobiography at my disposal: “I began to practice onanism at the age of ten, without ever having any lustful thoughts during the act. Yet at that time—I am sure of this—the sight and touch of girls’ elegant boots had a peculiar charm for me; my greatest desire was also to wear such shoes,—a wish that was occasionally fulfilled at masquerades. But I was also troubled by a very different thought: My ideal was to see myself in a position of humiliation; I would gladly have been a slave, and whipped; in short, I wished to receive the treatment that one finds described in many stories of slavery. I do not know whether the reading of such stories gave rise to my wish, or whether it arose spontaneously.

“Puberty began at the age of thirteen; with the occurrence of ejaculation lustful pleasure increased, and I masturbated more frequently, often two or three times a day. From my twelfth to my sixteenth year, during the act of onanism, I always had the idea that I was forced to wear girls’ boots. The sight of an elegant boot, on the foot of a girl at all pretty, intoxicated me; I inhaled the odor of the leather with avidity. In order to smell leather during the act of onanism, I bought a pair of leathern cuffs, which I smelled while I masturbated. My enthusiasm for ladies’ leathern shoes remains the same to-day; only, since my seventeenth year, it has been coupled with the wish to become a servant, to blacken shoes for distinguished ladies, to put on and take off their shoes for them, etc.

“My dreams at night are made up of shoe-scenes: either I stand before the show-window of a shoe-store regarding the elegant ladies’ shoes,—particularly buttoned shoes,—or I lie at a lady’s feet and smell and lick her shoes. For about a year I have given up onanism and go ad puellas; coitus takes place through intense thought of ladies’ buttoned shoes; or, if necessary, I take the shoe of the puella to bed with me. I have never suffered from my former onanism. I learn easily, have a good memory, and have never had headache in my life. This much concerning myself.

“A few words about my brother: I am thoroughly convinced that he is also a shoe-fetichist. Of the many facts that demonstrate this to me, it is only necessary to mention that it is a great pleasure for him to have a certain cousin (a very beautiful girl) tread upon him. As for the rest, I might undertake to tell whether a man who stands before a