Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/271

Rh young officer, he was now and then compelled to accompany his comrades to brothels. He was the more easily persuaded to this, since he hoped by this means to be rid of his vile partiality for boots; but he was impotent unless he brought the thought of boots to his aid. Under such circumstances, the act of cohabitation was normally performed, but without pleasurable feeling. Patient felt no impulse to intercourse with women, always requiring some external cause,—i.e., persuasion. Left to himself, his vita sexualis consisted in reveling in ideas about boots, and in corresponding dreams with pollutions. Since more and more there became connected with them the impulse to kiss his servant’s boots, to draw them off, etc., the patient determined to use every means to rid himself of this disgusting desire, which deeply wounded his pride. At that time, being in his twentieth year, and in Paris, he recalled a very beautiful peasant girl, who lived in his distant home. He hoped, with her assistance, to free himself of his perverse sexual inclination. He went directly home, and tried to win the girl’s favor. It seems that the patient was not naturally homo-sexual. He asserts that at that time he was actually in love with this person, and that her glance, or the touch of her dress, gave him sensual pleasure; and, when she once kissed him, he had a powerful erection. After about a year and a half, the patient succeeded in gaining his desires with this person.

He was potent, but ejaculated tardily (ten to twenty minutes), and never had a pleasurable feeling in the act.

After about a year and a half of sexual intercourse with this girl, his love for her grew cold, because he did not find her so “fine and pure” as he wished. From this time it was necessary for him to call upon ideas about boots for help, which had been latent, in order to be potent in sexual intercourse with her. In proportion as his power failed, these ideas arose spontaneously. Thereafter he had coitus with other women. Now and then, especially when the woman was in sympathy with him, the act took place without any assistance of imagination. It once happened that the patient committed a rape. It is remarkable that on this single occasion he had a pleasurable feeling in the (forced) act. Immediately after the deed he had a feeling of disgust. When, an hour after the forced indulgence, he had coitus with the same woman, with her consent, he experienced no feeling of pleasure.

With decrease of virility—i.e., when it was preserved only in connection with ideas about boots,—libido for the opposite sex decreased. The patient’s slight libido and weak inclination for women are evidenced by the fact that, while he still sustained sexual relations with the peasant girl, he began to masturbate. He learned the vice from “Rousseau’s Confessions,” the book accidentally falling into his hands. The boot-fancies immediately linked themselves with corresponding impulses. He then had violent erections, masturbated, and ejaculation afforded