Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/429

Rh higher proportion of cases of insanity, of nervous exhaustion, etc., may be observed than in other normal men. Does this increased nervousness necessarily depend upon the character of urningism, or is it not, in the majority of cases, to be ascribed to the effect of the laws and the prejudices of society, which prohibit the indulgence of their sexual desires, depending on a congenital peculiarity, while others are not thus restrained?

"The youthful urning, when he feels the first sexual promptings and näively expresses them to his comrades, soon finds that he is not understood; he shrinks into himself. If he tell his parents or teacher what moves him, that which is as natural to him as swimming is to a fish is described as wrong and sinful, and he is told it must be fought and overcome at any price. Then an inner conflict begins, a powerful repression of sexual inclinations; and the more the natural satisfaction of desire is repressed, the more lively the fancy becomes, and paints the very pictures that the wish is to banish. The more energetic the character that carries on this inner conflict, the more the whole nervous system must suffer. Such a powerful repression of an instinct so deeply implanted in us, in my opinion, develops the abnormal symptoms which are observed in many urnings; but this does not necessarily follow from the urning's disposition.

"Some continue the conflict for a longer or shorter time, and thus injure themselves; others at last come to the knowledge that the powerful instinct born in them cannot possibly be sinful, and, therefore, they cease to try to do the impossible,—the repression of the instinct. Then, however, begin constant suffering and excitement. When a normal man seeks satisfaction of sexual inclination, he knows how to find it easily; it is not so with the urning. He sees men that attract him, but he dares not say—nay, not even betray by a look—what his feelings are. He thinks that he alone of all the world has such abnormal feelings. Naturally he seeks the society of young men; but he does not venture to confide in them. Thus he comes to provide himself with a satisfaction that he cannot otherwise obtain. Onanism is practiced inordinately, and followed by all the evil results of that vice. When, after a time, the nervous system has been injured, the abnormality is again not the result of urningism, but it is produced by the onanism to which the urning resorts, as a result of the public sentiment that denies him opportunity to satisfy the sexual instinct that is natural to him.

"Or, let us suppose the urning has had the rare fortune to soon find a person like himself; or, that he has been introduced by an experienced friend to the events of the world of urnings. Then he is spared much of the inner conflict; but, at the same time, fearful cares and anxieties follow his footsteps. Now he knows that he is not the only one in the world that has such abnormal feelings; he opens his eyes and wonders that he meets so many of his kind in all social circles and in all