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diff --git a/61124-0.txt b/61124-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b56b52 --- /dev/null +++ b/61124-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8384 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61124 *** + + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Notes + + 1. Typographical errors were silently corrected. + + 2. The text version is coded for italics and other mark-ups i.e., + (a) Italics are indicated thus _italic_; + (b) Bold thus =bold=; and + (c) Images are indicated as [Illustration]; + (d) Footnotes are placed at the end. + + * * * * * + + + + + PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE + + + + + PSYCHOANALYSIS + AND LOVE + + BY + ANDRE TRIDON + + Member of + + "The Medico-Legal Society of New York City," + "The Society for Forensic Medicine of New York City," and + "The International Association for Individual Psychology of Vienna, + Austria." + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + BRENTANO'S + PUBLISHERS + + + + + Copyright, 1922, by + BRENTANO'S + + _All rights reserved_ + + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I THE HEAD AND THE HEART 1 + Love is independent from the will. + Victims of Venus. Love and affection. + Erotropism. What is the heart? A dead + heart can be made to beat. The heart is + a respectable organ. The antithesis head-heart. + Nerve memory. + + II THE CHOICE OF A MATE 10 + What we see in our mate. The meaning + of choice. The donkey's dilemma. + Chance in the discard. The dog's choice. + The behavior of copepods. + + III THE QUEST OF THE FETISH 17 + The hair fetishist. Everybody a fetishist. + Most common fetishes. The + breast and the bottle. Feminine fetishes. + Physiological necessities. Foot and shoe + fetishism. Non-physical fetishes. Symbolical + fetishes. Antifetishes. Attraction + or obsession? + + IV THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD 29 + The Oedipus complex. The Freudian + view. Jung's interpretation. Adler. + Pseudo-incest. The Neurotic life plan. + Imitation. The glands. Identification + mania. Early conflicts. Death wishes. + Our preferences. Craig's birds. + + V INCEST 41 + The incest fear. Incest in ancient + times. Inbreeding. The primal horde. + Repressed incestuous feelings. Blood + relations. + + VI THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE 49 + The organism a unit. Love's stimulation. + The successful lover. The unsuccessful + lover. Calf love. + + VII THE SENSES IN LOVE 56 + Sight. Auditory sensations. Smell. + The sense of taste. Touch. Holding + hands. The kiss. The birth of the kiss. + Kisses and electricity. + + VIII EGO AND SEX 65 + Neurotic complications. Self-love. Ego + in sex guise. Fatherhood. War prisoners. + Neurotic motherliness. When ego + and sex do not conflict. + + IX HATRED AND LOVE 73 + A worried wife. The test of love. + Sour grapes. Brothers and sisters. A + negro hater. Reformers. The syphilophobiac. + Deluded martyrs. + + X PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY 83 + Polyandry. Infidelity. When love dies. + Iwan Bloch's and Hirth's theories. Bored + wives. Getting even. Varietists and + Don Juans. The ultra-feminine. Messalina. + + XI IS FREE LOVE POSSIBLE? 95 + Man, the dissatisfied. The next step. + Blissful blindness. What of the child? + Disharmony between the parents. The + institution child. Free love plus birth + control. + + XII PROSTITUTION 104 + Economic factors. Lombrosos's theory. + Sensuality. Father fixation. Prostitution + a neurosis. The pimp. Prevention. + Prostitution has no redeeming grace. + + XIII VIRGINITY 112 + What men experienced in love want? + Ethical prostitution. The fear of woman. + The will-to-be-the-first. Telegony. + Goldschmidt's explanations. + + XIV MODESTY, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL 122 + In Turkey. On the modern stage. + Normal modesty. Suggestive draperies. + Excessive modesty. Immodest modesty. + Fear of love. The masculine protest. + Lack of modesty. + + XV JEALOUSY 133 + Forel's rules for husbands. Very few + men and women admit their jealousy. + Jealousy and impotence. Childish behavior. + The ego rampant. Sexless jealousy. + Husbands and lovers. Cruelty. + Making people jealous. + + XVI INSANE JEALOUSY 147 + Delusional jealousy. Homosexualism + and jealousy. A jealous wife. A case + of projection. Masked sadism. + + XVII HOMOSEXUALISM. ITS GENESIS 155 + Male lovers in Greece. Women were + harem slaves. The tide turns. Theories. + The third sex. Transvestites. Are + transvestites homosexual? Metatropism. + Steinach's experiments. Perverse birds. + Freud denies the third sex. Active and + passive types. The homosexual neurosis. + A safety device. Above and below. + A way out. The escape from biological + duties. + + XVIII HOMOSEXUALISM A NEUROTIC SYMPTOM 174 + A denial of life. Homosexualism is + negative love. The love letters of famous + homosexuals. Deeds of violence. A + homosexual tragedy. Women more homosexual + than men. Boastful homosexuals. + The Nietzsche-Wagner feud. Shall + perverse love be recognized? Man's + emancipation from woman. Homosexualism + and war. Is homosexualism necessary? + + XIX CRUELTY AND LOVE--SADISM 188 + Algolagnists. The Marquis de Sade's + biography. What Bonaparte thought of + him. Glandular drunkenness. Atavism. + Primitive religions. Primitive races and + sex violence. Animal love fights. The + sadistic mob. Is the male more cruel? + + XX LOVE THAT CRAVES SUFFERING--MASOCHISM 200 + Sacher Masoch's biography. Love of + the whip. The masochist is like a tired + horse. Shoe fetishism. Craving for + humiliation. Masochistic fancies. Are + women masochistic? Women who enjoy + a beating. A Freudian suggestion. + + XXI WHAT LOVE OWES TO SADISTS AND + MASOCHISTS 212 + Sadistic and masochistic lovers and + their fascination. The vamp. Those who + are too normal to be interesting or romantic. + + XXII LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS 216 + Dissatisfaction. The male artist. The + female artist. The woman who accomplishes + things. Flattery. + + XXIII THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE FETISHES. + GLANDS 223 + The parent-child relationship. Modern + endocrinologists ignorant of psychology. + Reciprocal influence of glands and behavior. + The pituitary gland. The thyroid. + The adrenals. The gonads. + + XXIV GLANDULAR PERSONALITIES 233 + The dark skinned type. The tall type. + The lean type. The obese type. The + slender type. Environment. Comfort and + behavior. What teeth indicate. Matrimonial + engineers. + + XXV LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE 241 + Sex cravings and motherhood cravings. + Pregnancy means health. Fear of pregnancy. + When mother love is lacking. + Frigid wives. Mother and father love. + Mothers adore their sons. Fathers partial + to daughters. The flapper and her + mother. + + XXVI SHOULD WINTER MATE WITH SPRING? 251 + Two disinterested brides. The case of + Wagner. A parent fixation. Physical + incompatibility. The plight of two neurotics. + What will people say? Having + her fixation-fling. Physical results. The + fate of the younger mate. King David. + + XXVII NEGATIVE LOVE 263 + A "clean" life. Utterances and conduct. + Oracles and prophecies. Can we + save our vital force. Sublimation. The + sexless. Ideal love. Protective measures. + Lovers of the absolute. A troublesome + patient. Higher aspirations. + + XXVIII THE NEW WOMAN AND LOVE 275 + George Bernard Shaw's view. The rebellion + against nature. Woman in commercial + life. Was it a sacrifice? The + pursuit. The passing of respectable prostitution. + The abettor of ethical sins. + Health versus sickness. The passing of + the flirt and of the doll. Modesty, old + and new. The unadapted woman. The + proud husband. + + XXIX BIRTH CONTROL 291 + What we expect of the modern woman. + The only solution. The human milch + cow. The nightmare of abortion. The + plight of the neurotic woman. The child + of the neurotic woman. Birth control + and indulgence. A great love is a holy + thing. The passing of the double standard. + + XXX THE PASSING OF THE HUSBAND WORSHIP 303 + Is man's vitality declining? Undue + pessimism. The wise husband. Is the + male indispensable? Loeb's experiments. + Twins to order. The mother is the + race. Matriarchal communities. Modern + woman is conceited. The terrors of the + climacteric. Masculine man is in no danger + of passing away. + + XXXI PERFECT MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENTS 315 + Marriage a compromise. Attractiveness + an asset. Forty and hideous. Athletic + movie idols. The foe of married + happiness. Friendship may survive love. + Separate vacations for the married. The + play function of love. Psychoanalysis + to the rescue. Wounded egotism. Democracy + in the home. + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +Life would be much simpler if love among human beings were similar to +love among the animals. At mating time, any animal of any species feels +automatically attracted to any animal of the opposite sex belonging to +the same species. Age, appearance or relationship seem of no account +in the animal world. The love activities begin at a definite time of +the year, have as their obvious and exclusive purpose the reproduction +of the species and, after attaining their goal, end very early in the +summer of the same year. An exception may be made for a few wild and +domesticated animals which have several mating seasons and for a few +survivals of the prehistoric fauna, like the elephants, among which the +family group seems more permanent than among more "recent" biological +specimens. + +Nor do love activities among the animals result in lasting disturbances +of their psychological life. In certain varieties of fish the male +never even sees the female whose eggs he fecundates. While we observe +at times duels to the death between two males for the possession of +one female (elks or moose), animal life seems to suffer few lasting +complications from the fact of such conflicts, which, like animal love, +are purely seasonal. + +A greater regularity of the food supply which has intensified the sex +urge among human beings and removed its seasonal character, and the +progress of civilization which, for economic reasons, has placed upon +the union of male and female a thousand restrictions, has complicated +terribly what was merely among animals a periodic biological activity. + +Restrictions, however, never bring about the complete suppression of +biological cravings and merely compel them to remain repressed for +varying periods of time. Repressed cravings, denied a direct normal +outlet, create for themselves indirect, morbid outlets. + +We are little more than civilized animals who have been trained not to +reveal their primal cravings at certain forbidden times and places. + +The cravings are there, struggling for expression and denial of their +reality does not suffice to make them unreal. It only invests them with +morbidity and abnormality. + +Much of the fearsome mystery which surrounds sex is due to the fact +that we have forgotten our origin. We have set up a goal which, like +all goals worth striving for, is far ahead of the human procession and +somewhere between the earth and the stars. But that goal should not +cause us to forget our starting point. + +It happens too often that "what we should be" blinds us to "what we +really are." Hence our surprise, our puzzled expression, our painful +disappointment, when one of us reveals himself suddenly as he is +instead of as he should be. Hence our absurd statutes which punish the +laggards on the road of evolution instead of helping them along. Hence +our fears in the presence of a mystery we have made mysterious, of a +danger we have made dangerous and which we make more terrifying yet by +burying our heads in the sand. + +To this day the study of love has been considered as the almost +exclusive province of poets, playwrights, novelists, movie authors and +philosophers. + +Those people have reveled in love's dramatic complications which they +have, whenever possible, exaggerated, for "artistic" reasons. Instead +of clarifying the problem, they have beclouded it. + +In anglo-saxon countries a class of neurotics countenanced by the +police and the courts, the puritans, have further distorted the +popular misconception of love by swathing it in the morbid veils woven +by their unhealthy minds. + +It is high time, therefore, that the subject of love be reviewed from +an impartial angle, from a purely scientific point of view. + +Only one science is qualified to undertake that review, psychoanalysis, +for it has effected in the last twenty years a synthesis of all the +data which biology, neurology, endocrinology and other sciences have +contributed to the knowledge of human psychology and of the human +personality. + +No scientist is satisfied with his findings unless they can be +described in terms of accurate measurements, hence, repeated and +checked up by any other scientist having acquired the requisite minimum +of technical skill. + +The basis for such a study of love was established by the great pioneer +in the science of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud of Vienna. + +By his masterly analysis of the sex life, to which, however, he has +ascribed an undue importance, he has stripped love of many veils +which made it look like a scarecrow. His successors, recognizing the +importance of other factors in the love life, ego cravings, organic +predispositions, etc., have in turn stripped love of other veils which +made it look too romantically unreal. + +Thus we are gradually reaching the heart of the problem. + +Love to-day is no longer animal love, nor is it as yet angelic love. We +are no longer beasts, altho the primal beast still disports itself in +our unconscious. Nor are we angels, arduous as our striving toward the +stars may be. To determine what love should be, could be or might be, +seems to be an academic waste of time and little else. + +To determine, on the other hand, what love REALLY IS AT THE PRESENT +DAY, what actual level it has reached, to explain some of the +difficulties it encounters in trying to remain on that level, and +finally to suggest to MEN AND WOMEN OF TO-DAY workable modes +of adaption at that level, shall be the mission of this book. + +In the coming chapters, I will show that our choice of a mate is as +completely "determined" as any other biological phenomenon; that the +"reasons" for that choice are compelling "habits" acquired in our +childhood and infancy within the family circle; that our "standards of +beauty" are memories from childhood and infancy; that in our search +for a mate we are influenced as powerfully by ego and safety cravings +as by sex cravings that the so-called "perversions" are due, at times, +to wrong training, at times, to organic disabilities and at times +to unrecognized safety cravings; that jealousy is, in the majority +of cases, due to ego cravings, not to sex cravings; finally that no +perfect adjustment of the married relation can be brought about until +democracy obtains in the home, replacing the various forms of autocracy +against which bullied wives and henpecked husbands have directed many +ineffective, neurotic revolts. + + + New York City + + June 1, 1922 + + + + + PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE + + + + + CHAPTER I + + THE HEAD AND THE HEART + + +Love, like hunger, fear or pain, is an absolutely involuntary craving. + +We may deny it expression and gratification, even as we may pretend +that we are not hungry, afraid or in pain, and go without food, +protection or relief from pain; but no exertion on our part will +prevent us from experiencing love and craving its gratification. Nor +can we experience it thru an act of will. + +This absolutely involuntary character of the love craving must be borne +in mind whenever we discuss the complicated and at times puzzling +relations which it brings about between human beings. + +The attitude of the average person to this question is extremely vague +and illogical. The person obsessed by love cravings which are not +meeting with the approval of his environment, justifies himself by +stating loudly the overpowering character of his feelings: + +"I cannot help loving him or her," "It is a feeling stronger than +myself," "It came over me suddenly," "It was a case of love at first +sight." + +=Victims of Venus.= The ancients expressed their strong belief +in man's helplessness against the allpowerful fascination of the love +object by calling the lovelorn a victim of Cupid or of Venus, a puppet +of the gods, of fate. + +And on the other hand, we behold modern and ancient lovers, whenever +they feel that the love object is growing indifferent to them, +reversing their attitude, denying their belief in love's involuntary +character, and using words like fickle, changeling, to designate the +love object they are losing. They speak of deception, of betrayal, of +faithlessness. + +"You no longer love me," they state reproachfully. They may ask the +stupid question: "Why have you ceased to care for me?" Worse yet, they +may say to the love object; "You should be ashamed of your inconstancy." + +Such remarks are not infrequently coupled with another remark which +goes more deeply to the root of the matter: "You should not show your +indifference so plainly." + +In other words pretence is expected when actual love has died. + +And indeed nothing else could be expected logically by such illogical +lovers, unless of course a deep affection, which may have grown between +two human beings in the course of many years of life partnership, +successfully masks the passing of the peculiar fascination which +differentiates love proper from any other human feeling. + +=Love and Affection.= We may love a human being more than +ourselves, enjoy infinitely his presence, delight in giving to him +mental and physical happiness, lavish on him a thousand caresses and +yet not experience the flash of desire which leads compulsively toward +complete physical communion with that human being. + +A simile from the animal world will make my meaning clearer. + +A large number of animals "enjoy" light but only a small number of +them are so "fascinated" by light that they cannot resist a "craving" +to fly toward a light, contact with which may mean death to them. Only +that small minority can be called in scientific jargon "positively +phototropic," in sentimental parlance "hopelessly in love" with light. + +All animals are affected in some fashion by an electric current +passing thru their bodies, but only a minority of them are so affected +by it that they must, whether they wish it or not, face the positive +electrode, as a lover fascinated by the face of his sweetheart. Only +these can be characterised as "positively galvanotropic." + +=Erotropism.= Likewise a hundred men may be charmed by the sight +of a woman. Only one or two from their number may feel compelled +to seek complete union with her regardless of the obstacles to +be surmounted, of the criticism their actions may arouse, of the +expenditure of time, money and energy the adventure may entail. Only +this minority may be considered as "positively erotropic." + +In other words it is the primal compulsion which nature uses to assure +the continuance of the race and which I might designate as "erotropism" +which must be considered the basis for a discussion of love. + +Love as commonly understood or misunderstood at the present day, is a +series of variations on the theme of erotropism, variations due to the +complication of modern civilisation and the restrictions placed upon +all biological phenomena by the necessities of life in communities. + +=What is the Heart?= The reader will notice that I have thus +far avoided any mention of the "heart" altho that organ is commonly +identified with the various emotions of love. + +Physiologically speaking, the heart is no more vitally concerned with +love than with any other disturbing feeling and emotion. Love may at +times cause our heart to beat wildly, but so does strong coffee, so +does acute indigestion, so does blood poisoning, so does any sort of +violent fear. + +The heart, we must not forget, is a mere muscle, which is no more +capable of being the seat of an emotion than our biceps or our calves. + +The heart is an elaborate centripetal and centrifugal pump which, in +obedience to orders or impulses coming from elsewhere, draws the blood +out of the veins and sends it into the arteries at a varying rate of +speed. + +=A Dead Heart Can Be Made to Beat.= The heart, taken out of +the body and attached to a well fitted system of pipes, thru which +an appropriate fluid is circulating, will start beating anew and +keep on beating until decay sets in, due to the fact that the proper +nourishment is lacking. + +Talking of a sensitive heart, of a tender heart or of a heart of +stone means merely juggling with pretty pictures which correspond to +nothing physiologically. There may be sensitiveness, tenderness or +stony harshness somewhere in the organism and the heart may give them +expression by its fluctuating beats, but it acts on such occasions as a +mere registering apparatus. + +Adrenin taken by the mouth or injected into the blood stream causes the +heart pump of a perfect indifferent man to throb as wildly as the heart +of a lovelorn swain. Strong doses of the nitrates may cause valvular +insufficiency and "break" a heart more effectively than any catastrophe +in one's sentimental life. + +=The Heart is a Respectable Organ.= The choice of the heart as the +organ of the emotions, in particular of the love emotion, is certainly +due to the fact that it is such a faithful registering apparatus and +also to a "displacement upward" frequently observed in modern civilised +thought. + +We do not willingly mention the abdomen and therefore have rechristened +it the stomach. We have read many times the appalling statement that a +woman carries her child "under her heart." The seat of the mind which +materialist physicians of ancient Greece located in the intestines, +rose later to the level of the solar plexus and with Descartes finally +reached the pineal gland. Likewise the part of the body where love +cravings receive their physical satisfaction having become taboo, the +seat of love has been raised from the pelvis to the thorax, from the +primary genital region to the breast, which bears secondary sexual +characteristics. + +After which, the popular imagination has established an arbitrary +contrast and antagonism between the mysterious clocklike organ in the +chest and the mysterious soft mass in the skull. + +=The Antithesis Head-heart= is one which literature is not likely +to abandon for years to come. We read that women "follow the dictates +of their heart" while men are not so prone "to lose their head." The +head is represented as the well-spring of reason while the heart is a +fount of tenderness, if not of foolishness. + +Modern scientific research has demonstrated that the brain is nothing +but an apparatus for burning sugar which is transformed into electric +current which the nervous systems distribute throughout the body. + +Thought of the normal type is impossible unless the various parts of +the brain are perfectly coordinated, just as the slightest accident to +a telephone wire may leave a subscriber cut off from the rest of the +world, but thoughts, feelings, emotions, cravings, originate elsewhere, +in the autonomic nervous system. + +=Nerve Memory.= In our autonomic nervous system all our life +impressions are indelibly recorded, probably thru infinitesimal +chemical modifications of the nerves and the resultant tensions. +Pleasant nerve impressions (pleasant memories) direct us toward +certain objects which are the source of such impressions, unpleasant +impressions drive us away from the outside stimuli which once produced +them. + +The former cause our heart to beat slowly, peacefully, powerfully, +the latter speed up the cardiac pump so as to send energy as fast as +possible wherever it is needed for defence against harm. + +Pleasure, indifference and pain, built upon billions of nerve memories, +make up the woof of our thinking. They ARE our mind, the mind +that falls in love or falls out of love. + +The head supplies the energy and the heart registers the rate at which +energy is sent thru the body, but the memories of which our thinking is +made are stored up elsewhere. + +In a scientific study of love, therefore, I shall leave the head and +the heart as individual organs out of consideration. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + THE CHOICE OF A MATE + + +=Love is a Compulsion.= The most striking characteristic in the +love craving, one which differentiates it sharply from other cravings, +is the compulsory exclusiveness of its choice. Hunger drives us to seek +a large number of substances which, by filling the stomach, relieve +what Cannon describes as a gastric itch. + +The person in love, on the other hand, seeks only one single object +at a time, which alone seems capable of vouchsafing the desired +gratification. + +A lovelorn man may be surrounded by many women, all extremely +attractive and accessible, and yet pine away for some other woman who +perhaps does not compare favorably with those he might conquer. He may, +at times, yield to the temporary attraction of a new woman, but in the +majority of cases, he will soon return to the woman he actually loves. + +Not infrequently his environment will wonder at his choice. "What can +he see in her?" Physically or intellectually, anyone but himself would +see very little to "admire" in her. + +=What We See in Our Mate.= The many handsome men whom we have +met, and who are mated to homely wives, the many wives we have +observed, mated to impossible husbands, and whose affection for their +unprepossessing life partner is genuine and in no way dictated by +sordid considerations, the many triangles we know of, in which a very +inferior lover or mistress is preferred to an admittedly superior +husband or wife, are evidence of the involuntary, nay compulsory, +character of the love choice. + +A comparison imposes itself with certain obsessive fears or cravings +bearing upon one object which, to any one but the person experiencing +such fears or cravings, may appear anything but fearful or desirable. +The psychoanalytic investigation of the origin of such obsessions +always shows that they can be traced back to childhood impressions +which have modified our nervous reactions to certain objects or ideas. + +=The Meaning of Choice.= Applied psychology and laboratory +research have in recent years attached a more and more deterministic +connotation to the term "choice." The word, which to academic +psychologists, implied the exercise of free will and "judgment," will +have some day to be accepted as synonymous with "compulsion." + +A few examples from animal behavior will illustrate my meaning. + +Philosophers have for years wasted breath and ink on the academic +consideration of the following puzzle: + +A donkey is standing at equal distance from two bales of hay; the +two masses of fodder are mathematically alike in size, shape, color, +fragrance, quality, etc. + +Unless the animal, certain philosophers said, was able to "make a +choice" of his own, he would remain motionless between the two bales +whose attraction would be perfectly balanced. He would, like some +celestial bodies, be held suspended by two forces which would not allow +him to turn to the right nor to the left. He would rationally have to +starve if attraction were a force exerting itself from the outside +exclusively. + +Yet no donkey placed in such a situation will fail to make an immediate +choice. He will turn to one of the bales and start eating it. + +Even if we imagine a philosophising donkey reasoning as follows: + +"The two bales are equally attractive. Hence it makes no difference +which one I start with. Let us begin with either." + +Even then, he will have to "make a choice," altho his selection of one +of the bales seems to be due entirely to "chance." + +=Chance in the Discard.= Psychological research has eliminated +chance as a factor in human behavior, and whether our donkey starts +with the right or with the left bale, an analyst will insist that there +are reasons why he picks out that one bale to be eaten first. + +Laboratory dogs which have supplied solutions for so many psychological +difficulties, have proved of service in this case too. + +If the slightest surgical operation has been performed on one side of a +dog's brain, he becomes unable to move in a straight line. + +He deviates from the straight line toward the side on which his brain +has been injured. If the lesion is on the right side he will be +compelled to turn to the right and vice versa. This is due to the fact +that the injury has weakened that side and the cerebral dynamo which +supplies the body with power produces less current on the injured than +on the uninjured side. + +When you row a boat and slack one oar the boat turns toward the side on +which you are expending more effort. Of course the process is reversed +in a dog because the nerves of the dog cross over, the right side of +his brain supplying the left side of the body, the left side of the +brain supplying the right side of the body with power. + +Let us repeat on two dogs, the experiment which academic psychologists +imagined performed on a mythical jackass. + +=The Dog's Choice.= Offer two pieces of meat to a dog whose brain +has been injured on the right side and he will invariably eat the +piece of meat nearer that side. Repeat the test on a dog whose brain +has suffered a lesion on the left side and you will see him gobble the +piece of meat on the left side. + +Go even further and place both pieces of meat on the left side of the +dog injured on the left side of his brain and he will "pick out" the +one farther out. Not that he "prefers" that one. He will aim at the +nearest but his injury will cause him to deviate too far to the left +and he will be unable to reach the nearest one. + +Other experiments on dogs illustrate the purely organic "motives" back +of certain lines of conduct. + +When both sides of a dog's brain have been injured in the frontal +region, the dog refuses to go forward or downstairs but has a tendency +to move backwards and to run upstairs. + +When the back of a dog's brain has been injured on both sides, the dog +has a tendency to keep on running forward all the time and while he is +unwilling to climb stairs he will willingly go downstairs. + +=The Behavior of Copepods.= When we pour carbonated water or beer +or alcohol into an aquarium, certain crustaceans called copepods will +at once swim toward the source of light, as tho they "loved" light, and +appear so interested in light that they will "forget," to eat their +food, if that food is placed away from the source of light. The same +animals when placed in water containing strychnine or caffein, will +shun the light as tho they "hated" it, and as tho they "loved" the +darkness. + +We know that if a galvanic current is sent thru our head we will lean +involuntarily against the positive pole. If the current is sent thru an +aquarium, a number of the animals swimming in it will be compelled to +seek the positive pole and to remain there, others to seek the negative +pole. + +In the case of the laboratory dogs, a permanent modification of +the nervous system caused a permanent modification of the animal's +behavior, which could not be "cured," (for brain injuries do not +"heal," the cells of the brain being unable to reproduce themselves), +but which would probably be compensated for by gradual adaptation. +In the case of the "phototropic" or "galvanotropic" animals, the +modification of the nervous system was only temporary but might cause a +more or less durable modification of the animals' behavior, if allowed +to last a considerable length of time. + +The love attraction or "erotropism" is likewise due to certain more or +less lasting modifications of man's nervous system caused by the fact +that his nervous system was for variable periods of time exposed to the +influence of certain outside stimuli. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + THE QUEST OF THE FETISH + + +The papers now and then tell the story of some man who was caught in +the act of clipping a little girl's braid of hair. That man is what +is called technically a hair fetishist. Hair is his fetish, that is +the part of a woman's body which attracts him more powerfully than +any other part. A search of the living quarters of that variety +of "delinquents" generally reveals that they are in the habit of +collecting women's tresses acquired in that fashion. The tresses are +almost always of the same color. + +=The Hair Fetishist= whose unlawful activities bring him sooner +or later into the clutches of the police is a neurotic who presents to +an exaggerated, abnormal extent, a trait we find in all normal human +beings. + +Every one of us is especially attracted by some part of the human body. +The young man who raves over his sweetheart's hair, the young woman +who blissfully runs her fingers thru her lover's hair are also hair +fetishists. But their craving is not strong enough to lead them into +committing unlawful, perverse, socially inacceptable acts. + +Another widely spread type of abnormal fetishist described by novelists +and psychiatrists, but which very seldom gains newspaper notoriety, is +the foot and shoe fetishist, who buys or steals all sorts of shoes. He +too is merely the exaggeration of the man who is delighted by the sight +of a Cinderella foot or a slim ankle. + +With hair and shoe fetishists, the fetish is more than a mere +attraction; it is generally a powerful sexual stimulant. Such +fetishists experience, while kissing or caressing their fetish, sexual +gratification of the autoerotic or of the involuntary type. + +=Everybody a Fetishist.= There are hundreds of varieties of +fetishism, normal or abnormal. There is no person living who is not +more or less subject to the compulsive attraction of some fetish. There +is in every man or every woman something which catches the onlooker's +eye first and retains his attention longest. + +This varies with every human being. Ask ten men to describe one pretty +woman. Every one of them will probably head the list of physical +qualities he has observed in her with a different fetish. One will +describe her as a blonde with a beautiful skin, rather tall and well +shaped; another will state that she is a well-shaped woman, rather +tall and with blonde hair; another will characterise her as a tall +woman with an abundance of blonde hair, etc. I knew a man, in no way +abnormal, who could not describe a pretty woman, regardless of whatever +her build was, without making a gesture of the hand outlining ample +breast curves. + +=Most Common Fetishes.= Women's hair, throat, neck, shoulders, +arms and breasts seem to be the most frequently mentioned fetishes. +Fashion and the law recognise that fact. Whenever women plan to make +a physical appeal to men or women, they dress their hair with special +care and they wear low neck gowns, thereby exhibiting those various +fetishes. + +It will be noticed that the parts of the body constituting the most +widely appreciated fetishes are those with which the nursing child +comes in most intimate and continuous contact. + +To the child, they mean safety, comfort, caresses, food. The color +of skin or hair, the shape of neck, head and shoulders on which +his glances rest while nursing or while being carried about by the +mother, are the only ones which will appear "natural" and safe, hence +beautiful, to him in after life. + +The breasts from which he derives a perfect food, at the right +temperature, which flows easily into his stomach and is assimilated +without effort, the breasts, whose texture and elasticity make them +pleasant to lean upon while nursing, may eventually become to his +simple mind the most valuable part of the female's body. + +=The Breast and the Bottle.= My observations on several hundred +men fed at the breast or on the bottle in infancy, have revealed to me +that practically all the men nursed by a woman were greatly attracted +to women with well developed breasts. + +The majority of men nursed on the bottle, on the other hand, preferred +thin, boyish looking girls, some of them even expressing a distinct +repugnance for rather buxom women. + +It may be stated that of the few who did not confirm that rule there +were several more or less neurotic individuals, whom an unconscious +fear of incest (see Chapter V) had conditioned to fear the very type of +women by whom they had been nursed. + +Arms and hands, which to the nursling mean protection, service, +caresses, transportation, etc., derive therefrom their great attraction +as fetishes. + +=Feminine Fetishes.= I have thus far mentioned almost exclusively +fetishes from the female body. There are several reasons why feminine +fetishes are far more important to both men and women than masculine +fetishes. Children of both sexes are exposed to the influence of +the mother's fetishes more intimately, more constantly and more +"profitably" (nursing), than they are to the influence of the father's +fetishes. + +Hence masculine fetishes are fewer and less numerous. Woman is less of +a fetishist than man. The most frequently mentioned masculine fetishes +are the bodily attributes characteristic of strength, and which, hence, +would afford most protection to the infant and the female. + +No perverse fetishism is observed in women, no abnormal craving driving +women into securing unlawfully men's hair or clothing, etc. + +Some writers consider transvestite women, women who enjoy masquerading +in men's clothes, as clothing fetishists, but such cases are extremely +rare and can be accounted for in other ways. + +=Physiological Necessities.= There is another reason, a physiological +reason, for the great importance which men and women attach to the +feminine fetishes. More sexual excitement and a greater muscular +tension are necessary in the male than in the female at the time of +the sexual union. The female, being physiologically submissive, can +wait for her desire to grow under the influence of the male's caresses. +The male, on the contrary, has to be aggressive and cannot fulfill his +biological part unless his desire has been aroused by other sensations +than that of the sexual union. + +Hence the greater expenditure of time and effort on the part of the +female to make herself attractive to the male. Hence also the long +drawn courtship of flirtation thru which the female of every animal +species endeavors to bring the male to the highest possible point of +sexual excitement before surrendering herself to him. + +=Foot and Shoe Fetishism= is more complicated. The mother's feet +are the part of her body which the infant, crawling on the floor or +attempting to walk, beholds most frequently and at the closest range. + +That variety of fetish, however, should not be as strong as other +fetishes more directly related to the child's nutrition, comfort and +safety. When shoe fetishism become compulsive, it is a neurosis due +to the repression of some erotic desire aroused in childhood by some +striking incident. One case cited by Freud, illustrates that process. + +"A man to whom the various sex attractions of woman now mean nothing, +who in fact, can only be aroused sexually by the sight of a shoe on a +foot of a certain form, is able to recall an experience he had in his +sixth year and which proved decisive for the fixation of his libido. +One day he sat on a stool beside his governess. She was a shriveled +old maid who, that day, on account of some accident, had put a velvet +slipper on her foot and stretched it out on a foot stool. + +"After a diffident attempt at normal sexual activity, undertaken at the +time of his puberty, a thin, sinewy foot like that of his governess, +had become the sole object of his desires. The man was carried away +irresistibly if other features, reminiscent of his governess, appeared +in conjunction with the foot. Through this fixation, the man did not +become neurotic but perverse, a foot fetishist, as we say." + +I wish to call the reader's attention to the expression "after a +diffident attempt at normal sexual expression." It indicates a feeling +of inferiority, likely to cause failure and also increased by failure +which is always in evidence in every neurotic and which drives him +toward easier goals, along the line of least effort. + +Some of the Freudians have suggested that foot fetishism is due to +the repression of an early craving for the unpleasant odors emitted +by perspiring feet. As against such a far-fetched explanation, I +would offer the fact that foot and shoe are always associated in the +unconscious of neurotic patients with the male and female genitals, +respectively. + +We find the association of shoe and genitals clearly indicated in the +old custom of throwing shoes and rice at departing newlyweds (rice +symbolising the fertilising seed). + +Odors, sounds, tactile sensations, etc., may also be powerful fetishes +or antifetishes, according to the impression they may have made on the +nursling. This will be discussed in more detail in the Chapter entitled +"The Senses in Love." + +=Fetishes may be of a non-Physical Kind.= A profession may be +a fetish, and so can a mental attitude, in short, anything which in +childhood may have been considered as a source of safety, comfort, +egotistical gratification, etc. + +Age itself, is at times a fetish. Gerontophilia is a neurosis, the +victims of which are only attracted to very old men or women, safety, +comfort and food having been assured them probably by a grandfather or +grandmother to whom they clung for neurotic reasons. + +=Many Fetishes are Purely Symbolical.= Some women fall in love +with a uniform because that type of garment symbolises to them physical +strength, virility, courage, etc. + +A uniform fetishist who consulted me during the war had given herself +to half a dozen officers who appeared to her irresistible until they +undressed or donned civilian clothes. After which she felt indifferent +to them and suffered remorse. + +=Antifetishes=, parts of the body or their symbols which repel +us in persons of the opposite sex, can be due either to unpleasant +experiences of childhood connected with such parts of the body or to a +neurotic fear of incest. A neurotic's resistance to a mother fixation +may be so strong that in his (unconscious) fear of committing incest, +he shuns everything which in any woman reminds him of his mother. + +A man whose violent mother and sister fixation had kept him till +forty-five away from all women and made him homosexual, felt extremely +uneasy and slightly ashamed in the presence of tall blonde women, the +mother and sister type. While he never enjoyed greatly the company of +any woman, he felt more at ease with small brunettes. + +In his case, blonde hair and a high stature had become strong +antifetishes. + +=The Quest of the Fetish= means then, in last analysis, the quest +of safety. If fetishes are so closely linked with sexuality, it is +mainly because a feeling of safety is one of the necessary conditions +for sexual potency in the male and the female alike. + +As soon as fear dominates, the pelvic regions are starved of blood, for +the blood is then needed in other parts of the body, head and limbs, +for fight or flight. Sexual impotence is the result. This is probably +why in primitive races we often find the erect phallus used as a symbol +of safety, as a primitive "fetish" vouchsafing imaginary safety and +confidence. + +This throws an interesting sidelight upon the real meaning of morbid +fetishism. As I said in one of the preceding paragraphs, every neurotic +feels inferior and seeks safety. The hair fetishist, for instance, is +inferior in some respect or considers himself inferior, which is about +the same and has the same consequences, as far as ultimate mental or +physical results are concerned. + +The normal hair fetishist seeks a woman whose hair will symbolise to +him the safety he enjoyed close to his mother's hair. The abnormal +fetishist will crave the possession of hair which alone will place +him in turn in possession of safety, a condition in which his sexual +cravings will be easily satisfied. Not feeling capable of conquering +a woman, however, he will cut off some one's tresses, which will +symbolise to him woman, and the safety enjoyed in woman's (his +mother's) arms. In that fashion, he also gratifies his craving for +the line of least effort. Unwilling to face the social, economic, +biological responsibilities that go with the possession of a woman, he +seeks in the fetish which he steals, an easy, selfish, unsocial form of +gratification. That gratification is also a regression, for it leads +him back to the autoerotic practices of childhood. + +=Attraction or Obsession.= In the normal man, then, the fetish is +an attraction, influencing his choice of a mate. In the abnormal man +it becomes an obsession, the fetish at times becoming infinitely more +important than the part of the body it suggests, at times causing the +elimination of the sexual mate which it replaces entirely. + +In the normal man, the fetish, being the bearer of pleasant memories +from childhood days, facilitates one's adaption to a life partner. +The abnormal individual, unwilling to part with his childhood ways, +which were easier and safer, either demands that the life partner be +the absolute image of the person from whom he acquired his fetishes or +prefers one safe fetish to any life partner. + +In the next chapter we shall see how mental and physical, real and +symbolic fetishes are forced upon us by the various developments of the +family romance which is always accompanied by a more or less marked +family feud. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD + + +The craving for food and safety, gratified in our mother's arms, the +craving for safety gratified by the strong father's presence, develop +in our nerves automatic reactions of love or hatred (fear) toward other +human beings endowed with or lacking our mother's and father's fetishes. + +Exposure to pleasurable or painful stimuli in infancy produces in +our nerves a modification which could be roughly compared to the +modification produced surgically in the brain of the dog mentioned in +Chapter II. + +Even as a dog can be conditioned to "prefer" turning to the right +and to "hate" (or fear) running down stairs, a human being can, +thru continued exposure to the sight of red hair in infancy, become +conditioned to "prefer" red hair. + +Many other factors, however, complicate the question of our likes and +dislikes. A child's environment contains many sources of stimulation +besides the mother's and the father's fetishes, all of them varying in +intensity, duration and character (pleasant or unpleasant). + +Besides, the child is forced at some period of his life into a more +or less sudden and more or less pleasant contact with the outside +world. That contact, which at times is a conflict, often causes some of +the early impressions made upon the infant's or child's nerves to be +"repressed," thereby originating a conflict in the individual's nervous +system. + +And thus we are brought to a consideration of the family romance which +various conflicts within the family circle and with the outside world, +not infrequently transform into a family feud. + +=The Oedipus Complex.= The complication designated by Freud as +the Oedipus Complex is one of the most potent, altho at times one +of the least obvious factors in family conflicts and in the mental +disturbances which those conflicts occasion. + +The Oedipus Complex is named after the Greek legend according to which +Oedipus killed his father and later married his mother without being +aware of their identity. + +This is the form in which the Oedipus situation appears in real life: + +A male child may become overattached to his mother and develop a +morbid, more or less concealed, hostility to his father. The female +child may become overattached to her father and manifest a more or less +overt hostility to her mother. + +There is no case of neurosis in which analysts do not discover a more +or less marked maladjustment of that type. In fact Freud has gone as +far as stating that the Oedipus Complex is the central complex of every +neurotic disturbance. + +=The Freudian View.= Freudian analysts have somewhat dramatised +the Oedipus complex which they consider as due to incestuous longings. +Those incestuous longings, according to Freud, are in their last +analysis, a yearning of the child to return to the mother's body where +the child enjoyed, in its prenatal life, absolute peace and comfort. + +The average child manages to free himself gradually from the mother's +body, first seeking pleasurable sensations in his own body, sucking his +thumb, playing with his genitals, later becoming interested in other +children like himself, finally, at puberty, seeking human beings of the +opposite sex, etc. + +Some children, on the other hand, never seem to free themselves from +the parent of the opposite sex. They are technically designated as the +victims of a mother fixation in the case of boys, of a father fixation +in the case of girls. + +=Jung's Interpretation.= Jung, head of the Swiss school of +psychoanalysis, considers the Oedipus complication from a broader +point of view. To him the father and mother are not real persons, but +more or less symbolic and distorted figures created by the imagination +of the child. The yearning of the child for its mother, its jealousy +toward the father are simply due to its desire to monopolise a perfect +provider and protector. + +=Pseudo-Incest.= To Adler of Vienna, the Oedipus complex is a +fiction created unconsciously by the neurotic who is trying to fall +back on the father or mother for support. The boy, afraid of life and +of the responsibilities imposed upon a man by a normal sexual life, is +naturally inclined to cling fondly to his mother, from whom he receives +a love and adoration which need not be won or paid for or reciprocated +and which in their demonstrativeness only stop short of sexual +gratification. + +The neurotic girl dreams of monopolising the father's affection and +financial support which are not to be repaid by sexual intercourse with +its consequences, etc. + +Freud's interpretation explains certain details of behavior in boys +with a mother fixation but the yearning to return to the mother's body +does not explain a father fixation in a woman. + +On the other hand, Jung's explanation fails to account for some of the +grossly sexual details in the behavior of the fixation child, such as +great curiosity directed toward the parent of the opposite sex, at +times, even, attempts on the part of a boy to possess the mother in her +sleep, etc. + +=The Neurotic Life Plan.= Adler has clearly seen that the Oedipus +situation is not the cause, but merely one of the details of the +neurotic life plan. A human being adopts that plan because, owing to +some inferiority, real or imaginary, (real to him), he feels unable +to compete with other human beings on a footing of equality. The +neurosis supplies him with a short cut to power along the line of least +effort. That short cut is selfish, unsocial and, hence, productive of +unpleasant results. The mother-fixation man, the father-fixation woman +shirk their biological duties, thereby leading an easier, cheaper, +self-centered life which, in the end, vouchsafes them no real positive +gratification. + +What Adler has left unexplained is how the parent fixation establishes +itself in the neurotic. + +=Imitation.= The Oedipus situation is simply one of the consequences of +the imitation by the child of the parent of the opposite sex. + +Imitation plays a tremendous part in human life and, as far as behavior +is concerned, is an infinitely more powerful factor than heredity. + +Heredity endows us with a certain set of physical organs, hence with a +number of potentialities. But the utilisation of those potentialities +is left to the individual's destiny determined by his environment. + +If the son of a splendidly developed prize fighter finds himself in +an environment which countenances and lauds prize fighting, physical +power will probably become his goal early in life. If his environment +casts disobliging reflections on ring activities or if those activities +have an unpleasant financial connotation for him, (father disabled +and poor), the same boy will abstain from athletic training, remain +physically undeveloped, perhaps even grow weak and stunted. + +=The Glands.= As we shall see in another chapter, the various glands +of our body have a good deal to do with the shaping of our personality +but the pressure of the social herd within which we live is also a +tremendous factor for it compels us to adopt as models for imitation +certain physical and intellectual types which are acceptable to the +herd. + +The degree of the pressure exerted by the herd varies greatly with +social conditions. The pressure is not the same in an Alaska camp and +in a New England village. Unnoticeable in an artists' colony, it may +become difficult to bear in a large family group including several +members of the clergy. + +Children become grown ups by imitating grown ups. A boy acquires a +man's behavior by imitating his father. A girl acquires womanly manners +by imitating her mother. + +At the same time a boy with a strong organism and, consequently, a fair +amount of self confidence, is not as slavish in his imitation of his +father's ways as one who is cursed with a delicate constitution or who +may have been made timid by fear-producing or humiliating experiences. + +The former is more adventurous in every way and will, not only roam +farther away from his home, but let his eyes also roam on men outside +of the family circle, whom he will pick out as secondary models. + +The weak boy, seeking safety and following the line of least effort, +will cling to the closest model, his father, and in extreme cases, will +identify himself with him. + +=The Identification Mania.= An exaggerated mania for identification is +always a symptom of weakness and inferiority. + +The weak man joins numberless organisations and derives a great deal +of pride from the mere fact of his membership in them. In general he +will not allow anyone to discuss or criticise those organisations. +The anonymous citizen of Chicago or Chillicothe is easily aroused by +criticisms of his native city overheard elsewhere, for he identifies +himself with his native city for lack of any distinction of his own. +Members of so called "aristocratic" families, themselves incapable +of any achievement, are most unbearable owing to their family pride. +They obscurely feel that if their relationship to some more or less +distinguished ancestor was taken away from them they would sink into +complete obscurity. The stupid traveler who constantly flaunts the flag +of his country wherever he happens to be, is also an inferior who is +trying to claim all the virtues which the jingoes of his land consider +as national characteristics. + +Close imitation and identification with the person we imitate cannot +but lead to conflicts, for it sooner or later means that we encroach +upon the rights of our model. + +=Early Conflicts.= The little boy who imitates his father, +identifies himself with him and tries to "become" his father, may +only provoke mirth when he dons his father's garments or carries his +father's walking stick. + +When he carries his imitation to the point of handling his father's +razors or sampling his cigars, he may court what, to him, is a very +unintelligible, illogical and humiliating form of punishment. + +"If father is always right, why do I get spanked for doing what father +does?" the child asks himself with a child's pitiless logic. + +A profound hostility to the oppressive father may then grow in the mind +of the imitative child, in no wise due to sexual complications. + +This is also the way in which a rivalry may arise between son and +father for the non-sexual possession of the mother, the freedom of her +room and her bed, the sole enjoyment of her caresses, the sole disposal +of her time, the sole domination over her. + +The father enjoys all those privileges, and in order to be exactly like +him, the son must also enjoy them "exclusively" which is logically +impossible and leads to unconscious death wishes. + +=Death Wishes.= The death wishes that lurk in the son's mind when his +father and rival is concerned and reveal themselves thru dreams, are +not simply murderous cravings. They are symbolical, like the death +wishes which some fond mother may express thru her dreams when her +beloved child has interfered too much with her activities in her waking +hours. + +The imitative boy, beaten in the race for all of his father's +possessions, of which the mother is the most valuable, wishes his +father "out of the way." If there are female children, the imitative +boy may, after giving up the mother as an unattainable goal, adopt +toward one of his sisters the attitude of protection and ownership +his father assumes toward his mother. In such cases, the feud is far +from being as serious as it would be otherwise. A sister fixation, it +goes without saying, is far less dangerous than a mother fixation. The +sister is younger than the mother, the obsession of her image being +unlikely to attract the brother later to women much older than himself. +The love which a sister returns is also far from being as unselfish, +intelligent and indulgent as that which a mother lavishes on her child. + +Almost everything which has been said about the mother fixation applies +to the father fixation in girls. But we must bear in mind that owing to +the tremendous biological importance of the mother, a mother fixation +is likely to have a deeper influence on a boy than a father fixation on +a girl. + +=Our Preferences.= Thus it is that the "preferences" we show when +grown up, for a certain human type, are determined by the appearance +and behavior of the males and females which were closest to us in the +formative years of our life. + +In the majority of cases it is the mother type or the father type which +proves most attractive to boys and girls respectively, the type being +represented or symbolised by certain physical or mental fetishes. + +In many cases, the mother or father type have been modified or replaced +by other masculine or feminine types which took the place of the mother +or father during that important period of our life. + +The woman who suckled us or fed us and attended to our various physical +needs, nurse or nurse maid, may become the bearer of our fetishes. + +In Europe where the wet nurse and the nurse girl are infinitely more +common than in this country, the ancillary type of love, love for +servants and menials, is observed with much greater frequency than here. + +The Southern man does not show the same repugnance as the Northern +man to consort sexually with colored women of the servant class. The +colored mammy's fetishes are found competing successfully in many cases +with those of the white mother. + +=Craig's Birds.= Those who believe that heredity, instinct, the call +of the blood, etc., have much to do with the choice of a mate, should +read reports of experiments performed by William Craig on pigeons. Ring +doves and passenger pigeons never mate. When the eggs of a passenger +pigeon, however, have been hatched by a ring dove, the young male +passenger pigeons will, at mating time, ignore entirely the females of +their species, "their flesh and blood," and mate with female ring doves +(the mother image) exclusively. + +The fetishes which to them meant food and safety in the nest mean to +them beauty and eroticism when they reach adulthood. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + INCEST + + +The family romance has been presented by the Freudians as complicated +by actual incestuous entanglements. Adler on the other hand has shown +that the incestuous situation is rather an "as if" introduced by the +neurotic as a part of his absurd life plan. + +Barring a few exceptions, the small boy does not desire his mother +sexually nor does the small girl feel erotic at the thought of her +father. + +That such incestuous desires arise at the time of puberty cannot +be doubted. But they are observed mostly in neurotics to whom the +incestuous situation suggests, as I pointed out in the previous +chapter, to the boy, food, comfort, the mother's easily won love, to +the girl, the protection and the attentions of the strong father. In +many cases too, homosexual and incestuous practices among the children +in one family mean nothing but the neurotic search for the line of +least effort. + +Freud seeks at times very far fetched explanations for very simple +phenomena in order to show the sexual motive at the bottom of them. He +states in his _Introduction to Psychoanalysis_ that a girl may show +great affection for a younger sister "as a substitute for the child she +vainly wished from the father." The truth is that the older daughter, +in her close imitation of her mother, also starts "mothering" a child. + +"A boy," Freud states in the same book, "may take his sister as the +object of his love to replace his _faithless_ mother." He rather +imitates his father and starts to protect and order about a little +female of his age, which at times, when both have witnessed the +parental embraces, may lead to actual incest. + +=The Incest Fear.= Incest is at the present day the form of sexual +relation which provokes the most powerful expression of disapproval +on the part of civilised and uncivilised races alike. In fact the +primitive races seem obsessed by a panicky fear of incest. In many +tribes, brothers and sisters are not allowed to meet or speak to each +other and, in certain cases, they must even avoid the sight of each +other and eschew every mention of each other's names. + +In the Fiji Islands, where the rules against incest are especially +rigorous, there are, on the other hand, special holidays on which +orgies are held in which incest becomes permissible. + +In other words, the natives of those islands, while recognising the +irresistible nature of the incest temptation and taking all sorts of +measures in order to prevent the commission of that sin, supply at +stated intervals an outlet for incestuous cravings. + +Innumerable details of primitive legislation separate the son-in-law +from the mother-in-law, the father-in-law from his son's bride. + +The Basogas of the Upper Nile loathe incest to such a degree that they +punish it even in animals whenever it can be observed among them. + +=Incest in Ancient Times.= The horror of incest, however, is a +relatively recent development in human psychology and ethics. The +ancient dynasties of Egypt and Peru practiced incest. Incest was +indulged in by all the archaic gods. The authors of the book of Genesis +must have accepted the idea of incest as the sole means of explaining +Adam's and Eve's descendants. + +The horror of incest which we all feel or pretend to feel, is indeed an +acquired feeling. Since every race has adopted stern legal measures to +prevent incest, it can only be because a desire for incest is one of +the cravings which mankind is constantly struggling against. + +As Frazer says: "There is no law commanding men to eat and drink or +forbidding them to put their hands in the fire. Men eat and drink and +keep their hands out of the fire instinctively." + +If men and women avoided incest instinctively no legislation would be +needed compelling them to avoid it. + +Indeed the confessions received by psychoanalysts reveal that the +first sexual desires of the young are directed toward children of the +opposite sex within the family circle. The many slight or serious +indiscretions of an incestuous nature in which neurotic brothers and +sisters indulge in infancy and childhood are generally "forgotten," +that is, repressed, in later years, but analytic probing brings a great +amount of such repressed material to the surface. + +Since neither animals nor human beings experience any natural fear of +incest, why is it that all races are officially so afraid of it? + +=Inbreeding.= It cannot be due to the fear of race deterioration +consequent upon inbreeding. Inbreeding is not necessarily a harmful +process of reproduction as East and Jones have shown in their book on +"Inbreeding and Outbreeding." It seems to have, at times, for instance +in Athens during the classic age, led to the production of many very +superior individuals. + +Furthermore the primitive savages who punish incest even among domestic +animals have no conception of such eugenic theories. Some of them, +incredible as it may sound, do not even realise the relation of cause +to effect which exists between intercourse and pregnancy. + +Freud offers an explanation based upon the Darwinian hypothesis of the +primal horde in which the old father kept all the females for himself +and drove away the growing sons. + +This state of affairs has been observed among herds of wild cattle +and horses. It generally leads to the killing of the oldest bull or +stallion by the younger males. + +=The Primal Horde.= Freud assumes that this must have been the usual +occurrence in the primal horde. One day the sons joined hands and +killed the father. + +"Though the brothers had joined forces in order to overcome the father, +each was the others' rival among the women. Each one wanted to have +them all to himself like the father, and in the fight of each against +the others the new organization would have perished. For there was no +longer any one stronger than all the rest who could have successfully +assumed the role of the father. Thus there was nothing left for the +brothers to do, if they wished to live together, but to erect incest +prohibitions, perhaps after many difficult experiments, in the course +of which they may all have renounced the women whom they desired." + +In other words, the incest taboo was adopted to assure peace within the +family circle, a convenience measure dictated by jealousy. + +=Repressed Incestuous Feelings= may at times drive one into a most +objectional form of behavior. A brother who in childhood was too fond +of his sister (or vice versa) may, from an unconscious desire for +self-protection, adopt a hostile attitude to his sister. The more +attracted he was to her the more sadistic he will appear in later years. + +He may even avoid all the women who would in any way suggest his sister +and in that way never feel satisfied in love, for the women who cannot +possibly suggest to him his sister, lack all the fetishes which would +vouchsafe him safety and eroticism. + +Such a man should be analysed and made to realise the incestuous +cravings which he has repressed into his unconscious. His hatred would +then change into affection and in his search of a mate he would +logically seek the sister image which alone would insure him sexual +happiness. + +I have reconciled in that way several groups of brothers and sisters +who had never been able to get along after puberty, altho most of them +had developed a dangerous fondness for each other before puberty. + +Repressed sister fixation like repressed mother fixation has been found +on several occasions as one of the components of homosexualism in the +man, father or brother fixation as one of the causes of frigidity in +the woman. + +=Blood Relations.= Mother or sister fixation is frequently the cause of +marriage between blood relations. This sort of union has been unjustly +suspected of breeding mental inferiors. We should rather say that it +is the mental inferiors who seek their mate within the family circle. +Unable to secure the mother or the sister as a mate, they select a +woman who has as many of the family traits as possible, that they may +feel more secure in her company. If a defective child is bred of such +unions, it is not due to the close relationship of the parents but to +the fact that too often one of the mates was deficient physically or +mentally. + +In this respect as in many others, self-knowledge and acceptance +of one's personality, coupled with a courageous understanding of +unavoidable biological facts, are the necessary conditions for perfect +mental health and freedom. + +The man with a mother or sister fixation, the woman with a father or +brother fixation should be made aware of it, however slight or severe +the fixation may be. + +They must be made to realise that incestuous cravings are biological +phenomena which for reasons of convenience have been made unlawful but +which do not brand the individual experiencing them as a degenerate or +a vicious person. + +They must also be made to realise that their incestuous craving +may be one of the symptoms of the neurotic search for the line of +least effort, knowledge of which weakens the craving to the point of +insignificance. + +The individual with a biologically real incestuous fixation should +accept it and seek its substitute gratification thru association with a +suitable mate presenting in his or her person the fetishes of the loved +parent or brother or sister. + +The individual whose fixation is purely neurotic should be freed of +it by analysis and allowed to seek a mate without being inhibited by +ghosts. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE + + +A human being has met another human being of the opposite sex and +is attracted to him or her by the conscious or unconscious memories +which his or her physical and mental make up brings back. An organic +compulsion drives a man to seek a certain woman who is to be his sexual +mate. We say then that the man is in love. What is the tangible, +observable, measurable meaning of the condition of being in love? + +To understand this clearly we must bear in mind the principle which +modern psychology is gradually adopting, that of the unity of the +organism. + +=The Organism is a Unit= which cannot, except for reasons of pure +convenience, be split into entities of a contrasted character, such +as body and mind, matter and soul, etc. To every physical phenomenon +corresponds a simultaneous mental manifestation and vice versa. The +body is the tangible aspect, the mind, the intangible aspect of the +organism. + +Nor can any scientific distinction be drawn between the so-called +grossness of the body and the spiritual quality of the mind. + +Nor can we establish in the body absolute lines of cleavage between +the various organs, heart, stomach, liver or sexual organs. They are +all closely interrelated and there again we find a profound unity of +action. When the nerves of the "life division" of the autonomic nervous +system are set working, the pupil will be contracted, the saliva flow, +the heart beat more slowly, the stomach secrete gastric juice and churn +food, the intestines push digested food toward the rectum, and the +sexual organs fill up with blood. + +When the "safety nerves" are in action the pupil is dilated, the saliva +scarce, the heart beats faster, gastric activities cease or become +reversed (vomiting), the intestines either stop their activity or are +affected by diarrhea and the sexual organs are emptied of blood. Any +stimulation applied to any of those organs will produce the specific +stimulation indicated above in ALL THE OTHER ORGANS, tho in +varying degrees. + +In other words perfect peace and safety promote all the activities +of the "life nerves," danger and fear promote all the activities of +the "safety nerves." Peace and safety build up the body and assure +the continuance of the race. Danger and fear stop all the activities +which are not directly concerned with fight or flight, hence weaken the +organism and stop the sex life. + +Peace and safety represented by the mental and physical fetishes of the +mate toward whom we are driven by an organic compulsion are bound to +produce in us most gratifying results. + +The sight, smell and taste of good food, the sight of pleasant objects, +the sound of good music, etc., produce a powerful stimulation. + +=Love's Stimulation=, reaching us, as we shall see in another chapter, +thru all the senses and thru a thousand memories, is incomparably more +powerful than that of any other craving. + +Nutritious food in sufficient quantities is generally synonymous with +good health. Improper food in insufficient quantities is generally +synonymous with bad health. + +The mental connotation of good and bad food, however, is far from being +as important as the mental connotation of love or lack of love. There +are besides the sexual factors, such tremendous egotistical factors in +the love life (as will be shown in Chapter VIII,) that love is the +most powerful stimulus known and the lack of love or the loss of love +the most terrible depressant for the human organism. + +=The Successful Lover= has a good appetite, regular heart action, +(hence a healthy complexion); he enjoys sleep undisturbed by +nightmares, is capable of continued effort (good thyroid action), has +firm muscles (regular adrenal section), is self-reliant, etc. In other +words his organism is working on a hundred-per-cent basis and under the +influence of that stimulation he can accomplish tasks which, under any +other circumstances, would appear too difficult, and understand things +which under the influence of a sluggish thyroid or bowels would have +appeared very obscure. + +People indifferent to physiology might attribute some of love's magic +results to "inspiration," to "spiritual uplift" and other vaguely +conceived factors of a romantic and sentimental nature. + +I am always reminded when encountering such explanations in the +literature of love, of the nuptial flight of the bee. + +When a male and female bee fall in love, they both fly to a dizzy +height in the direction of the sun and there perform the sexual union. +To an unscientific mind of the Maeterlinckian type, there might be in +that picture a beautiful symbol of love's exaltation. + +The cold blooded scientist, on the other hand, will simply tell us that +erotic excitement in the bee produces a large amount of irritating +phototropic materials which compel the bees to fly toward the source of +light. + +At the end of the sexual act, the production of phototropic materials +ceases and the bees come back to earth .... like lovers tired of each +other. + +In love the conqueror feels like a conqueror and is a hard adversary +to defeat. Like the amorous bees which can reach, physically speaking, +heights which they would never dream of exploring when out of love, the +successful lover can rise to infinite heights physically and mentally. + +=The Unsuccessful Lover=, on the other hand, may be, in extreme cases, +a pitiful individual to contemplate. + +The humiliation of defeat and the fear of other defeats, the starvation +of all the senses which the love object would have gratified, produce a +depression which stops temporarily all the life activities. + +Appetite is lacking and there may be nausea and vomiting; diarrhea or +constipation replace the normal activities of the intestine, thereby +inducing weakness or autointoxication which, through a vicious circle, +still increase the depression. The heart action is disturbed, which +increases the uneasiness of the sufferer, his breathing is difficult, +causing much sighing, the surface capillaries are emptied of blood, +producing a morbid pallor, etc. + +A person in that condition is incapable of continued effort in any +direction. The stoppage of all the life functions induces a sense of +worthlessness. The fear of defeat not infrequently drives the sufferer +to suicide, which is a symbolic attempt at returning to the safest +condition in which the organism ever found itself: death, the return to +uterine life, to _mother_ earth, etc. + +It may, if the adrenal cortex, productive of anger and violence +chemicals, has been sufficiently stimulated by suffering, provoke +attempts at vengeance, cause hatred, murderous cravings, which, if +indulged in, land the patient in jail, if repressed with difficulty, +land him in a sanitarium. + +=Calf Love.= Those things should be borne in mind by parents +attempting, for instance, to break up some absurd infatuation which is +the more overwhelming as the unexperienced lover is not restrained by +the many social or financial considerations which hover in the mind of +a more sophisticated person in the throes of "erotropism." + +Those complications are to be borne in mind too by the psychoanalyst +who must not mistake symptoms of physical deterioration due to +unsatisfied love cravings with gastric or intestinal derangement due +to toxic agents, and who must bend all his energies to separate what +is "purely" sexual, from all the parasitic cravings of an egotistical +nature which make the patient's sufferings more acute. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + THE SENSES IN LOVE + + +Friedlander has wisely remarked that there is more sensuality than +sexuality in love. Which after all means that sex is only a small part +of love. It is only after the various senses have reported to the +central nervous system the presence of numerous fetishes symbolising +peace and safety, that the sex union is not only possible, but +extremely attractive and creates a durable bond between two human +beings. + +=Sight= is naturally the most important of the senses. Like hearing, it +is a long distance sense, which does not require close proximity like +smell, nor close contact like taste and touch. + +Thru association of memories, sight becomes the perfect, all embracing, +descriptive sense, able to substitute for all the other senses. + +A glance reveals not only the color, size and shape of an object, but +its consistency, firmness or softness, its state of preservation or +deterioration, its probable odor and taste, etc. + +Sight perceives the exposed and obvious fetishes and, thru memory +associations, imagines those which are neither exposed nor obvious. + +Visual sensations are the most powerful experienced by the organism; +a slight injury to the optic nerve produces a greater shock than +major injuries to any other nerve of the body. The popularity of +the movies is based upon that characteristic. To the unimaginative, +primitive people who relish that childish form of entertainment, visual +sensations replace and suggest almost every other form of sensory +gratification. + +I have shown in Chapter III that the large majority of fetishes are +visual, being impressions of color and size, which were produced on the +child's visual nerves thru close proximity with the mother's body. + +=Auditory Sensations= which enhance erotic states also hark back very +obviously to infancy. The caressing tone of the lovers' voices, the +well modulated words of praise which they speak to each other in a low +monotonous sing-song during their embraces, the baby talk in which so +many lovers indulge, remind one unavoidably of the crooned lullabies +with which the loving mother created a state of peace and safety that +would enable the nursling to doze off. + +=Smell.= In animals the sense of smell plays probably a more important +part than the sense of sight. In man the olfactory sense has become +more negative and protective than positive. It enables him to avoid +rather than to locate certain objects. This partial atrophy of the +positive olfactory capacities is undoubtedly due to the progress of +hygiene and cleanliness in human life. + +The child whose mother is carefully shampooed and bathed will not +consider strong odors emanating from hair or arm pits as a symbol of +safety. On the contrary, they will be something foreign to him, hence +suggestive of danger. + +In ancient times, bodily odors were frequently mentioned as love +stimulants. The Homeric poems, the Song of Songs, the Kamasutra and +other Hindoo erotic works, the Arabian Perfumed Garden and even in more +recent times, poems like Herrick's "Julia's Sweat," extolled strong +body odors which at the present day not only are deemed offensive but +cannot be mentioned except in medical writings. + +The modern bathroom has exiled olfactory allusions from literature. + +Odors can be, not only fetishes but very often powerful antifetishes. +This is partly due to a repression of the child's interest in his +excretions which later burst forth in the use of perfume by women, +smoking by men and women. Cigar smoking for instance supplies an outlet +for a number of childish polymorphous perversions, to use Freud's +expression. + +In this case as in many others, violent repugnance to odors good or bad +in adulthood may be traced to a morbid craving for them in childhood. + +=The Sense of Taste= is not very important in love, altho some +experienced lovers detect a distinct flavor in the skin of various +parts of one woman's skin, cheeks, arms, etc. + +Taste observed in purely nutritional activities reveals constantly +its unconscious infantile origin. However completely we may have been +weaned, we constantly pay a tribute of appreciation to our first food. + +The exaggerated and unjustified importance we attribute to milk in +the diet of adults, the way in which we designate a white complexion +as "milky" or "creamy," and in which we praise many tender foods by +stating that they are "like cream" or "melt in our mouth" illustrates, +together with the popularity of breast fetishism, the influence which +infantile gustatory impressions have made on all of us. + +=Touch= is probably as important as sight for physico-chemical reasons. +All animals seem to enjoy the close contact of other animals of their +own species. Even on very warm days, puppies, kittens and young birds +derive a very great comfort from being huddled together in kennel, +basket or nest. + +There are two reasons for that craving for contact. The safest period +of our life which our automatic nerves remember is the fetal period +during which the contact of the child with the womb is constant and in +perfect relation to the fetus' growth. + +Also, contact facilitates the electrical exchanges between human +beings, especially between male and female, exchanges which owing to +the removal of organic inhibitions, must be singularly powerful between +lovers. + +=Holding Hands.= Whenever conditions separate their bodies, lovers +generally revert to the childish practice of holding hands, which to +the child meant an assurance of safety when led by the strong parents +and also facilitated electrical exchanges of distinct value to the +young and old alike. + +=The Kiss.= This brings us to the consideration of a love +manifestation in which sensations of a tactile, gustatory and olfactory +character are combined: the kiss. + +The kiss, curiously enough, is found both in certain animal and human +races but not in all human races. + +Many mammals, birds and insects exchange caresses which remind one of +the human kiss. "Love birds" seem to spend much of their time kissing +each other. + +On the other hand, Eastern races do not seem to relish the caress which +Western peoples call a kiss. In China a form of affectionate greeting +corresponding to our kiss consists in rubbing one's nose against the +cheek of the other person after which a deep breath is taken thru the +nose with the eyes half-shut. + +In some primitive races the equivalent for our "kiss me" is "smell me." +In other races, the kiss is a manifestation of respect rather than a +proof of love. Anglo Saxons on certain occasions kiss the Bible. In the +early Christian and Arab civilisations, the kiss was a ritual gesture +and has remained so in certain Catholic customs: kissing the pope's +foot, relics, a bishop's ring, etc. + +In certain races, kissing is a proof of affection but not of love. +Japanese mothers kiss their children but Japanese lovers do not +exchange caresses of the lips, according to Lafcadio Hearn. + +The dark races of Africa are ignorant of that caress and so are the +Malays, the aborigines of Australia and many other primitive tribes. + +=The Birth of the Kiss.= It appears that even among the kissing races, +the kiss is a relatively recent development. It is rarely mentioned in +Greek literature. In the Middle Ages it was a sign of refinement, being +almost unknown among the lower classes. + +Some analysts have come to the conclusion that the kissing habit is +derived from sucking the mother's nipple. + +If this was the proper explanation, all the races would naturally +indulge in it. + +The kiss is infinitely more complicated than that. The Freudian +explanation should not be discarded entirely but it does not explain +everything. + +The kiss has grown in importance with the restrictions placed by +civilisation on sexual activities. The more primitive the races, the +more promiscuous they are and the less they kiss. + +The kiss seems to have become among the more repressed and advanced +races a displacement upward of the act of possession, a sublimation of +intercourse. It is, next to sexual union, the closest contact which the +male and female may attain. + +=Kisses and Electricity.= If we adopt Crile's theory according to +which the life stream is an electric current produced by the brain and +constantly discharging itself, we may realise concretely the import of +the kiss. + +The physical union is probably the neutralisation of two electric +currents, positive and negative, altho we do not know as yet what +correspondence there is between sexes and opposite electric currents. +Anyone familiar, however, with experiences in galvanotropism, some of +which I have mentioned in Chapter II, will when reflecting upon the way +in which the spermatozoon directs itself infallibly toward the egg, +conclude that it is headed toward a strong electric current issuing +from the woman's womb and ovaries. + +The kiss is only a milder, less complete neutralisation of the currents +issuing from two human beings. + +If the kiss on the lips is preferred by lovers, it is because the +moist mucus of the lips is a better conductor of electrical current +than the skin. In very passionate kisses, the lovers' tongues play a +double part, a symbolic part, representing the mother's nipple, and +a physico-chemical part, securing a closer connection, like plug and +socket in electric appliances. + +In Anglo-Saxon fiction which does not countenance descriptions of +lovers' embraces, a very passionate kiss is always symbolical of +complete surrender. Physiologically this symbolism is quite accurate. + +The temporary exhaustion which follows a protracted kiss is often equal +to that following a lovers' embrace and this can be easily understood +when we remember the protracted electrical discharge which must follow +the contact of the conductive surfaces of the mucus of the lips. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + + EGO AND SEX + + +If the course of love was regulated solely by sexual factors its +study would be a comparatively simple matter. Sexual cravings find +themselves, however, in conflict with many other manifestations of the +life force. For the _sexual libido_ is not the life force as certain +psychoanalysts believe. It is only one of the manifestations of the +electric stream produced in the brain and seeking an outlet. + +In fact, sex is only a _temporary_ manifestation of the life force, +late to appear, early to disappear. Embryonic life begins several +months before sex becomes observable in the fetus. Actual extrauterine +life is in full swing before sex is ripe, that is, capable of +fulfilling its biological destiny. Life continues sometimes many years +after sex has ceased to serve its reproductive purpose. + +The most powerful urge to which sex has to adapt itself in the life of +the human animal is the ego urge, the craving for food and power, the +selfish urge par excellence. At times, sex and ego work in perfect +accord as they should, considering the close relationship of the +nervous divisions carrying power to them. + +=Neurotic Complications=, however, due to the necessary repressions of +modern civilisation, throw them too often into conflict. + +We might say that there is a natural source of conflict between them, +for the ego urge is selfish, aiming as it does at the conservation of +the individual and its personal upbuilding, while the sex urge, whose +aim is to assure the continuance of the species, is altruistic. + +By altruistic I mean that one human being must, before finding the +complete gratification of his sex urge, join his body to that of +another human being of the opposite sex, whose sex urge he helps +gratify, the result of that cooperation being the creation of a third +human being. + +From this we may see clearly how the neurotic temperament, unusually +self-centered, is likely to exacerbate whatever conflicts may exist +between ego and sex. + +Even in the so called normal human being, that is, the human being +who in spite of life's repressions, manages to live at peace with his +environment and himself, the will-to-power, the desire for possession +and domination expresses itself constantly in what is generally +considered as typically sexual manifestations of love. + +Do not lovers say that they "possess" each other. Was not the Biblical +God power before he became creation? In the beginning there was the +Word, that is the expression, the utterance of the divine ego. + +Does not the unmated God of the Western nations symbolise the absolute +supremacy of power over sex? And when people pray to God, what do they +ask for, in the majority of cases, if not power (help)? + +=Self-Love.= Yet we often consider the craving for power as a form +of love, self-love. When Jesus said "Love thy neighbor as thyself" he +testified to the fact that our self-love is the most powerful human +feeling and he presented it as a goal which our love for others _might_ +reach. + +He admitted that we all love ourselves first and he was too world-wise +to advise men, as some of his followers have done, to repress their +self-love. He only advised men to try and love others as much as they +loved themselves. + +All the great conflicts between nations have been precipitated by ego +rather than by love. Love and sex were responsible, we are told for +the most famous war in history and legend, the Trojan war. I am quite +sceptical about it in spite of the "evidence" presented by a poet who +probably never existed as an individual, Homer. + +I know, however, that the most atrocious war ever fought, the world +war, was unchained, not by sexual jealousy, but by the most sordid, the +grossest form of predatory ego cravings, the will-to-commercial-power. + +In innumerable cases, ego overpowers sex and compels it to suit its +purposes. It masquerades in the guise of sex and deceives many as to +its true nature. Prostitution, in its last analysis, is the enslavement +of sex by ego, sex working to feed the ego and supply it with +necessities or luxuries. + +=Ego in Sex Guise.= Certain customs of ages past are sexual +in appearance but the egotistical motive back of them is easily +discovered. Take the right of the first night, which in several parts +of the world survived until modern times. + +The tribal chief or the lord of the manor had the right to spend a +night with every bride within his jurisdiction before the rightful +husband was allowed to enjoy his marital privileges. That custom made +the first born of every family the putative descendent of the chief +and fostered a deeper loyalty to him among his followers. + +Even as economic exhibitionism prompts people to spend at show +eating places sums in no way commensurate with their hunger, or to +buy diamonds which are not in any way beautiful but only symbolical +of the wearer's indifference to returns on his investments, egotism +causes many men to pretend sexual cravings which they do not feel. +Many stage women, actresses, singers, dancers, etc., are kept by men +whose sex life is at low ebb but who parade their "conquest" before +their associates or perfect strangers to demonstrate their sexual and +financial powers. + +=Fatherhood.= A constant craving for fatherhood is not infrequently a +neurotic symptom, an egotistical desire to compensate for low sexual +potency. + +Physicians and druggists dispensing aphrodisiacs can testify to the +prevalence of large families in the homes of almost impotent men. + +The man who can fulfill his sexual duties once a year for fifteen years +and foils his mate's attempts at contraception, is quite able to raise +a very large family and to pass among his associates for a very virile +man. The sight of his numerous progeny silences any scepticism as to +his sexual vitality. + +Some of the most astonishing vagaries in the choice of a mate are +traceable to purely egotistical cravings. Neurotic women married to a +superior man may refuse to express any sexual joy in his arms. They +remain frigid in his company and then give themselves to some rather +inferior individual to whom they feel superior and in whose arms +they show the most complete abandon. The medical and lay press very +often relates cases of fine looking and apparently normal women who +marry idiots or morons. Their sense of inferiority and their fear of +ego-defeat makes them seek inferior mates unlikely to dominate them in +any respect. Some young women conceal their morbid desire to mate with +a degenerate under a philanthropic mask. They pretend, when marrying a +drunkard or a thief, that their aim is to regenerate him. + +And so do some young men with an inferiority complex explain to their +family and friends that they have married a menial or a prostitute to +reclaim her. + +=War Prisoners.= German newspapers mentioned several times during the +war that war prisoners were treated too cordially by the women, many +of whom had affairs with the defeated enemies. In several cities, it +became necessary for the military authorities to issue proclamations on +the subject, berating the offenders for their "shameless behavior." The +same facts were observed in France and in Italy altho they were given +less prominence in the American newspapers. + +Why was it that those women idolised men they were supposed to hate +as enemies and accorded sexual favors to them? Why was it that they +did not enjoy more completely the victory of the males of their race +and jeer at the defeated foes? Those women were neurotics who, unable +to enjoy the embraces of victorious, superior males, felt themselves +superior in the arms of defeated and humiliated men. + +=Neurotic Motherliness.= A patient of mine who had always shown herself +rebellious in her attitude to her sexually potent lover, became all +tenderness and submissiveness one day when sickness almost cut off his +potency. + +"I never loved him as much as I did yesterday," she told me, "for I +felt then that I could really mother him." Which translated into honest +parlance meant, to use Adler's vocabulary, that on that occasion he was +"below" and she was "above." + +=When Ego and Sex do not Conflict=, a combination of the two gives +results which stamp human love as distinctly superior to animal +sexuality. Just as higher egotism has created cooperation, which +eliminates individual fights and establishes in their place group +fighting, healthy egotism added to sex has introduced cooperation and +altruism into love. The egotistical desire to please and dominate the +female thru vigorous caresses has thrown into the shade the primitive +cavemanlike ways. Man no longer strikes the female unconscious in order +to satisfy his sex cravings on her prostrate body. His aim is rather +to satisfy his mate first. This of course carries sexuality far away +from its primal aims. Love's byplays, in many cases, replace love's +specific functions, the road from sensuality to sterility being a short +one. When the goal of sterility is attained, we see sex willingly +relinquishing its biological aims to egotism. In the plays of sex and +ego as in the conflicts between the two urges, ego is more frequently +victorious than sex. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + + HATRED AND LOVE + + +Hatred and love seem diametrically opposed feelings. Yet there are many +cases when love masquerades as hatred and hatred as love. + +Altho such hatred and such love are not genuine they may drive us at +times into acts of cruelty or self-sacrifice which to all appearances +seem to emanate from perfect love or from savage hatred. + +Very exaggerated feelings should always be viewed suspiciously as +blinds for the opposite feelings. An extravagant display of affection +is generally a desperate attempt on the person indulging in that +display at repressing loathing and hatred. On the other hand, morbid +hostility toward one person is generally an attempt at repressing a +love which would be unjustifiable or detrimental for the personality. + +A few illustrations from life will make my meaning clear. + +=A Worried Wife.= One woman I analysed was thrown into hysterical +anxiety whenever her husband reached home a little late. She pictured +him dead, dismembered by a train or knocked down by robbers. When she +first called on me, she stressed the struggle going on in her heart. +She loved two men and her nobility of soul, her delicacy of feelings, +and many other qualities she bestowed on herself very liberally, were +making that double life unbearable for her. "I have wronged my dear, +dear, hubby," she kept repeating. "And he is so good, so kind, so +considerate." + +The wife who never tires of singing her husband's praise is always +somebody else's mistress. It is generally her way of settling accounts +with her conscience. + +In this case, the anxiety she felt over her husband's whereabouts and +health when he was late in reaching home, supplied the expiation which +neurotics seem to crave for their misdeeds. + +But there was more in that anxiety than one of the manifestations of +her sense of sin. I asked her whether she had ever experienced the same +anxiety when her lover was late in coming to their trysting place. + +"No," she said, "and this is what leads me to think that I don't love +him nearly as much as I do my husband." Her reaction to her lover's +lateness was simply one of anger. She felt herself slighted and she +suspected him of stopping somewhere to flirt with some woman. Even +once, when a wreck on a suburban line leading to his home town, had +prevented him from meeting her, she never imagined him the victim of +any accident. + +Further questioning elicited the information that death wishes had +crossed her mind on several occasions in relation to her husband. She +finally came to see that those repressed wishes were simply finding an +outlet in her wish fulfilment fears. She was constantly visualizing the +tragedy which would have given her her freedom. + +=The Test of Love.= In other words, her unconscious wished her husband +dead. The repression of that wish compelled it to masquerade as a +hysterical concern for his health. The thought of her lover, however, +never suggested to her any death scenes. + +During the war a woman patient who had two sons at the front, was +tortured every night by a nightmare in which she saw her older son +killed in action. She very naturally interpreted those dreams to +herself as convincing evidence of her greater fondness for that boy +than for his brother. In the course of our conversations, however, she +gradually admitted that her elder son was a gambler and drunkard and +had found himself in many an unpleasant complication. + +She had thought several times, altho she had at once repressed the +thought, that death would be preferable to his life of embarrassment +and degradation. Those repressed death wishes found an outlet in +nightmares accompanied by a great display of emotion consciously felt +as love and grief. + +Parents who continually warn their children against accidents "likely" +to happen to them, who grow panicky when some street commotion takes +place and imagine that their child has been hurt or killed, are not +quite as loving as they imagine. + +In such unjustified fears, as in death dreams, there lurks an ill +concealed desire to be freed from the thraldom of parenthood and to +regain the selfish happiness of the childless state. + +A young woman fainted several times when she heard shouts on the street +where her young child had been taken by the maid. She "knew" something +must have happened to her boy. Her dreams would with alarming frequency +picture accidents befalling the child. After I made her realise the +way in which her child had interfered with her social activities, with +her attending dances, theatrical performances, etc., a change became +noticeable in her dreams. Instead of visualising her child dead she +saw him in her day and night dreams as an adolescent, no longer in her +way, no longer a handicap to her in her pursuit of pleasure. Her panics +disappeared about the same time. + +More elusive at times are cases of hatred which analysis reduces to a +struggle of the personality against an inacceptable love. + +=Sour Grapes.= A man, unduly attracted to a woman who socially, +intellectually or financially, is or should remain outside of his +reach, and would probably make an impossible mate, is likely to +manifest violent hostility to her, to disparage her or even slander her. + +Every analyst has seen in his office the middle aged woman who "breaks +down" soon after her daughter's marriage to a man whom she "despises." +Either a family scene or a campaign of nagging and disparagement has +caused a break between her and her daughter and son-in-law. + +Analysis reveals that she is love with her son-in-law, a situation more +frequent than the layman imagines. This infatuation which she cannot +accept as a fact is repressed savagely. To protect herself against +overt acts which would make her sinful or ridiculous, she exaggerates +every defect of the man she loves. She pursues him with a stubbornness +which cannot deceive a psychologist. His name is constantly on her +lips, coupled, of course, with abusive remarks, but the fact remains +that she is constantly speaking, if not dreaming of him. + +Her peace of mind is only restored to her when she accepts as a fact +a situation which need not be translated into a transgression of the +ethical laws. + +For, in spite of what puritanical critics of psychoanalysis repeat, +a conscious sex craving is more easily controlled and less likely to +overthrow our willpower than an unconscious one. + +=Brothers and Sisters.= A similar complication is frequently found, as +I stated in Chapter V, in the history of neurotic brothers and sisters. + +A brother and sister may to all appearance be irreconcilable enemies. + +Investigate their childhood and you will find memories of actual or +attempted incestuous indiscretions which, after a while, were repressed +either by punishment or voluntary restraint. In later years, fear +of a possible recurrence of tabooed incidents may express itself in +the shape of hatred leading at times to acute family conflicts, the +brother or sister running away, the sister becoming a prostitute, etc. + +When hatred is unmasked and revealed as one of the avatars of +inacceptable love, it dies off and is replaced by protective measures +of a less objectionable nature, reserve or distance. + +=A Negro Hater.= A hysterical patient of mine who had always been a +terrific negro hater and advocate of lynching, was disturbed at night +by symbolic sexual dreams in which negroes took an active part. She +could not help feeling uneasy in the presence of a colored man. "Those +beasts" was her favorite designation for colored people. + +What drove her into my office was that on one occasion she had behaved +in a, to her, inconceivable way to a colored janitor's helper who had +come to her apartment to inspect the radiator. + +The presence of that man had aroused her so powerfully that for a +few minutes she had been on the point of making advances to him. She +fortunately came to her senses and fled from what had always been to +her an unconscious temptation. + +Such incidents as that make one wonder how many lynchings have been +precipitated by the hysterical actions of neurotic women. + +It may be stated broadly that every exaggerated attempt at protecting +ourselves against a danger or a temptation is a confession on our part +that the danger or the temptation is very fascinating to us. + +=Reformers.= Many "bold" reformers are merely very weak individuals +struggling against sexual temptation and hating some vice which holds +them in its power. The biography of Anthony Comstock which I have +reviewed in detail in "Psychoanalysis and Behavior" proves that the +obscenity he was so stubbornly ferreting held a strange fascination for +him. + +I must not create the absurd impression, however, that all reformers +are abnormal and moved by neurotic impulses. But between the scientist +who warns people of venereal disease and combats it whenever possible +and the so called "syphilophobiac" who sees everywhere chances for +infection and would jail every prostitute, there is a great difference. + +=The Syphilophobiac= is always a weak, oversexed individual, whose +only protection against his promiscuous cravings is the fear of disease +and the absurd assumption that every woman is infected. + +The syphilophobiac hates prostitutes because he would love them too +well but for the protection he erects between their body and his +desire. The feverish energy displayed by many prohibition enthusiasts +is at bottom the hurrying away from a temptation to which they know +they would have to yield. The great prohibitionists crave alcohol and +could not, without a terrible struggle, protect themselves against the +lure of drunkenness if strong beverages were available. + +The stage has pictured many times the crusty old bachelor who is a +ferocious woman hater. In the end he succumbs to the wiles of the +ingénue, who is generally the first woman he ever associated with. + +The poor devil realised too well all his life the irresistible charm +of women as well as his overwhelming craving for love and the joys of +the flesh. Some neurotic incest fear, or craving for selfish pleasures, +or money complex, however, caused him to avoid women and to protect +himself against them by a display of hostility. The first time, +however, when fate forces him into close contact with temptation he has +to yield. + +=Deluded Martyrs.= In every social upheaval there are martyrs who +sacrifice themselves for apparently very noble causes but whose +unconscious reasons for their acts are much less sublime. Stupid +bomb throwers who wreck a building or kill an individual, (acts most +unlikely to change a social system to which they object), profess +to be moved by their love for the people. Their actual motive is +father hatred. Brutus and others who delivered the "people" from some +"tyrant," in reality gratified an unconscious grudge and sought their +own liberation from some form of authority made loathsome by infantile +complexes. + +The most grotesque example of it was the destruction of the Bastille +on July 14, 1789 by a French mob which imagined that it was thereby +freeing crowds of innocent prisoners and abolishing arbitrary death +sentences. There were less than a dozen people in the fortress at that +time. The mob venting its wrath on a symbol of authority pretended to +be animated by a love of freedom and a desire to benefit others. + + + + + CHAPTER X + + PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY + + +Lecture audiences often ask me whether plural love is possible. This +would indicate on the part of the questioner a more or less unconscious +wish to justify polygamous cravings. Plural marriages exist but I doubt +whether any such thing as plural love has even been observed at any +period of mankind's history. + +For the most complicated examples of plural marriage, as for all the +varieties of sexual complications, we must turn to Greece of the +classical period. Demosthenes wrote somewhere: "We have prostitutes to +give us pleasure, concubines to minister to our daily needs and wives +to bear us children and to watch over our homes." + +When we remember that besides the three types of women with whom they +had sexual relations, many and among them some of the greatest men of +those times, indulged in homosexual unions with young men of feminine +appearance, we must draw two conclusions: first, that those men must +have been sexual supermen, as they were at times mental supermen, +second, that love as we understand it at the present day, can only have +had very little to do with their sexual life. + +Modern love as we shall see in Chapter XXXI means mutual love, the +equal gratification of the mates thru the rites of sex communion. + +=Plural Love=, be it of the ancient Greek type, of the Oriental or +mormon type, means varietism for the male, scanty gratification for +the female. At best a mild form of sexual slavery, most humiliating to +the woman and possible only under a social system debarring woman from +financial independence. + +Only a man suffering from priapism could gratify the eroticism of a +large number of wives and the latest or youngest wife would naturally +receive a larger share of physical attention than the earlier and +older mates. The jealousy and hatred thus engendered are in no way +minimised by the fact that the custom of certain lands countenances +such arrangements. + +=Polyandry= as it existed in ancient times and still exsists in Tibet, +where a woman marries several men (generally brothers) may be more +satisfactory for the primitive female. Owing to her physiological make +up, and also to her passive rôle in love, woman can gratify several +men and receive gratification from them. The neurotic disturbances +which may arise as a result of a woman's lack of sexual gratification +are avoided by the polyandric scheme of union. But this is the only +superiority which polyandry has over polygamy. + +Both polygamous and polyandric nations and civilisations have gradually +receded as far as numerical importance and world prestige go and both +institutions are bound to disappear. + +The development of the human ego, both in men and women, will not +permit much longer of the enslavement of one sex to gratify the +pleasures of the other. Nor can any group, male or female, enforce its +domination over individuals of the opposite sex and make them accept +the dogma of an inferior sex by embodying that dogma in any religious +creed of the mormon or mohammedan type. + +=Infidelity.= Plural love is passing but infidelity has taken its +place in every possible respect as a sexual and an egotistical form of +gratification. + +When dealing with infidelity we must establish a careful distinction +between forms of infidelity due to "normal" causes and other forms +due to unconscious complexes. On the other hand we should beware of +admitting, as many unscientific writers do, that there is a distinct +difference of attitude to infidelity in the two sexes. + +That shortsighted viewpoint has been unfortunately voiced in hundreds +of popular sayings which represent man as the great examplary of +infidelity and woman as faithfulness incarnate. + +Economic conditions, not sexual differences, are at the bottom of the +levity with which men treat their heart affairs and of the gravity with +which women, officially at least, consider the marriage relationship. + +Financial dependence and the fear of motherhood compel the +domesticated, parasitic type of woman to secure the services of a +breadwinner, and after achieving that object, to avoid hurting his +susceptibilities. + +Independent and professional women, especially the sterile or +sterilised ones, are frankly "masculine" in their love habits. + +But I insist on considering certain forms of infidelity as normal and +others as abnormal, independently from the question as to whether they +are socially desirable or undesirable. + +The human type which is so perfectly normal that it has no fixation +and no definite fetishes, except species fetishes, and which weaklings +and puritans designate as "animal," is not likely to be faithful to any +mate. Like every strong and healthy animal at rutting time, he or she +is sexually aroused by every individual of the opposite sex. No safety +complex restrains him as far as sexuality is concerned. The only fears +which restrain his search for gratification are fear of exposure and +ostracism within his herd, fear of pregnancy or infection and fear of +final complications, not to mention of course the fear of inflicting +suffering upon a lifemate of whom he may be extremely fond. + +For we must never forget the fact, unpleasant as it may appear to +unscientific hypocrites, that lasting love is a matter of fixation and +fetishism, hence, always slightly tainted with neurosis. + +=When Love Dies.= "Normal" infidelity may also be merely the only hope +of sexual gratification for the normal man or woman whose mate has +ceased to present the fetishes needed to awaken his or her eroticism. +Healthy individuals are neither willing nor capable to forego sexual +gratification. Now and then complications arise, a man being very +fond, for sexual reasons, of a woman who would prove undesirable as +his mate and, for sentimental reasons, of a woman who is infinitely +congenial but no longer arouses his desire. Likewise, a woman may be +deeply attached to both her lover and her husband. Ivan Bloch writes: +"It is quite possible to love more than one person at the same time +with nearly equal tenderness and be honestly able to assure each of the +passion felt for him or her. The vast psychic differentiation involved +by modern civilization increases the possibility of this double love +for it is difficult to find one's complement in a single person and +this applies to women as well as to men." + +George Hirth, in his "Wege zur Heimat" also points out that women, +as well as men, can love two persons at the same time. Men flatter +themselves with the prejudice that the female heart, or rather brain, +can only hold one man at a time and that if there is a second man, it +is by a kind of prostitution. Nearly all the erotic writers, poets +and novelists, even physicians and psychologists, belong to this +class. They look upon a woman as property and of course two men cannot +"possess" one woman. + +"Regarding novelists, however," remarks Havelock Ellis, "the remark +may be interpolated that there are many exceptions. Thomas Hardy, for +instance, frequently represents a woman as more or less in love with +two men at the same time." + +Hirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue to +one man because she has conceived a passion for another man. "Today," +Hirth writes, "truly love and justice can count as honorable motives +in marriage. The modern man accords to the beloved wife and life +companion the same freedom he himself took before marriage, and perhaps +still, takes in marriage. If she makes no use of it, as is to be +hoped, so much the better. But let there be no lies, no deception, the +indispensable foundation of modern marriage is boundless sincerity and +friendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion and consideration. +That is the best safeguard against adultery. Let him, however, who is, +nevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it, console himself with the +undoubted fact that of two real lovers, the most noble minded and deep +seeing friend will always have the preference." + +Even under an economic system countenancing free love and birth +control, such complications would surely arise and cause much suffering. + +=Bored Wives.= Infidelity is often also a refuge from boredom for +the middle class woman who has no definite training or ability in +any direction and is thereby condemned to idleness. Left alone all +day and a few evenings every month by a busy husband, she yearns for +companionship. Unless she is slightly homosexual, she soon tires of +stupid teas, bridge and gossip parties and she accepts the attentions +of some man who brings into her life a little romance and a different +aspect of the world's activities. The French cynic Willy had that type +in mind when he wrote: "adultery has become the key stone of society. +By making married life tolerable it prevents the breaking up of the +home." + +Besides normal sexual cravings, there are many unconscious or only +partly conscious causes which drive human beings into being faithless +to their life mates. + +Many women take lovers, many men take mistresses for purely egotistical +reasons. Justly or unjustly they feel a certain lack of appreciation in +their mates and make up their minds to get even with them. + +="Getting Even"= is one of the great neurotic cravings, one which +has led to numberless offences, including crime and suicide. + +To some neurotics with a sense of inferiority, an extramatrimonial +affair seems to be the sole means of restoring one's self confidence. +"I am of no account at home but to some one else I mean the world." + +Many neurotics use "romance" and "inspiration" as convenient scapegoats. + +"But for the inspiration I derive from my affair with So and So, I +could not do my work properly," and this is true in a good many cases, +but in many more cases, any one else would do just as well as a lover +or mistress. Some neurotics, who remind one of Madame Bovary, the +heroine of Flaubert's great novel, feel that accomplishment and the +fullness of life are naturally associated with sexual irregularities. + +Too inferior to accomplish anything by dint of hard work, Emma Bovary +childishly expected love to accomplish everything for her. Other +neurotics, incapable of any creative work, consider romance as an +achievement in itself and proceed to call every carnal dissipation +romance. Just as inferior boys at the gang age steal or destroy in an +absurd attempt at "doing something out of the ordinary." + +Some neurotics never feel safe very long with any sexual mate; they +grow afraid or suspicious and seek safety in the arms of some other +human being in whom they unconsciously hope to find the father or +mother image to which they were over-attached. Their search for the +safe mate, that is, for the parent image, is, of course, always +unsuccessful. + +=Varietists.= I have observed a number of men and women who liked +to designate themselves as varietists and who were simply unconscious +or partly conscious homosexuals struggling against perverse tendencies +to which they did not wish to yield. + +I have seen in my office several Don Juans who were unconsciously +attracted to men and refused for a long while to admit that such a +craving was a part of their personality. Every woman they met only +meant one thing to them: "If I could capture her, I would feel sure +that I was a real man." A few days after catching their prey they were +once more obsessed by doubts and had to seek new evidence. + +Many partly conscious homosexuals seek women who in their appearance, +manner of dress and behavior are the best substitutes for men, that is, +mannish girls, flat chested, with narrow hips, bobbed hair, wearing +tailor-made garments, engaged in masculine pursuits, etc. + +They often meet with disappointment for such women are frequently +homosexual and hence unlikely to yield to a man. When the woman is +sexually normal, however, the neurotic's happiness is far from assured. +As soon as sentimentalism or tenderness allows the feminine component +of those masculine women to break thru their masculinity, the +unconscious homosexual loses his love for them. One patient of mine did +his hunting among equestriennes in Central Park. On two occasions his +attentions were accepted. His disappointment was terrible; calling upon +the women who had attracted him when wearing a mannish derby and riding +breeches, he was greeted by very womanly persons attired in the most +feminine finery. + +Several times in his life my patient has been in love with rather +masculine women. The first flash of femininity in them had always cured +him entirely of his infatuation. + +=The Ultrafeminine.= Other homosexuals struggling savagely against +the appeal of the masculine, seek safety in the arms of extremely +feminine creatures who could not in any way awaken the slightest +suggestion of a perversion. + +Their obsessive fear, however, does not allow them to enjoy the affair +very long. Small physical details which a normal man would not notice +suddenly fill them with fear or disgust. A masculine gesture, a raucous +intonation, a slight growth of hair on the upper lip or the limbs may +suggest unavoidably the sex from which they are fleeing in panic. Their +love cools off and safety has to be sought, altho it is never found, +in the arms of some other woman of very feminine appearance, who is in +turn discarded for the same absurd reasons. + +As fixations and fetishism have infinitely more importance for men +than for women (see Chapter III) the male neurotic is naturally more +"promiscuous" and faithless than the female neurotic. + +=Messalina.= Every psychoanalyst, however, has met the Messalina +type, who is constantly seeking the "love that will endure." Like her +masculine counterpart, the Don Juan, she is in the majority of cases +seeking safety and trying, by conquering many men, to reestablish her +self-confidence which every little disappointment and humiliation +destroys so easily. + +However loving and worshipful the neurotic's mate may be, he or she +cannot hope to save the neurotic from further love entanglements. +One of the most striking neurotic traits is a craving to disparage +everything and everybody in his environment. + +The praise of the most affectionate husband or lover, wife or mistress, +is insufficient to raise the neurotic's self-esteem. With all +neurotics, familiarity breeds contempt and it must be from the lips of +a new man or new woman that they must hear their praise sung before +their feeling of inferiority is deadened and allows them to enjoy that +praise. + + + + + CHAPTER XI + + IS FREE LOVE POSSIBLE? + + +"American Medicine" commenting upon the fact that divorces have +increased twenty per cent in eight years and that, if the rate of +increase continues, there will be as many divorces as marriages in +thirty years from now, reaches the conclusion that "the individual has +moved on far in the past two thousand years, while the institution of +marriage has remained unaltered through the centuries.... The basis +of marriage as it was originally conceived was entirely a racial one +in which the individual counted for little; it was meant as a means +of building a family and conserving it. Nothing else counted and the +primitive individual exacted little else.... The modern man and woman +demands in his mate more than that and it is here that the marriage +institution is most defective in that it does not yield to these +greater demands." + +Polygamy and polyandry have been found wanting and have been abandoned. +Monogamy is, at the present day, tempered by frequent infidelity and +numerous divorces. Which means that it does not satisfy the needs of +the human race. Shall free love offer a solution? + +=Man the Dissatisfied.= I might as well voice here my pessimistic +belief that there is no permanent solution for any human problems. +The only tangible difference between man and the animals is that the +animals are satisfied and man everlastingly dissatisfied. No cat was +ever dissatisfied enough with the primitive feline way of catching mice +to invent a mouse trap. + +The animals solved their problems thousands of years ago. Unless +domesticated and exposed to the exclusive influence of men, they never +vary from the form of behavior of their particular species. + +The only problem they have been unable to solve is how to get rid of +man, the invader and parasite, and they will never cope with it. + +Man's satisfaction with every new improvement is only temporary. + +=The Next Step.= Free love may be the next step in the evolution +of the sexual partnership but it certainly will not be _the_ solution +of the marriage problem. + +As far as the mates themselves are concerned, free love will only be a +success in the case of extremely normal individuals for whom the sexual +relationship means solely physical gratification. As soon as affection +intervenes in those unions, the thousand forms of jealousy we shall +describe in another chapter will enter into play. + +Jealousy among free lovers cannot but rage more fiercely than among the +legally married. A thousand details of married life are simply meant to +establish the mates' ownership of each other in their own eyes and in +the eyes of the world. The number of war marriages contracted hastily +during the great European conflict by young men and women on the eve +of the bridegroom's departure for Europe testifies to the powerful +"safety" symbolism of the marriage ceremony. + +A gullible young man in love with a girl would not have trusted her +alone during his absence from home. She might have experienced a change +of heart. After going thru a wedding ceremony with him, however, he +_knew_ that she could not change her mind and love another. As a matter +of fact most of those unions were disastrous. A virgin might have +waited. A young woman left alone after a few days of erotic enjoyment +was naturally an easy prey for any clever tempter. The bridegroom, +on the other hand, went away blissfully, secure in the thought +that the marriage certificate, the ceremony, the wedding ring, the +transformation of Mary Brown into Mrs. John Smith would protect his +"honor" while he was away. + +=Blissful Blindness.= Some of the cleverest, most cynically suspicious +husbands and wives go thru life blissfully blind to their mate's +sidesteps. They see thru anyone else's husband or wife but they seldom +suspect _their_ husband or _their_ wife. The stress which they place on +the possessive works in their case as the fetish which a savage takes +into battle. In hoc signo vinces. + +It is only in the so called smart set that men and women allude to +their mates by their first names. The working classes, sexually the +most conservative and puritanical, use the expressions "my man" or "the +missus"; middle class men and women pompously refer to their mates +as Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith, always reminding their hearers of the +legitimacy of their union. The celebration of wooden weddings, silver +weddings, etc., is a means of reminding the community that Mr. and +Mrs. John Smith _own_ each other, just as the engagement diamond is a +scarecrow proportionate in visibility to the prospective bridegroom's +fortune. + +Even if free love unions became the adopted standard of the land, those +unions would be celebrated with appropriate ritual, the aim of which +would be to tie the man to the woman and the woman to the man and to +warn away sexual hunters of both sexes. + +Free love will not be possible until the absolute equality of men and +women has been accepted, not only theoretically but practically. + +Before that equality is a fact, there must be written into the +statute books some form of financial assistance to the woman disabled +by pregnancy and lactation and which will enable her to retain her +independence regardless of her physiological condition. + +Even this will not be enough. Birth control measures will have to +become lawful and the subject of careful scientific teaching before +woman can hope to lead her life unenslaved to her children's father. + +=What of the Child?= Besides, in free love arrangements, the mates +are not the only parties to be considered. There is a party of the +third part: the children, if any. + +If a perfectly independent male decides to cohabit for an indefinite +period of time with a perfectly independent female, the community can +hardly interpose any objection. For after all, most of our ethical +indignation at the thought of temporary unions is due to the miserly +fear of the community lest a pregnant woman and fatherless children +be thrown upon it for support. No one's rights would be trespassed +upon by such arrangements, ephemeral as they might be. As they would +not cost anyone any money they would be considered acceptable. When +a self supporting Sarah Bernhardt or Isadora Duncan bears children +out of wedlock and we run no risk of being taxed for the support of +her "illegitimate" progeny, we assume more liberal views than we +would should a stenographer or a switchboard operator commit the same +"errors." + +When children are the outcome of any form of union, however, the +psychoanalyst, broad as he may be, is compelled to remember the pitiful +stories he has heard in his office. No neurotic ever had a pleasant +childhood. No neurotic was the child of a father and mother united +by real love and manifesting within the family circle the mutual +tenderness which is the poetry or the music of the home. + +=Disharmony Between the Parents=, culminating in divorce or +desertion, has wrecked the future of thousands of children. Not every +unhappy home has produced neurotics, but, every neurotic is the +product of undesirable home conditions. + +Furthermore, it seems as tho a child in order to reach normal +adulthood should be brought up by both a male and female. Many male +homosexuals I have observed were brought up by a widowed mother or a +woman abandoned by her husband or lover. In other cases, impotence or +frigidity affected respectively boys and girls who had lost the parent +of the same sex. Many other disturbances of the mental life, due to +incompleteness of the parental environment or to its imperfection, +could be mentioned if the limits of this book would permit. + +From the point of view of psychiatry, there is only one answer to be +given to the question if free love is acceptable. Free love _must_ +be supplemented by birth control. Those free lovers who decide to +procreate children must also agree to live together until the youngest +of their offspring has reached at least its fifteenth year. + +Creating children with the intention of turning them over to some +charitable institution is also a proposition which to a student of +mental disturbances appears just short of criminal. + +=The Institution Child.= Few children thrive well mentally or +physically under institutional treatment. + +Children need love in order to grow strong mentally or physically. I +read somewhere a story to the effect that a mediaeval ruler directed +that some children be brought up by nurses who would never show them +the slightest sign of affection or interest, his aim being, if my +memory serves me well, to make extremely virile fighters out of those +children, by protecting them against any weakening influence. + +As the story goes, all the children died. + +I do not vouch for the authenticity of the story but the vital +statistics of orphan asylums affirm its plausibility. Children fare +better in a poor, unsanitary home, at the hands of a stupid and +ignorant but affectionate mother than in an up to date, well appointed, +sanitary asylum. They need, in order to develop a strong, serviceable, +well balanced autonomic nervous system, the safety which emanates from +the breasts, the kisses, the hands, the admiring glances of their +mother. + +If no doting mother has ever told a child that he is wonderful and the +most precious thing on earth, he will never quite consider himself as +of much avail and will probably never become wonderful in any respect. + +=Free Love Plus Birth Control= may reduce the actual population of the +earth, but when only real lovers deeply attached to each other and only +bound to each other by sexual desire and intellectual regard, will live +together and decide to rear children as a monument to their love, free +love and birth control will cause the population of insane asylums to +dwindle to nothing and will save the world from the thousands of morons +and neurotics who are the products of married disharmony and married +slavery. + + + + + CHAPTER XII + + PROSTITUTION + + +Prostitution, as I stated in a previous chapter is one of the results +of the overthrowing of sex by the ego. The craving for food and power +triumphs over all the sexual cravings and compels one individual to +pursue apparently sexual goals which are no longer sexual as far +as that individual is concerned. The female prostitute lends her +sexual organs to many men for money (food, power), not for her own +gratification or to reproduce her species. + +That phenomenon is very complex and cannot be dealt with in detail +within the limits of this book. I shall confine myself to pointing +out some of the psychological problems which have to be elucidated +before the causes, nature and results of prostitution can be clearly +understood. + +=Economic Factors.= Certain radicals simplify a little too much the +problem of prostitution by considering it solely as a by-product of the +competitive system which would disappear as soon as a more equitable +system of production and distribution was introduced into the modern +world. + +No one can deny that under our social system, woman, burdened as she +is, by many physical and social handicaps, is easily driven to the wall +in times of stress and compelled to sell her body. Nor is there any +doubt that under a system assuring every one a livelihood, regardless +of business conditions, many women would be saved from adopting such a +disgusting form of labor. + +At the same time, the radical interpretation fails to explain why, when +submitted to a practically identical pressure, some women do not become +prostitutes but either kill themselves or beg or steal. + +=Lombroso's Theory.= Very unsatisfactory also is Lombroso's attitude to +prostitution. + +He finds a constant coincidence between prostitution and crime and +states that the female offender _is_ a prostitute, one of the varieties +of the "reo nato," of the born criminal. + +The female offender is not always a prostitute and modern research +makes the theory of "congenital criminality" untenable. + +Kurt Schneider in his exhaustive study of seventy prostitutes brings +out interesting details of their biography which throw a clearer light +upon the psychology of prostitution. + +There were certain characteristics which all of those seventy women +exhibited. They were all unwilling to work. They all were very +grasping, altho, at the same time, very extravagant spenders when +it came to personal adornment. Eroticism seemed to play a very +insignificant part in their choice of a livelihood. Most of them were +frigid, many homosexual, the majority of them sadistic. + +Fifteen of them had been punished for larceny (money and clothes). + +Many of them kept a pimp or cadet. + +Most of them were unhappy, dissatisfied types. + +All of them were greatly attached to children. + +Many of them were drunkards. + +One half of them were weak minded. + +Seven per cent of them had been brought up in institutions. + +We have there a striking picture of inferiority. An endocrinological +examination of those unfortunates, similar to those which have been +conducted recently at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Washington, D. C., would +have probably revealed back of their unwillingness to work and of their +thirst for money, weak thyroids and poor adrenals, not to mention +unbalanced pituitary glands. The fires of the body burnt slow in them, +producing and consuming little energy, a condition which, causing an +obscure unconscious fear of the future, compelled those women to seek +easy ways of gathering money, the only protection they could think of. +Their inferiority complex revealed itself in their craving for personal +adornment, to which they sacrificed their protective earnings. + +=Sensuality.= All the rant of the purity prophets to the contrary +notwithstanding, it is not sensuality which "lures" women into a "life +of shame." + +If the prostitute sought in her means of livelihood mere gratification +of "vicious" instincts, why would she so often submit to the whims +of a pimp who despoils her of her earnings. The prostitute hates the +men who can compel her thru their financial superiority to submit to +their sexual desires. The pimp, whom she keeps and who depends upon her +bounty, is her inferior and the more she degrades him, the less she +feels her own degradation. + +The prostitute, like all inferiors, is dissatisfied, but so are the man +of genius, the inventor and the artist. The genius is the dissatisfied +individual who organically is able to compensate for his feeling +of inferiority by creating a more pleasant environment, physical +or mental, and derives therefrom credit, praise, rewards, small as +those rewards may be. The prostitute, too weak organically to find +a suitable, socially valuable, form of compensation, flees from a +reality which is unpleasant to her. Alcohol and drugs supply her with a +convenient form of escape from reality, the more acceptable to her as +her intelligence is the more limited. + +=Father Fixation.= Kurt Schneider found that fifty per cent of the +prostitutes he examined were weak minded. The Chicago Vice report +published a few years ago revealed the fact that fifty per cent of the +prostitutes examined by the vice investigators were the victims of a +violent father fixation. + +One half of them, when asked by whom they had been seduced, +incriminated their fathers. To a psychoanalyst such an answer is an +obvious morbid wish fulfilment. + +All of the women probably experienced unconscious incestuous cravings +at some time or other, and in the minds of the weak minded, (fifty per +cent of them according to Schneider), those cravings had produced an +absolute delusion. Whether the incest was real or imaginary, the fact +remains that those unfortunates either believed in it or considered it +as a plausible explanation and scapegoat. A lie, when accepted as a +part of our biography, often affects us as mightily as tho it were an +actual fact. For, after all, every lie we tell is a fact unconsciously +acceptable to us and which affords our ego a certain protection. + +The woman with a father fixation is usually frigid. She either never +marries or is a prey to prostitution fancies, until analysis has +freed her of her unconscious incest fear or has led her to accept her +incestuous cravings as a part of her personality. + +=Prostitution is a neurosis=, affecting mostly the hypothyroid, +hypoadrenal female of low culture and low intelligence. + +Psychoanalysis, which requires a certain grade of mental development on +the part of the patient, is rather impotent in the majority of cases +of prostitution when the woman has crossed the line which separates +fancies from practice. + +There are male prostitutes also, of the normal sexual type. I do not +allude here to the homosexual males whose mentality shall be considered +in another chapter. By male prostitutes, I mean men who consort with +women, in or out of wedlock, for purely sordid considerations. + +=The Pimp= who exploits some prostitute is a prostitute himself, but so +is the man who marries for money or power a woman who does not attract +him sexually. The male prostitute is, if anything, ethically inferior +to the female prostitute. + +=Prevention=, rather than any form of cure, may some day solve +the problem of prostitution. Repressive measures are, of course, +a dishonest farce which deceives no one and benefits no one. The +prostitute cannot be reeducated or adapted, for she is a weakling and +the modern world offers to her no equivalent for what she would have +to give up in order to reform. Female children, on the other hand, if +trained properly and made independent, mentally and financially, could +grow up free from the handicaps and the fears which, at the present +day, drive too many girls into adopting the "easiest way." + +=Prostitution has no redeeming grace.= It may have saved many +young men from impotence but it has made quite as many impotent thru +venereal infection. Some claim that it has saved many pure wives and +daughters from temptation but it has contributed also thru infection to +making thousands of innocent women sexual invalids. + +Prostitution is a maladjustment whose worst sin is perhaps the +maladjustment of married life which it occasions in thousands of cases. + +Too many young men, who acquired their sexual experience with +prostitutes solely, imagine that they know and understand women, and +they proceed to treat their life mates as tho the latter were only +slightly different from the unfortunate neurotics they hired to relieve +their sexual cravings. To that sort of experience we owe the horrible +type of the "typical husband" who never misses an opportunity of +reminding his wife of the fact that "she is only a woman." + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + + VIRGINITY + + +I am very sceptical when it comes to drawing a clear line of cleavage +between what is typically masculine and what is typically feminine +in behavior, and I believe that many of the so-called fundamental +differences between the sexes are artificial and temporary ones due +to the economic and social pressure which woman has to bear. Even in +the valuation of virginity, it is difficult to say that there is a +masculine attitude and a feminine attitude. + +Broadly speaking, we might state however that women, the world over, +are more indifferent to the prematrimonial past of their future +husbands than men are to the purity of their brides. + +=Men Experienced in Matters of Love= wield a definite attraction +over all women, whether the latter are willing to admit it or not. + +This is not due to any especially feminine trait but rather to the +difficulties which women encounter when they endeavor to secure +positive information on tabooed sexual topics. They expect, therefore, +their initiators to be conversant with the subject which is kept +carefully shrouded in morbid mystery. + +The majority of men, on the other hand, when marrying a woman who is +neither a widow nor a divorcée, expect her to be absolutely pure, that +is, not to have had any sexual relations with any other man. + +=Ethical Prostitution.= In certain parts of the world, on the other +hand, males appear rather indifferent to the female's past. In some +parts of Japan and among certain Arab tribes, comely girls may go to +larger centers of the population and devote themselves for a period +of years to prostitution. After which, they return to their native +place sometimes with a dowry they have accumulated thriftily, find a +husband and settle down as wives and mothers, in no way disqualified +by their promiscuous past. In certain parts of Central Europe, "window +courting," as it is sometimes called, leads to unofficial trial +marriages which do not arouse the jealousy of the final winner of a +girl's favours. + +Among the Western nations, it is rather the very young, the stupidly +conservative, the unsophisticated and the senile, who consider +virginity as a great attraction and in some cases as a powerful sexual +stimulant. + +The reasons for that are to be sought in the egotistical component of +the masculine attitude. The strong and powerful male who has frequently +proved his virility is not obsessed by the fear of defeat in love's +intimacies. + +The innocent young man, on the other hand, who is full of misgivings +and of diffidence, the elderly man whose sexual powers are on the wane +and who is no longer sure of himself, prefer a woman who is totally +ignorant of physical love. Their embarrassment or their shortcomings +may escape a virgin but would not escape a woman of the world, a widow +or a divorcée. + +There is, therefore, in the search for virginity, a slightly neurotic +factor, the fear of defeat, the line of least effort, the search for +ego safety. + +It must be noticed that it was during the great neurotic ages, the +Middle Ages, which witnessed the bursting forth of so many hysterical +epidemics, that both the cult of the Virgin and the belief in witches +spread over Europe. + +=The Fear of Woman.= Man has always tried to protect himself against +woman. In his fear of sex equality he has either made her an angel or +a beast. The witch, perverse and filthy, was lowered to the level of +hell. The virgin, on the other hand, unsexed and raised to heaven, was +removed far enough from the world for perfect safety. + +=The Will-to-Be-the-First.= In the overemphasis placed by certain +men upon virginity in the woman, and in the anxiety shown by certain +husbands at the thought that their wife may have had sexual relations +with another man previous to her marriage, we see the operation of the +neurotic trait which Adler has called "the will-to-be-the-first" and +which manifests itself, not only in the love life, but in all of life's +situations. + +The neurotic of that type, obsessed with a feeling of inferiority is +tortured by the thought that he may not have been the first to caress +his wife. Analysis proves that in early childhood, he had a tendency +(observable in certain breeds of dogs) to try to outrun every waggon, +horse, train, etc.; that in later life he always tries to walk ahead +when in company and hastens his steps whenever anyone threatens to pass +him on the street. That type is given to hero worship, as he likes to +identify himself with his favorite hero, Cæsar, Napoleon, etc. States +of anxiety develop whenever his preeminence in society or business is +threatened. + +=Telegony.= In the search for virginity there may also be in the male +an unconscious "intuition" of some scientific facts. The phenomenon of +telegony, explained by Dr. Jules Goldschmidt, of Paris, in the Medical +Review of Reviews for April 1921, would, if confirmed by careful +observations, throw a new light on the meaning of virginity. + +The first male, Goldsmith states, leaves an indelible impress on the +female he possesses. Goldsmith believes that sperm plays a twofold part +in the female organism that receives it. It not only fecundates the egg +but modifies the blood of the female. He cannot believe that Nature +would waste millions of spermatozoa in order that one of them should +reach the egg. The millions of spermatozoa which are not needed for +purposes of fecundation are absorbed, he thinks, by the mucous tissues +of the woman's genitals and make her gradually more and more like her +mate. To this factor Goldschmidt attributes the likeness of mates who +have lived together many years. + +"When we reflect," he writes, "on the deep impress produced by the +action of a single spermatic cell, we at once ask what will be +the fate of the myriads of spermatozoids entering at the moment of +fecundation, and later on into the female organism. Again we have to +insist on the fact that nature works with excessive profusion, and that +to secure success its means of action are multiple. Everywhere in the +living world male generative cells are brought forth in an overwhelming +abundance. + +"Their multiplicity guarantees at least the possibility of meeting the +rather far-off ovulum, just as out of the multitude of male bees only +one is chosen to impregnate the queen. + +"But it is inconceivable that the uncounted other male cells are +condemned to useless death without any action on the entire female +organism, into which, by reason of their mobility they can easily +penetrate, either into the mucous membrance of the uterus or into +the lymphatic and blood capillaries, and thru them into the whole +circulation. + +"Kohlbrugge has demonstrated that in the case of a certain bat, the +spermatozoids do enter in great numbers into the superficial stratum +of the mucous membrance as well as into the glands and the adjacent +tissues. Their fate is, of course, dissolution. We know that blood is +the receptacle of all the products that are created by healthy life or +disease. We know of no other liquid in the whole organic world so rich +in the most heterogeneous chemical substances as blood. + +"Certain important substances circulate in it, which we only assume are +there, not having been able to isolate them, but with which we work +when we elaborate preventive or curative serums. All the antigens, +antitoxins, antibodies, introduced into the blood by the living action +of pathogenic bacilli, as those of diphtheria, typhoid, tetanus, after +the happy termination of these diseases, present themselves in such +infinitesimal quantities that we can only designate them by their most +remarkable biological effects. They either confer for a lifetime an +efficient immunity against renewal or, exceptionally, an increased +susceptibility (anaphylaxis) for the bacilli which have created them. + +"If nature, in its morbific attacks on the organism, uses great +quantities, extremely small ones answer its purpose for defense. Can we +not by analogy conclude that the dissolved spermatozoids confer on the +blood and thru it on the whole female organism, qualities which it had +not possessed before their invasion? + +"From all of these facts we may return to our problem, and infer that +not alone the solitary male cell which fecundates the ovulum is of +importance to the economy of the female organism, but that we must +not disregard the extremely numerous spermatic cells accompanying +fecundation or the further introduction of these elements. + +"Just as the bacillary products during and after infectious diseases +represent substances able to confer immunity from any renewed attack +and therefore cause an important transformation of the human system, so +the inference must be allowed that the spermatozoids, too, do exercise +an ultimate lasting effect on the females organism, which will acquire +a greater sensibility for the original and an insensibility for, or +non-susceptibility towards extraneous generative cells, even those able +to fecundate." + +This exclusive adaptation of the female organism to the male one is the +phenomenon called telegony. + +"A curious example of telegony offers itself when a white woman, +who has at first lived with a negro and afterwards with a man of +her own race, presents her second husband or lover with a more or +less intensely colored child. Such cases have given rise to dramatic +and even tragic scenes when the innocent woman was simply modified +(telegonized) by her first cohabitant. + +"All breeders are acquainted with the fact that the bull confers +telegony on the cow. The dark colored bull having fecundated a light +colored cow, the latter being subsequently covered by a red bull will +put down dark and white streaked calves. + +"It is quite possible that the biological reaction of the blood in +human and animal impregnation becomes identical in the mother with that +of the first father, and that the influence of another male does not +change sensibly the maternal blood." + +If demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt, thru careful +observation, telegony would be a tremendous fact which would, to all +the egotists and neurotics, enhance tremendously the value of virginity +in the woman. What a joy it would be for the self-centered, narcistic +neurotic to know that he can gradually make his mate like unto himself! + +On the other hand, it might lead to most interesting experiments in +eugenics and animal breeding. + +Thru deferred impregnation, brought about by special contraceptive +measures, a better human type and better breeds of animals might be +evolved. + +It might also sound the death knell of certain contraceptive methods +which prevent the human mates from attaining the physical and mental +oneness which, Goldschmidt says, is the result of life-long sexual +association. + +Goldschmidt's thesis is worth investigating. Thus far the unverified +observations and the sayings of more or less scientific breeders do not +allow us to draw positive deductions. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + + MODESTY, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL + + +Modesty is not easy to define, for it varies with races, epochs and +climes. As I said in the preceding chapter, in some parts of Japan +and in one Arab tribe, it is almost shameful for a young woman to be +married without having had sexual experience. A woman of the Western +races on the other hand, regardless of her age and past, must in order +to show a ladylike breeding, pretend a certain ignorance of things +sexual when in the company of men, even in the company of her fifth or +sixth husband. + +=In Turkey=, a woman may show her eyes but must veil her mouth; in the +Southern Sahara, men of the Tuareg tribes go about veiled like Turkish +ladies. Certain African tribes cover their backs carefully while +exposing the rest of their bodies. In other tribes, men, instead of +concealing their genitals, wear sheaths which exaggerate the size of +their organs. In most parts of the earth, women keep the fact of their +menstruation a secret. In others, they wear a cloth of a special color +proclaiming that condition when present. + +=On the Modern Stage=, modesty seems satisfied if the nipples and the +genitals are duly covered. In some parts of Europe entirely naked +dancers have been seen in public. Until recently, an unwritten law made +it more or less necessary for the male performers to wear more clothing +than female ones did. The wave of homosexualism which has followed +the war is probably responsible for the growing numbers of naked male +actors and dancers who disport themselves nowadays on the French stage +and elsewhere. + +There is a normal form of modesty, however, and there are many abnormal +aspects of that elusive feeling. + +Many animals seek safety and seclusion when performing certain +important functions of their life, nutrition, reproduction and +defecation, which naturally place them at a disadvantage in emergencies +requiring flight or fight. Even the boldest among the carnivorous +animals, lions and tigers, drag their prey to a cave or into the depths +of the bush before devouring it. + +Naked and otherwise shameless and "indelicate" savages will often walk +a considerable distance from their village to satisfy their natural +needs, and then hide behind bushes or trees. + +Many birds and animals pair off and isolate themselves at mating time. + +Races and nations differ greatly in their degree of modesty in relation +to nutrition, reproduction and defecation. European races dine in +the open, are more or less "shameless" in their love making, they +talk freely on sexual topics and erect urinals and comfort stations, +designated by their exact name, in many public places. Anglo-Saxons +hide themselves while eating, are very silent about the processes of +reproduction, seldom indulge in public kissing and designate urinals +and toilets, which are very scarce in their lands, by cover names such +as lavatories, smoking rooms, etc. + +=Normal Modesty= may then be a survival of the fear which the +primitive men and women experienced of being surprised and overpowered +by hostile animals or tribesmen during an embrace or when unprotected +by garments or armor. + +In fact, modesty seems to disappear as soon as safety reigns or when no +hostile element may be suspected of lurking in the environment. + +A woman strips without shame to undergo a medical examination, men and +women appear naked in public baths where only one sex is admitted at a +time, etc. + +Then also normal modesty must be considered as an offgrowth of the +unavoidable repressions of modern, civilised life. Like the incest +taboo, it has been cultivated for reasons of convenience. + +Modern community life having placed a thousand restrictions upon the +age at which we can marry and the conditions under which we should +marry, in other words, having delayed considerably our normal sexual +gratification, an effort has been made to "repress" erotism by +concealing "suggestive" parts of the human body. + +This is, of course, an abortive attempt, for habit is a more potent +protector against temptation than veils. The races which live +practically naked are not more erotic than the fully clothed, civilised +races or the Arabs who not only cover their entire body and heads but +conceal even the shape of their bodies in the loose folds of their +ample garments. A husband, no longer erotically aroused by his wife's +naked body, may be attracted violently by the partly draped body of +another woman. + +=Suggestive Draperies.= One of the results of the policy of +body-concealment has been to transform certain draperies into sexual +symbols of great aphrodisiac power. Certain garments lend to the human +body an appeal which it might not have if fully exposed. In other +words, the obstacles which are meant to hold back erotism may be used +neurotically as a morbid expression of erotism. + +At the present day, however, that form of protection against temptation +serves its purpose to some extent and cannot be discarded until mankind +has been reeducated. Custom and the law uphold official modesty. The +mere fact, however, that modesty has to be enforced legally is one of +the best arguments against the sentimental, unscientific view that +modesty is an "innate," "natural" feeling of "delicacy" based upon some +"higher," "spiritual" values, etc. + +Modern, official modesty is merely a compromise with sexual reality. +It has been, like all inhibitory feelings, greatly overestimated and +forced upon the weaker sex by egotistical men to prevent a display of +their female's charms, likely to attract other women-hunters. Weak +males with a sense of inferiority have called modesty the typically +feminine virtue. + +=Excessive Modesty=, in men as well as in women, is an abnormal +phenomenon, a mask for unconscious lewdness and obscenity. It is a +neurotic means of protection against uncontrollable desires, or at +times an expression of one's "sour grapes" attitude to others. + +It is always the shapeless and unattractive woman who is the most +vociferous champion of highneck gowns and long skirts. A sense of +bodily inferiority obsesses the woman who does not allow any caresses +unless the room is darkened. Her modesty yields rapidly, however, to +the praise of her attractions which she hears from the mouth of her +lover. + +=Immodest Modesty.= A woman took her daughter to a specialist's +office for an examination. The girl, asked to strip, complied at once +with the doctor's request and stood naked before him without any +display of shame. + +When they left, the mother made the very unwise remark that her +daughter must have lacked modesty entirely to have stood the ordeal +without any embarrassment. In this case, it was the mother who lacked +"true modesty" and the daughter whose mind was "pure." The girl knew +she was in the presence of a physician, but to the more highly sexed +mother, the physician was above everything a "man." + +This sort of prurient modesty which, very often, exerts a baneful +influence on the love-life of the individual, is usually due to +repressed childhood memories and complexes. + +=Fear of Love.= Stekel, of Vienna, cites the case of a girl who evinced +on every occasion a morbid fear of everything connected with love. She +avoided men, she protected herself zealously against every "suggestive" +influence, she decried love and marriage and was constantly trying to +"spiritualise" the things of the flesh which she considered "bestial." + +Analysis showed that until the age of thirteen she had been perfectly +normal in her behavior, considering love and marriage as natural human +goals. + +One day, however, she chanced upon a collection of pornographic +photographs belonging to her father. Instead of "corrupting" her mind, +the incident disgusted her and caused her to renounce all the things of +the flesh and to become unusually, negatively modest. + +A patient of mine declared on the occasion of her first call at my +office that all men were "beasts." Whenever she associated with a +man, at dinner, theater or dancing parties, she suffered from choking +sensations, nausea, etc. Analysis revealed that at the age of six she +had been subjected to an attempt at seduction. + +Another woman patient who went thru a mental crisis in the course of +which she gave up all worldly pleasures and decided never to marry, +merging into hysterical states very soon afterward, had bow legs and +a tendency to skin eruptions which had, on many occasions, proved +humiliating to her egotism. Her decision never to marry meant: "I shall +not risk showing my deformed legs and my skin blemishes to a man." +Also, at the age of ten, she had witnessed a scene of brutality in +which a man had dragged his wife on the street by her hair. + +She was morbidly modest and wept bitterly once when a man whom she knew +only slightly, pressed a kiss upon her lips. Withal her dreams revealed +a violently erotic temperament. + +Like all exaggerated feelings morbid modesty is the mask for the +opposite feelings, passionate sexual cravings. The woman who allows +every one to kiss her is aroused but little by such caresses. The woman +who never kisses any one and pretends she does not like being kissed, +is usually the one who knows that a kiss might cause her to lose her +self-control and to abandon all modesty. + +The puritanical male, paragon of modesty among his sex, is either an +inflammable type who is afraid of his own sensuality or an impotent +individual who protects himself against being put to any sexual test. + +That exaggerated modesty is only one of the components of the neurotic +temperament has been well demonstrated by Adler: "The morbid modesty +of neurotics," he writes, "who cannot visit a public toilet, who are +unable to urinate in the presence of others, who avoid the society of +women on account of blushing or anxiety or heart palpitations, reveals +to us the strained manly ambition which supports itself against the +original feeling of inferiority. + +"=The Masculine Protest= (craving for virility) of those patients, +insecure to the core, forces them into this arrangement whose +boundaries encroach upon those of bashfulness and awkwardness. Often, +in neurotics of either sex, one observes an inability to go to a toilet +in cases of great necessity if some one is looking at them. The greater +modesty of women, especially of neurotic women, in all relations of +life, originates from the fear which is implanted in them from the +earliest childhood that attention might be directed to their sex. + +"I have often convinced myself that the behavior of girls and of women +is considerably influenced by this more or less unconscious factor, +indeed that the progress of their sexual development, like that of male +patients who feel unmanly, the formation of social and professional +relations and love relations, are immediately checked as soon as the +patient is allowed to play a real 'feminine' or subordinate part or +presupposes this expectation from others. + +"This fact is in no way affected when repressed sexual stimuli come +to light as the present source of the checks of aggression. They are +similarly arranged and have the purpose of enhancing the fear of the +partner and of permitting the retreat decided upon in the plan of +life, to be entered upon with certainty; they are therefore acts of +foresight. The neurotic had already in childhood laid the foundation +of this foresight and in it is reflected the feeling of shame as the +guiding line of reassuring modesty and the prudery of civilisation. + +"The previous history of the patient reveals an exaggerated modesty +and this is true at times of those who in other respects show a boyish +nature; the anxiety of nervous children on being exposed may be +observed in their conduct. They exclude every one from the room and +lock the door when they are going to undress. This conduct is also +observable in boys who have grown up among girls. In the prognosis +of neurosis, this expedient of cowardice is a bad symptom. It is the +equivalent of later castration thoughts and neurotic wishes, the wish +to be a woman, for instance, which expresses itself as soon as the fear +of the life mate becomes actual or a decision has to be avoided." + +=Lack of Modesty=, when it assumes a morbid form, has, according +to Adler, the same meaning as prurient modesty. + +"The very shameless, obscene talker," Adler writes, "is trying to +demonstrate to his listeners the fact of his great manliness of +which he is not very sure himself, the very immodest woman merely +demonstrates her inability to adapt herself to her feminine role.... In +the analysis of such women, at times only in their dreams, is observed +the childish expectation of a metamorphosis into a male, an attempted +substitute for the will-to-power, the will-to-be-above." + + + + + CHAPTER XV + + JEALOUSY + + +Jealousy has been subjected to the distortion which every sexual +manifestation suffers under the influence of our modern puritanical +civilisation. It has to be concealed and lied about and derives from +that fact an immense obsessional power. It becomes a mask for other +feelings and, in its turn, may masquerade in the guise of other +feelings. + +Both its presence and its absence may denote normality or abnormality. +Intense jealousy may be the projection of our feelings into another +individual and be a symptom of paranoia. On the other hand, the entire +lack of jealousy of a husband who enjoys the sight of his wife caressed +by another man, certainly reveals a most morbid masochism. + +Hunger, thirst, erotism always find their satisfaction at some time. +Intense pain deadens itself thru its very intensity. Jealousy on the +contrary feeds on itself. It can be aroused by the unseen as well as by +the obvious. In fact, like many neurotic elements, it thrives best on +the invisible and the unreal. + +Jealousy based upon unseen things, hunches, intuition, borders +dangerously on hallucinatory states. The absolute blindness of some +husbands, on the other hand, reveals a form of egotistical cocksureness +closely allied to delusions of greatness. + +=Rules for Husbands.= Forel, in some ways very old fashioned and +unimaginative, has summarised as follows the proper rules of conduct +for "reasonable husbands" suffering from jealousy. + +"An intelligent husband," he writes, "should quietly find out thru the +usual agencies whether his suspicions are justified or not. For what +is the use of being jealous? If his suspicions are unfounded, he can +only annoy his wife and make her unhappy thru his jealous behavior. If +he was right in suspecting her, there is only one of two things to be +done: either an otherwise excellent wife has yielded to the attraction +of another man and may feel perfectly miserable over it. She should be +forgiven and led back into the right path. Or a wife has no affection +left for her husband or she is an unworthy, characterless deceiver, and +in such cases, what is needed is not jealousy but a divorce." + +Instead of "reasonable" husbands, Forel should have written, husbands +"free from complexes," for jealousy is little besides a neurotic mask +for an unrecognized feeling of inferiority. + +There are thousands of husbands who would not dare to find out whether +their wives are untrue or not. Some may be so enslaved to their wives' +bodies that they cannot contemplate the possibility of losing them. + +Public opinion, if a scandal should break out, would compel them to +seek a divorce and therefore they prefer to remain in ignorance of the +real state of affairs and of their "defeat." + +Others are so egotistical that they refuse to suspect their wives of +infidelity and are honestly trying to protect their wife's reputation +when they make a jealous scene. This is frequently observed among the +"after-me-who-has-a-chance?" type of husband. + +Other egotists fear the ridicule that might follow upon exposure and +which might destroy some of their self confidence. They would be too +weak to bear up well under their friends' open or concealed sarcasm. + +The jealous scenes they make to their suspected wives are in the nature +of a punishment which they inflict on the faithless one. + +Other husbands, entangled in extramatrimonial affairs, are in no way +desirous to create a scandal but work themselves into jealous moods to +keep up a pretence of interest in their wives. + +Others, very old fashioned, believe in a double standard and, while +condoning their own weaknesses, condemn every appearance of evil in +"their" wives. + +=Very Few Men or Women Admit Their Jealousy.= Most of them cover it +with ethical veils of the most transparent type: "You neglect your +household," "you are a poor mother (or father) to your children," "you +are making yourself (or me) ridiculous," etc. + +Some husbands deny they are jealous but declaim against low neck gowns, +flesh-colored stockings, face powder, rouge, lip sticks to which they +object on "moral grounds." + +The last two groups derive a great comfort from their assumed ethical +and moral superiority which they use as a justification for their +endless nagging. + +Some jealous husbands force motherhood upon their wives year after year +as a protection against unfaithfulness. A woman disabled by pregnancy +and lactation is, of necessity, more faithful. Attempts at freedom on +the part of a woman burdened with a numerous progeny can easily be +repressed by admonitions such as "Remember the children," etc. + +=Jealousy and Impotence.= Jealousy in a man is often caused +by the fact that he has become impotent. Unable to gratify his +wife physically, he imagines that she seeks consolation elsewhere +and in that way he "gets even" with her: "I am impotent but she is +promiscuous," so runs the neurotic's logic. + +Not infrequently a woman who has been brought up to consider physical +relations as slightly shameful and something which a well brought up +female submits to, but never "enjoys," may, if she is very erotic, +develop terrible fits of jealousy. + +Frink, mentioning one of those rather frequent cases, dissects the +psychology of that type of jealous women as follows: "If her husband's +caresses leave her unsatisfied, she is caught between the two horns of +a dilemma. If she grants that this is enough to satisfy her husband's +'animal instincts' she must then admit that she is more erotic than he +is, hence, more 'animal' than he. And such an admission is impossible +to a woman of puritanical upbringing. Hence 'logically' she concludes +that he must be untrue to her." + +Frink adds: "Undue jealousy in a man usually means that he has, or +thinks he has, some deficiency of sexual power. It means in a woman, +not, as many seem to think, that she is unusually in love with her +husband, but rather, that she is not perfectly satisfied with him, +and often that she thinks that if he really knew her, he would not be +satisfied with her. In most patients suffering from morbid jealousy +there is an overaccentuation of the homosexual component of the libido." + +Very often some unattractive individual feels jealous because he or she +has ceased to attract sexually his or her life mate. + +A neurotic, whose face had been made hideous by a discoloration due to +illness, was sure his wife must have a lover, because she no longer +seemed to feel erotic in his company. His way of reasoning was as +follows: "I cannot disgust her, hence some one else must attract her." + +=Childish Behavior.= Some neurotics with a strong father or mother +fixation become jealous of an otherwise perfectly faithful and devoted +mate because they fail to receive from their husband or wife, the sort +of attention and uncritical devotion they would expect from a parent. +Those people are still children who never admit the possibility of +adult equality between them and their mate. The mate must be the strong +father or the self-sacrificing mother. They themselves remain babies, +constantly to be petted, admired and consoled. If their husband or wife +fails to shower on them the thousand little attentions which a nursling +requires, they fly into a petty and unjustified rage, suspecting that +some one else has robbed them of their privileges. + +The Don Juan and the Messalina are quite as jealous as faithful mates. +Men leading a double life may watch wife and mistress with equal +suspicion. This is probably due to the fact that they feel unable to +satisfy both women sexually. Orientals with a harem are said to be +infinitely more tigerish in their jealousy than Western men of the most +monogamous type. I have known several married women who, altho they had +deceived their husbands on several occasions, were terribly upset when +their husbands showed too much interest in some other woman. + +=The Ego Rampant.= The proprietor of a hotel in a Western town, +who lived a few blocks from his inn, was annoyed when his wife refused +more and more frequently to come and keep him company at the hotel in +the evenings. + +When a young lawyer took up his residence at the hotel, however, she +never failed to put in an appearance, regardless of the weather or of +her health, which she had used so often as excuses for staying at home. + +Later on, detectives supplied him with enough grounds to secure a +divorce. Curiously enough, what brought forth the greatest display of +anger on his part when he recalled the incident, was not the thought of +the caresses which his wife and the other man may have exchanged. His +humiliation was indescribable when he realised that the other man had +wielded more influence upon his wife than he had himself. "One night," +he said to me, "when she came down thru a heavy snowstorm, just to see +him, I could have killed her." + +=Sexless Jealousy.= All the foregoing tends to show that jealousy +has very little to do with sex. Many domestic animals evince violent +jealousy when their masters show attentions to strange animals. A feud +may be precipitated among the household pets when the dog beholds his +mistress petting the cat and conversely. Fox terriers often attempt to +bite people who shake hands with their master or, in friendly ways, lay +hands on him. + +Likewise, it was jealousy which drove Cain to slay Abel and which +caused Joseph to suffer many indignities at the hands of his brothers. + +A Freudian might say that Cain and Joseph's brothers were seeking +the father's (God's) homosexual love and begrudged whatever of it was +lavished on their victims. Adler would more plausibly suggest that +the prestige and power wielded by Joseph and Abel were too much of an +irritant for their inferior and greedy brothers. + +In other spheres than the sexual sphere, we notice that success +won by undisputed superiors or absolute inferiors does not arouse +our jealousy. A young pianist does not resent honors bestowed upon +Paderewksy, nor does Paderewsky begrudge the stripling his early +success. Jealousy, on the other hand, rages among great artists of +about the same rank. In the first case, superiority or inferiority is +taken for granted. In the case of equals competing for the same laurels +inferiority is "feared." + +=Husbands and Lovers.= Many men feel no jealousy over the caresses +their mistress may receive from her husband. The husband has been +defeated by the lover, hence is "absolutely" inferior. + +The same, it goes without saying, applies to women in love with a +married man. Many men, in fact, prefer to have extramatrimonial affairs +with married women and many women with married men. They no longer fear +the husband or wife whom they have defeated in the struggle for his or +her mate's favor. They consider him or her as a watchful guardian of +their mistress's or their lover's sexual life, less formidable than an +unknown man or woman might be, who had not been defeated yet. + +The suttee custom in India, the various wills left by Western men or +women, providing that the surviving spouse shall be disinherited if he +or she marries again, shows that jealousy has little to do with love, +sexual or affectionate. That posthumous jealousy is a distinct attempt +at controlling one's "property" after one's death, whether the property +be a woman or a certain sum of money. + +=Cruelty.= Adler has pointed out the cruel character of jealousy +and the constant attempts made by jealous neurotics to disparage and +belittle their love object. + +"The neurotic suffering from jealousy is insatiable in his search for +ways to test his mate. This indicates his lack of self confidence, +his lack of self esteem and his uncertainty. His jealous efforts are +calculated to bring him more into notice, to attract more attention to +himself and thus to increase his self-esteem. He revives upon every +possible occasion the old feeling of being neglected and disregarded, +and assumes anew the childish attitude of wishing to have everything, +to obtain a proof of superiority upon his mate. + +"A glance, a word spoken in company, an acknowledgment of a favor, a +show of interest for a painting, for an author, for a relative, even a +protective attitude toward servants, may be taken as the cause of the +operation. In certain cases the impression is distinctly given that the +jealous individual cannot rest because he has no confidence in peaceful +happiness or account of his misfortune. Then a neurosis develops in +which an effort is made to subdue the life mate by a system of attacks, +to arouse his or her sympathy; or perhaps the attack is intended as a +punishment. Headaches, weeping fits, weakness, paralysis,[1] attacks +of anxiety and depression, silence, etc., have the same value as +alcoholism, perversion or lewdness. The line of distrust and doubt, +often about the legitimacy of the children, becomes more pronounced, +outbreaks of wrath and scolding, mistrust of the entire opposite sex, +are regular phenomena and reveal the other side of jealousy as a +preparation for the disparagement of the life mate. + +"Often pride prevents consciousness of jealousy but the behavior is +the same. This situation is at times made worse by the fact that +the suspected mate beholds the helplessness of the jealous one with +unconscious satisfaction and fails to find the words or the tone that +would hold jealousy within bounds." + +=Making People Jealous.= This is why the efforts made by certain +men and women to arouse their sexual partner's jealousy are productive +of rather baneful results. They do not bring out the love or affection +of the person who is made jealous but his worst egotistical and +sadistic traits. + +One of the strongest factors in love being the egotistical satisfaction +we derive from the possession of the love object and the realisation +of our influence over it, our love wanes rapidly when we see another +person wielding much power over it. + +The stratagem has temporary effects which may deceive the person using +them. The jealous lover, at first makes decided efforts to regain his +position, but he soon feels swayed by egotistical considerations which +lead him toward the line of least effort. Slighted by one woman, he +turns to another for consolation, and usually finds it. + +The man or woman who considers it shrewd to let his mate suspect +that "there are others," for one thing encourages faithlessness by +creating a precedent. It is especially when the other (or others) +are distinctly inferior in appearance or position that this sort of +game ends disastrously. The woman who likes to mention the attentions +bestowed upon her by some inferior man and seems to enjoy them +accomplishes two things. She makes herself appear inferior and "easy" +and makes her lover feel that any inferior man could compete with him +for her love and that, hence, he himself must be inferior. + +He may run away from her to escape that feeling of inferiority. + +If he does not leave her, he no longer feels compelled to make any +effort to please her, since worthless homage seems so valuable to her. + +=Jealousy is the Hell of Love= and no one should dare to open its +gates lightheartedly. + +One should be the more careful in arousing jealousy as the "green eyed +goddess" now and then is responsible for some killing. The sexually +jealous husband may kill his wife's lover, the egotistically jealous +husband may kill the unfaithful wife. The former removes temptation +from her path, the latter avenges his wounded egotism. + +It is not always the sort of love that flares up frequently in jealous +outburst, sexual or egotistical, which is the deepest. I know of a +case in which a husband repressed entirely his anger and desire for +vengeance when his wife left him to live with another man. A clever +psychologist, he realized that lack of opposition to her plans would +kill the romance of his wife's rash step. He also knew that any +violence to which he might submit her lover would crown him with the +halo of martyrdom. He wrote to her: "I shall not interfere with your +adventure, for uninterrupted intimacy will soon cause you to tire of +each other. Nor will I shoot him for I would thereby transform him in +your mind into a hero." Eventually, the "erring" wife returned to her +home. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + + INSANE JEALOUSY + + +One form of jealousy which has absolutely nothing to do with love in +the normal sense of the word, and one which not infrequently leads to +acts of violence, to the "love tragedies" of newspaper headlines, is +simply one of the first symptoms of paranoia. + +=In Delusional Jealousy=, the patient suffering repressed homosexual +cravings, projects his own desires into the personality of his life +mate. An unconsciously homosexual husband, attracted sexually by every +man in his environment, assumes that his wife is also subject to the +same attraction and suspects her of having sexual relations with every +man who arouses him. An unconsciously homosexual wife imagines that +her husband has a liaison with every woman who appeals to her perverse +fancies. + +The paranoiac being at times very clever and convincing, that form +of jealousy, insane as it may appear to the man or the woman who is +the victim of it, may deceive the outsiders. In certain cases, the +delusional character of it is obvious to everybody, including the +jealous person. + +A paranoiac told me that every night he "saw" a man entering his wife's +bedroom thru a window protected by solid iron bars so close to one +another that a cat could have squeezed thru them only with difficulty. + +This was, of course, a case of hallucination, pure and simple. + +=Homosexualism.= Other cases are more complicated. Dr. S. +Ferenczi, of Budapest, reports two of them which illustrate well the +mechanism of insane jealousy due to unconscious homosexualism. + +He had a housekeeper whose husband, a man of thirty-eight, also busied +himself about the house in his spare time. He was constantly cleaning +Ferenczi's rooms, putting fresh polish on the doors and floors, +pottering around, evidently anxious to show his good will and his +devotion to his wife's employer. + +This man was very intemperate and beat his wife on several occasions. +Altho she was most unattractive, he constantly accused her of +infidelity with Ferenczi and every male patient treated by him. + +When the woman revealed those facts to Ferenczi, he gave the couple +notice but decided to have a serious talk with her husband. + +The man denied having beaten his wife, altho this had been confirmed by +witnesses. He maintained that his wife was a real vampire, whose lust +was sapping his life strength. During this explanation, he impulsively +took Ferenczi's hand and kissed it, saying that he had never met anyone +dearer or kinder than the doctor. + +A talk with the woman revealed to Ferenczi that the man had always been +very distant in his attitude to his wife. He would often push her away +brutally, calling her all sorts of opprobrious names. + +When he learnt that Ferenczi had given her notice, the insane man +abused and hit his wife, and threatened to throw her out on the street +and to stab "her darling." Ferenczi at first paid no attention to those +threats for the man remained very devoted, respectful and well behaved. +When he learnt, however, that the man was sleeping with a sharp kitchen +knife under his pillow and when he woke up one night to find him +standing in his bedroom, he notified the authorities and the maniac was +committed to an insane asylum. + +"There is no doubt," Ferenczi writes, "that this was a case of +alcoholic delusion of jealousy. The conspicuous feature of his +homosexual attachment to me, however, allows the interpretation that +the jealousy he felt of every man, was only the projection of his own +desires for the male sex. Also, his lack of desire for his wife was not +simply impotence but was determined by his unconscious homosexuality. + +"To him alcohol played the part of an inhibition-poison and brought to +the surface his crude homosexual erotism, which, as it was intolerable +to his consciousness, he imputed to his wife. + +"It was only subsequently that I found a complete confirmation of this. +He had been married before, years ago. He lived only a short time in +peace with his first wife, began to drink soon after the wedding and +abused his wife, tormenting her with scenes of jealousy until she left +him and secured a divorce. + +"In the interval between his two marriages, he was said to have been +a temperate, reliable and steady man and to have taken to drink only +after his second marriage. Alcoholism was not the deeper cause of his +paranoia; it was rather that, in the insoluble conflict between his +conscious heterosexual and his unconscious homosexual desires, he took +to alcohol, which brought the homosexual erotism to the surface, his +consciousness getting rid of it by way of projection, of delusions of +jealousy. He saddled his wife with his desires and by jealous scenes +assured himself that he was in love with her." + +=A Jealous Wife.= The other case is that of a woman, still young, who +after living in harmony with her husband for a number of years and +bearing him daughters, began to suffer from violent fits of jealousy +soon after the birth of another child, a boy. Alcoholism played no part +in this case. + +She suspected every move her husband made. She dismissed maid after +maid and finally had only male servants in the house. Curiously enough, +her jealousy was directed against very young and very old, even very +ugly women, while she was not jealous of her society friends or of the +pretty women whom she and her husband occasionally met. Her conduct +at home became so unbearable and her threats so dangerous that she +was taken to a sanatorium upon Freud's advice. After which Ferenczi +proceeded to analyse her. + +She harbored many delusions of greatness and ideas of reference. She +thought she found in the local paper veiled allusions to her depravity +and to her ridiculous position as a betrayed wife. The highest +personalities in the land were banded against her, etc. + +She had married her husband against her wishes and when she bore the +first daughter and he manifested his disappointment, she began to feel +that she had indeed married the wrong man. She then made the first +scene of jealousy in connection with a little girl of thirteen who came +to help the servant girls. While still in bed after her confinement, +she made the little girl kneel and swear by her father's life that she +was still pure. This oath calmed her at the time. + +After the birth of her son, she felt she had fulfilled her duty to her +husband and was free. She flirted with every man but would not tolerate +the slightest liberty from them. At the same time, she made her husband +violent scenes of jealousy and tried to incapacitate him, thru her +constant passionate advances, for relations with any other women. When +taken to a sanatorium, she gave evidence, thru her behavior toward the +other women inmates of strong homosexual leanings. She confessed to +Ferenczi that there had been homosexual experiences in her childhood. +She then became more and more unmanageable and the analysis had to be +abandoned. + +=A Case of Projection.= This is Ferenczi's comment upon this example +of insane jealousy: "This case of delusional jealousy becomes clear +when we assume that it was a question of projection upon the husband of +her desire for her own sex. A girl who had grown up in an exclusively +feminine environment is suddenly forced into a marriage of convenience +with a man she dislikes. She reconciles herself to it, however, +and only shows indignation when her husband proves cruelly unkind +(disappointment over the birth of a girl) by letting her desire turn +toward her childhood ideal, the little girl of thirteen. The attempt +fails, she cannot endure homosexuality any longer and has to project it +upon her husband. + +"Finally after the birth of her son, when her 'duty' is done, the +homosexuality she had kept in bounds takes possession in a crude erotic +way of all the objects that offer no possibility for sublimation (young +girls, old women etc.), although all this erotism, (with the exception +of cases when she can hide it under the mask of harmless flirtation), +is imputed to the husband. In order to support herself in that lie, the +patient is compelled to show increased coquetry toward the male sex, +to whom she had become very indifferent and, indeed, to demean herself +like a nymphomaniac." + +I have cited both cases at length for they confirm the statement I have +made elsewhere in this book that very exaggerated feeling is usually +a mask for the opposite feeling. Ferenczi's two patients, in love +with persons of their own sex, "simulated" neurotically a passionate +attachment for their heterosexual mates, who, naturally could not +attract them. + +=Masked Sadism.= Their stormy jealousy was more akin to hatred than +to love. There was no tenderness in it but a good deal of sadism, of +cruelty, and they used it in order to torture their mates on whom, in +the course of their jealous scenes, they could heap up abuse, which +they would not, under any other circumstances, dare to voice as freely. + +Many a husband would like to insult a wife he detests. Neurotic +jealousy supplies him with an excuse which he might not find elsewhere. + +After which, if the vocabulary he used on that occasion is especially +vile, he has a good scapegoat at his disposal. "I was crazed by +jealousy and did not realise what I was saying." + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + + HOMOSEXUALISM; ITS GENESIS + + +Love's normal goal is the union of the male and the female in a way +which may insure the reproduction of the species. At times, however, we +behold love deviating from the path that leads to that goal: a man may +love another man as passionately as he would love a woman, a woman may +be consumed with desire for another woman. + +Certain parts of the ancient world looked with indifference upon +such deviations from the normal. The poems of Sappho, the dialogues +of Plato, to only mention the best known sources of information on +the subject, prove that in classic Greece homosexual unions were +countenanced by public opinion. In the "Banquet" young Alkibiades +describes, with a frankness reminiscent of eighteenth century novels, +his attempts at "seducing" Socrates. In the holy island of Thera an +inscription commemorates the "wedding" of two young men, Erastos and +Klainos, which was celebrated with all sorts of ceremonies. + +A distinction was even drawn in those days between homosexual love +which was purely sexual and the kind of love which was both sexual and +intellectual. + +=Groups of Male Lovers=, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, Kratinos and +Aristodemos, etc., became famous and legendary owing to their unusual +faithfulness and constancy. Pederasty was countenanced by the very +behavior of the Greek gods, of Zeus in particular. + +The various philosophers granted women the right to indulge in +homosexual love if they wished, but, nevertheless, Lesbian love, as it +was called after Sappho of Lesbos, was rather considered as a freak +of nature, if not a vice. The low social condition of Hellenic women +accounts for that illogical difference in treatment. + +=Women Were Harem Slaves= with little opportunity for intellectual +development and their homosexualism could not drape itself in the +mantle of intellectual pretence which it wore in the gymnasiums and +schools frequented by men. + +Greek mythology offers no example of love between goddesses. + +Sappho and the Lesbian poetesses gave female passion an eminent place +in Greek literature but the Aeolian women did not found a tradition +corresponding to that of the Dorian men. + +We even find in Lucian's works a passage indicating that some of the +Greeks felt at the thought of female homosexualism the repugnance which +we feel at the thought of male homosexualism. + +=The Tide Turns.= About the third century and until the +eighteenth, the tide turned, at least in the Western world, and +homosexualism found itself confronted by a barrier of penalties +which in certain lands included capital punishment. After the French +revolution such extreme penalties were abandoned in several European +countries. + +At present, death is no longer the wages of the homosexual sin, but +jail sentences and ostracism of the most severe sort punish the +sinner when detected. Legally, then, homosexualism is considered as +a voluntary "perversion," to be punished, not as an abnormality, to +be treated or accepted. This position is absolutely ridiculous and +goes counter to every possible scientific view of homosexualism, its +nature and its genesis. Whether psychiatrists consider sexualism from +a "purely physical" point of view or from a "purely psychic" point +of view, they all consider it, not as a matter of free choice, but as +a compulsion, an organic compulsion according to the first view, an +unconscious mental compulsion according to the latter. + +Opprobrium and punishment constitute no solution for any compulsion, be +it physical or mental. + +=Many Theories= have been advanced as to the genesis of homosexualism +and most of them are very unsatisfactory because every one of them +generally excludes the others and because they attempt one thing which +cannot be done: to found homosexualism either on a purely physical or +on a purely mental basis. We can never understand homosexualism until +we consider it from an organic point of view, according to which mental +states are neither the cause nor the result of physical states, or vice +versa, but mental and physical states are two aspects of the organism, +of the personality. + +The first hypothesis I intend to review is that of the Berlin +sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld which has had more influence on modern +thought than any other theory of homosexualism and which unfortunately +has been accepted as gospel truth by many homosexuals. + +=The Third Sex.= Hirschfeld reminds us in his book "Intermediate +Sexual Stages" that during the first eight weeks of its existence, the +fetus is neither male nor female. It is only about the eighth week that +a differentiation takes place and that the sex of the unborn can be +determined. + +A thousand physical influences may be at work in fetal life which +may cause underdevelopment of the male fetus' organs, which then may +resemble a female's in many particulars, or the overdevelopment of a +female's clitoris which may make it slightly similar to a man's penis. +Thousands of variations can be observed which, in certain cases, have +caused the attending physician to declare the child's sex as "doubtful." + +According to the degree of development of their sexual organs, +Hirschfeld suggests a classification of the intermediates into +hermaphrodites, androgynes, transvestites, homosexuals and metatropists. + +I shall not touch upon the first two classes, hermaphrodites and +androgynes, which are obvious, gross, physical malformations of a +congenital character. + +Transvestism, homosexualism and metatropism, however, deserve careful +consideration. + +=The Transvestites= are men who experience a craving to go about +dressed as women, women who are anxious to dress themselves as men. + +Hirschfeld considers them as closely related to the male androgynes who +crave to have breasts like women and are ashamed of facial or bodily +hair, and to the female androgynes who are ashamed of their breasts and +wish to have a beard and body hair. + +Transvestites generally explain that they do not feel free except in +the garb of the opposite sex. "In men's clothes," a male transvestite +said, "I have the feeling of wearing a uniform." "In feminine clothes," +a female transvestite said, "I feel inhibited and hampered. It is only +when wearing masculine garments that I feel energetic and efficient." + +The late Dr. Mary Walker, the French painter Rosa Bonheur, the French +explorer Madame Dieulafoy, were characteristic examples of energetic +women who felt compelled to abandon the garb of their sex and to dress +themselves as men. + +=Are Transvestities Homosexual?= Dr. Wilhelm Stekel of Vienna objects +to drawing a line between transvestites and homosexuals. But we must +make a distinction. Hirschfeld is right in stating that there are no +more homosexuals among transvestites than among normal individuals. He +means, of course, _conscious_ homosexuals practicing their abnormal +form of love. We know however, that there are thousands of men and +women who, while _consciously_ experiencing the greatest disgust at +the thought of homosexual practices are _unconscious_ homosexuals. +Their dreams leave no doubt as to the nature of their cravings. We +may reconcile the Stekel view with the Hirschfeld view by saying that +transvestites are in the majority of cases unconscious homosexuals. +They may _consciously_ lead a most normal life: Madame Dieulafoy was +married and apparently very devoted to her husband whom she followed on +all his voyages of exploration. + +_Unconsciously_, however, and for reasons which we shall examine later, +transvestites crave a change of sex. + +=Metatropism= is masculine behavior in women, feminine behavior in +men. Normal man is physiologically aggressive in love, normal woman is +submissive. In cases of metatropism, those characteristics are reversed. + +=The Metatropic Man= prefers tall, strong, powerful women, +often of a different nationality or race, at times, women with some +physiological handicap, lameness or deformity (the French philosopher +Descartes was attracted to women suffering from strabism). He generally +selects a woman older than himself, either very intellectual or very +low ethically. In one case he is dominated by her mental superiority, +in the other he feels that he is sacrificing his principles or +his social standing. Professional or business women appeal to him +especially. He is often a shoe fetishist. Clothing which denotes power, +authority, impresses him. + +=The Metatropic Woman= seeks feminine, beardless men, with perhaps +a good head of long hair (poets, artists). Madame Dudevant, the French +novelist, adopted the masculine name George Sand and had affairs with +two sickly artists, Musset, the poet, and Chopin, the composer. + +The metatropic woman is often a professional or business woman who, in +her love relation, assumes a very independent, dictatorial attitude to +men. She favors young men whom she can dominate better. + +In what Hirschfeld calls metatropists, we recognise parent-fixation +men and women, obsessed by a conscious or unconscious incest fear, a +complication which has been discussed in another chapter. + +Krafft-Ebing and Albert Eulenburg classify metatropic men with +masochists (see Chapter XX) and metatropic women with sadists (see +Chapter XIX). + +=Dr. Steinach's Experiments= show the close relationship between +homosexualism and the secretions of the interstitial cells of the +genital glands. + +After castrating young rats which, after the operation, remained in +an infantile stage of development, Steinach transplanted into their +inguinal region male or female gonads. + +Males into which female gonads had been implanted, developed all the +physical characteristics and all the mannerisms of the female, paid no +attention to females at mating time and, on the contrary, attracted the +rutting males and were attracted to them. + +Castrated females in whose body he implanted testicles, showed the +hardier hair growth of males, tried to mate with females and remained +indifferent to males. + +Prof. Brandes, director of the Zoological Garden in Darmstadt, has +repeated those experiments on deer with identical results. The female +in which testicles were implanted behaved like a male and grew antlers. +The male's mammary glands grew very fast after the implantation of +female gonads. + +It is said that Steinach has successfully transformed homosexuals +into normal men but the last statement of his on the "Histology +of the Gonads in homosexual Men," (Vol. 46, No. 1, Archiv für +Entwickelungsmechanismus der Organismen) contains no mention of such +results. + +=Perverse Birds.= If we now turn to experiments reported by William +Craig in the _Journal of Animal Behavior_, we see an apparently +different process at work. Young male birds kept for a year in a cage +with females and away from all males, will at mating time ignore +entirely the females, and offer themselves to males in the mating +position of the female. + +The same process is observable in females brought up with males +exclusively. + +Imitation in this case seems to give exactly the same results which +Steinach obtained thru castration and transplantation of gonads. + +If we now leave the physiologists and consult the psychoanalysts, +Freud, Ferenczi, Stekel and Adler will show us that homosexualism can +be produced by "purely" psychic factors. + +=Freud Rejects the Hypothesis of a Third Sex=: "Homosexual men who have +started in our times an energetic action against the legal limitations +of the sexual activity," Freud writes, "are fond of representing +themselves, thru theoretical spokesmen, as evincing a sexual variation, +which may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate +stage or sex, a third sex. In other words, they maintain that they are +men who are forced by organic determinants originating in the germ +to find in a man the pleasure which they cannot find in a woman. As +much as one would wish to subscribe to their demands, out of humane +considerations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding +their theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic +genesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill the +gap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true +that psychoanalysis has fulfilled that task in only a small number of +people, but all the investigations thus far undertaken have brought the +same surprising results. + +"In all our male homosexuals, there was a very intense erotic +attachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the mother, which was +manifested in the very first period of childhood and later entirely +forgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced or favored +by too much love from the mother herself, but was also furthered by +the retirement or absence of the father during the childhood period. +Sadger emphasises the fact that the mothers of his homosexual patients +were often masculine women, or women with energetic traits of character +who were able to crowd out the father from the place allotted to him +in the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, but I was +more impressed by those cases in which the father was absent from the +beginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether under +feminine influence." + +"It almost seems that the presence of a strong father would assure for +the son the proper decision in the selection of his love object from +the opposite sex. + +"Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose +mechanism we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The +love of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it +merges into repression. The boy represses his love for the mother by +putting himself into her place, by identifying himself with her, and +by taking his own person as a model thru the similarity of which he is +guided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual; +as a matter of fact, he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the +boys whom the growing adult now loves are only substitute persons or +revivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as +his mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road +to narcism, after the Greek legend of Narcissus to whom nothing was +more pleasing than his own mirrored image. + +"Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person +who becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious +on the memory of his mother. By repressing the love for his mother, he +conserves the same in his consciousness and henceforth remains faithful +to her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus runs +away from women who could cause him to be faithless to his mother." + +=Active and Passive Types.= Ferenczi draws a distinction between the +active and the passive types of homosexuals, that is, between the man +who, in love acts like a woman, in a submissive way, and the man who +loves men as he would women, in an agressive way. + +"A man who in his love relations with men feels himself to be a woman," +he writes, "is inverted in respect to his own ego (homo-erotism thru +subject inversion, or, more shortly, subject-homo-erotism). He feels +himself to be a woman, and this not only in the love relationship but +in all relations of life. + +"It is quite otherwise with the true active homosexual. He feels +himself a man in every respect, is as a rule very energetic and active, +and there in nothing effeminate to be discovered in his bodily or +mental organisation. The object of his inclination alone is exchanged, +so that one might call him homo-erotic thru exchange of the love +object, or more shortly, object-homo-erotic. + +"A further and striking difference between the subjective and the +objective homo-erotic consists in the fact that the former (the invert) +feels himself attracted by more mature, powerful men, and is on +friendly terms, as a colleague, one might say, with women; the second +type, on the contrary, is almost exclusively interested in young, +delicate boys with an effeminate appearance, but meets a woman with +pronounced antipathy, and not rarely with hatred which is badly or +not at all concealed. The true invert is hardly ever impelled to seek +medical advice, he feels at complete ease in the passive rôle and has +no other wish than that people should put up with his peculiarity and +not interfere with the kind of satisfaction that suits him. He is not +very passionate and chiefly demands from his lover the recognition of +his bodily and other merits. + +"The object-homo-erotic, on the other hand, is uncommonly tormented +by the consciousness of his own abnormality; sexual intercourse never +completely satisfies him; he is tortured by qualms of conscience and +overestimates his sexual object to the uttermost. + +"The subject-homo-erotic is a member of the intermediate sex, in the +sense of Magnus Hirschfeld and his followers. The object-homo-erotic, +is the victim of an obsessional neurosis." + +The distinction between active and passive homosexuals is convenient +but slightly arbitrary. Certain homosexuals are at times passive and +at times active. Both types become at times the victims of obsessions +and seek the help of psychotherapists. Active as well as passive +homosexuals may be married and heterosexually potent. + +=The Homosexual Neurosis.= Dr. Wilhelm Stekel of Vienna calls +homosexualism the homosexual neurosis. He summarises the genesis of +homosexualism as follows: + +"As a child the homosexual is very precocious sexually and can only +repress his cravings by developing fear, hatred and disgust at the +thought of heterosexual relations. The result of that repression is a +flight from normal into abnormal forms of sexual gratification." + +=A Safety Device.= To Adler, homosexualism is a detail of the +neurotic picture, a compromise and a safety device. + +"Every neurotic," he writes, "experiences at some time during his +childhood doubts as to whether he will ever attain complete virility. +Giving up the hope of being a real man, is, for a child, synonymous +with being a woman. This carries in its wake a whole cycle of childish +valuations: aggression, activity, power, freedom, wealth, sadism are +male attributes; inhibitions, cowardice, obedience, poverty are female +attributes. + +"The child plays for a while a dual part, being submissive to his +parents and teachers but indulging in dreams which express his craving +for independence, freedom and importance. + +"This duality in the child's psyche, the forerunner of a split in his +consciousness, can have varying results in later years. The individual +will oscillate between the male and the female poles with a constant +striving toward the unification of those two tendencies. + +"The masculine component prevents a complete assumption of the +feminine rôle, the feminine component is an obstacle to complete +virility. Hence a compromise: feminine behavior thru masculine means: a +timid submissive male, masculine masochism, homosexuality. Or masculine +behavior thru feminine devices." + +=Above and Below.= A series of comparisons has established itself +in the human mind, owing to the enslavement of the female by the male, +starting with the antithesis: male-female: good and bad, right and +left, HIGH, and LOW, ABOVE and BELOW. + +In every female neurotic, according to Adler, there is a refusal to be +a female, that is, to be BELOW (socially as well as sexually). + +The female who is inferior in looks or intelligence or position and +cannot either compensate for that inferiority by displaying superiority +in some other way (artistic or scientific accomplishment), or reconcile +herself to her inferior position, wishes consciously and unconsciously +to be a man. Consciously she makes herself as masculine as possible. +Unconsciously, she dreams herself into a male personality, physically, +mentally, socially AND sexually. Her wish to be ABOVE makes her play a +man's part in love as well as in the world's life. + +=A Way Out.= Homosexualism is, like every neurotic symptom, a way +out of life's difficulties. + +A male homosexual I treated associated the idea of woman with "trouble, +sickness, expense, lack of freedom." "Every" woman was to him a "leg +puller," a "gold digger," a liar, insatiable in her demands, spying on +her husband, constantly suffering from "female trouble." + +This man had never been married and his only sexual experiences, which +were of the most ephemeral type, had been gained in the few hours of +his life which he spent with a woman much older than himself, a cabaret +singer and a prostitute. Yet, he was convinced that "women are too much +trouble." + +An unconsciously homosexual male who is married, and quite potent and +who consulted me after a serious "breakdown," had a dream in which he +saw himself at the top of a mountain in Africa (flight from reality and +his present environment). Six large negroes (powerful male sexuality) +carried away his wife's coffin, (flight from the sexual partner). A +long line of negroes then walked past him and he felt that as long as +he would be on friendly terms with them, he would not want for anything +(line of least effort). + +Female homosexuals who had never had any normal heterosexual +experience ranted along the same line of thought: "A husband is too +much trouble." "The idea of submitting to a brute of a man," "I don't +wish to be a slave to a man," etc. + +All this voices what Adler terms the "masculine protest." + +=The Escape from Biological Duties.= Kempf also considers homosexualism +as a compromise and a convenient escape from biological duties. + +"Heterosexual potency," he writes "judging from the behavior of many +psychopaths and normals of both sexes, varies in its vigor and is never +quite secure from the possibility of disintegration in the face of +depressing influences, such as disease, a frigid, unkind, terrifying, +neurotic or disgusting mate, hopeless economic burdens, fear of +pregnancy, or venereal diseases, social scandals, an inaccessible +or unresponsive love-object, death of the mate or a too fixed +mother-attachment. + +The intrigues and usurpations of power by the family of the mate, +suppressing the idealised wishes of the individual, often cause the +regression to the lower level of homo-sexuality, where, at least, +parental sacrifices need not be made." + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + + HOMOSEXUALISM, A NEUROTIC SYMPTOM + + +The varying views as to the genesis of homosexualism, which I have +attempted to summarise in the preceding chapter, can be easily +reconciled. + +Doubts as to one's "completeness" and a craving for safety may, even at +an early age, cause the gonads to remain undeveloped or to develop in +the wrong direction. Craig's pigeons were as completely "perverted" by +the wrong environment as Steinach's rats by surgical operations. + +Hirschfeld's intermediate sex, in its concealed forms, that is, when +the individual, upon gross examination, appears normal, may well +be produced by the environment. Freud's Oedipus situation is not +incompatible with Adler's theory of the neurotic constitution. + +Gonads are not different from any other glands. Thyroid involvement may +produce fear or, at least, a picture of fear (exophthalmic goitre), +but fear also produces many forms of thyroid involvement (goitre and +exophthalmic goitre were alarmingly frequent in French towns submitted +to bombardment during the world war). A study of psychic impotence +in men and frigidity in women has proved that impotence was mainly +a refusal to be a potent man, frigidity a refusal to be woman in +intercourse. In certain cases, exaggerated cravings for impotence or +frigidity may modify the gonads so completely that they present the +condition Hirschfeld has called typical of the intermediate sex. + +Homosexualism can be best understood when viewed as a neurotic +phenomenon, not as a neurosis in itself, but as a detail of the +neurotic attitude to life outlined by Adler. Homosexualism is, in its +last analysis, an organic striving away from life's normal goals. + +=A Denial of Life.= Homosexualism cannot be understood unless we +associate it with a denial of life and all its duties. Nor could love +be understood if we tried to dissociate it from its primary sexual goal +which is the acceptance of life with its duties, symbolised by the +procreation of life and the creation of new duties by the individual, +duties which he considers as a source of joy. + +=Homosexualism Is Love, Negative Love=, quite as involuntary and +as obsessive as normal, heterosexual, positive love. + +A homosexual teacher wrote to Plazek: "A glance at the literature and +art produced by homosexuals as well as insight into actual conditions, +reveals that abnormal love can conjure up the same emotional display as +normal love. Longing, faithfulness, devotion, self sacrifice, blossom +forth in abnormal love as well as in normal love. + +"In both, complete communion may be the goal and climax of feelings +which are perhaps among the deepest and finest which mankind can +experience." + +=Their Love Letters.= The absolute similarity of heterosexual and +homosexual love in their written expression can be judged by perusing +the sonnets which Michael Angelo wrote to young Tommaso dei Cavalieri +and which could very well have been addressed to a woman. + +A sober scientist like Winckelman was carried away by his homosexual +love for Frederick von Berg to the point of writing the following +epistle which might emanate from a lovelorn highschool boy: + +"All the names I might call you are not sweet enough and do not do +justice to my love. All the things I might say to you sound too weak +to give voice to my heart and my soul. I love you, my dearest, more +than the whole world and neither time nor circumstances nor age could +ever cause my love to diminish." + +=Deeds of Violence.= Homosexual love has led to as many deeds of +violence on the part of disappointed lovers as heterosexual love. The +papers frequently publish without comments stories of the shooting of +a woman by another woman, caused by the fact that the victim was "too +attentive to another woman." + +Psychiatrists who can read between the lines recognise in those murders +the result of homosexual jealousy and infidelity. + +In that respect the behavior of the two sexes seems slightly different. + +"It is well known," remarks Havelock Ellis, "that the part taken +by women generally in open criminality, and especially in crimes +of violence, is small as compared with men. In the homosexual the +conditions are to some extent reversed. Inverted men, in whom a more +or less feminine temperament is so often found, are rarely impelled to +acts of aggressive violence, though they frequently commit suicide. +Inverted women, who may retain their feminine emotionality combined +with some degree of infantile impulsiveness and masculine energy, +present a favorable soil for the seeds of passional crime, under those +conditions of jealousy and allied emotions which must so often enter +the invert's life." + +=A Homosexual Tragedy.= In a recent case in Chicago a homosexual woman +shot her former roommate and then seriously wounded herself. They had +roomed together and last fall the victim broke off the life together +because the invert "was too affectionate." The victim went to her +parents' house in the South to get rid of the invert. On her return to +Chicago two months later she was bothered by the invert who insisted +that she room with her. On April 22d she received a letter from the +invert containing a bullet and a threat. Alarmed, she had the invert +arrested, but the invert was discharged on promise she would not annoy +the girl. The invert had a number of swagger sticks, one of which she +carried each day. There is no account of her masculinity of attire. She +wrote poems to her victim and made her presents including a diamond +ring and a diamond studded watch, all of which were returned. There had +been several threats of killing the victim, before the letter came, if +she ended the friendship. + +=Women More Homosexual than Men.= Remembering how the mother's fetishes +affect us in the choice of a sexual mate we may expect to find more +homosexualism in woman than in man. The facts bear up our theory. +While the gross forms of homosexualism are less frequent among women, +a thousand mild forms of it are observable in the behavior of even +apparently very normal women. + +The sentimental attachments of school girls for certain teachers, +the pleasure which they derive from spending nights with some friend +on whom they have a "crush," the thousand and one bodily caresses +female friends shower on each other, the curiosity they manifest about +each other's physical condition, their frequent bed room or bathroom +conferences, are manifestations of a mild homosexualism, which, +however, do not always lead to overt acts. + +=Boastfulness.= Many homosexuals compensate for the scorn meted +out to them by normal individuals with a certain proud boastfulness. + +"We are supermen," one hears them say when they find a sympathetic +listener, "we have reached beyond the usual, boresome, bourgeois form +of gratification. Our intellect is nauseated by woman's silliness." + +And the females say in their turn: "We are super-women, we have +conquered the fear of man and we are tired of man's boorish ways." + +Some of the male homosexuals who are bisexual, that is, can also be +attracted by women, pride themselves over the mentality of the women +they love. "Men have accustomed us to a higher intellectual level and +to a more intelligent form of conversation," a homosexual said to me. + +This is naturally a defence mechanism. By demanding extremely high +qualification from the women, homosexuals have a ready excuse for +consorting with men exclusively. + +=Famous Homosexuals.= Homosexuals are fond of mentioning all the +men famous in art and letters whose sexual life was inverted: the Greek +philosophers, poets and playwrights of the classic age, Julius Cæsar, +Alexander the Great, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Frederick of +Prussia, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, etc. + +=The Nietzsche-Wagner Feud= should be rewritten from a psychiatrist's +point of view. Wagner was to young Nietzsche an attractive, heroic, +father-image. The philosopher never had any real affair of the heart +with a woman. He only indulged in very ephemeral relationships which, +by their disastrous results, drove him further away from women. (Dr. +W. H. White of Washington received the assurance while in Europe that +Nietzsche died of syphilis.) Nietzsche made himself obnoxious to Wagner +by trying to be his press agent. As Wagner, however, a shrewd business +man in his old days, objected to Nietzsche's agnosticism and to his +friendship with certain Jews, Nietzsche, disappointed in his love, +abandoned Wagner and hated him fiercely. He attacked him on every +occasion, his hatred being made the fiercer by the fact that he himself +considered himself as a greater composer, one line in Nietzsche's +letters throws a strange light upon the poor paretic's feelings. +Wagner's "feminine traits" he wrote, finally disgusted him. + +=Shall Perverse Love Be Recognized?= Efforts are being made in +various directions at the present day to have homosexual love legally +recognised and given perfect equality with heterosexual love. In +Germany, a number of writers, Von Kupfer, Friedlander and others have +boldly championed that futile attempt. + +A cinema film was produced last year (1921) in Berlin depicting the +plight of the homosexual who is unable to control his cravings and +falls a victim to the wiles of a blackmailer. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld +agreed to impersonate in that production the scientist who attempts to +enlighten the public as to the nature of homosexualism, so as to bring +about a modification of the statute punishing perverts. + +=Man's Emancipation.= In 1900, Elizar von Kupfer called upon the men to +proclaim their "independence" from women. "The man who lives in bondage +to women," he wrote, "and who humors her whims, has lost his manhood. +Since woman is emancipating herself, why should not men follow the same +road?" + +Illogically enough, Von Kupfer defends the mothers and wives, "flowers +who should not be rooted out of the garden of love." In Schopenhauer's +silly outbursts against woman, however, Von Kupfer sees "a test of +manhood revolting against man's humiliation" and he adds that "it is +only from the closest relation of man to man, adolescent to man, and +adolescent to adolescent, that government and civilisation will derive +real power." + +Blüher considers homosexualism as an "essential human trait which must +be granted an outlet with certain restrictions (setting the age of +consent at fourteen and forbidding the use of violence)." + +Benedikt Friedlander, in his "Renaissance des Eros Uranios" suggests +"bringing ancient and modern culture into harmony with each other by +reviving the Greek Eros and overthrowing the monopoly which woman has, +of being loved and beautiful." + +Removing the legal penalties which punish overt homosexual acts is one +thing. Recognising homosexualism is an entirely different proposition. +Punishing a typhoid fever patient would be absurd, but typhoid fever +sufferers should not be allowed to remain at large without treatment. +Homosexualism is a neurotic trait which should be eradicated, if +possible, by analytic treatment. Hopeless cases, on the other hand +should be protected against their instincts by a form of confinement +which would be neither punitive nor more humiliating than the +confinement imposed upon sufferers from contagious diseases. + +=Homosexualism and the War.= Homosexualism has been on the increase +since the war. Stekel reports many gruesome cases of husbands who, +until they went to the barracks and the trenches, where their +unconscious homosexualism found an unusual stimulation, were normal in +their attitude to their wives, and who returned after the armistice +absolutely inverted and unable to give or receive normal gratification. + +The bobbed hair craze has many good excuses. Bobbed hair is kept tidy +more easily than long tresses and can be dried quicker after a shampoo. +At the same time, when we consider that the boyish type of women +became fashionable about the same time when short hair did, and that +soon after the war, advertising boards were covered with the praise +of devices enabling women to conceal their natural curves, we must +consider both fashions as symptomatic of an increase in homosexualism. + +We might also mention another fashion detail: while dressmakers were +trying their best to obliterate their customers breasts, they would +bare entirely their backs. Anyone familiar with the symbolism and +dreams of homosexuals will understand the import of that style of +dresses. + +=Is Homosexualism Necessary?= Dr. Otto Gross, without openly +countenancing homosexualism, holds that a certain proportion of it is +necessary in man's makeup for a mutual understanding of both sexes. + +"We can only understand," he writes, "what we have experienced. Unless +a man has a decided feminine trend, he is not likely to understand a +woman, or to live with her harmoniously and vice versa." + +A consideration of the purely physical side of love lends a slight +plausibility to that view. Unless a man can clearly imagine love's +pleasure as experienced by a woman, he may not be able to vouchsafe her +complete gratification. + +The progress of civilisation certainly demands that men become less +masculine (translate: boorish) and women less feminine (meaning: silly). + +We could not tolerate, however, what Friedländer called a Renaissance +of Eros Uranios, leading to the conditions which obtained in Greece +where men, while consorting with other men, were also potent with women. + +No parallel can be drawn between Greek culture and modern culture. + +Hellenic culture was decidedly masculine, women being solely tools of +lust, or beasts of burden, or means of proliferation. As I will show +in another chapter, one really modern woman can give to the modern +man what Demosthenes sought in three kinds of women, a prostitute, a +concubine and a wife, not to count a male mistress. + +=What is Really Needed= is a better understanding of homosexualism +by the public and by the homosexuals. After which, homosexuals, no +longer despised and punished for their obsessive cravings, and no +longer proud of their condition, will be given sympathy and treatment, +voluntary or compulsory. Psychoanalysts will remove their complexes and +lead them toward a positive goal; surgeons, performing on them some +of Steinach's operations, may raise their heterosexual potency to the +point at which no doubt will obsess them any longer. + +Those things will avail little, however, until parents watch their +offspring carefully to discover in them the first symptoms of a +homosexual trend and adopt ways and means to prevent the growth of the +neurosis. + +We may for convenience quote Hirschfeld's description of the homosexual +child, a very superficial one, indeed, sufficient, however, to cause +the average parent to seek psychological and medical advice before it +is too late and before mental and physical habits have compromised, +perhaps hopelessly, the love life of their children. + +"The homosexual boy prefers girls' games, shuns boys' games, is girlish +in disposition and behavior, if not in appearance. People often say +that he is like a girl. He is happy in the company of girls. He has a +psychic fixation on his mother. He is reserved and embarrassed before +other boys. He often becomes unduly attached to a male teacher or a +schoolmate. + +"The homosexual girl prefers boys' games, does not care for sewing or +other feminine occupations, is boyish in her disposition, her motions, +often in her appearance. People call her a tomboy. She likes to romp +with boys. She is overattached to her father. She shows embarrassment +in the presence of other girls. She often falls madly in love with a +female teacher or some older woman." + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + + CRUELTY AND LOVE. SADISM + + +In normal individuals the idea of love is inseparably associated with +tenderness, caressing gestures, words or glances, readiness on the part +of either mate to go to extremes in order to enhance the loved one's +enjoyment of the amorous relationship, or to protect him against all +dangers or suffering. + +In normal individuals, love and suffering are antithetic terms, love +meaning joy and pleasure, (sexual and egotistical), suffering being +only conceivable when the craving for love is ungratified, when the +lonely lovers are parted by life, when one of them has been robbed by +death of his mate, etc. + +=Algolagnists.= There are abnormal human beings, however, known +technically as algolagnists (from algos, pain, and lagneia, enjoyment), +who cannot imagine or enjoy love when it is entirely dissociated from +some form of suffering. + +The active algolagnists must inflict some pain, physical or mental, +upon their mate in order to enjoy the pleasures of love to their full +extent. The passive algolagnists only attain the highest degree of +amorous satisfaction when they are submitted by their mate to painful +or humiliating treatment. + +Active algolagnists are known more commonly as "sadists," an expression +created by Moreau de Tours. Krafft-Ebing, the most famous writer on +sexual perversions coined for passive algolagnists the expression +"masochists." + +The word sadist is derived from the name of Marquis de Sade, a French +pervert of the eighteenth century, whose life and writings well +illustrate the form of love which is constantly associated with acts of +cruelty. + +=Donatien Alphonse François de Sade= was born in Paris, June 2 1740, +the offspring of an aristocratic family of Provence. Among his +ancestors was the Laura of Petrarca's sonnets. + +At fourteen, he joined a cavalry regiment. He went thru the Seven +Years War during which he witnessed the most ruthless atrocities. On +his return, at the age of twenty-seven, he married, but soon after his +marriage was arrested for some deed of cruelty committed in a house of +prostitution. + +His father's death left him heir to an important government position +but his life of excesses gave him little time to attend to his duties. + +At twenty-eight, he attracted much attention by a scandal in which he +played a prominent part. He lured a shopkeeper's wife, Rose Keller to a +house in the suburbs of the French capital where he used to hold revels. + +Threatening the woman with a pistol, he bound her hands and feet and +whipped her to the blood. + +The next morning, Rose Keller managed to free herself, jumped out of +the window and summoned help. De Sade was arrested but the affair was +soon hushed up by powerful friends at the court of Louis the Fifteenth. + +That incident is characteristic of sadism in love's relations. His +victim's sufferings supplied De Sade with the artificial stimulation +which normal desire would produce in a normal man. + +Soon after this, De Sade eloped to Italy with his wife's sister. + +On his way to Italy, he stopped in Marseille and organized an orgy in +the course of which he gorged his guests with candy containing some +poisonous aphrodisiac drug. Two of them died. + +This time, a court rendered a death sentence against the murderous +pervert, who eluded the police for a time and was finally confined in +the fortress of Vincennes for thirteen years. + +It was said at the time that a woman had been found in a house where +he indulged in all sorts of debauches, unconscious and bleeding from a +hundred scalpel wounds which had severed many veins. + +De Sade devoted his enforced leisure to writing. His published works +fill up ten volumes. They contain a description of the most atrocious +sexual cruelties. The author makes a childish attempt at establishing +a "satanic" morality based on the fact that "virtue is always punished +by the world and vice always rewarded." His atheism is no more than a +satanic ritual. + +De Sade's literary output, which is devoid of any artistic merit and +is only of interest to the student of abnormal psychology, bears the +stamp of hopeless intellectual inferiority trying to justify itself +by representing the entire world as a combination of a brothel and a +torture chamber and mankind as a herd of blood-thirsty and sex-crazed +lunatics. A sinister autobiography and wish fulfilment. + +The revolutionists of 1789 who opened the doors of all jails and insane +asylums gave De Sade his freedom on July 14. He sided politically with +his deliverers but after a while, became suspicious to them and again +spent one year in prison (1793-1794). + +=What Bonaparte Thought of Him.= De Sade, who had been very liberal in +presenting free copies of his obscene novels to men prominent in the +days of the Revolution and the Terror, made the mistake of sending a +set of his works to Bonaparte. + +The Corsican caused the entire edition to be suppressed and diagnosed +the author very accurately as a murderous pervert, unfit to be at +large. De Sade was committed to an insane asylum where he remained +until his death on December 2, 1814. + +Sadism is a morbid phenomenon which remained mysterious until recently, +when the experimental work of physiologists like Cannon, Sherrington +and others, revealed to us the close connection existing between mental +states, muscular tensions and the secretions of ductless glands of the +body. + +Adler's "individual psychology" also has thrown much light upon many +morbid actions which are simply attempts at compensation for a feeling +of inferiority. The neurotic, briefly speaking, feels inferior, that +is, afraid of some imaginary danger. He casts about for something +which can be done quickly, simply, with the least effort, and which +will restore his peace and safety by filling him, were it only +temporarily, with a sense of actual or imaginary superiority. + +=Glandular Drunkenness.= Wulffen suggests an interpretation of sadism +which is ingenious but unconvincing. He considers every act of violence +as provoked by the faulty functioning of some glands. + +He compares the effect of the gonadal hormones (one of the secretions +of the sex glands issuing from the interstitial cells) with that of +alcohol. Alcohol destroys the inhibitions and allows unconscious +cravings of an inacceptable sort to express themselves thru overt acts. + +The drunken man loses all shame and all fear, becomes boisterous and, +at times, murderous. Likewise, Wulffen says, oversecretion of the +gonadal hormones creates a sort of sexual drunkenness in the course of +which the individual is forced into violent or cruel behavior. + +This would be acceptable if all the sadists were strong healthy +specimens of manhood and womanhood. Most of them, on the contrary, show +plainly signs of glandular insufficiency. + +Wulffen's thesis is not confirmed as some writers assume by a study of +the mating habits of many animals. Cocks during the act of mating peck +cruelly the back of the hen's head. Tomcats bite the necks of their +mates. Toads, at times, choke the female to death in their clinging +embrace. + +In those acts of animal "cruelty" there is probably another element +to be considered. The tomcat, digging his teeth into the female cat's +neck, may not so much relieve his sadistic impulses as produce in his +mate some welcome sensation of pleasurable pain. We know how willingly +the most rebellious cats allow any one to grab them by the backs of +their necks, making no effort at freeing themselves and apparently +enjoying that partial strangulation. (Remember the aphrodisiac +influence of hanging.) + +=Atavism.= Eulenburg considers that sadism is an atavistic trait. "Not +only animals," he says, "but primitive races associate mating with +violence." + +The caveman is supposed to have beaten the female he captured into +insensibility before dragging her to his cave. + +We do not know, however, whether it was THE caveman or SOME cavemen +who indulged in that practice, the existence of which may be merely +a subject for speculation. It goes without saying that whenever +females were carried off by victorious tribes after armed conflicts the +"wooing" of the captives must have been synonymous with violence and +rape. + +Old documents offer many examples of the combination of love and +violence. There is the old legend of Griseldis in which a sadistic man +tested in the cruellest way the woman who was to be his life mate. + +The epic poem Gudrun recites one of the prehistoric struggles between +male and female. The unfortunate male in this case is overpowered by +the Nordic Valkyrie who binds him with her girdle and keeps him lashed +to the wall till morning. + +The modern honeymoon trip is undoubtedly a survival of the primeval +habit of carrying off the bride. + +=Primitive Religions= constantly associate sadism with love. In fact +the Goddess of Love, in the Greek mythology, owed her existence to an +act of sadism. Kronos' male organ, cut off by his Zeus, fell into the +sea, fertilized it, and Aphrodite was born. + +Many primitive gods demanded the sacrifice of virgins, primitive +goddesses decapitated or castrated men with whom at times they +consorted. The priests and priestesses of certain religions could only +please their gods by submitting to sexual indignities, the priestesses +of Cybelea prostituting themselves to every one, the priests castrating +themselves. + +Some of those acts of violence, however, must be considered from an +entirely different point of view. + +=In Primitive Races= real achievement was always associated with +violence. The "real man" was the victorious fighter and killer. Even in +Roman days, gladiator duels terminated with the death of the defeated +man, unless he were a popular ring idol whom the mob saved for further +encounters. + +The robber, designated by more flattering names, of course, gained more +glory by stealing goods or gold than the merchant who, in ways more +socially acceptable, accumulated goods and gold. + +Civilisation has changed those things. In neurotic states, however, +we always observe a return to archaic modes of action which are more +direct. We nowadays kill off a competitor thru advertising. Instead of +levying tribute on the defeated rival, we compel him to sell out to us +at our price, etc. The neurotic kills or steals, as archaic heroes did. + +=Animal Love Fights.= Also, as far as animals are concerned, the +more or less playful fights with which they prelude their mating is +not, as Wulffen suggests, due to gonadal drunkenness. On the contrary, +it is meant to produce a stronger outpouring of gonadal secretions in +both male and female, thereby increasing the energy of the male and +assuring the pregnancy of the female. + +Fights preceding animal mating increase, among other things, the +secretions of the adrenal cortex which impart to all the muscles (among +them the sexual muscles) a considerable tension. + +Let us bear in mind that physiological detail while interpreting the +fact that many neurotics are only potent sexually with women who resist +them. We see how a certain amount of struggle, producing perhaps slight +anger (and possibly leading to acts of violence), would strengthen the +sexual faculties of the weak neurotic and enable him to possess his +mate. From that type of neurotic, who requires glandular excitement of +the adrenal type, to the sadist, typified by the famous Marquis, and +up to the Ripper who disembowels his victims we see merely a series +of gradations in glandular insufficiency, not as Wulffen said, in +glandular hyper-secretion. + +=A Neurotic Trait.= Furthermore, sadism should not be considered +as a phenomenon of purely sexual character. Sadism is merely a detail +of the neurotic make up. It is one of the neurotic short cuts whereby +an inferior individual acquires a temporary superiority. + +The section foreman who takes pleasure in driving his men at a killing +pace, the detective engaged daily in the task of man hunting, the +so-called "strict" parent who beats his children, the surgeon who never +tires of performing operations, the futile reformer who is constantly +trying to deprive some one of some form of enjoyment, the jealous +husband who deprives his wife of many pleasures, the jealous wife who +relishes the thought that her husband is giving up his club or his +former associates for her sake, are sadists, some of them partly normal +and useful, some of them morbid or ridiculous. + +=The Mob.= Sadism is one of the great "mob characteristics." Why do we +run to fires and to the scene of an accident? To help? No. To enjoy the +sight of some one's life or property being destroyed. If our impulses +were humane or charitable we should be relieved, nay exultant, when we +learn that the conflagration has only destroyed a curtain or a shade, +when we see the man bowled over by a taxi getting up and walking away, +little the worse for the experience. + +Notice on the contrary the indignation of the average man when the fire +"does not amount to anything", when the "victim" of an accident escapes +unharmed. + +=Is the Male More Cruel?= It has been said that sadism was a masculine +trait, masochism a feminine characteristic. Like the majority of +generalisations on the subject of sex differences, it is inaccurate. + +Man, the hunter, is more aggressive in love, but his aggressiveness +need not include cruelty. His strength, in modern life, is put to quite +a different use, to protect the weaker female, not to overwhelm her. + +Woman is supposed to be more submissive but mythology, legend and +history present to us thousands of cases in which the female of the +human species betrayed many sadistic instincts, not infrequently +associated with her love activities. Even in the animal world, while +we behold males apparently submitting the female to much suffering, +we find not a few cases, for instance in the insect world, of females +killing or even devouring their mate immediately after the love +communion. + + + + + CHAPTER XX + + LOVE THAT CRAVES SUFFERING. MASOCHISM + + +The man whom Krafft-Ebing selected as the typical masochist, Leopold +von Sacher-Masoch, was born in Lemberg, January 27, 1836. + +He was extremely frail in infancy and childhood. He compensated for +his physical inferiority thru unusual mental activity, for at the +age of nineteen he won his degree of doctor of law. At twenty he was +appointed instructor in German history at an university. At the age +of twenty-five he was the author of several books of history. He then +turned to fiction, first of the historical and then of the purely +psychological type. + +A morbid tendency was observable in his very first books, a tendency +which became more and more marked and which led him to write almost +exclusively descriptions of perverse love entanglements. + +He showed a decided preference for delineating cruel, mannish types of +women and incredibly weak types of men. + +As in the case of Marquis de Sade, we observe here a strange +parallelism between the man's writings and his own biography. + +Sacher-Masoch's first love was a woman much older than himself, Anna +von Kattowitz, who for four years humiliated, insulted and victimised +him in every possible way, finally running away with a Russian +adventurer. + +Then he met Princess Bogdanoff for whom he abandoned temporarily his +professional and literary ambitions. She took him to Italy where he +was compelled to serve her as a secretary and valet. He enjoyed the +relationship, but the princess soon tired of him. + +His next liaison was with Baroness Fanny Pistor, with whom he had his +picture taken once in the following position: she seated on a sofa and +clad in furs, he kneeling at her feet on the floor. + +Then came Baroness Reizenstein, whom he could not love very long for +she refused to satisfy his morbid craving for physical torture and +humiliating treatment and, besides, was homosexual. + +Then he became engaged to a young artist, Miss Bauerfeld, of Graz. + +Soon after, however, he met an ugly, mannish hysterical person, Vanda +Dunayef, who gratified better his perverse leanings and compelled him +to break his engagement. A child was born of their union and in 1873 +they were married. They traveled from town to town, apparently unable +to find peace anywhere, and she finally left him to elope with a +reporter from the Paris Figaro. + +Sacher-Masoch secured a divorce and married again, this time a motherly +type of woman, Hulda Meister, retired with her to the small village of +Lindheim and died there on March 9, 1895. + +A few incidents of his life describe well his perversion. + +=Love of the Whip.= Once, according to Havelock Ellis, in the +course of an innocent romp in which the whole household took part, +Sacher-Masoch asked his wife to whip him. She refused. Then he +suggested the maid should do it. + +His wife did not take this seriously, but he had the servant whip +him to his full enjoyment. When his wife urged that it would not be +possible to keep the maid after this, Sacher-Masoch agreed and she was +discharged. + +He constantly found pleasure in placing his wife in awkward or +compromising circumstances, a pleasure she was too normal to share. + +This led to much domestic unhappiness. Against her wish he persuaded +her to whip him with whips to which nails were attached. This he +claimed was a literary stimulus. + +Dr. Eulenburg tells of a young woman with whom Sacher-Masoch +corresponded for a while and to whom he wrote that "his greatest joy +would be to be whipped by a woman." Later on, Sacher-Masoch met her in +Vienna and asked her to don a fur coat and to whip him. She however, +pretended to treat the matter as a joke, and dismissed him. + +His numerous books of fiction present over and over again the same +theme: the domineering woman, "clad in furs," who tortures a weak +helpless man. + +We behold in Sacher-Masoch a clear case of physical weakness and +glandular insufficiency. His endocrines, in particular his adrenals and +gonads, required the actual stimulation of pain (whipping) before they +could react properly to a sexual stimulus. + +It is a curious coincidence that among all forms of stimulation used +to accelerate the gait of beasts of burden or draft horses, the whip +is the most commonly used the world over and that, on the other hand, +perverts of the masochist type have, the world over and at every age +of history, more frequently resorted to the whip to torture themselves +than to any other means of physical punishment. + +=The Masochist is Like a Weak or Tired Horse.= Why does whipping +make a horse go faster? Not merely on account of the fear or pain which +the beast experiences, but because that fear and pain MAKE HIM STRONGER. + +The adrenalin liberated by the fear-and-pain-producting stimulus +stiffens every muscle in his body and his strength is doubled. + +This is why frightened animals or insane people in a panic can perform +feats of strength of which they would be absolutely incapable in a +normal state. + +Masochism is much more, however, than an organic attempt at +compensating for glandular inferiority and acquiring in a morbid +way increased sexual potency. It is a neurotic expedient whereby an +inferior man or woman compensates for his or her weakness thru more +weakness. + +By belittling themselves, by disparaging their own ability, +masochist lovers can take advantage of their mate, let him bear all +responsibilities. + +=Shoe Fetishism.= We understand from that point of view the meaning of +the shoe fetishism which Krafft-Ebing has noticed in male masochists. +In fact Hirschfeld states that every male shoe fetish is a masochist. + +To the masochist, the shoe, especially the high buttoned shoe, is +symbolical of woman's power, of her ruthless cruelty. He sees himself +trod on by that shoe, he imagines that shoe pressing on his neck, +pinning his head to the ground. + +Curiously enough, long gloves seem to arouse the same ideas in the mind +of the male masochist. Both shoes and gloves are found in the dreams or +visions of neurotics, symbolizing the female organs. + +A masochist wrote once: "The gloved hand of a woman, altho like her +foot, smaller and prettier than a man's, can wield the whip powerfully +over her slave whose greatest joy consists then in kissing his +mistress's shoes while submitting to that punishment." + +=Craving for Humiliation.= The masochist welcomes every form +of humiliation and not infrequently derives great pride from his +"patience," "tolerance," "self-sacrifice," "martyrlike resignation" etc. + +Like Sacher-Masoch himself, some men, husbands or lovers, (pimps, +cadets, etc.) have been known to enjoy the sight of their wife or +mistress in another man's arms. + +Hirschfeld was consulted by a woman whose husband compelled her at +frequent intervals to have relations with a man in his own house. He +would invite a business associate for dinner and then leave his wife to +explain that he had been suddenly called out of town. + +The guest and his wife would dine together. Wine would flow freely +and she would coquettishly goad the man into making advances to her. +Concealed in the next room, the husband would watch thru a peep hole +the proceedings which ended with a passionate scene. + +It was only after beholding that humiliating sight that the masochistic +husband could enjoy his wife's embraces. + +A man who consulted me confessed to me that he was absolutely impotent +with his own wife or with any unmarried woman. It was only with married +women that he felt perfectly virile. The thought of his mistress in +her husband's arms was the only thing that could arouse him physically. + +Many neurotics of the masochistic type have dreams of being school +children punished by a masculine female teacher. Those dreams, be +they night or day dreams, are always associated with erotic thoughts. +Remember Jean Jacques Rousseau enjoying viciously the spankings which +mademoiselle Lambercier gave him when a child. + +Masochists, male or female, are often very anxious to perform menial or +disgusting tasks for the person they love, thus placing themselves in a +subordinate, protected, position and at the same time, claiming a great +deal of credit for their devotion. + +=Masochistic Fancies.= The male masochist, eager to place himself +in the position of safety toward his mate, not infrequently imagines +himself to be an animal and asks to be treated as such. Greek antiquity +has bequeathed to us the story of Aristotle the philosopher, allowing +a prostitute to ride on his back, whipping him like a horse, while he +would crawl about on all fours. + +Medical literature contains many descriptions of establishments where +male masochists are submitted to voluntary torture thru various +appliances. + +The ascetics who in the Middle Ages whipped themselves, wore hair cloth +studded with sharp nails, etc., to manifest their love to God or the +Virgin, the Russian Skooptsy who mutilate themselves to please God, are +religious examplaries of masochistic love. + +The Christian ideal of suffering and renunciation as a means of +conquering everlasting happiness is also purely masochistic. + +Suffering, be it physical or mental (remorse), assures to them in the +end, well-being (glandular well-being) and enables them to reach Heaven +(will-to-be-above). + +=Are Women Masochistic?= I denied in the preceding chapter the +frequently heard assertion that sadism in a typically masculine trait. +I would deny quite as emphatically that masochism is peculiarly +feminine, a view held by many sadists, as an attempted justification of +their cruel perversion. + +Oscar Wilde, a bisexual, stated once that of all the masculine traits +it was cruelty which women appreciated most. To his morbid mind cruelty +meant power. It is power of course which woman, disabled several times +in her life by pregnancy and lactation, seeks in the man with whom she +mates. He must be a good fighter and a good hunter, not, however, +merely to capture her and brutalise her, but on the contrary, to +protect her and feed her. + +The sadist Kurnberger in his novel, "The Castle of Horrors" also bids +us believe that man's greatest victory, appreciated as such by woman, +consists in making a woman suffer, in bringing tears to her eyes, in +outtalking and outwitting her, "a victory compared to which," he says, +"Marengo and Austerlitz look like thirty cents." + +And the sadistic Nietzsche puts in the mouth of an old woman in his +"Zarathustra" the following statement: "when you go to women, don't +forget to take your whip." + +Other sadists remind us of the Russian woman's wail that her husband's +love must be cooling off, because he hasn't beaten her in an age. +Barring a number of exceptions, the fact remains that masochism in +women is as abnormal as masochism in men, or sadism in men or women. + +=Women Who Enjoy a Beating.= There are women who enjoy unconsciously +being beaten by their husbands, much as they may resent the outrage +consciously. + +They are in every case hypothyroid and hypoadrenal types in whom the +distribution of energy and the emergency production of energy are very +subnormal. Nothing but a violent stimulus, physical or mental, whipping +or insult, can make them feel strong and active. + +The dreams of those women, like those of masochistic men, are often of +the nightmarish type. They suffer in their night visions all sorts of +torture. Analysis brings out the fact that every detail of those dreams +is associated with energy, achievement, etc. + +De Sade's wife belonged evidently to the masochistic type. She remained +faithful to him to the end in spite of his perverse life, his prison +record and the fact that he deceived her with her own sister. Her life +of sorrow must have vouchsafed her, after all, a good many masochistic +compensations of the neurotic variety. + +=Famous Women Sadists.= As against the assumption that "all" women +are masochists, we may mention many famous women sadists, several +Byzantine and Roman Empresses, Frankish queens, two Russian empresses, +the treatment meted out by women to Theroigne de Méricourt, tortured +publicly by the Jacobine women in 1793, not to mention legendary +characters like the Amazons and mythological goddesses who killed or +tortured their lovers. + +Sadism and masochism in love are pathological disturbances due to a +neurotic attempt on the part of an inferior individual to dominate the +sexual partner thru violence or weakness, and to assure himself against +defeat in the sexual relationship. + +=The Freudian Suggestion= that the sadist identifies himself with +the powerful and apparently, brutal father, the masochist identifying +himself with the weaker and submissive mother, applies to a too +restricted number of cases to be of positive help in understanding the +nature of those two perversions. Even when that explanation seems to +fit the case, we must, nevertheless, fall back upon the Adlerian view +of the neurotic temperament in order to understand why a child decides +to identify himself with one parent instead of the other. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + + WHAT LOVE OWES TO SADISTS AND MASOCHISTS + + +Love that inflicts suffering and love which craves suffering are +travesties on love, for normal love gives joy and craves joy. + +Yet, it may be that a too perfect adaption, one vouchsafing constantly +to the mates the security they seek in each other's arms would soon +pall on them. They might not remain attached to each other any longer +than the animals who, in the majority of species, part as soon as they +have fulfilled their biological mission. + +A perfectly normal couple might die of boredom. What makes animals, +when they have not been slightly perverted by contact with human +beings, so uninteresting, is their absolute normality. + +A very slight touch of "perversion" in at least one of the mates, seems +necessary if the novelty of the relationship is not to wear off too +soon. Maybe I should not say perversion, but perverseness. + +The normal husband who would die rather than hurt his life mate cannot +compete with the romantic, lover, a little mysterious, unreliable, +suspected of flirting with other women, who "keeps a woman guessing," +pretends at times to be indifferent and has to be won over and over +again. + +The normal husband whose affection is taken for granted and who always +says the proper thing at the proper time, remembers all anniversaries +and celebrates them officially, pales in comparison with a tender, +masochistic lover, whom every unkind gesture seems to wound deeply, +whose affection is tinged with a melancholy longing, who treasures +little sentimental memories which his earnestness makes at times rather +poignant. + +=The Sadistic Lover= carries a woman off her feet by the daredevil +things he may indulge in when away from her. The masochist touches +deeply the motherly chord in her by the acts of kindness and devotion +he may perform for others, by his charitable or professional activities. + +=The Vamp.= How much the world, especially the world of art, owes +to the slightly sadistic, "vampish" woman, who, if she is endowed +with much physical beauty sets, a little cruelly, all the males +competing for her favors. How many flaming poems of passion, what +priceless canvasses, statutes and monuments has she conjured up out of +her admirers' minds. Even the perverse female beasts of the Italian +Renaissance made love infinitely romantic. + +On the other hand, what worshipful tenderness meets even the memory +of the patient Aude who silently closed her eyes and died when Roland +was brought home dead, of Solvejg, waiting with saintly resignation +for the return of the rover Peer Gynt. Of course the sadistic braggart +earns much hatred and the whimpering masochistic male much scorn. The +sadistic vamp gets shot by jealous lovers and the clinging masochistic +vine is called a pest. To the lovers who are not unbearably normal +and whose slight pituitary instability causes them to do and say the +unexpected, love owes its poetry, the love life its charm and its +inspirational power. + +All other things being equal, when a slightly sadistic male, seeking +as his mate the image of a pliant mother, meets a slightly masochistic +female who seeks the image of the powerful, domineering father, there +are many chances that the match will, for a long period of time, retain +its original qualities. + +The sadistic female, on the other hand soon emasculates the masochistic +male. Sadistic mates and masochistic mates land in the divorce court, +the former throwing at each other charges of cruelty, the latter, for +unfaithfulness of one or both mates, who seek in adultery relief from +the monotony of their too peaceful existence. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII + + LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS + + +Frequent are the divorces in the artistic world. Platitudinous +moralisers explain that fact with the stupid statement that the morals +of the stage are "loose." Like the Freudians, they always seek in sex +the origin of every disturbance in human life. + +Sex in the life of an artist, however, plays an infinitely less +important part than egotism, the desire to be above. + +The so-called normal man, who works, eats, sleeps, reproduces himself, +and, at his death leaves the world exactly as he found it is probably +subnormal. + +He differs very little from the animals who do exactly the same things +in the same way and seem perfectly pleased with the endless repetition +of an immutable life ritual. + +=Dissatisfaction= is really the element which we must consider when +we try to draw a line of cleavage between men and the animals. +Dissatisfaction breeds either neurosis or creation. + +The dissatisfied person, devoid of intellectual resources, either +commits a crime or kills himself or goes off into another world thru +the door that leads into insanity. + +The dissatisfied person gifted with powers of self-expression, makes +the world in which he lives better, more beautiful or more comfortable. +That sort of achievement presupposes a certain amount of healthy +sadism, the courage to criticise, to offer suggestions, to force the +products of one's mind upon the community, to say "look at me, I am +perfect or, at least, better than you." + +Every budding actor assumes unconsciously that he can delineate a rôle +better than the other histrionic lights of his time; every new novelist +must assume that he can tell a story more attractively than his readers +could picture it to themselves, etc., etc. + +The artist who is willing to yield, soon relapses into the ranks of +the business men. Whoever panders to the popular taste of his time +may derive therefrom financial advantages but very little egotistical +gratification. + +The real artist must know that he is right and must not be, therefore, +soft clay to be moulded by any one else's desires. + +How then could the artist obtain lasting happiness from any form of +love relationship? + +=The Male Artist=, if married to a submissive, masochistic wife, may +live happily with her for a time. Egotists, male or female, however, +need flattery. Familiarity breeds contempt. Flattery must come from a +constantly changing source or lose its power, as drugs do when we grow +accustomed to them. + +Flattery coming from a pretty woman whose attraction has not been +weakened by daily contact will soon lead the artist husband into +forbidden paths. Unless endowed with the wisdom of the musician's wife +in "The Concert," his wife will soon be granted a divorce on the ground +of his too obvious infidelity. + +Woe to the male artist who takes unto himself a female artist for his +wife. As I said in the preceding chapter, sadist plus sadist equals +divorce suit for cruelty alleged by both parties. In this type of +matrimonial castastrophy, the fault lies more frequently with the wife +than with the husband. + +=Female Artists= are more unbearable than male artists. They are more +touchy, more easily offended and angered, more apt to suspect the +people in their environment of harboring veiled hostility. The reason +for that state of things is not far to seek. + +Women require infinitely more flattery than men do. Not that a craving +for attention is by any means a typically feminine trait. That craving +has been forced upon them by the masculine domination. + +We have made woman inferior to man politically, socially, economically, +we have, as Adler would word it, put her "below." Until we allow her +to rise to man's level, she will never feel safe and will constantly +require assurances of her superiority, at least, from the men who fancy +her looks and enjoy her company. + +=The Woman Who Accomplishes Things= in this world, who, in spite +of woman's handicap in her dealings with the world, wins recognition +as a painter, sculptor, writer, singer, etc., feels, and justly so, +that she deserves more credit for her accomplishment than a man +would. Winning power in a man's world is for the woman who reaches +that aim ethically, that is, without bartering her sexual favors for +success, as difficult as it would be for a Jew to arrive in a bigoted +Christian community, for a negro to establish his prestige in a white +anglo-saxon environment. + +Having reached the top after much fighting, she never feels as secure +as a man would under similar circumstances. Her ego is steadily on the +defensive and whatever interferes with her ego maximation appears to +her dangerous and hateful. + +The female artist who marries a male artist will soon become jealous +of him. Every bit of publicity he receives is something which he has +stolen from her, which he should, she thinks, if he loved her enough, +have renounced in her favor. + +The female artist who marries a man incapable of artistic achievement, +may be violently attracted to him sexually. Her egotism, on the other +hand, prompts her to disparage him and to scorn his judgment of +her. However much he may admire her, his praise lacks weight in her +estimation. He is not a member of the enchanted circle. + +A word from "one in the know", insignificant as he may be, will bring a +smile to her lips, a flash of pleasure in her eyes, which will cut her +mate to the quick. I have observed many a time an angry tension in the +face of the business husband of some actress or singer when she would +visibly gloat over the not too disinterested praise of some trashy +professional. + +=Flattery.= The artist is at the mercy of the flattery lavished on +him or her by a fellow artist and absolutely blind to the flatterer's +ulterior motives. A great musician who died recently was an easy victim +to every budding musician who would sycophantically sing his praises. +The mere statement "if I could ever hope to sing a few notes like you" +enabled any young exploiter who could approach him to negotiate a +"loan." + +For the reasons I have mentioned in the preceding pages, the woman +artist is even more easily victimised, financially or sentimentally +than the male artist. + +Sexual jealousy wrecks the unions of artists with non-professional +mates. Sexual jealousy and professional jealousy make the union of two +artists a very problematical expedient for the attainment of happiness. + +Fortunately, very few heartbreaks result from the steady grinding of +the divorce mills in concert land, opera land or stageland. + +The egotistical artist loves himself more than he could ever love +any other human being. Separation from his life mate does not mean +loneliness to him. He remains in his own company, to his mind, the best +company on earth. And furthermore his egotism tells him, and rightly so +in the majority of cases, that being as wonderful as he is, he cannot +fail to meet soon "the great love" of his life. And he will probably +embark upon another experiment with the same optimism and with the same +results. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII + + THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE FETISHES. GLANDS + + +A man selects a mate because he finds in her fetishes the assurance +of safety which those fetishes portended when observed in the +appearance of his affectionate, devoted, self-sacrificing mother, whose +intelligence and wisdom he never doubted when he was, let us say, ten +or fifteen and she was thirty or thirty-five. + +And likewise, a woman expects, consciously or unconsciously, that +certain physical characteristics which once indicated, when observed +in her father's appearance, power, protection, a gainful occupation, +sympathy and understanding, etc., will mean exactly the same thing when +she finds them reproduced totally or in part in a male human being of +the marriageable age. + +=The Parent-Child Relationship=, involving at first boundless devotion +on the part of the strong parent to the helpless nursling, infant +and child, and later, complete submission of the growing child and +adolescent to the older and, supposedly world-wiser, parent, has very +little, if anything, in common with the relationship of mate to mate. + +Sex plays no conscious part in the parent-child relationship. + +It does not tinge every action and every thought of the two parties +concerned. The secret cravings or the secret repulsion it may +awaken never distort consciously the judgments passed by parents on +their children, children on their parents. Of neurotic unconscious +distortions of judgment there is a plenty. Never, however, does the +strife narrow down to this: "He or she does not satisfy me sexually," +"he or she humiliates me sexually by being attracted to others," "he or +she is an obstacle to my complete sexual gratification with another," +etc., sources of open hostility of the most painfully conscious kind +between mates. + +The mother who satisfied our egotism became to us beautiful and +perfect. The female who employs the same means our mother did, to +win us, but who cannot arouse us sexually, never appears to us very +attractive physically or mentally. + +On the other hand we are apt to disregard, temporarily at least, the +mental deficiencies of the man or woman who gives us the most complete +sexual gratification. + +From this it will be easily understood that choosing a mate _solely_ on +the strength of his or her fetishes, is likely, unless the union be of +the most ephemeral kind, to lead to profound disappointment. + +It behooves us then to determine accurately what every fetish means +and what sort of personality is actually to be found associated with a +certain set of physical characteristics. + +For I repeat, a man's or woman's personality is to be studied, not +in their attitude to their offspring, (for the most savage beast is +transformed by the paternal or maternal instinct into a marvel of +tenderness, kindness and patience), but in their relation to the social +herd and to their sexual mate. + +Until the study of the ductless glands was given the importance we +attach to it today, the word personality denoted a set of attitudes +which many psychologists considered as mainly voluntary and amenable +to "moral suasion" and other forms of pedagogical approach of the +individual. When we read the works of Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi and +their disciples, we never receive an intimation of the rôle which the +endocrines may play in moulding the human personality. + +=Modern Endocrinologists= on the other hand, seem as indifferent +to psychology as the psychoanalysts of yesterday were to neurology and +endocrinology. Some of them assume that the personality IS the glands +and that our glands alone shape our thinking and our actions. + +Both views are narrow and unsatisfactory. The personality is made up +primarily of an _organism_ which outward influences can or cannot +influence easily. Pleasure and pain then shape that organism thru +the memories which they leave in it in the form of infinitely small +modifications of our autonomic nervous system. That system, in its +turn, develops, thru constant stimulation, certain glands or allows +them to remain undeveloped thru lack of stimulation or thru negative +stimulation. + +Some of those glands may, thru mere accident of growth, have been +already overdeveloped or stunted at birth. Individuals free from +complexes, however, may easily reestablish the balance of cravings +and social inhibitions which threatens at times to be upset by an +overdeveloped or underdeveloped gland. Complex-ridden individuals on +the other hand, use their glandular inferiority unconsciously as a +scapegoat for absurd or morbid behavior. + +=Reciprocal Influence.= We cannot say, therefore, that our behavior +is _dictated_ by our glands, but it is influenced by them and +reciprocally, our behavior influences our glands. As I said in a +previous chapter, hyperthyroidism creates fear, but fear may also +create hyperthyroidism. Overdevelopment of the sexual apparatus creates +a predisposition to sexual overactivity, but sexual thoughts also have +a tendency to provoke unusual sexual activity. + +There is one thing, however, for which the secretions of our ductless +glands are mainly responsible, and which is most important to consider +in a study of fetishes. They determine the shape, color and consistency +of many parts of our body, such as complexion, hair, teeth, skeletal +frame and growth. + +A glance at a human body enables one to determine as accurately as an +autopsy would, the size of a person's thyroid, adrenals, etc. + +As the development of those glands corresponds to the social and sexual +behavior of the individual, a review of the various bodily fetishes +from the endocrinological point of view will be helpful to the average +reader. + +In order not to use too many technical terms we shall consider only +four of the endocrine glands, the pituitary, the thyroid, the adrenals +and the gonads. + +=The Pituitary Gland= is a small body, the size of a pea, located +in the Turkish saddle (sella turcica), at the base of the brain and +closely behind the root of the nose. Some have called it a brain within +the brain with a miniature skull of its own within the skull. + +The pituitary regulates the rhythms of the body, from the bony growth +of the skeleton to the rate of the heart and respiration, from the +periods of sleep and waking time to the periods of menstruation. + +If a part of the pituitary of a dog is removed, the animal becomes +sleepy, fat, perverse in its sex cravings; puppies cease to grow when +submitted to such an operation; autopsy of many human dwarfs has +shown that their pituitary was undeveloped. People whose pituitary is +insufficient in its action have a tendency to lose their hair, have +a very dry skin, a dull mentality, sometimes suffer from epilepsy +and crave sugar in large quantities. They are generally obese, the +fat accumulating on the lower abdomen and the feet and ankles. Louis +Berman in his excellent book on the endocrines "Glands regulating the +Personality," presents as a perfect likeness of the "hypopituitary +type" the Fat Boy of the Pickwick Papers whose emloyment with Mr. +Wardle consisted in alternate sleeping and eating. + +I will quote from Berman's book a description of the opposite type, the +individual in whom the pituitary gland is too active. + +"If the overaction begins in childhood or adolescence, that is, before +puberty, there results a great elongation of the bones, so that a giant +is the consequence.... If the overaction happens after puberty, when +the long bones have set and can not grow longer, a peculiar, diffuse +enlargement of the individual occurs, especially of his hands and feet +and head. The nose, ears, lips and eyes get larger and coarser. All +those people are rather big and tall to begin with, heavy jawed, burly, +with overhanging eyebrows and an aggressive manner. Rabelais' most +famous character, Gargantua, belongs to the group. We recruit more drum +majors than prime ministers from among those people." + +The pituitary has a strong influence on sexual activities. Young +animals whose pituitary has been surgically damaged will not be able to +reproduce themselves when reaching adulthood. Feeding pituitary glands +to hens on the other hand, causes them to lay thirty per cent more eggs +than they would naturally. + +=The Thyroid= is a transformer of energy. It is a large reddish +mass located in front and on both sides of the trachea, consisting of +two lobes connected by a bridge of the same tissue. + +The thyroid activates the fires of the body. An active thyroid means +life at "concert pitch." A sluggish thyroid means a slow, negative +existence. + +To a poor thyroid correspond a pasty complexion, watery eyes with heavy +lids, a depressed pug nose, large ears, thin hair, scanty eyebrows and +eyelashes, short, brittle nails, irregular, bad teeth, broad, pudgy +hands and feet, generally cold. + +With an overactive thyroid we observe a high color, sleeplessness, +restlessness, a tendency to lose weight, emotionalism, profuse +perspiration, bright, large eyes, good white teeth. + +=The Adrenal Glands= are about the size of a bean and located on top of +the kidneys. They secrete adrenin which, when poured into the blood, +causes muscular tension, accelerates the heart beats and the breathing +rate, dilates the pupil and produces fear or anger according to the +relative size of the core (medulla) or envelop (cortex) of the adrenals. + +In timid animals (and women) the cortex is thin, in courageous animals +(and men) the cortex is rather thick. According to the thickness of +your cortex you shall, in an emergency, resort to either fight or +flight. + +A man with a thin cortex looks feminine, a woman with a thick cortex +looks mannish. + +The adrenals control the color of the skin, the growth of hair, the +size of the canine teeth and the color of the teeth. To good adrenals +correspond an olive complexion, much hair on the body, rather yellowish +teeth and strong canines. The bearded lady of the circus is a woman +with overdeveloped adrenals and a thick cortex. + +Weak adrenals go with cold extremities, a hairless body, poor canines, +lack of ambition, discouragement, fatigability, etc. + +=The Gonads or Sex Glands=, testes in man, ovaries in woman, +affect thru the secretions of their interstitial cells, the pitch of +the voice, the growth of pubic hair, the size of the breasts, the +distribution of fat. + +Good gonads mean masculine looking men and feminine looking women. +Poor gonads mean feminine looking men, hairless and with overdeveloped +breasts, talking in a high-pitched voice, with a tendency to obesity +and laziness (eunuchs); scrawny looking women who may later in +life grow abnormally fat, with, in their youth, flat chests, scanty +menstruation, etc. + +Healthy gonads also retard senility. Gonads whose interstitial cells +have been rehabilitated by the Steinach operation bring a new youth to +the organism, mentally and physically. + +Other glands, the thymus, pancreas, parathyroid, pineal body also +play an important part in shaping the human body and with it the +personality. The limits of this book do not allow me, however, to +discuss them even superficially. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV + + GLANDULAR PERSONALITIES + + +I stated in the preceding chapter that to every degree of glandular +development there corresponds a certain set of physical characteristics +which, in the love life, may be transformed into fetishes, (beautiful +features, laymen call them), which are necessary to arouse sexual +desire in one's mate, but which are not necessarily attractive to any +one else. + +Those physical characteristics are, in turn, the tangible evidence of +the presence of certain mental attitudes and predispositions. + +Individuals seeking in the love union, not merely a passing +gratification of their erotism, but a lifelong arrangement, gratifying +both the physical and the mental aspects of the organism, should be +trained to recognise the presence or absence of characteristics which +would make such an arrangement a lasting pleasure or a lasting torture. + +For instance, the woman who falls in love with a man because her +fetishism requires a short, round, plump, man, with a good head of +hair but hairless limbs, must not expect him to ever grow into a +fighter, a good provider or even a companion of placid moods. + +A man of that type is capricious, unstable, unresisting, and prefers +the gentler arts to any form of competitive struggle. + +Likewise a man who picks out a woman for his mate because she has +pretty, doll-like features, is "cute" and slight, has a soft skin, +white and pink, must not expect to live peacefully with her on a farm, +or even on Main Street or in a distant suburb. + +That type of woman grows easily emotional, is constantly in search of +new excitement and new pleasures. It is only at forty that she will +become more settled (and rotund), retaining, however, a certain jollity +of disposition. + +=The Olive Skinned Dark Haired Type=, and the freckled, red haired +are very much alike. Both have a low forehead, hair is plentiful all +over the body, thick and coarse. Their canines are long and sharp. + +Men and women of that type are good fighters, more easily angered +than scared; they are generally successful, with a tendency to +slave-driving. In the face of great difficulties, of painful +disappointment, however, they are prone to turn embittered and cranky. + +People of this type who show large birth marks are likely to be +imbalanced and irritable. They may at times give the impression of +being weak and lazy, altho their minds may be extremely active. + +=The Tall Type=, with strong frame, firm muscles, generous hands and +feet, a thick skin, oval face, head flattened at the sides, thick +eyebrows, prominent eyes, placed rather wide apart, large nose, square +chin, large upper middle incisors, heavy joints, hairy legs and arms, +is characterised by intelligence and self-control. At times that type +has a tendency to be a little calculating if not sordid. + +=The Lean Type= with clean-cut features, thick hair, thick, long +eyebrows, big, keen eyes, sometimes slightly protruding, well developed +white teeth and a very masculine or very feminine mouth, according +to sex, is active, restless, a live wire, emotional and likely to be +easily prostrated by an unexpected defeat. Men and women of that type +have a tendency to be sleepless and to do too much planning at night +instead of resting peacefully. + +=The Short, Obese, Sallow Type=, with a high forehead, scanty eyebrows, +deep set, narrow eyes, irregular teeth that decay early, with poor +circulation, cold and blue hands and feet, is rather "animal" and lacks +self-control. + +=The Slender Type=, with narrow waist line, rounded limbs, long +chest, (which in women may carry poorly developed breasts), very white, +hairless skin, delicate features, silky hair, childish teeth, flat +feet, knock-knees, may be at times very brilliant, but is generally +queer, eccentric, irresponsible, perverse, dishonest. That type is +observed in many petty thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, suicides. + +Those are the most striking physical types. They present hundreds of +shadings and combinations. + +=Environment.= The last mentioned type, if reared and kept in a +comfortable environment, among people of slightly lax behavior, of +artistic inclinations, exposed to none of life's onslaughts, may do +very well, and be considered by his associates as sensitive, gentle and +likeable. It is the pressure of social and economic conditions which +cause him to seek safety in theft (quick acquisition of wealth), drug +stupor, (escape from reality, perversion, escape from biological duties +connected with a normal sex life), or suicide, (return to the fetal +stage and escape from life). + +Those people are children who can only thrive in the nursery. + +Even as infant mortality depends solely upon the family income, the +death rate being five times as high in poor as in wealthy families, the +stability and social charm of almost any glandular type depends upon +the social pressure that type has to bear. + +Almost any type is bearable, if not lovable, in a comfortable +environment requiring little planning and no fighting. + +One of the details of the social pressure is, of course, the attempts +at repression or modification to which a personality may be subjected +by the life mate. The fault lies in this case, not so much with the +type in itself, however inferior it may be, as with the incurable +optimist who attempts the impossible task of changing a human +personality. + +In other words, it might be said, that in an environment which exerts +no pressure on the individual, that is, where there is abundance of +wealth and comfort, one can select a mate with bad fetishes, that is, +indicative of weakness, while those less favored financially must lay +greater stress on fetishes denoting strength and fighting ability. + +=What Teeth Indicate.= Fraenkel and Kaplan have pointed to the teeth as +indicators of the general glandular condition of the individual and of +his probable mental and physical powers. Good middle incisors indicate +good thyroid and pituitary, hence strength and balance. + +Good lateral incisors indicate sexual power; good canines indicate +strong adrenals, hence good fighting ability. + +Lack of any of those teeth, or their stunted growth, gives naturally, +the contrary indication as to make up and character. + +One must not forget either that certain fetishes are superficial and +likely to disappear early in life. Blondes may turn into brunettes; +sveltness may yield to invading obesity, altho this last change is to +be blamed more on the individual's stupidity than upon his glandular +condition; a white skin may become yellow, etc. + +Preference should, therefore, be given, when in doubt, to more durable +fetishes, stature, strength, general appearance, attitude, which are +less likely to change with the years. + +=Matrimonial Engineers.= Here is a new field for educators; there +may grow from this very new knowledge a new profession, that of the +matrimonial engineer, who will diagnose the chances of happiness two +human beings may have, if they decide to associate their destinies. + +Much has to be studied and experimented upon before any one can +consider himself qualified to pass final judgments upon the decisions +to which love leads couples. + +"However" as Berman writes, "the fact remains that, though we are only +upon the first rungs of the ladder, we are on the ladder. We possess a +new way of looking upon humanity, a fresh transforming light upon these +strange phenomena, ourselves. Of the ugly achievements of that dreadful +century, the nineteenth, the most illuminating was the discovery of +itself as the ape-parvenu. Yes, we are all animals now, it said to +itself, and set its teeth in the cut-throat game of survival. But there +was no understanding in that evil motto of a disillusioned heart. The +ape-parvenu, desperately lonely and secretive, has still to understand +itself.... + +"Personality embraces much more than merely the psychic attributes. It +is not the least important of the lessons of endocrine analysis that +here is no soul, and no body either. Rather a soul-body or body-soul, +or the patterns of the living flame. The closer tracking of the +internal secretions leads us into the secrets of the living flame, why +it lives and how it lives, the strange diversities of its coloring and +music and the odd variations in its energy, vitality and longevity. +Why it flickers, why it flares and glares, spurts, flutters, burns hard +or soft, orange-blue or yellow." + + + + + CHAPTER XXV + + LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE + + +Is the perfect mother a perfect wife? Is the perfect mother, in every +case, the result of mental perfection and ethical superiority? Or is +there a hidden strife between love and motherhood? Is mother love +always the enchanting image presented to us by poets and intimidated +sons? Or is it an alloy of higher qualities, biological necessity and +egotistical neurotic cravings? + +I do not intend to settle all those problems within the limits of a +short chapter, but rather to point out some of the morbid components of +mother love which a psychoanalyst detects in his women patients, and +which, exaggerated in the neurotic, exist to a slight degree in every +woman. + +=Sex Cravings and Motherhood Cravings= are so closely related that few +psychologists have ever dreamt of dissociating them for the purpose of +study. The average moralist, who prefers cheap popularity to scientific +accuracy, excuses the existence of sex cravings only on one condition, +that they become absolutely subservient to motherhood cravings. + +The birth control agitation which is making such rapid headway at the +present day, on the other hand, means, in part, that while motherhood +may be the consequence of unregulated sex activities, it is not, for +all women, their conscious motive. + +Why is it that some women with an erotic disposition and a voluptuous +physique, fear pregnancy while other women, apparently indifferent to +men, crave motherhood? + +Physiology does not give us a very satisfactory answer to this +question. Endocrinologists tell us that sex cravings are determined +by the ovaries and motherhood cravings by the posterior part of the +pituitary gland, but this leaves us exactly where we were when we +started out. + +=Pregnancy and Health.= All physiologists will agree with the statement +that in a normal, complex free woman, a type which unfortunately, +the complexity of our civilization does not allow us to behold very +frequently, pregnancy is accompanied by an unusual activity of all +the organism, imparting to the female a sense of great power and, +consequently, of well-being, mental and physical. The adrenals work +at high pressure to produce the muscular tone necessary in gestation. +The thyroid is called upon to transform more and more of the electric +current produced by the brain cells. New glands of a temporary nature +develop in the woman's body, regulating her life functions more +accurately and imparting to her a feeling of dreamy happiness and +relaxation. + +After delivery, another part of her body enters into activity, her +mammary glands, so closely related to the genitals that any stimulation +of either region finds a strong echo in the other. Many are the women +in whom lactation produces intensely erotic feelings affording them at +times full gratification. + +=Fear of Pregnancy.= Unfortunately, civilisation has surrounded +motherhood with so many complications, social, ethical, financial, +sentimental, etc., that in very few women, indeed, is that biological +process an unmixed pleasure, dissociated from all pain and anxiety. + +Vomiting, which expresses the female's disgust for her condition, or +her mate or the offspring; cramplike tensions, expressing her worries +about her appearance, her anxious thought of financial or social +consequences; anxiety states, affecting the adrenals, which discolor +her face (pregnancy mask), make pregnancy hideous in many cases. + +Even the process of parturition seems to have become more painful and +dangerous with advancing civilisation. + +Any one who has seen, for instance, Mexican women barely interrupting +their labor in the fields to give birth to a child, and resuming their +tasks an hour later, must realise that autosuggestion has much to do +with the physical disability of the civilised woman in child bed. + +In spite of the complexities of modern life, the female organism which +is not affected by fear complexes, must expect a pleasure premium from +pregnancy, lactation and other duties of motherhood. This would supply +us with an organic basis for the mother's attachment to her offspring +which is observable almost in every animal species. + +That a number of women may be found who hate their children owing to +the suffering to which unwelcome motherhood and difficult parturition +have subjected them, is easily understandable. In fact we face a +vicious circle. The unwelcome pregnancy will be an unpleasant one, +followed almost unavoidably by painful delivery, etc. + +=When Mother Love is Lacking= or when a mother hates a very young +child, the psychologist must look for morbid unconscious influences +which analysis should remove as soon as possible. + +Stekel, the Viennese analyst, tells of a woman who was very fond of +three of her daughters but, for some mysterious reason, detested the +fourth one. Analysis revealed that she imagined she saw every one of +her husband's faults reproduced and magnified in the unfortunate child. + +She also imagined that she loved her husband very deeply. + +The year when the unloved child was conceived, however, she had fallen +in love with another man, a young poet. She remained "technically +faithful" to her husband, altho, when in his arms, it was always the +poet to whom she was giving herself. + +She hoped sentimentally that the forthcoming child would look like +her platonic lover but the little girl reproduced with striking +faithfulness her father's features. + +Unwilling to accept her dislike of her husband, the romantic mother had +transferred it to the child who served as a scapegoat in various ways. + +=Frigid Wives.= We often observe a great craving for motherhood in +frigid wives. + +Let us not rehash on this occasion the poetical and silly statement +that the frigid woman is one whose love has been spiritualised and can +only find an outlet thru her children. + +The frigid woman is a cripple or a neurotic. Either she was born with +poorly developed genitals or she was made abnormal by the unconscious +fear of yielding to man's domination, or by a morbid sense of sin due +to asceticism, or by painful or humiliating sex experiences before or +after marriage. + +Her craving for motherhood is not infrequently the hypocritical +expression of her desire for intercourse, which her puritan training +would otherwise make lewd and sinful. It is, at times, a desire for +the superiority which age and bodily size will give her over infants, +helpless and inarticulate. + +This is why, in a good many cases, a perfect mother makes a detestable +wife. Unable to dominate her husband she craves children whom she can +dominate with a minimum of bodily strength and mental effort, and she +devotes all her time and care to them. + +When the children grow up and develop independent personalities, the +neurotic mother often loses her interest in them. How many times have +we heard women (and men) remark that children should remain "babies," +that young children are far more lovable than adolescents, etc. + +=Mother and Father Love= differ in several respects. + +Fathers look upon their children, especially their sons, as a visible +proof of their virile power. In their sons they see their own image, +the more attractive to them as they are more egotistical. + +The weak, infirm or unsuccessful son, however, receives little love at +the hands of his father. He is not a credit to his progenitor. + +No mother, on the other hand, seems to neglect a cripple or idiotic +child. Be it male or female, it is a human being which she can dominate +easily. The more neurotic she is, the more she will idolise the +ill-favored child. + +=Mothers Always Adore Their Sons=, young and old, for they behold +in them males whom they can easily dominate. + +And fathers love their daughters, young or old, for similar reasons. + +The relations of aging mothers and growing daughters, however, are +almost invariably tinged with a certain hostility, overt or concealed, +according to the women's habits, training, manners, etc. + +=Girls at the Flapper Stage= who resent the attraction which their +mothers still wield over younger men, constantly remind them of their +age and bid them to behave in a way more in keeping with their mature +years. + +The flapper's mother on the other hand, who sees her daughter gradually +monopolising the attention of men callers, reminds the girl with +monotonous regularity that she is only a child and bids her to behave +as befits her tender years. + +The mother resents her daughter's fresh beauty, the daughter, her +mother's experience in dealing with males. + +Both watch each other closely, protecting each other's modesty and +virtue and trying to make each other's life as uninteresting and +uneventful as possible. + +The girl becomes an ethical critic on her mother's smoking or gowns. +The mother blossoms into a puritan who allows her daughter no freedom +and seems to have entirely forgotten her own girlhood years. + +The strife lasts until the daughter is old enough to have her own +circle of friends and no longer needs a chaperone. After which mother +and daughter, if matched intellectually, may once more become friends. + +=Repressed Hatred.= I have treated a number of neurotic mothers who +seemed to be obsessed by their adoration of their children. That +exaggerated tenderness was, as I mentioned in another chapter, a cover +for death wishes directed toward those children. + +Some never allowed knives to be left in evidence in the house, some did +not dare to carry their children in their arms on the stairs, while +boarding trains, or while near open windows. + +One never dared to administer a medicine to her little girl "for fear +of making a mistake and poisoning her." One did not dare to bathe her +child for fear of drowning him "accidentally" in the tub. + +Neurotic women who do not wish to become mothers and rebel against +motherhood, (which some of them consider as a symbol of woman's +inferior role), often compensate for their lack of love by an almost +criminal indulgence and weakness toward their children. + +Unable to give them genuine love, they pretend to idolise them and are +apparently unable to deny any of their wishes. This, in last analysis, +is simply a total indifference to the little ones' welfare. That type +of mother spoils her children and makes them unfit to face life and its +emergencies. + +Her extravagant adulation, her outbursts of artificial tenderness, +however, do not always deceive the children themselves who feel +automatically, thru nervous and muscular imitation, the tensions of +their mother's body. The little son of the woman who was obsessed +by the fear of drowning him (and who compensated for her murderous +cravings by showering the wildest caresses upon him), could not be +prevailed upon to ever go near the water until her obsessions, of +which, he, of course, had no conscious knowledge, had been removed by +psychoanalytic treatment. + +Neurotic mother love trains children for a neurotic life. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI + + SHOULD WINTER MATE WITH SPRING? + + +This is the poetical way in which many newspaper editors have been +introducing to their readers accounts of two recent incidents which, +at the time of writing (this chapter), keep headline writers busy. One +of the news items is the idyll of an heiress, still in her teens, who +has made up her mind to marry a man of fifty or thereabout. The other +is the heartbreak of a seventy year old husband, deserted by his twenty +year old wife. + +The mating of winter and spring is a daily occurrence, both seasons +being divided up about equally between the two sexes. The two unnatural +matches which I mentioned above, however, stand in a class by +themselves. + +Many a young idler, gifted with good looks, has managed to play on +the erotic feelings of some woman in her dotage and to annex a goodly +portion of her wealth. Many an attractive girl, seeking the line of +least effort, has been known to prefer a union with a silly old man to +the daily struggle for existence. + +=Disinterested Brides.= In the two cases under discussion, on the other +hand, no suspicion of sordidness could be cast on the bride-that-was or +on the bride-to-be. + +Both are wealthy, one of them immensely so. The bridegroom to be is, if +not a poor man, at least in very modest circumstances. + +A genuine love match in both cases. But the genuineness of love did +not prevent a catastrophe in one case and will probably bring about a +catastrophe in the other case as well. + +In both cases, the men are probably normal and yielding to the very +natural attraction of youth combined with beauty and refinement. + +Both women, however, are abnormal, altho one of them, the runaway wife, +may have regained her normality and awakened from her absurd dream. + +Both are, or were, the victims of a fixation of the most acute type, on +the father image indicating a morbid neurotic disposition. + +Such unions can hardly ever hold out any promise of lasting happiness. + +=The Case of Wagner.= There is, of course, the famous example of Wagner +who, at fifty-seven carried off the beautiful wife of Hans von Bülow, +almost thirty years his junior, and lived happily with her until his +death. But Wagner was at the time a marvelous example of physical and +mental activity, energy and creative power. In no way, barring his +facial appearance, could he suggest age or decay to his young wife. He +remained to the last a romantic figure. + +The glamor, however, which may surround a successful composer with a +picturesque past, is not likely to dazzle in any way the bride of a +riding master or of a New England manufacturer. + +=A Parent Fixation=, as I explained in the chapters on the Family +Romance and on Incest, is the more acute as it drives its victim to +seek a closer duplicate of the parent type. + +The man who seeks a woman for his mate because his mother was a woman +is influenced by the most normal and biologically valuable of mother +fixations. The race would come to an end but for that form of fixation. + +The son of a blonde mother who cannot love a woman unless she is also +a blonde, is less normal and less free in his choice of a mate than +the preceding type. He is inhibited by childhood memories, but then, +education and civilisation are little more than inhibitions caused by +childhood memories. That type simply marries in "his set" and can lead +an otherwise very normal life. + +He, however, who is irresistibly attracted by a woman exactly like his +mother, not only as far as appearance, but also as far as age goes, +is a childish, regressive neurotic, seeking the safety of childhood +conditions and obsessed at times by unconscious incestuous cravings. + +=The Rock of Physical Incompatibility= is often one on which such +adventures are shipwrecked. A very young woman, ignorant of the sex +life and its problems, unable to realise its meaning before marriage, +may develop immediately after her union to an elderly man a very +passionate temperament. + +Either she will repress her cravings for physical love, which her too +mature mate is unable to gratify, and she will develop anxiety states +or hysteria. + +Or she will be too healthy to repress her desires, and her +disappointment may change her love into scorn, especially when +conversation with other women or a clever suitor opens her eyes to what +is lacking in her life. + +A separation, sometimes complicated by the usual triangle situation, +may become unavoidable. + +There are cases in which both mates are frankly neurotic and were drawn +together as invalids and weak-minded often are, by the similarity of +their predicament. + +=The Plight of Two Neurotics.= Both of them may, as I observed it +once, seek safety in a mock-incestuous relationship, the older mate, +seeking safety in a union with an immature human being, the younger +mate in a union with the parent image. In one case which I have in +mind, the husband, fifty-five years old, had been several times on the +verge of exposure for unlawful "liberties" he took with very young +girls. The wife, a few days after her father's death, married the old +man who had been her father's associate and who had tried to seduce her +when she was barely ten. + +She visited me when a new scandal in which her husband became +implicated caused her to leave him. She was considerably "mixed up" +for, while young men had begun to attract her, she felt extremely +self-conscious in their presence and could only enjoy herself in the +company of elderly men who, in turn, reminded her too much of the +nightmare thru which she had lived for two years. + +A pious Catholic, she solved the conflict prematurely, before I had +time to bring insight into her mind, by fleeing from all sorts of men +and into a convent. + +Other cases have a less tragic history: A young woman of twenty-eight +who had never been happy with her husband, (thirty), took advantage of +the numberless opportunities war work and war drives gave to women, to +become faithless to her husband. She had four short-lived affairs with +men twice her age, then "broke down" when her husband secured a divorce +for adultery. Analysis gave her insight into her father fixation which +was not very deep and might never have driven her into overt acts but +for the unusual conditions in which she found herself. + +She is now happily remarried to a man of her age. + +=What the Community Says.= Mates whose ages are out of proportion, +are often thrown into deep discord by the pressure of the community's +criticism. They might thrive on a desert island or on a farm or, as in +the case of an explorer I knew, when surrounded almost continuously by +an "inferior" race whose opinion they can easily disregard. + +The community's smiles or open disapproval, on the other hand, are a +heavy burden, especially for the more neurotic mate, who is likely to +feel very self-conscious in everything he or she does. + +The too young wife and the too young husband may at first smile when +hotel clerks, shopkeepers, chauffeurs, etc., allude to their aged +mate as "your father" or "your mother." After a while, a feeling +of embarrassment will get the best of their sense of humor. Shame +and humiliation will soon set in when those mistakes are repeated +frequently. When the ego is wounded by love complications, unless the +individual is a pronounced masochist, love fares very badly. + +It turns into hatred for the mate causing the humiliating remarks, as +unconscious incest ideas gradually break into consciousness and provoke +protective measures, critical attitudes, disgust, etc. + +In one case which came under my observation, the community's criticisms +worked as effectively as psychoanalytic treatment would have. + +=Having Her Fixation-Fling.= A young woman married to a man of her age, +but discontented and frigid, had a passing liaison with an elderly +man, which exposed her to many jeers on the part of her associates who +suspected it. + +She was very intelligent and well acquainted with psychoanalytical +literature and only consulted me to make sure of her correct diagnosis +of her own case. + +She did the proper thing under the circumstances, confessed a part of +the truth to her husband, went away with him for a while and has been +happy with him ever since. She had had her "fixation fling" as she +called it, had sown her neurotic wild oats and ridden herself of a +morbid element which may never bother her again. + +This sort of solution, however, is one which is neither scientific nor +safe, for the person affected by a fixation of that morbid sort is at +the mercy of a recurrence of it, should life's problems compel him to +seek once more the line of exaggerated safety and regression to the +childish level of conduct. + +=Physical Results.= If matches between the young and old were +successful physically and otherwise, they would be extremely beneficial +to the older mate. Normal sexual stimulation, far from driving the aged +to an early grave, as old time puritans have taught us, is probably the +most potent factor of rejuvenation. + +The Steinach operation which enables the hormone-producing cells of the +gonads to overdevelop at the expense of the seminiferous cells, seems, +when successful, to confer new youth upon the entire organism. + +Lorand, Stekel, Hufeland and others hold that sexual activity in the +old, when it is possible, is conducive to longevity. + +Lorand mentions many interesting cases in which remarriage at +incredibly advanced ages seemed in no way to curtail one's life span. +Thomas Parré, who died at 162, was arrested for assault at 102 and +married again at 120. The Dane Drackenberg, who died at 150, married at +111 a woman of 60, became a widower at 130, and tried to woo a young +peasant girl who, however, refused to accept him. + +Peter Albrecht, who died at 123, married again at 80 and had seven +children. Gurgon Duglas, who died at 120, married at 85 and had 8 +children, the youngest one being born when the father was 103. Baron +Baravicion dès Capelles died at 104, having had four wives, the last +one whom he married when 80. + +Lorand adds that, according to his observations, old people with an +erotic temperament have a better chance of survival than "cold blooded" +ones. + +Hufeland says that married people live much longer than the unmarried +and that no bachelor was ever known to reach a ripe age. + +The sudden bloom and general appearance of rejuvenation of old maids +finally finding a mate, of widows who remarry and of neglected wives +who give themselves to a potent lover, is a good physiological argument +why winter should try to seek the violent stimulation of a union with +spring. + +=The Fate of the Younger Mate.= The younger mate, however, can +hardly hope to escape unscathed when going thru such an experience. + +The old are benefited because their muscles, nerves, glands, etc., +imitate the attitudes and behavior of the younger mate's organs and +become accordingly younger. + +The same process of imitation is at work in the younger mate and the +damage done to him or her is naturally great, altho not always obvious +at first. + +His or her younger organism, less experience-laden, and hence more +elastic and more responsive, adapts itself more quickly to the ways of +old age than old age adapts itself to the ways of youth. + +Even in cases when the gratification seems to be mutual, the damage +done to the younger mate reveals itself thru neurotic disturbances. + +A man of thirty-five consulted for anxiety states, nightmares, +"nervous" gastric troubles, etc. + +He had been living since his twentieth year with a woman twenty years +his senior, in fact, a friend and schoolmate of his mother's. + +He called her Mama and she called him Sonny. While, according to his +statements, their sexual life was absolutely normal and satisfying, the +repressed incest-fear lurking in his unconscious betrayed itself thru a +nightmare which disturbed his sleep with alarming frequency: + +"I am at the foot of marble stairs. A female figure is standing at the +top, a relative, perhaps my mother. She extends her hand to me to help +me up the stairs, but that hand is so weak that it cannot hold me and +then I am frightened by a powerful male figure, a man in authority, +perhaps my father, coming toward me from the side." + +Altho the man was physically satisfied, the split in his unconscious +made him very irritable, restless and an unpleasant companion for his +"mama" to whom he made endless scenes for trifling reasons. + +=King David.= In Biblical days when King David grew old,[2] his +ministers besought themselves of the following remedy: they found a +young virgin and "let her lie in his bosom" in the hope that the dying +man might be revived by her contact. Even that availed nothing. + +In our days, however, we have come to prize human life and happiness +more highly and young virgins shall not be sacrificed, being the new +generation and the future, to the welfare of some modern King David who +is the past. + +The young women in our midst, virgins or others, whom a morbid +obsession draws to the bosom of some King David must be saved from the +winter chill that awaits them. Modern psychology holds the key opening +for them the door to freedom and normal love. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII + + NEGATIVE LOVE + + +The only form of love which is positive is complete love, which +gratifies both the physical and the mental aspects of the organism +and which, besides, is human and, hence, recognises and admits the +relativity of all things human. + +Any form of love which excludes either the physical or the mental +relationship of male and female, is incomplete and, therefore, abnormal. + +All the puritanical rant to the contrary notwithstanding, platonic +love and prostitution are on the same biological level, as morbid and +unnatural one as the other. + +Prostitution only gratifies the body more or less completely and +starves the mind, causing the mental aspect of the love craving to +become stunted or perverse. + +Platonic love gratifies the intellect more or less completely, +rather less than more, for it offers few egotistical rewards, but it +starves the body and leads it into adopting morbid forms of craving +gratification. + +=A Clean Life.= Many a patient has declared proudly to me that he led +a "clean life." A few days later, after losing his selfconsciousness +in my presence, he would gradually confess to a terrible "struggle" +against his "animal" instincts. Which meant, that at irregular +intervals, self-gratification would give him, in a morbid day dream, +the woman whose love he craved; or a pollution dream would allow +him, in the unconsciousness and ethical irresponsibility of sleep, +to make up for his privations by indulging in imaginary promiscuous +cohabitation. + +This is in too many cases, the seamy side of a platonic love affair, +when one or both of the mates is not naturally unsexed but unsexes +himself thru what he or she calls will-power and which analysis reveals +to be conscious or unconscious fear. + +This is the meaning of love plus continence. In the majority of cases +its damage stops there. In a few cases, however, especially when the +sex cravings of one of the mates have been so successfully repressed +that they are no longer experienced consciously, symbolical nightmares +of the most exhausting kind, hysterical disturbances during the +waking hours, compulsions and obsessions of all sorts, reveal to the +psychoanalyst that lava is boiling under the apparently extinct cone of +a safe volcano. + +The platonic individual, like the puritan, is either oversexed or +undersexed. + +The oversexed must surround themselves with protective measures lest +their violent cravings may lead them into socially punishable acts. The +simplest neurotic expedient is to utter a complete denial, whenever +possible a public one, of the existence of sexual cravings, and then to +be forced by one's statements into living up to an absurd self-imposed +standard. + +=Utterances and Conduct.= This at times results in most grotesque +conflicts between utterance and conduct. We see for instance the +much married Mrs. Eddy who as the witty Theodore Schroeder remarked, +had many more husbands than children, stating that the pleasures of +the flesh "are always wrong unless the physiologic factor can be +excluded from consciousness" (a rather cryptic sentence) and also that +"generation rests on no sexual basis." + +Thy hysteric whose volcanic outbursts supply her with a morbid sexual +relief for which she rejects all responsibility, for she is unconscious +at the time is generally in her private and public life a woman of +great repressions and perfect behavior, likely to sneer at every +mention of a sex urge. + +In other cases, platonic love is an attempt at creating an artificial +value thru destroying a natural, biological human function. + +=Oracles and Prophecies.= In ancient times it was observed that +people deprived of any sexual gratification made at times mysterious +utterances which were considered as an emanation of some divine +intelligence. + +Those utterances were nothing but hysterical ravings, accepted as +oracles, prophecies, etc. + +Our praise of continence, practiced even when it is unnecessary, (as in +the case of lawfully married mates), is, after all, a survival of such +superstitious beliefs based on misunderstood morbid phenomena. + +Modern science, especially the new science of endocrinology, has shown +that to every display of sexual activity corresponds an outpouring of +hormonic secretions which benefits the entire system. + +=Can We Save Our Vital Force?= Once upon a time it was assumed that +continence enabled people to save their "vital force," to preserve the +"resources of their body." + +We know now that the gonads produce two secretions, one which would +pass out of the body in any event, and one which flows directly in the +blood and is the only one which can benefit the organism. + +The various puritanical theories as to the great value of continence +had been shaken many times by evidence from the biography of all the +great writers, artists, philosophers, inventors and other men and women +who have left the world much enriched by their creative labor and at +the same time indulged freely in the pleasures of the flesh. + +=Sublimation.= Endocrinology strikes now the last blow at those +theories, one of which by the way, was Freud's romantic hypothesis of +the "sublimation." + +Freud believed that sexual energy could be diverted towards social ends +of greater value and non-sexual in character. This is scientifically +absurd, as it disregards the dualism of glandular secretions. The +outward secretions cannot be "saved" and the inner secretions which are +beyond our control flow directly into the blood stream. + +I have shown in another book, "Sex Happiness" that the platonic man +is either the victim of his ignorance of sex matters and of ascetic +superstitions which modern physiology can no longer countenance, or a +physiologically deficient individual. + +The heroes of Beresford's "God's Counterpoint" and of May Sinclair's +"The Romantic" whom I analised in "Sex Happiness" correspond to the +first and the second of those types, respectively. + +=The Sexless.= There are men and women, of course, of the hypogonadal +type, undersexed or sexless, who are capable of deep affection for a +person of the opposite sex. That such an affection never culminates +in complete physical communion is easily understood. Sexual failures +discourage the weaker friend from risking any more experiments likely +to result in humiliation. + +The sexless man is practically a woman, and like certain homosexuals, +treats women as members of his own sex. He may make a pleasant, +delicate, safe companion, but no woman should allow herself to care for +him. + +=Frigid Women= who never experience any thrill in their husband's +embrace and hence consider the physical communion as an indecent +act forgivable in a husband only, as it is a part of the marriage +arrangement, may love a man very deeply and yet never feel the urge to +surrender their body to him. + +Here again we have to deal with ignorance or neurosis or both. + +The frigid woman, as I explained elsewhere is generally a neurotic, +(perhaps made so by unpleasant first sexual experiences and her mate's +failure to awaken her normal erotism), who is afraid of life, of its +biological duties, of responsibility, of submission to a man's will, +etc., and burdened with some unconscious incest fixation on her father, +or homosexual fixation on her mother, etc. + +Her platonic attitude in love is due to numberless unconscious fears +which are a strong bulwark against temptation. + +=Ideal Love.= Another form of negativism in love which receives no +little amount of praise at the hands of the romantically silly and of +the ill-informed, is the quest of the ideal love. + +We meet men and women, sometimes of mature years, who tell us with a +great deal of pride that they never married because they could not find +the "right mate." + +I will not deny that in rare cases this may be considered a perfectly +valid reason, pointing to no morbid disposition on the part of the +unwillingly single person. Marriage might have implied mating with a +member of an erotically indifferent race, African or Asiatic; isolation +in a remote farming community where a refined woman could only select +a mate from among primitive laborers, or in mining regions like some +Alaska camps, where the only women available at times are prostitutes. + +Barring such "legitimate" exceptions, which to my mind, imply however, +a suspicious indifference to securing a mate, the seeker for an ideal +mate is almost always neurotic. + +=Protective Measures.= By setting his goal very high, he is +protected against the danger of finding a mate and assuming life's +responsibilities, increased as they would be by normal sexual +activities. + +This is done in various ways, thru exaggerated social expectations, or +thru unreasonable economic demands, or through morbid criticism of the +possible mate. + +A working girl may set her heart on marrying none but a Prince Charming +who could by no chance whatsoever be attracted by her appearance or her +manners, unless he himself were a neurotic seeking safety in a union +with a socially inferior mate (students marrying waitresses, etc.). +Newspapers publish enough news of such matches to supply the neurotic +woman with a reasonable rationalisation of her fear of matrimony. + +Some poor, unattractive young man may likewise decide never to marry +unless he may secure as his bride a woman whom her social position +makes unattainable. Here again, unions of heiresses with menials supply +the rationalisation. + +Some unattractive women may make such financial demands on the man +seeking their affection that no one will have the courage to tempt them +away from their single-blessedness. + +=Lovers of the Absolute.= There are individuals of a much more +pathological type still, who refuse to recognise and accept the +relativity of all things human, who seek absolute beauty, perfection, +intelligence, understanding, sympathy in their future mate and who grow +discouraged and depressed when they unavoidably discover flaws in every +companion of the opposite sex. + +In certain cases that obsession of the perfect detail is a symptom of +insanity. + +Cartoonists have often amused themselves and us by representing famous +men and women with their features so distorted that their distant +likeness to some animal is emphasized. + +I have observed the same distortion in neurotics to whom that delusion +brought no humorous enjoyment but on the contrary deep suffering. + +=A Troublesome Patient.= One of my patients a handsome young man of +twenty-six, had had very ephemeral affairs with several women and left +them abruptly when he suddenly discovered in their features a likeness +to certain animals, pigs, dogs, monkeys, etc. After which he could +never be prevailed upon to see them again. + +One morning he called on me, announcing coolly that he had decided to +shoot me. I invited him to sit down and discuss his plans more fully +before carrying them out, and also to mention some of his reasons for +that somewhat radical decision. + +He explained to me, with his right hand annoyingly buried in his +coat pocket, that he had been in love for a few weeks, with a very +attractive girl. Recently, he had noticed something in her profile +which distantly resembled a pig's snout. The night before, while he +was in her company, he suddenly saw her head transformed into a pig's +head. He fled from her rooms in terror and disgust and, attributing his +"clear insight into her true nature" to my psychoanalytic teachings, +had decided to save others from my baneful influence by killing me. + +As is usually the case with maniacs, a quiet conversation cast doubts +in his mind. I told him that I did not approve of his plans which +might, however, be excellent, but that, as I was really a biased +adviser in that matter, he should discuss them with an impartial third +party. He then decided to call on Dr. Everett Dean Martin who advised +him to take a rest cure and escorted him to Bellevue Hospital. + +The poor boy's transfer to the State Asylum has put an end to his +search for the ideal love. That search was a disguised flight from +women and love, his delusion was an effective measure of protection +against temptation. + +Nothing but the absolute could satisfy him in a woman. Relativity was +abhorrent to him. + +Every seeker for the ideal love has gone a few steps along the road +which led my poor patient into the house of the living dead. + +=Higher Aspirations.= Neurotics of that type are plausible for they +compensate for their fear and their inferiority with a pride based upon +"higher aspirations," "greater delicacy of feelings," "an aristocratic +nature" or the tell-tale statement that "their mother's beautiful +character," "their father's noble nature" makes every man or woman +appear very inferior in their eyes. + +Proud of certain characteristics of theirs which they cannot help +having, they childishly display an egotism and selfishness which makes +them at times very ridiculous, for it says indirectly: "Nobody is +quite good enough for me." + +When the search for ideal love results in nervous states due to +egotistical starvation, psychoanalysis can help greatly by giving the +neurotic insight into the fear of life or the parent-fixation which is +at the bottom of his romantic aspirations. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII + + THE NEW WOMAN AND LOVE + + +How will love fare at the hands of the new woman? The old forms of +love will naturally be as unbearable to her as the steel corsets of a +forgotten generation. Yet the problem is not so very pressing, for the +truly new woman is still an almost insignificant factor, numerically +speaking, in every community. + +Even in the professions and trades of a distinctly masculine character +which woman has recently invaded, we meet constantly the mock-modern +person, who under a veneer of modernity, still harbors all the +superstitions, and exhibits all the mannerisms of the "old fashioned" +woman. + +Being old-fashioned in love, as in every other activity of life, +presents a great temptation to the lazy, the unintelligent, the +neurotic. + +It is an excuse for all sorts of unethical forms of conduct, for +failure or inactivity, and yet carries with itself a deceptive air of +mock refinement and distinction. + +The woman who boasts of being old fashioned can misbehave and retain +for years her husband's or her environment's confidence in her purity. +Being old fashioned, she is assumed by all to be a little "simple" and +"silly" at times, but unlikely to ever cross certain boundaries. At the +same time, she can pass cruel judgments on all the trangressors who +have not been as shrewd or lucky as she. + +As a basis for a discussion of the extent to which love will affect the +modern woman and modern woman affect love, I shall select the picture +drawn by George Bernard Shaw in McCall's Magazine for October 1920 of +the woman of the new generation. + +"=What Women Had to Do Recently=," Shaw writes, "was not to repudiate +their femininity but to assert its social value, not to ape masculinity +but to demonstrate its insufficiency. This was the point of my play +Candida in which it is made quite plain that the husband's masculine +career would go to pieces without the wife's feminine activity. + +"As refinement was supposed to be proper to women and roughness proper +to men fifty years ago, the great increase in companionship between +men and women during that period was bound either to refine the +men or roughen the women. It has done both. The feminine refinement +which was only silliness disguised by affection has gone; and women +are hardier and healthier, and the stock sizes of their clothes are +larger in consequence. The masculine vigor that was only boorishness, +slovenliness and neglect of person and clothes has fled before feminine +criticism. + +"=But the Generalisation That Women are Refined and Men Rough by +Nature= is a superficial one, holding good only when, as often happens, +the man's occupation is rougher than the woman's. The natural woman +cannot afford to be as fastidious as the natural man; if she shirked +all the unpleasantness that he escapes, the race would perish. As a +matter of fact, there are coarse women and coarse men, refined women +and refined men; and there is no reason to suppose that the proportions +differ in the two sexes. + +"=There is, However, a Rebellion against Nature= in the matter of +the very unequal share of the burden of reproduction which falls to +men and women in civilized communities. I say civilized communities +advisedly, because the extremely artificial life of the modern lady +has the effect of making her natural functions pathological. Whether +the rebellion has been going on ever since ladies were invented I do +not know, because history is silent on the subject, as it is on so +many specifically feminine subjects. But I can testify that among +women brought up amid the feminist movement of the second half of the +nineteenth century there was a revolt against maternity which went +deeper than that revolt against excessive maternity which has led +to birth control. These more thoroughgoing rebels objected to the +whole process, from the occasional event itself to the more permanent +conditions it imposes. It is easy to dismiss this as monstrous and +silly, but the modern conception of creative evolution forbids us to +dismiss any development as impossible if it becomes the subject of an +aspiration. + +"There is no limit to the truth of the old saying that where there is a +will there is a way, and though for the moment a refusal to accept the +existing conditions of reproduction would mean race suicide, the rebels +against nature may be the pioneers of evolutionary changes which may +finally dispose of the less pleasant incidents of nutrition, and make +reproduction a process external to the parents in its more burdensome +phases, as it now is in many existent species." + +=The Entrance of Woman into Commercial Life= has trained her no longer +to expect something for nothing (exchangeable) and to realize that a +bargain, to be satisfactory, an agreement, to be lasting, must be based +on mutual advantages to both parties. + +Love, with the old fashioned, began with a struggle of wits between the +sexes, the man trying to conquer without granting any advantages to the +defeated, woman trying to wear out her opponent and make him yield more +and more advantages before she finally "paid up." + +On one side, fear of financial burdens, at the other end, fear of +desertion and pregnancy, suspicion and cruelty. + +The sex struggle with its disgusting features of hypocrisy, pretence, +duplicity, misrepresentation, denial of biological facts, etc., has +yielded to an agreement, much as the robber system of past ages has +been replaced by commercial transactions which leave no hatred and no +desire for vengeance in their wake. + +=Was It a Sacrifice?= The old-fashioned woman, wife or mistress, +assuming the position of the conquered and defeated, claimed infinite +privileges as an offset to what she has "given up," "sacrificed," +"yielded." She humiliated her conqueror by pretending that +his body or his caresses were not the equal of hers, and that she only +submitted to his desire, without much pleasure, compelled by his "low +instincts." + +The modern woman, conversant with the facts of sex, and no longer +having to create an artificial value for her body based on disregard +of biological facts, since her activities, mental and physical, now +command a definite price on the market place, seeks a partner with whom +she will exchange caresses leading, as she recognises without silly +shame, to mutual gratification. + +=The Pursuit.= The old-fashioned woman, who always assumed the +passive role in life and who, supposedly indifferent to the pleasures +of the flesh, ran away, actually or figuratively, from the brutal +pursuer, played a preposterous dual part in the pre-love skirmishes. +Who has never encountered the woman who wears in a public place some +dress which reveals a great deal of her bust, and yet who pretends to +be offended if some man stares at what she has exposed in order to +attract his stare? + +The modern woman whose worth is determined, not by the male's +eroticism in her presence, but by her accomplishments, can afford to be +frank, honest, if not, at times, aggressive, in the love search. + +=The Passing of Respectable Prostitution.= The old-fashioned woman, +having created the artificial value of womanhood as such, indulged in +a mild, genteel form of prostitution, which, having no consequences +likely to impose a burden on the community, (pregnancy, childbirth) +never was criticised very severely. She sold her company for meals, +theatre tickets, comfortable transportation, flowers, trinkets. Now and +then, developing a streak of fairness and honesty, she would grant the +man she exploited small privileges of a superficial kind. But the real +old-fashioned girl was of the absolutely sordid type, who could allow a +more or less repellent suitor to spend considerable sums to amuse her +but would express genuine indignation at the thought that the man could +be as sordid as she was, and expect some caresses in return. + +The modern woman, made independent financially by her non-sexual +activities, can remove from her love all taint of even mild +commercialism, returning favors in kind, or accepting presents, no +longer as a bribe, but as a token of affection on the part of a man she +loves. + +=The Abettor of Ethical Sins.= The old fashioned wife was in many more +cases than superficial thinking would cause us to imagine, a more +dangerous corrupter of public and private morality than the prostitute. + +Numerically the wife predominates. The prostitute constitutes a very +small minority of the population of large cities and does not thrive in +small town, villages or farming communities. + +Louis Berman, who is generally very indifferent to psychology, makes a +very valuable remark in his book on glands: "Consider," he writes, "the +unimportance of a collective purpose to the woman whose career is the +mate and then the mate's career." + +Which means that the woman who takes up wifehood as a profession has +no social morality. Her husband is her oyster and the world must in +turn be her husband's oyster. She knows only one thing: that she must +support her mate in anything he does so long as his activities, be they +even immoral or criminal, provide food and shelter for her and her +children. She cares not what he does as long as he "succeeds." + +She founds her estimate of success upon visible accomplishment. Getting +"theirs," to her is preferable to getting "there." She, in short, is +a foe to the world, as the world is the foe her mate has set out to +capture and rob. + +She willingly sells his ethics to buy success and, at the same time, +is loud in her denunciation of public, self-confessed prostitutes. She +would not prostitute herself but she lightheartedly prostitutes her +mate. + +The modern woman can in an emergency help her husband financially and +thus enable him to follow the dictates of social ethics. She will +thereby earn deeper love and respect from him than by any willingness +to stand by him in crooked deals. + +=Health Versus Sickness.= To the old fashioned wife, weakness and +sickness were invaluable assets. Sickness excused laziness and +capriciousness. Sickness was a bait for petting and at the same time, +a protection against unwelcome physical intimacies. Her menstruation +became a mysterious, offensive, painful process which debarred her from +many careers she never thought of entering, saved her from duties she +was only too glad to shirk. Undismayed by the sight of professional +women, singers, actresses, dancers, divers, etc., who not only never +seemed disabled by the "dreaded" period but also held a distinct +fascination to males "in spite" of their lack of neurotic femininity, +she prided herself in living up to Michelet's asinine description of +woman, "an invalid twelve times unclean." + +The modern woman seeking accomplishment of the positive type, scorns +the negative superiority which sickness and invalidism assure to +neurotics. She has acquired a more scientific knowledge of sex matters +and the superstitious fears surrounding menstruation no longer affect +her. + +From my own clinical experience, I am compelled to agree heartily with +Dr. Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury, who in their very fine +and practical book "Outwitting our Nerves" state that "ninety-five +out of a hundred cases of painful menstruation are caused by fear and +expectation of pain." + +=The Passing of the Doll.= The modern woman, active, self reliant, +honest and healthy, will force out of existence a type which has lent +much picturesque charm to social gatherings and to pictorial art, the +doll type of woman, prettiness incarnate, of rose leaf charm, unfit for +any biological function except the mild lovemaking, not so much of a +husband, as of a lover. Tuberculous poets and composers of the Musset +and Chopin type, affected pictorial artists like Helleu, will deplore +her disappearance. Man, put at his ease by the modern woman, who does +not require constant protection, mental and physical, will find the +doll "too much trouble." + +Only the very stupid and unmanly man will cultivate her for she will +not throw his physical shortcomings into too striking relief and it +will not require any mental exertion on his part to converse with her. + +=The Passing of the Flirt.= The flirt is doomed. The flirt is a +rather unintelligent woman with a mild prostitution complex. She has +been trained from infancy to consider a woman's career as successful +when the woman fastens to herself a breadwinner whom she holds by his +physical desire of her body. Having never acquired any market value +outside of the sexual field, she must constantly test her powers and +reassure herself by leading all sorts and conditions of men, for whom +she may never experience even the slightest fancy, into consequential +overt acts revealing that she has awakened their eroticism. + +Anyone will do, provided she reads in his eyes the verdict: I am still +attractive. + +The terror of growing old is not so overwhelming to the modern woman +who has acquired a non-sexual market value. She tests herself thru +positive accomplishment, leadership, principally, and does not need to +keep her eye constantly on the sex thermometer. + +=Modesty, Old and New.= Knowledge which dispels physical ghosts +and a positive self-valuation based on accomplishment will cause the +modern woman to discard the old fashioned modesty which was supposed to +be her greatest attraction, and which husbands, while being obviously +attracted by immodest women, encouraged in their wives as a bulwark +against the advances of other men. + +Havelock Ellis in his "Impressions and Comments" contrasts cleverly +thru two striking illustrations the old-fashioned type, worshipping +at the altar of false modesty, and the modern type, who is no longer +ashamed of her body or her sex: + +"In one of my books I had occasion to mention the case, communicated +to me, of a woman in Italy who preferred to perish in the flames, +when the house was on fire, rather than shock her modesty by coming +out of it without her clothes. So far as it has been within my power +I have always sought to place bombs beneath the world in which that +woman lived, so that it might altogether go up in flames. I read of +a troop ship torpedoed in the Mediterranean and almost immediately +sunk within sight of land. A nurse was still on deck. She proceeded +to strip, saying to the men about her: 'Excuse me, boys, I must save +the Tommies.' She swam around and saved a dozen of them. That woman +belongs to my world. Now and again I have come across the like, sweet +and feminine and daring women who have done things as brave as that, +and even much braver because more complexly difficult and always I feel +my heart swinging like a censer before them, going up in a perpetual +fragrance of love and adoration. + +"I dream of a world in which the spirits of women are flames stronger +than fire, a world in which modesty has become courage and yet remains +modesty, a world in which women are as unlike men as ever they were +in the world I sought to destroy, a world in which women shine with a +loveliness of self-revelation as enchanting as ever the old legends +told, and yet a world which would immeasurably transcend the old world +in the self sacrificing passion of human service." + +Thus far I have presented the silver lining of what some timid persons +call the cloud of modernism in love. + +To be perfectly fair and honest, I must now mention the cloud itself, +altho, like all clouds, it will soon blow away or resolve itself into +a few drops of water, tears, perhaps, also of a temporary nature. + +=The Unadapted Woman.= The sudden rise of women in certain fields +of activity has left quite a number of them unpleasantly unadapted. + +Certain positions, well filled by women, and which pay rather high +salaries, demand but a modicum of intellectual development, little +culture or manners. + +The women who fill them, and who generally come from the working class, +financially well off, accustomed to expensive clothes and to respectful +treatment on the part of their coworkers or employers, are loath to +enter a married relationship or even a liaison, with men of their +social set, that is, having the same culture or lack of culture, for +those men are financially lower and lack certain manners which they +expect to find in their environment. + +A husband of the working class type could not, in case of pregnancy, +give such a woman the comfort which she now craves. Motherhood would +deprive her, temporarily at least, from an income which nothing could +replace. + +Nor could she become subservient to a husband after being very +independent and having become slightly snobbish on account of the +attentions she has received from men financially superior to her. + +Some of those women whom I have known, and whose profession I shall +not mention to avoid references of an odious character, sought mates, +legitimate or illegitimate, out of their class, taking for husbands or +lovers unsuccessful professional men in need of help. + +The results of those matches were anything but encouraging. + +The male prostitutes who accepted such arrangements, either showed +plainly their scorn of their unintellectual mate or left her as soon as +success in their chosen field made them independent of their working +class wife or mistress. + +=The Proud Husband.= Many men drawing even small salaries, are +absolutely unwilling to marry a woman engaged in a gainful occupation. +This is due either to hidden jealousy, some men imagining that daily +contact with other men is bound to jeopardise a woman's morals, or to +silly pride and panicky fear of "what THEY will say." I have heard many +donkeys telling me that they do not wish "people" to think that they +cannot support their wives. + +The cloud hovering over the modern woman and which may, at times, cast +a shadow on her love life, will be blown away as soon as culture +spreads to all social classes of the population owing to the increase +and systematisation of leisure, and as soon as the old fashioned male +has been consigned to his last resting place or analised out of his +foolish neurotic notions. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX + + BIRTH CONTROL + + +Modern love, as I have endeavored to show in the preceding chapters is +infinitely more complex than love was in the past. When woman was meant +to obey and serve, when feudalism or any other rigid caste system set +clear-cut boundaries to each individual's range of development, there +was less unrest among women just as there was less unrest among slaves. +And both the mediaeval slave and the mediaeval women were probably +absolute bores. + +Unrest is growth and complexity is the obvious evidence of growth. + +Love stirrings among the amoebae are probably similar to those +experienced by human beings. Nature probably puts a premium of pleasure +on the cleavage of the unicellular animal which reproduces itself by +dividing itself in two, by issuing forth another cell, as it does on +the human male when his gonads liberate spermatozoa. + +But the amoeba's love feelings are extremely simple and lead to +no complication for they imply no enduring companionship, no +responsibilities to a mate nor to the "offspring." + +=What We Expect of the Modern Woman.= The modern woman who is expected +to be, not merely a sexual mate but a social and intellectual mate as +well, a companion in our athletic diversions, a comrade-at-arms in the +world's battles, and many other things, can no longer allow chance to +interrupt her developmental strivings, to handicap her in the friendly +race she is running with the mate of her choice for intellectual +accomplishment by unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient pregnancy and +child bearing. + +Every child claims two years of its mother's life and it seems +reasonable that the mother should have something to say as to what +number that chapter will bear in her biography. + +As only the very weak-minded or very hypocritical offer as a remedy for +frequent pregnancy male continence, we shall not even consider for one +minute such an absurd, abnormal, biologically immoral solution. + +=The Only Solution.= The only other solution which has ever been +proposed is a system of sexual enlightenment which will enable a +woman to prevent pregnancy until such time when she feels that she can +in justice to herself and to her offspring bear a child, and will, +further, enable her to have an abortion performed when, in spite of all +contraceptive measures, pregnancy has begun. + +This solution has been adopted by the entire civilised world, and in +fact, I might say that the degree of civilisation of a race or nation +can be accurately gauged by the number of individuals within that race +or nation practicing birth control. + +With very few exceptions, a large family betokens stupidity, poverty +and ignorance. It is the poor, the stupid and the ignorant who are +burdened with children and, in turn, that burden keeps them stupid, +poor and ignorant. A vicious circle which seems hard to break. + +=The Human Milch Cow.= Many a time when beholding some miserable +female from the slums wrecked by repeated childbearing, dwarfed in +mind, deformed in body, I have felt that sexual relations between her +and her mate had probably reached the level at which they could only by +an unusual stretch of one's imagination, be even distantly connected +with love. To her and to her mate, every embrace, except after the +onset of pregnancy, meant added suffering, added expense, further +physical degradation and decay. + +Since the "nice" people, however, know the remedy and apply it, why +bother any longer? Because, while normally intelligent men and women +know how to avoid pregnancy and to whom to turn when an accident +happens, the greatest uncertainty about contraception obsesses their +minds and panicky fears bring about many catastrophes when the +unwelcome fruit must be removed from the mother's body. + +Thousands of men and woman, enlightened in the mysteries of +contraception by some one who is little less ignorant than themselves, +are chilled in their enjoyment of lawful love by the thought of +possible danger. + +Many women accept their husbands caresses in fear and trembling and +many, imagining that there is a close connection between orgasm and +pregnancy succeed in making themselves frigid, which leads to neurotic +disturbances in the wife and unhappiness for both mates. Many husbands +never dare to "let themselves go" unless it be in the arms of a +prostitute who is "wise" and can "take care of herself." Many a woman +has deceived her husband because a wise "man of the world" assured her +that she ran no risk of pregnancy in his arms. + +=The Nightmare of Abortion.= And, if in spite of all, an +"accident" happens, what is the mental state of the woman who calls +at the "unethical" practitioner's office? While such an operation +practiced with a modicum of skill may be harmless, the dread fear of +possible consequences is quite able to kill the woman. + +Fear may bring forth any morbid symptom, from an embolus to violent +suppuration. + +Fear, on the other hand, on which the advocates of suppressive measures +rely, hardly ever leads anyone to continence or prevents any one from +resorting to abortion. + +Legal obstacles to contraceptive education attain only one result. They +make married love risky and unpleasant, kill many a young woman and, in +the case of neurotic mothers, allow one morbid generation to bring into +this world another morbid generation. + +=The Plight of the Neurotic Woman.= Many neurotic women imagine that +they hate their husbands and rationalise that hatred by bringing up +many absurd, imaginary charges against them. To them their husbands +symbolise pregnancy. + +Many neurotic mothers, who did not wish to bear another child, often +compensate for their lack of real love for the unwelcome child by an +absurd, exaggerated tenderness which spoils the child or develops +morbid fears (the fear they might hurt or kill the child, fear as to +the child's health or welfare) which wreck the child's mental balance +and not infrequently land the mother in a sanatarium. + +A neurotic woman I treated was obsessed by the fear that she might +some day kill her husband and children. Several years ago she had had +an abortion performed by a midwife whom she did not trust. Septic +poisoning set in and she hovered between life and death for several +months. A great fear of death drove her into reading many religious +books. She came to the conclusion that she had committed a murder. + +But her husband, having impregnated her, was more guilty than she, +for he was the cause of it all. Hence, her insane logic added, he and +she would be better off dead than leading a sinful life. She should, +therefore, kill him and kill herself. Furthermore, her children being +the offspring of murderers, must be themselves tainted with criminal +tendencies and should also be saved from a life of crime. When she was +brought to me she had attempted to kill the entire family by turning +on the gas faucets all over the house about two o'clock in the morning. + +The lawmakers who prevented that woman from having an operation +performed legally, (which would remove the fear of crime) safely, by a +reputable practitioner, (which would remove the fear of consequences), +openly, (which would remove the fear of social ostracism), would +have been responsible for the death of several people, had she not +accidentally awakened her husband by upsetting a chair on her way back +to her bed. + +There are thousands of neurotics, suffering from a feeling of +inferiority, who are unfit to become mothers until their morbidity has +been cured by psychotherapy, and who, if allowed to bear children, will +train a new generation to behave in a negative, neurotic, socially +baneful way. + +=The Children of Neurotic Mothers=, in whom the fear and hatred of +sex and love is rampant, will some day become prostitutes or puritans, +both of them degrading love equally. + +I cannot follow Freud when he states that every neurosis has its root +in a failure of the love life, but some of the artificial obstacles +created by a stupid puritanical civilisation between man and the +full realisation of his sexual goal have not infrequently wrecked a +life which, neurotically oriented as it was, might have gone on, in a +socially tolerable way, for years and perhaps until the individual's +death. + +Difficulties due to the use of improper or misunderstood contraceptive +appliances, the terrors of pregnancy, actual or expected, the fear +of abortion, the sufferings following abortion in a complex-ridden +organism, have too often upset a balance which at best was precarious. + +=Birth Control and Indulgence.= Certain critics of birth control +attack it on the ground that it would lead to "overindulgence" of the +sex relationship. Those people are generally unprepossessing, worn, +individuals who are trying to compensate for their sexual weakness by +making a virtue out of an unavoidable inferiority. Their opposition to +what they call "overindulgence" (one thing which nature hardly ever +allows, barring rare morbid cases of priapism) is grotesque in the case +of married couples. + +More unions are wrecked by underindulgence due to fear, ignorance of +the mates or inhibitions on the part of one or both, than to indulgence +of the normal kind. + +Anything which prevents or discourages the normal exchange of sexual +caresses between those legally entitled to each others enjoyment is +pernicious, antisocial and antibiological for, as Grace Potter writes: + +"Mating has to do with other creation than that of new human beings. It +has to do with every kind of creation--a new state, a poem, a picture, +a great bridge, a happier world. Mating is concerned with repeopling +the world but also with regeneration of the individual, opening his +capacities to growth. Who shall say that the one is not as important +as the other? If the second were not as important as the first there +would have been hardly any advance in human culture. Of all the errors +incident to the development of human beings, in their struggle to +attain a consciousness that makes them more than animals, none has had +wider ill-effects than our misuse of love. + +"There are two equally unfortunate attitudes toward love which perhaps +grow out of each other. The one is the puritan attitude and the other +is the vulgar one. The puritan attitude is that sex impulses are +somehow vile and so, altho they give pleasure, must be denied. The +vulgar attitude takes it for granted that sex impulses are vile but as +they are pleasant are to be accepted. The one tends to deny physical +values to love. This is suppression. The other tends to deny tender +values to love. That is suppression also. They have neither one known +love. And finally the puritan becomes incapable of tenderness and the +vulgar becomes equally incapable of physical expression. It is not a +beautiful picture. + +"The healthy attitude is this: The sex impulse is not degrading any +more than any other impulse is. It is a force as gravity is a force. +Those human beings achieve beauty and harmony who correlate sexual +impulses harmoniously with all their other impulses."[3] + +"In spite of the age-long teachings that sex life in itself is +unclean," Margaret Sanger writes in "Woman and the New Race," the +world has been moving to a realization that A GREAT LOVE BETWEEN A MAN +AND A WOMAN IS A HOLY THING freighted with great responsibilities for +spiritual growth. The fear of unwanted children removed, the assurance +that she will have a sufficient amount of time in which to develop +her love life to its greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many +fields--these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her +innermost self to spiritual heights that few have attained. Then the +coming of the eagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its +avenues, rather than enslave and impoverish it as do unwanted ones +to-day. + +"What healthier grounds for the growth of sound morals could possibly +exist than the ample spiritual life of the woman just depicted? Free +to follow the feminine spirit, which dwells in the sanctuary of her +nature, she will, in her daily life, give expression to that high +idealism which is the fruit of that spirit when it is unhampered and +unviolated. + +"The love for her mate will flower in beauty of deeds that are pure +because they are the natural expression of her physical, mental and +spiritual being. The love for desired children will come to blossom in +a spirituality that is high because it is free to reach the heights. + +"=The Moral Force of Woman's Nature Will be Unchained=, and of its own +dynamic power will uplift her to a plane unimagined by those holding +fast to the old standards of church morality. Love is the greatest +force of the universe; freed of its bonds of submission and unwanted +progeny, it will formulate and compel of its own nature observance to +standards of purity far beyond the highest conception of the average +moralist." + +=The Passing of the Double Standard.= "Birth Control in +philosophy and practice," Margaret Sanger writes in "THE PIVOT +OF CIVILIZATION," is the destroyer of the dualism in the +old sex code. It denies that the only purpose of sexual activity +is procreation; it also denies that sex should be reduced to the +level of sensual lust or that woman should permit herself to be the +instrument of its satisfaction. In increasing and differentiating her +love demands, woman must elevate sex into another sphere, whereby +it may subserve and enhance the possibility of individual and human +expression. Man will gain in this no less than woman; for in the +age-old enslavement of woman he has enslaved himself; and in the +liberation of womankind, all of humanity will experience the joys of a +newer and fuller freedom." + + + + + CHAPTER XXX + + THE PASSING OF HUSBAND WORSHIP + + +While thousands of healthy people, men and women, rejoice over the fact +that woman of the modern type is coming to the fore, there are many +"calamity howlers," male and female, who bid us pause and consider the +direful consequences which they fear (that is, hope), this new stage in +the development of mankind will bring to the world. + +Dr. Arabella Kenealy in "Feminism and Sex Extinction" forebodes the +passing of whatever is masculine in the male. Her arguments are not +very logical but they are interesting. She believes that "two fates +await woman unless she rids herself of contempt for functions and +duties purely hers, feminism and feministicism. She is handicapped +every month for two or three days by weakness or pain. The craze to do +men's work will result in man's emasculation. + +"The desire to figure in legislation far from stiffening the manly +caliber of weak men will still further enervate them. Members +of either sex are not capable of doing their best work while in +association. Sex rivalries are excited. Sex ascendency is created. +Man inherits from his mother some of woman's apprehension, foresight +and altruism as required to present woman's bent and viewpoint. More +of it would be superfluous. The numerical preponderance of women must +ultimately swamp masculine initiative in state affairs unless the +political functions of the sexes are separated." + +Why the process should be more baneful for men than it has been for +women who, for countless generations have been decidedly "swamped in +state affairs" is not very evident. + +=Is Man's Virility Declining?= An editorial writer in the New York +Medical Journal also foresees degeneration ahead unless the male +retains his mastery: "The yielding by man to the other sex of masculine +essential rights and obligations is a symptom of declining virility, +physical and mental." + +Another medical writer sounds a different alarm: "Overworked woman +may impair the constitutional vigor of man, while she works with +him. She is kept up by nervous excitement, by strong tea or drugs. +In short, woman is fussy. In a stress of work she will work on with +crimson cheeks and growing irritation, while man will put on his hat +and calmly resort to the nearest lunch room. Women by their eternal +high pressure as heads of departments are making nervous wrecks of +themselves." + +Finally there comes Havelock Ellis, usually less panicky, who thinks +he has noticed a distinct degeneration in the young man of today. +"These weak-chinned, neurotic young men are no match at all for the +heavy-jawed resolute young women feminist methods are creating. The +yielding to women of masculine rights is a symptom of declining +virility. Equality in all things yielded, pride in himself, in his +work, gone, he will descend to the state of the decadent savage who +keeps as many wives to work for him as their work for him enables him +to keep." + +=There is Undue Pessimism in All Those Warnings.= Woman has not become +brutish as some writers claim, nor has man become effeminate. Woman +has simply gained a clearer knowledge of her latent powers and the war +has provided her with a touchstone for her physical resistance and +endurance. + +The work woman had to do during the war, which she had never suspected +she could do, for until then it had been considered as man's work, has +not "masculinised" her but it has rid many "delicate flowers" of their +morbid belief in the fragile character of their constitution. + +Male man is not in danger of passing out of existence but one variety +of man is doomed, the type which has always wished to mate with the two +types of women which, in the preceding chapter, I declared doomed, the +doll and the flirt. + + =The Wise Husband.= That almost extinct species is the type of husband + who speakes of HIS wife, who knows "women" and what is "good" for + them, the home Jehovah, all-knowing and all-powerful, who must be + served and obeyed, who, on his return from work must find his wife + ready to entertain him if so he wishes, or to plunge back into the + depths of the kitchen if his mood so requires, the husband who knows + that he is the aim and goal of his wife's existence. + +A ridiculous old man, abandoned by his too young wife, made to the +reporters a statement betraying sadly the infinite conceit of that +type: "She will return to me because I love her so." + +A most unprepossessing man was bewailing in my office the fact that his +wife had grown sexually indifferent to him. I advised him not to compel +her to have intercourse with him against her will, especially as he +was diseased. He naïvely remarked: "But she is my wife." + +That type of husband, in other words, considers a wife as a chattel, +to be submitted to any sort of legal indignity because she is "only a +female." He may force motherhood upon her to demonstrate his doubtful +virility or to protect his jealous egotism. He would accept with +enthusiasm Goldschmidt's theories which I presented for what they were +worth in the chapter on Virginity, and according to which, woman is +soft wax and characterless, waiting to be shaped into a personality by +her husband's caresses. + +Scientific investigators of a more reliable type than Goldschmidt and +who avoid drawing "yellow" conclusions from their labors, have supplied +the reading world with facts which should cause the Jehovah husband to +fear for his lofty position. + +=Is the Male Indispensable?= Jacques Loeb and others have demonstrated +that as far as the physical results of love, the continuance of the +race, is concerned, the male may not be absolutely indispensable. + +Loeb had shown that almost anything which causes the protoplasm of the +egg to separate itself from its membrane is sufficient to introduce +"life" into that curious organism which until then only holds +possibilities of life. + +Nature, in order to produce one individual demands two principles, one +male and one female principle. She must have one egg which is modified +by some product of the male organism, pollen or sperm. + +=Modern Scientists Have Beaten Nature at Her Own Game= of +creation; they have taken one egg, the female principle and proceeded +to fertilise that egg without any male product whatsoever. + +The experiment has only been made on low forms of animal life, sea +urchins and the like, but the egg of the sea urchin is not different in +any essential respect from the egg of the human species. + +By taking unfecundated eggs and placing them for two minutes in a +mixture of sea water and acetic, or butyric, or valerianic acid, then +placing them back in sea water and twenty minutes later, immersing +them for about an hour in hypertonic sea water or sugar solution, and +finally returning them to sea water, Loeb was able to bring to life +young larvæ. A French scientist, Delage, repeating the same experiments +managed to keep those larvæ alive until the time of their sexual +maturity. + +Loeb also succeeded in fertilising eggs by placing them in the blood +serum of cows, sheep, pigs or rabbits. + +Mathews has fertilised some by shaking them gently for a period of time. + +=Twins To Order.= Loeb and others have gone further even than that +and produced not only single individuals but twins, triplets, etc. + +The secrets of nature's laboratory are being revealed more and more +clearly from day to day. + +The conceited fathers who imagine that the bringing into life of twins +is a symptom of their powerful virility must learn that a mere chemical +phenomenon called _osmosis_ is responsible for the over-fertility of +some wives. + +Remove from sea water sea urchin's eggs and place them for fifteen +minutes or so in ordinary water. The density of water being lower than +that of sea water, the eggs will absorb a great deal of water and burst +open. A drop of protoplasm will come out at the break in the membrane. +Replace the exploded egg into sea water and two larvæ will hatch out of +it. Separate the two portions of the exploded egg and the twins will be +as healthy as tho they had been allowed to grow for a while in Siamese +style. + +By repeating the experiment, Loeb has produced not only twins but +triplets and quadruplets, all normal and growing out of the same egg +which was only meant originally to produce one urchin. + +One can understand how a variation in the pressure of the liquids +surrounding the human egg may lead to the same result. + +While scientists have created living beings by using the female +principles as a basis, they have not thus far attained any results by +experimenting with the male principle alone. + +=The Mother is the Race= apparently and the stubbornness of man +in claiming and fighting for the principle of masculine superiority +is apparently due to his obscure feeling that after all he is not +indispensable. + +The more vociferous the claim, the weaker generally the basis for that +claim. In certain forms of insanity, the more the organism is destroyed +by disease the more extravagant the statements are which the insane man +makes about himself, claiming power, wealth, health, youth, beauty, etc. + +At least one animal species, the bees, have placed the male on that +footing. The male bee represents a convenient and pleasant means of +bringing about the fecundation of the eggs. After his chemical part +has been played, however, no one takes him seriously and his official +existence ends. Certain spiders and other insects consider the male in +the same light, some of them killing and eating the male as soon as his +fecundating activities have come to an end. + +The feminine domination, if it should ever implant itself into our +world would undoubtedly lead to the absurdities, the exaggerations and +the repressions which are the result of our man made civilisation. + +=Matriarchal Communities of the Past= in which the woman was the +head of the family and probably of the state and matriarchial groups of +Tibet have not left visible tokens of their worth as a family system. +As they preceded the present family system however, it may be that +all traces of their achievements have been obliterated by time. The +Tibetan experiment may have been blighted by unfavorable geographical +conditions and rendered as barren as the Mongolian patriarchal +experiments in a neighboring part of the world. + +Man as a means of fecundation is not likely to be discarded by normal +women but his prestige is likely to decrease as the secret of his +mysterious power becomes better known. + +The passing of the smug, self satisfied Jehovah husband, a neurotic in +every case, is in sight and his passing will facilitate the adaptation +of some of the inadapted women I mentioned in the preceding chapter, +some of whom fail to find love, and some of whom do not dare to seek it. + +=The Successful Modern Woman is Rather Conceited.= Some of the things I +said about female artists applies in a great measure to the woman who +in business or in a profession has managed to make her mark. + +After struggling years for a certain object which she has at last +attained, she is naturally loath to surrender her personality to the +average husband of the self-styled masculine type. + +She at times resorts to homosexualism in an effort to retain her +independence and yet satisfy her love cravings without submitting to a +domination which she feels to be unjustified. + +=The Terrors of The Climateric.= The passing of the Jehovah husband +will also ease a process of woman's (and man's) life which has to this +day held countless terrors to the uninitiated, the climacteric. + +To the old-fashioned and the gullible woman, the change of life meant +the end of life as a female. The stupid man, who is constantly +endeavoring to subdue his mate thru disparagement and kills speedily +her youth, her enthusiasm and her hopes by repeating constantly the +trashy "At your age, my dear," is in a great measure responsible for +transforming that harmless phenomenon into a painful crisis, mental and +physical. + +The crisis of the "Dangerous Age," to use Karin Michaelis's expression, +is generally due to the clash of a weak masochistic female with a weak +and sadistic male, a clash in which, owing to age and the staleness of +the mates, affection has no redeeming, consoling physical features. + +=The Masculine Man is in No Danger of Passing Away= and he will for +ever be as attractive to woman as the feminine woman is to him. + +As Shaw said, what has been killed in men by the growth of feminism is +"not masculinity but boorishness," a characteristic, not of the strong +but of the weak, who is trying to compensate for his weakness and to +conceal it. What has been killed in woman is not feminine sweetness but +overfeminine silliness which woman used as a deceptive weapon against +the domineering male. + +In a world which grants equal opportunities to men and women, no +husband will be able to justify or excuse his treatment of a woman +by saying "She is my wife." He will have to remain her lover in order +to hold her. No wife will be able to make the home hideous and, at +the same time, brandish over her husband's head the certificate of +enslavement called a marriage license. She will have, in order to +compete with the free women whose personality will impose itself upon +her environment, to remain his mistress. + +Every step ahead which the world takes fortunately proves a new step +which love takes in the direction of completeness and freedom from +sordidness and ugliness. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI + + PERFECT MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENTS + + +While marriage, regardless of whatever form it may assume, has always +been mentioned in this book as unavoidably related to love, we must +not blink the fact that marriage and love are two absolutely different +things forced into frequent association by social and economic +necessity. + +Love is an involuntary and compulsory craving which draws a male and a +female into the closest possible union for the purpose of mutual sexual +gratification, generally followed by conception and reproduction. + +=Marriage a Compromise.= Marriage on the other hand is merely a +compromise between the positive individual cravings which demand the +most complete and frequent gratification of the love urge, regardless +of its consequences, and the negative feeling which causes the +community to shirk all possible responsibilities incurred by the +individual, among others, the support of pregnant or lactating females +and of helpless infants. + +Unless the community owns mother and child and can exploit their labor +or receive their cash value (slavery system), it demands that their +owner, the impregnator of the woman and procreator of the child, supply +food and shelter for both. + +Marriage is also a compromise between two individual cravings which may +not be synchronised, as the male's desire for the female may subside +before her desire for him does, or reciprocally. + +Through the institution of marriage the community protects itself +against new burdens directly by penalties (sentences against wife +deserters or those who abandon children) and indirectly by protecting +the mates against their own cravings for whose duration they are not +responsible (laws against bigamy or adultery, etc.). + +=Considering the Artificial Character of the Marriage Union=, and +at the same time the psychological importance of its durability as far +as the mental health of the off-spring is concerned, one of the most +pressing duties of the community (and one which it never performs), +should be to devise all the possible ways and means whereby the sex +cravings of both mates could be helped to retain their freshness and +strength as long as possible. + +=Attractiveness an Asset.= The first thought which should be forced +into the minds of modern men and women is that attractiveness is a +positive asset not only to woman but to man. In classic Greece, a +man could not be merely good, he had to be beautiful too. By "good" +the Greek meant "fit" but in the compound word which implied both +qualities, _kalos_, beauty came first. + +Cravings being awakened and kept alive by certain fetishes, the +individual should be trained to recognize his and his mate's fetishism +and to make all possible efforts to retain, if necessary by artificial +means, the fetishes which lead to the awakening of erotism between him +and his mate. + +=The Average Man or Woman of Forty is a Sorry Sight.= Yet a +little intelligence would compel them to retain or regain the physical +idiosyncrasies they exhibited at the time of their marriage. + +Too many women consider it sinful to devote much time to their physical +appearance and the care of their body. In a man, any attempt to make +himself attractive is considered in stupid middle-class circles as a +stigma of effeminacy. + +The "pretty" man has always been despised by men and women, and +endocrinology has confirmed their judgment by revealing to us that he +is a glandular weakling. Between the pretty man and the attractive man, +however, there is a far cry. + +While the American movies, generally speaking, are catering to the +weak-minded and the unimaginative, they have, in their search for a +bait where-with to catch audiences, rendered mankind a signal service +by starring the kind of man which would have passed muster in ancient +Greece, beautiful and fit. + +=Athletic, if not Acrobatic, Movie Idols= present to the female part +of the audience a complex of physical qualities which women will +gradually demand from their mates. It is regrettable that women +should not attend prize fights in large numbers, for the sight of the +godlike participants in those affrays would force them to institute +enlightening comparisons between professional fighters and the average +male. + +Besides retaining or regaining their fetishes, human beings should make +a special effort not to let those fetishes lose their power. + +=The Worst Foe of Married Happiness.= Balzac in his "Physiology of +Marriage" says that the married have to wage a constant fight with a +monster which devours everything: Habit. Every stimulus, as we know, +pleasant or unpleasant, loses its power when applied continuously or +too frequently. + +It is only for the first minute or so that the ice cold shower causes +our naked skin to tingle with excitement. As soon as the reaction sets +in and the capillaries fill with red blood, the pleasant sensation of +the water needles becomes dulled. + +After holding our hand for a minute in hot water, we no longer +realise the high temperature of the liquid and in order to continue +to experience the feeling of heat we must continually raise the +temperature of the water. + +And likewise we may grow so accustomed to one source of erotic +stimulation that we become indifferent to it. + +=Friendship May Survive the Death of Sexual Love=, provided the sex +desire has died in both mates at the same time. When desire dies off in +the wife first and is not replaced by aversion, the situation may be +very simple for she can still satisfy her more ardent mate and derive +some gratification therefrom. + +When the man's desire dies first, on the other hand, there may arise +unpleasant complications. A man may be impotent with a woman whom he +loves tenderly but no longer desires sexually and yet be potent with +some other woman to whom he is not completely "accustomed." + +Jealousy on the part of the wife may then prevent the advent of the +platonic friendship which is not uncommon between old married mates, +altho Montaigne denies the possibility of its existence. + +Modern mates, conscious of that danger, have now and then devised ways +and means to combat Balzac's monster. + +Not so long ago a well-known woman writer announced that she was +planning to marry a certain man with whom, however, she did not intend +to live day after day. The experiment has many chances of success if +jealousy does not complicate the situation. + +I suggested to reporters last summer, when two famous artists parted +company, that their union might have been of longer duration if one of +them had lived at the Plaza while the other was stopping at the St. +Regis. + +=Married People Should Separate for Periods of Variable Duration= in +order that a fresh stimulation may emanate from their fetishes when +they meet again. By leading more individual lives and having separate +sets of friends, they would, besides, bring to each other a new sort +of mental pabulum and stimulation day after day. Conversation becomes +futile and unnecessary between a husband and wife who always pay and +receive calls together, attend the same spectacles and hence always see +the same side of life. Now and then we read of couples who separate +and a few years later remarry. Those few years spent apart from each +other mean for both new experiences which enrich their mind and their +conversation and make them again interesting to each other. + +=The Play Function of Love.= Another factor which the monstrous +hypocrisy of puritanism makes very difficult to discuss openly and +honestly and which wrecks many promising unions is the ignorance, more +common than we suspect among married couples, of what Maurice Parmelee +in his "Personality and Behavior" has called the Play Function of Love, +a term which has been given a broader meaning by Havelock Ellis in an +article for the _Medical Review of Reviews_ for March 1921. + +The average man or woman is tragically ignorant of the mission of sex. + +The average man, as Ellis writes, has two aims: "to prove that he is a +man and to relieve a sexual tension. + +"He too often considers himself, from traditional habits, as the active +partner in love and his own pleasure as the prime motive of the sex +communion. + +"His wife, naturally adopts the complementary attitude, regards herself +as the passive partner and her pleasure as negligible. + +"She has not mastered the art of love, with the result that her +whole nature remains ill-developed and unharmonized, and that she +is incapable of bringing her personality (having indeed no achieved +personality to bring) to bear effectively on the problems of society +and the world around her." + +I have described in "Sex Happiness" the tragedies which result from +that form of ignorance, especially the tragedy of the unsatisfied wife, +her restlessness, her gradual dislike of her mate, her curiosity as to +what feelings she might experience if married to another man, when some +other man seems to awaken her erotism, and then the dilemma, repression +leading to neurosis, or indulgence leading into the divorce court. + +=Psychoanalysis to the Rescue.= "In this matter," Ellis writes, +"we may learn a lesson from the psychoanalysts of today without +any implication that psychoanalysis is necessarily a desirable or +even possible way of attaining the revelation of love. The wiser +psychoanalysts insist that the process of liberating the individual +from outer and inner influences that repress or deform his energies and +impulses is effected by removing the inhibitions on the free play of +his nature. + +"It is a process of education in the true sense, not of the suppression +of natural impulses nor even of the instillation of sound rules and +maxims for their control, not of the pressing in but of the leading out +of the individual's special tendencies. + +"It removes inhibitions, even inhibitions that were placed upon the +individual, or that he consciously or unconsciously placed upon +himself, with the best moral intentions, and by so doing it allows a +larger and freer and more natively spontaneous morality to come into +play. + +"It has this influence above all in the sphere of sex, where such +inhibitions have been most powerfully laid on the native impulses, +where the natural tendencies have been most surrounded by taboos and +terrors, most tinged with artificial stains of impurity and degradation +derived from alien and antiquated traditions. + +"Thus the therapeutical experience of the psychoanalysts reinforce +the lessons we learn from physiology and psychology and the intimate +experiences of life." + +=Wounded Egotism.= Love in marriage is endangered from another quarter: +The greatest foe of sexual desire, as I have stated several times in +this book, is wounded egotism. + +A perfect matrimonial adjustment does not mean the modification of +either mate's personality. We have seen in the chapters on glands that +the normal personality is practically inadaptable, that is, nothing +short of serious sickness or a surgical operation can transform an +active person into a sluggish one and vice versa. + +It is only the neurotic personality which can be adapted by the removal +of certain unconscious fears which prevent it from attaining social and +biological balance and happiness. + +All psychoanalysis does in such cases is to teach the patient to accept +everything which is biologically normal in his personality. + +We must then have an absolute respect for personality in ourselves +and others. We must find a socially acceptable outlet for all our +idiosyncrasies, a difficult, but never impossible task. + +Lack of an outlet means a neurotic disturbance. The so-called +adaptable people are those who succeed in repressing temporarily their +cravings and denying their existence, a result which they attain at +the cost of much suffering to themselves and, indirectly, to their +environment. + +=Democracy in the Home= is the prerequisite of every perfect +matrimonial adjustment. + +The autocratic government of the home by a male bully of a female nag +leads to either a revolution (divorce) or to the destruction of human +material after a bitter strife, (neurotic ailments). + +The bullied wife and the henpecked husband fill the offices of +neurologists, gynaecologists, psychoanalysts and sexologists. This is +the way in which the wounded ego of the defeated mate avenges itself. + +The defeated mate becomes sexually disabled. + +The results of maladjustment of the mates are strikingly summed up by +Kempf in his monumental work "Psychopathology": + +"Upon marriage a subtle if not overt struggle occurs between the mates +for the dominant position in the contract. The big, aggressive wife +and the timid, little husband attest to the importance of organic +superiority in the adjustment, but the average marriage does not show +such organic differences. The sadistic or masochistic husband and the +masochistic or sadistic wife will certainly adjust to please their +reciprocating cravings, no matter what influence this may have upon +their children, and a sadistic wife and sadistic husband, although both +are cruel in their pleasures, will divorce each other on the charge +of the other being cruel; but it is the commonplace adjustment which +interests us most, because it is most predominant. + +"Nature places an unerring punishment upon the woman, who, by +incessantly using every whim, scheme or artifice, finally succeeds +in dominating her husband. By forcing him to submit to her thousand +and one demands and coercions, within a few years, he unconsciously +becomes a submissive type and loses his sexual potency with her as the +love-object. If he does not have secret love interests which stimulate +him to strive for power, he finally loses his initiative and sexual +potency completely and must live always at a commonplace level, the +servant of more virile men: the counterpart of the subdued impotent +males of the animal herd. + +"His more aggressive, selfish mate, if periodically heterosexually +erotic, will become neurotic if her moral restraints are insurpassable, +or seek a new mate whom she will again attempt to subdue. Never is she +able to realise that her selfishness makes her sexually unattractive. +The psychopathologist meets many such women whose husbands have evaded +domination by secretly depending upon the affections of another more +suitably adjusted woman." + +In "The New Horizon in Love and Life," Mrs. Havelock Ellis writes "It +is more than probable that the evolved relationship of the future will +be monogamy--but a monogamy wider and more beautiful than the present +caricature of it, as the sea is wider and more delicious than a duck +pond. + +"The lifelong, faithful love of one man for one woman is the exception +and not the rule. The law of affinity being as subtle and as +indefinable as the law of gravitation, we may, by and by, find it worth +while to give it its complete opportunity in those realms where it can +manifest itself most potently. We are on the wrong bridge if we imagine +that laxity is the easiest way to freedom. The bridge which will bear +us must be strong enough to support us while experiments are tried. + +"What is the gospel in this matter of sexual emancipation for men +and women in the new world where love has actually come of age? It +is surely the complete economic independence of women. While man +is economically free and woman still a slave, either physically, +financially or spiritually, mankind as a whole must act as if +blindness, maimness and deafness constituted health. + +"The complete independence of husband and wife is the gospel of the new +era of marriage. This is the actual matter which philosophers, parents, +philanthropists and pioneers so often ignore when teaching the new +ideals of morality. When a woman is kept by a man she is not a free +individuality either as child, wife or mistress. Imagine for a moment +a man kept by a woman as women are kept by men and a sense of humor +illuminates the absurdity of the situation between any class of evolved +human beings." + +As a clever patient of mine whom I regret I cannot mention by name said +one day: "married happiness, to be lasting, requires more than sexual +cooperation of both mates, it must resolve itself into cooperative +egotism." + +[Footnote 1: See Mary Sinclair's "The Life and Death of Harriet Freau."] + +[Footnote 2: Kings. I, 1-2.] + +[Footnote 3: Birth Control Review, April 1922.] + + + THE END + + + + + INDEX + + + Abortion, 295 + + Active homosexuals, 167 + + Adler, 32, 41, 71, 115, 130, 132, 141, 142, 170, 192, 211, 225 + + Adrenals, 230 + + Adrenin, 6 + + Algolagnists, 188 + + Androgynes, 160 + + Animal love fights, 196 + + "Animal" types, 87 + + Antifetishes, 24, 25 + + Aphrodite, 195 + + Aristotle, 207 + + Atavism, 194 + + Attractiveness, 317 + + Auditory sensations, 57 + + + Baby talk, 57 + + Balzac, 318 + + Basogas, 43 + + Bees in love, 52, 53 + + Beresford, 267 + + Berman, Dr. Louis, 228 + + Bernhardt, Sarah, 100 + + Bloch, Iwan, 88 + + Blood relations, 47 + + Bonaparte, 192 + + Bored wives, 89 + + Boredom, 212 + + Bottle-fed men, 20 + + Bovary, Madame, 91 + + Brain, cells, 16 + function of the, 7 + operations on a dog's, 13 + + Breast-fed men, 20 + + Brothers and sisters, 78 + + Brutus, 82 + + Business women, 279 + + + Cæsar, 180 + + Calf love, 54 + + Cannon, 10 + + Chicago Vice Report, 108 + + Childish behavior, 158 + + Choice, meaning of, 11, 12 + + Cigar smoking, 59 + + Clean lives, 264 + + Climacteric, 312 + + Community's criticism, 256 + + Contraception, 294 + + Conversation, 321 + + Cooperative egotism, 328 + + Copepods, behavior of, 15 + + Craig's Birds, 40 + + Crile, 63 + + Cybela, 196 + + + Dark Types, 234 + + Darwin, 45 + + Death dreams, 75 + + Death wishes, 73, 74 + + Delage, 308 + + Deluded martyrs, 81 + + Delusional jealousy, 147 + + Democracy in the home, 325 + + Demosthenes, 83 + + Descartes, 162 + + Displacement upward, 6 + + Dissatisfied people, 216 + + Divorces in the art world, 221 + + Doll type, 284 + + Don Juan, 92, 94, 139 + + Double standard, 302 + + Ductless glands, 225 + + Duncan, Isadora, 100 + + + Economic exhibitionism, 69 + + Eddy, Mary Baker, 265 + + Effeminacy, 317 + + Ego rampant, 139 + + Electrical exchanges, 60, 63 + + Ellis, Havelock, 88, 177, 286, 305, 321 + + Ellis, Mrs. Havelock, 327 + + Endocrinologists, 226 + + Environment, 236 + + Erotropism, 4 + + Ethical prostitution, 113 + + Eulenburg, Albert, 162, 194 + + + Fatherhood cravings, 69 + + Fear of accidents, 76 + + Fear of woman, 114 + + Female artists, 218 + + Feminine refinement, 277 + + Ferenczi, 148 sqq. + + Fetishes, list of, 19, 20 + feminine, 21 + masculine, 21 + non-physical, 24, 25 + + Fiji Islands, 42 + + First Night, the right of the, 68 + + Fixation, parent, 30, 31, sqq. + + Flappers, 247, 248 + + Flattery, 218, 219, 220 + + Flirt, the, 285 + + Foot Fetishism, 18, 22 + symbolism, 24 + + Forel 134 + + Frazer, 44 + + Freud, 23, 24, 31, 42, 49, 62, 140, 164, 165, 211, 225, 267, 297 + + Friedlander, Benedikt, 183 + + Friendship, 319 + + Frigid wives, 245 + + Frink, 137 + + + Galvanotropism, 4 + + Genesis, 43 + + Gerontophilia, 24 + + Getting even, 90 + + Glands, 34 + + Glandular drunkenness, 193 + + Glandular insufficiency, 203 + + Glove fetishism, 205 + + Goldschmidt, Jules, 116 + + Gonads, 231 + + Greek Gods, 156 + + Griseldis, 195 + + Gross, Dr. Otto, 184 + + + Habit, 310 + + Hair Fetishism, 17, 26, 27 + + Heart, physiology of the, 5 + + Heredity, 34 + + Hirschfeld, Magnus, 158, 186 + + Hirth, George, 88, 89 + + Holding hands, 60 + + Homosexual tragedies, 179 + + Husbands and lovers, 141 + + + Ideal Love, 269 + + Identification mania, 35, 36 + + Imitation, 33 + + Immodest modesty, 127 + + Impotence, 26 + + Inbreeding, 44 + + Incest fear, 42 + + Independent women, 281 + + Infidelity, 85 + + Institution children, 101 + + + Jack the Ripper, 197 + + Jealousy and impotence, 137 + + Jesus, 67 + + Jung, 32, 33, 225 + + + Kempf, 173, 325 + + Kenealy, Dr. Arabella, 303 + + King David, 261 + + Kiss, 60, 61 + + Krafft-Ebing, 162 + + Kronos, 195 + + + Lean types, 235 + + Leonardo da Vinci, 180 + + Lesbian Love, 156 + + Loeb, Jacques, 307 sqq. + + Lombroso, 105 + + Lorand, 259 + + Love, a compulsion, 10 + + Lover, the successful, 52 + the unsuccessful, 53 + + Lovers of the absolute, 271 + + + Male artists, 218 + + Male lovers, 156 + + Male prostitutes, 109 + + Marriage, a compromise, 315 + + Masculine protest, 130 + + Masked Sadism, 154 + + Masoch, Leopold von Sacher, 200 sqq. + + Masochistic husbands, 206 + + Matriarchal communities, 311 + + Matrimonial Engineers, 238 + + Messalina, 94 + + Metatropism, 161 + + Michael Angelo, 176 + + Michaelis, Karin, 313 + + Michelet, 284 + + Milch cows, 293 + + Milk, 59 + + Mind, seat of the, 6, 7 + + Mobs, 198 + + Moreau de Tours, 189 + + Movie Idols, 318 + + Movies, 57 + + + Naked male dancers, 123 + + Narcism, 167 + + Negative Love, 176 + + Negro Haters, 79 + + Nerve memory, 8 + + Nerves, 50 + + Neurotic frigidity, 70 + + Neurotic Life Plan, 33 + + Neurotic motherliness, 71 + + Neurotic mothers, 249, 296 + + Nietzsche, 180 + + Nurses, 39 + + + Obscene talkers, 132 + + Obsessions, 27 + + Oedipus Complex, 30 + + Old fashioned women, 275 + + Oracles, 266 + + Organism, unity of, 49, 50, 51 + + + Paranoiacs, 147 + + Parent-Child Relationship, 223 + + Parmelee, Maurice, 321 + + Passive homosexuals, 167 + + Perfect Mothers, 246 + + Personality, 239 + + Personality, respect for the, 324 + + Perverse birds, 164 + + Phototropism, 3 + + Physical incompatibility, 254 + + Pimps, 109 + + Pituitary, 228 + + Plato, 155 + + Platonic love, 63 + + Play function of love, 321 + + Plural love, 84 + + Polyandry, 84 + + Potter, Grace, 299 + + Preferences, 39 + + Pregnancy and Health, 242 + + Priapism, 84 + + Primal horde, 45 + + Primitive races, 42 + + Prize fights, 318 + + Prohibition, 81 + + Projection, 153 + + Proud husbands, 289 + + Psychoanalysis, 322 + + Puritanical males, 129 + + + Rebellion against nature, 277 + + Reformers, 80 + + Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 207 + + Rules for husbands, 134 + + + Sade, Marquis de, 189 sqq. + + Sadistic lovers, 213 + + Sadistic mates, 215 + + Sadzer, 166 + + Safety devices, 170 + + Safety symbols, 97 + + Sallow Type, 235 + + Sanger, Margaret, 300 sqq. + + Sapho, 155 + + Savages, modesty among, 123 + + Schneider, Kurt, 105 + + Schopenhauer, 182 + + Schroeder, Theodore, 265 + + Sea urchins, 308 + + Self love, 67 + + Sensuality, 107 + + Sexless jealousy, 140 + + Sexless persons, 208 + + Sexual Libido, 65 + + Shaw, G. B., 276 sqq. + + Shoe fetishism, 18, 22, 205 + symbolism, 24 + + Sight, 56 + + Sinclair, May, 268 + + Skooptsy, 208 + + Slender types, 236 + + Smell, 58 + + Social pressure, 237 + + Socrates, 155 + + Sour grapes, 77 + + Steinach, 163 sqq. + + Stekel, Wilhelm, 128, 160, 170, 183 + + Sublimation, 267 + + Suggestive draperies, 125 + + Suttee custom, 142 + + Syphilophobiacs, 80 + + + Tall types, 235 + + Taste, 59 + + Teeth, 237 + + Telegony, 116 + + Test of love, 75 + + Third sex, 158 sqq. + + Thyroid, 230 + + Touch, 60 + + Transvestites, 159 + + Triplets, 310 + + Twins, 309 + + Type, parent, 39 + + + Ultrafeminine, 93 + + Unadapted women, 288 + + Uniform fetishism, 25 + + + Vamps, 213 + + Varietism, 84 + + Vital Force, 266 + + Vomiting, in pregnancy, 243 + + Von Kupfer, 181, 182 + + + Wagner, 252 + + Walker, Dr. Mary, 160 + + War prisoners, 70 + + Whipping, 202 + + Wifehood, a profession, 282 + + Wilde, Oscar, 180 + + Will-to-be-the-first, 115 + + Winckelman, 176 + + Wise husbands, 306 + + Women Sadists, 210 + + Women who enjoy a beating, 209 + + Wounded egotism, 324 + + Wulffen, 193 + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Psychoanalysis and Love, by André Tridon + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 61124 *** |