{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61124/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61124","id":"gutenberg_61124","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61124","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Sociology","Love","Psychoanalysis","Sex"],"text":"Produced by Jwala Kumar Sista, Turgut Dincer and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from images made available by the\nHathiTrust Digital Library.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Transcriber's Notes\n\n 1. Typographical errors were silently corrected.\n\n 2. The text version is coded for italics and other mark-ups i.e.,\n (a) Italics are indicated thus _italic_;\n (b) Bold thus =bold=; and\n (c) Images are indicated as [Illustration];\n (d) Footnotes are placed at the end.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\n\n\n PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE\n\n\n\n\n PSYCHOANALYSIS\n AND LOVE\n\n BY\n ANDRE TRIDON\n\n Member of\n\n \"The Medico-Legal Society of New York City,\"\n \"The Society for Forensic Medicine of New York City,\" and\n \"The International Association for Individual Psychology of Vienna,\n Austria.\"\n\n [Illustration]\n\n NEW YORK\n BRENTANO'S\n PUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\n Copyright, 1922, by\n BRENTANO'S\n\n _All rights reserved_\n\n\n PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n CHAPTER PAGE\n\n I THE HEAD AND THE HEART 1\n Love is independent from the will.\n Victims of Venus. Love and affection.\n Erotropism. What is the heart? A dead\n heart can be made to beat. The heart is\n a respectable organ. The antithesis head-heart.\n Nerve memory.\n\n II THE CHOICE OF A MATE 10\n What we see in our mate. The meaning\n of choice. The donkey's dilemma.\n Chance in the discard. The dog's choice.\n The behavior of copepods.\n\n III THE QUEST OF THE FETISH 17\n The hair fetishist. Everybody a fetishist.\n Most common fetishes. The\n breast and the bottle. Feminine fetishes.\n Physiological necessities. Foot and shoe\n fetishism. Non-physical fetishes. Symbolical\n fetishes. Antifetishes. Attraction\n or obsession?\n\n IV THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD 29\n The Oedipus complex. The Freudian\n view. Jung's interpretation. Adler.\n Pseudo-incest. The Neurotic life plan.\n Imitation. The glands. Identification\n mania. Early conflicts. Death wishes.\n Our preferences. Craig's birds.\n\n V INCEST 41\n The incest fear. Incest in ancient\n times. Inbreeding. The primal horde.\n Repressed incestuous feelings. Blood\n relations.\n\n VI THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE 49\n The organism a unit. Love's stimulation.\n The successful lover. The unsuccessful\n lover. Calf love.\n\n VII THE SENSES IN LOVE 56\n Sight. Auditory sensations. Smell.\n The sense of taste. Touch. Holding\n hands. The kiss. The birth of the kiss.\n Kisses and electricity.\n\n VIII EGO AND SEX 65\n Neurotic complications. Self-love. Ego\n in sex guise. Fatherhood. War prisoners.\n Neurotic motherliness. When ego\n and sex do not conflict.\n\n IX HATRED AND LOVE 73\n A worried wife. The test of love.\n Sour grapes. Brothers and sisters. A\n negro hater. Reformers. The syphilophobiac.\n Deluded martyrs.\n\n X PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY 83\n Polyandry. Infidelity. When love dies.\n Iwan Bloch's and Hirth's theories. Bored\n wives. Getting even. Varietists and\n Don Juans. The ultra-feminine. Messalina.\n\n XI IS FREE LOVE POSSIBLE? 95\n Man, the dissatisfied. The next step.\n Blissful blindness. What of the child?\n Disharmony between the parents. The\n institution child. Free love plus birth\n control.\n\n XII PROSTITUTION 104\n Economic factors. Lombrosos's theory.\n Sensuality. Father fixation. Prostitution\n a neurosis. The pimp. Prevention.\n Prostitution has no redeeming grace.\n\n XIII VIRGINITY 112\n What men experienced in love want?\n Ethical prostitution. The fear of woman.\n The will-to-be-the-first. Telegony.\n Goldschmidt's explanations.\n\n XIV MODESTY, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL 122\n In Turkey. On the modern stage.\n Normal modesty. Suggestive draperies.\n Excessive modesty. Immodest modesty.\n Fear of love. The masculine protest.\n Lack of modesty.\n\n XV JEALOUSY 133\n Forel's rules for husbands. Very few\n men and women admit their jealousy.\n Jealousy and impotence. Childish behavior.\n The ego rampant. Sexless jealousy.\n Husbands and lovers. Cruelty.\n Making people jealous.\n\n XVI INSANE JEALOUSY 147\n Delusional jealousy. Homosexualism\n and jealousy. A jealous wife. A case\n of projection. Masked sadism.\n\n XVII HOMOSEXUALISM. ITS GENESIS 155\n Male lovers in Greece. Women were\n harem slaves. The tide turns. Theories.\n The third sex. Transvestites. Are\n transvestites homosexual? Metatropism.\n Steinach's experiments. Perverse birds.\n Freud denies the third sex. Active and\n passive types. The homosexual neurosis.\n A safety device. Above and below.\n A way out. The escape from biological\n duties.\n\n XVIII HOMOSEXUALISM A NEUROTIC SYMPTOM 174\n A denial of life. Homosexualism is\n negative love. The love letters of famous\n homosexuals. Deeds of violence. A\n homosexual tragedy. Women more homosexual\n than men. Boastful homosexuals.\n The Nietzsche-Wagner feud. Shall\n perverse love be recognized? Man's\n emancipation from woman. Homosexualism\n and war. Is homosexualism necessary?\n\n XIX CRUELTY AND LOVE--SADISM 188\n Algolagnists. The Marquis de Sade's\n biography. What Bonaparte thought of\n him. Glandular drunkenness. Atavism.\n Primitive religions. Primitive races and\n sex violence. Animal love fights. The\n sadistic mob. Is the male more cruel?\n\n XX LOVE THAT CRAVES SUFFERING--MASOCHISM 200\n Sacher Masoch's biography. Love of\n the whip. The masochist is like a tired\n horse. Shoe fetishism. Craving for\n humiliation. Masochistic fancies. Are\n women masochistic? Women who enjoy\n a beating. A Freudian suggestion.\n\n XXI WHAT LOVE OWES TO SADISTS AND\n MASOCHISTS 212\n Sadistic and masochistic lovers and\n their fascination. The vamp. Those who\n are too normal to be interesting or romantic.\n\n XXII LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS 216\n Dissatisfaction. The male artist. The\n female artist. The woman who accomplishes\n things. Flattery.\n\n XXIII THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE FETISHES.\n GLANDS 223\n The parent-child relationship. Modern\n endocrinologists ignorant of psychology.\n Reciprocal influence of glands and behavior.\n The pituitary gland. The thyroid.\n The adrenals. The gonads.\n\n XXIV GLANDULAR PERSONALITIES 233\n The dark skinned type. The tall type.\n The lean type. The obese type. The\n slender type. Environment. Comfort and\n behavior. What teeth indicate. Matrimonial\n engineers.\n\n XXV LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE 241\n Sex cravings and motherhood cravings.\n Pregnancy means health. Fear of pregnancy.\n When mother love is lacking.\n Frigid wives. Mother and father love.\n Mothers adore their sons. Fathers partial\n to daughters. The flapper and her\n mother.\n\n XXVI SHOULD WINTER MATE WITH SPRING? 251\n Two disinterested brides. The case of\n Wagner. A parent fixation. Physical\n incompatibility. The plight of two neurotics.\n What will people say? Having\n her fixation-fling. Physical results. The\n fate of the younger mate. King David.\n\n XXVII NEGATIVE LOVE 263\n A \"clean\" life. Utterances and conduct.\n Oracles and prophecies. Can we\n save our vital force. Sublimation. The\n sexless. Ideal love. Protective measures.\n Lovers of the absolute. A troublesome\n patient. Higher aspirations.\n\n XXVIII THE NEW WOMAN AND LOVE 275\n George Bernard Shaw's view. The rebellion\n against nature. Woman in commercial\n life. Was it a sacrifice? The\n pursuit. The passing of respectable prostitution.\n The abettor of ethical sins.\n Health versus sickness. The passing of\n the flirt and of the doll. Modesty, old\n and new. The unadapted woman. The\n proud husband.\n\n XXIX BIRTH CONTROL 291\n What we expect of the modern woman.\n The only solution. The human milch\n cow. The nightmare of abortion. The\n plight of the neurotic woman. The child\n of the neurotic woman. Birth control\n and indulgence. A great love is a holy\n thing. The passing of the double standard.\n\n XXX THE PASSING OF THE HUSBAND WORSHIP 303\n Is man's vitality declining? Undue\n pessimism. The wise husband. Is the\n male indispensable? Loeb's experiments.\n Twins to order. The mother is the\n race. Matriarchal communities. Modern\n woman is conceited. The terrors of the\n climacteric. Masculine man is in no danger\n of passing away.\n\n XXXI PERFECT MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENTS 315\n Marriage a compromise. Attractiveness\n an asset. Forty and hideous. Athletic\n movie idols. The foe of married\n happiness. Friendship may survive love.\n Separate vacations for the married. The\n play function of love. Psychoanalysis\n to the rescue. Wounded egotism. Democracy\n in the home.\n\n\n\n\n INTRODUCTION\n\n\nLife would be much simpler if love among human beings were similar to\nlove among the animals. At mating time, any animal of any species feels\nautomatically attracted to any animal of the opposite sex belonging to\nthe same species. Age, appearance or relationship seem of no account\nin the animal world. The love activities begin at a definite time of\nthe year, have as their obvious and exclusive purpose the reproduction\nof the species and, after attaining their goal, end very early in the\nsummer of the same year. An exception may be made for a few wild and\ndomesticated animals which have several mating seasons and for a few\nsurvivals of the prehistoric fauna, like the elephants, among which the\nfamily group seems more permanent than among more \"recent\" biological\nspecimens.\n\nNor do love activities among the animals result in lasting disturbances\nof their psychological life. In certain varieties of fish the male\nnever even sees the female whose eggs he fecundates. While we observe\nat times duels to the death between two males for the possession of\none female (elks or moose), animal life seems to suffer few lasting\ncomplications from the fact of such conflicts, which, like animal love,\nare purely seasonal.\n\nA greater regularity of the food supply which has intensified the sex\nurge among human beings and removed its seasonal character, and the\nprogress of civilization which, for economic reasons, has placed upon\nthe union of male and female a thousand restrictions, has complicated\nterribly what was merely among animals a periodic biological activity.\n\nRestrictions, however, never bring about the complete suppression of\nbiological cravings and merely compel them to remain repressed for\nvarying periods of time. Repressed cravings, denied a direct normal\noutlet, create for themselves indirect, morbid outlets.\n\nWe are little more than civilized animals who have been trained not to\nreveal their primal cravings at certain forbidden times and places.\n\nThe cravings are there, struggling for expression and denial of their\nreality does not suffice to make them unreal. It only invests them with\nmorbidity and abnormality.\n\nMuch of the fearsome mystery which surrounds sex is due to the fact\nthat we have forgotten our origin. We have set up a goal which, like\nall goals worth striving for, is far ahead of the human procession and\nsomewhere between the earth and the stars. But that goal should not\ncause us to forget our starting point.\n\nIt happens too often that \"what we should be\" blinds us to \"what we\nreally are.\" Hence our surprise, our puzzled expression, our painful\ndisappointment, when one of us reveals himself suddenly as he is\ninstead of as he should be. Hence our absurd statutes which punish the\nlaggards on the road of evolution instead of helping them along. Hence\nour fears in the presence of a mystery we have made mysterious, of a\ndanger we have made dangerous and which we make more terrifying yet by\nburying our heads in the sand.\n\nTo this day the study of love has been considered as the almost\nexclusive province of poets, playwrights, novelists, movie authors and\nphilosophers.\n\nThose people have reveled in love's dramatic complications which they\nhave, whenever possible, exaggerated, for \"artistic\" reasons. Instead\nof clarifying the problem, they have beclouded it.\n\nIn anglo-saxon countries a class of neurotics countenanced by the\npolice and the courts, the puritans, have further distorted the\npopular misconception of love by swathing it in the morbid veils woven\nby their unhealthy minds.\n\nIt is high time, therefore, that the subject of love be reviewed from\nan impartial angle, from a purely scientific point of view.\n\nOnly one science is qualified to undertake that review, psychoanalysis,\nfor it has effected in the last twenty years a synthesis of all the\ndata which biology, neurology, endocrinology and other sciences have\ncontributed to the knowledge of human psychology and of the human\npersonality.\n\nNo scientist is satisfied with his findings unless they can be\ndescribed in terms of accurate measurements, hence, repeated and\nchecked up by any other scientist having acquired the requisite minimum\nof technical skill.\n\nThe basis for such a study of love was established by the great pioneer\nin the science of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud of Vienna.\n\nBy his masterly analysis of the sex life, to which, however, he has\nascribed an undue importance, he has stripped love of many veils\nwhich made it look like a scarecrow. His successors, recognizing the\nimportance of other factors in the love life, ego cravings, organic\npredispositions, etc., have in turn stripped love of other veils which\nmade it look too romantically unreal.\n\nThus we are gradually reaching the heart of the problem.\n\nLove to-day is no longer animal love, nor is it as yet angelic love. We\nare no longer beasts, altho the primal beast still disports itself in\nour unconscious. Nor are we angels, arduous as our striving toward the\nstars may be. To determine what love should be, could be or might be,\nseems to be an academic waste of time and little else.\n\nTo determine, on the other hand, what love REALLY IS AT THE PRESENT\nDAY, what actual level it has reached, to explain some of the\ndifficulties it encounters in trying to remain on that level, and\nfinally to suggest to MEN AND WOMEN OF TO-DAY workable modes\nof adaption at that level, shall be the mission of this book.\n\nIn the coming chapters, I will show that our choice of a mate is as\ncompletely \"determined\" as any other biological phenomenon; that the\n\"reasons\" for that choice are compelling \"habits\" acquired in our\nchildhood and infancy within the family circle; that our \"standards of\nbeauty\" are memories from childhood and infancy; that in our search\nfor a mate we are influenced as powerfully by ego and safety cravings\nas by sex cravings that the so-called \"perversions\" are due, at times,\nto wrong training, at times, to organic disabilities and at times\nto unrecognized safety cravings; that jealousy is, in the majority\nof cases, due to ego cravings, not to sex cravings; finally that no\nperfect adjustment of the married relation can be brought about until\ndemocracy obtains in the home, replacing the various forms of autocracy\nagainst which bullied wives and henpecked husbands have directed many\nineffective, neurotic revolts.\n\n\n New York City\n\n June 1, 1922\n\n\n\n\n PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LOVE\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n\n THE HEAD AND THE HEART\n\n\nLove, like hunger, fear or pain, is an absolutely involuntary craving.\n\nWe may deny it expression and gratification, even as we may pretend\nthat we are not hungry, afraid or in pain, and go without food,\nprotection or relief from pain; but no exertion on our part will\nprevent us from experiencing love and craving its gratification. Nor\ncan we experience it thru an act of will.\n\nThis absolutely involuntary character of the love craving must be borne\nin mind whenever we discuss the complicated and at times puzzling\nrelations which it brings about between human beings.\n\nThe attitude of the average person to this question is extremely vague\nand illogical. The person obsessed by love cravings which are not\nmeeting with the approval of his environment, justifies himself by\nstating loudly the overpowering character of his feelings:\n\n\"I cannot help loving him or her,\" \"It is a feeling stronger than\nmyself,\" \"It came over me suddenly,\" \"It was a case of love at first\nsight.\"\n\n=Victims of Venus.= The ancients expressed their strong belief\nin man's helplessness against the allpowerful fascination of the love\nobject by calling the lovelorn a victim of Cupid or of Venus, a puppet\nof the gods, of fate.\n\nAnd on the other hand, we behold modern and ancient lovers, whenever\nthey feel that the love object is growing indifferent to them,\nreversing their attitude, denying their belief in love's involuntary\ncharacter, and using words like fickle, changeling, to designate the\nlove object they are losing. They speak of deception, of betrayal, of\nfaithlessness.\n\n\"You no longer love me,\" they state reproachfully. They may ask the\nstupid question: \"Why have you ceased to care for me?\" Worse yet, they\nmay say to the love object; \"You should be ashamed of your inconstancy.\"\n\nSuch remarks are not infrequently coupled with another remark which\ngoes more deeply to the root of the matter: \"You should not show your\nindifference so plainly.\"\n\nIn other words pretence is expected when actual love has died.\n\nAnd indeed nothing else could be expected logically by such illogical\nlovers, unless of course a deep affection, which may have grown between\ntwo human beings in the course of many years of life partnership,\nsuccessfully masks the passing of the peculiar fascination which\ndifferentiates love proper from any other human feeling.\n\n=Love and Affection.= We may love a human being more than\nourselves, enjoy infinitely his presence, delight in giving to him\nmental and physical happiness, lavish on him a thousand caresses and\nyet not experience the flash of desire which leads compulsively toward\ncomplete physical communion with that human being.\n\nA simile from the animal world will make my meaning clearer.\n\nA large number of animals \"enjoy\" light but only a small number of\nthem are so \"fascinated\" by light that they cannot resist a \"craving\"\nto fly toward a light, contact with which may mean death to them. Only\nthat small minority can be called in scientific jargon \"positively\nphototropic,\" in sentimental parlance \"hopelessly in love\" with light.\n\nAll animals are affected in some fashion by an electric current\npassing thru their bodies, but only a minority of them are so affected\nby it that they must, whether they wish it or not, face the positive\nelectrode, as a lover fascinated by the face of his sweetheart. Only\nthese can be characterised as \"positively galvanotropic.\"\n\n=Erotropism.= Likewise a hundred men may be charmed by the sight\nof a woman. Only one or two from their number may feel compelled\nto seek complete union with her regardless of the obstacles to\nbe surmounted, of the criticism their actions may arouse, of the\nexpenditure of time, money and energy the adventure may entail. Only\nthis minority may be considered as \"positively erotropic.\"\n\nIn other words it is the primal compulsion which nature uses to assure\nthe continuance of the race and which I might designate as \"erotropism\"\nwhich must be considered the basis for a discussion of love.\n\nLove as commonly understood or misunderstood at the present day, is a\nseries of variations on the theme of erotropism, variations due to the\ncomplication of modern civilisation and the restrictions placed upon\nall biological phenomena by the necessities of life in communities.\n\n=What is the Heart?= The reader will notice that I have thus\nfar avoided any mention of the \"heart\" altho that organ is commonly\nidentified with the various emotions of love.\n\nPhysiologically speaking, the heart is no more vitally concerned with\nlove than with any other disturbing feeling and emotion. Love may at\ntimes cause our heart to beat wildly, but so does strong coffee, so\ndoes acute indigestion, so does blood poisoning, so does any sort of\nviolent fear.\n\nThe heart, we must not forget, is a mere muscle, which is no more\ncapable of being the seat of an emotion than our biceps or our calves.\n\nThe heart is an elaborate centripetal and centrifugal pump which, in\nobedience to orders or impulses coming from elsewhere, draws the blood\nout of the veins and sends it into the arteries at a varying rate of\nspeed.\n\n=A Dead Heart Can Be Made to Beat.= The heart, taken out of\nthe body and attached to a well fitted system of pipes, thru which\nan appropriate fluid is circulating, will start beating anew and\nkeep on beating until decay sets in, due to the fact that the proper\nnourishment is lacking.\n\nTalking of a sensitive heart, of a tender heart or of a heart of\nstone means merely juggling with pretty pictures which correspond to\nnothing physiologically. There may be sensitiveness, tenderness or\nstony harshness somewhere in the organism and the heart may give them\nexpression by its fluctuating beats, but it acts on such occasions as a\nmere registering apparatus.\n\nAdrenin taken by the mouth or injected into the blood stream causes the\nheart pump of a perfect indifferent man to throb as wildly as the heart\nof a lovelorn swain. Strong doses of the nitrates may cause valvular\ninsufficiency and \"break\" a heart more effectively than any catastrophe\nin one's sentimental life.\n\n=The Heart is a Respectable Organ.= The choice of the heart as the\norgan of the emotions, in particular of the love emotion, is certainly\ndue to the fact that it is such a faithful registering apparatus and\nalso to a \"displacement upward\" frequently observed in modern civilised\nthought.\n\nWe do not willingly mention the abdomen and therefore have rechristened\nit the stomach. We have read many times the appalling statement that a\nwoman carries her child \"under her heart.\" The seat of the mind which\nmaterialist physicians of ancient Greece located in the intestines,\nrose later to the level of the solar plexus and with Descartes finally\nreached the pineal gland. Likewise the part of the body where love\ncravings receive their physical satisfaction having become taboo, the\nseat of love has been raised from the pelvis to the thorax, from the\nprimary genital region to the breast, which bears secondary sexual\ncharacteristics.\n\nAfter which, the popular imagination has established an arbitrary\ncontrast and antagonism between the mysterious clocklike organ in the\nchest and the mysterious soft mass in the skull.\n\n=The Antithesis Head-heart= is one which literature is not likely\nto abandon for years to come. We read that women \"follow the dictates\nof their heart\" while men are not so prone \"to lose their head.\" The\nhead is represented as the well-spring of reason while the heart is a\nfount of tenderness, if not of foolishness.\n\nModern scientific research has demonstrated that the brain is nothing\nbut an apparatus for burning sugar which is transformed into electric\ncurrent which the nervous systems distribute throughout the body.\n\nThought of the normal type is impossible unless the various parts of\nthe brain are perfectly coordinated, just as the slightest accident to\na telephone wire may leave a subscriber cut off from the rest of the\nworld, but thoughts, feelings, emotions, cravings, originate elsewhere,\nin the autonomic nervous system.\n\n=Nerve Memory.= In our autonomic nervous system all our life\nimpressions are indelibly recorded, probably thru infinitesimal\nchemical modifications of the nerves and the resultant tensions.\nPleasant nerve impressions (pleasant memories) direct us toward\ncertain objects which are the source of such impressions, unpleasant\nimpressions drive us away from the outside stimuli which once produced\nthem.\n\nThe former cause our heart to beat slowly, peacefully, powerfully,\nthe latter speed up the cardiac pump so as to send energy as fast as\npossible wherever it is needed for defence against harm.\n\nPleasure, indifference and pain, built upon billions of nerve memories,\nmake up the woof of our thinking. They ARE our mind, the mind\nthat falls in love or falls out of love.\n\nThe head supplies the energy and the heart registers the rate at which\nenergy is sent thru the body, but the memories of which our thinking is\nmade are stored up elsewhere.\n\nIn a scientific study of love, therefore, I shall leave the head and\nthe heart as individual organs out of consideration.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n\n THE CHOICE OF A MATE\n\n\n=Love is a Compulsion.= The most striking characteristic in the\nlove craving, one which differentiates it sharply from other cravings,\nis the compulsory exclusiveness of its choice. Hunger drives us to seek\na large number of substances which, by filling the stomach, relieve\nwhat Cannon describes as a gastric itch.\n\nThe person in love, on the other hand, seeks only one single object\nat a time, which alone seems capable of vouchsafing the desired\ngratification.\n\nA lovelorn man may be surrounded by many women, all extremely\nattractive and accessible, and yet pine away for some other woman who\nperhaps does not compare favorably with those he might conquer. He may,\nat times, yield to the temporary attraction of a new woman, but in the\nmajority of cases, he will soon return to the woman he actually loves.\n\nNot infrequently his environment will wonder at his choice. \"What can\nhe see in her?\" Physically or intellectually, anyone but himself would\nsee very little to \"admire\" in her.\n\n=What We See in Our Mate.= The many handsome men whom we have\nmet, and who are mated to homely wives, the many wives we have\nobserved, mated to impossible husbands, and whose affection for their\nunprepossessing life partner is genuine and in no way dictated by\nsordid considerations, the many triangles we know of, in which a very\ninferior lover or mistress is preferred to an admittedly superior\nhusband or wife, are evidence of the involuntary, nay compulsory,\ncharacter of the love choice.\n\nA comparison imposes itself with certain obsessive fears or cravings\nbearing upon one object which, to any one but the person experiencing\nsuch fears or cravings, may appear anything but fearful or desirable.\nThe psychoanalytic investigation of the origin of such obsessions\nalways shows that they can be traced back to childhood impressions\nwhich have modified our nervous reactions to certain objects or ideas.\n\n=The Meaning of Choice.= Applied psychology and laboratory\nresearch have in recent years attached a more and more deterministic\nconnotation to the term \"choice.\" The word, which to academic\npsychologists, implied the exercise of free will and \"judgment,\" will\nhave some day to be accepted as synonymous with \"compulsion.\"\n\nA few examples from animal behavior will illustrate my meaning.\n\nPhilosophers have for years wasted breath and ink on the academic\nconsideration of the following puzzle:\n\nA donkey is standing at equal distance from two bales of hay; the\ntwo masses of fodder are mathematically alike in size, shape, color,\nfragrance, quality, etc.\n\nUnless the animal, certain philosophers said, was able to \"make a\nchoice\" of his own, he would remain motionless between the two bales\nwhose attraction would be perfectly balanced. He would, like some\ncelestial bodies, be held suspended by two forces which would not allow\nhim to turn to the right nor to the left. He would rationally have to\nstarve if attraction were a force exerting itself from the outside\nexclusively.\n\nYet no donkey placed in such a situation will fail to make an immediate\nchoice. He will turn to one of the bales and start eating it.\n\nEven if we imagine a philosophising donkey reasoning as follows:\n\n\"The two bales are equally attractive. Hence it makes no difference\nwhich one I start with. Let us begin with either.\"\n\nEven then, he will have to \"make a choice,\" altho his selection of one\nof the bales seems to be due entirely to \"chance.\"\n\n=Chance in the Discard.= Psychological research has eliminated\nchance as a factor in human behavior, and whether our donkey starts\nwith the right or with the left bale, an analyst will insist that there\nare reasons why he picks out that one bale to be eaten first.\n\nLaboratory dogs which have supplied solutions for so many psychological\ndifficulties, have proved of service in this case too.\n\nIf the slightest surgical operation has been performed on one side of a\ndog's brain, he becomes unable to move in a straight line.\n\nHe deviates from the straight line toward the side on which his brain\nhas been injured. If the lesion is on the right side he will be\ncompelled to turn to the right and vice versa. This is due to the fact\nthat the injury has weakened that side and the cerebral dynamo which\nsupplies the body with power produces less current on the injured than\non the uninjured side.\n\nWhen you row a boat and slack one oar the boat turns toward the side on\nwhich you are expending more effort. Of course the process is reversed\nin a dog because the nerves of the dog cross over, the right side of\nhis brain supplying the left side of the body, the left side of the\nbrain supplying the right side of the body with power.\n\nLet us repeat on two dogs, the experiment which academic psychologists\nimagined performed on a mythical jackass.\n\n=The Dog's Choice.= Offer two pieces of meat to a dog whose brain\nhas been injured on the right side and he will invariably eat the\npiece of meat nearer that side. Repeat the test on a dog whose brain\nhas suffered a lesion on the left side and you will see him gobble the\npiece of meat on the left side.\n\nGo even further and place both pieces of meat on the left side of the\ndog injured on the left side of his brain and he will \"pick out\" the\none farther out. Not that he \"prefers\" that one. He will aim at the\nnearest but his injury will cause him to deviate too far to the left\nand he will be unable to reach the nearest one.\n\nOther experiments on dogs illustrate the purely organic \"motives\" back\nof certain lines of conduct.\n\nWhen both sides of a dog's brain have been injured in the frontal\nregion, the dog refuses to go forward or downstairs but has a tendency\nto move backwards and to run upstairs.\n\nWhen the back of a dog's brain has been injured on both sides, the dog\nhas a tendency to keep on running forward all the time and while he is\nunwilling to climb stairs he will willingly go downstairs.\n\n=The Behavior of Copepods.= When we pour carbonated water or beer\nor alcohol into an aquarium, certain crustaceans called copepods will\nat once swim toward the source of light, as tho they \"loved\" light, and\nappear so interested in light that they will \"forget,\" to eat their\nfood, if that food is placed away from the source of light. The same\nanimals when placed in water containing strychnine or caffein, will\nshun the light as tho they \"hated\" it, and as tho they \"loved\" the\ndarkness.\n\nWe know that if a galvanic current is sent thru our head we will lean\ninvoluntarily against the positive pole. If the current is sent thru an\naquarium, a number of the animals swimming in it will be compelled to\nseek the positive pole and to remain there, others to seek the negative\npole.\n\nIn the case of the laboratory dogs, a permanent modification of\nthe nervous system caused a permanent modification of the animal's\nbehavior, which could not be \"cured,\" (for brain injuries do not\n\"heal,\" the cells of the brain being unable to reproduce themselves),\nbut which would probably be compensated for by gradual adaptation.\nIn the case of the \"phototropic\" or \"galvanotropic\" animals, the\nmodification of the nervous system was only temporary but might cause a\nmore or less durable modification of the animals' behavior, if allowed\nto last a considerable length of time.\n\nThe love attraction or \"erotropism\" is likewise due to certain more or\nless lasting modifications of man's nervous system caused by the fact\nthat his nervous system was for variable periods of time exposed to the\ninfluence of certain outside stimuli.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER III\n\n THE QUEST OF THE FETISH\n\n\nThe papers now and then tell the story of some man who was caught in\nthe act of clipping a little girl's braid of hair. That man is what\nis called technically a hair fetishist. Hair is his fetish, that is\nthe part of a woman's body which attracts him more powerfully than\nany other part. A search of the living quarters of that variety\nof \"delinquents\" generally reveals that they are in the habit of\ncollecting women's tresses acquired in that fashion. The tresses are\nalmost always of the same color.\n\n=The Hair Fetishist= whose unlawful activities bring him sooner\nor later into the clutches of the police is a neurotic who presents to\nan exaggerated, abnormal extent, a trait we find in all normal human\nbeings.\n\nEvery one of us is especially attracted by some part of the human body.\nThe young man who raves over his sweetheart's hair, the young woman\nwho blissfully runs her fingers thru her lover's hair are also hair\nfetishists. But their craving is not strong enough to lead them into\ncommitting unlawful, perverse, socially inacceptable acts.\n\nAnother widely spread type of abnormal fetishist described by novelists\nand psychiatrists, but which very seldom gains newspaper notoriety, is\nthe foot and shoe fetishist, who buys or steals all sorts of shoes. He\ntoo is merely the exaggeration of the man who is delighted by the sight\nof a Cinderella foot or a slim ankle.\n\nWith hair and shoe fetishists, the fetish is more than a mere\nattraction; it is generally a powerful sexual stimulant. Such\nfetishists experience, while kissing or caressing their fetish, sexual\ngratification of the autoerotic or of the involuntary type.\n\n=Everybody a Fetishist.= There are hundreds of varieties of\nfetishism, normal or abnormal. There is no person living who is not\nmore or less subject to the compulsive attraction of some fetish. There\nis in every man or every woman something which catches the onlooker's\neye first and retains his attention longest.\n\nThis varies with every human being. Ask ten men to describe one pretty\nwoman. Every one of them will probably head the list of physical\nqualities he has observed in her with a different fetish. One will\ndescribe her as a blonde with a beautiful skin, rather tall and well\nshaped; another will state that she is a well-shaped woman, rather\ntall and with blonde hair; another will characterise her as a tall\nwoman with an abundance of blonde hair, etc. I knew a man, in no way\nabnormal, who could not describe a pretty woman, regardless of whatever\nher build was, without making a gesture of the hand outlining ample\nbreast curves.\n\n=Most Common Fetishes.= Women's hair, throat, neck, shoulders,\narms and breasts seem to be the most frequently mentioned fetishes.\nFashion and the law recognise that fact. Whenever women plan to make\na physical appeal to men or women, they dress their hair with special\ncare and they wear low neck gowns, thereby exhibiting those various\nfetishes.\n\nIt will be noticed that the parts of the body constituting the most\nwidely appreciated fetishes are those with which the nursing child\ncomes in most intimate and continuous contact.\n\nTo the child, they mean safety, comfort, caresses, food. The color\nof skin or hair, the shape of neck, head and shoulders on which\nhis glances rest while nursing or while being carried about by the\nmother, are the only ones which will appear \"natural\" and safe, hence\nbeautiful, to him in after life.\n\nThe breasts from which he derives a perfect food, at the right\ntemperature, which flows easily into his stomach and is assimilated\nwithout effort, the breasts, whose texture and elasticity make them\npleasant to lean upon while nursing, may eventually become to his\nsimple mind the most valuable part of the female's body.\n\n=The Breast and the Bottle.= My observations on several hundred\nmen fed at the breast or on the bottle in infancy, have revealed to me\nthat practically all the men nursed by a woman were greatly attracted\nto women with well developed breasts.\n\nThe majority of men nursed on the bottle, on the other hand, preferred\nthin, boyish looking girls, some of them even expressing a distinct\nrepugnance for rather buxom women.\n\nIt may be stated that of the few who did not confirm that rule there\nwere several more or less neurotic individuals, whom an unconscious\nfear of incest (see Chapter V) had conditioned to fear the very type of\nwomen by whom they had been nursed.\n\nArms and hands, which to the nursling mean protection, service,\ncaresses, transportation, etc., derive therefrom their great attraction\nas fetishes.\n\n=Feminine Fetishes.= I have thus far mentioned almost exclusively\nfetishes from the female body. There are several reasons why feminine\nfetishes are far more important to both men and women than masculine\nfetishes. Children of both sexes are exposed to the influence of\nthe mother's fetishes more intimately, more constantly and more\n\"profitably\" (nursing), than they are to the influence of the father's\nfetishes.\n\nHence masculine fetishes are fewer and less numerous. Woman is less of\na fetishist than man. The most frequently mentioned masculine fetishes\nare the bodily attributes characteristic of strength, and which, hence,\nwould afford most protection to the infant and the female.\n\nNo perverse fetishism is observed in women, no abnormal craving driving\nwomen into securing unlawfully men's hair or clothing, etc.\n\nSome writers consider transvestite women, women who enjoy masquerading\nin men's clothes, as clothing fetishists, but such cases are extremely\nrare and can be accounted for in other ways.\n\n=Physiological Necessities.= There is another reason, a physiological\nreason, for the great importance which men and women attach to the\nfeminine fetishes. More sexual excitement and a greater muscular\ntension are necessary in the male than in the female at the time of\nthe sexual union. The female, being physiologically submissive, can\nwait for her desire to grow under the influence of the male's caresses.\nThe male, on the contrary, has to be aggressive and cannot fulfill his\nbiological part unless his desire has been aroused by other sensations\nthan that of the sexual union.\n\nHence the greater expenditure of time and effort on the part of the\nfemale to make herself attractive to the male. Hence also the long\ndrawn courtship of flirtation thru which the female of every animal\nspecies endeavors to bring the male to the highest possible point of\nsexual excitement before surrendering herself to him.\n\n=Foot and Shoe Fetishism= is more complicated. The mother's feet\nare the part of her body which the infant, crawling on the floor or\nattempting to walk, beholds most frequently and at the closest range.\n\nThat variety of fetish, however, should not be as strong as other\nfetishes more directly related to the child's nutrition, comfort and\nsafety. When shoe fetishism become compulsive, it is a neurosis due\nto the repression of some erotic desire aroused in childhood by some\nstriking incident. One case cited by Freud, illustrates that process.\n\n\"A man to whom the various sex attractions of woman now mean nothing,\nwho in fact, can only be aroused sexually by the sight of a shoe on a\nfoot of a certain form, is able to recall an experience he had in his\nsixth year and which proved decisive for the fixation of his libido.\nOne day he sat on a stool beside his governess. She was a shriveled\nold maid who, that day, on account of some accident, had put a velvet\nslipper on her foot and stretched it out on a foot stool.\n\n\"After a diffident attempt at normal sexual activity, undertaken at the\ntime of his puberty, a thin, sinewy foot like that of his governess,\nhad become the sole object of his desires. The man was carried away\nirresistibly if other features, reminiscent of his governess, appeared\nin conjunction with the foot. Through this fixation, the man did not\nbecome neurotic but perverse, a foot fetishist, as we say.\"\n\nI wish to call the reader's attention to the expression \"after a\ndiffident attempt at normal sexual expression.\" It indicates a feeling\nof inferiority, likely to cause failure and also increased by failure\nwhich is always in evidence in every neurotic and which drives him\ntoward easier goals, along the line of least effort.\n\nSome of the Freudians have suggested that foot fetishism is due to\nthe repression of an early craving for the unpleasant odors emitted\nby perspiring feet. As against such a far-fetched explanation, I\nwould offer the fact that foot and shoe are always associated in the\nunconscious of neurotic patients with the male and female genitals,\nrespectively.\n\nWe find the association of shoe and genitals clearly indicated in the\nold custom of throwing shoes and rice at departing newlyweds (rice\nsymbolising the fertilising seed).\n\nOdors, sounds, tactile sensations, etc., may also be powerful fetishes\nor antifetishes, according to the impression they may have made on the\nnursling. This will be discussed in more detail in the Chapter entitled\n\"The Senses in Love.\"\n\n=Fetishes may be of a non-Physical Kind.= A profession may be\na fetish, and so can a mental attitude, in short, anything which in\nchildhood may have been considered as a source of safety, comfort,\negotistical gratification, etc.\n\nAge itself, is at times a fetish. Gerontophilia is a neurosis, the\nvictims of which are only attracted to very old men or women, safety,\ncomfort and food having been assured them probably by a grandfather or\ngrandmother to whom they clung for neurotic reasons.\n\n=Many Fetishes are Purely Symbolical.= Some women fall in love\nwith a uniform because that type of garment symbolises to them physical\nstrength, virility, courage, etc.\n\nA uniform fetishist who consulted me during the war had given herself\nto half a dozen officers who appeared to her irresistible until they\nundressed or donned civilian clothes. After which she felt indifferent\nto them and suffered remorse.\n\n=Antifetishes=, parts of the body or their symbols which repel\nus in persons of the opposite sex, can be due either to unpleasant\nexperiences of childhood connected with such parts of the body or to a\nneurotic fear of incest. A neurotic's resistance to a mother fixation\nmay be so strong that in his (unconscious) fear of committing incest,\nhe shuns everything which in any woman reminds him of his mother.\n\nA man whose violent mother and sister fixation had kept him till\nforty-five away from all women and made him homosexual, felt extremely\nuneasy and slightly ashamed in the presence of tall blonde women, the\nmother and sister type. While he never enjoyed greatly the company of\nany woman, he felt more at ease with small brunettes.\n\nIn his case, blonde hair and a high stature had become strong\nantifetishes.\n\n=The Quest of the Fetish= means then, in last analysis, the quest\nof safety. If fetishes are so closely linked with sexuality, it is\nmainly because a feeling of safety is one of the necessary conditions\nfor sexual potency in the male and the female alike.\n\nAs soon as fear dominates, the pelvic regions are starved of blood, for\nthe blood is then needed in other parts of the body, head and limbs,\nfor fight or flight. Sexual impotence is the result. This is probably\nwhy in primitive races we often find the erect phallus used as a symbol\nof safety, as a primitive \"fetish\" vouchsafing imaginary safety and\nconfidence.\n\nThis throws an interesting sidelight upon the real meaning of morbid\nfetishism. As I said in one of the preceding paragraphs, every neurotic\nfeels inferior and seeks safety. The hair fetishist, for instance, is\ninferior in some respect or considers himself inferior, which is about\nthe same and has the same consequences, as far as ultimate mental or\nphysical results are concerned.\n\nThe normal hair fetishist seeks a woman whose hair will symbolise to\nhim the safety he enjoyed close to his mother's hair. The abnormal\nfetishist will crave the possession of hair which alone will place\nhim in turn in possession of safety, a condition in which his sexual\ncravings will be easily satisfied. Not feeling capable of conquering\na woman, however, he will cut off some one's tresses, which will\nsymbolise to him woman, and the safety enjoyed in woman's (his\nmother's) arms. In that fashion, he also gratifies his craving for\nthe line of least effort. Unwilling to face the social, economic,\nbiological responsibilities that go with the possession of a woman, he\nseeks in the fetish which he steals, an easy, selfish, unsocial form of\ngratification. That gratification is also a regression, for it leads\nhim back to the autoerotic practices of childhood.\n\n=Attraction or Obsession.= In the normal man, then, the fetish is\nan attraction, influencing his choice of a mate. In the abnormal man\nit becomes an obsession, the fetish at times becoming infinitely more\nimportant than the part of the body it suggests, at times causing the\nelimination of the sexual mate which it replaces entirely.\n\nIn the normal man, the fetish, being the bearer of pleasant memories\nfrom childhood days, facilitates one's adaption to a life partner.\nThe abnormal individual, unwilling to part with his childhood ways,\nwhich were easier and safer, either demands that the life partner be\nthe absolute image of the person from whom he acquired his fetishes or\nprefers one safe fetish to any life partner.\n\nIn the next chapter we shall see how mental and physical, real and\nsymbolic fetishes are forced upon us by the various developments of the\nfamily romance which is always accompanied by a more or less marked\nfamily feud.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IV\n\n THE FAMILY ROMANCE AND THE FAMILY FEUD\n\n\nThe craving for food and safety, gratified in our mother's arms, the\ncraving for safety gratified by the strong father's presence, develop\nin our nerves automatic reactions of love or hatred (fear) toward other\nhuman beings endowed with or lacking our mother's and father's fetishes.\n\nExposure to pleasurable or painful stimuli in infancy produces in\nour nerves a modification which could be roughly compared to the\nmodification produced surgically in the brain of the dog mentioned in\nChapter II.\n\nEven as a dog can be conditioned to \"prefer\" turning to the right\nand to \"hate\" (or fear) running down stairs, a human being can,\nthru continued exposure to the sight of red hair in infancy, become\nconditioned to \"prefer\" red hair.\n\nMany other factors, however, complicate the question of our likes and\ndislikes. A child's environment contains many sources of stimulation\nbesides the mother's and the father's fetishes, all of them varying in\nintensity, duration and character (pleasant or unpleasant).\n\nBesides, the child is forced at some period of his life into a more\nor less sudden and more or less pleasant contact with the outside\nworld. That contact, which at times is a conflict, often causes some of\nthe early impressions made upon the infant's or child's nerves to be\n\"repressed,\" thereby originating a conflict in the individual's nervous\nsystem.\n\nAnd thus we are brought to a consideration of the family romance which\nvarious conflicts within the family circle and with the outside world,\nnot infrequently transform into a family feud.\n\n=The Oedipus Complex.= The complication designated by Freud as\nthe Oedipus Complex is one of the most potent, altho at times one\nof the least obvious factors in family conflicts and in the mental\ndisturbances which those conflicts occasion.\n\nThe Oedipus Complex is named after the Greek legend according to which\nOedipus killed his father and later married his mother without being\naware of their identity.\n\nThis is the form in which the Oedipus situation appears in real life:\n\nA male child may become overattached to his mother and develop a\nmorbid, more or less concealed, hostility to his father. The female\nchild may become overattached to her father and manifest a more or less\novert hostility to her mother.\n\nThere is no case of neurosis in which analysts do not discover a more\nor less marked maladjustment of that type. In fact Freud has gone as\nfar as stating that the Oedipus Complex is the central complex of every\nneurotic disturbance.\n\n=The Freudian View.= Freudian analysts have somewhat dramatised\nthe Oedipus complex which they consider as due to incestuous longings.\nThose incestuous longings, according to Freud, are in their last\nanalysis, a yearning of the child to return to the mother's body where\nthe child enjoyed, in its prenatal life, absolute peace and comfort.\n\nThe average child manages to free himself gradually from the mother's\nbody, first seeking pleasurable sensations in his own body, sucking his\nthumb, playing with his genitals, later becoming interested in other\nchildren like himself, finally, at puberty, seeking human beings of the\nopposite sex, etc.\n\nSome children, on the other hand, never seem to free themselves from\nthe parent of the opposite sex. They are technically designated as the\nvictims of a mother fixation in the case of boys, of a father fixation\nin the case of girls.\n\n=Jung's Interpretation.= Jung, head of the Swiss school of\npsychoanalysis, considers the Oedipus complication from a broader\npoint of view. To him the father and mother are not real persons, but\nmore or less symbolic and distorted figures created by the imagination\nof the child. The yearning of the child for its mother, its jealousy\ntoward the father are simply due to its desire to monopolise a perfect\nprovider and protector.\n\n=Pseudo-Incest.= To Adler of Vienna, the Oedipus complex is a\nfiction created unconsciously by the neurotic who is trying to fall\nback on the father or mother for support. The boy, afraid of life and\nof the responsibilities imposed upon a man by a normal sexual life, is\nnaturally inclined to cling fondly to his mother, from whom he receives\na love and adoration which need not be won or paid for or reciprocated\nand which in their demonstrativeness only stop short of sexual\ngratification.\n\nThe neurotic girl dreams of monopolising the father's affection and\nfinancial support which are not to be repaid by sexual intercourse with\nits consequences, etc.\n\nFreud's interpretation explains certain details of behavior in boys\nwith a mother fixation but the yearning to return to the mother's body\ndoes not explain a father fixation in a woman.\n\nOn the other hand, Jung's explanation fails to account for some of the\ngrossly sexual details in the behavior of the fixation child, such as\ngreat curiosity directed toward the parent of the opposite sex, at\ntimes, even, attempts on the part of a boy to possess the mother in her\nsleep, etc.\n\n=The Neurotic Life Plan.= Adler has clearly seen that the Oedipus\nsituation is not the cause, but merely one of the details of the\nneurotic life plan. A human being adopts that plan because, owing to\nsome inferiority, real or imaginary, (real to him), he feels unable\nto compete with other human beings on a footing of equality. The\nneurosis supplies him with a short cut to power along the line of least\neffort. That short cut is selfish, unsocial and, hence, productive of\nunpleasant results. The mother-fixation man, the father-fixation woman\nshirk their biological duties, thereby leading an easier, cheaper,\nself-centered life which, in the end, vouchsafes them no real positive\ngratification.\n\nWhat Adler has left unexplained is how the parent fixation establishes\nitself in the neurotic.\n\n=Imitation.= The Oedipus situation is simply one of the consequences of\nthe imitation by the child of the parent of the opposite sex.\n\nImitation plays a tremendous part in human life and, as far as behavior\nis concerned, is an infinitely more powerful factor than heredity.\n\nHeredity endows us with a certain set of physical organs, hence with a\nnumber of potentialities. But the utilisation of those potentialities\nis left to the individual's destiny determined by his environment.\n\nIf the son of a splendidly developed prize fighter finds himself in\nan environment which countenances and lauds prize fighting, physical\npower will probably become his goal early in life. If his environment\ncasts disobliging reflections on ring activities or if those activities\nhave an unpleasant financial connotation for him, (father disabled\nand poor), the same boy will abstain from athletic training, remain\nphysically undeveloped, perhaps even grow weak and stunted.\n\n=The Glands.= As we shall see in another chapter, the various glands\nof our body have a good deal to do with the shaping of our personality\nbut the pressure of the social herd within which we live is also a\ntremendous factor for it compels us to adopt as models for imitation\ncertain physical and intellectual types which are acceptable to the\nherd.\n\nThe degree of the pressure exerted by the herd varies greatly with\nsocial conditions. The pressure is not the same in an Alaska camp and\nin a New England village. Unnoticeable in an artists' colony, it may\nbecome difficult to bear in a large family group including several\nmembers of the clergy.\n\nChildren become grown ups by imitating grown ups. A boy acquires a\nman's behavior by imitating his father. A girl acquires womanly manners\nby imitating her mother.\n\nAt the same time a boy with a strong organism and, consequently, a fair\namount of self confidence, is not as slavish in his imitation of his\nfather's ways as one who is cursed with a delicate constitution or who\nmay have been made timid by fear-producing or humiliating experiences.\n\nThe former is more adventurous in every way and will, not only roam\nfarther away from his home, but let his eyes also roam on men outside\nof the family circle, whom he will pick out as secondary models.\n\nThe weak boy, seeking safety and following the line of least effort,\nwill cling to the closest model, his father, and in extreme cases, will\nidentify himself with him.\n\n=The Identification Mania.= An exaggerated mania for identification is\nalways a symptom of weakness and inferiority.\n\nThe weak man joins numberless organisations and derives a great deal\nof pride from the mere fact of his membership in them. In general he\nwill not allow anyone to discuss or criticise those organisations.\nThe anonymous citizen of Chicago or Chillicothe is easily aroused by\ncriticisms of his native city overheard elsewhere, for he identifies\nhimself with his native city for lack of any distinction of his own.\nMembers of so called \"aristocratic\" families, themselves incapable\nof any achievement, are most unbearable owing to their family pride.\nThey obscurely feel that if their relationship to some more or less\ndistinguished ancestor was taken away from them they would sink into\ncomplete obscurity. The stupid traveler who constantly flaunts the flag\nof his country wherever he happens to be, is also an inferior who is\ntrying to claim all the virtues which the jingoes of his land consider\nas national characteristics.\n\nClose imitation and identification with the person we imitate cannot\nbut lead to conflicts, for it sooner or later means that we encroach\nupon the rights of our model.\n\n=Early Conflicts.= The little boy who imitates his father,\nidentifies himself with him and tries to \"become\" his father, may\nonly provoke mirth when he dons his father's garments or carries his\nfather's walking stick.\n\nWhen he carries his imitation to the point of handling his father's\nrazors or sampling his cigars, he may court what, to him, is a very\nunintelligible, illogical and humiliating form of punishment.\n\n\"If father is always right, why do I get spanked for doing what father\ndoes?\" the child asks himself with a child's pitiless logic.\n\nA profound hostility to the oppressive father may then grow in the mind\nof the imitative child, in no wise due to sexual complications.\n\nThis is also the way in which a rivalry may arise between son and\nfather for the non-sexual possession of the mother, the freedom of her\nroom and her bed, the sole enjoyment of her caresses, the sole disposal\nof her time, the sole domination over her.\n\nThe father enjoys all those privileges, and in order to be exactly like\nhim, the son must also enjoy them \"exclusively\" which is logically\nimpossible and leads to unconscious death wishes.\n\n=Death Wishes.= The death wishes that lurk in the son's mind when his\nfather and rival is concerned and reveal themselves thru dreams, are\nnot simply murderous cravings. They are symbolical, like the death\nwishes which some fond mother may express thru her dreams when her\nbeloved child has interfered too much with her activities in her waking\nhours.\n\nThe imitative boy, beaten in the race for all of his father's\npossessions, of which the mother is the most valuable, wishes his\nfather \"out of the way.\" If there are female children, the imitative\nboy may, after giving up the mother as an unattainable goal, adopt\ntoward one of his sisters the attitude of protection and ownership\nhis father assumes toward his mother. In such cases, the feud is far\nfrom being as serious as it would be otherwise. A sister fixation, it\ngoes without saying, is far less dangerous than a mother fixation. The\nsister is younger than the mother, the obsession of her image being\nunlikely to attract the brother later to women much older than himself.\nThe love which a sister returns is also far from being as unselfish,\nintelligent and indulgent as that which a mother lavishes on her child.\n\nAlmost everything which has been said about the mother fixation applies\nto the father fixation in girls. But we must bear in mind that owing to\nthe tremendous biological importance of the mother, a mother fixation\nis likely to have a deeper influence on a boy than a father fixation on\na girl.\n\n=Our Preferences.= Thus it is that the \"preferences\" we show when\ngrown up, for a certain human type, are determined by the appearance\nand behavior of the males and females which were closest to us in the\nformative years of our life.\n\nIn the majority of cases it is the mother type or the father type which\nproves most attractive to boys and girls respectively, the type being\nrepresented or symbolised by certain physical or mental fetishes.\n\nIn many cases, the mother or father type have been modified or replaced\nby other masculine or feminine types which took the place of the mother\nor father during that important period of our life.\n\nThe woman who suckled us or fed us and attended to our various physical\nneeds, nurse or nurse maid, may become the bearer of our fetishes.\n\nIn Europe where the wet nurse and the nurse girl are infinitely more\ncommon than in this country, the ancillary type of love, love for\nservants and menials, is observed with much greater frequency than here.\n\nThe Southern man does not show the same repugnance as the Northern\nman to consort sexually with colored women of the servant class. The\ncolored mammy's fetishes are found competing successfully in many cases\nwith those of the white mother.\n\n=Craig's Birds.= Those who believe that heredity, instinct, the call\nof the blood, etc., have much to do with the choice of a mate, should\nread reports of experiments performed by William Craig on pigeons. Ring\ndoves and passenger pigeons never mate. When the eggs of a passenger\npigeon, however, have been hatched by a ring dove, the young male\npassenger pigeons will, at mating time, ignore entirely the females of\ntheir species, \"their flesh and blood,\" and mate with female ring doves\n(the mother image) exclusively.\n\nThe fetishes which to them meant food and safety in the nest mean to\nthem beauty and eroticism when they reach adulthood.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER V\n\n INCEST\n\n\nThe family romance has been presented by the Freudians as complicated\nby actual incestuous entanglements. Adler on the other hand has shown\nthat the incestuous situation is rather an \"as if\" introduced by the\nneurotic as a part of his absurd life plan.\n\nBarring a few exceptions, the small boy does not desire his mother\nsexually nor does the small girl feel erotic at the thought of her\nfather.\n\nThat such incestuous desires arise at the time of puberty cannot\nbe doubted. But they are observed mostly in neurotics to whom the\nincestuous situation suggests, as I pointed out in the previous\nchapter, to the boy, food, comfort, the mother's easily won love, to\nthe girl, the protection and the attentions of the strong father. In\nmany cases too, homosexual and incestuous practices among the children\nin one family mean nothing but the neurotic search for the line of\nleast effort.\n\nFreud seeks at times very far fetched explanations for very simple\nphenomena in order to show the sexual motive at the bottom of them. He\nstates in his _Introduction to Psychoanalysis_ that a girl may show\ngreat affection for a younger sister \"as a substitute for the child she\nvainly wished from the father.\" The truth is that the older daughter,\nin her close imitation of her mother, also starts \"mothering\" a child.\n\n\"A boy,\" Freud states in the same book, \"may take his sister as the\nobject of his love to replace his _faithless_ mother.\" He rather\nimitates his father and starts to protect and order about a little\nfemale of his age, which at times, when both have witnessed the\nparental embraces, may lead to actual incest.\n\n=The Incest Fear.= Incest is at the present day the form of sexual\nrelation which provokes the most powerful expression of disapproval\non the part of civilised and uncivilised races alike. In fact the\nprimitive races seem obsessed by a panicky fear of incest. In many\ntribes, brothers and sisters are not allowed to meet or speak to each\nother and, in certain cases, they must even avoid the sight of each\nother and eschew every mention of each other's names.\n\nIn the Fiji Islands, where the rules against incest are especially\nrigorous, there are, on the other hand, special holidays on which\norgies are held in which incest becomes permissible.\n\nIn other words, the natives of those islands, while recognising the\nirresistible nature of the incest temptation and taking all sorts of\nmeasures in order to prevent the commission of that sin, supply at\nstated intervals an outlet for incestuous cravings.\n\nInnumerable details of primitive legislation separate the son-in-law\nfrom the mother-in-law, the father-in-law from his son's bride.\n\nThe Basogas of the Upper Nile loathe incest to such a degree that they\npunish it even in animals whenever it can be observed among them.\n\n=Incest in Ancient Times.= The horror of incest, however, is a\nrelatively recent development in human psychology and ethics. The\nancient dynasties of Egypt and Peru practiced incest. Incest was\nindulged in by all the archaic gods. The authors of the book of Genesis\nmust have accepted the idea of incest as the sole means of explaining\nAdam's and Eve's descendants.\n\nThe horror of incest which we all feel or pretend to feel, is indeed an\nacquired feeling. Since every race has adopted stern legal measures to\nprevent incest, it can only be because a desire for incest is one of\nthe cravings which mankind is constantly struggling against.\n\nAs Frazer says: \"There is no law commanding men to eat and drink or\nforbidding them to put their hands in the fire. Men eat and drink and\nkeep their hands out of the fire instinctively.\"\n\nIf men and women avoided incest instinctively no legislation would be\nneeded compelling them to avoid it.\n\nIndeed the confessions received by psychoanalysts reveal that the\nfirst sexual desires of the young are directed toward children of the\nopposite sex within the family circle. The many slight or serious\nindiscretions of an incestuous nature in which neurotic brothers and\nsisters indulge in infancy and childhood are generally \"forgotten,\"\nthat is, repressed, in later years, but analytic probing brings a great\namount of such repressed material to the surface.\n\nSince neither animals nor human beings experience any natural fear of\nincest, why is it that all races are officially so afraid of it?\n\n=Inbreeding.= It cannot be due to the fear of race deterioration\nconsequent upon inbreeding. Inbreeding is not necessarily a harmful\nprocess of reproduction as East and Jones have shown in their book on\n\"Inbreeding and Outbreeding.\" It seems to have, at times, for instance\nin Athens during the classic age, led to the production of many very\nsuperior individuals.\n\nFurthermore the primitive savages who punish incest even among domestic\nanimals have no conception of such eugenic theories. Some of them,\nincredible as it may sound, do not even realise the relation of cause\nto effect which exists between intercourse and pregnancy.\n\nFreud offers an explanation based upon the Darwinian hypothesis of the\nprimal horde in which the old father kept all the females for himself\nand drove away the growing sons.\n\nThis state of affairs has been observed among herds of wild cattle\nand horses. It generally leads to the killing of the oldest bull or\nstallion by the younger males.\n\n=The Primal Horde.= Freud assumes that this must have been the usual\noccurrence in the primal horde. One day the sons joined hands and\nkilled the father.\n\n\"Though the brothers had joined forces in order to overcome the father,\neach was the others' rival among the women. Each one wanted to have\nthem all to himself like the father, and in the fight of each against\nthe others the new organization would have perished. For there was no\nlonger any one stronger than all the rest who could have successfully\nassumed the role of the father. Thus there was nothing left for the\nbrothers to do, if they wished to live together, but to erect incest\nprohibitions, perhaps after many difficult experiments, in the course\nof which they may all have renounced the women whom they desired.\"\n\nIn other words, the incest taboo was adopted to assure peace within the\nfamily circle, a convenience measure dictated by jealousy.\n\n=Repressed Incestuous Feelings= may at times drive one into a most\nobjectional form of behavior. A brother who in childhood was too fond\nof his sister (or vice versa) may, from an unconscious desire for\nself-protection, adopt a hostile attitude to his sister. The more\nattracted he was to her the more sadistic he will appear in later years.\n\nHe may even avoid all the women who would in any way suggest his sister\nand in that way never feel satisfied in love, for the women who cannot\npossibly suggest to him his sister, lack all the fetishes which would\nvouchsafe him safety and eroticism.\n\nSuch a man should be analysed and made to realise the incestuous\ncravings which he has repressed into his unconscious. His hatred would\nthen change into affection and in his search of a mate he would\nlogically seek the sister image which alone would insure him sexual\nhappiness.\n\nI have reconciled in that way several groups of brothers and sisters\nwho had never been able to get along after puberty, altho most of them\nhad developed a dangerous fondness for each other before puberty.\n\nRepressed sister fixation like repressed mother fixation has been found\non several occasions as one of the components of homosexualism in the\nman, father or brother fixation as one of the causes of frigidity in\nthe woman.\n\n=Blood Relations.= Mother or sister fixation is frequently the cause of\nmarriage between blood relations. This sort of union has been unjustly\nsuspected of breeding mental inferiors. We should rather say that it\nis the mental inferiors who seek their mate within the family circle.\nUnable to secure the mother or the sister as a mate, they select a\nwoman who has as many of the family traits as possible, that they may\nfeel more secure in her company. If a defective child is bred of such\nunions, it is not due to the close relationship of the parents but to\nthe fact that too often one of the mates was deficient physically or\nmentally.\n\nIn this respect as in many others, self-knowledge and acceptance\nof one's personality, coupled with a courageous understanding of\nunavoidable biological facts, are the necessary conditions for perfect\nmental health and freedom.\n\nThe man with a mother or sister fixation, the woman with a father or\nbrother fixation should be made aware of it, however slight or severe\nthe fixation may be.\n\nThey must be made to realise that incestuous cravings are biological\nphenomena which for reasons of convenience have been made unlawful but\nwhich do not brand the individual experiencing them as a degenerate or\na vicious person.\n\nThey must also be made to realise that their incestuous craving\nmay be one of the symptoms of the neurotic search for the line of\nleast effort, knowledge of which weakens the craving to the point of\ninsignificance.\n\nThe individual with a biologically real incestuous fixation should\naccept it and seek its substitute gratification thru association with a\nsuitable mate presenting in his or her person the fetishes of the loved\nparent or brother or sister.\n\nThe individual whose fixation is purely neurotic should be freed of\nit by analysis and allowed to seek a mate without being inhibited by\nghosts.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VI\n\n THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LOVE\n\n\nA human being has met another human being of the opposite sex and\nis attracted to him or her by the conscious or unconscious memories\nwhich his or her physical and mental make up brings back. An organic\ncompulsion drives a man to seek a certain woman who is to be his sexual\nmate. We say then that the man is in love. What is the tangible,\nobservable, measurable meaning of the condition of being in love?\n\nTo understand this clearly we must bear in mind the principle which\nmodern psychology is gradually adopting, that of the unity of the\norganism.\n\n=The Organism is a Unit= which cannot, except for reasons of pure\nconvenience, be split into entities of a contrasted character, such\nas body and mind, matter and soul, etc. To every physical phenomenon\ncorresponds a simultaneous mental manifestation and vice versa. The\nbody is the tangible aspect, the mind, the intangible aspect of the\norganism.\n\nNor can any scientific distinction be drawn between the so-called\ngrossness of the body and the spiritual quality of the mind.\n\nNor can we establish in the body absolute lines of cleavage between\nthe various organs, heart, stomach, liver or sexual organs. They are\nall closely interrelated and there again we find a profound unity of\naction. When the nerves of the \"life division\" of the autonomic nervous\nsystem are set working, the pupil will be contracted, the saliva flow,\nthe heart beat more slowly, the stomach secrete gastric juice and churn\nfood, the intestines push digested food toward the rectum, and the\nsexual organs fill up with blood.\n\nWhen the \"safety nerves\" are in action the pupil is dilated, the saliva\nscarce, the heart beats faster, gastric activities cease or become\nreversed (vomiting), the intestines either stop their activity or are\naffected by diarrhea and the sexual organs are emptied of blood. Any\nstimulation applied to any of those organs will produce the specific\nstimulation indicated above in ALL THE OTHER ORGANS, tho in\nvarying degrees.\n\nIn other words perfect peace and safety promote all the activities\nof the \"life nerves,\" danger and fear promote all the activities of\nthe \"safety nerves.\" Peace and safety build up the body and assure\nthe continuance of the race. Danger and fear stop all the activities\nwhich are not directly concerned with fight or flight, hence weaken the\norganism and stop the sex life.\n\nPeace and safety represented by the mental and physical fetishes of the\nmate toward whom we are driven by an organic compulsion are bound to\nproduce in us most gratifying results.\n\nThe sight, smell and taste of good food, the sight of pleasant objects,\nthe sound of good music, etc., produce a powerful stimulation.\n\n=Love's Stimulation=, reaching us, as we shall see in another chapter,\nthru all the senses and thru a thousand memories, is incomparably more\npowerful than that of any other craving.\n\nNutritious food in sufficient quantities is generally synonymous with\ngood health. Improper food in insufficient quantities is generally\nsynonymous with bad health.\n\nThe mental connotation of good and bad food, however, is far from being\nas important as the mental connotation of love or lack of love. There\nare besides the sexual factors, such tremendous egotistical factors in\nthe love life (as will be shown in Chapter VIII,) that love is the\nmost powerful stimulus known and the lack of love or the loss of love\nthe most terrible depressant for the human organism.\n\n=The Successful Lover= has a good appetite, regular heart action,\n(hence a healthy complexion); he enjoys sleep undisturbed by\nnightmares, is capable of continued effort (good thyroid action), has\nfirm muscles (regular adrenal section), is self-reliant, etc. In other\nwords his organism is working on a hundred-per-cent basis and under the\ninfluence of that stimulation he can accomplish tasks which, under any\nother circumstances, would appear too difficult, and understand things\nwhich under the influence of a sluggish thyroid or bowels would have\nappeared very obscure.\n\nPeople indifferent to physiology might attribute some of love's magic\nresults to \"inspiration,\" to \"spiritual uplift\" and other vaguely\nconceived factors of a romantic and sentimental nature.\n\nI am always reminded when encountering such explanations in the\nliterature of love, of the nuptial flight of the bee.\n\nWhen a male and female bee fall in love, they both fly to a dizzy\nheight in the direction of the sun and there perform the sexual union.\nTo an unscientific mind of the Maeterlinckian type, there might be in\nthat picture a beautiful symbol of love's exaltation.\n\nThe cold blooded scientist, on the other hand, will simply tell us that\nerotic excitement in the bee produces a large amount of irritating\nphototropic materials which compel the bees to fly toward the source of\nlight.\n\nAt the end of the sexual act, the production of phototropic materials\nceases and the bees come back to earth .... like lovers tired of each\nother.\n\nIn love the conqueror feels like a conqueror and is a hard adversary\nto defeat. Like the amorous bees which can reach, physically speaking,\nheights which they would never dream of exploring when out of love, the\nsuccessful lover can rise to infinite heights physically and mentally.\n\n=The Unsuccessful Lover=, on the other hand, may be, in extreme cases,\na pitiful individual to contemplate.\n\nThe humiliation of defeat and the fear of other defeats, the starvation\nof all the senses which the love object would have gratified, produce a\ndepression which stops temporarily all the life activities.\n\nAppetite is lacking and there may be nausea and vomiting; diarrhea or\nconstipation replace the normal activities of the intestine, thereby\ninducing weakness or autointoxication which, through a vicious circle,\nstill increase the depression. The heart action is disturbed, which\nincreases the uneasiness of the sufferer, his breathing is difficult,\ncausing much sighing, the surface capillaries are emptied of blood,\nproducing a morbid pallor, etc.\n\nA person in that condition is incapable of continued effort in any\ndirection. The stoppage of all the life functions induces a sense of\nworthlessness. The fear of defeat not infrequently drives the sufferer\nto suicide, which is a symbolic attempt at returning to the safest\ncondition in which the organism ever found itself: death, the return to\nuterine life, to _mother_ earth, etc.\n\nIt may, if the adrenal cortex, productive of anger and violence\nchemicals, has been sufficiently stimulated by suffering, provoke\nattempts at vengeance, cause hatred, murderous cravings, which, if\nindulged in, land the patient in jail, if repressed with difficulty,\nland him in a sanitarium.\n\n=Calf Love.= Those things should be borne in mind by parents\nattempting, for instance, to break up some absurd infatuation which is\nthe more overwhelming as the unexperienced lover is not restrained by\nthe many social or financial considerations which hover in the mind of\na more sophisticated person in the throes of \"erotropism.\"\n\nThose complications are to be borne in mind too by the psychoanalyst\nwho must not mistake symptoms of physical deterioration due to\nunsatisfied love cravings with gastric or intestinal derangement due\nto toxic agents, and who must bend all his energies to separate what\nis \"purely\" sexual, from all the parasitic cravings of an egotistical\nnature which make the patient's sufferings more acute.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VII\n\n THE SENSES IN LOVE\n\n\nFriedlander has wisely remarked that there is more sensuality than\nsexuality in love. Which after all means that sex is only a small part\nof love. It is only after the various senses have reported to the\ncentral nervous system the presence of numerous fetishes symbolising\npeace and safety, that the sex union is not only possible, but\nextremely attractive and creates a durable bond between two human\nbeings.\n\n=Sight= is naturally the most important of the senses. Like hearing, it\nis a long distance sense, which does not require close proximity like\nsmell, nor close contact like taste and touch.\n\nThru association of memories, sight becomes the perfect, all embracing,\ndescriptive sense, able to substitute for all the other senses.\n\nA glance reveals not only the color, size and shape of an object, but\nits consistency, firmness or softness, its state of preservation or\ndeterioration, its probable odor and taste, etc.\n\nSight perceives the exposed and obvious fetishes and, thru memory\nassociations, imagines those which are neither exposed nor obvious.\n\nVisual sensations are the most powerful experienced by the organism;\na slight injury to the optic nerve produces a greater shock than\nmajor injuries to any other nerve of the body. The popularity of\nthe movies is based upon that characteristic. To the unimaginative,\nprimitive people who relish that childish form of entertainment, visual\nsensations replace and suggest almost every other form of sensory\ngratification.\n\nI have shown in Chapter III that the large majority of fetishes are\nvisual, being impressions of color and size, which were produced on the\nchild's visual nerves thru close proximity with the mother's body.\n\n=Auditory Sensations= which enhance erotic states also hark back very\nobviously to infancy. The caressing tone of the lovers' voices, the\nwell modulated words of praise which they speak to each other in a low\nmonotonous sing-song during their embraces, the baby talk in which so\nmany lovers indulge, remind one unavoidably of the crooned lullabies\nwith which the loving mother created a state of peace and safety that\nwould enable the nursling to doze off.\n\n=Smell.= In animals the sense of smell plays probably a more important\npart than the sense of sight. In man the olfactory sense has become\nmore negative and protective than positive. It enables him to avoid\nrather than to locate certain objects. This partial atrophy of the\npositive olfactory capacities is undoubtedly due to the progress of\nhygiene and cleanliness in human life.\n\nThe child whose mother is carefully shampooed and bathed will not\nconsider strong odors emanating from hair or arm pits as a symbol of\nsafety. On the contrary, they will be something foreign to him, hence\nsuggestive of danger.\n\nIn ancient times, bodily odors were frequently mentioned as love\nstimulants. The Homeric poems, the Song of Songs, the Kamasutra and\nother Hindoo erotic works, the Arabian Perfumed Garden and even in more\nrecent times, poems like Herrick's \"Julia's Sweat,\" extolled strong\nbody odors which at the present day not only are deemed offensive but\ncannot be mentioned except in medical writings.\n\nThe modern bathroom has exiled olfactory allusions from literature.\n\nOdors can be, not only fetishes but very often powerful antifetishes.\nThis is partly due to a repression of the child's interest in his\nexcretions which later burst forth in the use of perfume by women,\nsmoking by men and women. Cigar smoking for instance supplies an outlet\nfor a number of childish polymorphous perversions, to use Freud's\nexpression.\n\nIn this case as in many others, violent repugnance to odors good or bad\nin adulthood may be traced to a morbid craving for them in childhood.\n\n=The Sense of Taste= is not very important in love, altho some\nexperienced lovers detect a distinct flavor in the skin of various\nparts of one woman's skin, cheeks, arms, etc.\n\nTaste observed in purely nutritional activities reveals constantly\nits unconscious infantile origin. However completely we may have been\nweaned, we constantly pay a tribute of appreciation to our first food.\n\nThe exaggerated and unjustified importance we attribute to milk in\nthe diet of adults, the way in which we designate a white complexion\nas \"milky\" or \"creamy,\" and in which we praise many tender foods by\nstating that they are \"like cream\" or \"melt in our mouth\" illustrates,\ntogether with the popularity of breast fetishism, the influence which\ninfantile gustatory impressions have made on all of us.\n\n=Touch= is probably as important as sight for physico-chemical reasons.\nAll animals seem to enjoy the close contact of other animals of their\nown species. Even on very warm days, puppies, kittens and young birds\nderive a very great comfort from being huddled together in kennel,\nbasket or nest.\n\nThere are two reasons for that craving for contact. The safest period\nof our life which our automatic nerves remember is the fetal period\nduring which the contact of the child with the womb is constant and in\nperfect relation to the fetus' growth.\n\nAlso, contact facilitates the electrical exchanges between human\nbeings, especially between male and female, exchanges which owing to\nthe removal of organic inhibitions, must be singularly powerful between\nlovers.\n\n=Holding Hands.= Whenever conditions separate their bodies, lovers\ngenerally revert to the childish practice of holding hands, which to\nthe child meant an assurance of safety when led by the strong parents\nand also facilitated electrical exchanges of distinct value to the\nyoung and old alike.\n\n=The Kiss.= This brings us to the consideration of a love\nmanifestation in which sensations of a tactile, gustatory and olfactory\ncharacter are combined: the kiss.\n\nThe kiss, curiously enough, is found both in certain animal and human\nraces but not in all human races.\n\nMany mammals, birds and insects exchange caresses which remind one of\nthe human kiss. \"Love birds\" seem to spend much of their time kissing\neach other.\n\nOn the other hand, Eastern races do not seem to relish the caress which\nWestern peoples call a kiss. In China a form of affectionate greeting\ncorresponding to our kiss consists in rubbing one's nose against the\ncheek of the other person after which a deep breath is taken thru the\nnose with the eyes half-shut.\n\nIn some primitive races the equivalent for our \"kiss me\" is \"smell me.\"\nIn other races, the kiss is a manifestation of respect rather than a\nproof of love. Anglo Saxons on certain occasions kiss the Bible. In the\nearly Christian and Arab civilisations, the kiss was a ritual gesture\nand has remained so in certain Catholic customs: kissing the pope's\nfoot, relics, a bishop's ring, etc.\n\nIn certain races, kissing is a proof of affection but not of love.\nJapanese mothers kiss their children but Japanese lovers do not\nexchange caresses of the lips, according to Lafcadio Hearn.\n\nThe dark races of Africa are ignorant of that caress and so are the\nMalays, the aborigines of Australia and many other primitive tribes.\n\n=The Birth of the Kiss.= It appears that even among the kissing races,\nthe kiss is a relatively recent development. It is rarely mentioned in\nGreek literature. In the Middle Ages it was a sign of refinement, being\nalmost unknown among the lower classes.\n\nSome analysts have come to the conclusion that the kissing habit is\nderived from sucking the mother's nipple.\n\nIf this was the proper explanation, all the races would naturally\nindulge in it.\n\nThe kiss is infinitely more complicated than that. The Freudian\nexplanation should not be discarded entirely but it does not explain\neverything.\n\nThe kiss has grown in importance with the restrictions placed by\ncivilisation on sexual activities. The more primitive the races, the\nmore promiscuous they are and the less they kiss.\n\nThe kiss seems to have become among the more repressed and advanced\nraces a displacement upward of the act of possession, a sublimation of\nintercourse. It is, next to sexual union, the closest contact which the\nmale and female may attain.\n\n=Kisses and Electricity.= If we adopt Crile's theory according to\nwhich the life stream is an electric current produced by the brain and\nconstantly discharging itself, we may realise concretely the import of\nthe kiss.\n\nThe physical union is probably the neutralisation of two electric\ncurrents, positive and negative, altho we do not know as yet what\ncorrespondence there is between sexes and opposite electric currents.\nAnyone familiar, however, with experiences in galvanotropism, some of\nwhich I have mentioned in Chapter II, will when reflecting upon the way\nin which the spermatozoon directs itself infallibly toward the egg,\nconclude that it is headed toward a strong electric current issuing\nfrom the woman's womb and ovaries.\n\nThe kiss is only a milder, less complete neutralisation of the currents\nissuing from two human beings.\n\nIf the kiss on the lips is preferred by lovers, it is because the\nmoist mucus of the lips is a better conductor of electrical current\nthan the skin. In very passionate kisses, the lovers' tongues play a\ndouble part, a symbolic part, representing the mother's nipple, and\na physico-chemical part, securing a closer connection, like plug and\nsocket in electric appliances.\n\nIn Anglo-Saxon fiction which does not countenance descriptions of\nlovers' embraces, a very passionate kiss is always symbolical of\ncomplete surrender. Physiologically this symbolism is quite accurate.\n\nThe temporary exhaustion which follows a protracted kiss is often equal\nto that following a lovers' embrace and this can be easily understood\nwhen we remember the protracted electrical discharge which must follow\nthe contact of the conductive surfaces of the mucus of the lips.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII\n\n EGO AND SEX\n\n\nIf the course of love was regulated solely by sexual factors its\nstudy would be a comparatively simple matter. Sexual cravings find\nthemselves, however, in conflict with many other manifestations of the\nlife force. For the _sexual libido_ is not the life force as certain\npsychoanalysts believe. It is only one of the manifestations of the\nelectric stream produced in the brain and seeking an outlet.\n\nIn fact, sex is only a _temporary_ manifestation of the life force,\nlate to appear, early to disappear. Embryonic life begins several\nmonths before sex becomes observable in the fetus. Actual extrauterine\nlife is in full swing before sex is ripe, that is, capable of\nfulfilling its biological destiny. Life continues sometimes many years\nafter sex has ceased to serve its reproductive purpose.\n\nThe most powerful urge to which sex has to adapt itself in the life of\nthe human animal is the ego urge, the craving for food and power, the\nselfish urge par excellence. At times, sex and ego work in perfect\naccord as they should, considering the close relationship of the\nnervous divisions carrying power to them.\n\n=Neurotic Complications=, however, due to the necessary repressions of\nmodern civilisation, throw them too often into conflict.\n\nWe might say that there is a natural source of conflict between them,\nfor the ego urge is selfish, aiming as it does at the conservation of\nthe individual and its personal upbuilding, while the sex urge, whose\naim is to assure the continuance of the species, is altruistic.\n\nBy altruistic I mean that one human being must, before finding the\ncomplete gratification of his sex urge, join his body to that of\nanother human being of the opposite sex, whose sex urge he helps\ngratify, the result of that cooperation being the creation of a third\nhuman being.\n\nFrom this we may see clearly how the neurotic temperament, unusually\nself-centered, is likely to exacerbate whatever conflicts may exist\nbetween ego and sex.\n\nEven in the so called normal human being, that is, the human being\nwho in spite of life's repressions, manages to live at peace with his\nenvironment and himself, the will-to-power, the desire for possession\nand domination expresses itself constantly in what is generally\nconsidered as typically sexual manifestations of love.\n\nDo not lovers say that they \"possess\" each other. Was not the Biblical\nGod power before he became creation? In the beginning there was the\nWord, that is the expression, the utterance of the divine ego.\n\nDoes not the unmated God of the Western nations symbolise the absolute\nsupremacy of power over sex? And when people pray to God, what do they\nask for, in the majority of cases, if not power (help)?\n\n=Self-Love.= Yet we often consider the craving for power as a form\nof love, self-love. When Jesus said \"Love thy neighbor as thyself\" he\ntestified to the fact that our self-love is the most powerful human\nfeeling and he presented it as a goal which our love for others _might_\nreach.\n\nHe admitted that we all love ourselves first and he was too world-wise\nto advise men, as some of his followers have done, to repress their\nself-love. He only advised men to try and love others as much as they\nloved themselves.\n\nAll the great conflicts between nations have been precipitated by ego\nrather than by love. Love and sex were responsible, we are told for\nthe most famous war in history and legend, the Trojan war. I am quite\nsceptical about it in spite of the \"evidence\" presented by a poet who\nprobably never existed as an individual, Homer.\n\nI know, however, that the most atrocious war ever fought, the world\nwar, was unchained, not by sexual jealousy, but by the most sordid, the\ngrossest form of predatory ego cravings, the will-to-commercial-power.\n\nIn innumerable cases, ego overpowers sex and compels it to suit its\npurposes. It masquerades in the guise of sex and deceives many as to\nits true nature. Prostitution, in its last analysis, is the enslavement\nof sex by ego, sex working to feed the ego and supply it with\nnecessities or luxuries.\n\n=Ego in Sex Guise.= Certain customs of ages past are sexual\nin appearance but the egotistical motive back of them is easily\ndiscovered. Take the right of the first night, which in several parts\nof the world survived until modern times.\n\nThe tribal chief or the lord of the manor had the right to spend a\nnight with every bride within his jurisdiction before the rightful\nhusband was allowed to enjoy his marital privileges. That custom made\nthe first born of every family the putative descendent of the chief\nand fostered a deeper loyalty to him among his followers.\n\nEven as economic exhibitionism prompts people to spend at show\neating places sums in no way commensurate with their hunger, or to\nbuy diamonds which are not in any way beautiful but only symbolical\nof the wearer's indifference to returns on his investments, egotism\ncauses many men to pretend sexual cravings which they do not feel.\nMany stage women, actresses, singers, dancers, etc., are kept by men\nwhose sex life is at low ebb but who parade their \"conquest\" before\ntheir associates or perfect strangers to demonstrate their sexual and\nfinancial powers.\n\n=Fatherhood.= A constant craving for fatherhood is not infrequently a\nneurotic symptom, an egotistical desire to compensate for low sexual\npotency.\n\nPhysicians and druggists dispensing aphrodisiacs can testify to the\nprevalence of large families in the homes of almost impotent men.\n\nThe man who can fulfill his sexual duties once a year for fifteen years\nand foils his mate's attempts at contraception, is quite able to raise\na very large family and to pass among his associates for a very virile\nman. The sight of his numerous progeny silences any scepticism as to\nhis sexual vitality.\n\nSome of the most astonishing vagaries in the choice of a mate are\ntraceable to purely egotistical cravings. Neurotic women married to a\nsuperior man may refuse to express any sexual joy in his arms. They\nremain frigid in his company and then give themselves to some rather\ninferior individual to whom they feel superior and in whose arms\nthey show the most complete abandon. The medical and lay press very\noften relates cases of fine looking and apparently normal women who\nmarry idiots or morons. Their sense of inferiority and their fear of\nego-defeat makes them seek inferior mates unlikely to dominate them in\nany respect. Some young women conceal their morbid desire to mate with\na degenerate under a philanthropic mask. They pretend, when marrying a\ndrunkard or a thief, that their aim is to regenerate him.\n\nAnd so do some young men with an inferiority complex explain to their\nfamily and friends that they have married a menial or a prostitute to\nreclaim her.\n\n=War Prisoners.= German newspapers mentioned several times during the\nwar that war prisoners were treated too cordially by the women, many\nof whom had affairs with the defeated enemies. In several cities, it\nbecame necessary for the military authorities to issue proclamations on\nthe subject, berating the offenders for their \"shameless behavior.\" The\nsame facts were observed in France and in Italy altho they were given\nless prominence in the American newspapers.\n\nWhy was it that those women idolised men they were supposed to hate\nas enemies and accorded sexual favors to them? Why was it that they\ndid not enjoy more completely the victory of the males of their race\nand jeer at the defeated foes? Those women were neurotics who, unable\nto enjoy the embraces of victorious, superior males, felt themselves\nsuperior in the arms of defeated and humiliated men.\n\n=Neurotic Motherliness.= A patient of mine who had always shown herself\nrebellious in her attitude to her sexually potent lover, became all\ntenderness and submissiveness one day when sickness almost cut off his\npotency.\n\n\"I never loved him as much as I did yesterday,\" she told me, \"for I\nfelt then that I could really mother him.\" Which translated into honest\nparlance meant, to use Adler's vocabulary, that on that occasion he was\n\"below\" and she was \"above.\"\n\n=When Ego and Sex do not Conflict=, a combination of the two gives\nresults which stamp human love as distinctly superior to animal\nsexuality. Just as higher egotism has created cooperation, which\neliminates individual fights and establishes in their place group\nfighting, healthy egotism added to sex has introduced cooperation and\naltruism into love. The egotistical desire to please and dominate the\nfemale thru vigorous caresses has thrown into the shade the primitive\ncavemanlike ways. Man no longer strikes the female unconscious in order\nto satisfy his sex cravings on her prostrate body. His aim is rather\nto satisfy his mate first. This of course carries sexuality far away\nfrom its primal aims. Love's byplays, in many cases, replace love's\nspecific functions, the road from sensuality to sterility being a short\none. When the goal of sterility is attained, we see sex willingly\nrelinquishing its biological aims to egotism. In the plays of sex and\nego as in the conflicts between the two urges, ego is more frequently\nvictorious than sex.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER IX\n\n HATRED AND LOVE\n\n\nHatred and love seem diametrically opposed feelings. Yet there are many\ncases when love masquerades as hatred and hatred as love.\n\nAltho such hatred and such love are not genuine they may drive us at\ntimes into acts of cruelty or self-sacrifice which to all appearances\nseem to emanate from perfect love or from savage hatred.\n\nVery exaggerated feelings should always be viewed suspiciously as\nblinds for the opposite feelings. An extravagant display of affection\nis generally a desperate attempt on the person indulging in that\ndisplay at repressing loathing and hatred. On the other hand, morbid\nhostility toward one person is generally an attempt at repressing a\nlove which would be unjustifiable or detrimental for the personality.\n\nA few illustrations from life will make my meaning clear.\n\n=A Worried Wife.= One woman I analysed was thrown into hysterical\nanxiety whenever her husband reached home a little late. She pictured\nhim dead, dismembered by a train or knocked down by robbers. When she\nfirst called on me, she stressed the struggle going on in her heart.\nShe loved two men and her nobility of soul, her delicacy of feelings,\nand many other qualities she bestowed on herself very liberally, were\nmaking that double life unbearable for her. \"I have wronged my dear,\ndear, hubby,\" she kept repeating. \"And he is so good, so kind, so\nconsiderate.\"\n\nThe wife who never tires of singing her husband's praise is always\nsomebody else's mistress. It is generally her way of settling accounts\nwith her conscience.\n\nIn this case, the anxiety she felt over her husband's whereabouts and\nhealth when he was late in reaching home, supplied the expiation which\nneurotics seem to crave for their misdeeds.\n\nBut there was more in that anxiety than one of the manifestations of\nher sense of sin. I asked her whether she had ever experienced the same\nanxiety when her lover was late in coming to their trysting place.\n\n\"No,\" she said, \"and this is what leads me to think that I don't love\nhim nearly as much as I do my husband.\" Her reaction to her lover's\nlateness was simply one of anger. She felt herself slighted and she\nsuspected him of stopping somewhere to flirt with some woman. Even\nonce, when a wreck on a suburban line leading to his home town, had\nprevented him from meeting her, she never imagined him the victim of\nany accident.\n\nFurther questioning elicited the information that death wishes had\ncrossed her mind on several occasions in relation to her husband. She\nfinally came to see that those repressed wishes were simply finding an\noutlet in her wish fulfilment fears. She was constantly visualizing the\ntragedy which would have given her her freedom.\n\n=The Test of Love.= In other words, her unconscious wished her husband\ndead. The repression of that wish compelled it to masquerade as a\nhysterical concern for his health. The thought of her lover, however,\nnever suggested to her any death scenes.\n\nDuring the war a woman patient who had two sons at the front, was\ntortured every night by a nightmare in which she saw her older son\nkilled in action. She very naturally interpreted those dreams to\nherself as convincing evidence of her greater fondness for that boy\nthan for his brother. In the course of our conversations, however, she\ngradually admitted that her elder son was a gambler and drunkard and\nhad found himself in many an unpleasant complication.\n\nShe had thought several times, altho she had at once repressed the\nthought, that death would be preferable to his life of embarrassment\nand degradation. Those repressed death wishes found an outlet in\nnightmares accompanied by a great display of emotion consciously felt\nas love and grief.\n\nParents who continually warn their children against accidents \"likely\"\nto happen to them, who grow panicky when some street commotion takes\nplace and imagine that their child has been hurt or killed, are not\nquite as loving as they imagine.\n\nIn such unjustified fears, as in death dreams, there lurks an ill\nconcealed desire to be freed from the thraldom of parenthood and to\nregain the selfish happiness of the childless state.\n\nA young woman fainted several times when she heard shouts on the street\nwhere her young child had been taken by the maid. She \"knew\" something\nmust have happened to her boy. Her dreams would with alarming frequency\npicture accidents befalling the child. After I made her realise the\nway in which her child had interfered with her social activities, with\nher attending dances, theatrical performances, etc., a change became\nnoticeable in her dreams. Instead of visualising her child dead she\nsaw him in her day and night dreams as an adolescent, no longer in her\nway, no longer a handicap to her in her pursuit of pleasure. Her panics\ndisappeared about the same time.\n\nMore elusive at times are cases of hatred which analysis reduces to a\nstruggle of the personality against an inacceptable love.\n\n=Sour Grapes.= A man, unduly attracted to a woman who socially,\nintellectually or financially, is or should remain outside of his\nreach, and would probably make an impossible mate, is likely to\nmanifest violent hostility to her, to disparage her or even slander her.\n\nEvery analyst has seen in his office the middle aged woman who \"breaks\ndown\" soon after her daughter's marriage to a man whom she \"despises.\"\nEither a family scene or a campaign of nagging and disparagement has\ncaused a break between her and her daughter and son-in-law.\n\nAnalysis reveals that she is love with her son-in-law, a situation more\nfrequent than the layman imagines. This infatuation which she cannot\naccept as a fact is repressed savagely. To protect herself against\novert acts which would make her sinful or ridiculous, she exaggerates\nevery defect of the man she loves. She pursues him with a stubbornness\nwhich cannot deceive a psychologist. His name is constantly on her\nlips, coupled, of course, with abusive remarks, but the fact remains\nthat she is constantly speaking, if not dreaming of him.\n\nHer peace of mind is only restored to her when she accepts as a fact\na situation which need not be translated into a transgression of the\nethical laws.\n\nFor, in spite of what puritanical critics of psychoanalysis repeat,\na conscious sex craving is more easily controlled and less likely to\noverthrow our willpower than an unconscious one.\n\n=Brothers and Sisters.= A similar complication is frequently found, as\nI stated in Chapter V, in the history of neurotic brothers and sisters.\n\nA brother and sister may to all appearance be irreconcilable enemies.\n\nInvestigate their childhood and you will find memories of actual or\nattempted incestuous indiscretions which, after a while, were repressed\neither by punishment or voluntary restraint. In later years, fear\nof a possible recurrence of tabooed incidents may express itself in\nthe shape of hatred leading at times to acute family conflicts, the\nbrother or sister running away, the sister becoming a prostitute, etc.\n\nWhen hatred is unmasked and revealed as one of the avatars of\ninacceptable love, it dies off and is replaced by protective measures\nof a less objectionable nature, reserve or distance.\n\n=A Negro Hater.= A hysterical patient of mine who had always been a\nterrific negro hater and advocate of lynching, was disturbed at night\nby symbolic sexual dreams in which negroes took an active part. She\ncould not help feeling uneasy in the presence of a colored man. \"Those\nbeasts\" was her favorite designation for colored people.\n\nWhat drove her into my office was that on one occasion she had behaved\nin a, to her, inconceivable way to a colored janitor's helper who had\ncome to her apartment to inspect the radiator.\n\nThe presence of that man had aroused her so powerfully that for a\nfew minutes she had been on the point of making advances to him. She\nfortunately came to her senses and fled from what had always been to\nher an unconscious temptation.\n\nSuch incidents as that make one wonder how many lynchings have been\nprecipitated by the hysterical actions of neurotic women.\n\nIt may be stated broadly that every exaggerated attempt at protecting\nourselves against a danger or a temptation is a confession on our part\nthat the danger or the temptation is very fascinating to us.\n\n=Reformers.= Many \"bold\" reformers are merely very weak individuals\nstruggling against sexual temptation and hating some vice which holds\nthem in its power. The biography of Anthony Comstock which I have\nreviewed in detail in \"Psychoanalysis and Behavior\" proves that the\nobscenity he was so stubbornly ferreting held a strange fascination for\nhim.\n\nI must not create the absurd impression, however, that all reformers\nare abnormal and moved by neurotic impulses. But between the scientist\nwho warns people of venereal disease and combats it whenever possible\nand the so called \"syphilophobiac\" who sees everywhere chances for\ninfection and would jail every prostitute, there is a great difference.\n\n=The Syphilophobiac= is always a weak, oversexed individual, whose\nonly protection against his promiscuous cravings is the fear of disease\nand the absurd assumption that every woman is infected.\n\nThe syphilophobiac hates prostitutes because he would love them too\nwell but for the protection he erects between their body and his\ndesire. The feverish energy displayed by many prohibition enthusiasts\nis at bottom the hurrying away from a temptation to which they know\nthey would have to yield. The great prohibitionists crave alcohol and\ncould not, without a terrible struggle, protect themselves against the\nlure of drunkenness if strong beverages were available.\n\nThe stage has pictured many times the crusty old bachelor who is a\nferocious woman hater. In the end he succumbs to the wiles of the\ning\u00e9nue, who is generally the first woman he ever associated with.\n\nThe poor devil realised too well all his life the irresistible charm\nof women as well as his overwhelming craving for love and the joys of\nthe flesh. Some neurotic incest fear, or craving for selfish pleasures,\nor money complex, however, caused him to avoid women and to protect\nhimself against them by a display of hostility. The first time,\nhowever, when fate forces him into close contact with temptation he has\nto yield.\n\n=Deluded Martyrs.= In every social upheaval there are martyrs who\nsacrifice themselves for apparently very noble causes but whose\nunconscious reasons for their acts are much less sublime. Stupid\nbomb throwers who wreck a building or kill an individual, (acts most\nunlikely to change a social system to which they object), profess\nto be moved by their love for the people. Their actual motive is\nfather hatred. Brutus and others who delivered the \"people\" from some\n\"tyrant,\" in reality gratified an unconscious grudge and sought their\nown liberation from some form of authority made loathsome by infantile\ncomplexes.\n\nThe most grotesque example of it was the destruction of the Bastille\non July 14, 1789 by a French mob which imagined that it was thereby\nfreeing crowds of innocent prisoners and abolishing arbitrary death\nsentences. There were less than a dozen people in the fortress at that\ntime. The mob venting its wrath on a symbol of authority pretended to\nbe animated by a love of freedom and a desire to benefit others.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER X\n\n PLURAL LOVE AND INFIDELITY\n\n\nLecture audiences often ask me whether plural love is possible. This\nwould indicate on the part of the questioner a more or less unconscious\nwish to justify polygamous cravings. Plural marriages exist but I doubt\nwhether any such thing as plural love has even been observed at any\nperiod of mankind's history.\n\nFor the most complicated examples of plural marriage, as for all the\nvarieties of sexual complications, we must turn to Greece of the\nclassical period. Demosthenes wrote somewhere: \"We have prostitutes to\ngive us pleasure, concubines to minister to our daily needs and wives\nto bear us children and to watch over our homes.\"\n\nWhen we remember that besides the three types of women with whom they\nhad sexual relations, many and among them some of the greatest men of\nthose times, indulged in homosexual unions with young men of feminine\nappearance, we must draw two conclusions: first, that those men must\nhave been sexual supermen, as they were at times mental supermen,\nsecond, that love as we understand it at the present day, can only have\nhad very little to do with their sexual life.\n\nModern love as we shall see in Chapter XXXI means mutual love, the\nequal gratification of the mates thru the rites of sex communion.\n\n=Plural Love=, be it of the ancient Greek type, of the Oriental or\nmormon type, means varietism for the male, scanty gratification for\nthe female. At best a mild form of sexual slavery, most humiliating to\nthe woman and possible only under a social system debarring woman from\nfinancial independence.\n\nOnly a man suffering from priapism could gratify the eroticism of a\nlarge number of wives and the latest or youngest wife would naturally\nreceive a larger share of physical attention than the earlier and\nolder mates. The jealousy and hatred thus engendered are in no way\nminimised by the fact that the custom of certain lands countenances\nsuch arrangements.\n\n=Polyandry= as it existed in ancient times and still exsists in Tibet,\nwhere a woman marries several men (generally brothers) may be more\nsatisfactory for the primitive female. Owing to her physiological make\nup, and also to her passive r\u00f4le in love, woman can gratify several\nmen and receive gratification from them. The neurotic disturbances\nwhich may arise as a result of a woman's lack of sexual gratification\nare avoided by the polyandric scheme of union. But this is the only\nsuperiority which polyandry has over polygamy.\n\nBoth polygamous and polyandric nations and civilisations have gradually\nreceded as far as numerical importance and world prestige go and both\ninstitutions are bound to disappear.\n\nThe development of the human ego, both in men and women, will not\npermit much longer of the enslavement of one sex to gratify the\npleasures of the other. Nor can any group, male or female, enforce its\ndomination over individuals of the opposite sex and make them accept\nthe dogma of an inferior sex by embodying that dogma in any religious\ncreed of the mormon or mohammedan type.\n\n=Infidelity.= Plural love is passing but infidelity has taken its\nplace in every possible respect as a sexual and an egotistical form of\ngratification.\n\nWhen dealing with infidelity we must establish a careful distinction\nbetween forms of infidelity due to \"normal\" causes and other forms\ndue to unconscious complexes. On the other hand we should beware of\nadmitting, as many unscientific writers do, that there is a distinct\ndifference of attitude to infidelity in the two sexes.\n\nThat shortsighted viewpoint has been unfortunately voiced in hundreds\nof popular sayings which represent man as the great examplary of\ninfidelity and woman as faithfulness incarnate.\n\nEconomic conditions, not sexual differences, are at the bottom of the\nlevity with which men treat their heart affairs and of the gravity with\nwhich women, officially at least, consider the marriage relationship.\n\nFinancial dependence and the fear of motherhood compel the\ndomesticated, parasitic type of woman to secure the services of a\nbreadwinner, and after achieving that object, to avoid hurting his\nsusceptibilities.\n\nIndependent and professional women, especially the sterile or\nsterilised ones, are frankly \"masculine\" in their love habits.\n\nBut I insist on considering certain forms of infidelity as normal and\nothers as abnormal, independently from the question as to whether they\nare socially desirable or undesirable.\n\nThe human type which is so perfectly normal that it has no fixation\nand no definite fetishes, except species fetishes, and which weaklings\nand puritans designate as \"animal,\" is not likely to be faithful to any\nmate. Like every strong and healthy animal at rutting time, he or she\nis sexually aroused by every individual of the opposite sex. No safety\ncomplex restrains him as far as sexuality is concerned. The only fears\nwhich restrain his search for gratification are fear of exposure and\nostracism within his herd, fear of pregnancy or infection and fear of\nfinal complications, not to mention of course the fear of inflicting\nsuffering upon a lifemate of whom he may be extremely fond.\n\nFor we must never forget the fact, unpleasant as it may appear to\nunscientific hypocrites, that lasting love is a matter of fixation and\nfetishism, hence, always slightly tainted with neurosis.\n\n=When Love Dies.= \"Normal\" infidelity may also be merely the only hope\nof sexual gratification for the normal man or woman whose mate has\nceased to present the fetishes needed to awaken his or her eroticism.\nHealthy individuals are neither willing nor capable to forego sexual\ngratification. Now and then complications arise, a man being very\nfond, for sexual reasons, of a woman who would prove undesirable as\nhis mate and, for sentimental reasons, of a woman who is infinitely\ncongenial but no longer arouses his desire. Likewise, a woman may be\ndeeply attached to both her lover and her husband. Ivan Bloch writes:\n\"It is quite possible to love more than one person at the same time\nwith nearly equal tenderness and be honestly able to assure each of the\npassion felt for him or her. The vast psychic differentiation involved\nby modern civilization increases the possibility of this double love\nfor it is difficult to find one's complement in a single person and\nthis applies to women as well as to men.\"\n\nGeorge Hirth, in his \"Wege zur Heimat\" also points out that women,\nas well as men, can love two persons at the same time. Men flatter\nthemselves with the prejudice that the female heart, or rather brain,\ncan only hold one man at a time and that if there is a second man, it\nis by a kind of prostitution. Nearly all the erotic writers, poets\nand novelists, even physicians and psychologists, belong to this\nclass. They look upon a woman as property and of course two men cannot\n\"possess\" one woman.\n\n\"Regarding novelists, however,\" remarks Havelock Ellis, \"the remark\nmay be interpolated that there are many exceptions. Thomas Hardy, for\ninstance, frequently represents a woman as more or less in love with\ntwo men at the same time.\"\n\nHirth maintains that a woman is not necessarily obliged to be untrue to\none man because she has conceived a passion for another man. \"Today,\"\nHirth writes, \"truly love and justice can count as honorable motives\nin marriage. The modern man accords to the beloved wife and life\ncompanion the same freedom he himself took before marriage, and perhaps\nstill, takes in marriage. If she makes no use of it, as is to be\nhoped, so much the better. But let there be no lies, no deception, the\nindispensable foundation of modern marriage is boundless sincerity and\nfriendship, the deepest trust, affectionate devotion and consideration.\nThat is the best safeguard against adultery. Let him, however, who is,\nnevertheless, overtaken by the outbreak of it, console himself with the\nundoubted fact that of two real lovers, the most noble minded and deep\nseeing friend will always have the preference.\"\n\nEven under an economic system countenancing free love and birth\ncontrol, such complications would surely arise and cause much suffering.\n\n=Bored Wives.= Infidelity is often also a refuge from boredom for\nthe middle class woman who has no definite training or ability in\nany direction and is thereby condemned to idleness. Left alone all\nday and a few evenings every month by a busy husband, she yearns for\ncompanionship. Unless she is slightly homosexual, she soon tires of\nstupid teas, bridge and gossip parties and she accepts the attentions\nof some man who brings into her life a little romance and a different\naspect of the world's activities. The French cynic Willy had that type\nin mind when he wrote: \"adultery has become the key stone of society.\nBy making married life tolerable it prevents the breaking up of the\nhome.\"\n\nBesides normal sexual cravings, there are many unconscious or only\npartly conscious causes which drive human beings into being faithless\nto their life mates.\n\nMany women take lovers, many men take mistresses for purely egotistical\nreasons. Justly or unjustly they feel a certain lack of appreciation in\ntheir mates and make up their minds to get even with them.\n\n=\"Getting Even\"= is one of the great neurotic cravings, one which\nhas led to numberless offences, including crime and suicide.\n\nTo some neurotics with a sense of inferiority, an extramatrimonial\naffair seems to be the sole means of restoring one's self confidence.\n\"I am of no account at home but to some one else I mean the world.\"\n\nMany neurotics use \"romance\" and \"inspiration\" as convenient scapegoats.\n\n\"But for the inspiration I derive from my affair with So and So, I\ncould not do my work properly,\" and this is true in a good many cases,\nbut in many more cases, any one else would do just as well as a lover\nor mistress. Some neurotics, who remind one of Madame Bovary, the\nheroine of Flaubert's great novel, feel that accomplishment and the\nfullness of life are naturally associated with sexual irregularities.\n\nToo inferior to accomplish anything by dint of hard work, Emma Bovary\nchildishly expected love to accomplish everything for her. Other\nneurotics, incapable of any creative work, consider romance as an\nachievement in itself and proceed to call every carnal dissipation\nromance. Just as inferior boys at the gang age steal or destroy in an\nabsurd attempt at \"doing something out of the ordinary.\"\n\nSome neurotics never feel safe very long with any sexual mate; they\ngrow afraid or suspicious and seek safety in the arms of some other\nhuman being in whom they unconsciously hope to find the father or\nmother image to which they were over-attached. Their search for the\nsafe mate, that is, for the parent image, is, of course, always\nunsuccessful.\n\n=Varietists.= I have observed a number of men and women who liked\nto designate themselves as varietists and who were simply unconscious\nor partly conscious homosexuals struggling against perverse tendencies\nto which they did not wish to yield.\n\nI have seen in my office several Don Juans who were unconsciously\nattracted to men and refused for a long while to admit that such a\ncraving was a part of their personality. Every woman they met only\nmeant one thing to them: \"If I could capture her, I would feel sure\nthat I was a real man.\" A few days after catching their prey they were\nonce more obsessed by doubts and had to seek new evidence.\n\nMany partly conscious homosexuals seek women who in their appearance,\nmanner of dress and behavior are the best substitutes for men, that is,\nmannish girls, flat chested, with narrow hips, bobbed hair, wearing\ntailor-made garments, engaged in masculine pursuits, etc.\n\nThey often meet with disappointment for such women are frequently\nhomosexual and hence unlikely to yield to a man. When the woman is\nsexually normal, however, the neurotic's happiness is far from assured.\nAs soon as sentimentalism or tenderness allows the feminine component\nof those masculine women to break thru their masculinity, the\nunconscious homosexual loses his love for them. One patient of mine did\nhis hunting among equestriennes in Central Park. On two occasions his\nattentions were accepted. His disappointment was terrible; calling upon\nthe women who had attracted him when wearing a mannish derby and riding\nbreeches, he was greeted by very womanly persons attired in the most\nfeminine finery.\n\nSeveral times in his life my patient has been in love with rather\nmasculine women. The first flash of femininity in them had always cured\nhim entirely of his infatuation.\n\n=The Ultrafeminine.= Other homosexuals struggling savagely against\nthe appeal of the masculine, seek safety in the arms of extremely\nfeminine creatures who could not in any way awaken the slightest\nsuggestion of a perversion.\n\nTheir obsessive fear, however, does not allow them to enjoy the affair\nvery long. Small physical details which a normal man would not notice\nsuddenly fill them with fear or disgust. A masculine gesture, a raucous\nintonation, a slight growth of hair on the upper lip or the limbs may\nsuggest unavoidably the sex from which they are fleeing in panic. Their\nlove cools off and safety has to be sought, altho it is never found,\nin the arms of some other woman of very feminine appearance, who is in\nturn discarded for the same absurd reasons.\n\nAs fixations and fetishism have infinitely more importance for men\nthan for women (see Chapter III) the male neurotic is naturally more\n\"promiscuous\" and faithless than the female neurotic.\n\n=Messalina.= Every psychoanalyst, however, has met the Messalina\ntype, who is constantly seeking the \"love that will endure.\" Like her\nmasculine counterpart, the Don Juan, she is in the majority of cases\nseeking safety and trying, by conquering many men, to reestablish her\nself-confidence which every little disappointment and humiliation\ndestroys so easily.\n\nHowever loving and worshipful the neurotic's mate may be, he or she\ncannot hope to save the neurotic from further love entanglements.\nOne of the most striking neurotic traits is a craving to disparage\neverything and everybody in his environment.\n\nThe praise of the most affectionate husband or lover, wife or mistress,\nis insufficient to raise the neurotic's self-esteem. With all\nneurotics, familiarity breeds contempt and it must be from the lips of\na new man or new woman that they must hear their praise sung before\ntheir feeling of inferiority is deadened and allows them to enjoy that\npraise.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XI\n\n IS FREE LOVE POSSIBLE?\n\n\n\"American Medicine\" commenting upon the fact that divorces have\nincreased twenty per cent in eight years and that, if the rate of\nincrease continues, there will be as many divorces as marriages in\nthirty years from now, reaches the conclusion that \"the individual has\nmoved on far in the past two thousand years, while the institution of\nmarriage has remained unaltered through the centuries.... The basis\nof marriage as it was originally conceived was entirely a racial one\nin which the individual counted for little; it was meant as a means\nof building a family and conserving it. Nothing else counted and the\nprimitive individual exacted little else.... The modern man and woman\ndemands in his mate more than that and it is here that the marriage\ninstitution is most defective in that it does not yield to these\ngreater demands.\"\n\nPolygamy and polyandry have been found wanting and have been abandoned.\nMonogamy is, at the present day, tempered by frequent infidelity and\nnumerous divorces. Which means that it does not satisfy the needs of\nthe human race. Shall free love offer a solution?\n\n=Man the Dissatisfied.= I might as well voice here my pessimistic\nbelief that there is no permanent solution for any human problems.\nThe only tangible difference between man and the animals is that the\nanimals are satisfied and man everlastingly dissatisfied. No cat was\never dissatisfied enough with the primitive feline way of catching mice\nto invent a mouse trap.\n\nThe animals solved their problems thousands of years ago. Unless\ndomesticated and exposed to the exclusive influence of men, they never\nvary from the form of behavior of their particular species.\n\nThe only problem they have been unable to solve is how to get rid of\nman, the invader and parasite, and they will never cope with it.\n\nMan's satisfaction with every new improvement is only temporary.\n\n=The Next Step.= Free love may be the next step in the evolution\nof the sexual partnership but it certainly will not be _the_ solution\nof the marriage problem.\n\nAs far as the mates themselves are concerned, free love will only be a\nsuccess in the case of extremely normal individuals for whom the sexual\nrelationship means solely physical gratification. As soon as affection\nintervenes in those unions, the thousand forms of jealousy we shall\ndescribe in another chapter will enter into play.\n\nJealousy among free lovers cannot but rage more fiercely than among the\nlegally married. A thousand details of married life are simply meant to\nestablish the mates' ownership of each other in their own eyes and in\nthe eyes of the world. The number of war marriages contracted hastily\nduring the great European conflict by young men and women on the eve\nof the bridegroom's departure for Europe testifies to the powerful\n\"safety\" symbolism of the marriage ceremony.\n\nA gullible young man in love with a girl would not have trusted her\nalone during his absence from home. She might have experienced a change\nof heart. After going thru a wedding ceremony with him, however, he\n_knew_ that she could not change her mind and love another. As a matter\nof fact most of those unions were disastrous. A virgin might have\nwaited. A young woman left alone after a few days of erotic enjoyment\nwas naturally an easy prey for any clever tempter. The bridegroom,\non the other hand, went away blissfully, secure in the thought\nthat the marriage certificate, the ceremony, the wedding ring, the\ntransformation of Mary Brown into Mrs. John Smith would protect his\n\"honor\" while he was away.\n\n=Blissful Blindness.= Some of the cleverest, most cynically suspicious\nhusbands and wives go thru life blissfully blind to their mate's\nsidesteps. They see thru anyone else's husband or wife but they seldom\nsuspect _their_ husband or _their_ wife. The stress which they place on\nthe possessive works in their case as the fetish which a savage takes\ninto battle. In hoc signo vinces.\n\nIt is only in the so called smart set that men and women allude to\ntheir mates by their first names. The working classes, sexually the\nmost conservative and puritanical, use the expressions \"my man\" or \"the\nmissus\"; middle class men and women pompously refer to their mates\nas Mr. Smith or Mrs. Smith, always reminding their hearers of the\nlegitimacy of their union. The celebration of wooden weddings, silver\nweddings, etc., is a means of reminding the community that Mr. and\nMrs. John Smith _own_ each other, just as the engagement diamond is a\nscarecrow proportionate in visibility to the prospective bridegroom's\nfortune.\n\nEven if free love unions became the adopted standard of the land, those\nunions would be celebrated with appropriate ritual, the aim of which\nwould be to tie the man to the woman and the woman to the man and to\nwarn away sexual hunters of both sexes.\n\nFree love will not be possible until the absolute equality of men and\nwomen has been accepted, not only theoretically but practically.\n\nBefore that equality is a fact, there must be written into the\nstatute books some form of financial assistance to the woman disabled\nby pregnancy and lactation and which will enable her to retain her\nindependence regardless of her physiological condition.\n\nEven this will not be enough. Birth control measures will have to\nbecome lawful and the subject of careful scientific teaching before\nwoman can hope to lead her life unenslaved to her children's father.\n\n=What of the Child?= Besides, in free love arrangements, the mates\nare not the only parties to be considered. There is a party of the\nthird part: the children, if any.\n\nIf a perfectly independent male decides to cohabit for an indefinite\nperiod of time with a perfectly independent female, the community can\nhardly interpose any objection. For after all, most of our ethical\nindignation at the thought of temporary unions is due to the miserly\nfear of the community lest a pregnant woman and fatherless children\nbe thrown upon it for support. No one's rights would be trespassed\nupon by such arrangements, ephemeral as they might be. As they would\nnot cost anyone any money they would be considered acceptable. When\na self supporting Sarah Bernhardt or Isadora Duncan bears children\nout of wedlock and we run no risk of being taxed for the support of\nher \"illegitimate\" progeny, we assume more liberal views than we\nwould should a stenographer or a switchboard operator commit the same\n\"errors.\"\n\nWhen children are the outcome of any form of union, however, the\npsychoanalyst, broad as he may be, is compelled to remember the pitiful\nstories he has heard in his office. No neurotic ever had a pleasant\nchildhood. No neurotic was the child of a father and mother united\nby real love and manifesting within the family circle the mutual\ntenderness which is the poetry or the music of the home.\n\n=Disharmony Between the Parents=, culminating in divorce or\ndesertion, has wrecked the future of thousands of children. Not every\nunhappy home has produced neurotics, but, every neurotic is the\nproduct of undesirable home conditions.\n\nFurthermore, it seems as tho a child in order to reach normal\nadulthood should be brought up by both a male and female. Many male\nhomosexuals I have observed were brought up by a widowed mother or a\nwoman abandoned by her husband or lover. In other cases, impotence or\nfrigidity affected respectively boys and girls who had lost the parent\nof the same sex. Many other disturbances of the mental life, due to\nincompleteness of the parental environment or to its imperfection,\ncould be mentioned if the limits of this book would permit.\n\nFrom the point of view of psychiatry, there is only one answer to be\ngiven to the question if free love is acceptable. Free love _must_\nbe supplemented by birth control. Those free lovers who decide to\nprocreate children must also agree to live together until the youngest\nof their offspring has reached at least its fifteenth year.\n\nCreating children with the intention of turning them over to some\ncharitable institution is also a proposition which to a student of\nmental disturbances appears just short of criminal.\n\n=The Institution Child.= Few children thrive well mentally or\nphysically under institutional treatment.\n\nChildren need love in order to grow strong mentally or physically. I\nread somewhere a story to the effect that a mediaeval ruler directed\nthat some children be brought up by nurses who would never show them\nthe slightest sign of affection or interest, his aim being, if my\nmemory serves me well, to make extremely virile fighters out of those\nchildren, by protecting them against any weakening influence.\n\nAs the story goes, all the children died.\n\nI do not vouch for the authenticity of the story but the vital\nstatistics of orphan asylums affirm its plausibility. Children fare\nbetter in a poor, unsanitary home, at the hands of a stupid and\nignorant but affectionate mother than in an up to date, well appointed,\nsanitary asylum. They need, in order to develop a strong, serviceable,\nwell balanced autonomic nervous system, the safety which emanates from\nthe breasts, the kisses, the hands, the admiring glances of their\nmother.\n\nIf no doting mother has ever told a child that he is wonderful and the\nmost precious thing on earth, he will never quite consider himself as\nof much avail and will probably never become wonderful in any respect.\n\n=Free Love Plus Birth Control= may reduce the actual population of the\nearth, but when only real lovers deeply attached to each other and only\nbound to each other by sexual desire and intellectual regard, will live\ntogether and decide to rear children as a monument to their love, free\nlove and birth control will cause the population of insane asylums to\ndwindle to nothing and will save the world from the thousands of morons\nand neurotics who are the products of married disharmony and married\nslavery.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XII\n\n PROSTITUTION\n\n\nProstitution, as I stated in a previous chapter is one of the results\nof the overthrowing of sex by the ego. The craving for food and power\ntriumphs over all the sexual cravings and compels one individual to\npursue apparently sexual goals which are no longer sexual as far\nas that individual is concerned. The female prostitute lends her\nsexual organs to many men for money (food, power), not for her own\ngratification or to reproduce her species.\n\nThat phenomenon is very complex and cannot be dealt with in detail\nwithin the limits of this book. I shall confine myself to pointing\nout some of the psychological problems which have to be elucidated\nbefore the causes, nature and results of prostitution can be clearly\nunderstood.\n\n=Economic Factors.= Certain radicals simplify a little too much the\nproblem of prostitution by considering it solely as a by-product of the\ncompetitive system which would disappear as soon as a more equitable\nsystem of production and distribution was introduced into the modern\nworld.\n\nNo one can deny that under our social system, woman, burdened as she\nis, by many physical and social handicaps, is easily driven to the wall\nin times of stress and compelled to sell her body. Nor is there any\ndoubt that under a system assuring every one a livelihood, regardless\nof business conditions, many women would be saved from adopting such a\ndisgusting form of labor.\n\nAt the same time, the radical interpretation fails to explain why, when\nsubmitted to a practically identical pressure, some women do not become\nprostitutes but either kill themselves or beg or steal.\n\n=Lombroso's Theory.= Very unsatisfactory also is Lombroso's attitude to\nprostitution.\n\nHe finds a constant coincidence between prostitution and crime and\nstates that the female offender _is_ a prostitute, one of the varieties\nof the \"reo nato,\" of the born criminal.\n\nThe female offender is not always a prostitute and modern research\nmakes the theory of \"congenital criminality\" untenable.\n\nKurt Schneider in his exhaustive study of seventy prostitutes brings\nout interesting details of their biography which throw a clearer light\nupon the psychology of prostitution.\n\nThere were certain characteristics which all of those seventy women\nexhibited. They were all unwilling to work. They all were very\ngrasping, altho, at the same time, very extravagant spenders when\nit came to personal adornment. Eroticism seemed to play a very\ninsignificant part in their choice of a livelihood. Most of them were\nfrigid, many homosexual, the majority of them sadistic.\n\nFifteen of them had been punished for larceny (money and clothes).\n\nMany of them kept a pimp or cadet.\n\nMost of them were unhappy, dissatisfied types.\n\nAll of them were greatly attached to children.\n\nMany of them were drunkards.\n\nOne half of them were weak minded.\n\nSeven per cent of them had been brought up in institutions.\n\nWe have there a striking picture of inferiority. An endocrinological\nexamination of those unfortunates, similar to those which have been\nconducted recently at St. Elizabeth Hospital, Washington, D. C., would\nhave probably revealed back of their unwillingness to work and of their\nthirst for money, weak thyroids and poor adrenals, not to mention\nunbalanced pituitary glands. The fires of the body burnt slow in them,\nproducing and consuming little energy, a condition which, causing an\nobscure unconscious fear of the future, compelled those women to seek\neasy ways of gathering money, the only protection they could think of.\nTheir inferiority complex revealed itself in their craving for personal\nadornment, to which they sacrificed their protective earnings.\n\n=Sensuality.= All the rant of the purity prophets to the contrary\nnotwithstanding, it is not sensuality which \"lures\" women into a \"life\nof shame.\"\n\nIf the prostitute sought in her means of livelihood mere gratification\nof \"vicious\" instincts, why would she so often submit to the whims\nof a pimp who despoils her of her earnings. The prostitute hates the\nmen who can compel her thru their financial superiority to submit to\ntheir sexual desires. The pimp, whom she keeps and who depends upon her\nbounty, is her inferior and the more she degrades him, the less she\nfeels her own degradation.\n\nThe prostitute, like all inferiors, is dissatisfied, but so are the man\nof genius, the inventor and the artist. The genius is the dissatisfied\nindividual who organically is able to compensate for his feeling\nof inferiority by creating a more pleasant environment, physical\nor mental, and derives therefrom credit, praise, rewards, small as\nthose rewards may be. The prostitute, too weak organically to find\na suitable, socially valuable, form of compensation, flees from a\nreality which is unpleasant to her. Alcohol and drugs supply her with a\nconvenient form of escape from reality, the more acceptable to her as\nher intelligence is the more limited.\n\n=Father Fixation.= Kurt Schneider found that fifty per cent of the\nprostitutes he examined were weak minded. The Chicago Vice report\npublished a few years ago revealed the fact that fifty per cent of the\nprostitutes examined by the vice investigators were the victims of a\nviolent father fixation.\n\nOne half of them, when asked by whom they had been seduced,\nincriminated their fathers. To a psychoanalyst such an answer is an\nobvious morbid wish fulfilment.\n\nAll of the women probably experienced unconscious incestuous cravings\nat some time or other, and in the minds of the weak minded, (fifty per\ncent of them according to Schneider), those cravings had produced an\nabsolute delusion. Whether the incest was real or imaginary, the fact\nremains that those unfortunates either believed in it or considered it\nas a plausible explanation and scapegoat. A lie, when accepted as a\npart of our biography, often affects us as mightily as tho it were an\nactual fact. For, after all, every lie we tell is a fact unconsciously\nacceptable to us and which affords our ego a certain protection.\n\nThe woman with a father fixation is usually frigid. She either never\nmarries or is a prey to prostitution fancies, until analysis has\nfreed her of her unconscious incest fear or has led her to accept her\nincestuous cravings as a part of her personality.\n\n=Prostitution is a neurosis=, affecting mostly the hypothyroid,\nhypoadrenal female of low culture and low intelligence.\n\nPsychoanalysis, which requires a certain grade of mental development on\nthe part of the patient, is rather impotent in the majority of cases\nof prostitution when the woman has crossed the line which separates\nfancies from practice.\n\nThere are male prostitutes also, of the normal sexual type. I do not\nallude here to the homosexual males whose mentality shall be considered\nin another chapter. By male prostitutes, I mean men who consort with\nwomen, in or out of wedlock, for purely sordid considerations.\n\n=The Pimp= who exploits some prostitute is a prostitute himself, but so\nis the man who marries for money or power a woman who does not attract\nhim sexually. The male prostitute is, if anything, ethically inferior\nto the female prostitute.\n\n=Prevention=, rather than any form of cure, may some day solve\nthe problem of prostitution. Repressive measures are, of course,\na dishonest farce which deceives no one and benefits no one. The\nprostitute cannot be reeducated or adapted, for she is a weakling and\nthe modern world offers to her no equivalent for what she would have\nto give up in order to reform. Female children, on the other hand, if\ntrained properly and made independent, mentally and financially, could\ngrow up free from the handicaps and the fears which, at the present\nday, drive too many girls into adopting the \"easiest way.\"\n\n=Prostitution has no redeeming grace.= It may have saved many\nyoung men from impotence but it has made quite as many impotent thru\nvenereal infection. Some claim that it has saved many pure wives and\ndaughters from temptation but it has contributed also thru infection to\nmaking thousands of innocent women sexual invalids.\n\nProstitution is a maladjustment whose worst sin is perhaps the\nmaladjustment of married life which it occasions in thousands of cases.\n\nToo many young men, who acquired their sexual experience with\nprostitutes solely, imagine that they know and understand women, and\nthey proceed to treat their life mates as tho the latter were only\nslightly different from the unfortunate neurotics they hired to relieve\ntheir sexual cravings. To that sort of experience we owe the horrible\ntype of the \"typical husband\" who never misses an opportunity of\nreminding his wife of the fact that \"she is only a woman.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIII\n\n VIRGINITY\n\n\nI am very sceptical when it comes to drawing a clear line of cleavage\nbetween what is typically masculine and what is typically feminine\nin behavior, and I believe that many of the so-called fundamental\ndifferences between the sexes are artificial and temporary ones due\nto the economic and social pressure which woman has to bear. Even in\nthe valuation of virginity, it is difficult to say that there is a\nmasculine attitude and a feminine attitude.\n\nBroadly speaking, we might state however that women, the world over,\nare more indifferent to the prematrimonial past of their future\nhusbands than men are to the purity of their brides.\n\n=Men Experienced in Matters of Love= wield a definite attraction\nover all women, whether the latter are willing to admit it or not.\n\nThis is not due to any especially feminine trait but rather to the\ndifficulties which women encounter when they endeavor to secure\npositive information on tabooed sexual topics. They expect, therefore,\ntheir initiators to be conversant with the subject which is kept\ncarefully shrouded in morbid mystery.\n\nThe majority of men, on the other hand, when marrying a woman who is\nneither a widow nor a divorc\u00e9e, expect her to be absolutely pure, that\nis, not to have had any sexual relations with any other man.\n\n=Ethical Prostitution.= In certain parts of the world, on the other\nhand, males appear rather indifferent to the female's past. In some\nparts of Japan and among certain Arab tribes, comely girls may go to\nlarger centers of the population and devote themselves for a period\nof years to prostitution. After which, they return to their native\nplace sometimes with a dowry they have accumulated thriftily, find a\nhusband and settle down as wives and mothers, in no way disqualified\nby their promiscuous past. In certain parts of Central Europe, \"window\ncourting,\" as it is sometimes called, leads to unofficial trial\nmarriages which do not arouse the jealousy of the final winner of a\ngirl's favours.\n\nAmong the Western nations, it is rather the very young, the stupidly\nconservative, the unsophisticated and the senile, who consider\nvirginity as a great attraction and in some cases as a powerful sexual\nstimulant.\n\nThe reasons for that are to be sought in the egotistical component of\nthe masculine attitude. The strong and powerful male who has frequently\nproved his virility is not obsessed by the fear of defeat in love's\nintimacies.\n\nThe innocent young man, on the other hand, who is full of misgivings\nand of diffidence, the elderly man whose sexual powers are on the wane\nand who is no longer sure of himself, prefer a woman who is totally\nignorant of physical love. Their embarrassment or their shortcomings\nmay escape a virgin but would not escape a woman of the world, a widow\nor a divorc\u00e9e.\n\nThere is, therefore, in the search for virginity, a slightly neurotic\nfactor, the fear of defeat, the line of least effort, the search for\nego safety.\n\nIt must be noticed that it was during the great neurotic ages, the\nMiddle Ages, which witnessed the bursting forth of so many hysterical\nepidemics, that both the cult of the Virgin and the belief in witches\nspread over Europe.\n\n=The Fear of Woman.= Man has always tried to protect himself against\nwoman. In his fear of sex equality he has either made her an angel or\na beast. The witch, perverse and filthy, was lowered to the level of\nhell. The virgin, on the other hand, unsexed and raised to heaven, was\nremoved far enough from the world for perfect safety.\n\n=The Will-to-Be-the-First.= In the overemphasis placed by certain\nmen upon virginity in the woman, and in the anxiety shown by certain\nhusbands at the thought that their wife may have had sexual relations\nwith another man previous to her marriage, we see the operation of the\nneurotic trait which Adler has called \"the will-to-be-the-first\" and\nwhich manifests itself, not only in the love life, but in all of life's\nsituations.\n\nThe neurotic of that type, obsessed with a feeling of inferiority is\ntortured by the thought that he may not have been the first to caress\nhis wife. Analysis proves that in early childhood, he had a tendency\n(observable in certain breeds of dogs) to try to outrun every waggon,\nhorse, train, etc.; that in later life he always tries to walk ahead\nwhen in company and hastens his steps whenever anyone threatens to pass\nhim on the street. That type is given to hero worship, as he likes to\nidentify himself with his favorite hero, C\u00e6sar, Napoleon, etc. States\nof anxiety develop whenever his preeminence in society or business is\nthreatened.\n\n=Telegony.= In the search for virginity there may also be in the male\nan unconscious \"intuition\" of some scientific facts. The phenomenon of\ntelegony, explained by Dr. Jules Goldschmidt, of Paris, in the Medical\nReview of Reviews for April 1921, would, if confirmed by careful\nobservations, throw a new light on the meaning of virginity.\n\nThe first male, Goldsmith states, leaves an indelible impress on the\nfemale he possesses. Goldsmith believes that sperm plays a twofold part\nin the female organism that receives it. It not only fecundates the egg\nbut modifies the blood of the female. He cannot believe that Nature\nwould waste millions of spermatozoa in order that one of them should\nreach the egg. The millions of spermatozoa which are not needed for\npurposes of fecundation are absorbed, he thinks, by the mucous tissues\nof the woman's genitals and make her gradually more and more like her\nmate. To this factor Goldschmidt attributes the likeness of mates who\nhave lived together many years.\n\n\"When we reflect,\" he writes, \"on the deep impress produced by the\naction of a single spermatic cell, we at once ask what will be\nthe fate of the myriads of spermatozoids entering at the moment of\nfecundation, and later on into the female organism. Again we have to\ninsist on the fact that nature works with excessive profusion, and that\nto secure success its means of action are multiple. Everywhere in the\nliving world male generative cells are brought forth in an overwhelming\nabundance.\n\n\"Their multiplicity guarantees at least the possibility of meeting the\nrather far-off ovulum, just as out of the multitude of male bees only\none is chosen to impregnate the queen.\n\n\"But it is inconceivable that the uncounted other male cells are\ncondemned to useless death without any action on the entire female\norganism, into which, by reason of their mobility they can easily\npenetrate, either into the mucous membrance of the uterus or into\nthe lymphatic and blood capillaries, and thru them into the whole\ncirculation.\n\n\"Kohlbrugge has demonstrated that in the case of a certain bat, the\nspermatozoids do enter in great numbers into the superficial stratum\nof the mucous membrance as well as into the glands and the adjacent\ntissues. Their fate is, of course, dissolution. We know that blood is\nthe receptacle of all the products that are created by healthy life or\ndisease. We know of no other liquid in the whole organic world so rich\nin the most heterogeneous chemical substances as blood.\n\n\"Certain important substances circulate in it, which we only assume are\nthere, not having been able to isolate them, but with which we work\nwhen we elaborate preventive or curative serums. All the antigens,\nantitoxins, antibodies, introduced into the blood by the living action\nof pathogenic bacilli, as those of diphtheria, typhoid, tetanus, after\nthe happy termination of these diseases, present themselves in such\ninfinitesimal quantities that we can only designate them by their most\nremarkable biological effects. They either confer for a lifetime an\nefficient immunity against renewal or, exceptionally, an increased\nsusceptibility (anaphylaxis) for the bacilli which have created them.\n\n\"If nature, in its morbific attacks on the organism, uses great\nquantities, extremely small ones answer its purpose for defense. Can we\nnot by analogy conclude that the dissolved spermatozoids confer on the\nblood and thru it on the whole female organism, qualities which it had\nnot possessed before their invasion?\n\n\"From all of these facts we may return to our problem, and infer that\nnot alone the solitary male cell which fecundates the ovulum is of\nimportance to the economy of the female organism, but that we must\nnot disregard the extremely numerous spermatic cells accompanying\nfecundation or the further introduction of these elements.\n\n\"Just as the bacillary products during and after infectious diseases\nrepresent substances able to confer immunity from any renewed attack\nand therefore cause an important transformation of the human system, so\nthe inference must be allowed that the spermatozoids, too, do exercise\nan ultimate lasting effect on the females organism, which will acquire\na greater sensibility for the original and an insensibility for, or\nnon-susceptibility towards extraneous generative cells, even those able\nto fecundate.\"\n\nThis exclusive adaptation of the female organism to the male one is the\nphenomenon called telegony.\n\n\"A curious example of telegony offers itself when a white woman,\nwho has at first lived with a negro and afterwards with a man of\nher own race, presents her second husband or lover with a more or\nless intensely colored child. Such cases have given rise to dramatic\nand even tragic scenes when the innocent woman was simply modified\n(telegonized) by her first cohabitant.\n\n\"All breeders are acquainted with the fact that the bull confers\ntelegony on the cow. The dark colored bull having fecundated a light\ncolored cow, the latter being subsequently covered by a red bull will\nput down dark and white streaked calves.\n\n\"It is quite possible that the biological reaction of the blood in\nhuman and animal impregnation becomes identical in the mother with that\nof the first father, and that the influence of another male does not\nchange sensibly the maternal blood.\"\n\nIf demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt, thru careful\nobservation, telegony would be a tremendous fact which would, to all\nthe egotists and neurotics, enhance tremendously the value of virginity\nin the woman. What a joy it would be for the self-centered, narcistic\nneurotic to know that he can gradually make his mate like unto himself!\n\nOn the other hand, it might lead to most interesting experiments in\neugenics and animal breeding.\n\nThru deferred impregnation, brought about by special contraceptive\nmeasures, a better human type and better breeds of animals might be\nevolved.\n\nIt might also sound the death knell of certain contraceptive methods\nwhich prevent the human mates from attaining the physical and mental\noneness which, Goldschmidt says, is the result of life-long sexual\nassociation.\n\nGoldschmidt's thesis is worth investigating. Thus far the unverified\nobservations and the sayings of more or less scientific breeders do not\nallow us to draw positive deductions.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIV.\n\n MODESTY, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL\n\n\nModesty is not easy to define, for it varies with races, epochs and\nclimes. As I said in the preceding chapter, in some parts of Japan\nand in one Arab tribe, it is almost shameful for a young woman to be\nmarried without having had sexual experience. A woman of the Western\nraces on the other hand, regardless of her age and past, must in order\nto show a ladylike breeding, pretend a certain ignorance of things\nsexual when in the company of men, even in the company of her fifth or\nsixth husband.\n\n=In Turkey=, a woman may show her eyes but must veil her mouth; in the\nSouthern Sahara, men of the Tuareg tribes go about veiled like Turkish\nladies. Certain African tribes cover their backs carefully while\nexposing the rest of their bodies. In other tribes, men, instead of\nconcealing their genitals, wear sheaths which exaggerate the size of\ntheir organs. In most parts of the earth, women keep the fact of their\nmenstruation a secret. In others, they wear a cloth of a special color\nproclaiming that condition when present.\n\n=On the Modern Stage=, modesty seems satisfied if the nipples and the\ngenitals are duly covered. In some parts of Europe entirely naked\ndancers have been seen in public. Until recently, an unwritten law made\nit more or less necessary for the male performers to wear more clothing\nthan female ones did. The wave of homosexualism which has followed\nthe war is probably responsible for the growing numbers of naked male\nactors and dancers who disport themselves nowadays on the French stage\nand elsewhere.\n\nThere is a normal form of modesty, however, and there are many abnormal\naspects of that elusive feeling.\n\nMany animals seek safety and seclusion when performing certain\nimportant functions of their life, nutrition, reproduction and\ndefecation, which naturally place them at a disadvantage in emergencies\nrequiring flight or fight. Even the boldest among the carnivorous\nanimals, lions and tigers, drag their prey to a cave or into the depths\nof the bush before devouring it.\n\nNaked and otherwise shameless and \"indelicate\" savages will often walk\na considerable distance from their village to satisfy their natural\nneeds, and then hide behind bushes or trees.\n\nMany birds and animals pair off and isolate themselves at mating time.\n\nRaces and nations differ greatly in their degree of modesty in relation\nto nutrition, reproduction and defecation. European races dine in\nthe open, are more or less \"shameless\" in their love making, they\ntalk freely on sexual topics and erect urinals and comfort stations,\ndesignated by their exact name, in many public places. Anglo-Saxons\nhide themselves while eating, are very silent about the processes of\nreproduction, seldom indulge in public kissing and designate urinals\nand toilets, which are very scarce in their lands, by cover names such\nas lavatories, smoking rooms, etc.\n\n=Normal Modesty= may then be a survival of the fear which the\nprimitive men and women experienced of being surprised and overpowered\nby hostile animals or tribesmen during an embrace or when unprotected\nby garments or armor.\n\nIn fact, modesty seems to disappear as soon as safety reigns or when no\nhostile element may be suspected of lurking in the environment.\n\nA woman strips without shame to undergo a medical examination, men and\nwomen appear naked in public baths where only one sex is admitted at a\ntime, etc.\n\nThen also normal modesty must be considered as an offgrowth of the\nunavoidable repressions of modern, civilised life. Like the incest\ntaboo, it has been cultivated for reasons of convenience.\n\nModern community life having placed a thousand restrictions upon the\nage at which we can marry and the conditions under which we should\nmarry, in other words, having delayed considerably our normal sexual\ngratification, an effort has been made to \"repress\" erotism by\nconcealing \"suggestive\" parts of the human body.\n\nThis is, of course, an abortive attempt, for habit is a more potent\nprotector against temptation than veils. The races which live\npractically naked are not more erotic than the fully clothed, civilised\nraces or the Arabs who not only cover their entire body and heads but\nconceal even the shape of their bodies in the loose folds of their\nample garments. A husband, no longer erotically aroused by his wife's\nnaked body, may be attracted violently by the partly draped body of\nanother woman.\n\n=Suggestive Draperies.= One of the results of the policy of\nbody-concealment has been to transform certain draperies into sexual\nsymbols of great aphrodisiac power. Certain garments lend to the human\nbody an appeal which it might not have if fully exposed. In other\nwords, the obstacles which are meant to hold back erotism may be used\nneurotically as a morbid expression of erotism.\n\nAt the present day, however, that form of protection against temptation\nserves its purpose to some extent and cannot be discarded until mankind\nhas been reeducated. Custom and the law uphold official modesty. The\nmere fact, however, that modesty has to be enforced legally is one of\nthe best arguments against the sentimental, unscientific view that\nmodesty is an \"innate,\" \"natural\" feeling of \"delicacy\" based upon some\n\"higher,\" \"spiritual\" values, etc.\n\nModern, official modesty is merely a compromise with sexual reality.\nIt has been, like all inhibitory feelings, greatly overestimated and\nforced upon the weaker sex by egotistical men to prevent a display of\ntheir female's charms, likely to attract other women-hunters. Weak\nmales with a sense of inferiority have called modesty the typically\nfeminine virtue.\n\n=Excessive Modesty=, in men as well as in women, is an abnormal\nphenomenon, a mask for unconscious lewdness and obscenity. It is a\nneurotic means of protection against uncontrollable desires, or at\ntimes an expression of one's \"sour grapes\" attitude to others.\n\nIt is always the shapeless and unattractive woman who is the most\nvociferous champion of highneck gowns and long skirts. A sense of\nbodily inferiority obsesses the woman who does not allow any caresses\nunless the room is darkened. Her modesty yields rapidly, however, to\nthe praise of her attractions which she hears from the mouth of her\nlover.\n\n=Immodest Modesty.= A woman took her daughter to a specialist's\noffice for an examination. The girl, asked to strip, complied at once\nwith the doctor's request and stood naked before him without any\ndisplay of shame.\n\nWhen they left, the mother made the very unwise remark that her\ndaughter must have lacked modesty entirely to have stood the ordeal\nwithout any embarrassment. In this case, it was the mother who lacked\n\"true modesty\" and the daughter whose mind was \"pure.\" The girl knew\nshe was in the presence of a physician, but to the more highly sexed\nmother, the physician was above everything a \"man.\"\n\nThis sort of prurient modesty which, very often, exerts a baneful\ninfluence on the love-life of the individual, is usually due to\nrepressed childhood memories and complexes.\n\n=Fear of Love.= Stekel, of Vienna, cites the case of a girl who evinced\non every occasion a morbid fear of everything connected with love. She\navoided men, she protected herself zealously against every \"suggestive\"\ninfluence, she decried love and marriage and was constantly trying to\n\"spiritualise\" the things of the flesh which she considered \"bestial.\"\n\nAnalysis showed that until the age of thirteen she had been perfectly\nnormal in her behavior, considering love and marriage as natural human\ngoals.\n\nOne day, however, she chanced upon a collection of pornographic\nphotographs belonging to her father. Instead of \"corrupting\" her mind,\nthe incident disgusted her and caused her to renounce all the things of\nthe flesh and to become unusually, negatively modest.\n\nA patient of mine declared on the occasion of her first call at my\noffice that all men were \"beasts.\" Whenever she associated with a\nman, at dinner, theater or dancing parties, she suffered from choking\nsensations, nausea, etc. Analysis revealed that at the age of six she\nhad been subjected to an attempt at seduction.\n\nAnother woman patient who went thru a mental crisis in the course of\nwhich she gave up all worldly pleasures and decided never to marry,\nmerging into hysterical states very soon afterward, had bow legs and\na tendency to skin eruptions which had, on many occasions, proved\nhumiliating to her egotism. Her decision never to marry meant: \"I shall\nnot risk showing my deformed legs and my skin blemishes to a man.\"\nAlso, at the age of ten, she had witnessed a scene of brutality in\nwhich a man had dragged his wife on the street by her hair.\n\nShe was morbidly modest and wept bitterly once when a man whom she knew\nonly slightly, pressed a kiss upon her lips. Withal her dreams revealed\na violently erotic temperament.\n\nLike all exaggerated feelings morbid modesty is the mask for the\nopposite feelings, passionate sexual cravings. The woman who allows\nevery one to kiss her is aroused but little by such caresses. The woman\nwho never kisses any one and pretends she does not like being kissed,\nis usually the one who knows that a kiss might cause her to lose her\nself-control and to abandon all modesty.\n\nThe puritanical male, paragon of modesty among his sex, is either an\ninflammable type who is afraid of his own sensuality or an impotent\nindividual who protects himself against being put to any sexual test.\n\nThat exaggerated modesty is only one of the components of the neurotic\ntemperament has been well demonstrated by Adler: \"The morbid modesty\nof neurotics,\" he writes, \"who cannot visit a public toilet, who are\nunable to urinate in the presence of others, who avoid the society of\nwomen on account of blushing or anxiety or heart palpitations, reveals\nto us the strained manly ambition which supports itself against the\noriginal feeling of inferiority.\n\n\"=The Masculine Protest= (craving for virility) of those patients,\ninsecure to the core, forces them into this arrangement whose\nboundaries encroach upon those of bashfulness and awkwardness. Often,\nin neurotics of either sex, one observes an inability to go to a toilet\nin cases of great necessity if some one is looking at them. The greater\nmodesty of women, especially of neurotic women, in all relations of\nlife, originates from the fear which is implanted in them from the\nearliest childhood that attention might be directed to their sex.\n\n\"I have often convinced myself that the behavior of girls and of women\nis considerably influenced by this more or less unconscious factor,\nindeed that the progress of their sexual development, like that of male\npatients who feel unmanly, the formation of social and professional\nrelations and love relations, are immediately checked as soon as the\npatient is allowed to play a real 'feminine' or subordinate part or\npresupposes this expectation from others.\n\n\"This fact is in no way affected when repressed sexual stimuli come\nto light as the present source of the checks of aggression. They are\nsimilarly arranged and have the purpose of enhancing the fear of the\npartner and of permitting the retreat decided upon in the plan of\nlife, to be entered upon with certainty; they are therefore acts of\nforesight. The neurotic had already in childhood laid the foundation\nof this foresight and in it is reflected the feeling of shame as the\nguiding line of reassuring modesty and the prudery of civilisation.\n\n\"The previous history of the patient reveals an exaggerated modesty\nand this is true at times of those who in other respects show a boyish\nnature; the anxiety of nervous children on being exposed may be\nobserved in their conduct. They exclude every one from the room and\nlock the door when they are going to undress. This conduct is also\nobservable in boys who have grown up among girls. In the prognosis\nof neurosis, this expedient of cowardice is a bad symptom. It is the\nequivalent of later castration thoughts and neurotic wishes, the wish\nto be a woman, for instance, which expresses itself as soon as the fear\nof the life mate becomes actual or a decision has to be avoided.\"\n\n=Lack of Modesty=, when it assumes a morbid form, has, according\nto Adler, the same meaning as prurient modesty.\n\n\"The very shameless, obscene talker,\" Adler writes, \"is trying to\ndemonstrate to his listeners the fact of his great manliness of\nwhich he is not very sure himself, the very immodest woman merely\ndemonstrates her inability to adapt herself to her feminine role.... In\nthe analysis of such women, at times only in their dreams, is observed\nthe childish expectation of a metamorphosis into a male, an attempted\nsubstitute for the will-to-power, the will-to-be-above.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XV\n\n JEALOUSY\n\n\nJealousy has been subjected to the distortion which every sexual\nmanifestation suffers under the influence of our modern puritanical\ncivilisation. It has to be concealed and lied about and derives from\nthat fact an immense obsessional power. It becomes a mask for other\nfeelings and, in its turn, may masquerade in the guise of other\nfeelings.\n\nBoth its presence and its absence may denote normality or abnormality.\nIntense jealousy may be the projection of our feelings into another\nindividual and be a symptom of paranoia. On the other hand, the entire\nlack of jealousy of a husband who enjoys the sight of his wife caressed\nby another man, certainly reveals a most morbid masochism.\n\nHunger, thirst, erotism always find their satisfaction at some time.\nIntense pain deadens itself thru its very intensity. Jealousy on the\ncontrary feeds on itself. It can be aroused by the unseen as well as by\nthe obvious. In fact, like many neurotic elements, it thrives best on\nthe invisible and the unreal.\n\nJealousy based upon unseen things, hunches, intuition, borders\ndangerously on hallucinatory states. The absolute blindness of some\nhusbands, on the other hand, reveals a form of egotistical cocksureness\nclosely allied to delusions of greatness.\n\n=Rules for Husbands.= Forel, in some ways very old fashioned and\nunimaginative, has summarised as follows the proper rules of conduct\nfor \"reasonable husbands\" suffering from jealousy.\n\n\"An intelligent husband,\" he writes, \"should quietly find out thru the\nusual agencies whether his suspicions are justified or not. For what\nis the use of being jealous? If his suspicions are unfounded, he can\nonly annoy his wife and make her unhappy thru his jealous behavior. If\nhe was right in suspecting her, there is only one of two things to be\ndone: either an otherwise excellent wife has yielded to the attraction\nof another man and may feel perfectly miserable over it. She should be\nforgiven and led back into the right path. Or a wife has no affection\nleft for her husband or she is an unworthy, characterless deceiver, and\nin such cases, what is needed is not jealousy but a divorce.\"\n\nInstead of \"reasonable\" husbands, Forel should have written, husbands\n\"free from complexes,\" for jealousy is little besides a neurotic mask\nfor an unrecognized feeling of inferiority.\n\nThere are thousands of husbands who would not dare to find out whether\ntheir wives are untrue or not. Some may be so enslaved to their wives'\nbodies that they cannot contemplate the possibility of losing them.\n\nPublic opinion, if a scandal should break out, would compel them to\nseek a divorce and therefore they prefer to remain in ignorance of the\nreal state of affairs and of their \"defeat.\"\n\nOthers are so egotistical that they refuse to suspect their wives of\ninfidelity and are honestly trying to protect their wife's reputation\nwhen they make a jealous scene. This is frequently observed among the\n\"after-me-who-has-a-chance?\" type of husband.\n\nOther egotists fear the ridicule that might follow upon exposure and\nwhich might destroy some of their self confidence. They would be too\nweak to bear up well under their friends' open or concealed sarcasm.\n\nThe jealous scenes they make to their suspected wives are in the nature\nof a punishment which they inflict on the faithless one.\n\nOther husbands, entangled in extramatrimonial affairs, are in no way\ndesirous to create a scandal but work themselves into jealous moods to\nkeep up a pretence of interest in their wives.\n\nOthers, very old fashioned, believe in a double standard and, while\ncondoning their own weaknesses, condemn every appearance of evil in\n\"their\" wives.\n\n=Very Few Men or Women Admit Their Jealousy.= Most of them cover it\nwith ethical veils of the most transparent type: \"You neglect your\nhousehold,\" \"you are a poor mother (or father) to your children,\" \"you\nare making yourself (or me) ridiculous,\" etc.\n\nSome husbands deny they are jealous but declaim against low neck gowns,\nflesh-colored stockings, face powder, rouge, lip sticks to which they\nobject on \"moral grounds.\"\n\nThe last two groups derive a great comfort from their assumed ethical\nand moral superiority which they use as a justification for their\nendless nagging.\n\nSome jealous husbands force motherhood upon their wives year after year\nas a protection against unfaithfulness. A woman disabled by pregnancy\nand lactation is, of necessity, more faithful. Attempts at freedom on\nthe part of a woman burdened with a numerous progeny can easily be\nrepressed by admonitions such as \"Remember the children,\" etc.\n\n=Jealousy and Impotence.= Jealousy in a man is often caused\nby the fact that he has become impotent. Unable to gratify his\nwife physically, he imagines that she seeks consolation elsewhere\nand in that way he \"gets even\" with her: \"I am impotent but she is\npromiscuous,\" so runs the neurotic's logic.\n\nNot infrequently a woman who has been brought up to consider physical\nrelations as slightly shameful and something which a well brought up\nfemale submits to, but never \"enjoys,\" may, if she is very erotic,\ndevelop terrible fits of jealousy.\n\nFrink, mentioning one of those rather frequent cases, dissects the\npsychology of that type of jealous women as follows: \"If her husband's\ncaresses leave her unsatisfied, she is caught between the two horns of\na dilemma. If she grants that this is enough to satisfy her husband's\n'animal instincts' she must then admit that she is more erotic than he\nis, hence, more 'animal' than he. And such an admission is impossible\nto a woman of puritanical upbringing. Hence 'logically' she concludes\nthat he must be untrue to her.\"\n\nFrink adds: \"Undue jealousy in a man usually means that he has, or\nthinks he has, some deficiency of sexual power. It means in a woman,\nnot, as many seem to think, that she is unusually in love with her\nhusband, but rather, that she is not perfectly satisfied with him,\nand often that she thinks that if he really knew her, he would not be\nsatisfied with her. In most patients suffering from morbid jealousy\nthere is an overaccentuation of the homosexual component of the libido.\"\n\nVery often some unattractive individual feels jealous because he or she\nhas ceased to attract sexually his or her life mate.\n\nA neurotic, whose face had been made hideous by a discoloration due to\nillness, was sure his wife must have a lover, because she no longer\nseemed to feel erotic in his company. His way of reasoning was as\nfollows: \"I cannot disgust her, hence some one else must attract her.\"\n\n=Childish Behavior.= Some neurotics with a strong father or mother\nfixation become jealous of an otherwise perfectly faithful and devoted\nmate because they fail to receive from their husband or wife, the sort\nof attention and uncritical devotion they would expect from a parent.\nThose people are still children who never admit the possibility of\nadult equality between them and their mate. The mate must be the strong\nfather or the self-sacrificing mother. They themselves remain babies,\nconstantly to be petted, admired and consoled. If their husband or wife\nfails to shower on them the thousand little attentions which a nursling\nrequires, they fly into a petty and unjustified rage, suspecting that\nsome one else has robbed them of their privileges.\n\nThe Don Juan and the Messalina are quite as jealous as faithful mates.\nMen leading a double life may watch wife and mistress with equal\nsuspicion. This is probably due to the fact that they feel unable to\nsatisfy both women sexually. Orientals with a harem are said to be\ninfinitely more tigerish in their jealousy than Western men of the most\nmonogamous type. I have known several married women who, altho they had\ndeceived their husbands on several occasions, were terribly upset when\ntheir husbands showed too much interest in some other woman.\n\n=The Ego Rampant.= The proprietor of a hotel in a Western town,\nwho lived a few blocks from his inn, was annoyed when his wife refused\nmore and more frequently to come and keep him company at the hotel in\nthe evenings.\n\nWhen a young lawyer took up his residence at the hotel, however, she\nnever failed to put in an appearance, regardless of the weather or of\nher health, which she had used so often as excuses for staying at home.\n\nLater on, detectives supplied him with enough grounds to secure a\ndivorce. Curiously enough, what brought forth the greatest display of\nanger on his part when he recalled the incident, was not the thought of\nthe caresses which his wife and the other man may have exchanged. His\nhumiliation was indescribable when he realised that the other man had\nwielded more influence upon his wife than he had himself. \"One night,\"\nhe said to me, \"when she came down thru a heavy snowstorm, just to see\nhim, I could have killed her.\"\n\n=Sexless Jealousy.= All the foregoing tends to show that jealousy\nhas very little to do with sex. Many domestic animals evince violent\njealousy when their masters show attentions to strange animals. A feud\nmay be precipitated among the household pets when the dog beholds his\nmistress petting the cat and conversely. Fox terriers often attempt to\nbite people who shake hands with their master or, in friendly ways, lay\nhands on him.\n\nLikewise, it was jealousy which drove Cain to slay Abel and which\ncaused Joseph to suffer many indignities at the hands of his brothers.\n\nA Freudian might say that Cain and Joseph's brothers were seeking\nthe father's (God's) homosexual love and begrudged whatever of it was\nlavished on their victims. Adler would more plausibly suggest that\nthe prestige and power wielded by Joseph and Abel were too much of an\nirritant for their inferior and greedy brothers.\n\nIn other spheres than the sexual sphere, we notice that success\nwon by undisputed superiors or absolute inferiors does not arouse\nour jealousy. A young pianist does not resent honors bestowed upon\nPaderewksy, nor does Paderewsky begrudge the stripling his early\nsuccess. Jealousy, on the other hand, rages among great artists of\nabout the same rank. In the first case, superiority or inferiority is\ntaken for granted. In the case of equals competing for the same laurels\ninferiority is \"feared.\"\n\n=Husbands and Lovers.= Many men feel no jealousy over the caresses\ntheir mistress may receive from her husband. The husband has been\ndefeated by the lover, hence is \"absolutely\" inferior.\n\nThe same, it goes without saying, applies to women in love with a\nmarried man. Many men, in fact, prefer to have extramatrimonial affairs\nwith married women and many women with married men. They no longer fear\nthe husband or wife whom they have defeated in the struggle for his or\nher mate's favor. They consider him or her as a watchful guardian of\ntheir mistress's or their lover's sexual life, less formidable than an\nunknown man or woman might be, who had not been defeated yet.\n\nThe suttee custom in India, the various wills left by Western men or\nwomen, providing that the surviving spouse shall be disinherited if he\nor she marries again, shows that jealousy has little to do with love,\nsexual or affectionate. That posthumous jealousy is a distinct attempt\nat controlling one's \"property\" after one's death, whether the property\nbe a woman or a certain sum of money.\n\n=Cruelty.= Adler has pointed out the cruel character of jealousy\nand the constant attempts made by jealous neurotics to disparage and\nbelittle their love object.\n\n\"The neurotic suffering from jealousy is insatiable in his search for\nways to test his mate. This indicates his lack of self confidence,\nhis lack of self esteem and his uncertainty. His jealous efforts are\ncalculated to bring him more into notice, to attract more attention to\nhimself and thus to increase his self-esteem. He revives upon every\npossible occasion the old feeling of being neglected and disregarded,\nand assumes anew the childish attitude of wishing to have everything,\nto obtain a proof of superiority upon his mate.\n\n\"A glance, a word spoken in company, an acknowledgment of a favor, a\nshow of interest for a painting, for an author, for a relative, even a\nprotective attitude toward servants, may be taken as the cause of the\noperation. In certain cases the impression is distinctly given that the\njealous individual cannot rest because he has no confidence in peaceful\nhappiness or account of his misfortune. Then a neurosis develops in\nwhich an effort is made to subdue the life mate by a system of attacks,\nto arouse his or her sympathy; or perhaps the attack is intended as a\npunishment. Headaches, weeping fits, weakness, paralysis,[1] attacks\nof anxiety and depression, silence, etc., have the same value as\nalcoholism, perversion or lewdness. The line of distrust and doubt,\noften about the legitimacy of the children, becomes more pronounced,\noutbreaks of wrath and scolding, mistrust of the entire opposite sex,\nare regular phenomena and reveal the other side of jealousy as a\npreparation for the disparagement of the life mate.\n\n\"Often pride prevents consciousness of jealousy but the behavior is\nthe same. This situation is at times made worse by the fact that\nthe suspected mate beholds the helplessness of the jealous one with\nunconscious satisfaction and fails to find the words or the tone that\nwould hold jealousy within bounds.\"\n\n=Making People Jealous.= This is why the efforts made by certain\nmen and women to arouse their sexual partner's jealousy are productive\nof rather baneful results. They do not bring out the love or affection\nof the person who is made jealous but his worst egotistical and\nsadistic traits.\n\nOne of the strongest factors in love being the egotistical satisfaction\nwe derive from the possession of the love object and the realisation\nof our influence over it, our love wanes rapidly when we see another\nperson wielding much power over it.\n\nThe stratagem has temporary effects which may deceive the person using\nthem. The jealous lover, at first makes decided efforts to regain his\nposition, but he soon feels swayed by egotistical considerations which\nlead him toward the line of least effort. Slighted by one woman, he\nturns to another for consolation, and usually finds it.\n\nThe man or woman who considers it shrewd to let his mate suspect\nthat \"there are others,\" for one thing encourages faithlessness by\ncreating a precedent. It is especially when the other (or others)\nare distinctly inferior in appearance or position that this sort of\ngame ends disastrously. The woman who likes to mention the attentions\nbestowed upon her by some inferior man and seems to enjoy them\naccomplishes two things. She makes herself appear inferior and \"easy\"\nand makes her lover feel that any inferior man could compete with him\nfor her love and that, hence, he himself must be inferior.\n\nHe may run away from her to escape that feeling of inferiority.\n\nIf he does not leave her, he no longer feels compelled to make any\neffort to please her, since worthless homage seems so valuable to her.\n\n=Jealousy is the Hell of Love= and no one should dare to open its\ngates lightheartedly.\n\nOne should be the more careful in arousing jealousy as the \"green eyed\ngoddess\" now and then is responsible for some killing. The sexually\njealous husband may kill his wife's lover, the egotistically jealous\nhusband may kill the unfaithful wife. The former removes temptation\nfrom her path, the latter avenges his wounded egotism.\n\nIt is not always the sort of love that flares up frequently in jealous\noutburst, sexual or egotistical, which is the deepest. I know of a\ncase in which a husband repressed entirely his anger and desire for\nvengeance when his wife left him to live with another man. A clever\npsychologist, he realized that lack of opposition to her plans would\nkill the romance of his wife's rash step. He also knew that any\nviolence to which he might submit her lover would crown him with the\nhalo of martyrdom. He wrote to her: \"I shall not interfere with your\nadventure, for uninterrupted intimacy will soon cause you to tire of\neach other. Nor will I shoot him for I would thereby transform him in\nyour mind into a hero.\" Eventually, the \"erring\" wife returned to her\nhome.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVI\n\n INSANE JEALOUSY\n\n\nOne form of jealousy which has absolutely nothing to do with love in\nthe normal sense of the word, and one which not infrequently leads to\nacts of violence, to the \"love tragedies\" of newspaper headlines, is\nsimply one of the first symptoms of paranoia.\n\n=In Delusional Jealousy=, the patient suffering repressed homosexual\ncravings, projects his own desires into the personality of his life\nmate. An unconsciously homosexual husband, attracted sexually by every\nman in his environment, assumes that his wife is also subject to the\nsame attraction and suspects her of having sexual relations with every\nman who arouses him. An unconsciously homosexual wife imagines that\nher husband has a liaison with every woman who appeals to her perverse\nfancies.\n\nThe paranoiac being at times very clever and convincing, that form\nof jealousy, insane as it may appear to the man or the woman who is\nthe victim of it, may deceive the outsiders. In certain cases, the\ndelusional character of it is obvious to everybody, including the\njealous person.\n\nA paranoiac told me that every night he \"saw\" a man entering his wife's\nbedroom thru a window protected by solid iron bars so close to one\nanother that a cat could have squeezed thru them only with difficulty.\n\nThis was, of course, a case of hallucination, pure and simple.\n\n=Homosexualism.= Other cases are more complicated. Dr. S.\nFerenczi, of Budapest, reports two of them which illustrate well the\nmechanism of insane jealousy due to unconscious homosexualism.\n\nHe had a housekeeper whose husband, a man of thirty-eight, also busied\nhimself about the house in his spare time. He was constantly cleaning\nFerenczi's rooms, putting fresh polish on the doors and floors,\npottering around, evidently anxious to show his good will and his\ndevotion to his wife's employer.\n\nThis man was very intemperate and beat his wife on several occasions.\nAltho she was most unattractive, he constantly accused her of\ninfidelity with Ferenczi and every male patient treated by him.\n\nWhen the woman revealed those facts to Ferenczi, he gave the couple\nnotice but decided to have a serious talk with her husband.\n\nThe man denied having beaten his wife, altho this had been confirmed by\nwitnesses. He maintained that his wife was a real vampire, whose lust\nwas sapping his life strength. During this explanation, he impulsively\ntook Ferenczi's hand and kissed it, saying that he had never met anyone\ndearer or kinder than the doctor.\n\nA talk with the woman revealed to Ferenczi that the man had always been\nvery distant in his attitude to his wife. He would often push her away\nbrutally, calling her all sorts of opprobrious names.\n\nWhen he learnt that Ferenczi had given her notice, the insane man\nabused and hit his wife, and threatened to throw her out on the street\nand to stab \"her darling.\" Ferenczi at first paid no attention to those\nthreats for the man remained very devoted, respectful and well behaved.\nWhen he learnt, however, that the man was sleeping with a sharp kitchen\nknife under his pillow and when he woke up one night to find him\nstanding in his bedroom, he notified the authorities and the maniac was\ncommitted to an insane asylum.\n\n\"There is no doubt,\" Ferenczi writes, \"that this was a case of\nalcoholic delusion of jealousy. The conspicuous feature of his\nhomosexual attachment to me, however, allows the interpretation that\nthe jealousy he felt of every man, was only the projection of his own\ndesires for the male sex. Also, his lack of desire for his wife was not\nsimply impotence but was determined by his unconscious homosexuality.\n\n\"To him alcohol played the part of an inhibition-poison and brought to\nthe surface his crude homosexual erotism, which, as it was intolerable\nto his consciousness, he imputed to his wife.\n\n\"It was only subsequently that I found a complete confirmation of this.\nHe had been married before, years ago. He lived only a short time in\npeace with his first wife, began to drink soon after the wedding and\nabused his wife, tormenting her with scenes of jealousy until she left\nhim and secured a divorce.\n\n\"In the interval between his two marriages, he was said to have been\na temperate, reliable and steady man and to have taken to drink only\nafter his second marriage. Alcoholism was not the deeper cause of his\nparanoia; it was rather that, in the insoluble conflict between his\nconscious heterosexual and his unconscious homosexual desires, he took\nto alcohol, which brought the homosexual erotism to the surface, his\nconsciousness getting rid of it by way of projection, of delusions of\njealousy. He saddled his wife with his desires and by jealous scenes\nassured himself that he was in love with her.\"\n\n=A Jealous Wife.= The other case is that of a woman, still young, who\nafter living in harmony with her husband for a number of years and\nbearing him daughters, began to suffer from violent fits of jealousy\nsoon after the birth of another child, a boy. Alcoholism played no part\nin this case.\n\nShe suspected every move her husband made. She dismissed maid after\nmaid and finally had only male servants in the house. Curiously enough,\nher jealousy was directed against very young and very old, even very\nugly women, while she was not jealous of her society friends or of the\npretty women whom she and her husband occasionally met. Her conduct\nat home became so unbearable and her threats so dangerous that she\nwas taken to a sanatorium upon Freud's advice. After which Ferenczi\nproceeded to analyse her.\n\nShe harbored many delusions of greatness and ideas of reference. She\nthought she found in the local paper veiled allusions to her depravity\nand to her ridiculous position as a betrayed wife. The highest\npersonalities in the land were banded against her, etc.\n\nShe had married her husband against her wishes and when she bore the\nfirst daughter and he manifested his disappointment, she began to feel\nthat she had indeed married the wrong man. She then made the first\nscene of jealousy in connection with a little girl of thirteen who came\nto help the servant girls. While still in bed after her confinement,\nshe made the little girl kneel and swear by her father's life that she\nwas still pure. This oath calmed her at the time.\n\nAfter the birth of her son, she felt she had fulfilled her duty to her\nhusband and was free. She flirted with every man but would not tolerate\nthe slightest liberty from them. At the same time, she made her husband\nviolent scenes of jealousy and tried to incapacitate him, thru her\nconstant passionate advances, for relations with any other women. When\ntaken to a sanatorium, she gave evidence, thru her behavior toward the\nother women inmates of strong homosexual leanings. She confessed to\nFerenczi that there had been homosexual experiences in her childhood.\nShe then became more and more unmanageable and the analysis had to be\nabandoned.\n\n=A Case of Projection.= This is Ferenczi's comment upon this example\nof insane jealousy: \"This case of delusional jealousy becomes clear\nwhen we assume that it was a question of projection upon the husband of\nher desire for her own sex. A girl who had grown up in an exclusively\nfeminine environment is suddenly forced into a marriage of convenience\nwith a man she dislikes. She reconciles herself to it, however,\nand only shows indignation when her husband proves cruelly unkind\n(disappointment over the birth of a girl) by letting her desire turn\ntoward her childhood ideal, the little girl of thirteen. The attempt\nfails, she cannot endure homosexuality any longer and has to project it\nupon her husband.\n\n\"Finally after the birth of her son, when her 'duty' is done, the\nhomosexuality she had kept in bounds takes possession in a crude erotic\nway of all the objects that offer no possibility for sublimation (young\ngirls, old women etc.), although all this erotism, (with the exception\nof cases when she can hide it under the mask of harmless flirtation),\nis imputed to the husband. In order to support herself in that lie, the\npatient is compelled to show increased coquetry toward the male sex,\nto whom she had become very indifferent and, indeed, to demean herself\nlike a nymphomaniac.\"\n\nI have cited both cases at length for they confirm the statement I have\nmade elsewhere in this book that very exaggerated feeling is usually\na mask for the opposite feeling. Ferenczi's two patients, in love\nwith persons of their own sex, \"simulated\" neurotically a passionate\nattachment for their heterosexual mates, who, naturally could not\nattract them.\n\n=Masked Sadism.= Their stormy jealousy was more akin to hatred than\nto love. There was no tenderness in it but a good deal of sadism, of\ncruelty, and they used it in order to torture their mates on whom, in\nthe course of their jealous scenes, they could heap up abuse, which\nthey would not, under any other circumstances, dare to voice as freely.\n\nMany a husband would like to insult a wife he detests. Neurotic\njealousy supplies him with an excuse which he might not find elsewhere.\n\nAfter which, if the vocabulary he used on that occasion is especially\nvile, he has a good scapegoat at his disposal. \"I was crazed by\njealousy and did not realise what I was saying.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVII\n\n HOMOSEXUALISM; ITS GENESIS\n\n\nLove's normal goal is the union of the male and the female in a way\nwhich may insure the reproduction of the species. At times, however, we\nbehold love deviating from the path that leads to that goal: a man may\nlove another man as passionately as he would love a woman, a woman may\nbe consumed with desire for another woman.\n\nCertain parts of the ancient world looked with indifference upon\nsuch deviations from the normal. The poems of Sappho, the dialogues\nof Plato, to only mention the best known sources of information on\nthe subject, prove that in classic Greece homosexual unions were\ncountenanced by public opinion. In the \"Banquet\" young Alkibiades\ndescribes, with a frankness reminiscent of eighteenth century novels,\nhis attempts at \"seducing\" Socrates. In the holy island of Thera an\ninscription commemorates the \"wedding\" of two young men, Erastos and\nKlainos, which was celebrated with all sorts of ceremonies.\n\nA distinction was even drawn in those days between homosexual love\nwhich was purely sexual and the kind of love which was both sexual and\nintellectual.\n\n=Groups of Male Lovers=, Harmodios and Aristogeiton, Kratinos and\nAristodemos, etc., became famous and legendary owing to their unusual\nfaithfulness and constancy. Pederasty was countenanced by the very\nbehavior of the Greek gods, of Zeus in particular.\n\nThe various philosophers granted women the right to indulge in\nhomosexual love if they wished, but, nevertheless, Lesbian love, as it\nwas called after Sappho of Lesbos, was rather considered as a freak\nof nature, if not a vice. The low social condition of Hellenic women\naccounts for that illogical difference in treatment.\n\n=Women Were Harem Slaves= with little opportunity for intellectual\ndevelopment and their homosexualism could not drape itself in the\nmantle of intellectual pretence which it wore in the gymnasiums and\nschools frequented by men.\n\nGreek mythology offers no example of love between goddesses.\n\nSappho and the Lesbian poetesses gave female passion an eminent place\nin Greek literature but the Aeolian women did not found a tradition\ncorresponding to that of the Dorian men.\n\nWe even find in Lucian's works a passage indicating that some of the\nGreeks felt at the thought of female homosexualism the repugnance which\nwe feel at the thought of male homosexualism.\n\n=The Tide Turns.= About the third century and until the\neighteenth, the tide turned, at least in the Western world, and\nhomosexualism found itself confronted by a barrier of penalties\nwhich in certain lands included capital punishment. After the French\nrevolution such extreme penalties were abandoned in several European\ncountries.\n\nAt present, death is no longer the wages of the homosexual sin, but\njail sentences and ostracism of the most severe sort punish the\nsinner when detected. Legally, then, homosexualism is considered as\na voluntary \"perversion,\" to be punished, not as an abnormality, to\nbe treated or accepted. This position is absolutely ridiculous and\ngoes counter to every possible scientific view of homosexualism, its\nnature and its genesis. Whether psychiatrists consider sexualism from\na \"purely physical\" point of view or from a \"purely psychic\" point\nof view, they all consider it, not as a matter of free choice, but as\na compulsion, an organic compulsion according to the first view, an\nunconscious mental compulsion according to the latter.\n\nOpprobrium and punishment constitute no solution for any compulsion, be\nit physical or mental.\n\n=Many Theories= have been advanced as to the genesis of homosexualism\nand most of them are very unsatisfactory because every one of them\ngenerally excludes the others and because they attempt one thing which\ncannot be done: to found homosexualism either on a purely physical or\non a purely mental basis. We can never understand homosexualism until\nwe consider it from an organic point of view, according to which mental\nstates are neither the cause nor the result of physical states, or vice\nversa, but mental and physical states are two aspects of the organism,\nof the personality.\n\nThe first hypothesis I intend to review is that of the Berlin\nsexologist Magnus Hirschfeld which has had more influence on modern\nthought than any other theory of homosexualism and which unfortunately\nhas been accepted as gospel truth by many homosexuals.\n\n=The Third Sex.= Hirschfeld reminds us in his book \"Intermediate\nSexual Stages\" that during the first eight weeks of its existence, the\nfetus is neither male nor female. It is only about the eighth week that\na differentiation takes place and that the sex of the unborn can be\ndetermined.\n\nA thousand physical influences may be at work in fetal life which\nmay cause underdevelopment of the male fetus' organs, which then may\nresemble a female's in many particulars, or the overdevelopment of a\nfemale's clitoris which may make it slightly similar to a man's penis.\nThousands of variations can be observed which, in certain cases, have\ncaused the attending physician to declare the child's sex as \"doubtful.\"\n\nAccording to the degree of development of their sexual organs,\nHirschfeld suggests a classification of the intermediates into\nhermaphrodites, androgynes, transvestites, homosexuals and metatropists.\n\nI shall not touch upon the first two classes, hermaphrodites and\nandrogynes, which are obvious, gross, physical malformations of a\ncongenital character.\n\nTransvestism, homosexualism and metatropism, however, deserve careful\nconsideration.\n\n=The Transvestites= are men who experience a craving to go about\ndressed as women, women who are anxious to dress themselves as men.\n\nHirschfeld considers them as closely related to the male androgynes who\ncrave to have breasts like women and are ashamed of facial or bodily\nhair, and to the female androgynes who are ashamed of their breasts and\nwish to have a beard and body hair.\n\nTransvestites generally explain that they do not feel free except in\nthe garb of the opposite sex. \"In men's clothes,\" a male transvestite\nsaid, \"I have the feeling of wearing a uniform.\" \"In feminine clothes,\"\na female transvestite said, \"I feel inhibited and hampered. It is only\nwhen wearing masculine garments that I feel energetic and efficient.\"\n\nThe late Dr. Mary Walker, the French painter Rosa Bonheur, the French\nexplorer Madame Dieulafoy, were characteristic examples of energetic\nwomen who felt compelled to abandon the garb of their sex and to dress\nthemselves as men.\n\n=Are Transvestities Homosexual?= Dr. Wilhelm Stekel of Vienna objects\nto drawing a line between transvestites and homosexuals. But we must\nmake a distinction. Hirschfeld is right in stating that there are no\nmore homosexuals among transvestites than among normal individuals. He\nmeans, of course, _conscious_ homosexuals practicing their abnormal\nform of love. We know however, that there are thousands of men and\nwomen who, while _consciously_ experiencing the greatest disgust at\nthe thought of homosexual practices are _unconscious_ homosexuals.\nTheir dreams leave no doubt as to the nature of their cravings. We\nmay reconcile the Stekel view with the Hirschfeld view by saying that\ntransvestites are in the majority of cases unconscious homosexuals.\nThey may _consciously_ lead a most normal life: Madame Dieulafoy was\nmarried and apparently very devoted to her husband whom she followed on\nall his voyages of exploration.\n\n_Unconsciously_, however, and for reasons which we shall examine later,\ntransvestites crave a change of sex.\n\n=Metatropism= is masculine behavior in women, feminine behavior in\nmen. Normal man is physiologically aggressive in love, normal woman is\nsubmissive. In cases of metatropism, those characteristics are reversed.\n\n=The Metatropic Man= prefers tall, strong, powerful women,\noften of a different nationality or race, at times, women with some\nphysiological handicap, lameness or deformity (the French philosopher\nDescartes was attracted to women suffering from strabism). He generally\nselects a woman older than himself, either very intellectual or very\nlow ethically. In one case he is dominated by her mental superiority,\nin the other he feels that he is sacrificing his principles or\nhis social standing. Professional or business women appeal to him\nespecially. He is often a shoe fetishist. Clothing which denotes power,\nauthority, impresses him.\n\n=The Metatropic Woman= seeks feminine, beardless men, with perhaps\na good head of long hair (poets, artists). Madame Dudevant, the French\nnovelist, adopted the masculine name George Sand and had affairs with\ntwo sickly artists, Musset, the poet, and Chopin, the composer.\n\nThe metatropic woman is often a professional or business woman who, in\nher love relation, assumes a very independent, dictatorial attitude to\nmen. She favors young men whom she can dominate better.\n\nIn what Hirschfeld calls metatropists, we recognise parent-fixation\nmen and women, obsessed by a conscious or unconscious incest fear, a\ncomplication which has been discussed in another chapter.\n\nKrafft-Ebing and Albert Eulenburg classify metatropic men with\nmasochists (see Chapter XX) and metatropic women with sadists (see\nChapter XIX).\n\n=Dr. Steinach's Experiments= show the close relationship between\nhomosexualism and the secretions of the interstitial cells of the\ngenital glands.\n\nAfter castrating young rats which, after the operation, remained in\nan infantile stage of development, Steinach transplanted into their\ninguinal region male or female gonads.\n\nMales into which female gonads had been implanted, developed all the\nphysical characteristics and all the mannerisms of the female, paid no\nattention to females at mating time and, on the contrary, attracted the\nrutting males and were attracted to them.\n\nCastrated females in whose body he implanted testicles, showed the\nhardier hair growth of males, tried to mate with females and remained\nindifferent to males.\n\nProf. Brandes, director of the Zoological Garden in Darmstadt, has\nrepeated those experiments on deer with identical results. The female\nin which testicles were implanted behaved like a male and grew antlers.\nThe male's mammary glands grew very fast after the implantation of\nfemale gonads.\n\nIt is said that Steinach has successfully transformed homosexuals\ninto normal men but the last statement of his on the \"Histology\nof the Gonads in homosexual Men,\" (Vol. 46, No. 1, Archiv f\u00fcr\nEntwickelungsmechanismus der Organismen) contains no mention of such\nresults.\n\n=Perverse Birds.= If we now turn to experiments reported by William\nCraig in the _Journal of Animal Behavior_, we see an apparently\ndifferent process at work. Young male birds kept for a year in a cage\nwith females and away from all males, will at mating time ignore\nentirely the females, and offer themselves to males in the mating\nposition of the female.\n\nThe same process is observable in females brought up with males\nexclusively.\n\nImitation in this case seems to give exactly the same results which\nSteinach obtained thru castration and transplantation of gonads.\n\nIf we now leave the physiologists and consult the psychoanalysts,\nFreud, Ferenczi, Stekel and Adler will show us that homosexualism can\nbe produced by \"purely\" psychic factors.\n\n=Freud Rejects the Hypothesis of a Third Sex=: \"Homosexual men who have\nstarted in our times an energetic action against the legal limitations\nof the sexual activity,\" Freud writes, \"are fond of representing\nthemselves, thru theoretical spokesmen, as evincing a sexual variation,\nwhich may be distinguished from the very beginning, as an intermediate\nstage or sex, a third sex. In other words, they maintain that they are\nmen who are forced by organic determinants originating in the germ\nto find in a man the pleasure which they cannot find in a woman. As\nmuch as one would wish to subscribe to their demands, out of humane\nconsiderations, one must nevertheless exercise reserve regarding\ntheir theories which were formulated without regard for the psychic\ngenesis of homosexuality. Psychoanalysis offers the means to fill the\ngap and to put to test the assertions of the homosexuals. It is true\nthat psychoanalysis has fulfilled that task in only a small number of\npeople, but all the investigations thus far undertaken have brought the\nsame surprising results.\n\n\"In all our male homosexuals, there was a very intense erotic\nattachment to a feminine person, as a rule to the mother, which was\nmanifested in the very first period of childhood and later entirely\nforgotten by the individual. This attachment was produced or favored\nby too much love from the mother herself, but was also furthered by\nthe retirement or absence of the father during the childhood period.\nSadger emphasises the fact that the mothers of his homosexual patients\nwere often masculine women, or women with energetic traits of character\nwho were able to crowd out the father from the place allotted to him\nin the family. I have sometimes observed the same thing, but I was\nmore impressed by those cases in which the father was absent from the\nbeginning or disappeared early so that the boy was altogether under\nfeminine influence.\"\n\n\"It almost seems that the presence of a strong father would assure for\nthe son the proper decision in the selection of his love object from\nthe opposite sex.\n\n\"Following this primary stage, a transformation takes place whose\nmechanism we know but whose motive forces we have not yet grasped. The\nlove of the mother cannot continue to develop consciously so that it\nmerges into repression. The boy represses his love for the mother by\nputting himself into her place, by identifying himself with her, and\nby taking his own person as a model thru the similarity of which he is\nguided in the selection of his love object. He thus becomes homosexual;\nas a matter of fact, he returns to the stage of autoerotism, for the\nboys whom the growing adult now loves are only substitute persons or\nrevivals of his own childish person, whom he loves in the same way as\nhis mother loved him. We say that he finds his love object on the road\nto narcism, after the Greek legend of Narcissus to whom nothing was\nmore pleasing than his own mirrored image.\n\n\"Deeper psychological discussions justify the assertion that the person\nwho becomes homosexual in this manner remains fixed in his unconscious\non the memory of his mother. By repressing the love for his mother, he\nconserves the same in his consciousness and henceforth remains faithful\nto her. When as a lover he seems to pursue boys, he really thus runs\naway from women who could cause him to be faithless to his mother.\"\n\n=Active and Passive Types.= Ferenczi draws a distinction between the\nactive and the passive types of homosexuals, that is, between the man\nwho, in love acts like a woman, in a submissive way, and the man who\nloves men as he would women, in an agressive way.\n\n\"A man who in his love relations with men feels himself to be a woman,\"\nhe writes, \"is inverted in respect to his own ego (homo-erotism thru\nsubject inversion, or, more shortly, subject-homo-erotism). He feels\nhimself to be a woman, and this not only in the love relationship but\nin all relations of life.\n\n\"It is quite otherwise with the true active homosexual. He feels\nhimself a man in every respect, is as a rule very energetic and active,\nand there in nothing effeminate to be discovered in his bodily or\nmental organisation. The object of his inclination alone is exchanged,\nso that one might call him homo-erotic thru exchange of the love\nobject, or more shortly, object-homo-erotic.\n\n\"A further and striking difference between the subjective and the\nobjective homo-erotic consists in the fact that the former (the invert)\nfeels himself attracted by more mature, powerful men, and is on\nfriendly terms, as a colleague, one might say, with women; the second\ntype, on the contrary, is almost exclusively interested in young,\ndelicate boys with an effeminate appearance, but meets a woman with\npronounced antipathy, and not rarely with hatred which is badly or\nnot at all concealed. The true invert is hardly ever impelled to seek\nmedical advice, he feels at complete ease in the passive r\u00f4le and has\nno other wish than that people should put up with his peculiarity and\nnot interfere with the kind of satisfaction that suits him. He is not\nvery passionate and chiefly demands from his lover the recognition of\nhis bodily and other merits.\n\n\"The object-homo-erotic, on the other hand, is uncommonly tormented\nby the consciousness of his own abnormality; sexual intercourse never\ncompletely satisfies him; he is tortured by qualms of conscience and\noverestimates his sexual object to the uttermost.\n\n\"The subject-homo-erotic is a member of the intermediate sex, in the\nsense of Magnus Hirschfeld and his followers. The object-homo-erotic,\nis the victim of an obsessional neurosis.\"\n\nThe distinction between active and passive homosexuals is convenient\nbut slightly arbitrary. Certain homosexuals are at times passive and\nat times active. Both types become at times the victims of obsessions\nand seek the help of psychotherapists. Active as well as passive\nhomosexuals may be married and heterosexually potent.\n\n=The Homosexual Neurosis.= Dr. Wilhelm Stekel of Vienna calls\nhomosexualism the homosexual neurosis. He summarises the genesis of\nhomosexualism as follows:\n\n\"As a child the homosexual is very precocious sexually and can only\nrepress his cravings by developing fear, hatred and disgust at the\nthought of heterosexual relations. The result of that repression is a\nflight from normal into abnormal forms of sexual gratification.\"\n\n=A Safety Device.= To Adler, homosexualism is a detail of the\nneurotic picture, a compromise and a safety device.\n\n\"Every neurotic,\" he writes, \"experiences at some time during his\nchildhood doubts as to whether he will ever attain complete virility.\nGiving up the hope of being a real man, is, for a child, synonymous\nwith being a woman. This carries in its wake a whole cycle of childish\nvaluations: aggression, activity, power, freedom, wealth, sadism are\nmale attributes; inhibitions, cowardice, obedience, poverty are female\nattributes.\n\n\"The child plays for a while a dual part, being submissive to his\nparents and teachers but indulging in dreams which express his craving\nfor independence, freedom and importance.\n\n\"This duality in the child's psyche, the forerunner of a split in his\nconsciousness, can have varying results in later years. The individual\nwill oscillate between the male and the female poles with a constant\nstriving toward the unification of those two tendencies.\n\n\"The masculine component prevents a complete assumption of the\nfeminine r\u00f4le, the feminine component is an obstacle to complete\nvirility. Hence a compromise: feminine behavior thru masculine means: a\ntimid submissive male, masculine masochism, homosexuality. Or masculine\nbehavior thru feminine devices.\"\n\n=Above and Below.= A series of comparisons has established itself\nin the human mind, owing to the enslavement of the female by the male,\nstarting with the antithesis: male-female: good and bad, right and\nleft, HIGH, and LOW, ABOVE and BELOW.\n\nIn every female neurotic, according to Adler, there is a refusal to be\na female, that is, to be BELOW (socially as well as sexually).\n\nThe female who is inferior in looks or intelligence or position and\ncannot either compensate for that inferiority by displaying superiority\nin some other way (artistic or scientific accomplishment), or reconcile\nherself to her inferior position, wishes consciously and unconsciously\nto be a man. Consciously she makes herself as masculine as possible.\nUnconsciously, she dreams herself into a male personality, physically,\nmentally, socially AND sexually. Her wish to be ABOVE makes her play a\nman's part in love as well as in the world's life.\n\n=A Way Out.= Homosexualism is, like every neurotic symptom, a way\nout of life's difficulties.\n\nA male homosexual I treated associated the idea of woman with \"trouble,\nsickness, expense, lack of freedom.\" \"Every\" woman was to him a \"leg\npuller,\" a \"gold digger,\" a liar, insatiable in her demands, spying on\nher husband, constantly suffering from \"female trouble.\"\n\nThis man had never been married and his only sexual experiences, which\nwere of the most ephemeral type, had been gained in the few hours of\nhis life which he spent with a woman much older than himself, a cabaret\nsinger and a prostitute. Yet, he was convinced that \"women are too much\ntrouble.\"\n\nAn unconsciously homosexual male who is married, and quite potent and\nwho consulted me after a serious \"breakdown,\" had a dream in which he\nsaw himself at the top of a mountain in Africa (flight from reality and\nhis present environment). Six large negroes (powerful male sexuality)\ncarried away his wife's coffin, (flight from the sexual partner). A\nlong line of negroes then walked past him and he felt that as long as\nhe would be on friendly terms with them, he would not want for anything\n(line of least effort).\n\nFemale homosexuals who had never had any normal heterosexual\nexperience ranted along the same line of thought: \"A husband is too\nmuch trouble.\" \"The idea of submitting to a brute of a man,\" \"I don't\nwish to be a slave to a man,\" etc.\n\nAll this voices what Adler terms the \"masculine protest.\"\n\n=The Escape from Biological Duties.= Kempf also considers homosexualism\nas a compromise and a convenient escape from biological duties.\n\n\"Heterosexual potency,\" he writes \"judging from the behavior of many\npsychopaths and normals of both sexes, varies in its vigor and is never\nquite secure from the possibility of disintegration in the face of\ndepressing influences, such as disease, a frigid, unkind, terrifying,\nneurotic or disgusting mate, hopeless economic burdens, fear of\npregnancy, or venereal diseases, social scandals, an inaccessible\nor unresponsive love-object, death of the mate or a too fixed\nmother-attachment.\n\nThe intrigues and usurpations of power by the family of the mate,\nsuppressing the idealised wishes of the individual, often cause the\nregression to the lower level of homo-sexuality, where, at least,\nparental sacrifices need not be made.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XVIII\n\n HOMOSEXUALISM, A NEUROTIC SYMPTOM\n\n\nThe varying views as to the genesis of homosexualism, which I have\nattempted to summarise in the preceding chapter, can be easily\nreconciled.\n\nDoubts as to one's \"completeness\" and a craving for safety may, even at\nan early age, cause the gonads to remain undeveloped or to develop in\nthe wrong direction. Craig's pigeons were as completely \"perverted\" by\nthe wrong environment as Steinach's rats by surgical operations.\n\nHirschfeld's intermediate sex, in its concealed forms, that is, when\nthe individual, upon gross examination, appears normal, may well\nbe produced by the environment. Freud's Oedipus situation is not\nincompatible with Adler's theory of the neurotic constitution.\n\nGonads are not different from any other glands. Thyroid involvement may\nproduce fear or, at least, a picture of fear (exophthalmic goitre),\nbut fear also produces many forms of thyroid involvement (goitre and\nexophthalmic goitre were alarmingly frequent in French towns submitted\nto bombardment during the world war). A study of psychic impotence\nin men and frigidity in women has proved that impotence was mainly\na refusal to be a potent man, frigidity a refusal to be woman in\nintercourse. In certain cases, exaggerated cravings for impotence or\nfrigidity may modify the gonads so completely that they present the\ncondition Hirschfeld has called typical of the intermediate sex.\n\nHomosexualism can be best understood when viewed as a neurotic\nphenomenon, not as a neurosis in itself, but as a detail of the\nneurotic attitude to life outlined by Adler. Homosexualism is, in its\nlast analysis, an organic striving away from life's normal goals.\n\n=A Denial of Life.= Homosexualism cannot be understood unless we\nassociate it with a denial of life and all its duties. Nor could love\nbe understood if we tried to dissociate it from its primary sexual goal\nwhich is the acceptance of life with its duties, symbolised by the\nprocreation of life and the creation of new duties by the individual,\nduties which he considers as a source of joy.\n\n=Homosexualism Is Love, Negative Love=, quite as involuntary and\nas obsessive as normal, heterosexual, positive love.\n\nA homosexual teacher wrote to Plazek: \"A glance at the literature and\nart produced by homosexuals as well as insight into actual conditions,\nreveals that abnormal love can conjure up the same emotional display as\nnormal love. Longing, faithfulness, devotion, self sacrifice, blossom\nforth in abnormal love as well as in normal love.\n\n\"In both, complete communion may be the goal and climax of feelings\nwhich are perhaps among the deepest and finest which mankind can\nexperience.\"\n\n=Their Love Letters.= The absolute similarity of heterosexual and\nhomosexual love in their written expression can be judged by perusing\nthe sonnets which Michael Angelo wrote to young Tommaso dei Cavalieri\nand which could very well have been addressed to a woman.\n\nA sober scientist like Winckelman was carried away by his homosexual\nlove for Frederick von Berg to the point of writing the following\nepistle which might emanate from a lovelorn highschool boy:\n\n\"All the names I might call you are not sweet enough and do not do\njustice to my love. All the things I might say to you sound too weak\nto give voice to my heart and my soul. I love you, my dearest, more\nthan the whole world and neither time nor circumstances nor age could\never cause my love to diminish.\"\n\n=Deeds of Violence.= Homosexual love has led to as many deeds of\nviolence on the part of disappointed lovers as heterosexual love. The\npapers frequently publish without comments stories of the shooting of\na woman by another woman, caused by the fact that the victim was \"too\nattentive to another woman.\"\n\nPsychiatrists who can read between the lines recognise in those murders\nthe result of homosexual jealousy and infidelity.\n\nIn that respect the behavior of the two sexes seems slightly different.\n\n\"It is well known,\" remarks Havelock Ellis, \"that the part taken\nby women generally in open criminality, and especially in crimes\nof violence, is small as compared with men. In the homosexual the\nconditions are to some extent reversed. Inverted men, in whom a more\nor less feminine temperament is so often found, are rarely impelled to\nacts of aggressive violence, though they frequently commit suicide.\nInverted women, who may retain their feminine emotionality combined\nwith some degree of infantile impulsiveness and masculine energy,\npresent a favorable soil for the seeds of passional crime, under those\nconditions of jealousy and allied emotions which must so often enter\nthe invert's life.\"\n\n=A Homosexual Tragedy.= In a recent case in Chicago a homosexual woman\nshot her former roommate and then seriously wounded herself. They had\nroomed together and last fall the victim broke off the life together\nbecause the invert \"was too affectionate.\" The victim went to her\nparents' house in the South to get rid of the invert. On her return to\nChicago two months later she was bothered by the invert who insisted\nthat she room with her. On April 22d she received a letter from the\ninvert containing a bullet and a threat. Alarmed, she had the invert\narrested, but the invert was discharged on promise she would not annoy\nthe girl. The invert had a number of swagger sticks, one of which she\ncarried each day. There is no account of her masculinity of attire. She\nwrote poems to her victim and made her presents including a diamond\nring and a diamond studded watch, all of which were returned. There had\nbeen several threats of killing the victim, before the letter came, if\nshe ended the friendship.\n\n=Women More Homosexual than Men.= Remembering how the mother's fetishes\naffect us in the choice of a sexual mate we may expect to find more\nhomosexualism in woman than in man. The facts bear up our theory.\nWhile the gross forms of homosexualism are less frequent among women,\na thousand mild forms of it are observable in the behavior of even\napparently very normal women.\n\nThe sentimental attachments of school girls for certain teachers,\nthe pleasure which they derive from spending nights with some friend\non whom they have a \"crush,\" the thousand and one bodily caresses\nfemale friends shower on each other, the curiosity they manifest about\neach other's physical condition, their frequent bed room or bathroom\nconferences, are manifestations of a mild homosexualism, which,\nhowever, do not always lead to overt acts.\n\n=Boastfulness.= Many homosexuals compensate for the scorn meted\nout to them by normal individuals with a certain proud boastfulness.\n\n\"We are supermen,\" one hears them say when they find a sympathetic\nlistener, \"we have reached beyond the usual, boresome, bourgeois form\nof gratification. Our intellect is nauseated by woman's silliness.\"\n\nAnd the females say in their turn: \"We are super-women, we have\nconquered the fear of man and we are tired of man's boorish ways.\"\n\nSome of the male homosexuals who are bisexual, that is, can also be\nattracted by women, pride themselves over the mentality of the women\nthey love. \"Men have accustomed us to a higher intellectual level and\nto a more intelligent form of conversation,\" a homosexual said to me.\n\nThis is naturally a defence mechanism. By demanding extremely high\nqualification from the women, homosexuals have a ready excuse for\nconsorting with men exclusively.\n\n=Famous Homosexuals.= Homosexuals are fond of mentioning all the\nmen famous in art and letters whose sexual life was inverted: the Greek\nphilosophers, poets and playwrights of the classic age, Julius C\u00e6sar,\nAlexander the Great, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Frederick of\nPrussia, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, etc.\n\n=The Nietzsche-Wagner Feud= should be rewritten from a psychiatrist's\npoint of view. Wagner was to young Nietzsche an attractive, heroic,\nfather-image. The philosopher never had any real affair of the heart\nwith a woman. He only indulged in very ephemeral relationships which,\nby their disastrous results, drove him further away from women. (Dr.\nW. H. White of Washington received the assurance while in Europe that\nNietzsche died of syphilis.) Nietzsche made himself obnoxious to Wagner\nby trying to be his press agent. As Wagner, however, a shrewd business\nman in his old days, objected to Nietzsche's agnosticism and to his\nfriendship with certain Jews, Nietzsche, disappointed in his love,\nabandoned Wagner and hated him fiercely. He attacked him on every\noccasion, his hatred being made the fiercer by the fact that he himself\nconsidered himself as a greater composer, one line in Nietzsche's\nletters throws a strange light upon the poor paretic's feelings.\nWagner's \"feminine traits\" he wrote, finally disgusted him.\n\n=Shall Perverse Love Be Recognized?= Efforts are being made in\nvarious directions at the present day to have homosexual love legally\nrecognised and given perfect equality with heterosexual love. In\nGermany, a number of writers, Von Kupfer, Friedlander and others have\nboldly championed that futile attempt.\n\nA cinema film was produced last year (1921) in Berlin depicting the\nplight of the homosexual who is unable to control his cravings and\nfalls a victim to the wiles of a blackmailer. Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld\nagreed to impersonate in that production the scientist who attempts to\nenlighten the public as to the nature of homosexualism, so as to bring\nabout a modification of the statute punishing perverts.\n\n=Man's Emancipation.= In 1900, Elizar von Kupfer called upon the men to\nproclaim their \"independence\" from women. \"The man who lives in bondage\nto women,\" he wrote, \"and who humors her whims, has lost his manhood.\nSince woman is emancipating herself, why should not men follow the same\nroad?\"\n\nIllogically enough, Von Kupfer defends the mothers and wives, \"flowers\nwho should not be rooted out of the garden of love.\" In Schopenhauer's\nsilly outbursts against woman, however, Von Kupfer sees \"a test of\nmanhood revolting against man's humiliation\" and he adds that \"it is\nonly from the closest relation of man to man, adolescent to man, and\nadolescent to adolescent, that government and civilisation will derive\nreal power.\"\n\nBl\u00fcher considers homosexualism as an \"essential human trait which must\nbe granted an outlet with certain restrictions (setting the age of\nconsent at fourteen and forbidding the use of violence).\"\n\nBenedikt Friedlander, in his \"Renaissance des Eros Uranios\" suggests\n\"bringing ancient and modern culture into harmony with each other by\nreviving the Greek Eros and overthrowing the monopoly which woman has,\nof being loved and beautiful.\"\n\nRemoving the legal penalties which punish overt homosexual acts is one\nthing. Recognising homosexualism is an entirely different proposition.\nPunishing a typhoid fever patient would be absurd, but typhoid fever\nsufferers should not be allowed to remain at large without treatment.\nHomosexualism is a neurotic trait which should be eradicated, if\npossible, by analytic treatment. Hopeless cases, on the other hand\nshould be protected against their instincts by a form of confinement\nwhich would be neither punitive nor more humiliating than the\nconfinement imposed upon sufferers from contagious diseases.\n\n=Homosexualism and the War.= Homosexualism has been on the increase\nsince the war. Stekel reports many gruesome cases of husbands who,\nuntil they went to the barracks and the trenches, where their\nunconscious homosexualism found an unusual stimulation, were normal in\ntheir attitude to their wives, and who returned after the armistice\nabsolutely inverted and unable to give or receive normal gratification.\n\nThe bobbed hair craze has many good excuses. Bobbed hair is kept tidy\nmore easily than long tresses and can be dried quicker after a shampoo.\nAt the same time, when we consider that the boyish type of women\nbecame fashionable about the same time when short hair did, and that\nsoon after the war, advertising boards were covered with the praise\nof devices enabling women to conceal their natural curves, we must\nconsider both fashions as symptomatic of an increase in homosexualism.\n\nWe might also mention another fashion detail: while dressmakers were\ntrying their best to obliterate their customers breasts, they would\nbare entirely their backs. Anyone familiar with the symbolism and\ndreams of homosexuals will understand the import of that style of\ndresses.\n\n=Is Homosexualism Necessary?= Dr. Otto Gross, without openly\ncountenancing homosexualism, holds that a certain proportion of it is\nnecessary in man's makeup for a mutual understanding of both sexes.\n\n\"We can only understand,\" he writes, \"what we have experienced. Unless\na man has a decided feminine trend, he is not likely to understand a\nwoman, or to live with her harmoniously and vice versa.\"\n\nA consideration of the purely physical side of love lends a slight\nplausibility to that view. Unless a man can clearly imagine love's\npleasure as experienced by a woman, he may not be able to vouchsafe her\ncomplete gratification.\n\nThe progress of civilisation certainly demands that men become less\nmasculine (translate: boorish) and women less feminine (meaning: silly).\n\nWe could not tolerate, however, what Friedl\u00e4nder called a Renaissance\nof Eros Uranios, leading to the conditions which obtained in Greece\nwhere men, while consorting with other men, were also potent with women.\n\nNo parallel can be drawn between Greek culture and modern culture.\n\nHellenic culture was decidedly masculine, women being solely tools of\nlust, or beasts of burden, or means of proliferation. As I will show\nin another chapter, one really modern woman can give to the modern\nman what Demosthenes sought in three kinds of women, a prostitute, a\nconcubine and a wife, not to count a male mistress.\n\n=What is Really Needed= is a better understanding of homosexualism\nby the public and by the homosexuals. After which, homosexuals, no\nlonger despised and punished for their obsessive cravings, and no\nlonger proud of their condition, will be given sympathy and treatment,\nvoluntary or compulsory. Psychoanalysts will remove their complexes and\nlead them toward a positive goal; surgeons, performing on them some\nof Steinach's operations, may raise their heterosexual potency to the\npoint at which no doubt will obsess them any longer.\n\nThose things will avail little, however, until parents watch their\noffspring carefully to discover in them the first symptoms of a\nhomosexual trend and adopt ways and means to prevent the growth of the\nneurosis.\n\nWe may for convenience quote Hirschfeld's description of the homosexual\nchild, a very superficial one, indeed, sufficient, however, to cause\nthe average parent to seek psychological and medical advice before it\nis too late and before mental and physical habits have compromised,\nperhaps hopelessly, the love life of their children.\n\n\"The homosexual boy prefers girls' games, shuns boys' games, is girlish\nin disposition and behavior, if not in appearance. People often say\nthat he is like a girl. He is happy in the company of girls. He has a\npsychic fixation on his mother. He is reserved and embarrassed before\nother boys. He often becomes unduly attached to a male teacher or a\nschoolmate.\n\n\"The homosexual girl prefers boys' games, does not care for sewing or\nother feminine occupations, is boyish in her disposition, her motions,\noften in her appearance. People call her a tomboy. She likes to romp\nwith boys. She is overattached to her father. She shows embarrassment\nin the presence of other girls. She often falls madly in love with a\nfemale teacher or some older woman.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XIX\n\n CRUELTY AND LOVE. SADISM\n\n\nIn normal individuals the idea of love is inseparably associated with\ntenderness, caressing gestures, words or glances, readiness on the part\nof either mate to go to extremes in order to enhance the loved one's\nenjoyment of the amorous relationship, or to protect him against all\ndangers or suffering.\n\nIn normal individuals, love and suffering are antithetic terms, love\nmeaning joy and pleasure, (sexual and egotistical), suffering being\nonly conceivable when the craving for love is ungratified, when the\nlonely lovers are parted by life, when one of them has been robbed by\ndeath of his mate, etc.\n\n=Algolagnists.= There are abnormal human beings, however, known\ntechnically as algolagnists (from algos, pain, and lagneia, enjoyment),\nwho cannot imagine or enjoy love when it is entirely dissociated from\nsome form of suffering.\n\nThe active algolagnists must inflict some pain, physical or mental,\nupon their mate in order to enjoy the pleasures of love to their full\nextent. The passive algolagnists only attain the highest degree of\namorous satisfaction when they are submitted by their mate to painful\nor humiliating treatment.\n\nActive algolagnists are known more commonly as \"sadists,\" an expression\ncreated by Moreau de Tours. Krafft-Ebing, the most famous writer on\nsexual perversions coined for passive algolagnists the expression\n\"masochists.\"\n\nThe word sadist is derived from the name of Marquis de Sade, a French\npervert of the eighteenth century, whose life and writings well\nillustrate the form of love which is constantly associated with acts of\ncruelty.\n\n=Donatien Alphonse Fran\u00e7ois de Sade= was born in Paris, June 2 1740,\nthe offspring of an aristocratic family of Provence. Among his\nancestors was the Laura of Petrarca's sonnets.\n\nAt fourteen, he joined a cavalry regiment. He went thru the Seven\nYears War during which he witnessed the most ruthless atrocities. On\nhis return, at the age of twenty-seven, he married, but soon after his\nmarriage was arrested for some deed of cruelty committed in a house of\nprostitution.\n\nHis father's death left him heir to an important government position\nbut his life of excesses gave him little time to attend to his duties.\n\nAt twenty-eight, he attracted much attention by a scandal in which he\nplayed a prominent part. He lured a shopkeeper's wife, Rose Keller to a\nhouse in the suburbs of the French capital where he used to hold revels.\n\nThreatening the woman with a pistol, he bound her hands and feet and\nwhipped her to the blood.\n\nThe next morning, Rose Keller managed to free herself, jumped out of\nthe window and summoned help. De Sade was arrested but the affair was\nsoon hushed up by powerful friends at the court of Louis the Fifteenth.\n\nThat incident is characteristic of sadism in love's relations. His\nvictim's sufferings supplied De Sade with the artificial stimulation\nwhich normal desire would produce in a normal man.\n\nSoon after this, De Sade eloped to Italy with his wife's sister.\n\nOn his way to Italy, he stopped in Marseille and organized an orgy in\nthe course of which he gorged his guests with candy containing some\npoisonous aphrodisiac drug. Two of them died.\n\nThis time, a court rendered a death sentence against the murderous\npervert, who eluded the police for a time and was finally confined in\nthe fortress of Vincennes for thirteen years.\n\nIt was said at the time that a woman had been found in a house where\nhe indulged in all sorts of debauches, unconscious and bleeding from a\nhundred scalpel wounds which had severed many veins.\n\nDe Sade devoted his enforced leisure to writing. His published works\nfill up ten volumes. They contain a description of the most atrocious\nsexual cruelties. The author makes a childish attempt at establishing\na \"satanic\" morality based on the fact that \"virtue is always punished\nby the world and vice always rewarded.\" His atheism is no more than a\nsatanic ritual.\n\nDe Sade's literary output, which is devoid of any artistic merit and\nis only of interest to the student of abnormal psychology, bears the\nstamp of hopeless intellectual inferiority trying to justify itself\nby representing the entire world as a combination of a brothel and a\ntorture chamber and mankind as a herd of blood-thirsty and sex-crazed\nlunatics. A sinister autobiography and wish fulfilment.\n\nThe revolutionists of 1789 who opened the doors of all jails and insane\nasylums gave De Sade his freedom on July 14. He sided politically with\nhis deliverers but after a while, became suspicious to them and again\nspent one year in prison (1793-1794).\n\n=What Bonaparte Thought of Him.= De Sade, who had been very liberal in\npresenting free copies of his obscene novels to men prominent in the\ndays of the Revolution and the Terror, made the mistake of sending a\nset of his works to Bonaparte.\n\nThe Corsican caused the entire edition to be suppressed and diagnosed\nthe author very accurately as a murderous pervert, unfit to be at\nlarge. De Sade was committed to an insane asylum where he remained\nuntil his death on December 2, 1814.\n\nSadism is a morbid phenomenon which remained mysterious until recently,\nwhen the experimental work of physiologists like Cannon, Sherrington\nand others, revealed to us the close connection existing between mental\nstates, muscular tensions and the secretions of ductless glands of the\nbody.\n\nAdler's \"individual psychology\" also has thrown much light upon many\nmorbid actions which are simply attempts at compensation for a feeling\nof inferiority. The neurotic, briefly speaking, feels inferior, that\nis, afraid of some imaginary danger. He casts about for something\nwhich can be done quickly, simply, with the least effort, and which\nwill restore his peace and safety by filling him, were it only\ntemporarily, with a sense of actual or imaginary superiority.\n\n=Glandular Drunkenness.= Wulffen suggests an interpretation of sadism\nwhich is ingenious but unconvincing. He considers every act of violence\nas provoked by the faulty functioning of some glands.\n\nHe compares the effect of the gonadal hormones (one of the secretions\nof the sex glands issuing from the interstitial cells) with that of\nalcohol. Alcohol destroys the inhibitions and allows unconscious\ncravings of an inacceptable sort to express themselves thru overt acts.\n\nThe drunken man loses all shame and all fear, becomes boisterous and,\nat times, murderous. Likewise, Wulffen says, oversecretion of the\ngonadal hormones creates a sort of sexual drunkenness in the course of\nwhich the individual is forced into violent or cruel behavior.\n\nThis would be acceptable if all the sadists were strong healthy\nspecimens of manhood and womanhood. Most of them, on the contrary, show\nplainly signs of glandular insufficiency.\n\nWulffen's thesis is not confirmed as some writers assume by a study of\nthe mating habits of many animals. Cocks during the act of mating peck\ncruelly the back of the hen's head. Tomcats bite the necks of their\nmates. Toads, at times, choke the female to death in their clinging\nembrace.\n\nIn those acts of animal \"cruelty\" there is probably another element\nto be considered. The tomcat, digging his teeth into the female cat's\nneck, may not so much relieve his sadistic impulses as produce in his\nmate some welcome sensation of pleasurable pain. We know how willingly\nthe most rebellious cats allow any one to grab them by the backs of\ntheir necks, making no effort at freeing themselves and apparently\nenjoying that partial strangulation. (Remember the aphrodisiac\ninfluence of hanging.)\n\n=Atavism.= Eulenburg considers that sadism is an atavistic trait. \"Not\nonly animals,\" he says, \"but primitive races associate mating with\nviolence.\"\n\nThe caveman is supposed to have beaten the female he captured into\ninsensibility before dragging her to his cave.\n\nWe do not know, however, whether it was THE caveman or SOME cavemen\nwho indulged in that practice, the existence of which may be merely\na subject for speculation. It goes without saying that whenever\nfemales were carried off by victorious tribes after armed conflicts the\n\"wooing\" of the captives must have been synonymous with violence and\nrape.\n\nOld documents offer many examples of the combination of love and\nviolence. There is the old legend of Griseldis in which a sadistic man\ntested in the cruellest way the woman who was to be his life mate.\n\nThe epic poem Gudrun recites one of the prehistoric struggles between\nmale and female. The unfortunate male in this case is overpowered by\nthe Nordic Valkyrie who binds him with her girdle and keeps him lashed\nto the wall till morning.\n\nThe modern honeymoon trip is undoubtedly a survival of the primeval\nhabit of carrying off the bride.\n\n=Primitive Religions= constantly associate sadism with love. In fact\nthe Goddess of Love, in the Greek mythology, owed her existence to an\nact of sadism. Kronos' male organ, cut off by his Zeus, fell into the\nsea, fertilized it, and Aphrodite was born.\n\nMany primitive gods demanded the sacrifice of virgins, primitive\ngoddesses decapitated or castrated men with whom at times they\nconsorted. The priests and priestesses of certain religions could only\nplease their gods by submitting to sexual indignities, the priestesses\nof Cybelea prostituting themselves to every one, the priests castrating\nthemselves.\n\nSome of those acts of violence, however, must be considered from an\nentirely different point of view.\n\n=In Primitive Races= real achievement was always associated with\nviolence. The \"real man\" was the victorious fighter and killer. Even in\nRoman days, gladiator duels terminated with the death of the defeated\nman, unless he were a popular ring idol whom the mob saved for further\nencounters.\n\nThe robber, designated by more flattering names, of course, gained more\nglory by stealing goods or gold than the merchant who, in ways more\nsocially acceptable, accumulated goods and gold.\n\nCivilisation has changed those things. In neurotic states, however,\nwe always observe a return to archaic modes of action which are more\ndirect. We nowadays kill off a competitor thru advertising. Instead of\nlevying tribute on the defeated rival, we compel him to sell out to us\nat our price, etc. The neurotic kills or steals, as archaic heroes did.\n\n=Animal Love Fights.= Also, as far as animals are concerned, the\nmore or less playful fights with which they prelude their mating is\nnot, as Wulffen suggests, due to gonadal drunkenness. On the contrary,\nit is meant to produce a stronger outpouring of gonadal secretions in\nboth male and female, thereby increasing the energy of the male and\nassuring the pregnancy of the female.\n\nFights preceding animal mating increase, among other things, the\nsecretions of the adrenal cortex which impart to all the muscles (among\nthem the sexual muscles) a considerable tension.\n\nLet us bear in mind that physiological detail while interpreting the\nfact that many neurotics are only potent sexually with women who resist\nthem. We see how a certain amount of struggle, producing perhaps slight\nanger (and possibly leading to acts of violence), would strengthen the\nsexual faculties of the weak neurotic and enable him to possess his\nmate. From that type of neurotic, who requires glandular excitement of\nthe adrenal type, to the sadist, typified by the famous Marquis, and\nup to the Ripper who disembowels his victims we see merely a series\nof gradations in glandular insufficiency, not as Wulffen said, in\nglandular hyper-secretion.\n\n=A Neurotic Trait.= Furthermore, sadism should not be considered\nas a phenomenon of purely sexual character. Sadism is merely a detail\nof the neurotic make up. It is one of the neurotic short cuts whereby\nan inferior individual acquires a temporary superiority.\n\nThe section foreman who takes pleasure in driving his men at a killing\npace, the detective engaged daily in the task of man hunting, the\nso-called \"strict\" parent who beats his children, the surgeon who never\ntires of performing operations, the futile reformer who is constantly\ntrying to deprive some one of some form of enjoyment, the jealous\nhusband who deprives his wife of many pleasures, the jealous wife who\nrelishes the thought that her husband is giving up his club or his\nformer associates for her sake, are sadists, some of them partly normal\nand useful, some of them morbid or ridiculous.\n\n=The Mob.= Sadism is one of the great \"mob characteristics.\" Why do we\nrun to fires and to the scene of an accident? To help? No. To enjoy the\nsight of some one's life or property being destroyed. If our impulses\nwere humane or charitable we should be relieved, nay exultant, when we\nlearn that the conflagration has only destroyed a curtain or a shade,\nwhen we see the man bowled over by a taxi getting up and walking away,\nlittle the worse for the experience.\n\nNotice on the contrary the indignation of the average man when the fire\n\"does not amount to anything\", when the \"victim\" of an accident escapes\nunharmed.\n\n=Is the Male More Cruel?= It has been said that sadism was a masculine\ntrait, masochism a feminine characteristic. Like the majority of\ngeneralisations on the subject of sex differences, it is inaccurate.\n\nMan, the hunter, is more aggressive in love, but his aggressiveness\nneed not include cruelty. His strength, in modern life, is put to quite\na different use, to protect the weaker female, not to overwhelm her.\n\nWoman is supposed to be more submissive but mythology, legend and\nhistory present to us thousands of cases in which the female of the\nhuman species betrayed many sadistic instincts, not infrequently\nassociated with her love activities. Even in the animal world, while\nwe behold males apparently submitting the female to much suffering,\nwe find not a few cases, for instance in the insect world, of females\nkilling or even devouring their mate immediately after the love\ncommunion.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XX\n\n LOVE THAT CRAVES SUFFERING. MASOCHISM\n\n\nThe man whom Krafft-Ebing selected as the typical masochist, Leopold\nvon Sacher-Masoch, was born in Lemberg, January 27, 1836.\n\nHe was extremely frail in infancy and childhood. He compensated for\nhis physical inferiority thru unusual mental activity, for at the\nage of nineteen he won his degree of doctor of law. At twenty he was\nappointed instructor in German history at an university. At the age\nof twenty-five he was the author of several books of history. He then\nturned to fiction, first of the historical and then of the purely\npsychological type.\n\nA morbid tendency was observable in his very first books, a tendency\nwhich became more and more marked and which led him to write almost\nexclusively descriptions of perverse love entanglements.\n\nHe showed a decided preference for delineating cruel, mannish types of\nwomen and incredibly weak types of men.\n\nAs in the case of Marquis de Sade, we observe here a strange\nparallelism between the man's writings and his own biography.\n\nSacher-Masoch's first love was a woman much older than himself, Anna\nvon Kattowitz, who for four years humiliated, insulted and victimised\nhim in every possible way, finally running away with a Russian\nadventurer.\n\nThen he met Princess Bogdanoff for whom he abandoned temporarily his\nprofessional and literary ambitions. She took him to Italy where he\nwas compelled to serve her as a secretary and valet. He enjoyed the\nrelationship, but the princess soon tired of him.\n\nHis next liaison was with Baroness Fanny Pistor, with whom he had his\npicture taken once in the following position: she seated on a sofa and\nclad in furs, he kneeling at her feet on the floor.\n\nThen came Baroness Reizenstein, whom he could not love very long for\nshe refused to satisfy his morbid craving for physical torture and\nhumiliating treatment and, besides, was homosexual.\n\nThen he became engaged to a young artist, Miss Bauerfeld, of Graz.\n\nSoon after, however, he met an ugly, mannish hysterical person, Vanda\nDunayef, who gratified better his perverse leanings and compelled him\nto break his engagement. A child was born of their union and in 1873\nthey were married. They traveled from town to town, apparently unable\nto find peace anywhere, and she finally left him to elope with a\nreporter from the Paris Figaro.\n\nSacher-Masoch secured a divorce and married again, this time a motherly\ntype of woman, Hulda Meister, retired with her to the small village of\nLindheim and died there on March 9, 1895.\n\nA few incidents of his life describe well his perversion.\n\n=Love of the Whip.= Once, according to Havelock Ellis, in the\ncourse of an innocent romp in which the whole household took part,\nSacher-Masoch asked his wife to whip him. She refused. Then he\nsuggested the maid should do it.\n\nHis wife did not take this seriously, but he had the servant whip\nhim to his full enjoyment. When his wife urged that it would not be\npossible to keep the maid after this, Sacher-Masoch agreed and she was\ndischarged.\n\nHe constantly found pleasure in placing his wife in awkward or\ncompromising circumstances, a pleasure she was too normal to share.\n\nThis led to much domestic unhappiness. Against her wish he persuaded\nher to whip him with whips to which nails were attached. This he\nclaimed was a literary stimulus.\n\nDr. Eulenburg tells of a young woman with whom Sacher-Masoch\ncorresponded for a while and to whom he wrote that \"his greatest joy\nwould be to be whipped by a woman.\" Later on, Sacher-Masoch met her in\nVienna and asked her to don a fur coat and to whip him. She however,\npretended to treat the matter as a joke, and dismissed him.\n\nHis numerous books of fiction present over and over again the same\ntheme: the domineering woman, \"clad in furs,\" who tortures a weak\nhelpless man.\n\nWe behold in Sacher-Masoch a clear case of physical weakness and\nglandular insufficiency. His endocrines, in particular his adrenals and\ngonads, required the actual stimulation of pain (whipping) before they\ncould react properly to a sexual stimulus.\n\nIt is a curious coincidence that among all forms of stimulation used\nto accelerate the gait of beasts of burden or draft horses, the whip\nis the most commonly used the world over and that, on the other hand,\nperverts of the masochist type have, the world over and at every age\nof history, more frequently resorted to the whip to torture themselves\nthan to any other means of physical punishment.\n\n=The Masochist is Like a Weak or Tired Horse.= Why does whipping\nmake a horse go faster? Not merely on account of the fear or pain which\nthe beast experiences, but because that fear and pain MAKE HIM STRONGER.\n\nThe adrenalin liberated by the fear-and-pain-producting stimulus\nstiffens every muscle in his body and his strength is doubled.\n\nThis is why frightened animals or insane people in a panic can perform\nfeats of strength of which they would be absolutely incapable in a\nnormal state.\n\nMasochism is much more, however, than an organic attempt at\ncompensating for glandular inferiority and acquiring in a morbid\nway increased sexual potency. It is a neurotic expedient whereby an\ninferior man or woman compensates for his or her weakness thru more\nweakness.\n\nBy belittling themselves, by disparaging their own ability,\nmasochist lovers can take advantage of their mate, let him bear all\nresponsibilities.\n\n=Shoe Fetishism.= We understand from that point of view the meaning of\nthe shoe fetishism which Krafft-Ebing has noticed in male masochists.\nIn fact Hirschfeld states that every male shoe fetish is a masochist.\n\nTo the masochist, the shoe, especially the high buttoned shoe, is\nsymbolical of woman's power, of her ruthless cruelty. He sees himself\ntrod on by that shoe, he imagines that shoe pressing on his neck,\npinning his head to the ground.\n\nCuriously enough, long gloves seem to arouse the same ideas in the mind\nof the male masochist. Both shoes and gloves are found in the dreams or\nvisions of neurotics, symbolizing the female organs.\n\nA masochist wrote once: \"The gloved hand of a woman, altho like her\nfoot, smaller and prettier than a man's, can wield the whip powerfully\nover her slave whose greatest joy consists then in kissing his\nmistress's shoes while submitting to that punishment.\"\n\n=Craving for Humiliation.= The masochist welcomes every form\nof humiliation and not infrequently derives great pride from his\n\"patience,\" \"tolerance,\" \"self-sacrifice,\" \"martyrlike resignation\" etc.\n\nLike Sacher-Masoch himself, some men, husbands or lovers, (pimps,\ncadets, etc.) have been known to enjoy the sight of their wife or\nmistress in another man's arms.\n\nHirschfeld was consulted by a woman whose husband compelled her at\nfrequent intervals to have relations with a man in his own house. He\nwould invite a business associate for dinner and then leave his wife to\nexplain that he had been suddenly called out of town.\n\nThe guest and his wife would dine together. Wine would flow freely\nand she would coquettishly goad the man into making advances to her.\nConcealed in the next room, the husband would watch thru a peep hole\nthe proceedings which ended with a passionate scene.\n\nIt was only after beholding that humiliating sight that the masochistic\nhusband could enjoy his wife's embraces.\n\nA man who consulted me confessed to me that he was absolutely impotent\nwith his own wife or with any unmarried woman. It was only with married\nwomen that he felt perfectly virile. The thought of his mistress in\nher husband's arms was the only thing that could arouse him physically.\n\nMany neurotics of the masochistic type have dreams of being school\nchildren punished by a masculine female teacher. Those dreams, be\nthey night or day dreams, are always associated with erotic thoughts.\nRemember Jean Jacques Rousseau enjoying viciously the spankings which\nmademoiselle Lambercier gave him when a child.\n\nMasochists, male or female, are often very anxious to perform menial or\ndisgusting tasks for the person they love, thus placing themselves in a\nsubordinate, protected, position and at the same time, claiming a great\ndeal of credit for their devotion.\n\n=Masochistic Fancies.= The male masochist, eager to place himself\nin the position of safety toward his mate, not infrequently imagines\nhimself to be an animal and asks to be treated as such. Greek antiquity\nhas bequeathed to us the story of Aristotle the philosopher, allowing\na prostitute to ride on his back, whipping him like a horse, while he\nwould crawl about on all fours.\n\nMedical literature contains many descriptions of establishments where\nmale masochists are submitted to voluntary torture thru various\nappliances.\n\nThe ascetics who in the Middle Ages whipped themselves, wore hair cloth\nstudded with sharp nails, etc., to manifest their love to God or the\nVirgin, the Russian Skooptsy who mutilate themselves to please God, are\nreligious examplaries of masochistic love.\n\nThe Christian ideal of suffering and renunciation as a means of\nconquering everlasting happiness is also purely masochistic.\n\nSuffering, be it physical or mental (remorse), assures to them in the\nend, well-being (glandular well-being) and enables them to reach Heaven\n(will-to-be-above).\n\n=Are Women Masochistic?= I denied in the preceding chapter the\nfrequently heard assertion that sadism in a typically masculine trait.\nI would deny quite as emphatically that masochism is peculiarly\nfeminine, a view held by many sadists, as an attempted justification of\ntheir cruel perversion.\n\nOscar Wilde, a bisexual, stated once that of all the masculine traits\nit was cruelty which women appreciated most. To his morbid mind cruelty\nmeant power. It is power of course which woman, disabled several times\nin her life by pregnancy and lactation, seeks in the man with whom she\nmates. He must be a good fighter and a good hunter, not, however,\nmerely to capture her and brutalise her, but on the contrary, to\nprotect her and feed her.\n\nThe sadist Kurnberger in his novel, \"The Castle of Horrors\" also bids\nus believe that man's greatest victory, appreciated as such by woman,\nconsists in making a woman suffer, in bringing tears to her eyes, in\nouttalking and outwitting her, \"a victory compared to which,\" he says,\n\"Marengo and Austerlitz look like thirty cents.\"\n\nAnd the sadistic Nietzsche puts in the mouth of an old woman in his\n\"Zarathustra\" the following statement: \"when you go to women, don't\nforget to take your whip.\"\n\nOther sadists remind us of the Russian woman's wail that her husband's\nlove must be cooling off, because he hasn't beaten her in an age.\nBarring a number of exceptions, the fact remains that masochism in\nwomen is as abnormal as masochism in men, or sadism in men or women.\n\n=Women Who Enjoy a Beating.= There are women who enjoy unconsciously\nbeing beaten by their husbands, much as they may resent the outrage\nconsciously.\n\nThey are in every case hypothyroid and hypoadrenal types in whom the\ndistribution of energy and the emergency production of energy are very\nsubnormal. Nothing but a violent stimulus, physical or mental, whipping\nor insult, can make them feel strong and active.\n\nThe dreams of those women, like those of masochistic men, are often of\nthe nightmarish type. They suffer in their night visions all sorts of\ntorture. Analysis brings out the fact that every detail of those dreams\nis associated with energy, achievement, etc.\n\nDe Sade's wife belonged evidently to the masochistic type. She remained\nfaithful to him to the end in spite of his perverse life, his prison\nrecord and the fact that he deceived her with her own sister. Her life\nof sorrow must have vouchsafed her, after all, a good many masochistic\ncompensations of the neurotic variety.\n\n=Famous Women Sadists.= As against the assumption that \"all\" women\nare masochists, we may mention many famous women sadists, several\nByzantine and Roman Empresses, Frankish queens, two Russian empresses,\nthe treatment meted out by women to Theroigne de M\u00e9ricourt, tortured\npublicly by the Jacobine women in 1793, not to mention legendary\ncharacters like the Amazons and mythological goddesses who killed or\ntortured their lovers.\n\nSadism and masochism in love are pathological disturbances due to a\nneurotic attempt on the part of an inferior individual to dominate the\nsexual partner thru violence or weakness, and to assure himself against\ndefeat in the sexual relationship.\n\n=The Freudian Suggestion= that the sadist identifies himself with\nthe powerful and apparently, brutal father, the masochist identifying\nhimself with the weaker and submissive mother, applies to a too\nrestricted number of cases to be of positive help in understanding the\nnature of those two perversions. Even when that explanation seems to\nfit the case, we must, nevertheless, fall back upon the Adlerian view\nof the neurotic temperament in order to understand why a child decides\nto identify himself with one parent instead of the other.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXI\n\n WHAT LOVE OWES TO SADISTS AND MASOCHISTS\n\n\nLove that inflicts suffering and love which craves suffering are\ntravesties on love, for normal love gives joy and craves joy.\n\nYet, it may be that a too perfect adaption, one vouchsafing constantly\nto the mates the security they seek in each other's arms would soon\npall on them. They might not remain attached to each other any longer\nthan the animals who, in the majority of species, part as soon as they\nhave fulfilled their biological mission.\n\nA perfectly normal couple might die of boredom. What makes animals,\nwhen they have not been slightly perverted by contact with human\nbeings, so uninteresting, is their absolute normality.\n\nA very slight touch of \"perversion\" in at least one of the mates, seems\nnecessary if the novelty of the relationship is not to wear off too\nsoon. Maybe I should not say perversion, but perverseness.\n\nThe normal husband who would die rather than hurt his life mate cannot\ncompete with the romantic, lover, a little mysterious, unreliable,\nsuspected of flirting with other women, who \"keeps a woman guessing,\"\npretends at times to be indifferent and has to be won over and over\nagain.\n\nThe normal husband whose affection is taken for granted and who always\nsays the proper thing at the proper time, remembers all anniversaries\nand celebrates them officially, pales in comparison with a tender,\nmasochistic lover, whom every unkind gesture seems to wound deeply,\nwhose affection is tinged with a melancholy longing, who treasures\nlittle sentimental memories which his earnestness makes at times rather\npoignant.\n\n=The Sadistic Lover= carries a woman off her feet by the daredevil\nthings he may indulge in when away from her. The masochist touches\ndeeply the motherly chord in her by the acts of kindness and devotion\nhe may perform for others, by his charitable or professional activities.\n\n=The Vamp.= How much the world, especially the world of art, owes\nto the slightly sadistic, \"vampish\" woman, who, if she is endowed\nwith much physical beauty sets, a little cruelly, all the males\ncompeting for her favors. How many flaming poems of passion, what\npriceless canvasses, statutes and monuments has she conjured up out of\nher admirers' minds. Even the perverse female beasts of the Italian\nRenaissance made love infinitely romantic.\n\nOn the other hand, what worshipful tenderness meets even the memory\nof the patient Aude who silently closed her eyes and died when Roland\nwas brought home dead, of Solvejg, waiting with saintly resignation\nfor the return of the rover Peer Gynt. Of course the sadistic braggart\nearns much hatred and the whimpering masochistic male much scorn. The\nsadistic vamp gets shot by jealous lovers and the clinging masochistic\nvine is called a pest. To the lovers who are not unbearably normal\nand whose slight pituitary instability causes them to do and say the\nunexpected, love owes its poetry, the love life its charm and its\ninspirational power.\n\nAll other things being equal, when a slightly sadistic male, seeking\nas his mate the image of a pliant mother, meets a slightly masochistic\nfemale who seeks the image of the powerful, domineering father, there\nare many chances that the match will, for a long period of time, retain\nits original qualities.\n\nThe sadistic female, on the other hand soon emasculates the masochistic\nmale. Sadistic mates and masochistic mates land in the divorce court,\nthe former throwing at each other charges of cruelty, the latter, for\nunfaithfulness of one or both mates, who seek in adultery relief from\nthe monotony of their too peaceful existence.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXII\n\n LOVE AMONG THE ARTISTS\n\n\nFrequent are the divorces in the artistic world. Platitudinous\nmoralisers explain that fact with the stupid statement that the morals\nof the stage are \"loose.\" Like the Freudians, they always seek in sex\nthe origin of every disturbance in human life.\n\nSex in the life of an artist, however, plays an infinitely less\nimportant part than egotism, the desire to be above.\n\nThe so-called normal man, who works, eats, sleeps, reproduces himself,\nand, at his death leaves the world exactly as he found it is probably\nsubnormal.\n\nHe differs very little from the animals who do exactly the same things\nin the same way and seem perfectly pleased with the endless repetition\nof an immutable life ritual.\n\n=Dissatisfaction= is really the element which we must consider when\nwe try to draw a line of cleavage between men and the animals.\nDissatisfaction breeds either neurosis or creation.\n\nThe dissatisfied person, devoid of intellectual resources, either\ncommits a crime or kills himself or goes off into another world thru\nthe door that leads into insanity.\n\nThe dissatisfied person gifted with powers of self-expression, makes\nthe world in which he lives better, more beautiful or more comfortable.\nThat sort of achievement presupposes a certain amount of healthy\nsadism, the courage to criticise, to offer suggestions, to force the\nproducts of one's mind upon the community, to say \"look at me, I am\nperfect or, at least, better than you.\"\n\nEvery budding actor assumes unconsciously that he can delineate a r\u00f4le\nbetter than the other histrionic lights of his time; every new novelist\nmust assume that he can tell a story more attractively than his readers\ncould picture it to themselves, etc., etc.\n\nThe artist who is willing to yield, soon relapses into the ranks of\nthe business men. Whoever panders to the popular taste of his time\nmay derive therefrom financial advantages but very little egotistical\ngratification.\n\nThe real artist must know that he is right and must not be, therefore,\nsoft clay to be moulded by any one else's desires.\n\nHow then could the artist obtain lasting happiness from any form of\nlove relationship?\n\n=The Male Artist=, if married to a submissive, masochistic wife, may\nlive happily with her for a time. Egotists, male or female, however,\nneed flattery. Familiarity breeds contempt. Flattery must come from a\nconstantly changing source or lose its power, as drugs do when we grow\naccustomed to them.\n\nFlattery coming from a pretty woman whose attraction has not been\nweakened by daily contact will soon lead the artist husband into\nforbidden paths. Unless endowed with the wisdom of the musician's wife\nin \"The Concert,\" his wife will soon be granted a divorce on the ground\nof his too obvious infidelity.\n\nWoe to the male artist who takes unto himself a female artist for his\nwife. As I said in the preceding chapter, sadist plus sadist equals\ndivorce suit for cruelty alleged by both parties. In this type of\nmatrimonial castastrophy, the fault lies more frequently with the wife\nthan with the husband.\n\n=Female Artists= are more unbearable than male artists. They are more\ntouchy, more easily offended and angered, more apt to suspect the\npeople in their environment of harboring veiled hostility. The reason\nfor that state of things is not far to seek.\n\nWomen require infinitely more flattery than men do. Not that a craving\nfor attention is by any means a typically feminine trait. That craving\nhas been forced upon them by the masculine domination.\n\nWe have made woman inferior to man politically, socially, economically,\nwe have, as Adler would word it, put her \"below.\" Until we allow her\nto rise to man's level, she will never feel safe and will constantly\nrequire assurances of her superiority, at least, from the men who fancy\nher looks and enjoy her company.\n\n=The Woman Who Accomplishes Things= in this world, who, in spite\nof woman's handicap in her dealings with the world, wins recognition\nas a painter, sculptor, writer, singer, etc., feels, and justly so,\nthat she deserves more credit for her accomplishment than a man\nwould. Winning power in a man's world is for the woman who reaches\nthat aim ethically, that is, without bartering her sexual favors for\nsuccess, as difficult as it would be for a Jew to arrive in a bigoted\nChristian community, for a negro to establish his prestige in a white\nanglo-saxon environment.\n\nHaving reached the top after much fighting, she never feels as secure\nas a man would under similar circumstances. Her ego is steadily on the\ndefensive and whatever interferes with her ego maximation appears to\nher dangerous and hateful.\n\nThe female artist who marries a male artist will soon become jealous\nof him. Every bit of publicity he receives is something which he has\nstolen from her, which he should, she thinks, if he loved her enough,\nhave renounced in her favor.\n\nThe female artist who marries a man incapable of artistic achievement,\nmay be violently attracted to him sexually. Her egotism, on the other\nhand, prompts her to disparage him and to scorn his judgment of\nher. However much he may admire her, his praise lacks weight in her\nestimation. He is not a member of the enchanted circle.\n\nA word from \"one in the know\", insignificant as he may be, will bring a\nsmile to her lips, a flash of pleasure in her eyes, which will cut her\nmate to the quick. I have observed many a time an angry tension in the\nface of the business husband of some actress or singer when she would\nvisibly gloat over the not too disinterested praise of some trashy\nprofessional.\n\n=Flattery.= The artist is at the mercy of the flattery lavished on\nhim or her by a fellow artist and absolutely blind to the flatterer's\nulterior motives. A great musician who died recently was an easy victim\nto every budding musician who would sycophantically sing his praises.\nThe mere statement \"if I could ever hope to sing a few notes like you\"\nenabled any young exploiter who could approach him to negotiate a\n\"loan.\"\n\nFor the reasons I have mentioned in the preceding pages, the woman\nartist is even more easily victimised, financially or sentimentally\nthan the male artist.\n\nSexual jealousy wrecks the unions of artists with non-professional\nmates. Sexual jealousy and professional jealousy make the union of two\nartists a very problematical expedient for the attainment of happiness.\n\nFortunately, very few heartbreaks result from the steady grinding of\nthe divorce mills in concert land, opera land or stageland.\n\nThe egotistical artist loves himself more than he could ever love\nany other human being. Separation from his life mate does not mean\nloneliness to him. He remains in his own company, to his mind, the best\ncompany on earth. And furthermore his egotism tells him, and rightly so\nin the majority of cases, that being as wonderful as he is, he cannot\nfail to meet soon \"the great love\" of his life. And he will probably\nembark upon another experiment with the same optimism and with the same\nresults.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIII\n\n THE PERSONALITY BEHIND THE FETISHES. GLANDS\n\n\nA man selects a mate because he finds in her fetishes the assurance\nof safety which those fetishes portended when observed in the\nappearance of his affectionate, devoted, self-sacrificing mother, whose\nintelligence and wisdom he never doubted when he was, let us say, ten\nor fifteen and she was thirty or thirty-five.\n\nAnd likewise, a woman expects, consciously or unconsciously, that\ncertain physical characteristics which once indicated, when observed\nin her father's appearance, power, protection, a gainful occupation,\nsympathy and understanding, etc., will mean exactly the same thing when\nshe finds them reproduced totally or in part in a male human being of\nthe marriageable age.\n\n=The Parent-Child Relationship=, involving at first boundless devotion\non the part of the strong parent to the helpless nursling, infant\nand child, and later, complete submission of the growing child and\nadolescent to the older and, supposedly world-wiser, parent, has very\nlittle, if anything, in common with the relationship of mate to mate.\n\nSex plays no conscious part in the parent-child relationship.\n\nIt does not tinge every action and every thought of the two parties\nconcerned. The secret cravings or the secret repulsion it may\nawaken never distort consciously the judgments passed by parents on\ntheir children, children on their parents. Of neurotic unconscious\ndistortions of judgment there is a plenty. Never, however, does the\nstrife narrow down to this: \"He or she does not satisfy me sexually,\"\n\"he or she humiliates me sexually by being attracted to others,\" \"he or\nshe is an obstacle to my complete sexual gratification with another,\"\netc., sources of open hostility of the most painfully conscious kind\nbetween mates.\n\nThe mother who satisfied our egotism became to us beautiful and\nperfect. The female who employs the same means our mother did, to\nwin us, but who cannot arouse us sexually, never appears to us very\nattractive physically or mentally.\n\nOn the other hand we are apt to disregard, temporarily at least, the\nmental deficiencies of the man or woman who gives us the most complete\nsexual gratification.\n\nFrom this it will be easily understood that choosing a mate _solely_ on\nthe strength of his or her fetishes, is likely, unless the union be of\nthe most ephemeral kind, to lead to profound disappointment.\n\nIt behooves us then to determine accurately what every fetish means\nand what sort of personality is actually to be found associated with a\ncertain set of physical characteristics.\n\nFor I repeat, a man's or woman's personality is to be studied, not\nin their attitude to their offspring, (for the most savage beast is\ntransformed by the paternal or maternal instinct into a marvel of\ntenderness, kindness and patience), but in their relation to the social\nherd and to their sexual mate.\n\nUntil the study of the ductless glands was given the importance we\nattach to it today, the word personality denoted a set of attitudes\nwhich many psychologists considered as mainly voluntary and amenable\nto \"moral suasion\" and other forms of pedagogical approach of the\nindividual. When we read the works of Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi and\ntheir disciples, we never receive an intimation of the r\u00f4le which the\nendocrines may play in moulding the human personality.\n\n=Modern Endocrinologists= on the other hand, seem as indifferent\nto psychology as the psychoanalysts of yesterday were to neurology and\nendocrinology. Some of them assume that the personality IS the glands\nand that our glands alone shape our thinking and our actions.\n\nBoth views are narrow and unsatisfactory. The personality is made up\nprimarily of an _organism_ which outward influences can or cannot\ninfluence easily. Pleasure and pain then shape that organism thru\nthe memories which they leave in it in the form of infinitely small\nmodifications of our autonomic nervous system. That system, in its\nturn, develops, thru constant stimulation, certain glands or allows\nthem to remain undeveloped thru lack of stimulation or thru negative\nstimulation.\n\nSome of those glands may, thru mere accident of growth, have been\nalready overdeveloped or stunted at birth. Individuals free from\ncomplexes, however, may easily reestablish the balance of cravings\nand social inhibitions which threatens at times to be upset by an\noverdeveloped or underdeveloped gland. Complex-ridden individuals on\nthe other hand, use their glandular inferiority unconsciously as a\nscapegoat for absurd or morbid behavior.\n\n=Reciprocal Influence.= We cannot say, therefore, that our behavior\nis _dictated_ by our glands, but it is influenced by them and\nreciprocally, our behavior influences our glands. As I said in a\nprevious chapter, hyperthyroidism creates fear, but fear may also\ncreate hyperthyroidism. Overdevelopment of the sexual apparatus creates\na predisposition to sexual overactivity, but sexual thoughts also have\na tendency to provoke unusual sexual activity.\n\nThere is one thing, however, for which the secretions of our ductless\nglands are mainly responsible, and which is most important to consider\nin a study of fetishes. They determine the shape, color and consistency\nof many parts of our body, such as complexion, hair, teeth, skeletal\nframe and growth.\n\nA glance at a human body enables one to determine as accurately as an\nautopsy would, the size of a person's thyroid, adrenals, etc.\n\nAs the development of those glands corresponds to the social and sexual\nbehavior of the individual, a review of the various bodily fetishes\nfrom the endocrinological point of view will be helpful to the average\nreader.\n\nIn order not to use too many technical terms we shall consider only\nfour of the endocrine glands, the pituitary, the thyroid, the adrenals\nand the gonads.\n\n=The Pituitary Gland= is a small body, the size of a pea, located\nin the Turkish saddle (sella turcica), at the base of the brain and\nclosely behind the root of the nose. Some have called it a brain within\nthe brain with a miniature skull of its own within the skull.\n\nThe pituitary regulates the rhythms of the body, from the bony growth\nof the skeleton to the rate of the heart and respiration, from the\nperiods of sleep and waking time to the periods of menstruation.\n\nIf a part of the pituitary of a dog is removed, the animal becomes\nsleepy, fat, perverse in its sex cravings; puppies cease to grow when\nsubmitted to such an operation; autopsy of many human dwarfs has\nshown that their pituitary was undeveloped. People whose pituitary is\ninsufficient in its action have a tendency to lose their hair, have\na very dry skin, a dull mentality, sometimes suffer from epilepsy\nand crave sugar in large quantities. They are generally obese, the\nfat accumulating on the lower abdomen and the feet and ankles. Louis\nBerman in his excellent book on the endocrines \"Glands regulating the\nPersonality,\" presents as a perfect likeness of the \"hypopituitary\ntype\" the Fat Boy of the Pickwick Papers whose emloyment with Mr.\nWardle consisted in alternate sleeping and eating.\n\nI will quote from Berman's book a description of the opposite type, the\nindividual in whom the pituitary gland is too active.\n\n\"If the overaction begins in childhood or adolescence, that is, before\npuberty, there results a great elongation of the bones, so that a giant\nis the consequence.... If the overaction happens after puberty, when\nthe long bones have set and can not grow longer, a peculiar, diffuse\nenlargement of the individual occurs, especially of his hands and feet\nand head. The nose, ears, lips and eyes get larger and coarser. All\nthose people are rather big and tall to begin with, heavy jawed, burly,\nwith overhanging eyebrows and an aggressive manner. Rabelais' most\nfamous character, Gargantua, belongs to the group. We recruit more drum\nmajors than prime ministers from among those people.\"\n\nThe pituitary has a strong influence on sexual activities. Young\nanimals whose pituitary has been surgically damaged will not be able to\nreproduce themselves when reaching adulthood. Feeding pituitary glands\nto hens on the other hand, causes them to lay thirty per cent more eggs\nthan they would naturally.\n\n=The Thyroid= is a transformer of energy. It is a large reddish\nmass located in front and on both sides of the trachea, consisting of\ntwo lobes connected by a bridge of the same tissue.\n\nThe thyroid activates the fires of the body. An active thyroid means\nlife at \"concert pitch.\" A sluggish thyroid means a slow, negative\nexistence.\n\nTo a poor thyroid correspond a pasty complexion, watery eyes with heavy\nlids, a depressed pug nose, large ears, thin hair, scanty eyebrows and\neyelashes, short, brittle nails, irregular, bad teeth, broad, pudgy\nhands and feet, generally cold.\n\nWith an overactive thyroid we observe a high color, sleeplessness,\nrestlessness, a tendency to lose weight, emotionalism, profuse\nperspiration, bright, large eyes, good white teeth.\n\n=The Adrenal Glands= are about the size of a bean and located on top of\nthe kidneys. They secrete adrenin which, when poured into the blood,\ncauses muscular tension, accelerates the heart beats and the breathing\nrate, dilates the pupil and produces fear or anger according to the\nrelative size of the core (medulla) or envelop (cortex) of the adrenals.\n\nIn timid animals (and women) the cortex is thin, in courageous animals\n(and men) the cortex is rather thick. According to the thickness of\nyour cortex you shall, in an emergency, resort to either fight or\nflight.\n\nA man with a thin cortex looks feminine, a woman with a thick cortex\nlooks mannish.\n\nThe adrenals control the color of the skin, the growth of hair, the\nsize of the canine teeth and the color of the teeth. To good adrenals\ncorrespond an olive complexion, much hair on the body, rather yellowish\nteeth and strong canines. The bearded lady of the circus is a woman\nwith overdeveloped adrenals and a thick cortex.\n\nWeak adrenals go with cold extremities, a hairless body, poor canines,\nlack of ambition, discouragement, fatigability, etc.\n\n=The Gonads or Sex Glands=, testes in man, ovaries in woman,\naffect thru the secretions of their interstitial cells, the pitch of\nthe voice, the growth of pubic hair, the size of the breasts, the\ndistribution of fat.\n\nGood gonads mean masculine looking men and feminine looking women.\nPoor gonads mean feminine looking men, hairless and with overdeveloped\nbreasts, talking in a high-pitched voice, with a tendency to obesity\nand laziness (eunuchs); scrawny looking women who may later in\nlife grow abnormally fat, with, in their youth, flat chests, scanty\nmenstruation, etc.\n\nHealthy gonads also retard senility. Gonads whose interstitial cells\nhave been rehabilitated by the Steinach operation bring a new youth to\nthe organism, mentally and physically.\n\nOther glands, the thymus, pancreas, parathyroid, pineal body also\nplay an important part in shaping the human body and with it the\npersonality. The limits of this book do not allow me, however, to\ndiscuss them even superficially.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIV\n\n GLANDULAR PERSONALITIES\n\n\nI stated in the preceding chapter that to every degree of glandular\ndevelopment there corresponds a certain set of physical characteristics\nwhich, in the love life, may be transformed into fetishes, (beautiful\nfeatures, laymen call them), which are necessary to arouse sexual\ndesire in one's mate, but which are not necessarily attractive to any\none else.\n\nThose physical characteristics are, in turn, the tangible evidence of\nthe presence of certain mental attitudes and predispositions.\n\nIndividuals seeking in the love union, not merely a passing\ngratification of their erotism, but a lifelong arrangement, gratifying\nboth the physical and the mental aspects of the organism, should be\ntrained to recognise the presence or absence of characteristics which\nwould make such an arrangement a lasting pleasure or a lasting torture.\n\nFor instance, the woman who falls in love with a man because her\nfetishism requires a short, round, plump, man, with a good head of\nhair but hairless limbs, must not expect him to ever grow into a\nfighter, a good provider or even a companion of placid moods.\n\nA man of that type is capricious, unstable, unresisting, and prefers\nthe gentler arts to any form of competitive struggle.\n\nLikewise a man who picks out a woman for his mate because she has\npretty, doll-like features, is \"cute\" and slight, has a soft skin,\nwhite and pink, must not expect to live peacefully with her on a farm,\nor even on Main Street or in a distant suburb.\n\nThat type of woman grows easily emotional, is constantly in search of\nnew excitement and new pleasures. It is only at forty that she will\nbecome more settled (and rotund), retaining, however, a certain jollity\nof disposition.\n\n=The Olive Skinned Dark Haired Type=, and the freckled, red haired\nare very much alike. Both have a low forehead, hair is plentiful all\nover the body, thick and coarse. Their canines are long and sharp.\n\nMen and women of that type are good fighters, more easily angered\nthan scared; they are generally successful, with a tendency to\nslave-driving. In the face of great difficulties, of painful\ndisappointment, however, they are prone to turn embittered and cranky.\n\nPeople of this type who show large birth marks are likely to be\nimbalanced and irritable. They may at times give the impression of\nbeing weak and lazy, altho their minds may be extremely active.\n\n=The Tall Type=, with strong frame, firm muscles, generous hands and\nfeet, a thick skin, oval face, head flattened at the sides, thick\neyebrows, prominent eyes, placed rather wide apart, large nose, square\nchin, large upper middle incisors, heavy joints, hairy legs and arms,\nis characterised by intelligence and self-control. At times that type\nhas a tendency to be a little calculating if not sordid.\n\n=The Lean Type= with clean-cut features, thick hair, thick, long\neyebrows, big, keen eyes, sometimes slightly protruding, well developed\nwhite teeth and a very masculine or very feminine mouth, according\nto sex, is active, restless, a live wire, emotional and likely to be\neasily prostrated by an unexpected defeat. Men and women of that type\nhave a tendency to be sleepless and to do too much planning at night\ninstead of resting peacefully.\n\n=The Short, Obese, Sallow Type=, with a high forehead, scanty eyebrows,\ndeep set, narrow eyes, irregular teeth that decay early, with poor\ncirculation, cold and blue hands and feet, is rather \"animal\" and lacks\nself-control.\n\n=The Slender Type=, with narrow waist line, rounded limbs, long\nchest, (which in women may carry poorly developed breasts), very white,\nhairless skin, delicate features, silky hair, childish teeth, flat\nfeet, knock-knees, may be at times very brilliant, but is generally\nqueer, eccentric, irresponsible, perverse, dishonest. That type is\nobserved in many petty thieves, prostitutes, drug addicts, suicides.\n\nThose are the most striking physical types. They present hundreds of\nshadings and combinations.\n\n=Environment.= The last mentioned type, if reared and kept in a\ncomfortable environment, among people of slightly lax behavior, of\nartistic inclinations, exposed to none of life's onslaughts, may do\nvery well, and be considered by his associates as sensitive, gentle and\nlikeable. It is the pressure of social and economic conditions which\ncause him to seek safety in theft (quick acquisition of wealth), drug\nstupor, (escape from reality, perversion, escape from biological duties\nconnected with a normal sex life), or suicide, (return to the fetal\nstage and escape from life).\n\nThose people are children who can only thrive in the nursery.\n\nEven as infant mortality depends solely upon the family income, the\ndeath rate being five times as high in poor as in wealthy families, the\nstability and social charm of almost any glandular type depends upon\nthe social pressure that type has to bear.\n\nAlmost any type is bearable, if not lovable, in a comfortable\nenvironment requiring little planning and no fighting.\n\nOne of the details of the social pressure is, of course, the attempts\nat repression or modification to which a personality may be subjected\nby the life mate. The fault lies in this case, not so much with the\ntype in itself, however inferior it may be, as with the incurable\noptimist who attempts the impossible task of changing a human\npersonality.\n\nIn other words, it might be said, that in an environment which exerts\nno pressure on the individual, that is, where there is abundance of\nwealth and comfort, one can select a mate with bad fetishes, that is,\nindicative of weakness, while those less favored financially must lay\ngreater stress on fetishes denoting strength and fighting ability.\n\n=What Teeth Indicate.= Fraenkel and Kaplan have pointed to the teeth as\nindicators of the general glandular condition of the individual and of\nhis probable mental and physical powers. Good middle incisors indicate\ngood thyroid and pituitary, hence strength and balance.\n\nGood lateral incisors indicate sexual power; good canines indicate\nstrong adrenals, hence good fighting ability.\n\nLack of any of those teeth, or their stunted growth, gives naturally,\nthe contrary indication as to make up and character.\n\nOne must not forget either that certain fetishes are superficial and\nlikely to disappear early in life. Blondes may turn into brunettes;\nsveltness may yield to invading obesity, altho this last change is to\nbe blamed more on the individual's stupidity than upon his glandular\ncondition; a white skin may become yellow, etc.\n\nPreference should, therefore, be given, when in doubt, to more durable\nfetishes, stature, strength, general appearance, attitude, which are\nless likely to change with the years.\n\n=Matrimonial Engineers.= Here is a new field for educators; there\nmay grow from this very new knowledge a new profession, that of the\nmatrimonial engineer, who will diagnose the chances of happiness two\nhuman beings may have, if they decide to associate their destinies.\n\nMuch has to be studied and experimented upon before any one can\nconsider himself qualified to pass final judgments upon the decisions\nto which love leads couples.\n\n\"However\" as Berman writes, \"the fact remains that, though we are only\nupon the first rungs of the ladder, we are on the ladder. We possess a\nnew way of looking upon humanity, a fresh transforming light upon these\nstrange phenomena, ourselves. Of the ugly achievements of that dreadful\ncentury, the nineteenth, the most illuminating was the discovery of\nitself as the ape-parvenu. Yes, we are all animals now, it said to\nitself, and set its teeth in the cut-throat game of survival. But there\nwas no understanding in that evil motto of a disillusioned heart. The\nape-parvenu, desperately lonely and secretive, has still to understand\nitself....\n\n\"Personality embraces much more than merely the psychic attributes. It\nis not the least important of the lessons of endocrine analysis that\nhere is no soul, and no body either. Rather a soul-body or body-soul,\nor the patterns of the living flame. The closer tracking of the\ninternal secretions leads us into the secrets of the living flame, why\nit lives and how it lives, the strange diversities of its coloring and\nmusic and the odd variations in its energy, vitality and longevity.\nWhy it flickers, why it flares and glares, spurts, flutters, burns hard\nor soft, orange-blue or yellow.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXV\n\n LOVE AND MOTHER LOVE\n\n\nIs the perfect mother a perfect wife? Is the perfect mother, in every\ncase, the result of mental perfection and ethical superiority? Or is\nthere a hidden strife between love and motherhood? Is mother love\nalways the enchanting image presented to us by poets and intimidated\nsons? Or is it an alloy of higher qualities, biological necessity and\negotistical neurotic cravings?\n\nI do not intend to settle all those problems within the limits of a\nshort chapter, but rather to point out some of the morbid components of\nmother love which a psychoanalyst detects in his women patients, and\nwhich, exaggerated in the neurotic, exist to a slight degree in every\nwoman.\n\n=Sex Cravings and Motherhood Cravings= are so closely related that few\npsychologists have ever dreamt of dissociating them for the purpose of\nstudy. The average moralist, who prefers cheap popularity to scientific\naccuracy, excuses the existence of sex cravings only on one condition,\nthat they become absolutely subservient to motherhood cravings.\n\nThe birth control agitation which is making such rapid headway at the\npresent day, on the other hand, means, in part, that while motherhood\nmay be the consequence of unregulated sex activities, it is not, for\nall women, their conscious motive.\n\nWhy is it that some women with an erotic disposition and a voluptuous\nphysique, fear pregnancy while other women, apparently indifferent to\nmen, crave motherhood?\n\nPhysiology does not give us a very satisfactory answer to this\nquestion. Endocrinologists tell us that sex cravings are determined\nby the ovaries and motherhood cravings by the posterior part of the\npituitary gland, but this leaves us exactly where we were when we\nstarted out.\n\n=Pregnancy and Health.= All physiologists will agree with the statement\nthat in a normal, complex free woman, a type which unfortunately,\nthe complexity of our civilization does not allow us to behold very\nfrequently, pregnancy is accompanied by an unusual activity of all\nthe organism, imparting to the female a sense of great power and,\nconsequently, of well-being, mental and physical. The adrenals work\nat high pressure to produce the muscular tone necessary in gestation.\nThe thyroid is called upon to transform more and more of the electric\ncurrent produced by the brain cells. New glands of a temporary nature\ndevelop in the woman's body, regulating her life functions more\naccurately and imparting to her a feeling of dreamy happiness and\nrelaxation.\n\nAfter delivery, another part of her body enters into activity, her\nmammary glands, so closely related to the genitals that any stimulation\nof either region finds a strong echo in the other. Many are the women\nin whom lactation produces intensely erotic feelings affording them at\ntimes full gratification.\n\n=Fear of Pregnancy.= Unfortunately, civilisation has surrounded\nmotherhood with so many complications, social, ethical, financial,\nsentimental, etc., that in very few women, indeed, is that biological\nprocess an unmixed pleasure, dissociated from all pain and anxiety.\n\nVomiting, which expresses the female's disgust for her condition, or\nher mate or the offspring; cramplike tensions, expressing her worries\nabout her appearance, her anxious thought of financial or social\nconsequences; anxiety states, affecting the adrenals, which discolor\nher face (pregnancy mask), make pregnancy hideous in many cases.\n\nEven the process of parturition seems to have become more painful and\ndangerous with advancing civilisation.\n\nAny one who has seen, for instance, Mexican women barely interrupting\ntheir labor in the fields to give birth to a child, and resuming their\ntasks an hour later, must realise that autosuggestion has much to do\nwith the physical disability of the civilised woman in child bed.\n\nIn spite of the complexities of modern life, the female organism which\nis not affected by fear complexes, must expect a pleasure premium from\npregnancy, lactation and other duties of motherhood. This would supply\nus with an organic basis for the mother's attachment to her offspring\nwhich is observable almost in every animal species.\n\nThat a number of women may be found who hate their children owing to\nthe suffering to which unwelcome motherhood and difficult parturition\nhave subjected them, is easily understandable. In fact we face a\nvicious circle. The unwelcome pregnancy will be an unpleasant one,\nfollowed almost unavoidably by painful delivery, etc.\n\n=When Mother Love is Lacking= or when a mother hates a very young\nchild, the psychologist must look for morbid unconscious influences\nwhich analysis should remove as soon as possible.\n\nStekel, the Viennese analyst, tells of a woman who was very fond of\nthree of her daughters but, for some mysterious reason, detested the\nfourth one. Analysis revealed that she imagined she saw every one of\nher husband's faults reproduced and magnified in the unfortunate child.\n\nShe also imagined that she loved her husband very deeply.\n\nThe year when the unloved child was conceived, however, she had fallen\nin love with another man, a young poet. She remained \"technically\nfaithful\" to her husband, altho, when in his arms, it was always the\npoet to whom she was giving herself.\n\nShe hoped sentimentally that the forthcoming child would look like\nher platonic lover but the little girl reproduced with striking\nfaithfulness her father's features.\n\nUnwilling to accept her dislike of her husband, the romantic mother had\ntransferred it to the child who served as a scapegoat in various ways.\n\n=Frigid Wives.= We often observe a great craving for motherhood in\nfrigid wives.\n\nLet us not rehash on this occasion the poetical and silly statement\nthat the frigid woman is one whose love has been spiritualised and can\nonly find an outlet thru her children.\n\nThe frigid woman is a cripple or a neurotic. Either she was born with\npoorly developed genitals or she was made abnormal by the unconscious\nfear of yielding to man's domination, or by a morbid sense of sin due\nto asceticism, or by painful or humiliating sex experiences before or\nafter marriage.\n\nHer craving for motherhood is not infrequently the hypocritical\nexpression of her desire for intercourse, which her puritan training\nwould otherwise make lewd and sinful. It is, at times, a desire for\nthe superiority which age and bodily size will give her over infants,\nhelpless and inarticulate.\n\nThis is why, in a good many cases, a perfect mother makes a detestable\nwife. Unable to dominate her husband she craves children whom she can\ndominate with a minimum of bodily strength and mental effort, and she\ndevotes all her time and care to them.\n\nWhen the children grow up and develop independent personalities, the\nneurotic mother often loses her interest in them. How many times have\nwe heard women (and men) remark that children should remain \"babies,\"\nthat young children are far more lovable than adolescents, etc.\n\n=Mother and Father Love= differ in several respects.\n\nFathers look upon their children, especially their sons, as a visible\nproof of their virile power. In their sons they see their own image,\nthe more attractive to them as they are more egotistical.\n\nThe weak, infirm or unsuccessful son, however, receives little love at\nthe hands of his father. He is not a credit to his progenitor.\n\nNo mother, on the other hand, seems to neglect a cripple or idiotic\nchild. Be it male or female, it is a human being which she can dominate\neasily. The more neurotic she is, the more she will idolise the\nill-favored child.\n\n=Mothers Always Adore Their Sons=, young and old, for they behold\nin them males whom they can easily dominate.\n\nAnd fathers love their daughters, young or old, for similar reasons.\n\nThe relations of aging mothers and growing daughters, however, are\nalmost invariably tinged with a certain hostility, overt or concealed,\naccording to the women's habits, training, manners, etc.\n\n=Girls at the Flapper Stage= who resent the attraction which their\nmothers still wield over younger men, constantly remind them of their\nage and bid them to behave in a way more in keeping with their mature\nyears.\n\nThe flapper's mother on the other hand, who sees her daughter gradually\nmonopolising the attention of men callers, reminds the girl with\nmonotonous regularity that she is only a child and bids her to behave\nas befits her tender years.\n\nThe mother resents her daughter's fresh beauty, the daughter, her\nmother's experience in dealing with males.\n\nBoth watch each other closely, protecting each other's modesty and\nvirtue and trying to make each other's life as uninteresting and\nuneventful as possible.\n\nThe girl becomes an ethical critic on her mother's smoking or gowns.\nThe mother blossoms into a puritan who allows her daughter no freedom\nand seems to have entirely forgotten her own girlhood years.\n\nThe strife lasts until the daughter is old enough to have her own\ncircle of friends and no longer needs a chaperone. After which mother\nand daughter, if matched intellectually, may once more become friends.\n\n=Repressed Hatred.= I have treated a number of neurotic mothers who\nseemed to be obsessed by their adoration of their children. That\nexaggerated tenderness was, as I mentioned in another chapter, a cover\nfor death wishes directed toward those children.\n\nSome never allowed knives to be left in evidence in the house, some did\nnot dare to carry their children in their arms on the stairs, while\nboarding trains, or while near open windows.\n\nOne never dared to administer a medicine to her little girl \"for fear\nof making a mistake and poisoning her.\" One did not dare to bathe her\nchild for fear of drowning him \"accidentally\" in the tub.\n\nNeurotic women who do not wish to become mothers and rebel against\nmotherhood, (which some of them consider as a symbol of woman's\ninferior role), often compensate for their lack of love by an almost\ncriminal indulgence and weakness toward their children.\n\nUnable to give them genuine love, they pretend to idolise them and are\napparently unable to deny any of their wishes. This, in last analysis,\nis simply a total indifference to the little ones' welfare. That type\nof mother spoils her children and makes them unfit to face life and its\nemergencies.\n\nHer extravagant adulation, her outbursts of artificial tenderness,\nhowever, do not always deceive the children themselves who feel\nautomatically, thru nervous and muscular imitation, the tensions of\ntheir mother's body. The little son of the woman who was obsessed\nby the fear of drowning him (and who compensated for her murderous\ncravings by showering the wildest caresses upon him), could not be\nprevailed upon to ever go near the water until her obsessions, of\nwhich, he, of course, had no conscious knowledge, had been removed by\npsychoanalytic treatment.\n\nNeurotic mother love trains children for a neurotic life.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVI\n\n SHOULD WINTER MATE WITH SPRING?\n\n\nThis is the poetical way in which many newspaper editors have been\nintroducing to their readers accounts of two recent incidents which,\nat the time of writing (this chapter), keep headline writers busy. One\nof the news items is the idyll of an heiress, still in her teens, who\nhas made up her mind to marry a man of fifty or thereabout. The other\nis the heartbreak of a seventy year old husband, deserted by his twenty\nyear old wife.\n\nThe mating of winter and spring is a daily occurrence, both seasons\nbeing divided up about equally between the two sexes. The two unnatural\nmatches which I mentioned above, however, stand in a class by\nthemselves.\n\nMany a young idler, gifted with good looks, has managed to play on\nthe erotic feelings of some woman in her dotage and to annex a goodly\nportion of her wealth. Many an attractive girl, seeking the line of\nleast effort, has been known to prefer a union with a silly old man to\nthe daily struggle for existence.\n\n=Disinterested Brides.= In the two cases under discussion, on the other\nhand, no suspicion of sordidness could be cast on the bride-that-was or\non the bride-to-be.\n\nBoth are wealthy, one of them immensely so. The bridegroom to be is, if\nnot a poor man, at least in very modest circumstances.\n\nA genuine love match in both cases. But the genuineness of love did\nnot prevent a catastrophe in one case and will probably bring about a\ncatastrophe in the other case as well.\n\nIn both cases, the men are probably normal and yielding to the very\nnatural attraction of youth combined with beauty and refinement.\n\nBoth women, however, are abnormal, altho one of them, the runaway wife,\nmay have regained her normality and awakened from her absurd dream.\n\nBoth are, or were, the victims of a fixation of the most acute type, on\nthe father image indicating a morbid neurotic disposition.\n\nSuch unions can hardly ever hold out any promise of lasting happiness.\n\n=The Case of Wagner.= There is, of course, the famous example of Wagner\nwho, at fifty-seven carried off the beautiful wife of Hans von B\u00fclow,\nalmost thirty years his junior, and lived happily with her until his\ndeath. But Wagner was at the time a marvelous example of physical and\nmental activity, energy and creative power. In no way, barring his\nfacial appearance, could he suggest age or decay to his young wife. He\nremained to the last a romantic figure.\n\nThe glamor, however, which may surround a successful composer with a\npicturesque past, is not likely to dazzle in any way the bride of a\nriding master or of a New England manufacturer.\n\n=A Parent Fixation=, as I explained in the chapters on the Family\nRomance and on Incest, is the more acute as it drives its victim to\nseek a closer duplicate of the parent type.\n\nThe man who seeks a woman for his mate because his mother was a woman\nis influenced by the most normal and biologically valuable of mother\nfixations. The race would come to an end but for that form of fixation.\n\nThe son of a blonde mother who cannot love a woman unless she is also\na blonde, is less normal and less free in his choice of a mate than\nthe preceding type. He is inhibited by childhood memories, but then,\neducation and civilisation are little more than inhibitions caused by\nchildhood memories. That type simply marries in \"his set\" and can lead\nan otherwise very normal life.\n\nHe, however, who is irresistibly attracted by a woman exactly like his\nmother, not only as far as appearance, but also as far as age goes,\nis a childish, regressive neurotic, seeking the safety of childhood\nconditions and obsessed at times by unconscious incestuous cravings.\n\n=The Rock of Physical Incompatibility= is often one on which such\nadventures are shipwrecked. A very young woman, ignorant of the sex\nlife and its problems, unable to realise its meaning before marriage,\nmay develop immediately after her union to an elderly man a very\npassionate temperament.\n\nEither she will repress her cravings for physical love, which her too\nmature mate is unable to gratify, and she will develop anxiety states\nor hysteria.\n\nOr she will be too healthy to repress her desires, and her\ndisappointment may change her love into scorn, especially when\nconversation with other women or a clever suitor opens her eyes to what\nis lacking in her life.\n\nA separation, sometimes complicated by the usual triangle situation,\nmay become unavoidable.\n\nThere are cases in which both mates are frankly neurotic and were drawn\ntogether as invalids and weak-minded often are, by the similarity of\ntheir predicament.\n\n=The Plight of Two Neurotics.= Both of them may, as I observed it\nonce, seek safety in a mock-incestuous relationship, the older mate,\nseeking safety in a union with an immature human being, the younger\nmate in a union with the parent image. In one case which I have in\nmind, the husband, fifty-five years old, had been several times on the\nverge of exposure for unlawful \"liberties\" he took with very young\ngirls. The wife, a few days after her father's death, married the old\nman who had been her father's associate and who had tried to seduce her\nwhen she was barely ten.\n\nShe visited me when a new scandal in which her husband became\nimplicated caused her to leave him. She was considerably \"mixed up\"\nfor, while young men had begun to attract her, she felt extremely\nself-conscious in their presence and could only enjoy herself in the\ncompany of elderly men who, in turn, reminded her too much of the\nnightmare thru which she had lived for two years.\n\nA pious Catholic, she solved the conflict prematurely, before I had\ntime to bring insight into her mind, by fleeing from all sorts of men\nand into a convent.\n\nOther cases have a less tragic history: A young woman of twenty-eight\nwho had never been happy with her husband, (thirty), took advantage of\nthe numberless opportunities war work and war drives gave to women, to\nbecome faithless to her husband. She had four short-lived affairs with\nmen twice her age, then \"broke down\" when her husband secured a divorce\nfor adultery. Analysis gave her insight into her father fixation which\nwas not very deep and might never have driven her into overt acts but\nfor the unusual conditions in which she found herself.\n\nShe is now happily remarried to a man of her age.\n\n=What the Community Says.= Mates whose ages are out of proportion,\nare often thrown into deep discord by the pressure of the community's\ncriticism. They might thrive on a desert island or on a farm or, as in\nthe case of an explorer I knew, when surrounded almost continuously by\nan \"inferior\" race whose opinion they can easily disregard.\n\nThe community's smiles or open disapproval, on the other hand, are a\nheavy burden, especially for the more neurotic mate, who is likely to\nfeel very self-conscious in everything he or she does.\n\nThe too young wife and the too young husband may at first smile when\nhotel clerks, shopkeepers, chauffeurs, etc., allude to their aged\nmate as \"your father\" or \"your mother.\" After a while, a feeling\nof embarrassment will get the best of their sense of humor. Shame\nand humiliation will soon set in when those mistakes are repeated\nfrequently. When the ego is wounded by love complications, unless the\nindividual is a pronounced masochist, love fares very badly.\n\nIt turns into hatred for the mate causing the humiliating remarks, as\nunconscious incest ideas gradually break into consciousness and provoke\nprotective measures, critical attitudes, disgust, etc.\n\nIn one case which came under my observation, the community's criticisms\nworked as effectively as psychoanalytic treatment would have.\n\n=Having Her Fixation-Fling.= A young woman married to a man of her age,\nbut discontented and frigid, had a passing liaison with an elderly\nman, which exposed her to many jeers on the part of her associates who\nsuspected it.\n\nShe was very intelligent and well acquainted with psychoanalytical\nliterature and only consulted me to make sure of her correct diagnosis\nof her own case.\n\nShe did the proper thing under the circumstances, confessed a part of\nthe truth to her husband, went away with him for a while and has been\nhappy with him ever since. She had had her \"fixation fling\" as she\ncalled it, had sown her neurotic wild oats and ridden herself of a\nmorbid element which may never bother her again.\n\nThis sort of solution, however, is one which is neither scientific nor\nsafe, for the person affected by a fixation of that morbid sort is at\nthe mercy of a recurrence of it, should life's problems compel him to\nseek once more the line of exaggerated safety and regression to the\nchildish level of conduct.\n\n=Physical Results.= If matches between the young and old were\nsuccessful physically and otherwise, they would be extremely beneficial\nto the older mate. Normal sexual stimulation, far from driving the aged\nto an early grave, as old time puritans have taught us, is probably the\nmost potent factor of rejuvenation.\n\nThe Steinach operation which enables the hormone-producing cells of the\ngonads to overdevelop at the expense of the seminiferous cells, seems,\nwhen successful, to confer new youth upon the entire organism.\n\nLorand, Stekel, Hufeland and others hold that sexual activity in the\nold, when it is possible, is conducive to longevity.\n\nLorand mentions many interesting cases in which remarriage at\nincredibly advanced ages seemed in no way to curtail one's life span.\nThomas Parr\u00e9, who died at 162, was arrested for assault at 102 and\nmarried again at 120. The Dane Drackenberg, who died at 150, married at\n111 a woman of 60, became a widower at 130, and tried to woo a young\npeasant girl who, however, refused to accept him.\n\nPeter Albrecht, who died at 123, married again at 80 and had seven\nchildren. Gurgon Duglas, who died at 120, married at 85 and had 8\nchildren, the youngest one being born when the father was 103. Baron\nBaravicion d\u00e8s Capelles died at 104, having had four wives, the last\none whom he married when 80.\n\nLorand adds that, according to his observations, old people with an\nerotic temperament have a better chance of survival than \"cold blooded\"\nones.\n\nHufeland says that married people live much longer than the unmarried\nand that no bachelor was ever known to reach a ripe age.\n\nThe sudden bloom and general appearance of rejuvenation of old maids\nfinally finding a mate, of widows who remarry and of neglected wives\nwho give themselves to a potent lover, is a good physiological argument\nwhy winter should try to seek the violent stimulation of a union with\nspring.\n\n=The Fate of the Younger Mate.= The younger mate, however, can\nhardly hope to escape unscathed when going thru such an experience.\n\nThe old are benefited because their muscles, nerves, glands, etc.,\nimitate the attitudes and behavior of the younger mate's organs and\nbecome accordingly younger.\n\nThe same process of imitation is at work in the younger mate and the\ndamage done to him or her is naturally great, altho not always obvious\nat first.\n\nHis or her younger organism, less experience-laden, and hence more\nelastic and more responsive, adapts itself more quickly to the ways of\nold age than old age adapts itself to the ways of youth.\n\nEven in cases when the gratification seems to be mutual, the damage\ndone to the younger mate reveals itself thru neurotic disturbances.\n\nA man of thirty-five consulted for anxiety states, nightmares,\n\"nervous\" gastric troubles, etc.\n\nHe had been living since his twentieth year with a woman twenty years\nhis senior, in fact, a friend and schoolmate of his mother's.\n\nHe called her Mama and she called him Sonny. While, according to his\nstatements, their sexual life was absolutely normal and satisfying, the\nrepressed incest-fear lurking in his unconscious betrayed itself thru a\nnightmare which disturbed his sleep with alarming frequency:\n\n\"I am at the foot of marble stairs. A female figure is standing at the\ntop, a relative, perhaps my mother. She extends her hand to me to help\nme up the stairs, but that hand is so weak that it cannot hold me and\nthen I am frightened by a powerful male figure, a man in authority,\nperhaps my father, coming toward me from the side.\"\n\nAltho the man was physically satisfied, the split in his unconscious\nmade him very irritable, restless and an unpleasant companion for his\n\"mama\" to whom he made endless scenes for trifling reasons.\n\n=King David.= In Biblical days when King David grew old,[2] his\nministers besought themselves of the following remedy: they found a\nyoung virgin and \"let her lie in his bosom\" in the hope that the dying\nman might be revived by her contact. Even that availed nothing.\n\nIn our days, however, we have come to prize human life and happiness\nmore highly and young virgins shall not be sacrificed, being the new\ngeneration and the future, to the welfare of some modern King David who\nis the past.\n\nThe young women in our midst, virgins or others, whom a morbid\nobsession draws to the bosom of some King David must be saved from the\nwinter chill that awaits them. Modern psychology holds the key opening\nfor them the door to freedom and normal love.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVII\n\n NEGATIVE LOVE\n\n\nThe only form of love which is positive is complete love, which\ngratifies both the physical and the mental aspects of the organism\nand which, besides, is human and, hence, recognises and admits the\nrelativity of all things human.\n\nAny form of love which excludes either the physical or the mental\nrelationship of male and female, is incomplete and, therefore, abnormal.\n\nAll the puritanical rant to the contrary notwithstanding, platonic\nlove and prostitution are on the same biological level, as morbid and\nunnatural one as the other.\n\nProstitution only gratifies the body more or less completely and\nstarves the mind, causing the mental aspect of the love craving to\nbecome stunted or perverse.\n\nPlatonic love gratifies the intellect more or less completely,\nrather less than more, for it offers few egotistical rewards, but it\nstarves the body and leads it into adopting morbid forms of craving\ngratification.\n\n=A Clean Life.= Many a patient has declared proudly to me that he led\na \"clean life.\" A few days later, after losing his selfconsciousness\nin my presence, he would gradually confess to a terrible \"struggle\"\nagainst his \"animal\" instincts. Which meant, that at irregular\nintervals, self-gratification would give him, in a morbid day dream,\nthe woman whose love he craved; or a pollution dream would allow\nhim, in the unconsciousness and ethical irresponsibility of sleep,\nto make up for his privations by indulging in imaginary promiscuous\ncohabitation.\n\nThis is in too many cases, the seamy side of a platonic love affair,\nwhen one or both of the mates is not naturally unsexed but unsexes\nhimself thru what he or she calls will-power and which analysis reveals\nto be conscious or unconscious fear.\n\nThis is the meaning of love plus continence. In the majority of cases\nits damage stops there. In a few cases, however, especially when the\nsex cravings of one of the mates have been so successfully repressed\nthat they are no longer experienced consciously, symbolical nightmares\nof the most exhausting kind, hysterical disturbances during the\nwaking hours, compulsions and obsessions of all sorts, reveal to the\npsychoanalyst that lava is boiling under the apparently extinct cone of\na safe volcano.\n\nThe platonic individual, like the puritan, is either oversexed or\nundersexed.\n\nThe oversexed must surround themselves with protective measures lest\ntheir violent cravings may lead them into socially punishable acts. The\nsimplest neurotic expedient is to utter a complete denial, whenever\npossible a public one, of the existence of sexual cravings, and then to\nbe forced by one's statements into living up to an absurd self-imposed\nstandard.\n\n=Utterances and Conduct.= This at times results in most grotesque\nconflicts between utterance and conduct. We see for instance the\nmuch married Mrs. Eddy who as the witty Theodore Schroeder remarked,\nhad many more husbands than children, stating that the pleasures of\nthe flesh \"are always wrong unless the physiologic factor can be\nexcluded from consciousness\" (a rather cryptic sentence) and also that\n\"generation rests on no sexual basis.\"\n\nThy hysteric whose volcanic outbursts supply her with a morbid sexual\nrelief for which she rejects all responsibility, for she is unconscious\nat the time is generally in her private and public life a woman of\ngreat repressions and perfect behavior, likely to sneer at every\nmention of a sex urge.\n\nIn other cases, platonic love is an attempt at creating an artificial\nvalue thru destroying a natural, biological human function.\n\n=Oracles and Prophecies.= In ancient times it was observed that\npeople deprived of any sexual gratification made at times mysterious\nutterances which were considered as an emanation of some divine\nintelligence.\n\nThose utterances were nothing but hysterical ravings, accepted as\noracles, prophecies, etc.\n\nOur praise of continence, practiced even when it is unnecessary, (as in\nthe case of lawfully married mates), is, after all, a survival of such\nsuperstitious beliefs based on misunderstood morbid phenomena.\n\nModern science, especially the new science of endocrinology, has shown\nthat to every display of sexual activity corresponds an outpouring of\nhormonic secretions which benefits the entire system.\n\n=Can We Save Our Vital Force?= Once upon a time it was assumed that\ncontinence enabled people to save their \"vital force,\" to preserve the\n\"resources of their body.\"\n\nWe know now that the gonads produce two secretions, one which would\npass out of the body in any event, and one which flows directly in the\nblood and is the only one which can benefit the organism.\n\nThe various puritanical theories as to the great value of continence\nhad been shaken many times by evidence from the biography of all the\ngreat writers, artists, philosophers, inventors and other men and women\nwho have left the world much enriched by their creative labor and at\nthe same time indulged freely in the pleasures of the flesh.\n\n=Sublimation.= Endocrinology strikes now the last blow at those\ntheories, one of which by the way, was Freud's romantic hypothesis of\nthe \"sublimation.\"\n\nFreud believed that sexual energy could be diverted towards social ends\nof greater value and non-sexual in character. This is scientifically\nabsurd, as it disregards the dualism of glandular secretions. The\noutward secretions cannot be \"saved\" and the inner secretions which are\nbeyond our control flow directly into the blood stream.\n\nI have shown in another book, \"Sex Happiness\" that the platonic man\nis either the victim of his ignorance of sex matters and of ascetic\nsuperstitions which modern physiology can no longer countenance, or a\nphysiologically deficient individual.\n\nThe heroes of Beresford's \"God's Counterpoint\" and of May Sinclair's\n\"The Romantic\" whom I analised in \"Sex Happiness\" correspond to the\nfirst and the second of those types, respectively.\n\n=The Sexless.= There are men and women, of course, of the hypogonadal\ntype, undersexed or sexless, who are capable of deep affection for a\nperson of the opposite sex. That such an affection never culminates\nin complete physical communion is easily understood. Sexual failures\ndiscourage the weaker friend from risking any more experiments likely\nto result in humiliation.\n\nThe sexless man is practically a woman, and like certain homosexuals,\ntreats women as members of his own sex. He may make a pleasant,\ndelicate, safe companion, but no woman should allow herself to care for\nhim.\n\n=Frigid Women= who never experience any thrill in their husband's\nembrace and hence consider the physical communion as an indecent\nact forgivable in a husband only, as it is a part of the marriage\narrangement, may love a man very deeply and yet never feel the urge to\nsurrender their body to him.\n\nHere again we have to deal with ignorance or neurosis or both.\n\nThe frigid woman, as I explained elsewhere is generally a neurotic,\n(perhaps made so by unpleasant first sexual experiences and her mate's\nfailure to awaken her normal erotism), who is afraid of life, of its\nbiological duties, of responsibility, of submission to a man's will,\netc., and burdened with some unconscious incest fixation on her father,\nor homosexual fixation on her mother, etc.\n\nHer platonic attitude in love is due to numberless unconscious fears\nwhich are a strong bulwark against temptation.\n\n=Ideal Love.= Another form of negativism in love which receives no\nlittle amount of praise at the hands of the romantically silly and of\nthe ill-informed, is the quest of the ideal love.\n\nWe meet men and women, sometimes of mature years, who tell us with a\ngreat deal of pride that they never married because they could not find\nthe \"right mate.\"\n\nI will not deny that in rare cases this may be considered a perfectly\nvalid reason, pointing to no morbid disposition on the part of the\nunwillingly single person. Marriage might have implied mating with a\nmember of an erotically indifferent race, African or Asiatic; isolation\nin a remote farming community where a refined woman could only select\na mate from among primitive laborers, or in mining regions like some\nAlaska camps, where the only women available at times are prostitutes.\n\nBarring such \"legitimate\" exceptions, which to my mind, imply however,\na suspicious indifference to securing a mate, the seeker for an ideal\nmate is almost always neurotic.\n\n=Protective Measures.= By setting his goal very high, he is\nprotected against the danger of finding a mate and assuming life's\nresponsibilities, increased as they would be by normal sexual\nactivities.\n\nThis is done in various ways, thru exaggerated social expectations, or\nthru unreasonable economic demands, or through morbid criticism of the\npossible mate.\n\nA working girl may set her heart on marrying none but a Prince Charming\nwho could by no chance whatsoever be attracted by her appearance or her\nmanners, unless he himself were a neurotic seeking safety in a union\nwith a socially inferior mate (students marrying waitresses, etc.).\nNewspapers publish enough news of such matches to supply the neurotic\nwoman with a reasonable rationalisation of her fear of matrimony.\n\nSome poor, unattractive young man may likewise decide never to marry\nunless he may secure as his bride a woman whom her social position\nmakes unattainable. Here again, unions of heiresses with menials supply\nthe rationalisation.\n\nSome unattractive women may make such financial demands on the man\nseeking their affection that no one will have the courage to tempt them\naway from their single-blessedness.\n\n=Lovers of the Absolute.= There are individuals of a much more\npathological type still, who refuse to recognise and accept the\nrelativity of all things human, who seek absolute beauty, perfection,\nintelligence, understanding, sympathy in their future mate and who grow\ndiscouraged and depressed when they unavoidably discover flaws in every\ncompanion of the opposite sex.\n\nIn certain cases that obsession of the perfect detail is a symptom of\ninsanity.\n\nCartoonists have often amused themselves and us by representing famous\nmen and women with their features so distorted that their distant\nlikeness to some animal is emphasized.\n\nI have observed the same distortion in neurotics to whom that delusion\nbrought no humorous enjoyment but on the contrary deep suffering.\n\n=A Troublesome Patient.= One of my patients a handsome young man of\ntwenty-six, had had very ephemeral affairs with several women and left\nthem abruptly when he suddenly discovered in their features a likeness\nto certain animals, pigs, dogs, monkeys, etc. After which he could\nnever be prevailed upon to see them again.\n\nOne morning he called on me, announcing coolly that he had decided to\nshoot me. I invited him to sit down and discuss his plans more fully\nbefore carrying them out, and also to mention some of his reasons for\nthat somewhat radical decision.\n\nHe explained to me, with his right hand annoyingly buried in his\ncoat pocket, that he had been in love for a few weeks, with a very\nattractive girl. Recently, he had noticed something in her profile\nwhich distantly resembled a pig's snout. The night before, while he\nwas in her company, he suddenly saw her head transformed into a pig's\nhead. He fled from her rooms in terror and disgust and, attributing his\n\"clear insight into her true nature\" to my psychoanalytic teachings,\nhad decided to save others from my baneful influence by killing me.\n\nAs is usually the case with maniacs, a quiet conversation cast doubts\nin his mind. I told him that I did not approve of his plans which\nmight, however, be excellent, but that, as I was really a biased\nadviser in that matter, he should discuss them with an impartial third\nparty. He then decided to call on Dr. Everett Dean Martin who advised\nhim to take a rest cure and escorted him to Bellevue Hospital.\n\nThe poor boy's transfer to the State Asylum has put an end to his\nsearch for the ideal love. That search was a disguised flight from\nwomen and love, his delusion was an effective measure of protection\nagainst temptation.\n\nNothing but the absolute could satisfy him in a woman. Relativity was\nabhorrent to him.\n\nEvery seeker for the ideal love has gone a few steps along the road\nwhich led my poor patient into the house of the living dead.\n\n=Higher Aspirations.= Neurotics of that type are plausible for they\ncompensate for their fear and their inferiority with a pride based upon\n\"higher aspirations,\" \"greater delicacy of feelings,\" \"an aristocratic\nnature\" or the tell-tale statement that \"their mother's beautiful\ncharacter,\" \"their father's noble nature\" makes every man or woman\nappear very inferior in their eyes.\n\nProud of certain characteristics of theirs which they cannot help\nhaving, they childishly display an egotism and selfishness which makes\nthem at times very ridiculous, for it says indirectly: \"Nobody is\nquite good enough for me.\"\n\nWhen the search for ideal love results in nervous states due to\negotistical starvation, psychoanalysis can help greatly by giving the\nneurotic insight into the fear of life or the parent-fixation which is\nat the bottom of his romantic aspirations.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXVIII\n\n THE NEW WOMAN AND LOVE\n\n\nHow will love fare at the hands of the new woman? The old forms of\nlove will naturally be as unbearable to her as the steel corsets of a\nforgotten generation. Yet the problem is not so very pressing, for the\ntruly new woman is still an almost insignificant factor, numerically\nspeaking, in every community.\n\nEven in the professions and trades of a distinctly masculine character\nwhich woman has recently invaded, we meet constantly the mock-modern\nperson, who under a veneer of modernity, still harbors all the\nsuperstitions, and exhibits all the mannerisms of the \"old fashioned\"\nwoman.\n\nBeing old-fashioned in love, as in every other activity of life,\npresents a great temptation to the lazy, the unintelligent, the\nneurotic.\n\nIt is an excuse for all sorts of unethical forms of conduct, for\nfailure or inactivity, and yet carries with itself a deceptive air of\nmock refinement and distinction.\n\nThe woman who boasts of being old fashioned can misbehave and retain\nfor years her husband's or her environment's confidence in her purity.\nBeing old fashioned, she is assumed by all to be a little \"simple\" and\n\"silly\" at times, but unlikely to ever cross certain boundaries. At the\nsame time, she can pass cruel judgments on all the trangressors who\nhave not been as shrewd or lucky as she.\n\nAs a basis for a discussion of the extent to which love will affect the\nmodern woman and modern woman affect love, I shall select the picture\ndrawn by George Bernard Shaw in McCall's Magazine for October 1920 of\nthe woman of the new generation.\n\n\"=What Women Had to Do Recently=,\" Shaw writes, \"was not to repudiate\ntheir femininity but to assert its social value, not to ape masculinity\nbut to demonstrate its insufficiency. This was the point of my play\nCandida in which it is made quite plain that the husband's masculine\ncareer would go to pieces without the wife's feminine activity.\n\n\"As refinement was supposed to be proper to women and roughness proper\nto men fifty years ago, the great increase in companionship between\nmen and women during that period was bound either to refine the\nmen or roughen the women. It has done both. The feminine refinement\nwhich was only silliness disguised by affection has gone; and women\nare hardier and healthier, and the stock sizes of their clothes are\nlarger in consequence. The masculine vigor that was only boorishness,\nslovenliness and neglect of person and clothes has fled before feminine\ncriticism.\n\n\"=But the Generalisation That Women are Refined and Men Rough by\nNature= is a superficial one, holding good only when, as often happens,\nthe man's occupation is rougher than the woman's. The natural woman\ncannot afford to be as fastidious as the natural man; if she shirked\nall the unpleasantness that he escapes, the race would perish. As a\nmatter of fact, there are coarse women and coarse men, refined women\nand refined men; and there is no reason to suppose that the proportions\ndiffer in the two sexes.\n\n\"=There is, However, a Rebellion against Nature= in the matter of\nthe very unequal share of the burden of reproduction which falls to\nmen and women in civilized communities. I say civilized communities\nadvisedly, because the extremely artificial life of the modern lady\nhas the effect of making her natural functions pathological. Whether\nthe rebellion has been going on ever since ladies were invented I do\nnot know, because history is silent on the subject, as it is on so\nmany specifically feminine subjects. But I can testify that among\nwomen brought up amid the feminist movement of the second half of the\nnineteenth century there was a revolt against maternity which went\ndeeper than that revolt against excessive maternity which has led\nto birth control. These more thoroughgoing rebels objected to the\nwhole process, from the occasional event itself to the more permanent\nconditions it imposes. It is easy to dismiss this as monstrous and\nsilly, but the modern conception of creative evolution forbids us to\ndismiss any development as impossible if it becomes the subject of an\naspiration.\n\n\"There is no limit to the truth of the old saying that where there is a\nwill there is a way, and though for the moment a refusal to accept the\nexisting conditions of reproduction would mean race suicide, the rebels\nagainst nature may be the pioneers of evolutionary changes which may\nfinally dispose of the less pleasant incidents of nutrition, and make\nreproduction a process external to the parents in its more burdensome\nphases, as it now is in many existent species.\"\n\n=The Entrance of Woman into Commercial Life= has trained her no longer\nto expect something for nothing (exchangeable) and to realize that a\nbargain, to be satisfactory, an agreement, to be lasting, must be based\non mutual advantages to both parties.\n\nLove, with the old fashioned, began with a struggle of wits between the\nsexes, the man trying to conquer without granting any advantages to the\ndefeated, woman trying to wear out her opponent and make him yield more\nand more advantages before she finally \"paid up.\"\n\nOn one side, fear of financial burdens, at the other end, fear of\ndesertion and pregnancy, suspicion and cruelty.\n\nThe sex struggle with its disgusting features of hypocrisy, pretence,\nduplicity, misrepresentation, denial of biological facts, etc., has\nyielded to an agreement, much as the robber system of past ages has\nbeen replaced by commercial transactions which leave no hatred and no\ndesire for vengeance in their wake.\n\n=Was It a Sacrifice?= The old-fashioned woman, wife or mistress,\nassuming the position of the conquered and defeated, claimed infinite\nprivileges as an offset to what she has \"given up,\" \"sacrificed,\"\n\"yielded.\" She humiliated her conqueror by pretending that\nhis body or his caresses were not the equal of hers, and that she only\nsubmitted to his desire, without much pleasure, compelled by his \"low\ninstincts.\"\n\nThe modern woman, conversant with the facts of sex, and no longer\nhaving to create an artificial value for her body based on disregard\nof biological facts, since her activities, mental and physical, now\ncommand a definite price on the market place, seeks a partner with whom\nshe will exchange caresses leading, as she recognises without silly\nshame, to mutual gratification.\n\n=The Pursuit.= The old-fashioned woman, who always assumed the\npassive role in life and who, supposedly indifferent to the pleasures\nof the flesh, ran away, actually or figuratively, from the brutal\npursuer, played a preposterous dual part in the pre-love skirmishes.\nWho has never encountered the woman who wears in a public place some\ndress which reveals a great deal of her bust, and yet who pretends to\nbe offended if some man stares at what she has exposed in order to\nattract his stare?\n\nThe modern woman whose worth is determined, not by the male's\neroticism in her presence, but by her accomplishments, can afford to be\nfrank, honest, if not, at times, aggressive, in the love search.\n\n=The Passing of Respectable Prostitution.= The old-fashioned woman,\nhaving created the artificial value of womanhood as such, indulged in\na mild, genteel form of prostitution, which, having no consequences\nlikely to impose a burden on the community, (pregnancy, childbirth)\nnever was criticised very severely. She sold her company for meals,\ntheatre tickets, comfortable transportation, flowers, trinkets. Now and\nthen, developing a streak of fairness and honesty, she would grant the\nman she exploited small privileges of a superficial kind. But the real\nold-fashioned girl was of the absolutely sordid type, who could allow a\nmore or less repellent suitor to spend considerable sums to amuse her\nbut would express genuine indignation at the thought that the man could\nbe as sordid as she was, and expect some caresses in return.\n\nThe modern woman, made independent financially by her non-sexual\nactivities, can remove from her love all taint of even mild\ncommercialism, returning favors in kind, or accepting presents, no\nlonger as a bribe, but as a token of affection on the part of a man she\nloves.\n\n=The Abettor of Ethical Sins.= The old fashioned wife was in many more\ncases than superficial thinking would cause us to imagine, a more\ndangerous corrupter of public and private morality than the prostitute.\n\nNumerically the wife predominates. The prostitute constitutes a very\nsmall minority of the population of large cities and does not thrive in\nsmall town, villages or farming communities.\n\nLouis Berman, who is generally very indifferent to psychology, makes a\nvery valuable remark in his book on glands: \"Consider,\" he writes, \"the\nunimportance of a collective purpose to the woman whose career is the\nmate and then the mate's career.\"\n\nWhich means that the woman who takes up wifehood as a profession has\nno social morality. Her husband is her oyster and the world must in\nturn be her husband's oyster. She knows only one thing: that she must\nsupport her mate in anything he does so long as his activities, be they\neven immoral or criminal, provide food and shelter for her and her\nchildren. She cares not what he does as long as he \"succeeds.\"\n\nShe founds her estimate of success upon visible accomplishment. Getting\n\"theirs,\" to her is preferable to getting \"there.\" She, in short, is\na foe to the world, as the world is the foe her mate has set out to\ncapture and rob.\n\nShe willingly sells his ethics to buy success and, at the same time,\nis loud in her denunciation of public, self-confessed prostitutes. She\nwould not prostitute herself but she lightheartedly prostitutes her\nmate.\n\nThe modern woman can in an emergency help her husband financially and\nthus enable him to follow the dictates of social ethics. She will\nthereby earn deeper love and respect from him than by any willingness\nto stand by him in crooked deals.\n\n=Health Versus Sickness.= To the old fashioned wife, weakness and\nsickness were invaluable assets. Sickness excused laziness and\ncapriciousness. Sickness was a bait for petting and at the same time,\na protection against unwelcome physical intimacies. Her menstruation\nbecame a mysterious, offensive, painful process which debarred her from\nmany careers she never thought of entering, saved her from duties she\nwas only too glad to shirk. Undismayed by the sight of professional\nwomen, singers, actresses, dancers, divers, etc., who not only never\nseemed disabled by the \"dreaded\" period but also held a distinct\nfascination to males \"in spite\" of their lack of neurotic femininity,\nshe prided herself in living up to Michelet's asinine description of\nwoman, \"an invalid twelve times unclean.\"\n\nThe modern woman seeking accomplishment of the positive type, scorns\nthe negative superiority which sickness and invalidism assure to\nneurotics. She has acquired a more scientific knowledge of sex matters\nand the superstitious fears surrounding menstruation no longer affect\nher.\n\nFrom my own clinical experience, I am compelled to agree heartily with\nDr. Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury, who in their very fine\nand practical book \"Outwitting our Nerves\" state that \"ninety-five\nout of a hundred cases of painful menstruation are caused by fear and\nexpectation of pain.\"\n\n=The Passing of the Doll.= The modern woman, active, self reliant,\nhonest and healthy, will force out of existence a type which has lent\nmuch picturesque charm to social gatherings and to pictorial art, the\ndoll type of woman, prettiness incarnate, of rose leaf charm, unfit for\nany biological function except the mild lovemaking, not so much of a\nhusband, as of a lover. Tuberculous poets and composers of the Musset\nand Chopin type, affected pictorial artists like Helleu, will deplore\nher disappearance. Man, put at his ease by the modern woman, who does\nnot require constant protection, mental and physical, will find the\ndoll \"too much trouble.\"\n\nOnly the very stupid and unmanly man will cultivate her for she will\nnot throw his physical shortcomings into too striking relief and it\nwill not require any mental exertion on his part to converse with her.\n\n=The Passing of the Flirt.= The flirt is doomed. The flirt is a\nrather unintelligent woman with a mild prostitution complex. She has\nbeen trained from infancy to consider a woman's career as successful\nwhen the woman fastens to herself a breadwinner whom she holds by his\nphysical desire of her body. Having never acquired any market value\noutside of the sexual field, she must constantly test her powers and\nreassure herself by leading all sorts and conditions of men, for whom\nshe may never experience even the slightest fancy, into consequential\novert acts revealing that she has awakened their eroticism.\n\nAnyone will do, provided she reads in his eyes the verdict: I am still\nattractive.\n\nThe terror of growing old is not so overwhelming to the modern woman\nwho has acquired a non-sexual market value. She tests herself thru\npositive accomplishment, leadership, principally, and does not need to\nkeep her eye constantly on the sex thermometer.\n\n=Modesty, Old and New.= Knowledge which dispels physical ghosts\nand a positive self-valuation based on accomplishment will cause the\nmodern woman to discard the old fashioned modesty which was supposed to\nbe her greatest attraction, and which husbands, while being obviously\nattracted by immodest women, encouraged in their wives as a bulwark\nagainst the advances of other men.\n\nHavelock Ellis in his \"Impressions and Comments\" contrasts cleverly\nthru two striking illustrations the old-fashioned type, worshipping\nat the altar of false modesty, and the modern type, who is no longer\nashamed of her body or her sex:\n\n\"In one of my books I had occasion to mention the case, communicated\nto me, of a woman in Italy who preferred to perish in the flames,\nwhen the house was on fire, rather than shock her modesty by coming\nout of it without her clothes. So far as it has been within my power\nI have always sought to place bombs beneath the world in which that\nwoman lived, so that it might altogether go up in flames. I read of\na troop ship torpedoed in the Mediterranean and almost immediately\nsunk within sight of land. A nurse was still on deck. She proceeded\nto strip, saying to the men about her: 'Excuse me, boys, I must save\nthe Tommies.' She swam around and saved a dozen of them. That woman\nbelongs to my world. Now and again I have come across the like, sweet\nand feminine and daring women who have done things as brave as that,\nand even much braver because more complexly difficult and always I feel\nmy heart swinging like a censer before them, going up in a perpetual\nfragrance of love and adoration.\n\n\"I dream of a world in which the spirits of women are flames stronger\nthan fire, a world in which modesty has become courage and yet remains\nmodesty, a world in which women are as unlike men as ever they were\nin the world I sought to destroy, a world in which women shine with a\nloveliness of self-revelation as enchanting as ever the old legends\ntold, and yet a world which would immeasurably transcend the old world\nin the self sacrificing passion of human service.\"\n\nThus far I have presented the silver lining of what some timid persons\ncall the cloud of modernism in love.\n\nTo be perfectly fair and honest, I must now mention the cloud itself,\naltho, like all clouds, it will soon blow away or resolve itself into\na few drops of water, tears, perhaps, also of a temporary nature.\n\n=The Unadapted Woman.= The sudden rise of women in certain fields\nof activity has left quite a number of them unpleasantly unadapted.\n\nCertain positions, well filled by women, and which pay rather high\nsalaries, demand but a modicum of intellectual development, little\nculture or manners.\n\nThe women who fill them, and who generally come from the working class,\nfinancially well off, accustomed to expensive clothes and to respectful\ntreatment on the part of their coworkers or employers, are loath to\nenter a married relationship or even a liaison, with men of their\nsocial set, that is, having the same culture or lack of culture, for\nthose men are financially lower and lack certain manners which they\nexpect to find in their environment.\n\nA husband of the working class type could not, in case of pregnancy,\ngive such a woman the comfort which she now craves. Motherhood would\ndeprive her, temporarily at least, from an income which nothing could\nreplace.\n\nNor could she become subservient to a husband after being very\nindependent and having become slightly snobbish on account of the\nattentions she has received from men financially superior to her.\n\nSome of those women whom I have known, and whose profession I shall\nnot mention to avoid references of an odious character, sought mates,\nlegitimate or illegitimate, out of their class, taking for husbands or\nlovers unsuccessful professional men in need of help.\n\nThe results of those matches were anything but encouraging.\n\nThe male prostitutes who accepted such arrangements, either showed\nplainly their scorn of their unintellectual mate or left her as soon as\nsuccess in their chosen field made them independent of their working\nclass wife or mistress.\n\n=The Proud Husband.= Many men drawing even small salaries, are\nabsolutely unwilling to marry a woman engaged in a gainful occupation.\nThis is due either to hidden jealousy, some men imagining that daily\ncontact with other men is bound to jeopardise a woman's morals, or to\nsilly pride and panicky fear of \"what THEY will say.\" I have heard many\ndonkeys telling me that they do not wish \"people\" to think that they\ncannot support their wives.\n\nThe cloud hovering over the modern woman and which may, at times, cast\na shadow on her love life, will be blown away as soon as culture\nspreads to all social classes of the population owing to the increase\nand systematisation of leisure, and as soon as the old fashioned male\nhas been consigned to his last resting place or analised out of his\nfoolish neurotic notions.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXIX\n\n BIRTH CONTROL\n\n\nModern love, as I have endeavored to show in the preceding chapters is\ninfinitely more complex than love was in the past. When woman was meant\nto obey and serve, when feudalism or any other rigid caste system set\nclear-cut boundaries to each individual's range of development, there\nwas less unrest among women just as there was less unrest among slaves.\nAnd both the mediaeval slave and the mediaeval women were probably\nabsolute bores.\n\nUnrest is growth and complexity is the obvious evidence of growth.\n\nLove stirrings among the amoebae are probably similar to those\nexperienced by human beings. Nature probably puts a premium of pleasure\non the cleavage of the unicellular animal which reproduces itself by\ndividing itself in two, by issuing forth another cell, as it does on\nthe human male when his gonads liberate spermatozoa.\n\nBut the amoeba's love feelings are extremely simple and lead to\nno complication for they imply no enduring companionship, no\nresponsibilities to a mate nor to the \"offspring.\"\n\n=What We Expect of the Modern Woman.= The modern woman who is expected\nto be, not merely a sexual mate but a social and intellectual mate as\nwell, a companion in our athletic diversions, a comrade-at-arms in the\nworld's battles, and many other things, can no longer allow chance to\ninterrupt her developmental strivings, to handicap her in the friendly\nrace she is running with the mate of her choice for intellectual\naccomplishment by unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient pregnancy and\nchild bearing.\n\nEvery child claims two years of its mother's life and it seems\nreasonable that the mother should have something to say as to what\nnumber that chapter will bear in her biography.\n\nAs only the very weak-minded or very hypocritical offer as a remedy for\nfrequent pregnancy male continence, we shall not even consider for one\nminute such an absurd, abnormal, biologically immoral solution.\n\n=The Only Solution.= The only other solution which has ever been\nproposed is a system of sexual enlightenment which will enable a\nwoman to prevent pregnancy until such time when she feels that she can\nin justice to herself and to her offspring bear a child, and will,\nfurther, enable her to have an abortion performed when, in spite of all\ncontraceptive measures, pregnancy has begun.\n\nThis solution has been adopted by the entire civilised world, and in\nfact, I might say that the degree of civilisation of a race or nation\ncan be accurately gauged by the number of individuals within that race\nor nation practicing birth control.\n\nWith very few exceptions, a large family betokens stupidity, poverty\nand ignorance. It is the poor, the stupid and the ignorant who are\nburdened with children and, in turn, that burden keeps them stupid,\npoor and ignorant. A vicious circle which seems hard to break.\n\n=The Human Milch Cow.= Many a time when beholding some miserable\nfemale from the slums wrecked by repeated childbearing, dwarfed in\nmind, deformed in body, I have felt that sexual relations between her\nand her mate had probably reached the level at which they could only by\nan unusual stretch of one's imagination, be even distantly connected\nwith love. To her and to her mate, every embrace, except after the\nonset of pregnancy, meant added suffering, added expense, further\nphysical degradation and decay.\n\nSince the \"nice\" people, however, know the remedy and apply it, why\nbother any longer? Because, while normally intelligent men and women\nknow how to avoid pregnancy and to whom to turn when an accident\nhappens, the greatest uncertainty about contraception obsesses their\nminds and panicky fears bring about many catastrophes when the\nunwelcome fruit must be removed from the mother's body.\n\nThousands of men and woman, enlightened in the mysteries of\ncontraception by some one who is little less ignorant than themselves,\nare chilled in their enjoyment of lawful love by the thought of\npossible danger.\n\nMany women accept their husbands caresses in fear and trembling and\nmany, imagining that there is a close connection between orgasm and\npregnancy succeed in making themselves frigid, which leads to neurotic\ndisturbances in the wife and unhappiness for both mates. Many husbands\nnever dare to \"let themselves go\" unless it be in the arms of a\nprostitute who is \"wise\" and can \"take care of herself.\" Many a woman\nhas deceived her husband because a wise \"man of the world\" assured her\nthat she ran no risk of pregnancy in his arms.\n\n=The Nightmare of Abortion.= And, if in spite of all, an\n\"accident\" happens, what is the mental state of the woman who calls\nat the \"unethical\" practitioner's office? While such an operation\npracticed with a modicum of skill may be harmless, the dread fear of\npossible consequences is quite able to kill the woman.\n\nFear may bring forth any morbid symptom, from an embolus to violent\nsuppuration.\n\nFear, on the other hand, on which the advocates of suppressive measures\nrely, hardly ever leads anyone to continence or prevents any one from\nresorting to abortion.\n\nLegal obstacles to contraceptive education attain only one result. They\nmake married love risky and unpleasant, kill many a young woman and, in\nthe case of neurotic mothers, allow one morbid generation to bring into\nthis world another morbid generation.\n\n=The Plight of the Neurotic Woman.= Many neurotic women imagine that\nthey hate their husbands and rationalise that hatred by bringing up\nmany absurd, imaginary charges against them. To them their husbands\nsymbolise pregnancy.\n\nMany neurotic mothers, who did not wish to bear another child, often\ncompensate for their lack of real love for the unwelcome child by an\nabsurd, exaggerated tenderness which spoils the child or develops\nmorbid fears (the fear they might hurt or kill the child, fear as to\nthe child's health or welfare) which wreck the child's mental balance\nand not infrequently land the mother in a sanatarium.\n\nA neurotic woman I treated was obsessed by the fear that she might\nsome day kill her husband and children. Several years ago she had had\nan abortion performed by a midwife whom she did not trust. Septic\npoisoning set in and she hovered between life and death for several\nmonths. A great fear of death drove her into reading many religious\nbooks. She came to the conclusion that she had committed a murder.\n\nBut her husband, having impregnated her, was more guilty than she,\nfor he was the cause of it all. Hence, her insane logic added, he and\nshe would be better off dead than leading a sinful life. She should,\ntherefore, kill him and kill herself. Furthermore, her children being\nthe offspring of murderers, must be themselves tainted with criminal\ntendencies and should also be saved from a life of crime. When she was\nbrought to me she had attempted to kill the entire family by turning\non the gas faucets all over the house about two o'clock in the morning.\n\nThe lawmakers who prevented that woman from having an operation\nperformed legally, (which would remove the fear of crime) safely, by a\nreputable practitioner, (which would remove the fear of consequences),\nopenly, (which would remove the fear of social ostracism), would\nhave been responsible for the death of several people, had she not\naccidentally awakened her husband by upsetting a chair on her way back\nto her bed.\n\nThere are thousands of neurotics, suffering from a feeling of\ninferiority, who are unfit to become mothers until their morbidity has\nbeen cured by psychotherapy, and who, if allowed to bear children, will\ntrain a new generation to behave in a negative, neurotic, socially\nbaneful way.\n\n=The Children of Neurotic Mothers=, in whom the fear and hatred of\nsex and love is rampant, will some day become prostitutes or puritans,\nboth of them degrading love equally.\n\nI cannot follow Freud when he states that every neurosis has its root\nin a failure of the love life, but some of the artificial obstacles\ncreated by a stupid puritanical civilisation between man and the\nfull realisation of his sexual goal have not infrequently wrecked a\nlife which, neurotically oriented as it was, might have gone on, in a\nsocially tolerable way, for years and perhaps until the individual's\ndeath.\n\nDifficulties due to the use of improper or misunderstood contraceptive\nappliances, the terrors of pregnancy, actual or expected, the fear\nof abortion, the sufferings following abortion in a complex-ridden\norganism, have too often upset a balance which at best was precarious.\n\n=Birth Control and Indulgence.= Certain critics of birth control\nattack it on the ground that it would lead to \"overindulgence\" of the\nsex relationship. Those people are generally unprepossessing, worn,\nindividuals who are trying to compensate for their sexual weakness by\nmaking a virtue out of an unavoidable inferiority. Their opposition to\nwhat they call \"overindulgence\" (one thing which nature hardly ever\nallows, barring rare morbid cases of priapism) is grotesque in the case\nof married couples.\n\nMore unions are wrecked by underindulgence due to fear, ignorance of\nthe mates or inhibitions on the part of one or both, than to indulgence\nof the normal kind.\n\nAnything which prevents or discourages the normal exchange of sexual\ncaresses between those legally entitled to each others enjoyment is\npernicious, antisocial and antibiological for, as Grace Potter writes:\n\n\"Mating has to do with other creation than that of new human beings. It\nhas to do with every kind of creation--a new state, a poem, a picture,\na great bridge, a happier world. Mating is concerned with repeopling\nthe world but also with regeneration of the individual, opening his\ncapacities to growth. Who shall say that the one is not as important\nas the other? If the second were not as important as the first there\nwould have been hardly any advance in human culture. Of all the errors\nincident to the development of human beings, in their struggle to\nattain a consciousness that makes them more than animals, none has had\nwider ill-effects than our misuse of love.\n\n\"There are two equally unfortunate attitudes toward love which perhaps\ngrow out of each other. The one is the puritan attitude and the other\nis the vulgar one. The puritan attitude is that sex impulses are\nsomehow vile and so, altho they give pleasure, must be denied. The\nvulgar attitude takes it for granted that sex impulses are vile but as\nthey are pleasant are to be accepted. The one tends to deny physical\nvalues to love. This is suppression. The other tends to deny tender\nvalues to love. That is suppression also. They have neither one known\nlove. And finally the puritan becomes incapable of tenderness and the\nvulgar becomes equally incapable of physical expression. It is not a\nbeautiful picture.\n\n\"The healthy attitude is this: The sex impulse is not degrading any\nmore than any other impulse is. It is a force as gravity is a force.\nThose human beings achieve beauty and harmony who correlate sexual\nimpulses harmoniously with all their other impulses.\"[3]\n\n\"In spite of the age-long teachings that sex life in itself is\nunclean,\" Margaret Sanger writes in \"Woman and the New Race,\" the\nworld has been moving to a realization that A GREAT LOVE BETWEEN A MAN\nAND A WOMAN IS A HOLY THING freighted with great responsibilities for\nspiritual growth. The fear of unwanted children removed, the assurance\nthat she will have a sufficient amount of time in which to develop\nher love life to its greatest beauty, with its comradeship in many\nfields--these will lift woman by the very soaring quality of her\ninnermost self to spiritual heights that few have attained. Then the\ncoming of the eagerly desired children will but enrich life in all its\navenues, rather than enslave and impoverish it as do unwanted ones\nto-day.\n\n\"What healthier grounds for the growth of sound morals could possibly\nexist than the ample spiritual life of the woman just depicted? Free\nto follow the feminine spirit, which dwells in the sanctuary of her\nnature, she will, in her daily life, give expression to that high\nidealism which is the fruit of that spirit when it is unhampered and\nunviolated.\n\n\"The love for her mate will flower in beauty of deeds that are pure\nbecause they are the natural expression of her physical, mental and\nspiritual being. The love for desired children will come to blossom in\na spirituality that is high because it is free to reach the heights.\n\n\"=The Moral Force of Woman's Nature Will be Unchained=, and of its own\ndynamic power will uplift her to a plane unimagined by those holding\nfast to the old standards of church morality. Love is the greatest\nforce of the universe; freed of its bonds of submission and unwanted\nprogeny, it will formulate and compel of its own nature observance to\nstandards of purity far beyond the highest conception of the average\nmoralist.\"\n\n=The Passing of the Double Standard.= \"Birth Control in\nphilosophy and practice,\" Margaret Sanger writes in \"THE PIVOT\nOF CIVILIZATION,\" is the destroyer of the dualism in the\nold sex code. It denies that the only purpose of sexual activity\nis procreation; it also denies that sex should be reduced to the\nlevel of sensual lust or that woman should permit herself to be the\ninstrument of its satisfaction. In increasing and differentiating her\nlove demands, woman must elevate sex into another sphere, whereby\nit may subserve and enhance the possibility of individual and human\nexpression. Man will gain in this no less than woman; for in the\nage-old enslavement of woman he has enslaved himself; and in the\nliberation of womankind, all of humanity will experience the joys of a\nnewer and fuller freedom.\"\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXX\n\n THE PASSING OF HUSBAND WORSHIP\n\n\nWhile thousands of healthy people, men and women, rejoice over the fact\nthat woman of the modern type is coming to the fore, there are many\n\"calamity howlers,\" male and female, who bid us pause and consider the\ndireful consequences which they fear (that is, hope), this new stage in\nthe development of mankind will bring to the world.\n\nDr. Arabella Kenealy in \"Feminism and Sex Extinction\" forebodes the\npassing of whatever is masculine in the male. Her arguments are not\nvery logical but they are interesting. She believes that \"two fates\nawait woman unless she rids herself of contempt for functions and\nduties purely hers, feminism and feministicism. She is handicapped\nevery month for two or three days by weakness or pain. The craze to do\nmen's work will result in man's emasculation.\n\n\"The desire to figure in legislation far from stiffening the manly\ncaliber of weak men will still further enervate them. Members\nof either sex are not capable of doing their best work while in\nassociation. Sex rivalries are excited. Sex ascendency is created.\nMan inherits from his mother some of woman's apprehension, foresight\nand altruism as required to present woman's bent and viewpoint. More\nof it would be superfluous. The numerical preponderance of women must\nultimately swamp masculine initiative in state affairs unless the\npolitical functions of the sexes are separated.\"\n\nWhy the process should be more baneful for men than it has been for\nwomen who, for countless generations have been decidedly \"swamped in\nstate affairs\" is not very evident.\n\n=Is Man's Virility Declining?= An editorial writer in the New York\nMedical Journal also foresees degeneration ahead unless the male\nretains his mastery: \"The yielding by man to the other sex of masculine\nessential rights and obligations is a symptom of declining virility,\nphysical and mental.\"\n\nAnother medical writer sounds a different alarm: \"Overworked woman\nmay impair the constitutional vigor of man, while she works with\nhim. She is kept up by nervous excitement, by strong tea or drugs.\nIn short, woman is fussy. In a stress of work she will work on with\ncrimson cheeks and growing irritation, while man will put on his hat\nand calmly resort to the nearest lunch room. Women by their eternal\nhigh pressure as heads of departments are making nervous wrecks of\nthemselves.\"\n\nFinally there comes Havelock Ellis, usually less panicky, who thinks\nhe has noticed a distinct degeneration in the young man of today.\n\"These weak-chinned, neurotic young men are no match at all for the\nheavy-jawed resolute young women feminist methods are creating. The\nyielding to women of masculine rights is a symptom of declining\nvirility. Equality in all things yielded, pride in himself, in his\nwork, gone, he will descend to the state of the decadent savage who\nkeeps as many wives to work for him as their work for him enables him\nto keep.\"\n\n=There is Undue Pessimism in All Those Warnings.= Woman has not become\nbrutish as some writers claim, nor has man become effeminate. Woman\nhas simply gained a clearer knowledge of her latent powers and the war\nhas provided her with a touchstone for her physical resistance and\nendurance.\n\nThe work woman had to do during the war, which she had never suspected\nshe could do, for until then it had been considered as man's work, has\nnot \"masculinised\" her but it has rid many \"delicate flowers\" of their\nmorbid belief in the fragile character of their constitution.\n\nMale man is not in danger of passing out of existence but one variety\nof man is doomed, the type which has always wished to mate with the two\ntypes of women which, in the preceding chapter, I declared doomed, the\ndoll and the flirt.\n\n =The Wise Husband.= That almost extinct species is the type of husband\n who speakes of HIS wife, who knows \"women\" and what is \"good\" for\n them, the home Jehovah, all-knowing and all-powerful, who must be\n served and obeyed, who, on his return from work must find his wife\n ready to entertain him if so he wishes, or to plunge back into the\n depths of the kitchen if his mood so requires, the husband who knows\n that he is the aim and goal of his wife's existence.\n\nA ridiculous old man, abandoned by his too young wife, made to the\nreporters a statement betraying sadly the infinite conceit of that\ntype: \"She will return to me because I love her so.\"\n\nA most unprepossessing man was bewailing in my office the fact that his\nwife had grown sexually indifferent to him. I advised him not to compel\nher to have intercourse with him against her will, especially as he\nwas diseased. He na\u00efvely remarked: \"But she is my wife.\"\n\nThat type of husband, in other words, considers a wife as a chattel,\nto be submitted to any sort of legal indignity because she is \"only a\nfemale.\" He may force motherhood upon her to demonstrate his doubtful\nvirility or to protect his jealous egotism. He would accept with\nenthusiasm Goldschmidt's theories which I presented for what they were\nworth in the chapter on Virginity, and according to which, woman is\nsoft wax and characterless, waiting to be shaped into a personality by\nher husband's caresses.\n\nScientific investigators of a more reliable type than Goldschmidt and\nwho avoid drawing \"yellow\" conclusions from their labors, have supplied\nthe reading world with facts which should cause the Jehovah husband to\nfear for his lofty position.\n\n=Is the Male Indispensable?= Jacques Loeb and others have demonstrated\nthat as far as the physical results of love, the continuance of the\nrace, is concerned, the male may not be absolutely indispensable.\n\nLoeb had shown that almost anything which causes the protoplasm of the\negg to separate itself from its membrane is sufficient to introduce\n\"life\" into that curious organism which until then only holds\npossibilities of life.\n\nNature, in order to produce one individual demands two principles, one\nmale and one female principle. She must have one egg which is modified\nby some product of the male organism, pollen or sperm.\n\n=Modern Scientists Have Beaten Nature at Her Own Game= of\ncreation; they have taken one egg, the female principle and proceeded\nto fertilise that egg without any male product whatsoever.\n\nThe experiment has only been made on low forms of animal life, sea\nurchins and the like, but the egg of the sea urchin is not different in\nany essential respect from the egg of the human species.\n\nBy taking unfecundated eggs and placing them for two minutes in a\nmixture of sea water and acetic, or butyric, or valerianic acid, then\nplacing them back in sea water and twenty minutes later, immersing\nthem for about an hour in hypertonic sea water or sugar solution, and\nfinally returning them to sea water, Loeb was able to bring to life\nyoung larv\u00e6. A French scientist, Delage, repeating the same experiments\nmanaged to keep those larv\u00e6 alive until the time of their sexual\nmaturity.\n\nLoeb also succeeded in fertilising eggs by placing them in the blood\nserum of cows, sheep, pigs or rabbits.\n\nMathews has fertilised some by shaking them gently for a period of time.\n\n=Twins To Order.= Loeb and others have gone further even than that\nand produced not only single individuals but twins, triplets, etc.\n\nThe secrets of nature's laboratory are being revealed more and more\nclearly from day to day.\n\nThe conceited fathers who imagine that the bringing into life of twins\nis a symptom of their powerful virility must learn that a mere chemical\nphenomenon called _osmosis_ is responsible for the over-fertility of\nsome wives.\n\nRemove from sea water sea urchin's eggs and place them for fifteen\nminutes or so in ordinary water. The density of water being lower than\nthat of sea water, the eggs will absorb a great deal of water and burst\nopen. A drop of protoplasm will come out at the break in the membrane.\nReplace the exploded egg into sea water and two larv\u00e6 will hatch out of\nit. Separate the two portions of the exploded egg and the twins will be\nas healthy as tho they had been allowed to grow for a while in Siamese\nstyle.\n\nBy repeating the experiment, Loeb has produced not only twins but\ntriplets and quadruplets, all normal and growing out of the same egg\nwhich was only meant originally to produce one urchin.\n\nOne can understand how a variation in the pressure of the liquids\nsurrounding the human egg may lead to the same result.\n\nWhile scientists have created living beings by using the female\nprinciples as a basis, they have not thus far attained any results by\nexperimenting with the male principle alone.\n\n=The Mother is the Race= apparently and the stubbornness of man\nin claiming and fighting for the principle of masculine superiority\nis apparently due to his obscure feeling that after all he is not\nindispensable.\n\nThe more vociferous the claim, the weaker generally the basis for that\nclaim. In certain forms of insanity, the more the organism is destroyed\nby disease the more extravagant the statements are which the insane man\nmakes about himself, claiming power, wealth, health, youth, beauty, etc.\n\nAt least one animal species, the bees, have placed the male on that\nfooting. The male bee represents a convenient and pleasant means of\nbringing about the fecundation of the eggs. After his chemical part\nhas been played, however, no one takes him seriously and his official\nexistence ends. Certain spiders and other insects consider the male in\nthe same light, some of them killing and eating the male as soon as his\nfecundating activities have come to an end.\n\nThe feminine domination, if it should ever implant itself into our\nworld would undoubtedly lead to the absurdities, the exaggerations and\nthe repressions which are the result of our man made civilisation.\n\n=Matriarchal Communities of the Past= in which the woman was the\nhead of the family and probably of the state and matriarchial groups of\nTibet have not left visible tokens of their worth as a family system.\nAs they preceded the present family system however, it may be that\nall traces of their achievements have been obliterated by time. The\nTibetan experiment may have been blighted by unfavorable geographical\nconditions and rendered as barren as the Mongolian patriarchal\nexperiments in a neighboring part of the world.\n\nMan as a means of fecundation is not likely to be discarded by normal\nwomen but his prestige is likely to decrease as the secret of his\nmysterious power becomes better known.\n\nThe passing of the smug, self satisfied Jehovah husband, a neurotic in\nevery case, is in sight and his passing will facilitate the adaptation\nof some of the inadapted women I mentioned in the preceding chapter,\nsome of whom fail to find love, and some of whom do not dare to seek it.\n\n=The Successful Modern Woman is Rather Conceited.= Some of the things I\nsaid about female artists applies in a great measure to the woman who\nin business or in a profession has managed to make her mark.\n\nAfter struggling years for a certain object which she has at last\nattained, she is naturally loath to surrender her personality to the\naverage husband of the self-styled masculine type.\n\nShe at times resorts to homosexualism in an effort to retain her\nindependence and yet satisfy her love cravings without submitting to a\ndomination which she feels to be unjustified.\n\n=The Terrors of The Climateric.= The passing of the Jehovah husband\nwill also ease a process of woman's (and man's) life which has to this\nday held countless terrors to the uninitiated, the climacteric.\n\nTo the old-fashioned and the gullible woman, the change of life meant\nthe end of life as a female. The stupid man, who is constantly\nendeavoring to subdue his mate thru disparagement and kills speedily\nher youth, her enthusiasm and her hopes by repeating constantly the\ntrashy \"At your age, my dear,\" is in a great measure responsible for\ntransforming that harmless phenomenon into a painful crisis, mental and\nphysical.\n\nThe crisis of the \"Dangerous Age,\" to use Karin Michaelis's expression,\nis generally due to the clash of a weak masochistic female with a weak\nand sadistic male, a clash in which, owing to age and the staleness of\nthe mates, affection has no redeeming, consoling physical features.\n\n=The Masculine Man is in No Danger of Passing Away= and he will for\never be as attractive to woman as the feminine woman is to him.\n\nAs Shaw said, what has been killed in men by the growth of feminism is\n\"not masculinity but boorishness,\" a characteristic, not of the strong\nbut of the weak, who is trying to compensate for his weakness and to\nconceal it. What has been killed in woman is not feminine sweetness but\noverfeminine silliness which woman used as a deceptive weapon against\nthe domineering male.\n\nIn a world which grants equal opportunities to men and women, no\nhusband will be able to justify or excuse his treatment of a woman\nby saying \"She is my wife.\" He will have to remain her lover in order\nto hold her. No wife will be able to make the home hideous and, at\nthe same time, brandish over her husband's head the certificate of\nenslavement called a marriage license. She will have, in order to\ncompete with the free women whose personality will impose itself upon\nher environment, to remain his mistress.\n\nEvery step ahead which the world takes fortunately proves a new step\nwhich love takes in the direction of completeness and freedom from\nsordidness and ugliness.\n\n\n\n\n CHAPTER XXXI\n\n PERFECT MATRIMONIAL ADJUSTMENTS\n\n\nWhile marriage, regardless of whatever form it may assume, has always\nbeen mentioned in this book as unavoidably related to love, we must\nnot blink the fact that marriage and love are two absolutely different\nthings forced into frequent association by social and economic\nnecessity.\n\nLove is an involuntary and compulsory craving which draws a male and a\nfemale into the closest possible union for the purpose of mutual sexual\ngratification, generally followed by conception and reproduction.\n\n=Marriage a Compromise.= Marriage on the other hand is merely a\ncompromise between the positive individual cravings which demand the\nmost complete and frequent gratification of the love urge, regardless\nof its consequences, and the negative feeling which causes the\ncommunity to shirk all possible responsibilities incurred by the\nindividual, among others, the support of pregnant or lactating females\nand of helpless infants.\n\nUnless the community owns mother and child and can exploit their labor\nor receive their cash value (slavery system), it demands that their\nowner, the impregnator of the woman and procreator of the child, supply\nfood and shelter for both.\n\nMarriage is also a compromise between two individual cravings which may\nnot be synchronised, as the male's desire for the female may subside\nbefore her desire for him does, or reciprocally.\n\nThrough the institution of marriage the community protects itself\nagainst new burdens directly by penalties (sentences against wife\ndeserters or those who abandon children) and indirectly by protecting\nthe mates against their own cravings for whose duration they are not\nresponsible (laws against bigamy or adultery, etc.).\n\n=Considering the Artificial Character of the Marriage Union=, and\nat the same time the psychological importance of its durability as far\nas the mental health of the off-spring is concerned, one of the most\npressing duties of the community (and one which it never performs),\nshould be to devise all the possible ways and means whereby the sex\ncravings of both mates could be helped to retain their freshness and\nstrength as long as possible.\n\n=Attractiveness an Asset.= The first thought which should be forced\ninto the minds of modern men and women is that attractiveness is a\npositive asset not only to woman but to man. In classic Greece, a\nman could not be merely good, he had to be beautiful too. By \"good\"\nthe Greek meant \"fit\" but in the compound word which implied both\nqualities, _kalos_, beauty came first.\n\nCravings being awakened and kept alive by certain fetishes, the\nindividual should be trained to recognize his and his mate's fetishism\nand to make all possible efforts to retain, if necessary by artificial\nmeans, the fetishes which lead to the awakening of erotism between him\nand his mate.\n\n=The Average Man or Woman of Forty is a Sorry Sight.= Yet a\nlittle intelligence would compel them to retain or regain the physical\nidiosyncrasies they exhibited at the time of their marriage.\n\nToo many women consider it sinful to devote much time to their physical\nappearance and the care of their body. In a man, any attempt to make\nhimself attractive is considered in stupid middle-class circles as a\nstigma of effeminacy.\n\nThe \"pretty\" man has always been despised by men and women, and\nendocrinology has confirmed their judgment by revealing to us that he\nis a glandular weakling. Between the pretty man and the attractive man,\nhowever, there is a far cry.\n\nWhile the American movies, generally speaking, are catering to the\nweak-minded and the unimaginative, they have, in their search for a\nbait where-with to catch audiences, rendered mankind a signal service\nby starring the kind of man which would have passed muster in ancient\nGreece, beautiful and fit.\n\n=Athletic, if not Acrobatic, Movie Idols= present to the female part\nof the audience a complex of physical qualities which women will\ngradually demand from their mates. It is regrettable that women\nshould not attend prize fights in large numbers, for the sight of the\ngodlike participants in those affrays would force them to institute\nenlightening comparisons between professional fighters and the average\nmale.\n\nBesides retaining or regaining their fetishes, human beings should make\na special effort not to let those fetishes lose their power.\n\n=The Worst Foe of Married Happiness.= Balzac in his \"Physiology of\nMarriage\" says that the married have to wage a constant fight with a\nmonster which devours everything: Habit. Every stimulus, as we know,\npleasant or unpleasant, loses its power when applied continuously or\ntoo frequently.\n\nIt is only for the first minute or so that the ice cold shower causes\nour naked skin to tingle with excitement. As soon as the reaction sets\nin and the capillaries fill with red blood, the pleasant sensation of\nthe water needles becomes dulled.\n\nAfter holding our hand for a minute in hot water, we no longer\nrealise the high temperature of the liquid and in order to continue\nto experience the feeling of heat we must continually raise the\ntemperature of the water.\n\nAnd likewise we may grow so accustomed to one source of erotic\nstimulation that we become indifferent to it.\n\n=Friendship May Survive the Death of Sexual Love=, provided the sex\ndesire has died in both mates at the same time. When desire dies off in\nthe wife first and is not replaced by aversion, the situation may be\nvery simple for she can still satisfy her more ardent mate and derive\nsome gratification therefrom.\n\nWhen the man's desire dies first, on the other hand, there may arise\nunpleasant complications. A man may be impotent with a woman whom he\nloves tenderly but no longer desires sexually and yet be potent with\nsome other woman to whom he is not completely \"accustomed.\"\n\nJealousy on the part of the wife may then prevent the advent of the\nplatonic friendship which is not uncommon between old married mates,\naltho Montaigne denies the possibility of its existence.\n\nModern mates, conscious of that danger, have now and then devised ways\nand means to combat Balzac's monster.\n\nNot so long ago a well-known woman writer announced that she was\nplanning to marry a certain man with whom, however, she did not intend\nto live day after day. The experiment has many chances of success if\njealousy does not complicate the situation.\n\nI suggested to reporters last summer, when two famous artists parted\ncompany, that their union might have been of longer duration if one of\nthem had lived at the Plaza while the other was stopping at the St.\nRegis.\n\n=Married People Should Separate for Periods of Variable Duration= in\norder that a fresh stimulation may emanate from their fetishes when\nthey meet again. By leading more individual lives and having separate\nsets of friends, they would, besides, bring to each other a new sort\nof mental pabulum and stimulation day after day. Conversation becomes\nfutile and unnecessary between a husband and wife who always pay and\nreceive calls together, attend the same spectacles and hence always see\nthe same side of life. Now and then we read of couples who separate\nand a few years later remarry. Those few years spent apart from each\nother mean for both new experiences which enrich their mind and their\nconversation and make them again interesting to each other.\n\n=The Play Function of Love.= Another factor which the monstrous\nhypocrisy of puritanism makes very difficult to discuss openly and\nhonestly and which wrecks many promising unions is the ignorance, more\ncommon than we suspect among married couples, of what Maurice Parmelee\nin his \"Personality and Behavior\" has called the Play Function of Love,\na term which has been given a broader meaning by Havelock Ellis in an\narticle for the _Medical Review of Reviews_ for March 1921.\n\nThe average man or woman is tragically ignorant of the mission of sex.\n\nThe average man, as Ellis writes, has two aims: \"to prove that he is a\nman and to relieve a sexual tension.\n\n\"He too often considers himself, from traditional habits, as the active\npartner in love and his own pleasure as the prime motive of the sex\ncommunion.\n\n\"His wife, naturally adopts the complementary attitude, regards herself\nas the passive partner and her pleasure as negligible.\n\n\"She has not mastered the art of love, with the result that her\nwhole nature remains ill-developed and unharmonized, and that she\nis incapable of bringing her personality (having indeed no achieved\npersonality to bring) to bear effectively on the problems of society\nand the world around her.\"\n\nI have described in \"Sex Happiness\" the tragedies which result from\nthat form of ignorance, especially the tragedy of the unsatisfied wife,\nher restlessness, her gradual dislike of her mate, her curiosity as to\nwhat feelings she might experience if married to another man, when some\nother man seems to awaken her erotism, and then the dilemma, repression\nleading to neurosis, or indulgence leading into the divorce court.\n\n=Psychoanalysis to the Rescue.= \"In this matter,\" Ellis writes,\n\"we may learn a lesson from the psychoanalysts of today without\nany implication that psychoanalysis is necessarily a desirable or\neven possible way of attaining the revelation of love. The wiser\npsychoanalysts insist that the process of liberating the individual\nfrom outer and inner influences that repress or deform his energies and\nimpulses is effected by removing the inhibitions on the free play of\nhis nature.\n\n\"It is a process of education in the true sense, not of the suppression\nof natural impulses nor even of the instillation of sound rules and\nmaxims for their control, not of the pressing in but of the leading out\nof the individual's special tendencies.\n\n\"It removes inhibitions, even inhibitions that were placed upon the\nindividual, or that he consciously or unconsciously placed upon\nhimself, with the best moral intentions, and by so doing it allows a\nlarger and freer and more natively spontaneous morality to come into\nplay.\n\n\"It has this influence above all in the sphere of sex, where such\ninhibitions have been most powerfully laid on the native impulses,\nwhere the natural tendencies have been most surrounded by taboos and\nterrors, most tinged with artificial stains of impurity and degradation\nderived from alien and antiquated traditions.\n\n\"Thus the therapeutical experience of the psychoanalysts reinforce\nthe lessons we learn from physiology and psychology and the intimate\nexperiences of life.\"\n\n=Wounded Egotism.= Love in marriage is endangered from another quarter:\nThe greatest foe of sexual desire, as I have stated several times in\nthis book, is wounded egotism.\n\nA perfect matrimonial adjustment does not mean the modification of\neither mate's personality. We have seen in the chapters on glands that\nthe normal personality is practically inadaptable, that is, nothing\nshort of serious sickness or a surgical operation can transform an\nactive person into a sluggish one and vice versa.\n\nIt is only the neurotic personality which can be adapted by the removal\nof certain unconscious fears which prevent it from attaining social and\nbiological balance and happiness.\n\nAll psychoanalysis does in such cases is to teach the patient to accept\neverything which is biologically normal in his personality.\n\nWe must then have an absolute respect for personality in ourselves\nand others. We must find a socially acceptable outlet for all our\nidiosyncrasies, a difficult, but never impossible task.\n\nLack of an outlet means a neurotic disturbance. The so-called\nadaptable people are those who succeed in repressing temporarily their\ncravings and denying their existence, a result which they attain at\nthe cost of much suffering to themselves and, indirectly, to their\nenvironment.\n\n=Democracy in the Home= is the prerequisite of every perfect\nmatrimonial adjustment.\n\nThe autocratic government of the home by a male bully of a female nag\nleads to either a revolution (divorce) or to the destruction of human\nmaterial after a bitter strife, (neurotic ailments).\n\nThe bullied wife and the henpecked husband fill the offices of\nneurologists, gynaecologists, psychoanalysts and sexologists. This is\nthe way in which the wounded ego of the defeated mate avenges itself.\n\nThe defeated mate becomes sexually disabled.\n\nThe results of maladjustment of the mates are strikingly summed up by\nKempf in his monumental work \"Psychopathology\":\n\n\"Upon marriage a subtle if not overt struggle occurs between the mates\nfor the dominant position in the contract. The big, aggressive wife\nand the timid, little husband attest to the importance of organic\nsuperiority in the adjustment, but the average marriage does not show\nsuch organic differences. The sadistic or masochistic husband and the\nmasochistic or sadistic wife will certainly adjust to please their\nreciprocating cravings, no matter what influence this may have upon\ntheir children, and a sadistic wife and sadistic husband, although both\nare cruel in their pleasures, will divorce each other on the charge\nof the other being cruel; but it is the commonplace adjustment which\ninterests us most, because it is most predominant.\n\n\"Nature places an unerring punishment upon the woman, who, by\nincessantly using every whim, scheme or artifice, finally succeeds\nin dominating her husband. By forcing him to submit to her thousand\nand one demands and coercions, within a few years, he unconsciously\nbecomes a submissive type and loses his sexual potency with her as the\nlove-object. If he does not have secret love interests which stimulate\nhim to strive for power, he finally loses his initiative and sexual\npotency completely and must live always at a commonplace level, the\nservant of more virile men: the counterpart of the subdued impotent\nmales of the animal herd.\n\n\"His more aggressive, selfish mate, if periodically heterosexually\nerotic, will become neurotic if her moral restraints are insurpassable,\nor seek a new mate whom she will again attempt to subdue. Never is she\nable to realise that her selfishness makes her sexually unattractive.\nThe psychopathologist meets many such women whose husbands have evaded\ndomination by secretly depending upon the affections of another more\nsuitably adjusted woman.\"\n\nIn \"The New Horizon in Love and Life,\" Mrs. Havelock Ellis writes \"It\nis more than probable that the evolved relationship of the future will\nbe monogamy--but a monogamy wider and more beautiful than the present\ncaricature of it, as the sea is wider and more delicious than a duck\npond.\n\n\"The lifelong, faithful love of one man for one woman is the exception\nand not the rule. The law of affinity being as subtle and as\nindefinable as the law of gravitation, we may, by and by, find it worth\nwhile to give it its complete opportunity in those realms where it can\nmanifest itself most potently. We are on the wrong bridge if we imagine\nthat laxity is the easiest way to freedom. The bridge which will bear\nus must be strong enough to support us while experiments are tried.\n\n\"What is the gospel in this matter of sexual emancipation for men\nand women in the new world where love has actually come of age? It\nis surely the complete economic independence of women. While man\nis economically free and woman still a slave, either physically,\nfinancially or spiritually, mankind as a whole must act as if\nblindness, maimness and deafness constituted health.\n\n\"The complete independence of husband and wife is the gospel of the new\nera of marriage. This is the actual matter which philosophers, parents,\nphilanthropists and pioneers so often ignore when teaching the new\nideals of morality. When a woman is kept by a man she is not a free\nindividuality either as child, wife or mistress. Imagine for a moment\na man kept by a woman as women are kept by men and a sense of humor\nilluminates the absurdity of the situation between any class of evolved\nhuman beings.\"\n\nAs a clever patient of mine whom I regret I cannot mention by name said\none day: \"married happiness, to be lasting, requires more than sexual\ncooperation of both mates, it must resolve itself into cooperative\negotism.\"\n\n[Footnote 1: See Mary Sinclair's \"The Life and Death of Harriet Freau.\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: Kings. I, 1-2.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Birth Control Review, April 1922.]\n\n\n THE END\n\n\n\n\n INDEX\n\n\n Abortion, 295\n\n Active homosexuals, 167\n\n Adler, 32, 41, 71, 115, 130, 132, 141, 142, 170, 192, 211, 225\n\n Adrenals, 230\n\n Adrenin, 6\n\n Algolagnists, 188\n\n Androgynes, 160\n\n Animal love fights, 196\n\n \"Animal\" types, 87\n\n Antifetishes, 24, 25\n\n Aphrodite, 195\n\n Aristotle, 207\n\n Atavism, 194\n\n Attractiveness, 317\n\n Auditory sensations, 57\n\n\n Baby talk, 57\n\n Balzac, 318\n\n Basogas, 43\n\n Bees in love, 52, 53\n\n Beresford, 267\n\n Berman, Dr. Louis, 228\n\n Bernhardt, Sarah, 100\n\n Bloch, Iwan, 88\n\n Blood relations, 47\n\n Bonaparte, 192\n\n Bored wives, 89\n\n Boredom, 212\n\n Bottle-fed men, 20\n\n Bovary, Madame, 91\n\n Brain, cells, 16\n function of the, 7\n operations on a dog's, 13\n\n Breast-fed men, 20\n\n Brothers and sisters, 78\n\n Brutus, 82\n\n Business women, 279\n\n\n C\u00e6sar, 180\n\n Calf love, 54\n\n Cannon, 10\n\n Chicago Vice Report, 108\n\n Childish behavior, 158\n\n Choice, meaning of, 11, 12\n\n Cigar smoking, 59\n\n Clean lives, 264\n\n Climacteric, 312\n\n Community's criticism, 256\n\n Contraception, 294\n\n Conversation, 321\n\n Cooperative egotism, 328\n\n Copepods, behavior of, 15\n\n Craig's Birds, 40\n\n Crile, 63\n\n Cybela, 196\n\n\n Dark Types, 234\n\n Darwin, 45\n\n Death dreams, 75\n\n Death wishes, 73, 74\n\n Delage, 308\n\n Deluded martyrs, 81\n\n Delusional jealousy, 147\n\n Democracy in the home, 325\n\n Demosthenes, 83\n\n Descartes, 162\n\n Displacement upward, 6\n\n Dissatisfied people, 216\n\n Divorces in the art world, 221\n\n Doll type, 284\n\n Don Juan, 92, 94, 139\n\n Double standard, 302\n\n Ductless glands, 225\n\n Duncan, Isadora, 100\n\n\n Economic exhibitionism, 69\n\n Eddy, Mary Baker, 265\n\n Effeminacy, 317\n\n Ego rampant, 139\n\n Electrical exchanges, 60, 63\n\n Ellis, Havelock, 88, 177, 286, 305, 321\n\n Ellis, Mrs. Havelock, 327\n\n Endocrinologists, 226\n\n Environment, 236\n\n Erotropism, 4\n\n Ethical prostitution, 113\n\n Eulenburg, Albert, 162, 194\n\n\n Fatherhood cravings, 69\n\n Fear of accidents, 76\n\n Fear of woman, 114\n\n Female artists, 218\n\n Feminine refinement, 277\n\n Ferenczi, 148 sqq.\n\n Fetishes, list of, 19, 20\n feminine, 21\n masculine, 21\n non-physical, 24, 25\n\n Fiji Islands, 42\n\n First Night, the right of the, 68\n\n Fixation, parent, 30, 31, sqq.\n\n Flappers, 247, 248\n\n Flattery, 218, 219, 220\n\n Flirt, the, 285\n\n Foot Fetishism, 18, 22\n symbolism, 24\n\n Forel 134\n\n Frazer, 44\n\n Freud, 23, 24, 31, 42, 49, 62, 140, 164, 165, 211, 225, 267, 297\n\n Friedlander, Benedikt, 183\n\n Friendship, 319\n\n Frigid wives, 245\n\n Frink, 137\n\n\n Galvanotropism, 4\n\n Genesis, 43\n\n Gerontophilia, 24\n\n Getting even, 90\n\n Glands, 34\n\n Glandular drunkenness, 193\n\n Glandular insufficiency, 203\n\n Glove fetishism, 205\n\n Goldschmidt, Jules, 116\n\n Gonads, 231\n\n Greek Gods, 156\n\n Griseldis, 195\n\n Gross, Dr. Otto, 184\n\n\n Habit, 310\n\n Hair Fetishism, 17, 26, 27\n\n Heart, physiology of the, 5\n\n Heredity, 34\n\n Hirschfeld, Magnus, 158, 186\n\n Hirth, George, 88, 89\n\n Holding hands, 60\n\n Homosexual tragedies, 179\n\n Husbands and lovers, 141\n\n\n Ideal Love, 269\n\n Identification mania, 35, 36\n\n Imitation, 33\n\n Immodest modesty, 127\n\n Impotence, 26\n\n Inbreeding, 44\n\n Incest fear, 42\n\n Independent women, 281\n\n Infidelity, 85\n\n Institution children, 101\n\n\n Jack the Ripper, 197\n\n Jealousy and impotence, 137\n\n Jesus, 67\n\n Jung, 32, 33, 225\n\n\n Kempf, 173, 325\n\n Kenealy, Dr. Arabella, 303\n\n King David, 261\n\n Kiss, 60, 61\n\n Krafft-Ebing, 162\n\n Kronos, 195\n\n\n Lean types, 235\n\n Leonardo da Vinci, 180\n\n Lesbian Love, 156\n\n Loeb, Jacques, 307 sqq.\n\n Lombroso, 105\n\n Lorand, 259\n\n Love, a compulsion, 10\n\n Lover, the successful, 52\n the unsuccessful, 53\n\n Lovers of the absolute, 271\n\n\n Male artists, 218\n\n Male lovers, 156\n\n Male prostitutes, 109\n\n Marriage, a compromise, 315\n\n Masculine protest, 130\n\n Masked Sadism, 154\n\n Masoch, Leopold von Sacher, 200 sqq.\n\n Masochistic husbands, 206\n\n Matriarchal communities, 311\n\n Matrimonial Engineers, 238\n\n Messalina, 94\n\n Metatropism, 161\n\n Michael Angelo, 176\n\n Michaelis, Karin, 313\n\n Michelet, 284\n\n Milch cows, 293\n\n Milk, 59\n\n Mind, seat of the, 6, 7\n\n Mobs, 198\n\n Moreau de Tours, 189\n\n Movie Idols, 318\n\n Movies, 57\n\n\n Naked male dancers, 123\n\n Narcism, 167\n\n Negative Love, 176\n\n Negro Haters, 79\n\n Nerve memory, 8\n\n Nerves, 50\n\n Neurotic frigidity, 70\n\n Neurotic Life Plan, 33\n\n Neurotic motherliness, 71\n\n Neurotic mothers, 249, 296\n\n Nietzsche, 180\n\n Nurses, 39\n\n\n Obscene talkers, 132\n\n Obsessions, 27\n\n Oedipus Complex, 30\n\n Old fashioned women, 275\n\n Oracles, 266\n\n Organism, unity of, 49, 50, 51\n\n\n Paranoiacs, 147\n\n Parent-Child Relationship, 223\n\n Parmelee, Maurice, 321\n\n Passive homosexuals, 167\n\n Perfect Mothers, 246\n\n Personality, 239\n\n Personality, respect for the, 324\n\n Perverse birds, 164\n\n Phototropism, 3\n\n Physical incompatibility, 254\n\n Pimps, 109\n\n Pituitary, 228\n\n Plato, 155\n\n Platonic love, 63\n\n Play function of love, 321\n\n Plural love, 84\n\n Polyandry, 84\n\n Potter, Grace, 299\n\n Preferences, 39\n\n Pregnancy and Health, 242\n\n Priapism, 84\n\n Primal horde, 45\n\n Primitive races, 42\n\n Prize fights, 318\n\n Prohibition, 81\n\n Projection, 153\n\n Proud husbands, 289\n\n Psychoanalysis, 322\n\n Puritanical males, 129\n\n\n Rebellion against nature, 277\n\n Reformers, 80\n\n Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 207\n\n Rules for husbands, 134\n\n\n Sade, Marquis de, 189 sqq.\n\n Sadistic lovers, 213\n\n Sadistic mates, 215\n\n Sadzer, 166\n\n Safety devices, 170\n\n Safety symbols, 97\n\n Sallow Type, 235\n\n Sanger, Margaret, 300 sqq.\n\n Sapho, 155\n\n Savages, modesty among, 123\n\n Schneider, Kurt, 105\n\n Schopenhauer, 182\n\n Schroeder, Theodore, 265\n\n Sea urchins, 308\n\n Self love, 67\n\n Sensuality, 107\n\n Sexless jealousy, 140\n\n Sexless persons, 208\n\n Sexual Libido, 65\n\n Shaw, G. B., 276 sqq.\n\n Shoe fetishism, 18, 22, 205\n symbolism, 24\n\n Sight, 56\n\n Sinclair, May, 268\n\n Skooptsy, 208\n\n Slender types, 236\n\n Smell, 58\n\n Social pressure, 237\n\n Socrates, 155\n\n Sour grapes, 77\n\n Steinach, 163 sqq.\n\n Stekel, Wilhelm, 128, 160, 170, 183\n\n Sublimation, 267\n\n Suggestive draperies, 125\n\n Suttee custom, 142\n\n Syphilophobiacs, 80\n\n\n Tall types, 235\n\n Taste, 59\n\n Teeth, 237\n\n Telegony, 116\n\n Test of love, 75\n\n Third sex, 158 sqq.\n\n Thyroid, 230\n\n Touch, 60\n\n Transvestites, 159\n\n Triplets, 310\n\n Twins, 309\n\n Type, parent, 39\n\n\n Ultrafeminine, 93\n\n Unadapted women, 288\n\n Uniform fetishism, 25\n\n\n Vamps, 213\n\n Varietism, 84\n\n Vital Force, 266\n\n Vomiting, in pregnancy, 243\n\n Von Kupfer, 181, 182\n\n\n Wagner, 252\n\n Walker, Dr. Mary, 160\n\n War prisoners, 70\n\n Whipping, 202\n\n Wifehood, a profession, 282\n\n Wilde, Oscar, 180\n\n Will-to-be-the-first, 115\n\n Winckelman, 176\n\n Wise husbands, 306\n\n Women Sadists, 210\n\n Women who enjoy a beating, 209\n\n Wounded egotism, 324\n\n Wulffen, 193","title":"Psychoanalysis and Love","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":63993}