At the age of eight, while at school, he saw how the teacher punished the boys by taking their heads between his thighs and spanking them with a ferule. This sight caused the patient lustful excitement. “Without any idea of the danger and enormity of onanism,” he satisfied himself with it, and from that time often masturbated, during which he always called up the memory-picture of a boy being punished.
Thus it continued until his twentieth year. Then he learned the significance of onanism, was terribly frightened, and tried to overcome his impulse to masturbate; but he fell into the practice of psychical onanism, which he regarded as innocuous and morally defensible, and for which he made use of the memory-pictures of boys being whipped, previously mentioned.
Patient now became neurasthenic, suffered with pollutions, and tried to cure himself by visiting brothels; but he could not induce erection. Then he sought to obtain normal sexual feelings by means of social intercourse with ladies; but he recognized that he was entirely insensible to the charms of the fair sex.
The patient is an intelligent man, normally developed, and of æsthetic taste. There is no inclination to persons of his own sex. My advice consisted of means to combat the neurasthenia and pollutions; interdiction of psychical and manual onanism; avoidance of all sexual excitants; and, possibly, hypnotic treatment to ultimately induce a return of the vita sexualis to its normal condition.
Case 38. Abortive sadism. N., student, came under observation in December, 1890. He had practiced masturbation from early youth. According to his statements, he became sexually excited when he saw his father whip the children, and, later, when he saw the teacher whip his companions. When a spectator of such scenes, he always experienced lustful feelings. He could not say exactly when this first occurred, but it may have been at about the age of six. He could not tell exactly when he began to masturbate, but he stated with certainty that his sexual instinct was first awakened by the punishment of others, and thus he unconsciously came to practice onanism. The patient remembered clearly that from the age of four to the age of eight he was frequently spanked, and that this caused him pain, never lustful pleasure.
Since he did not always have opportunity to see others whipped, he began to imagine how others were punished. This excited his lust, and he would then masturbate. Whenever he could, he managed to see others punished at school. Now and then he also felt desire to whip others. At the age of twelve he induced a comrade to allow him to whip him. He found great sexual pleasure in it. When, however, his companion beat him in return, he experienced nothing but pain.
The impulse to beat others was never very strong. The patient experienced more satisfaction in filling his imagination with scenes of whipping. He never indulged in any other sadistic acts, and never had any
