FETICHISM.
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learned quite easily. At the age of fifteen he had a sensual feeling of pleasure, with erection, at the sight of one of the village beauties combing her hair. Until that time persons of the opposite sex had made no impression on him. Two months later, in Paris, the sight of young girls with their hair flowing down over their shoulders always excited him intensely. One day he could not resist an opportunity to twist a young girl’s hair in his fingers. For this he was arrested and sentenced to imprisonment for three months. After that he served five years as a soldier. During this time hair was not dangerous for him, though also not very accessible; but he dreamed sometimes of female heads with the hair braided or flowing. Occasional coitus with women, but without having their hair effective as a fetich. Once more in Paris, he again dreamed as before, and became greatly excited by female hair. He never dreamed about the whole form of a woman, only of heads with braids of hair. His sexual excitement due to this fetich had become so intense of late that he had resorted to masturbation. The idea of touching female hair, or, better, of possessing it to masturbate while handling it, grew more and more powerful. Of late, when he had female hair in his fingers, ejaculation was induced. One day he succeeded in cutting hair, about 25 centimetres long, from three little girls in the street, and keeping it in his possession, when he was arrested in a fourth attempt. Deep regret and shame. He was not sentenced. Since spending some time in the asylum, he has so far improved that female hair no longer excites him. Set at liberty, he thought of going to his native place, where the women wear their hair done up. (Magnan, Archiv. de l’anthropol. crinminelle, v, Nr. 28.)
A third case is the following, which is likewise suited to illustrate the psychopathic nature of such phenomena; and the remarkable means which induced a cure are worthy of note:—
Case 80. Hair-fetichism. Mr. X., between thirty and forty years old; from the higher class of society; single. He says that he comes of a healthy family, but from childhood has been nervous, vacillating, and peculiar; that since his eighth year he has been powerfully attracted by female hair. This was particularly true in the case of young girls. When he was nine years old, a girl of thirteen seduced him. He did not understand it, and was not at all excited. A twelve-year-old sister of this girl also courted, kissed, and hugged him. He allowed this quietly, because this girl’s hair pleased him so well. When about ten years old, he began to have sensual feelings at the sight of female hair that pleased him. Gradually these feelings occurred spontaneously, and memory-pictures of girls’ hair were always immediately associated with them. At the age of eleven he was taught to masturbate by school-mates. The associative connection of sexual feelings and a fetichistic idea was already established, and always appeared when the patient indulged in evil practices with his
