cost what it might. He was indifferent to the source of the articles. At night, on going to bed, he would put on the stolen clothing and create beautiful women in imagination, thus inducing pleasurable feeling and ejaculation. This was apparently the motive of his thefts; at least, he had never disposed of any of the articles, but had hidden them here and there.
He declared that, earlier in his life, he had indulged in normal sexual intercourse with women. He denied onanism, pederasty, and other sexual acts. He said he was engaged at twenty-five, but the engagement was broken through no fault of his. He was incapable of insight into the abnormality of his condition and the wrong of his acts. (Passow, Vierteljahrsschrift f. ger. Medic., N. F. xxviii, p. 61; Krauss, “Psychologie des Verbrechens,” 1884, p. 190.)Hammond (op. cit.) reports a case of passionate interest in single articles of female wearing-apparel. Here, also, the patient’s pleasure consisted in wearing a corset and other female garments (without any traces of contrary sexual instinct). The pain of tight lacing, experienced by himself or induced in women, is a delight to him,—sadistic-masochistic element.
A case probably belonging here is one reported by Diez (“Der Selbstmord,” 1838, p. 24), where a young man could not resist the impulse to tear female linen. While tearing it, he always had ejaculation.
A combination of fetichism with an impulse to destroy the fetich (in a certain sense, sadism with inanimate objects) seems to occur quite frequently (comp. Case 93).
An article of dress, which, though it has not really a private character, by its material and color, as well as by the place where it is worn, recalls under-garments, and hence has sexual relations, is the apron (comp. also the metonymic use of the word “apron” for “petticoat” in the saying, “To chase every apron,” etc.). This explains the following case:—
