he occasionally had lascivious dreams of women, and no longer dreamed of men.
The patient stopped treatment at the end of September. He felt perfectly normal in hetero-sexual intercourse, devoid of neurasthenia, and bad thoughts of marriage. Yet he freely confessed that he still always had erections at the sight of a naked, handsome man; though he could easily resist the desires that arose, and in dreams had exclusively “relations avec la femme.”
In April, 1891, I again saw the patient, and he was in the best of health. He regarded his vita sexualis as perfectly normal; for he had coitus regularly with pleasure and full virility, dreamed only of women, and had no inclination to masturbation. Yet he made the interesting confession that frequently, post coitum, he still had a temporary “gout pour l’homme,” which he could easily control. He thought he was lastingly cured, and was occupied with thoughts of marriage.
Case 143. Congenital Contrary Sexual Feeling. Successful Removal of Homo-Sexual Feelings by Suggestions.—L., doctor of philosophy, aged 34, German, consulted me, in the spring of 1888, on account of perversion of his vita sexualis, and asked whether he could not be freed from it by means of hypnotic treatment.
Patient came of a healthy mother, in whose family, for generations, there had been neither insanity nor nervous disease. He, like his only brother, is much like his father mentally. His brother is very sensual, and also psychically abnormal, and given to over-indulgence in drink.
His father was a neuropathic, eccentric man. Nothing is known of any abnormal sexual manifestations in him, though, like all his brothers, he had a tendency to over-indulgence in alcohol.
This vice seems to have been inherited from his mother (grandmother of patient), who was a notorious drinker. The father of this woman (great-grandfather of patient) was also a great drinker. No other ancestral history was obtainable.
Patient states that from childhood he was nervous and easily excited. He learned very easily, and had a talent for languages. He was always interested in art, particularly in music and poetry. His education was excellent, and given at home. When he was thirteen, his father told him that he should never touch his genitals, for it was wrong to do so, and to do it might bring unhappiness.
Occasionally his father showed him pictures of syphilitic diseased conditions, etc., in an anatomical museum, and the patient was disgusted and frightened. He believed that his later fear of sexual intercourse with women was partly nourished by this early erroneous teaching.
However, the patient seeks the principal cause of his sexual perversion in a defect of organization. When a small boy, he had a silly enthusiasm for companions. He also remembers that, at that time, he had a
