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The Green Bag
important part which the "love bite" has played in literature and the fre quency which we hear expressions in general conversation showing the desire of some admirer to "bite" or "eat up" another show us the universality of this impulse. It is, indeed, so common that, unless it is indulged in to excess, it is not considered abnormal. I have before me a newspaper clipping which reports a supposedly novel case in New York in which an artist was arrested upon complaint of his wife whose story to the magistrate is reported to have been as follows: "Raphael bit me and I was afraid he would kill me. I was posing for his Venus and he came over and bit my elbow awfully. I was so frightened that I ran out of the house and came to the police station just as I was. We've been married only six weeks, your honor. I did love Raphael — he paints such lovely pictures — but I can't live with him if he acts like a cannibal." The husband's only plea was, "Yes, I bite her because I love her." The con duct of the husband could not be called cruel, for to him it was a normal manner of expressing a very intense passion for his wife. It was a possibly extreme but not unusual manifestation of sadistic love. Had the wife been of a corre sponding masochistic nature, such methods of courtship, instead of being repulsive, would have been highly pleas ing to her. Outside of the psychological effect of red, blood is a strong stimulus to many, sometimes more so under certain condi tions than others. When blood is drawn during a "love bite" it may automatically increase the intensity of the perversion until other means, such as cutting or other mutilations are often resorted to in order to satisfy the sadistic impulse. Instances have been known where the individual was not unduly sensitive to
blood, except during great excitement, or, in other words, the perversion was dormant until the emotions were aroused by some auxiliary stimulus. Of course, there are those whose peculiar perver sions drive them into paroxysms which can only be satiated by blood. I have in mind a minister who was a victim of such a perversion. He was conscious of his abnormality, and because of his fear that his unnatural desires might cause him to kill some member of his family, he made it a practice when these impulses grew strong, to kill chickens, cats, or other small animals, and thus relieve himself by watching and smelling the blood. His perversion ultimately became so pronounced that he retired from the ministry and finally died insane. Cases are known where the victims have drawn their own blood when there was no other manner of satisfying their cravings. Conversations with those who have committed bloody deeds have re vealed the fact that instead of suffering remorse they often seem to dilate upon the pleasure which the blood of their victims gave them. While these extreme perversions are not so common as the more obscure ones they are much more easily recognized. The impulse to strangle the object of sexual desire and the corresponding crav ing to be strangled are by no means unusual, and have undoubtedly been the cause of many mysterious deaths. Havelock Ellis, in his "Studies in the Psy chology of Sex," uses a letter of a lady who, in telling how the idea of being strangled by a person she loved appealed to her, said: "The great sensitiveness of one's throat and neck come in here, as well as the loss of breath. Once when I was about to be separated from a man I cared for I put his hands on my throat and implored him to kill me. It was a moment of madness,
