Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct

(Austrian Statutes, § 128, 132; Austrian Abridgment, § 189, 191^3; German Statutes, § 174, 176^3) By violation of sexually immature individuals, the jurist understands all the possible immoral acts with persons under fourteen years of age that are not comprehended in the term rape. The term violation, in the legal sense of the word, comprehends the most horrible perversions and acts, which are possible only to a man who is controlled by lust and morally weak, and, as is usually the case, lacking in sexual power. A common feature of these crimes, committed on persons that are more or less children, is that they are unmanly, childish, and often silly. It is a fact that such acts, with exceptions in pathological cases, like those of imbeciles, paretics, and senile dements, are almost exclusively committed by young men who lack courage or have no faith in their virility; or by _roués_ who have, to some extent, lost their virility. It is psychologically incomprehensible that an adult of full virility, and mentally sound, should indulge in sexual abuses with children. The imagination of debauchees, in actively or passively picturing the immoral acts, is exceedingly lively; and that the following enumeration of the sexual acts of this kind known to law exhausts all the possibilities is questionable. Most frequently the abuse consists of sexual handling (under some circumstances, flagellation[137]), active manustupration, or seducing children by inducing them to perform onanism, or lustful handling, on the seducer. Less frequent acts are cunnilingus, irrumare on boys or girls, pædicatio puellarum, coitus inter femora, and exhibition. In a case which Maschka reports (“Handb.,” iii, p. 174), a young man had naked girls, from eight to twelve years old, dance about in his room, and urinate before him, until he ejaculated. Not infrequently boys are abused by sensual women, who undertake to bring about conjunctio membrorum with them, in order to satisfy themselves by means of friction or onanism.[138] Tardieu saw one of the most disgusting examples. A servant, in company with her lover, masturbated children intrusted to them, performed cunnilingus with a girl of seven, and introduced parsnips and potatoes into her vagina, and put similar things into the rectum of a baby of two years! Case 185. Z., aged 62; deeply tainted, masturbator. He states he has never had coitus, but has frequently practiced fellatio. He is in an asylum, on account of paranoia. It had been his greatest pleasure to entice girls, aged from ten to fourteen years, and practice cunnilingus and other vile acts with them. In these acts he had orgasm and ejaculation. Masturbation did not give him the same satisfaction, and induced ejaculation only with difficulty. _Faute de mieux_ he also practiced fellatio with men; occasionally an exhibitionist. Phimosis; asymmetrical cranium. (Pelanda, _Arch. di Psichiatria_, x. fascic. 3, 4.) Case 186. X., priest, aged 40. He was accused of enticing girls, aged from ten to thirteen, undressing and fondling them lustfully, and finally masturbating. He is tainted, and has been an onanist from childhood; morally imbecile; always very excitable sexually. Head somewhat small. Penis unusually large; indications of hypospadiasis. (Pelanda, _loc. cit._) Case 187. K., aged 23; laborer. He was accused and convicted of repeatedly enticing boys, and now and then girls, to an out-of-the-way place, and practicing abuses with them (mutual masturbation, fellatio puerorum, fondling of the genitals of the girls). K. is an imbecile, and physically deformed, being scarcely 1.5 metres tall; cranium rachitic and hydrocephalic; teeth bad,—furrowed, defective, and irregular. Large lips, idiotic expression, stuttering speech, and an awkward attitude complete the picture of psycho-physical degeneration. K. behaves like a child discovered in some mischievous act. Scarcely any growth of beard. Genitals well and normally developed. He has a superficial consciousness of having done something improper, but he is unconscious of the moral, social, and legal significance of his crimes. K. comes of a drunken father, and a mother who became insane from the abuse of her husband, and died in an asylum. In his babyhood the boy was almost blinded by corneal ulcers, and, after his sixth year, he grew up with an almoner, and later with difficulty earned his living as an organ-grinder. His brother is good for nothing, and the culprit himself was considered a surly, quarrelsome, evil, moody, irritable man. The opinion emphasized the intellectual, moral, and physical defect of the culprit. Unfortunately it must be admitted that the most revolting of these crimes are done by sane individuals who, by reason of satiety in normal sexual indulgence, lasciviousness, and brutality, and not seldom during intoxication, forget that they are human beings. A great number of these cases, however, certainly depend upon pathological states. This is particularly true where old men become the seducers of children.[139] I agree with Kirn, who, under all circumstances, in cases of this kind, holds a mental examination to be always necessary; since, frequently enough, a re-awakened, perverse, abnormally intense, and uncontrollable sexual desire is shown to be one of the manifestations of a senile dementia.