I.
Definition of Auto-erotism—Masturbation only Covers a Small Portion of the Auto-erotic Field—The Importance of this Study, especially To-day—Auto-erotic Phenomena in Animals—Among Savage and Barbaric Races—The Japanese rin-no-tama and other Special Instruments for Obtaining Auto-erotic Gratification—Abuse of the Ordinary Implements and Objects of Daily Life—The Frequency of Hair-pin in the Bladder—The Influence of Horse-exercise and Railway Traveling—The Sewing-machine and the Bicycle—Spontaneous Passive Sexual Excitement—Delectatio Morosa—Day-dreaming—Pollutio—Sexual Excitement During Sleep—Erotic Dreams—The Analogy of Nocturnal Enuresis—Differences in the Erotic Dreams of Men and Women—The Auto-erotic Phenomena of Sleep in the Hysterical—Their Frequently Painful Character.
By "auto-erotism" I mean the phenomena of spontaneous sexual emotion generated in the absence of an external stimulus proceeding, directly or indirectly, from another person. In a wide sense, which cannot be wholly ignored here, auto-erotism may be said to include those transformations of repressed sexual activity which are a factor of some morbid conditions as well as of the normal manifestation of art and poetry, and, indeed, more or less color the whole of life.
Such a definition excludes the normal sexual excitement aroused by the presence of a beloved person of the opposite sex; it also excludes the perverted sexuality associated with an attraction to a person of the same sex; it further excludes the manifold forms of erotic fetichism, in which the normal focus of sexual attraction is displaced, and voluptuous emotions are only aroused by some object—hair, shoes, garments, etc.—which, to the ordinary lover, are of subordinate—though still, indeed, considerable—importance.[176] The auto-erotic field remains extensive; it ranges from occasional voluptuous day-dreams, in which the subject is entirely passive, to the perpetual unashamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane. It also includes, though chiefly as curiosities, those cases in which individuals fall in love with themselves. Among auto-erotic phenomena, or on the borderland, we must further include those religious sexual manifestations for an ideal object, of which we may find evidence in the lives of saints and ecstatics.[177] The typical form of auto-erotism is the occurrence of the sexual orgasm during sleep.
I do not know that any apology is needful for the invention of the term "auto-erotism."[178] There is no existing word in current use to indicate the whole range of phenomena I am here concerned with. We are familiar with "masturbation," but that, strictly speaking, only covers a special and arbitrary subdivision of the field, although, it is true, the subdivision with which physicians and alienists have chiefly occupied themselves. "Self-abuse" is somewhat wider, but by no means covers the whole ground, while for various reasons it is an unsatisfactory term. "Onanism" is largely used, especially in France, and some writers even include all forms of homosexual connection under this name; it may be convenient to do so from a physiological point of view, but it is a confusing and antiquated mode of procedure, and from the psychological standpoint altogether illegitimate; "onanism" ought never to be used in this connection, if only on the ground that Onan's device was not auto-erotic, but was an early example of withdrawal before emission, or coitus interruptus.
While the name that I have chosen may possibly not be the best, there should be no question as to the importance of grouping all these phenomena together. It seems to me that this field has rarely been viewed in a scientifically sound and morally sane light, simply because it has not been viewed as a whole. We have made it difficult so to view it by directing our attention on the special group of auto-erotic facts—that group included under masturbation—which was most easy to observe and which in an extreme form came plainly under medical observation in insanity and allied conditions, and we have wilfully torn this group of facts away from the larger group to which it naturally belongs. The questions which have been so widely, so diversely, and—it must unfortunately be added—often so mischievously discussed, concerning the nature and evils of masturbation are not seen in their true light and proportions until we realize that masturbation is but a specialized form of a tendency which in some form or in some degree normally affects not only man, but all the higher animals. From a medical point of view it is often convenient to regard masturbation as an isolated fact; but in order to understand it we must bear in mind its relationships. In this study of auto-erotism I shall frequently have occasion to refer to the old entity of "masturbation," because it has been more carefully studied than any other part of the auto-erotic field; but I hope it will always be borne in mind that the psychological significance and even the medical diagnostic value of masturbation cannot be appreciated unless we realize that it is an artificial subdivision of a great group of natural facts.
The study of auto-erotism is far from being an unimportant or merely curious study. Yet psychologists, medical and non-medical, almost without exception, treat its manifestations—when they refer to them at all—in a dogmatic and off-hand manner which is far from scientific. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most widely divergent opinions are expressed. Nor is it surprising that ignorant and chaotic notions among the general population should lead to results that would be ludicrous if they were not pathetic. To mention one instance known to me: a married lady who is a leader in social-purity movements and an enthusiast for sexual chastity, discovered, through reading some pamphlet against solitary vice, that she had herself been practicing masturbation for years without knowing it. The profound anguish and hopeless despair of this woman in face of what she believed to be the moral ruin of her whole life cannot well be described. It would be easy to give further examples, though scarcely a more striking one, to show the utter confusion into which we are thrown by leaving this matter in the hands of blind leaders of the blind. Moreover, the conditions of modern civilization render auto-erotism a matter of increasing social significance. As our marriage-rate declines, and as illicit sexual relationships continue to be openly discouraged, it is absolutely inevitable that auto-erotic phenomena of one kind or another, not only among women but also among men, should increase among us both in amount and intensity. It becomes, therefore, a matter of some importance, both to the moralist and the physician, to investigate the psychological nature of these phenomena and to decide precisely what their attitude should be toward them.
I do not purpose to enter into a thorough discussion of all the aspects of auto-erotism. That would involve a very extensive study indeed. I wish to consider briefly certain salient points concerning auto-erotic phenomena, especially their prevalence, their nature, and their moral, physical, and other effects. I base my study partly on the facts and opinions which during the last thirty years have been scattered through the periodical and other medical literature of Europe and America, and partly on the experience of individuals, especially of fairly normal individuals.
Among animals in isolation, and sometimes in freedom—though this can less often be observed—it is well known that various forms of spontaneous solitary sexual excitement occur. Horses when leading a lazy life may be observed flapping the penis until some degree of emission takes place. Welsh ponies, I learn from a man who has had much experience with these animals, habitually produce erections and emissions in their stalls; they do not bring their hind quarters up during this process, and they close their eyes, which does not take place when they have congress with mares. The same informant observed that bulls and goats produce emissions by using their forelegs as a stimulus, bringing up their hind quarters, and mares rub themselves against objects. I am informed by a gentleman who is a recognized authority on goats, that they sometimes take the penis into the mouth and produce actual orgasm, thus practicing auto-fellatio. As regards ferrets, the Rev. H. Northcote states: "I am informed by a gentleman who has had considerable experience of ferrets, that if the bitch, when in heat, cannot obtain a dog she pines and becomes ill. If a smooth pebble is introduced into the hutch, she will masturbate upon it, thus preserving her normal health for one season. But if this artificial substitute is given to her a second season, she will not, as formerly, be content with it."[179]
Stags in the rutting season, when they have no partners, rub themselves against trees to produce ejaculation. Sheep masturbate; as also do camels, pressing themselves down against convenient objects; and elephants compress the penis between the hind legs to obtain emissions.[180] Blumenbach observed a bear act somewhat similarly on seeing other bears coupling, and hyenas, according to Ploss and Bartels, have been seen practicing mutual masturbation by licking each other's genitals. Mammary masturbation, remarks Féré, is found in certain female and even male animals, like the dog and the cat.[181] Apes are much given to masturbation, even in freedom, according to the evidence of good observers; for while no female apes are celibates, many of the males are obliged to lead a life of celibacy.[182] Male monkeys use the hand in masturbation, to rub and shake the penis.[183]
In the human species these phenomena are by no means found in civilization alone. To whatever extent masturbation may have been developed by the conditions of European life, which carry to the utmost extreme the concomitant stimulation, and repression of the sexual emotions, it is far from being, as Mantegazza has declared it to be, one of the moral characteristics of Europeans.[184] It is found among the people of nearly every race of which we have any intimate knowledge, however natural the conditions under which men and women may live.[185] Thus, among the Nama Hottentots, among the young women at all events, Gustav Fritsch found that masturbation is so common that it is regarded as a custom of the country; no secret is made of it, and in the stories and legends of the race it is treated as one of the most ordinary facts of life. It is so also among the Basutos, and the Kaffirs are addicted to the same habit.[186] The Fuegians have a word for masturbation, and a special word for masturbation by women.[187] When the Spaniards first arrived at Vizcaya, in the Philippines, they found that masturbation was universal, and that it was customary for the women to use an artificial penis and other abnormal methods of sexual gratification. Among the Balinese, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), masturbation is general; in the boudoir of many a Bali beauty, he adds, and certainly in every harem, may be found a wax penis to which many hours of solitude are devoted. Throughout the East, as Eram, speaking from a long medical experience, has declared, masturbation is very prevalent, especially among young girls. In Egypt, according to Sonnini, it is prevalent in harems. In India, a medical correspondent tells me, he once treated the widow of a wealthy Mohammedan, who informed him that she began masturbation at an early age, "just like all other women." The same informant tells me that on the façade of a large temple in Orissa are bas-reliefs, representing both men and women, alone, masturbating, and also women masturbating men. Among the Tamils of Ceylon masturbation is said to be common. In Cochin China, Lorion remarks, it is practiced by both sexes, but especially by the married women.[188] Japanese women have probably carried the mechanical arts of auto-erotism to the highest degree of perfection. They use two hollow balls about the size of a pigeon's egg (sometimes one alone is used), which, as described by Joest, Christian, and others,[189] are made of very thin leaf of brass; one is empty, the other (called the little man) contains a small heavy metal ball, or else some quicksilver, and sometimes metal tongues which vibrate when set in movement; so that if the balls are held in the hand side by side there is a continuous movement. The empty one is first introduced into the vagina in contact with the uterus, then the other; the slightest movement of the pelvis or thighs, or even spontaneous movement of the organs, causes the metal ball (or the quicksilver) to roll, and the resulting vibration produces a prolonged voluptuous titillation, a gentle shock as from a weak electric inductive apparatus; the balls are called rin-no-tama, and are held in the vagina by a paper tampon. The women who use these balls delight to swing themselves in a hammock or rocking-chair, the delicate vibration of the balls slowly producing the highest degree of sexual excitement. Joest mentions that this apparatus, though well known by name to ordinary girls, is chiefly used by the more fashionable geishas, as well as by prostitutes. Its use has now spread to China, Annam, and India. Japanese women also, it is said, frequently use an artificial penis of paper or clay, called engi. Among the Atjeh, again, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss), the young of both sexes masturbate and the elder girls use an artificial penis of wax. In China, also, the artificial penis—made of rosin, supple and (like the classical instrument described by Herondas) rose-colored—is publicly sold and widely used by women.[190]
It may be noticed that among non-European races it is among women, and especially among those who are subjected to the excitement of a life professionally devoted to some form of pleasure, that the use of the artificial instruments of auto-erotism is chiefly practiced. The same is markedly true in Europe. The use of an artificial penis in solitary sexual gratification may be traced down from classic times, and doubtless prevailed in the very earliest human civilization, for such an instrument is said to be represented in old Babylonian sculptures, and it is referred to by Ezekiel (Ch. XVI. v. 17). The Lesbian women are said to have used such instruments, made of ivory or gold with silken stuffs and linen. Aristophanes (Lysistrata, v. 109) speaks of the manufacture by the Milesian women of a leather artificial penis, or olisbos. In the British Museum is a vase representing a hetaira holding such instruments, which, as found at Pompeii, may be seen in the museum at Naples. One of the best of Herondas's mimes, "The Private Conversation," presents a dialogue between two ladies concerning a certain olisbos (or νβών), which one of them vaunts as a dream of delight. Through the Middle Ages (when from time to time the clergy reprobated the use of such instruments[191]) they continued to be known, and after the fifteenth century the references to them became more precise. Thus Fortini, the Siennese novelist of the sixteenth century, refers in his Novelle dei Novizi (7th Day, Novella XXXIX) to "the glass object filled with warm water which nuns use to calm the sting of the flesh and to satisfy themselves as well as they can"; he adds that widows and other women anxious to avoid pregnancy availed themselves of it. In Elizabethan England, at the same time, it appears to have been of similar character and Marston in his satires tells how Lucea prefers "a glassy instrument" to "her husband's lukewarm bed." In sixteenth century France, also, such instruments were sometimes made of glass, and Brantôme refers to the godemiche; in eighteenth century Germany they were called Samthanse, and their use, according to Heinse, as quoted by Dühren, was common among aristocratic women. In England by that time the dildo appears to have become common. Archemholtz states that while in Paris they are only sold secretly, in London a certain Mrs. Philips sold them openly on a large scale in her shop in Leicester Square. John Bee in 1835, stating that the name was originally dil-dol, remarks that their use was formerly commoner than it was in his day. In France, Madame Gourdan, the most notorious brothel-keeper of the eighteenth century, carried on a wholesale trade in consolateurs, as they were called, and "at her death numberless letters from abbesses and simple nuns were found among her papers, asking for a 'consolateur' to be sent."[192] The modern French instrument is described by Gamier as of hardened red rubber, exactly imitating the penis and capable of holding warm milk or other fluid for injection at the moment of orgasm; the compressible scrotum is said to have been first added in the eighteenth century.[193]
In Islam the artificial penis has reached nearly as high a development as in Christendom. Turkish women use it and it is said to be openly sold in Smyrna. In the harems of Zanzibar, according to Baumann, it is of considerable size, carved out of ebony or ivory, and commonly bored through so that warm water may be injected. It is here regarded as an Arab invention.[194]
Somewhat similar appliances may be traced in all centres of civilization. But throughout they appear to be frequently confined to the world of prostitutes and to those women who live on the fashionable or semi-artistic verge of that world. Ignorance and delicacy combine with a less versatile and perverted concentration on the sexual impulse to prevent any general recourse to such highly specialized methods of solitary gratification.
On the other hand, the use, or rather abuse, of the ordinary objects and implements of daily life in obtaining auto-erotic gratification, among the ordinary population in civilized modern lands, has reached an extraordinary degree of extent and variety we can only feebly estimate by the occasional resulting mischances which come under the surgeon's hands, because only a certain proportion of such instruments are dangerous. Thus the banana seems to be widely used for masturbation by women, and appears to be marked out for the purpose by its size and shape[195]; it is, however, innocuous, and never comes under the surgeon's notice; the same may probably be said of the cucumbers and other vegetables more especially used by country and factory girls in masturbation; a lady living near Vichy told Pouillet that she had often heard (and had herself been able to verify the fact) that the young peasant women commonly used turnips, carrots, and beet-roots. In the eighteenth century Mirabeau, in his Erotikca Biblion gave a list of the various objects used in convents (which he describes as "vast theatres" of such practices) to obtain solitary sexual excitement. In more recent years the following are a few of the objects found in the vagina or bladder whence they could only be removed by surgical interference[196]: Pencils, sticks of sealing-wax, cotton-reels, hair-pins (and in Italy very commonly the bone-pins used in the hair), bodkins, knitting-needles, crochet-needles, needle-cases, compasses, glass stoppers, candles, corks, tumblers, forks, tooth-picks, toothbrushes, pomade-pots (in a case recorded by Schroeder with a cockchafer inside, a makeshift substitute for the Japanese rin-no-tama), while in one recent English case a full-sized hen's egg was removed from the vagina of a middle-aged married woman. More than nine-tenths of the foreign bodies found in the female bladder or urethra are due to masturbation. The age of the individuals in whom such objects have been found is usually from 17 to 30, but in a few cases they have been found in girls below 14, infrequently in women between 40 and 50; the large objects, naturally, are found chiefly in the vagina, and in married women.[197]
Hair-pins have, above all, been found in the female bladder with special frequency; this point is worth some consideration as an illustration of the enormous frequency of this form of auto-erotism. The female urethra is undoubtedly a normal centre of sexual feeling, as Pouillet pointed out many years ago; a woman medical correspondent, also, writes that in some women the maximum of voluptuous sensation is at the vesical sphincter or orifice, though not always so limited. E. H. Smith, indeed, considers that "the urethra is the part in which the orgasm occurs," and remarks that in sexual excitement mucus always flows largely from the urethra.[198] It should be added that when once introduced the physiological mechanism of the bladder apparently causes the organ to tend to "swallow" the foreign object. Yet for every case in which the hair-pin disappears and is lost in the bladder, from carelessness or the oblivion of the sexual spasm, there must be a vast number of cases in which the instrument is used without any such unfortunate result. There is thus great significance in the frequency with which cases of hair-pin in the bladder are strewn through the medical literature of all countries.
In 1862, a German surgeon found the accident so common that he invented a special instrument for extracting hair-pins from the female bladder, as, indeed, Italian and French surgeons have also done. In France, Denucé, of Bordeaux, came to the conclusion that hair-pin in the bladder is the commonest result of masturbation as known to the surgeon. In England cases are constantly being recorded. Lawson Tait, stating that most cases of stone in the bladder in women are due to the introduction of a foreign body, very often a hair-pin, adds: "I have removed hair-pins encrusted with phosphates from ten different female bladders, and not one of the owners of these bladders would give any account of the incident."[199] Stokes, again, records that during four years he had four cases of hair-pin in the female urethra.[200] In New York one physician met with four cases in a short experience.[201] In Switzerland Professor Reverdin had a precisely similar experience.[202]
There is, however, another class of material objects, widely employed for producing physical auto-erotism, which in the nature of things never reaches the surgeon. I refer to the effects that, naturally or unnaturally, may be produced by many of the objects and implements of daily life that do not normally come in direct contact with the sexual organs. Children sometimes, even when scarcely more than infants, produce sexual excitement by friction against the corner of a chair or other piece of furniture, and women sometimes do the same.[203] Guttceit, in Russia, knew women who made a large knot in their chemises to rub against, and mentions a woman who would sit on her naked heel and rub it against her. Girls in France, I am informed, are fond of riding on the chevaux-de-bois, or hobby-horses, because of the sexual excitement thus aroused; and that the sexual emotions play a part in the fascination exerted by this form of amusement everywhere is indicated by the ecstatic faces of its devotees.[204] At the temples in some parts of Central India, I am told, swings are hung up in pairs, men and women swinging in these until sexually excited; during the months when the men in these districts have to be away from home the girls put up swings to console themselves for the loss of their husbands.
It is interesting to observe the very wide prevalence of swinging, often of a religious or magic character, and the evident sexual significance underlying it, although this is not always clearly brought out. Groos, discussing the frequency of swinging (Die Spiele der Menschen, p. 114) refers, for instance, to the custom of the Gilbert Islanders for a young man to swing a girl from a coco palm, and then to cling on and swing with her. In ancient Greece, women and grown-up girls were fond of see-saws and swings. The Athenians had, indeed, a swinging festival (Athenæus, Bk. XIV, Ch. X). Songs of a voluptuous character, we gather from Athenæus, were sung by the women at this festival. J. G. Frazer (The Golden Bough, vol. ii, note A, "Swinging as a Magical Rite") discusses the question, and brings forward instances in which men, or, especially, women swing. "The notion seems to be," he states, "that the ceremony promotes fertility, whether in the vegetable or in the animal kingdom; though why it should be supposed to do so, I confess myself unable to explain" (loc. cit., p. 450). The explanation seems, however, not far to seek, in view of the facts quoted above, and Frazer himself refers to the voluptuous character of the songs sometimes sung.
Even apart from actual swinging of the whole body, a swinging movement may suffice to arouse sexual excitement, and may,—at all events, in women,—constitute an essential part of methods of attaining solitary sexual gratification. Kiernan thus describes the habitual auto-erotic procedure of a young American woman: "The patient knelt before a chair, let her elbows drop on its seat, grasping the arms with a firm grip, then commenced a swinging, writhing motion, seeming to fix her pelvis, and moving her trunk and limbs. The muscles were rigid, the face took on a passionate expression; the features were contorted, the eyes rolled, the teeth were set, and the lips compressed, while the cheeks were purple. The condition bore a striking resemblance to the passional stage of grand hysteria. The reveling took only a moment to commence, but lasted a long time. Swaying induced a pleasurable sensation, accompanied with a feeling of suction upon the clitoris. Almost immediately after, a sensation of bursting, caused by discharge from the vulvo-vaginal glands, occurs, followed by a rapture prolonged for an indefinite time." The accompanying sexual imagery is so vivid as almost to become hallucinatory. (J. G. Kiernan, "Sex Transformation and Psychic Impotence," American Journal of Dermatology, vol. ix, No. 2.)
Somewhat similarly sensations of sexual character are sometimes experienced by boys when climbing up a pole. It is not even necessary that there should be direct external contact with the sexual organs, and Howe states that gymnastic swinging poles around which boys swing while supporting the whole weight on the hands, may suffice to produce sexual excitement.
Several writers have pointed out that riding, especially in women, may produce sexual excitement and orgasm.[205] It is well-known, also, that both in men and women the vibratory motion of a railway-train frequently produces a certain degree of sexual excitement, especially when sitting forward. Such excitement may remain latent and not become specifically sexual.[206] I am not aware that this quality of railway traveling has ever been fostered as a sexual perversion, but the sewing-machine has attracted considerable attention on account of its influence in exciting auto-erotic manifestations. The early type of sewing-machine, especially, was of very heavy character and involved much up and down movement of the legs; Langdon Down pointed out many years ago that this frequently produced great sexual erethism which led to masturbation.[207] According to one French authority, it is a well-recognized fact that to work a sewing-machine with the body in a certain position produces sexual excitement leading to the orgasm. The occurrence of the orgasm is indicated to the observer by the machine being worked for a few seconds with uncontrollable rapidity. This sound is said to be frequently heard in large French workrooms, and it is part of the duty of the superintendents of the rooms to make the girls sit properly.[208]
"During a visit which I once paid to a manufactory of military clothing," Pouillet writes, "I witnessed the following scene. In the midst of the uniform sound produced by some thirty sewing-machines, I suddenly heard one of the machines working with much more velocity than the others. I looked at the person who was working it, a brunette of 18 or 20. While she was automatically occupied with the trousers she was making on the machine, her face became animated, her mouth opened slightly, her nostrils dilated, her feet moved the pedals with constantly increasing rapidity. Soon I saw a convulsive look in her eyes, her eyelids were lowered, her face turned pale and was thrown backward; hands and legs stopped and became extended; a suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh, was lost in the noise of the workroom. The girl remained motionless a few seconds, drew out her handkerchief to wipe away the pearls of sweat from her forehead, and, after casting a timid and ashamed glance at her companions, resumed her work. The forewoman, who acted as my guide, having observed the direction of my gaze, took me up to the girl, who blushed, lowered her face, and murmured some incoherent words before the forewoman had opened her mouth, to advise her to sit fully on the chair, and not on its edge.
"As I was leaving, I heard another machine at another part of the room in accelerated movement. The forewoman smiled at me, and remarked that that was so frequent that it attracted no notice. It was specially observed, she told me, in the case of young work-girls, apprentices, and those who sat on the edge of their seats, thus much facilitating friction of the labia."
In cases where the sewing-machine does not lead to direct self-excitement it has been held, as by Fothergill,[209] to predispose to frequency of involuntary sexual orgasm during sleep, from the irritation set up by the movement of the feet in the sitting posture during the day. The essential movement in working the sewing-machine is the flexion and extension of the ankle, but the muscles of the thighs are used to maintain the feet firmly on the treadle, the thighs are held together, and there is a considerable degree of flexion or extension of the thighs on the trunk; by a special adjustment of the body, and sometimes perhaps merely in the presence of sexual hyperæsthesia, it is thus possible to act upon the sexual organs; but this is by no means a necessary result of using the sewing-machine, and inquiry of various women, with well-developed sexual feelings, who are accustomed to work the treadle, has not shown the presence of any tendency in this direction.
Sexual irritation may also be produced by the bicycle in women. Thus, Moll[210] remarks that he knows many married women, and some unmarried, who experience sexual excitement when cycling; in several cases he has ascertained that the excitement is carried as far as complete orgasm. This result cannot, however, easily happen unless the seat is too high, the peak in contact with the organs, and a rolling movement is adopted; in the absence of marked hyperæsthesia these results are only effected by a bad seat or an improper attitude, the body during cycling resting under proper conditions on the buttocks, and the work being mainly done by the muscles of the thighs and legs which control the ankles, flexion of the thigh on the pelvis being very small. Most medical authorities on cycling are of opinion that when cycling leads to sexual excitement the fault lies more with the woman than with the machine. This conclusion does not appear to me to be absolutely correct. I find on inquiry that with the old-fashioned saddle, with an elevated peak rising toward the pubes, a certain degree of sexual excitement, not usually producing the orgasm (but, as one lady expressed it, making one feel quite ready for it), is fairly common among women. Lydston finds that irritation of the genital organs may unquestionably be produced in both males and females by cycling. The aggravation of hæmorrhoids sometimes produced by cycling indicates also the tendency to local congestion. With the improved flat saddles, however, constructed with more definite adjustment to the anatomical formation of the parts, this general tendency is reduced to a negligible minimum.
Reference may be made at this point to the influence of tight-lacing. This has been recognized by gynæcologists as a factor of sexual excitement and a method of masturbation.[211] Women who have never worn corsets sometimes find that, on first putting them on, sexual feeling is so intensified that it is necessary to abandon their use.[212] The reason of this (as Siebert points out in his Buch für Eltern) seems to be that the corset both favors pelvic congestion and at the same time exerts a pressure on the abdominal muscles which brings them into the state produced during coitus. It is doubtless for the same reason that, as some women have found, more distension of the bladder is possible without corsets than with them.
In a further class of cases no external object whatever is used to procure the sexual orgasm, but the more or less voluntary pressure of the thighs alone is brought to bear upon the sexual regions. It is done either when sitting or standing, the thighs being placed together and firmly crossed, and the pelvis rocked so that the sexual organs are pressed against the inner and posterior parts of the thighs.[213] This is sometimes done by men, and is fairly common among women, especially, according to Martineau,[214] among those who sit much, such as dressmakers and milliners, those who use the sewing-machine, and those who ride. Vedeler remarks that in his experience in Scandinavia, thigh-friction is the commonest form of masturbation in women. The practice is widespread, and a medical correspondent in India tells me of a Brahmin widow who confessed to this form of masturbation. I am told that in London Board Schools, at the present time, thigh-rubbing is not infrequent among the girl scholars; the proportion mentioned in one school was about ten per cent, of the girls over eleven; the thigh-rubbing is done more or less openly and is interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of thigh-friction among women as a form of masturbation is due to the fact that it is usually acquired innocently and it involves no indecorum. Thus Soutzo reports the case of a girl of 12 who at school, when having to wait her turn at the water-closet, for fear of wetting herself would put her clothes between her legs and press her thighs together, moving them backwards and forwards in the effort to control the bladder; she discovered that a pleasurable sensation was thus produced and acquired the habit of practicing the manœuvre for its own sake; at the age of 17 she began to vary it in different ways; thus she would hang from a tree with her legs swinging and her chemise pressed between her thighs which she would rub together.[216] Thigh-friction in some of its forms is so comparatively decorous a form of masturbation that it may even be performed in public places; thus, a few years ago, while waiting for a train at a station on the outskirts of a provincial town, I became aware of the presence of a young woman, sitting alone on a seat at a little distance, whom I could observe unnoticed. She was leaning back with legs crossed, swinging the crossed foot vigorously and continuously; this continued without interruption for some ten minutes after I first observed her; then the swinging movement reached a climax; she leant still further back, thus bringing the sexual region still more closely in contact with the edge of the bench and straightened and stiffened her body and legs in what appeared to be a momentary spasm; there could be little doubt as to what had taken place. A few moments later she slowly walked from her solitary seat into the waiting-room and sat down among the other waiting passengers, quite still now and with uncrossed legs, a pale quiet young woman, possibly a farmer's daughter, serenely unconscious that her manœuvre had been detected, and very possibly herself ignorant of its true nature.
There are many other forms in which the impulse of auto-erotism presents itself. Dancing is often a powerful method of sexual excitement, not only among civilized but among savage peoples, and Zache describes the erotic dances of Swaheli women as having a masturbatory object.[217] Stimulation of the nates is a potent adjuvant to the production of self-excitement, and self-flagellation with rods, etc., is practiced by some individuals, especially young women.[218] Urtication is another form of this stimulation; Reverdin knew a young woman who obtained sexual gratification by flogging herself with chestnut burrs, and it is stated that in some parts of France (departments of the Ain and Côte d'Or) it is not uncommon for young girls to masturbate by rubbing the leaves of the Linaria cymbalaria (here called "pinton" or "timbarde") on to the sexual parts, thus producing a burning sensation.[219] Stimulation of the mamma, normally an erogenous centre in women, may occasionally serve as a method for obtaining auto-erotic satisfaction, including the orgasm, in both sexes. I have been told of a case in a man, and a medical correspondent in India informs me that he knows a Eurasian woman, addicted to masturbation, who can only obtain the orgasm by rubbing the genitals with one hand while with the other she rubs and finally squeezes her breasts. The tactile stimulation even of regions of the body which are not normally erogenous zones in either sex may sometimes lead on to sexual excitement; Hirschsprung, as well as Freud, believes that this is often the case as regards finger-sucking and toe-sucking in infancy. Even stroking the chin, remarks Debreyne, may produce a pollution.[220] Taylor refers to the case of a young woman of 22, who was liable to attacks of choreic movements of the hands which would terminate in alternately pressing the middle finger on the tip of the nose and the tragus of the ear, when a "far-away, pleased expression" would appear on her face; she thus produced sexual excitement and satisfaction. She had no idea of wrong-doing and was surprised and ashamed when she realized the nature of her act.[221]
Most of the foregoing examples of auto-erotism, are commonly included, by no means correctly, under the heading of "masturbation." There are, however, a vast number of people, possessing strong sexual emotions and living a solitary life, who experience, sometimes by instinct and sometimes on moral grounds, a strong repugnance for these manifestations of auto-erotism. As one highly intelligent lady writes: "I have sometimes wondered whether I could produce it (complete sexual excitement) mechanically, but I have a curious unreasonable repugnance to trying the experiment. It would materialize it too much." The same repugnance may be traced in the tendency to avoid, so far as possible, the use of the hands. It is quite common to find this instinctive unreasoning repugnance among women, a healthy repugnance, not founded on any moral ground. In men the same repugnance exists, more often combined with, or replaced by, a very strong moral and æsthetic objection to such practices. But the presence of such a repugnance, however invincible, is very far from carrying us outside the auto-erotic field. The production of the sexual orgasm is not necessarily dependent on any external contact or voluntary mechanical cause.
As an example, though not of specifically auto-erotic manifestations, I may mention the case of a man of 57, a somewhat eccentric preacher, etc., who writes: "My whole nature goes out so to some persons, and they thrill and stir me so that I have an emission while sitting by them with no thought of sex, only the gladness of soul found its way out thus, and a glow of health suffused the whole body. There was no spasmodic conclusion, but a pleasing gentle sensation as the few drops of semen passed." (In reality, no doubt, not semen, but urethral fluid.) This man's condition may certainly be considered somewhat morbid; he is attracted to both men and women, and the sexual impulse seems to be irritable and weak; but a similar state of things exists so often in women, no doubt due to sexual repression, and in individuals who are in a general state of normal and good health, that in these it can scarcely be called morbid. Brooding on sexual images, which the theologians termed delectatio morosa, may lead to spontaneous orgasm in either sex, even in perfectly normal persons. Hammond described as a not uncommon form of "psychic coitus," a condition in which the simple act of imagination alone, in the presence of the desired object, suffices to produce orgasm. In some public conveyance, theatre, or elsewhere, the man sees a desirable woman and by concentrating his attention on her person and imagining all the stages of intimacy he quickly succeeds in producing orgasm.[222] Niceforo refers to an Italian work-girl of 14 who could obtain ejaculation of mucus four times a day, in the workroom in the presence of the other girls, without touching herself or moving her body, by simply thinking of sexual things.[223]
If the orgasm occurs spontaneously, without the aid of mental impressions, or any manipulations ad hoc, though under such conditions it ceases to be sinful from the theological standpoint, it certainly ceases also to be normal. Sérieux records the case of a somewhat neurotic woman of 50, who had been separated from her husband for ten years, and since lived a chaste life; at this age, however, she became subject to violent crises of sexual orgasm, which would come on without any accompaniment of voluptuous thoughts. MacGillicuddy records three cases of spontaneous orgasm in women coming under his notice.[224] Such crises are frequently found in both men and women, who, from moral reasons, ignorance, or on other grounds are restrained from attaining the complete sexual orgasm, but whose sexual emotions are, literally, continually dribbling from them. Schrenck-Notzing knows a lady who is spontaneously sexually excited on hearing music or seeing pictures without anything lascivious in them; she knows nothing of sexual relationships. Another lady is sexually excited on seeing beautiful and natural scenes, like the sea; sexual ideas are mixed up in her mind with these things, and the contemplation of a specially strong and sympathetic man brings the orgasm on in about a minute. Both these ladies "masturbate" in the streets, restaurants, railways, theatres, without anyone perceiving it.[225] A Brahmin woman informed a medical correspondent in India that she had distinct though feeble orgasm, with copious outflow of mucus, if she stayed long near a man whose face she liked, and this is not uncommon among European women. Evidently under such conditions there is a state of hyperæsthetic weakness. Here, however, we are passing the frontiers of strictly auto-erotic phenomena.
Delectatio morosa, as understood by the theologians, is distinct from desire, and also distinct from the definite intention of effecting the sexual act, although it may lead to those things. It is the voluntary and complacent dallying in imagination with voluptuous thoughts, when no effort is made to repel them. It is, as Aquinas and others point out, constituted by this act of complacent dallying, and has no reference to the duration of the imaginative process. Debreyne, in his Mœchialogie (pp. 149-163), deals fully with this question, and quotes the opinions of theologians. I may add that in the early Penitentials, before the elaboration of Catholic theology, the voluntary emission of semen through the influence of evil thoughts, was recognized as a sin, though usually only if it occurred in church. In Egbert's Penitential of the eighth or ninth century (cap. IX, 12), the penance assigned for this offence in the case of a deacon, is 25 days; in the case of a monk, 30 days; a priest, 40 days; a bishop, 50. (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, vol. iii, p. 426.)
The frequency of spontaneous orgasm in women seems to have been recognized in the seventeenth century. Thus, Schurig (Syllepsilogia, p. 4), apparently quoting Riolan, states that some women are so wanton that the sight of a handsome man, or of their lover, or speech with such a one, will cause them to ejaculate their semen.
There is, however, a closely allied, and, indeed, overlapping form of auto-erotism which may be considered here: I mean that associated with revery, or day-dreaming. Although this is a very common and important form of auto-erotism, besides being in a large proportion of cases the early stage of masturbation, it appears to have attracted little attention.[226] The day-dream has, indeed, been studied in its chief form, in the "continued story," by Mabel Learoyd, of Wellesley College. The continued story is an imagined narrative, more or less peculiar to the individual, by whom it is cherished with fondness, and regarded as an especially sacred mental possession, to be shared only, if at all, with very sympathizing friends. It is commoner among girls and young women than among boys and young men; among 352 persons of both sexes, 47 per cent. among the women and only 14 per cent. among the men, have any continued story. The starting-point is an incident from a book, or, more usually, some actual experience, which the subject develops; the subject is nearly always the hero or the heroine of the story. The growth of the story is favored by solitude, and lying in bed before going to sleep is the time specially sacred to its cultivation.[227] No distinct reference, perhaps naturally enough, is made by Miss Learoyd to the element of sexual emotion with which these stories are often strongly tinged, and which is frequently their real motive. Though by no means easy to detect, these elaborate and more or less erotic day-dreams are not uncommon in young men and especially in young women. Each individual has his own particular dream, which is always varying or developing, but, except in very imaginative persons, to no great extent. Such a day-dream is often founded on a basis of pleasurable personal experience, and develops on that basis. It may involve an element of perversity, even though that element finds no expression in real life. It is, of course, fostered by sexual abstinence; hence its frequency in young women. Most usually there is little attempt to realize it. It does not necessarily lead to masturbation, though it often causes some sexual congestion or even spontaneous sexual orgasm. The day-dream is a strictly private and intimate experience, not only from its very nature, but also because it occurs in images which the subject finds great difficulty in translating into language, even when willing to do so. In other cases it is elaborately dramatic or romantic in character, the hero or heroine passing through many experiences before attaining the erotic climax of the story. This climax tends to develop in harmony with the subject's growing knowledge or experience; at first, merely a kiss, it may develop into any refinement of voluptuous gratification. The day-dream may occur either in normal or abnormal persons. Rousseau, in his Confessions, describes such dreams, in his case combined with masochism and masturbation. A distinguished American novelist, Hamlin Garland, has admirably described in Rose of Dutcher's Coolly the part played in the erotic day-dreams of a healthy normal girl at adolescence by a circus-rider, seen on the first visit to a circus, and becoming a majestic ideal to dominate the girl's thoughts for many years.[228] Raffalovich[229] describes the process by which in sexual inverts the vision of a person of the same sex, perhaps seen in the streets or the theatre, is evoked in solitary reveries, producing a kind of "psychic onanism," whether or not it leads on to physical manifestations.
Although day-dreaming of this kind has at present been very little studied, since it loves solitude and secrecy, and has never been counted of sufficient interest for scientific inquisition, it is really a process of considerable importance, and occupies a large part of the auto-erotic field. It is frequently cultivated by refined and imaginative young men and women who lead a chaste life and would often be repelled by masturbation. In such persons, under such circumstances, it must be considered as strictly normal, the inevitable outcome of the play of the sexual impulse. No doubt it may often become morbid, and is never a healthy process when indulged in to excess, as it is liable to be by refined young people with artistic impulses, to whom it is in the highest degree seductive and insidious.[230] As we have seen, however, day-dreaming is far from always colored by sexual emotion; yet it is a significant indication of its really sexual origin that, as I have been informed by persons of both sexes, even in these apparently non-sexual cases it frequently ceases altogether on marriage.
Even when we have eliminated all these forms of auto-erotic activity, however refined, in which the subject takes a voluntary part, we have still left unexplored an important portion of the auto-erotic field, a portion which many people are alone inclined to consider normal: sexual orgasm during sleep. That under conditions of sexual abstinence in healthy individuals there must inevitably be some auto-erotic manifestations during waking life, a careful study of the facts compels us to believe. There can be no doubt, also, that, under the same conditions, the occurrence of the complete orgasm during sleep with, in men, seminal emissions, is altogether normal. Even Zeus himself, as Pausanias has recorded, was liable to such accidents: a statement which, at all events, shows that to the Greek mind there was nothing derogatory in such an occurrence.[231] The Jews, however, regarded it as an impurity,[232] and the same idea was transmitted to the Christian church and embodied in the word pollutio, by which the phenomenon was designated in ecclesiastical phraseology.[233] According to Billuart and other theologians, pollution in sleep is not sin, unless voluntarily caused; if, however, it begins in sleep, and is completed in the half-waking state, with a sense of pleasure, it is a venial sin. But it seems allowable to permit a nocturnal pollution to complete itself on awaking, if it occurs without intention; and St. Thomas even says "Si pollutio placeat ut naturæ exoneratio vel alleviatio peccatum non creditur."
Notwithstanding the fair and logical position of the more distinguished Latin theologians, there has certainly been a widely prevalent belief in Catholic countries that pollution during sleep is a sin. In the "Parson's Tale," Chaucer makes the parson say: "Another sin appertaineth to lechery that cometh in sleeping; and the sin cometh oft to them that be maidens, and eke to them that be corrupt; and this sin men clepe pollution, that cometh in four manners;" these four manners being (1) languishing of body from rank and abundant humors, (2) infirmity, (3) surfeit of meat and drink, and (4) villainous thoughts. Four hundred years later, Madame Roland, in her Mémoires Particulières, presented a vivid picture of the anguish produced in an innocent girl's mind by the notion of the sinfulness of erotic dreams. She menstruated first at the age of 14. "Before this," she writes, "I had sometimes been awakened from the deepest sleep in a surprising manner. Imagination played no part; I exercised it on too many serious subjects, and my timorous conscience preserved it from amusement with other subjects, so that it could not represent what I would not allow it to seek to understand. But an extraordinary effervescence aroused my senses in the heat of repose, and, by virtue of my excellent constitution, operated by itself a purification which was as strange to me as its cause. The first feeling which resulted was, I know not why, a sort of fear. I had observed in my Philotée, that we are not allowed to obtain any pleasure from our bodies except in lawful marriage. What I had experienced could be called a pleasure. I was then guilty, and in a class of offences which caused me the most shame and sorrow, since it was that which was most displeasing to the Spotless Lamb. There was great agitation in my poor heart, prayers and mortifications. How could I avoid it? For, indeed, I had not foreseen it, but at the instant when I experienced it, I had not taken the trouble to prevent it. My watchfulness became extreme. I scrupulously avoided positions which I found specially exposed me to the accident. My restlessness became so great that, at last I was able to awake before the catastrophe. When I was not in time to prevent it, I would jump out of bed, with naked feet on to the polished floor, and with crossed arms pray to the Saviour to preserve me from the wiles of the devil. I would then impose some penance on myself, and I have carried out to the letter what the prophet King probably only transmitted to us as a figure of Oriental speech, mixing ashes with my bread and watering it with my tears."
To the early Protestant mind, as illustrated by Luther, there was something diseased, though not impure, in sexual excitement during sleep; thus, in his Table Talk Luther remarks that girls who have such dreams should be married at once, "taking the medicine which God has given." It is only of comparatively recent years that medical science has obtained currency for the belief that this auto-erotic process is entirely normal. Blumenbach stated that nocturnal emissions are normal.[234] Sir James Paget declared that he had never known celibate men who had not such emissions from once or twice a week to twice every three months, both extremes being within the limits of good health, while Sir Lauder Brunton considers once a fortnight or once a month about the usual frequency, at these periods the emissions often following two nights in succession. Rohleder believes that they may normally follow for several nights in succession. Hammond considers that they occur about once a fortnight.[235] Ribbing regards ten to fourteen days as the normal interval.[236] Löwenfeld puts the normal frequency at about once a week;[237] this seems to be nearer the truth as regards most fairly healthy young men. In proof of this it is only necessary to refer to the exact records of healthy young adults summarized in the study of periodicity in the present volume. It occasionally happens, however, that nocturnal emissions are entirely absent. I am acquainted with some cases. In other fairly healthy young men they seldom occur except at times of intellectual activity or of anxiety and worry.
Lately there has been some tendency for medical opinion to revert to the view of Luther, and to regard sexual excitement during sleep as a somewhat unhealthy phenomenon. Moll is a distinguished advocate of this view. Sexual excitement during sleep is the normal result of celibacy, but it is another thing to say that it is, on that account, satisfactory. We might, then, Moll remarks, maintain that nocturnal incontinence of urine is satisfactory, since the bladder is thus emptied. Yet, we take every precaution against this by insisting that the bladder shall be emptied before going to sleep. (Libido Sexualis, Bd. I, p. 552.) This remark is supported by the fact, to which I find that both men and women can bear witness, that sexual excitement during sleep is more fatiguing than in the waking state, though this is not an invariable rule, and it is sometimes found to be refreshing. In a similar way, Eulenburg (Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 55) states that nocturnal emissions are no more normal than coughing or vomiting.
Nocturnal emissions are usually, though not invariably, accompanied by dreams of a voluptuous character in which the dreamer becomes conscious in a more or less fantastic manner of the more or less intimate presence or contact of a person of the opposite sex. It would seem, as a general rule, that the more vivid and voluptuous the dream, the greater is the physical excitement and the greater also the relief experienced on awakening. Sometimes the erotic dream occurs without any emission, and not infrequently the emission takes place after the dreamer has awakened.
The widest and most comprehensive investigation of erotic dreams is that carried out by Gualino, in northern Italy, and based on inquiries among 100 normal men—doctors, teachers, lawyers, etc.—who had all had experience of the phenomenon. (L. Gualino, "Il Sogno Erotico nell' Uomo Normale," Rivista di Psicologia, Jan.-Feb., 1907.) Gualino shows that erotic dreams, with emissions (whether or not seminal), began somewhat earlier than the period of physical development as ascertained by Marro for youths of the same part of northern Italy. Gualino found that all his cases had had erotic dreams at the age of seventeen; Marro found 8 per cent, of youths still sexually undeveloped at that age, and while sexual development began at thirteen years, erotic dreams began at twelve. Their appearance was preceded, in most cases for some months, by erections. In 37 per cent, of the cases there had been no actual sexual experiences (either masturbation or intercourse); in 23 per cent, there had been masturbation; in the rest, some form of sexual contact. The dreams are mainly visual, tactual elements coming second, and the dramatis persona is either an unknown woman (27 per cent, cases), or only known by sight (56 per cent.), and in the majority is, at all events in the beginning, an ugly or fantastic figure, becoming more attractive later in life, but never identical with the woman loved during waking life. This, as Gualino points out, accords with the general tendency for the emotions of the day to be latent in sleep. Masturbation only formed the subject of the dream in four cases. The emotional state in the pubertal stage, apart from pleasure, was anxiety (37 per cent.), desire (17 per cent.), fear (14 per cent.). In the adult stage, anxiety and fear receded to 7 per cent, and 6 per cent., respectively. Thirty-three of the subjects, as a result of sexual or general disturbances, had had nocturnal emissions without dreams; these were always found exhausting. Normally (in more than 90 per cent.) erotic dreams are the most vivid of all dreams. In no case was there knowledge of any monthly or other cyclic periodicity in the occurrence of the manifestations. In 34 per cent, of cases, they tended to occur very soon after sexual intercourse. In numerous cases they were peculiarly frequent (even three in one night) during courtship, when the young man was in the habit of kissing and caressing his betrothed, but ceased after marriage. It was not noted that position in bed or a full bladder exerted any marked influence in the occurrence of erotic dreams; repletion of the seminal vesicles is regarded as the main factor.
In Germany erotic dreams have been discussed by Volkelt (Die Traum-Phantasie, 1875, pp. 78-82), and especially by Löwenfeld (Sexual-Probleme, Oct., 1908), while in America, Stanley Hall thus summarizes the general characteristics of erotic dreams in men: "In by far the most cases, consciousness, even when the act causes full awakening from sleep, finds only scattered images, single words, gestures, and acts, many of which would perhaps normally constitute no provocation. Many times the mental activity seems to be remote and incidental, and the mind retains in the morning nothing except, perhaps, a peculiar dress pattern, the shape of a finger-nail, the back of a neck, the toss of a head, the movement of a foot, or the dressing of the hair. In such cases, these images stand out for a time with the distinctness of a cameo, and suggest that the origin of erotic fetichisms is largely to be found in sexual dreams. Very rarely is there any imagery of the organs themselves, but the tendency to irradiation is so strong as to re-enforce the suggestion of so many other phenomena in this field, that nature designs this experience to be long circuited, and that it may give a peculiar ictus to almost any experience. When waking occurs just afterward, it seems at least possible that there may be much imagery that existed, but failed to be recalled to memory, possibly because the flow of psychic impressions was over very familiar fields, and this, therefore, was forgotten, while any eruption into new or unwonted channels, stood out with distinctness. All these psychic phenomena, although very characteristic of man in his prime, are not so of the dreams of dawning puberty, which are far more vivid." (G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. i, p. 455.)
I may, further, quote the experience of an anonymous contributor—a healthy and chaste man between 30 and 38 years of age—to the American Journal of Psychology ("Nocturnal Emissions," Jan., 1904): "Legs and breasts often figured prominently in these dreams, the other sexual parts, however, very seldom, and then they turned out to be male organs in most cases. There were but two instances of copulation dreamt. Girls and young women were the, usual dramatis personæ, and, curiously enough, often the aggressors. Sometimes the face or faces were well known; sometimes, only once seen; sometimes, entirely unknown. The orgasm occurs at the most erotic part of the dream, the physical and psychical running parallel. This most erotic or suggestive part of the dream was very often quite an innocent looking incident enough. As, for example: while passing a strange young woman, overtaken on the street, she calls after me some question. At first, I pay no heed, but when she calls again, I hesitate whether to turn back and answer or not—emission. Again, walking beside a young woman, she said, 'Shall I take your arm?' I offered it, and she took it, entwining her arm around it, and raising it high—emission. I could feel stronger erection as she asked the question. Sometimes, a word was enough; sometimes, a gesture. Once emission took place on my noticing the young woman's diminished finger-nails. Another example of fetichism was my being curiously attracted in a dream by the pretty embroidered figure on a little girl's dress. As an illustration of the strange metamorphoses that occur in dreams, I one night, in my dream (I had been observing partridges in the summer) fell in love with a partridge, which changed under my caresses to a beautiful girl, who yet retained an indescribable wild-bird innocence, grace, and charm—a sort of Undina!"
These experiences may be regarded as fairly typical of the erotic dreams of healthy and chaste young men. The bird, for instance, that changes into a woman while retaining some elements of the bird, has been encountered in erotic dreams by other young men. It is indeed remarkable that, as De Gubernatis observes, "the bird is a well-known phallic symbol," while Maeder finds ("Interprétations de Quelques Rêves," Archives de Psychologie, April, 1907) that birds have a sexual significance both in life and in dreams. The appearance of male organs in the dream-woman is doubtless due to the dreamer's greater familiarity with those organs; but, though it occurs occasionally, it can scarcely be said to be the rule in erotic dreams. Even men who have never had connection with a woman, are quite commonly aware of the presence of a woman's sexual organs in their erotic dreams.
Moll's comparison of nocturnal emissions of semen with nocturnal incontinence of urine suggests an interesting resemblance, and at the same time seeming contrast. In both cases we are concerned with viscera which, when overfilled or unduly irritable, spasmodically eject their contents during sleep. There is a further resemblance which usually becomes clear when, as occasionally happens, nocturnal incontinence of urine persists on to late childhood or adolescence: both phenomena are frequently accompanied by vivid dreams of appropriate character. (See e.g. Ries, "Ueber Enuresis Nocturna," Monatsschrift für Harnkrankheiten und Sexuelle Hygiene, 1904; A. P. Buchan, nearly a century ago, pointed out the psychic element in the experiences of young persons who wetted the bed, Venus sine Concubitu, 1816, p. 47.) Thus, in one case known to me, a child of seven, who occasionally wetted the bed, usually dreamed at the same time that she wanted to make water, and was out of doors, running to find a suitable spot, which she at last found, and, on awaking, discovered that she had wetted the bed; fifteen years later she still sometimes had similar dreams, which caused her much alarm until, when thoroughly awake, she realized that no accident had happened; these later dreams were not the result of any actual strong desire to urinate. In another case with which I am acquainted, a little girl of eight, after mental excitement or indigestible meals, occasionally wetted the bed, dreaming that she was frightened by some one running after her, and wetted herself in consequence, after the manner of the Ganymede in the eagle's clutch, as depicted by Rembrandt. These two cases, it may be noted, belong to two quite different types. In the first case, the full bladder suggests to imagination the appropriate actions for relief, and the bladder actually accepts the imaginative solution offered; it is, according to Fiorani's phrase, "somnambulism of the bladder." In the other case, there is no such somnambulism, but a psychic and nervous disturbance, not arising in the bladder at all, irradiates convulsively, and whether or not the bladder is overfull, attacks a vesical nervous system which is not yet sufficiently well-balanced to withstand the inflow of excitement. In children of somewhat nervous temperament, manifestations of this kind may occur as an occasional accident, up to about the age of seven or eight; and thereafter, the nervous control of the bladder having become firmly established, they cease to happen, the nervous energy required to affect the bladder sufficing to awake the dreamer. In very rare cases, however, the phenomenon may still occasionally happen, even in adolescence or later, in individuals who are otherwise quite free from it. This is most apt to occur in young women even in waking life. In men it is probably extremely rare.
The erotic dream seems to differ flagrantly from the vesical dream, in that it occurs in adult life, and is with difficulty brought under control. The contrast is, however, very superficial. When we remember that sexual activity only begins normally at puberty, we realize that the youth of twenty is, in the matter of sexual control, scarcely much older than in the matter of vesical control he was at the age of six. Moreover, if we were habitually, from our earliest years, to go to bed with a full bladder, as the chaste man goes to bed with unrelieved sexual system, it would be fully as difficult to gain vesical control during sleep as it now is to gain sexual control. Ultimately, such sexual control is attained; after the age of forty, it seems that erotic dreams with emission become more and more rare; either the dream occurs without actual emission, exactly as dreams of urination occur in adults with full bladder, or else the organic stress, with or without dreams, serves to awaken the sleeper before any emission has occurred. But this stage is not easily or completely attained. St. Augustine, even at the period when he wrote his Confessions, mentions, as a matter of course, that sexual dreams "not merely arouse pleasure, but gain the consent of the will." (X. 41.) Not infrequently there is a struggle in sleep, just as the hypnotic subject may resist suggestions; thus, a lady of thirty-five dreamed a sexual dream, and awoke without excitement; again she fell asleep, and had another dream of sexual character, but resisted the tendency to excitement, and again awoke; finally, she fell asleep and had a third sexual dream, which was this time accompanied by the orgasm. (This has recently been described also by Näcke, who terms it pollutio interrupta, Neurologisches Centralblatt, Oct. 16, 1909; the corresponding voluntary process in the waking state is described by Rohleder and termed masturbatio interrupta, Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Aug., 1908.) The factors involved in the acquirement of vesical and sexual control during sleep are the same, but the conditions are somewhat different.
There is a very intimate connection between the vesical and the sexual spheres, as I have elsewhere pointed out (see e.g. in the third volume of these Studies, "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse"). This connection is psychic as well as organic. Both in men and women, a full bladder tends to develop erotic dreams. (See e.g. K. A. Scherner, Das Leben des Traums, 1861, pp. 187 et seq.; Spitta also points out the connection between vesical and erotic dreams, Die Schlaf und Traumzustände, 2d ed., 1882, pp. 250 et seq.) Raymond and Janet state (Les Obscessions, vol. ii, p. 135) that nocturnal incontinence of urine, accompanied by dreams of urination, may be replaced at puberty by masturbation. In the reverse direction, Freud believes (Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie, Bd. XVIII, p. 433) that masturbation plays a large part in causing the bed-wetting of children who have passed the age when that usually ceases, and he even finds that children are themselves aware of the connection.
The diagnostic value of sexual dreams, as an indication of the sexual nature of the subject when awake, has been emphasized by various writers. (E.g., Moll, Die Konträre Sexualempfindung, Ch. IX; Näcke, "Der Traum als feinstes Reagens für die Art des sexuellen Empfindens," Monatsschrift für Kriminalpsychologie, 1905, p. 500.) Sexual dreams tend to reproduce, and even to accentuate, those characteristics which make the strongest sexual appeal to the subject when awake.
At the same time, this general statement has to be qualified, more especially as regards inverted dreams. In the first place, a young man, however normal, who is not familiar with the feminine body when awake, is not likely to see it when asleep, even in dreams of women; in the second place, the confusions and combinations of dream imagery often tend to obliterate sexual distinctions, however free from perversions the subjects may be. Thus, a correspondent tells me of a healthy man, of very pure character, totally inexperienced in sexual matters, and never having seen a woman naked, who, in his sexual dreams, always sees the woman with male organs, though he has never had any sexual inclinations for men, and is much in love with a lady. The confusions and associations of dream imagery, leading to abnormal combinations, may be illustrated by a dream which once occurred to me after reading Joest's account of how a young negress, whose tattoo-marks he was sketching, having become bored, suddenly pressed her hands to her breasts, spirting two streams of lukewarm milk into his face, and ran away laughing; I dreamed of a woman performing a similar action, not from her breasts, however, but from a penis with which she was furnished. Again, by another kind of confusion, a man dreams sexually that he is with a man, although the figure of the partner revealed in the dream is a woman. The following dream, in a normal man who had never been, or wished to be, in the position shown by the dream, may be quoted: "I dreamed that I was a big boy, and that a younger boy lay close beside me, and that we (or, certainly, he) had seminal emissions; I was complacently passive, and had a feeling of shame when the boy was discovered. On awaking I found I had had no emission, but was lying very close to my wife. The day before, I had seen boys in a swimming-match." This was, it seems to me, an example of dream confusion, and not an erotic inverted dream. (Näcke also brings forward inverted dreams by normal persons; see e.g. his "Beiträge zu den sexuellen Träumen," Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, Bd. XX, 1908, p. 366.)