the most enigmatic and certainly the most singular of
degenerative insanities, is thus merely a form of atavism, the return of
the degenerate to the very ancient and primitive psychology which we no
longer understand and are no longer capable of feeling."
[20] Moll has reported in detail (_Untersuchungen ueber die Libido
Sexualis_, bd. i, Teil II, pp. 320-324) a case which both he and
Krafft-Ebing regard as illustrative of the connection between
boot-fetichism and masochism. It is essentially a case of masochism,
though manifesting itself almost exclusively in the desire to perform
humiliating acts in connection with the attractive person's boots.
[21] Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (_Psychopathia Sexualis_,
English translation of tenth edition, p. 174) that "when in cases of
shoe-fetichism the female shoe appears alone as the excitant of sexual
desire one is justified in presuming that masochistic motives have
remained latent.... Latent masochism may always be assumed as the
unconscious motive." In this way he hopelessly misinterprets some of his
own cases.
[22] Krafft-Ebing goes so far as to assert (_Psychopathia Sexualis_,
English translation, pp. 159 and 174). Yet some of the cases he brings
forward (e.g., Coxe's as quoted by Hammond) show no sign of masochism,
since, according to Krafft-Ebing's own definition (p. 116), the idea of
subjugation by the opposite sex is of the essence of masochism.
[23] Her actions suggest that there is often a latent sexual consciousness
in regard to the feet in women, atavistic or pseudo-atavistic, and
corresponding to the sexual attraction which the feet formerly aroused,
almost normally, in men. This is also suggested by the case, referred to
by Shufeldt, of an unmarried woman, belonging to a family exhibiting in a
high degree both erotic and neurotic traits, who had "a certain
uncontrollable fascination for shoes. She delights in new shoes, and
changes her shoes all day long at regular intervals of three hours each.
She keeps this row of shoes out in plain sight in her apartment." (R.W.
Shufeldt, "On a Case of Female Impotency," 1896, p. 10.)
III.
Scatalogic Symbolism--Urolagnia--Coprolagnia--The Ascetic Attitude Towards
the Flesh--Normal basis of Scatalogic Symbolism--Scatalogic Conceptions
Among Primitive Peoples--Urine as a Primitive Holy Water--Sacredness of
Animal Excreta--Scatalogy in Folk-lore--The Obscene as Derived from the
Mythological--The Immat
|