n for a definite object with the impulse to
exercise a more or less degree of violence. From the standpoint
of the conception of erotic symbolism I have adopted there is no
need for this term. There is here no hybrid combination of two
unlike mental states. We are simply concerned with states of
erotic symbolism, more or less complete, more or less complex.

The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves
a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's
mind to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is
directed. He seeks to cause an emotion which, probably in most cases, he
desires should be pleasurable. But from one cause or another his finer
sensibilities are always inhibited or in abeyance, and he is unable to
estimate accurately either the impression he is likely to produce or the
general results of his action, or else he is moved by a strong impulsive
obsession which overpowers his judgment. In many cases he has good reason
for believing that his act will be pleasurable, and frequently he finds
complacent witnesses among the low-class servant girls, etc.

It may be pointed out here that we are quite justified in
speaking of a penis-fetichism and also of a vulva-fetichism. This
might be questioned. We are obviously justified in recognizing a
fetichism which attaches itself to the pubic hair, or, as in a
case with which I am acquainted, to the clitoris, but it may seem
that we cannot regard the central sexual organs as symbols of
sex, symbols, as it were, of themselves. Properly regarded,
however, it is the sexual act rather than the sexual organ which
is craved in normal sexual desire; the organ is regarded merely
as the means and not as the end. Regarded as a means the organ is
indeed an object of desire, but it only becomes a fetich when it
arrests and fixes the attention. An attention thus pleasurably
fixed, a vulva-fetichism or a penis-fetichism, is within the
normal range of sexual emotion (this point has been mentioned in
the previous volume when discussing the part played by the
primary sexual organs in sexual selection), and in coarse-grained
natures of either sex it is a normal allurement in its
generalized shape, apart from any attraction to the person to
whom the organs belong. In some morbid cases, however, this
penis-fetichism may becom