rotism" 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 psychologi