xaggerated. But these
individuals are numerous, and this fact gives us the explanation of a
large proportion of acquired sexual anomalies, at the same time
indicating the means of curing them. In such cases, it is not a
question of moral depravity, nor necessarily of a latent hereditary
predisposition, but simply of a single sudden suggestive action,
sometimes repeated.

Among other cases, I may mention that of a well-educated man of very
refined sentiments, deeply in love with his wife, but very
suggestible, who became suddenly impotent and homosexual as the result
of a simple idea-image which became fixed in his mind and subjected it
by suggestion. His strong character enabled him to resist intercourse
with males, but he fell into despair and became very unhappy. I am
convinced that a careful study would reveal an increasing number of
cases of psychopathia acquired by suggestion or auto-suggestion.

Cases of this kind may be spontaneously cured. Treatment by suggestion
is indicated and may act directly or indirectly. Everything which is
of a functional psychic nature may occur by suggestion, or be, on the
contrary, eradicated by suggestion. The important point is to
emphasize the fact that whenever a man, hitherto normal, is affected,
without apparent cause, with a more or less sudden sexual anomaly, and
which is consequently not the effect of long habit, suggestion or
auto-suggestion should be borne in mind.

These two conceptions can, moreover, be hardly distinguished, for the
things which cause suggestion are usually the sensory perceptions of
sight, smell, touch and hearing, associated with certain situations,
or with an intense affective state which fixes them in the brain.
Sometimes it is a question of simple imaginative ideas. The cases
where a hypnotizer intentionally suggests sexual perversion probably
exist only in theory. We are, therefore, concerned with fortuitous
suggestions, acting through persons, situations, objects or ideas,
which excite the mind by the impression they produce on the sentiments
and the sexual appetite.

SEXUAL PERVERSIONS DUE TO HABIT

Without being congenital and without depending on a special
predisposition, all the perversions of the sexual appetite that we
have just described may be acquired, by means of the artificial and
continued excitation of a sexual appetite which seeks satisfaction in
change and unusual situations: Moreover, perverse satisfaction of the
sexual app