in men as well as in women, only people do not care
to admit them, as a rule."

The idea of being chained and fettered appears to be not uncommonly
associated with pleasurable sexual feelings, for I have met with numerous
cases in both men and women, and it not infrequently coexists with a
tendency to inversion. It often arises at a very early age, and it is of
considerable interest because we cannot account for its frequency by any
chance association nor by any actual experiences. It would appear to be a
purely psychic fantasia founded on the elementary physical fact that
restraint of emotion, like suspension, produces a heightening of emotion.
In any case the spontaneous character of such ideas and emotions in
children of both sexes suffices to show that they must possess a very
definite organic basis.

In one of the histories (X) contained in Appendix B at the end of
the present volume a lady describes how, as a child, she reveled
in the idea of being chained and tortured, these ideas appearing
to rise spontaneously. In another case, that of A.N. (for the
most part reproduced in "Erotic Symbolism," in vol. v of these
_Studies_), whose ideals are inverted and who is also affected by
boot-fetichism, the idea of fetters is very attractive. In this
case self-excitement was produced at a very early age, without
the use of the hands, by strapping the legs together. We can,
however, scarcely explain away the idea of fetters in this case
as merely the result of an early association, for it may well be
argued that the idea led to this method of self-excitement. "The
mere idea of fetters," this subject writes, "produces the
greatest excitement, and the sight of pictures representing such
things is a temptation. The reading of books dealing with prison
life, etc., anywhere where physical restraint is treated of, is a
temptation. The temptation is aggravated when the picture
represents the person booted. I suppose all this will have been
intensified in my case by my practices as a child. But why should
a child of 6 do such things unless it were a natural instinct in
him? Nobody showed me; I have never mentioned such things to
anyone. I used to read historical romances for the pleasure of
reading of people being put in prison, in fetters, and tortured,
and always envied them. I feel now that I should like to undergo
the sens