It may seem that such impulses and such devices to gratify them are altogether unnatural. This is not so. They have a zoölogical basis and in many animals are embodied in the anatomical structure. Many rodents, ruminants, and some of the carnivora show natural developments of the penis closely resembling some of those artificially adopted by man. Thus the guinea-pigs possess two horny styles attached to the penis, while the glans of the penis is covered with sharp spines. Some of the Caviidæ also have two sharp, horny saws at the side of the penis. The cat, the rhinoceros, the tapir, and other animals possess projecting structures on the penis, and some species of ruminants, such as the sheep, the giraffe, and many antelopes, have, attached to the penis, long filiform processes through which the urethra passes. (F.H.A. Marshall, _The Physiology of Reproduction_, pp. 246-248.)
We find, even in creatures so delicate and ethereal as the butterflies, a whole armory of keen weapons for use in coitus. These were described in detail in an elaborate and fully illustrated memoir by P.H. Gosse ("On the Clasping Organs Ancillary to Generation in Certain Groups of the Lepidoptera," _Transactions of the Linnæan Society_, second series, vol. ii, Zoölogy, 1882). These organs, which Gosse terms _harpes_ (or grappling irons), are found in the Papilionidæ and are very beautiful and varied, taking the forms of projecting claws, hooks, pikes, swords, knobs, and strange combinations of these, commonly brought to a keen edge and then cut into sharp teeth.
It is probable that all these structures serve to excite the sexual apparatus of the female and to promote tumescence.
To the careless observer there may seem to be something vicious or perverted in such manifestations in man. That opinion becomes very doubtful when we consider how these tendencies occur in people living under natural conditions in widely separated parts of the world. It becomes still further untenable if we are justified in believing that the ancestors of men possessed projecting epithelial appendages attached to the penis, and if we accept the discovery by Friedenthal of the rudiment of these appendages on the penis of the human fetus at an early stage (Friedenthal, "Sonderformen der menschlichen Leibesbildung," _Sexual-Probleme_, Feb., 1912, p. 129). In this case human ingenuity would merely be seeking to supply an organ which nature has ceased to furnish, although it is still in some cases needed, especially among peoples whose aptitude for erethism has remained at, or fallen to, a subhuman level.
At first sight the connection between love and pain--the tendency of men to delight in inflicting it and women in suffering it--seems strange and inexplicable. It seems amazing that a tender and even independent woman should maintain a passionate attachment to a man who subjects her to physical and moral insults, and that a strong man, often intelligent, reasonable, and even kind-hearted, should desire to subject to such insults a woman whom he loves passionately and who has given him every final proof of her own passion. In understanding such cases we have to remember that it is only within limits that a woman really enjoys the pain, discomfort, or subjection to which she submits. A little pain which the man knows he can himself soothe, a little pain which the woman gladly accepts as the sign and forerunner of pleasure--this degree of pain comes within the normal limits of love and is rooted, as we have seen, in the experience of the race. But when it is carried beyond these limits, though it may still be tolerated because of the support it receives from its biological basis, it is no longer enjoyed. The natural note has been too violently struck, and the rhythm of love has ceased to be perfect. A woman may desire to be forced, to be roughly forced, to be ravished away beyond her own will. But all the time she only desires to be forced toward those things which are essentially and profoundly agreeable to her. A man who fails to realize this has made little progress in the art of love. "I like being knocked about and made to do things I don't want to do," a woman said, but she admitted, on being questioned, that she would not like to have _much_ pain inflicted, and that she might not care to be made to do important things she did not want to do. The story of Griselda's unbounded submissiveness can scarcely be said to be psychologically right, though it has its artistic rightness as an elaborate fantasia on this theme justified by its conclusion.
This point is further illustrated by the following passage from a letter written by a lady: "Submission to the man's will is still, and always must be, the prelude to pleasure, and the association of ideas will probably always produce this much misunderstood instinct. Now, I find, indirectly from other women and directly from my own experience, that, when the point in dispute is very important and the man exerts his authority, the desire to get one's own way completely obliterates the sexual feeling, while, conversely, in small things the sexual feeling obliterates the desire to have one's own way. Where the two are nearly equal a conflict between them ensues, and I can stand aside and wonder which will get the best of it, though I encourage the sexual feeling when possible, as, if the other conquers, it leaves a sense of great mental irritation and physical discomfort. A man should command in small things, as in nine cases out of ten this will produce excitement. He should _advise_ in large matters, or he may find either that he is unable to enforce his orders or that he produces a feeling of dislike and annoyance he was far from intending. Women imagine men must be stronger than themselves to excite their passion. I disagree. A passionate man has the best chance, for in him the primitive instincts are strong. The wish to subdue the female is one of them, and in small things he will exert his authority to make her feel his power, while she knows that on a question of real importance she has a good chance of getting her own way by working on his greater susceptibility. Perhaps an illustration will show what I mean. I was listening to the band and a girl and her _fiancé_ came up to occupy two seats near me. The girl sank into one seat, but for some reason the man wished her to take the other. She refused. He repeated his order twice, the second time so peremptorily that she changed places, and I heard him say: 'I don't think you heard what I said. I don't expect to give an order three times.'
"This little scene interested me, and I afterward asked the girl the following questions:-- "'Had you any reason for taking one chair more than the other?'
"'No.'
"'Did Mr. ----'s insistence on your changing give you any pleasure?'
"'Yes' (after a little hesitation).
"'Why?'
"'I don't know.'
"'Would it have done so if you had particularly wished to sit in that chair; if, for instance, you had had a boil on your cheek and wished to turn that side away from him?'
"'No; certainly not. The worry of thinking he was looking at it would have made me too cross to feel pleased.'
"Does this explain what I mean? The occasion, by the way, need not be really important, but, as in this imaginary case of the boil, if it _seems important_ to the woman, irritation will outweigh the physical sensation."
I am well aware that in thus asserting a certain tendency in women to delight in suffering pain--however careful and qualified the position I have taken--many estimable people will cry out that I am degrading a whole sex and generally supporting the "subjection of women." But the day for academic discussion concerning the "subjection of women" has gone by. The tendency I have sought to make clear is too well established by the experience of normal and typical women--however numerous the exceptions may be--to be called in question. I would point out to those who would deprecate the influence of such facts in relation to social progress that nothing is gained by regarding women as simply men of smaller growth. They are not so; they have the laws of their own nature; their development must be along their own lines, and not along masculine lines. It is as true now as in Bacon's day that we only learn to command nature by obeying her. To ignore facts is to court disappointment in our measure of progress. The particular fact with which we have here come in contact is very vital and radical, and most subtle in its influence. It is foolish to ignore it; we must allow for its existence. We can neither attain a sane view of life nor a sane social legislation of life unless we possess a just and accurate knowledge of the fundamental instincts upon which life is built.
FOOTNOTES: FOOTNOTES: [61] Various mammals, carried away by the reckless fury of the sexual impulse, are apt to ill-treat their females (R. Müller, _Sexualbiologie_, p. 123). This treatment is, however, usually only an incident of courtship, the result of excess of ardor. "The chaffinches and saffron-finches (_Fringella_ and _Sycalis_) are very rough wooers," says A.G. Butler (_Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 241); "they sing vociferously, and chase their hens violently, knocking them over in their flight, pursuing and savagely pecking them even on the ground; but when once the hens become submissive, the males change their tactics, and become for the time model husbands, feeding their wives from their crop, and assisting in rearing the young."
[63] Marro considers that there may be transference of emotion,--the impulse of violence generated in the male by his rivals being turned against his partner,--according to a tendency noted by Sully and illustrated by Ribot in his _Psychology of the Emotions_, part i, chapter xii.
[64] Several writers have found in the facts of primitive animal courtship the explanation of the connection between love and pain. Thus, Krafft-Ebing (_Psychopathia Sexualis_, English translation of tenth German edition, p. 80) briefly notes that outbreaks of sadism are possibly atavistic. Marro (_La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 219 et seq.) has some suggestive pages on this subject. It would appear that this explanation was vaguely outlined by Jäger. Laserre, in a Bordeaux thesis mentioned by Féré, has argued in the same sense. Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 134), on grounds that are scarcely sufficient, regards this explanation as merely a superficial analogy. But it is certainly not a complete explanation.
[65] Schäfer (_Jahrbücher für Psychologie_, Bd. ii, p. 128, and quoted by Krafft-Ebing in _Psychopathia Sexualis_), in connection with a case in which sexual excitement was produced by the sight of battles or of paintings of them, remarks: "The pleasure of battle and murder is so predominantly an attribute of the male sex throughout the animal kingdom that there can be no question about the close connection between this side of the masculine character and male sexuality. I believe that I can show by observation that in men who are absolutely normal, mentally and physically, the first indefinite and incomprehensible precursors of sexual excitement may be induced by reading exciting scenes of chase and war. These give rise to unconscious longings for a kind of satisfaction in warlike games (wrestling, etc.) which express the fundamental sexual impulse to close and complete contact with a companion, with a secondary more or less clearly defined thought of conquest." Groos (_Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 232) also thinks there is more or less truth in this suggestion of a subconscious sexual element in the playful wrestling combats of boys. Freud considers (_Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_, p. 49) that the tendency to sexual excitement through muscular activity in wrestling, etc., is one of the roots of sadism. I have been told of normal men who feel a conscious pleasure of this kind when lifted in games, as may happen, for instance, in football. It may be added that in some parts of the world the suitor has to throw the girl in a wrestling-bout in order to secure her hand.
[66] A minor manifestation of this tendency, appearing even in quite normal and well-conditioned individuals, is the impulse among boys at and after puberty to take pleasure in persecuting and hurting lower animals or their own young companions. Some youths display a diabolical enjoyment and ingenuity in torturing sensitive juniors, and even a boy who is otherwise kindly and considerate may find enjoyment in deliberately mutilating a frog. In some cases, in boys and youths who have no true sadistic impulse and are not usually cruel, this infliction of torture on a lower animal produces an erection, though not necessarily any pleasant sexual sensations.
[68] Bk. ii, ch. ii.
[70] Westermarck, _Human Marriage_, p. 388. Grosse is of the same opinion; he considers also that the mock-capture is often an imitation, due to admiration, of real capture; he does not believe that the latter has ever been a form of marriage recognized by custom and law, but only "an occasional and punishable act of violence." (_Die Formen der Familie_, pp. 105-7.) This position is too extreme.
[71] Ernest Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, 1902, p. 350 et seq. Van Gennep rightly remarks that we cannot correctly say that the woman is abducted from "her sex," but only from her "sexual society."
[72] A. Van Gennep (_Rites de Passage_, 1909, pp. 175-186) has put forward a third theory, though also of a psychological character, according to which the "capture" is a rite indicating the separation of the young girl from the special societies of her childhood. Gennep regards this rite as one of a vast group of "rites of passage," which come into action whenever a person changes his social or natural environment.
[73] Féré (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, p. 133) appears to regard the satisfaction, based on the sentiment of personal power, which may be experienced in the suffering and subjection of a victim as an adequate explanation of the association of pain with love. This I can scarcely admit. It is a factor in the emotional attitude, but when it only exists in the sexual sphere it is reasonable to base this attitude largely on the still more fundamental biological attitude of the male toward the female in the process of courtship. Féré regards this biological element as merely a superficial analogy, on the ground that an act of cruelty may become an equivalent of coitus. But a sexual perversion is quite commonly constituted by the selection and magnification of a single moment in the normal sexual process.
[74] The process may, however, be quite conscious. Thus, a correspondent tells me that he not only finds sexual pleasure in cruelty toward the woman he loves, but that he regards this as an essential element. He is convinced that it gives the woman pleasure, and that it is possible to distinguish by gesture, inflection of voice, etc., an hysterical, assumed, or imagined feeling of pain from real pain. He would not wish to give real pain, and would regard that as sadism.
[75] De Sade had already made the same remark, while Duchenne, of Boulogne, pointed out that the facial expressions of sexual passion and of cruelty are similar.
[76] Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 208.
[78] See in vol. iv of these _Studies_ ("Sexual Selection in Man"), Appendix A, on "The Origins of the Kiss."
[79] De Stendhal (_De l'Amour_) mentions that when in London he was on terms of friendship with an English actress who was the mistress of a wealthy colonel, but privately had another lover. One day the colonel arrived when the other man was present. "This gentleman has called about the pony I want to sell," said the actress. "I have come for a very different purpose," said the little man, and thus aroused a love which was beginning to languish.
[80] See Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, chapter vi, "The Senses."
[81] This liability is emphasized by Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, p. 125.
II.
The Definition of Sadism--De Sade--Masochism to some Extent Normal--Sacher-Masoch--No Real Line of Demarcation between Sadism and Masochism--Algolagnia includes both Groups of Manifestations--The Love-bite as a Bridge from Normal Phenomena to Algolagnia--The Fascination of Blood--The Most Extreme Perversions are Linked on to Normal Phenomena.
We thus see that there are here two separate groups of feelings: one, in the masculine line, which delights in displaying force and often inflicts pain or the simulacrum of pain; the other, in the feminine line, which delights in submitting to that force, and even finds pleasure in a slight amount of pain, or the idea of pain, when associated with the experiences of love. We see, also, that these two groups of feelings are complementary. Within the limits consistent with normal and healthy life, what men are impelled to give women love to receive. So that we need not unduly deprecate the "cruelty" of men within these limits, nor unduly commiserate the women who are subjected to it.
Such a conclusion, however, as we have also seen, only holds good within those normal limits which an attempt has here been made to determine. The phenomena we have been considering are strictly normal phenomena, having their basis in the conditions of tumescence and detumescence in animal and primitive human courtship. At one point, however, when discussing the phenomena of the love-bite, I referred to the facts which indicate how this purely normal manifestation yet insensibly passes over into the region of the morbid. It is an instance that enables us to realize how even the most terrible and repugnant sexual perversions are still demonstrably linked on to phenomena that are fundamentally normal. The love-bite may be said to give us the key to that perverse impulse which has been commonly called sadism.
There is some difference of opinion as to how "sadism" may be best defined. Perhaps the simplest and most usual definition is that of Krafft-Ebing, as sexual emotion associated with the wish to inflict pain and use violence, or, as he elsewhere expresses it, "the impulse to cruel and violent treatment of the opposite sex, and the coloring of the idea of such acts with lustful feeling."[83] A more complete definition is that of Moll, who describes sadism as a condition in which "the sexual impulse consists in the tendency to strike, ill-use, and humiliate the beloved person."[84] This definition has the advantage of bringing in the element of moral pain. A further extension is made in Féré's definition as "the need of association of violence and cruelty with sexual enjoyment, such violence or cruelty not being necessarily exerted by the person himself who seeks sexual pleasure in this association."[85] Garnier's definition, while comprising all these points, further allows for the fact that a certain degree of sadism may be regarded as normal. "Pathological sadism," he states, "is an impulsive and obsessing sexual perversion characterized by a close connection between suffering inflicted or mentally represented and the sexual orgasm, without this necessary and sufficing condition frigidity usually remaining absolute."[86] It must be added that these definitions are very incomplete if by "sadism" we are to understand the special sexual perversions which are displayed in De Sade's novels. Iwan Bloch ("Eugen Dühren"), in the course of his book on De Sade, has attempted a definition strictly on this basis, and, as will be seen, it is necessary to make it very elaborate: "A connection, whether intentionally sought or offered by chance, of sexual excitement and sexual enjoyment with the real or only symbolic (ideal, illusionary) appearance of frightful and shocking events, destructive occurrences and practices, which threaten or destroy the life, health, and property of man and other living creatures, and threaten and interrupt the continuity of inanimate objects, whereby the person who from such occurrences obtains sexual enjoyment may either himself be the direct cause, or cause them to take place by means of other persons, or merely be the spectator, or, finally, be, voluntarily or involuntarily, the object against which these processes are directed."[87] This definition of sadism as found in De Sade's works is thus, more especially by its final clause, a very much wider conception than the usual definition.
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis De Sade, was born in 1740 at Paris in the house of the great Condé. He belonged to a very noble, ancient, and distinguished Provençal family; Petrarch's Laura, who married a De Sade, was one of his ancestors, and the family had cultivated both arms and letters with success. He was, according to Lacroix, "an adorable youth whose delicately pale and dusky face, lighted up by two large black [according to another account blue] eyes, already bore the languorous imprint of the vice which was to corrupt his whole being"; his voice was "drawling and caressing"; his gait had "a softly feminine grace." Unfortunately there is no authentic portrait of him. His early life is sketched in letter iv of his _Aline et Valcourt_. On leaving the Collège-Louis-le-Grand he became a cavalry officer and went through the Seven Years' War in Germany. There can be little doubt that the experiences of his military life, working on a femininely vicious temperament, had much to do with the development of his perversion. He appears to have got into numerous scrapes, of which the details are unknown, and his father sought to marry him to the daughter of an aristocratic friend of his own, a noble and amiable girl of 20. It so chanced that when young De Sade first went to the house of his future wife only her younger sister, a girl of 13, was at home; with her he at once fell in love and his love was reciprocated; they were both musical enthusiasts, and she had a beautiful voice. The parents insisted on carrying out the original scheme of marriage. De Sade's wife loved him, and, in spite of everything, served his interests with Griselda-like devotion; she was, Ginisty remarks, a saint, a saint of conjugal life; but her love was from the first only requited with repulsion, contempt, and suspicion. There were, however, children of the marriage; the career of the eldest--an estimable young man who went into the army and also had artistic ability, but otherwise had no community of tastes with his father--has been sketched by Paul Ginisty, who has also edited the letters of the Marquise. De Sade's passion for the younger sister continued (he idealized her as Juliette), though she was placed in a convent beyond his reach, and at a much later period he eloped with her and spent perhaps the happiest period of his life, soon terminated by her death. It is evident that this unhappy marriage was decisive in determining De Sade's career; he at once threw himself recklessly into every form of dissipation, spending his health and his substance sometimes among refinedly debauched nobles and sometimes among coarsely debauched lackeys. He was, however, always something of an artist, something of a student, something of a philosopher, and at an early period he began to write, apparently at the age of 23. It was at this age, and only a few months after his marriage, that on account of some excess he was for a time confined in Vincennes. He was destined to spend 27 years of his life in prisons, if we include the 13 years which in old age he passed in the asylum at Charenton. His actual offenses were by no means so terrible as those he loved to dwell on in imagination, and for the most part they have been greatly exaggerated. His most extreme offenses were the indecent and forcible flagellation in 1768 of a young woman, Rosa Keller, who had accosted him in the street for alms, and whom he induced by false pretenses to come to his house, and the administration of aphrodisiacal bonbons to some prostitutes at Marseilles. It is owing to the fact that the prime of his manhood was spent in prisons that De Sade fell back on dreaming, study, and novel-writing. Shut out from real life, he solaced his imagination with the perverted visions--to a very large extent, however, founded on knowledge of the real facts of perverted life in his time--which he has recorded in _Justine_ (1781); _Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'Ecole du Libertinage_ (1785); _Aline et Valcour ou le Roman Philosophique_ (1788); _Juliette_ (1796); _La Philosophie dans le Boudoir_ (1795). These books constitute a sort of encyclopedia of sexual perversions, an eighteenth century _Psychopathia Sexualis_, and embody, at the same time, a philosophy. He was the first, Bloch remarks, who realized the immense importance of the sexual question. His general attitude may be illustrated by the following passage (as quoted by Lacassagne): "If there are beings in the world whose acts shock all accepted prejudices, we must not preach at them or punish them...because their bizarre tastes no more depend upon themselves than it depends on you whether you are witty or stupid, well made or hump-backed...What would become of your laws, your morality, your religion, your gallows, your Paradise, your gods, your hell, if it were shown that such and such fluids, such fibers, or a certain acridity in the blood, or in the animal spirits, alone suffice to make a man the object of your punishments or your rewards?" He was enormously well read, Bloch points out, and his interest extended to every field of literature: _belles lettres_, philosophy, theology, politics, sociology, ethnology, mythology, and history. Perhaps his favorite reading was travels. He was minutely familiar with the bible, though his attitude was extremely critical. His favorite philosopher was Lamettrie, whom he very frequently quotes, and he had carefully studied Machiavelli.
De Sade had foreseen the Revolution; he was an ardent admirer of Marat, and at this period he entered into public life as a mild, gentle, rather bald and gray-haired person. Many scenes of the Revolution were the embodiment in real life of De Sade's imagination; such, for instance, were the barbaric tortures inflicted, at the instigation of Théroigne de Méricourt, on La Belle Bouquetière. Yet De Sade played a very peaceful part in the events of that time, chiefly as a philanthropist, spending much of his time in the hospitals. He saved his parents-in-law from the scaffold, although they had always been hostile to him, and by his moderation aroused the suspicions of the revolutionary party, and was again imprisoned. Later he wrote a pamphlet against Napoleon, who never forgave him and had him shut up in Charenton as a lunatic; it was a not unusual method at that time of disposing of persons whom it was wished to put out of the way, and, notwithstanding De Sade's organically abnormal temperament, there is no reason to regard him as actually insane. Royer-Collard, an eminent alienist of that period, then at the head of Charenton, declared De Sade to be sane, and his detailed report is still extant. Other specialists were of the same opinion. Bloch, who quotes these opinions (_Neue Forschungen_, etc., p. 370), says that the only possible conclusion is that De Sade was sane, but neurasthenic, and Eulenburg also concludes that he cannot be regarded as insane, although he was highly degenerate. In the asylum he amused himself by organizing a theater. Lacroix, many years later, questioning old people who had known him, was surprised to find that even in the memory of most virtuous and respectable persons he lived merely as an "_aimable mauvais sujet_." It is noteworthy that De Sade aroused, in a singular degree, the love and devotion of women,--whether or not we may regard this as evidence of the fascination exerted on women by cruelty. Janin remarks that he had seen many pretty little letters written by young and charming women of the great world, begging for the release of the "_pauvre marquis_."
Sardou, the dramatist, has stated that in 1855 he visited the Bicêtre and met an old gardener who had known De Sade during his reclusion there. He told that one of the marquis's amusements was to procure baskets of the most beautiful and expensive roses; he would then sit on a footstool by a dirty streamlet which ran through the courtyard, and would take the roses, one by one, gaze at them, smell them with a voluptuous expression, soak them in the muddy water, and fling them away, laughing as he did so. He died on the 2d of December, 1814, at the age of 74. He was almost blind, and had long been a martyr to gout, asthma, and an affection of the stomach. It was his wish that acorns should be planted over his grave and his memory effaced. At a later period his skull was examined by a phrenologist, who found it small and well formed; "one would take it at first for a woman's head." The skull belonged to Dr. Londe, but about the middle of the century it was stolen by a doctor who conveyed it to England, where it may possibly yet be found. [The foregoing account is mainly founded on Paul Lacroix, _Revue de Paris_, 1837, and _Curiosités de l'Histoire de France_, second series, _Procès Célèbres_, p. 225; Janin, _Revue de Paris_, 1834; Eugen Dühren (Iwan Bloch), _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, third edition, 1901; id., _Neue Forschungen über den Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 1904; Lacassagne, _Vacher l'Eventreur et les Crimes Sadiques_, 1899; Paul Ginisty, _La Marquise de Sade_, 1901.]
The attempt to define sadism strictly and penetrate to its roots in De Sade's personal temperament reveals a certain weakness in the current conception of this sexual perversion. It is not, as we might infer, both from the definition usually given and from its probable biological heredity from primitive times, a perversion due to excessive masculinity. The strong man is more apt to be tender than cruel, or at all events knows how to restrain within bounds any impulse to cruelty; the most extreme and elaborate forms of sadism (putting aside such as are associated with a considerable degree of imbecility) are more apt to be allied with a somewhat feminine organization. Montaigne, indeed, observed long ago that cruelty is usually accompanied by feminine softness.