The Sexual Instinct and its Morbid Manifestations from the Double Standpoint of Jurisprudence and Psychiatry/General

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.

THE genesic instinct presents itself in the

human being previous to the development of

sexual maturity, and in a healthy organism

finds expression in an impulse towards persons

of the opposite sex, an impulse which soon

changes into a voluntary desire for the

accomplishment of the sexual act which, as

it becomes more developed, may attain to the

degree of a continual sexual want.

Among anomalies of the genesic functions

perversity of the genesic instinct shows itself

most distinctly in. a morbid inclination towards

persons of the same sex. Among men, who

form more exclusively the subject of the

present research, this form of sexual perversity

is designated by the comprehensive expression

of "Pederasty Bestiality and Sodomy are, as we shall see further on, no more than variations of the above-mentioned abnormal genesic impulse.

The pederastic manifestations constitute the

more definite and better studied group of

sexual aberrations, as they are more often

the subject of judicial investigation; and for

this reason the most prominent place is given

in the present work to Pederasty in the

widest sense of the expression.

But this vice must not be isolated in this

study, without considering also its connection

with the other forms and kinds of perversion

of sexual activity, which we shall therefore

also touch upon, as much as may be necessary for the elucidation of the subject.

As Pederasty is developed under the influence of very different causes, it must, as all other aberrations of the genesic sense, be distributed from the clinical and etiological points of view into several groups and kinds, differing considerably one from another.

The morbid manifestations of sexual activity

separate first of all into two great groups, according as they develop in such subjects as are from their birth disposed to such aberrations and to nervous disorders of all sorts, or on the other hand, show themselves in persons, relatively healthy, and who are not under the influence of hereditary infirmity.

In the first group the disorder of the

genesic functions is to be referred to a psychopathic or neuropathic constitution ; whereas in the second group we have to do with individuals, who from their birth have always enjoyed a properly constituted and normally acting nervous system.

The morbid symptoms again resulting from

hereditary infirmity also show themselves

under different forms.

In some cases they present themselves with

the very first awakening of the genesic instinct, and in their development remain refractory to the influence of education or example, attain their greatest intensity in the period of sexual maturity and manhood, and subsist during the rest of the lifetime, with periodical diminution or increase.

These aberrations are in their nature constant

and invariable, special to the particular organism, in precisely the same way as other innate peculiarities of character feeling or morality are special to the same individual.

The said disturbances constitute the first

kind of hereditary infirmity, which we will denominate in general innate Perversion of the sexual instinct; and in this group we shall class innate Pederasty.

To the second division of the same group

belong such modifications of the genesic activity as now and then show themselves nolens volens in the form of morbid attacks, which are separated by intervals, during which the sexual functions are performed in a normal manner.

The denomination periodical Perversion of

the genesic sense in general, and periodical

Pederasty in particular, appears to me best

to represent the morbid disturbances in question, because they are in perfect analogy with the so-called periodical psychoses (mental disturbances), those higher manifestations of psychical degeneracy, a degeneracy manifesting itself in occasional outbursts of mental disturbance, while there are long intervals between the attacks during which the mental powers exhibit a relatively normal activity.

In a third class of genesic disturbances I

reckon those disorders which show themselves

in the well-known morbid manifestations

known under the general name of Epilepsy. During the mental disturbance incidental to this malady, there may be exhibited a sort of psychical epilepsy, in the form of an epileptic pederasty.