In a short time he developed into a genuine Don Juan. At 16 years of age he had already become a full-fledged woman hunter and succeeded in attracting his high school professor’s wife as his sweetheart. He went after every woman, young or old, pretty or plain. He claims that old women have yielded the highest pleasures and shows me a letter in which Franklin advises young men to cling to old women. But this pronounced gerontophiliac tendency does not prevent him from having relations with girls below age, almost children. His whole thought, night and day, was concentrated upon women. His first thought upon rising in the morning usually was: “What adventures await me today?” If he finds himself in a room with a woman alone invariably he thinks: “How can I get her?” Every woman he gets hold of he looks upon merely as a means for gratification and soon tires of her. With the exception of one elderly woman whom he occasionally visits he has not kept up with any woman longer than a few weeks. Often after the first intercourse he feels disgust for his new sexual partner and thinks to himself: “You are not any different than the others!” Since his 16th year he has had intercourse almost daily and often several times a day. He was 32 years of age when he first met his present wife. Her father was his superior at the office, a man for whom he had the very highest respect. (“There are not many such men as he.”) He married the man’s daughter, whom he held high in esteem high above all others of her sex, and it was a very happy marriage. His only fear was that his wife would find out about his amorous escapades. For no woman was safe near him and even during the early part of their married life he kept up sexual relations with their cook. Finally he managed to control himself at least to the extent of avoiding any escapades under his own roof so as to be more sure of keeping his wife in ignorance of his amorous proclivities. But he always kept on the string a lot of women and girls who were at his disposal whenever he wanted any of them.

He became acquainted with a young man whom he liked a great deal. But there was one thing about that young man which repelled him: he was homosexual and proud of it. This was something he could not understand and he endeavored very zealously to rouse in his friend a love for women. He failed completely; on the other hand his new friend introduced him to the local homosexual circle, in which he became interested merely as a “cultural problem.” He frequented a café where homosexuals were in the habit of congregating and noticed that many among them were of pronounced intellectual caliber. He was particularly impressed by the fact that their common peculiarity levelled so completely persons of different social standing. A Count met a waiter or post office clerk as cordially as he would a most intimate friend. A few weeks later he met the sister of his new friend and fell deeply in love with her at first sight. That was his tremendous attachment.

It was plain that contact with the homosexuals had released some of the inhibitions which had kept back his own latent homosexuality and the latter trait now threatened to overpower him. There was but one safeguard against that, namely: flight into love. The attachment to his friend became now a passionate love for his friend’s sister, who resembled her brother very closely. During coitus with his new sweetheart it occurred to him early to give up succubus, and to try the anal form of gratification, and this produced in him tremendous orgasm such as he had never before experienced.

His wife was informed through anonymous letters of the state of affairs. Moreover he had become very weak in his sexual relations with her and was able to carry on his marital duties only with greatest difficulty.

Psychoanalysis brought wonderful results in this case. He learned quickly to recognise his emotional fixations and only wondered that he was too blind not to have seen for himself that he really loved the brother through that woman. He broke with the actress in a dignified manner. He proposed that if she should give up her intimate relations with all other men he would keep his word and marry her. He still loved her but he was no longer in the dark. She laughed in his face. Did he really think that he could meet the cost of her wardrobe and other needs? That put an end to the attachment. He was ashamed afterwards to think that he should have preferred such a woman to his wife. The analysis of a remarkable dream brought about the complete severing of his infantile fixations.

The dream: I am with Otto—that was his friend’s name—in a room. He walks up to me and says: “Don’t you see that I love you and want you!” I try to avoid his love pats and draw a revolver out of my pocket. I hold it high and am ready to shoot my friend. But instead of my friend I see standing before me my son, and my boy’s sincere blue eyes look up at me imploringly: ‘Protect me!’ I throw down the revolver and run out of the room.

His young friend resembled somewhat his boy to whom he was specially devoted just before the unfortunate love affair....

This case shows that sometimes a great and passionate love arises to save the lover from himself. There are times when it becomes necessary to love and then the object of one’s love, though falling short of the actual yearnings of one’s soul, becomes emotionally overvalued so that the intoxication of love leads to forgetfulness (like every other intoxication). Any love affair which breaks out during later life rouses the suspicion that it is an attempt to save one’s self with all one’s might from homosexuality. The characteristic signs of such a love are its exaggerated and compulsory character. The lovesick man is unable to keep away from his sweetheart; he wants to have her by his side all the time; she must accompany him everywhere; even in sleep he puts his hand out to his sweetheart as if to protect him from every temptation. And I have seen cases in which the curious infatuation was able to withstand all opposition when it must be looked upon as a successful healing process.

In the course of analysis it not infrequently happens that those who call for advice transfer their attachment to their consultant, feel tremendously attached to him and in this state of emotional readiness the first woman who happens along becomes the object of their most intense love emotion as the shortest way out of a sexual danger. The sexual danger in question is homosexuality.

Don Juan, Cassanova, Retif de la Bretonne,—all flee from man and seek salvation in woman. Retif is a foot fetichist. The choice of this fetich, typically bisexual, already indicates latent homosexuality. Insatiable woman hunters often end their flight away from homosexuality by falling into the deepest neuroses.

The next case history illustrated this fact:

G. K., a prominent inventor, 32 years of age, consults me for a number of remarkable compulsory acts which he must always carry out before retiring for the night. He must prove about twenty times to make sure that the doors are all locked. Then he goes through the house and submits every foot of the place to the most painfully detailed and careful search to make sure that no burglar is hidden anywhere. He looks not only under the beds but into every box and drawer and closet, opening and closing each one in turn, and very carefully. One can never tell where a burglar may hide himself! By the time he has concluded this search it is nearly midnight. The terribly arduous procedure fatigues him for he has to look everywhere, emptying even the book cases in the course of his search for fear that the burglar may be hidden back of the books, and it is midnight when he crawls into bed, although he begins his preparations around ten o’clock. Then he is usually tormented with doubt whether he has done everything. It occurs to him that he did not go into the nursery at all, where his three children are asleep. The boy’s room, too, has not been searched. Jumping out of bed he lights a candle and in his night toilette makes his way to the children’s rooms, unable to rest any longer. The girls are already accustomed to seeing him that way, nevertheless they jump out of their sleep scared. In his white nightgown, like a shadow, he moves from place to place with lighted candle in hand, looks under the children’s bed, under the servant girl’s bed and incidentally makes sure that no man lies by her side in bed. During these rounds every door and every window is tried whether it is safely locked. It is now long past midnight. Exhausted he returns to his bed. Again various doubts begin to torture him: did or did he not try this, or that, or the other particular door, is the gasometer safely turned off, and again in his thoughts he rehearses every detail. His logical faculty tells him: you have done everything, you need not have any further concern, it is high time you went to sleep! But logic is powerless when his doubts overpower him. Again he rises and takes a few additional precautions which I need not detail here. Thus it may be three or four o’clock in the morning and even later before he is finally through. Then he lies down in his wife’s bed and wakes her up. Only after coitus, which he carries out regularly every night, he falls asleep. But by that time the night is over and the dawn is just breaking. He remains in bed exhausted, often sleeping till past the noon hour, much to his wife’s disgust. The whole house is in uproar. The children wake up but are taken to another wing of the house because “papa is asleep and must not be waked up!” As he is very wealthy, he has his way. The servants are paid extra well so that they are willing to put up with “that queer household.” Afternoons he is at work in his chemical laboratory. His researches have made him famous. He is a very capable chemist, possessing wonderful ideas and his patents have brought him a great fortune.

In addition to all that he is obsessed by another compulsory thought, which seems very extraordinary. Continually he wants to know how everybody likes his wife and whether she is still considered a pretty woman. Regard for her appearance is his greatest concern. Many afternoons he spends with her in the fitting rooms of modistes and tailors. He reproaches her for not knowing how to dress tastily, and scolds her because she does not take proper care of herself. On the other hand he is entirely indifferent regarding the manner of her appearance in the house. He is greatly concerned only with the impression his wife makes upon other men. It also disturbs him if other women do not find his wife beautiful but he worries more if men fail to notice her. As he dreads evenings he spends the time in the company of friends. (Thus the ceremonial on retiring is delayed and he sleeps to a late hour into the day.)

His chief thought is his wife’s appearance. If a man says to him: “Your wife is charming today!” or if some stranger says to him: “Who is that beautiful woman?” as has actually happened at balls and entertainments he feels supremely happy. Or, if he introduces his wife to some man who gallantly remarks later: “I did not know that you had such a charming wife!” his happiness knows no bounds and his wife has a good time in consequence. The very next day he buys her a costly gem, he is tender with her and bestows upon her pleasant flatteries.

But, on the other hand, if he sees that his wife passes unobserved in a crowd, or if there is some other pretty woman in the room, he feels unhappy. Then he meets his wife with severest reproaches because she does not know how to dress attractively, he growls, and raves, and is angry for several days until another event takes place and his wife is again noticed by men and women when he quiets down. He cannot endure to hear that some other man also has a pretty wife. He does not rest until he meets that woman and is happy if some one says to him: “Your wife is really prettier.” But if he hears that another woman is praised and his wife is not mentioned at same time he feels again very depressed and his wife pays unpleasantly for it. His uncles—he has no brothers—all have pretty women. His chief concern is to find out whether his wife is really the prettiest. He asks this question frequently of his acquaintances, in an offhand manner of course, for he would not have them suspect his feelings for anything in the world and the opinion of a man towards whom he is otherwise completely indifferent often determines his disposition for the whole day. He is happy if he notices that some one is making love to his wife. On the other hand it troubles him if he sees there are young men around and they fail to gather around his wife. He is not jealous because he knows his wife well, can trust her and, besides, she is never alone. She is either with him or in her mother’s company. That is why he is very happy to see men gather around her. He goes with her wherever any beauty contests are on and spends a great deal of money to make sure that his wife will win the prize. If another woman is the winner it makes him unhappy and he genuinely envies the man who possesses or will possess such a woman.

In spite of all that, the man is a Don Juan and was never true to his marital vows. He maintains a second house where he receives girls and also such of his friends’ wives as find favor in his eyes and are willing to accept his attentions. As he is a well preserved, stately man of most attractive appearance he is very lucky with women.

Besides that he receives a number of girls in his laboratory where he has fitted out a room for this purpose. Not a day passes in which he does not possess some woman—any woman—in addition to his wife. He looks well, though occasionally a little pale, feels physically very fresh and energetic. He works really but two or three hours a day. In this brief time he accomplishes more than other men in a day’s grind.

The character of his sexual gratification is noteworthy. While carrying out normal coitus with his wife, with the girls and other women he indulges in the kind of practices which furnish him the greatest orgasm. He gives them his phallus which they take hold of, and kisses them, dum puella membrum erectum tenet et premit. He carries out coitus if the partner requests it. But the act is interrupted and again exchanged for hand manipulation. As he is a very potent man, he is able to satisfy the woman and still has time to withdraw his penis before ejaculation and put it in the woman’s hand to be manipulated by her. There have been also various other indulgences. He has tried everything. The form of gratification just mentioned he prefers to all others. A certain feeling of shame has prevented him from asking his wife to do it for him.

His anamnesis is very fragmentary. He remembers no particular incidents of childhood or early youth. He began to masturbate very early and up to the time of his marriage masturbated regularly every night before falling asleep. Already before marriage he had had such compulsory habits, but usually he was through his bed time searching in about one half hour. At any rate he masturbated daily even when he had intercourse with women. He never took women to his house. They always came to his laboratory. He is greatly attached to his mother who is yet a very attractive woman and shows great veneration for his father who brought him up with strict but just discipline and who showed some light neurotic peculiarities.

He recalls no homosexual episodes. He masturbated excessively and began intercourse with women at 18 years of age; after that he rapidly became a confirmed woman hunter but he developed a very particular taste. All his women had to be very fair, have a pretty, round, strongly feminine figure, a delicate tint and be, above all, very beautiful. Yet a very white and smooth skin would make up for the lack of other points of beauty in his eyes. With the perfectly white face he required dark, fiery eyes. This type of beauty seems to coincide with his mother’s who was a remarkably attractive woman and who to this day carries with great dignity the obvious signs of her former great beauty.

He had also certain antifetichistic peculiarities. If he notices hair on a woman’s body, for instance, at once she loses all attractiveness in his eyes. Such a woman he finds as disgusting as a woman with a mustache. Equally disgusting to him are all women with sharp figures and no breasts such as remind one of a man. “A woman should be a woman,” is his favorite remark. He despises all “blue stockings” and emancipated women and has requested his wife to drop the acquaintanceship of a friend of hers who had taken an interest in various women’s movements.

In the course of the analysis he refers continually first of all to his wife. According to him he has married an angel of patience. It takes great love to endure this man’s moods and whims. But the wife loves him devotedly and has learned to stand everything from him because she knew that he loved her and she said to herself: every man has his peculiarities. She was contented and the house vibrated with her happy laughter. If he troubled her with his foolish reproaches she did not pout for long. On the contrary she soon smiled forgiveness so that their married life was really a model.

He insists that his wife is an ideal person. When early in the course of analysis one confesses such a deep affection, the opposite feeling, scorn, is sure to become disclosed before long. First the advantages,—then the disadvantages. But this woman seemed to have no unpleasant component in her nature. He could tell only favorable things about her and about his concern regarding her beauty.

But before long—in the course of a few weeks—the tone of his talk changed. There was another trauma about which he felt he must tell me, something of tremendous significance which had shattered his whole married life. At the time of his marriage he had resolved nothing less than to give up his Don Juan adventures and to be true to his wife. Just before marriage he had been carrying on with six different girls at the same time and it kept him on the jump to keep each woman from finding out about the others. He wanted to live quietly after marriage and be true to his wife. He had also resolved solemnly to give up masturbation after marriage. As a married man this would be easy,—instead of masturbating before going to sleep he would have intercourse with his wife.

Before the marriage ceremony he became obsessed with the thought that his bride might have hair growing on her breasts. That would be unbearable. He was on the point of demanding that his bride should be examined by a physician but, as a man of high standing, he was ashamed to make such a suggestion. During the bridal night he discovered a few light hairs on her breast and a light soft down on her abdomen. He was so shocked that he would have wanted to send her back to her parents. For months after that he was very unhappy and every night he wept over his misfortune. His great hope, to find a woman who would take the place of all other women in his life, was gone.

This notion about his wife’s hairs made him most unhappy and prevented his moral resurrection. He had planned to turn a new leaf. But he continued to feel himself irresistibly attracted to beautiful white women with marble-like smooth skin and no hair to remind one of a man’s body.

The most remarkable feature, characteristic of the whole case is the fact last mentioned.

The man is avowedly bisexual with a strong leaning towards homosexuality. This homosexual trend was gratified up till that time through masturbation—as he has pointed out. He sought contact with fully developed women, to forget man. He wanted a very beautiful wife because he imagined her beauty would serve to drive away from him all thought of man and to focus his libido exclusively upon her. He wanted to have the prettiest woman in the world: Helen. If his wife’s appearance pleased other men, this so roused the homosexual component of his libido that he enjoyed sexual intercourse with her more keenly. Above all he wanted to avoid the thought of man. The anxiety on account of man came over him particularly before retiring at night and it was a morbid anxiety over masturbation at the same time. In his head, within his brain, man was a living thought, something that threatened him and demanded release. But this was also something his consciousness refused to recognize and therefore the thought of man tortured him and he could not fall asleep. He projected this intruder into his room and it led him to search his empty closets for a non-existent man, as if saying to himself: I have no trace of any homosexual leaning whatever! That is what he actually told me when I referred to the homosexual significance of his compulsory acts: such a Don Juan as I! I have devoted myself completely to woman. The thought of man is repulsive to me.

I explained to him that disgust is but a hidden form of longing. If he were indifferent to the thought of man it would be more convincing.

“Well then, I am indifferent to the thought.”

Thus he tried to convince me that he was not homosexual. But we conceive that the hairs he discovered upon his wife’s body reminded him of the fatal homosexuality. He felt so unhappy over it he was considering a separation on that account. Whatever reminded him of man was painfully unpleasant to him. He threw himself into love adventures to forget man. He gave up his clubs and male companions because he wanted to be all the time in the company of his wife.

I pass over for the present the further significance of his neurosis as disclosed by the analysis of his dreams. I shall only give an example illustrating how untrustworthy are the statements of those who attempt to give an account of their lives and insist that they remember everything accurately. This or that particular kind of incident, they are sure, has never occurred in their life. Regarding sexual matters all men lie consciously, unconsciously and half-consciously.

After further, continuously progressive analysis the subject himself came to the conclusion that he must have been struggling against homosexuality. Now he understood his sudden decision to get married, after having maintained right along that he would remain a bachelor. He was interested at the time in a laboratory assistant, a young man with pretty rosy cheeks. He showered gifts upon that young man and planned to give him an education so as to have a friend always close to him. The first compulsory acts appeared at the time. He married, felt unhappy for a time but for a few years he lived at least a relatively quiet life. Then another man came into his life destroying his peace of mind, a man who had lived for some time in foreign countries and now returned to his fatherland. This was an uncle.

Now he recalls something of which he had not thought for many years—for he was going to keep this from me,—namely, that he had maintained certain intimacy with this uncle for about a year. They lived in a boarding house where they occupied a room together. The uncle always came to lie in his bed and they played with each other before falling asleep.

His uncle carried out the kind of manipulations which he now required of his women lovers: manual gratification. During his relations with his wife, however, he wanted to avoid all thought of homosexuality; she should not practice this form of gratification for him nor should her body remind him of homosexuality. She must save him of the burden of homosexuality which still plagued him under the form of onanism.

After resurrecting this memory a mass of other homosexual data came trooping forth out of his past.

This man was strongly bisexual from childhood with particular predisposition towards the male sex. As a child he did crocheting and showed various female characteristics. After the onset of puberty his homosexuality was strongly repressed, persisting chiefly under the guise of onanism. For the act of masturbation takes place just before falling asleep in a half dreamy state during which he thinks, though indistinctly, of his uncle and of other men. The latent homosexuality was the most important factor in his neurosis.

The result of the analysis was most gratifying in this case. The subject soon abandoned his compulsory acts and was able to sleep quietly. His life became regular; he ceased being a Don Juan. He allowed his wife to carry out those manipulations which seemed essential for his orgasm and for his peace of mind. Occasionally I see him.

These observations show that in the dynamics of the “polygamic neurosis,” homosexuality plays a tremendous role. The observation that every love is really self-love receives new confirmation. Don Juan seeks himself in woman and finds in her that femininity which has turned him into a Don Juan.

In his book (Don Juan, Cassanova and other Erotic Characters) already mentioned (Stuttgart, 1906), Oskar A. H. Schmitz states:

“Cassanova would not begrudge woman the possession of all those traits which are called ‘male,’ through ignorance, just as he himself has been described as possessing many female traits. The division of mankind in men and women is a great convenience. But he who undertakes to investigate erotic problems to their bottom must bear in mind that there are no absolute male and female persons any more than there are persons who are purely quick tempered, good-natured, envious, Germans or Semites. All these designations, like Theophrast’s characters, represent so many psychic elements which must have a name. But they are met only in various combinations which may be compared and contrasted with chemical combinations. I believe it is noticeable that men of overstressed virility do not necessarily appeal to women, who find them, instead, partly repulsive, partly amusing. On the other hand it is certainly true that all female tempters were remarkable for their intellect and wit—some of them were veritable amazons intellectually—and we note in our own day with great reason the disappearance of the “crampon” together with the leaning instinct of Epheus. Even the disappearance of Don Juan may be due partly to his overstressed virile characteristics. The erotic temperament includes a number of female traits; such peculiarities as tenderness, vanity, talkativeness need not interfere with his amorous adventures.”