Note 33 — JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

The physical repugnance of true Urnings for women may be illustrated by passages from three of Krafft-Ebing's cases (pp. 117, 123, 163), which I will translate. (1) "I had observed that a girl was madly in love with me, and longed intensely to yield herself up to me. I gave her an assignation in my house, hoping that I should succeed better with a girl who sought me out of love than I had with public women. After her first fiery caresses, I did indeed feel a little less frigid; but when it came to thinking about copulation, all was over—the same stark frost set in, and my part was played out. I sent her away, deeply excited, with some moral remarks; and I have never tried the like experiments again. On all these occasions the specific odour of the female added to my horror." (2) "The proximity of wenches aroused in me qualms and nausea; in particular I could not bear to smell them." (3) "It seems to me absurd to set up the female form as the prototype of human beauty. I regard a woman's person as displeasing, the formation of her hips as ugly and unæsthetic. Dancing is therefore an abomination to me. I loathe the odour which the so-called fair sex exhales when heated by the dance." The disgust inspired in these three Urnings by the smell of the female is highly significant; since we know that the sense of smell acts powerfully upon the sexual appetite of normal individuals. It may be remarked that in all the instances of pronounced Urnings, sexual congress with women seems to have been followed with disgust, nervous exhaustion, and the sense of an unnatural act performed without pleasure. This is true even of those who have brought themselves to marriage.