III. ACTS AND ATTITUDES.--_A. Active:_ Whipping, cruelty, exhibitionism.
_B. Passive:_ Being whipped, experiencing cruelty. Personal odors and the
sound of the voice may be included under this head. _C. Mixoscopic:_ The
vision of climbing, swinging, etc. The acts of urination and defecation.
The coitus of animals.
Although the three main groups into which the phenomena of erotic
symbolism are here divided may seem fairly distinct, they are yet very
closely allied, and indeed overlap, so that it is possible, as we shall
see, for a single complex symbol to fall into all three groups.
A very complete kind of erotic symbolism is furnished by Pygmalionism or
the love of statues.[12] It is exactly analogous to the child's love of a
doll, which is also a form of sexual (though not erotic) symbolism. In a
somewhat less abnormal form, erotic symbolism probably shows itself in its
simplest shape in the tendency to idealize unbeautiful peculiarities in a
beloved person, so that such peculiarities are ever afterward almost or
quite essential in order to arouse sexual attraction. In this way men have
become attracted to limping women. Even the most normal man may idealize a
trifling defect in a beloved woman.
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