But a fetichism, while it
tends to occur in sensitive, nervous, timid, precocious individuals--that
is to say, individuals of more or less neuropathic heredity--can usually,
though not always, be traced to a definite starting point in the shock of
some sexually emotional episode in early life.
A few examples of the influences of such association may here be
given, referring miscellaneously to various forms of erotic
symbolism. Magnan has recorded the case of a hair-fetichist,
living in a district where the women wore their hair done up, who
at the age of 15 experienced pleasurable feelings with erection
at the sight of a village beauty combing her hair; from that time
flowing hair became his fetich, and he could not resist the
temptation to touch it and if possible sever it, thus becoming a
hair-despoiler, for which he was arrested but not sentenced.
(_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, vol. v, No. 28.)
I have elsewhere recorded the history of a boy of 14, having
already had imperfect connection with a grown-up woman, who
associated much with a young married lady; he had no sexual
relations with her, but one day she urinated in his presence, and
he saw that her mons veneris was covered by very thick hair; from
that time he worshiped this woman in secret and acquired a
life-long fetichistic attraction to women whose pubic hair was
similarly abundant (_Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72