) But when
so highly abnormal an act is felt as natural we are dealing with
a person who is congenitally defective so far as the finer
developments of intelligence are concerned. It was so in this
case of necrophily; he was the son of a weak-minded woman of
unrestrainable sexual inclinations, and was himself somewhat
feeble-minded; he was also, it is instructive to observe,
anosmic.
But it is by no means only their dulled sensibility or the absence of
women, which accounts for the frequency of bestiality among peasants. A
highly important factor is their constant familiarity with animals. The
peasant lives with animals, tends them, learns to know all their
individual characters; he understands them far better than he understands
men and women; they are his constant companions, his friends. He knows,
moreover, the details of their sexual lives, he witnesses the often highly
impressive spectacle of their coupling. It is scarcely surprising that
peasants should sometimes regard animals as being not only as near to them
as their fellow human beings, but even nearer.
The significance of the factor of familiarity is indicated by the great
frequency of bestiality among shepherds, goatherds, and others whose
occupation is exclusively the care of animals.
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