A professional man in
Strassburg (in a case reported by Hoche[59]) would walk about in the
evening in a long cloak, and when he met ladies would suddenly throw his
cloak back under a street lamp, or igniting a red-fire match, and thus
exhibit his organs. There was an evident effort--on the part of a weak,
vain, and effeminate man--to produce a maximum of emotional effect. The
attempt to heighten the emotional shock is also seen in the fact that the
exhibitionist frequently chooses a church as the scene of his exploits,
not during service, for he always avoids a concourse of people, but
perhaps toward evening when there are only a few kneeling women scattered
through the edifice. The church is chosen, often instinctively rather than
deliberately, from no impulse to commit a sacrilegious outrage--which, as
a rule, the exhibitionist does not feel his act to be--but because it
really presents the conditions most favorable to the act and the effects
desired. The exhibitionist's attitude of mind is well illustrated by one
of Garnier's patients who declared that he never wished to be seen by more
than two women at once, "just what is necessary," he added, "for an
exchange of impressions." After each exhibition he would ask himself
anxiously: "Did they see me? What are they thinking? What do they say to
each other about me? Oh! how I should like to know!" Another patient of
Garnier's, who haunted churches for this purpose, made this very
significant statement: "Why do I like going to churches? I can scarcely
say.
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