Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

SEXUAL DEVIATIONerr in attributing them to an unsound heredity. When thechild exhibits latent transformations of sexual impulse,likely to be harmful to himself or others such as algolagniacarried to the point of bloodshed or that form oftheft I term kleptolagnia we cannot be concerned witha child of sound heredity, and all our care is demandedin devising appropriate conditions for dealing with thecase, either therapeutic or hygienic. For we must alwaysremember that, in approaching such conditions, there aresome persons, who, by a peculiar twist of mind, seem in-of humancapable of appreciating the hereditary factorsactions, while others, by an equally peculiar but opposedtwist of mind, seem incapable of appreciating die acquiredfactors of human action. Both these kinds of peopledo useful work in the direction along which their line ofvision extends. But each alone is incapable of reaching asane and balanced picture of the whole mechanism oflife. We need to combine their two lines of vision in orderreally to see the object, and so be enabled to seek thecure for an anomaly in so far as it isacquired and tosecure the right conditions for it in so far as it is inbornand constitutional.There are two kinds of anomaly we mayoften find inthe early sex life, but with a tendency, under unfavorableconditions, to persist in adult life: the tendency to defectand the tendency to excess hypo-conditions and hyperconditions.Both kinds of anomaly are specially liable tooccur in a civilization like our own, where the stimulationsto sexual activity and the restrictions on that activityboth external and internal are alike so powerful. Theanomalies by defect(the hypo-esthesias and hypo-excitabilities)are less serious in early life than those by excess(the hyper-esthesias and hyper-excitabilities) for they maysimply indicate a development which is slow but quite