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

PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXwhat is necessary/' as one such said, "for an exchange ofimpressions." "What are they thinking? What do they sayto each other about me? Oh! how I should like to know!"A patient of Garnier's, who haunted churches for this purpose,made the significant statement: "Why do I like goingto churches? I can scarcely say. But I know that it is onlythere that my act has its full importance. The woman is ina devout frame of mind, and she must see that such an actin such a placeisnot a joke in bad taste or a disgustingit isobscenity; that if I go there it is not to amuse myself;more serious than that! I watch the effect produced on thefaces of the ladies to whom I show my organs. I wish tosee them express a profound joy, I wish, in fact, that theymay be forced to say to themselves: How impressive Natureis when thus seen!" It is clear that we have here atrace of the same feeling which inspired ancient phallicworship, a feeling which is, indeed, sometimes found today,as Stanley Hall and others have pointed out, in youthsat adolescence, as well as in women, thoughit is normallyunder restraint and merely exists as a certain pride in thepossession of the fully developed male or female attributes.That is why exhibitionism is in its most nearly normalforms a youthful manifestation. Norwood East found thatasmany as 57 of his 150 cases, over one-third, were below25 years of age, the number gradually diminishing at successivelater ages, while the great majority of the wholenumber are unmarried. That also iswhy so important agroup (40 in Norwood East's cases) can be termed "visionaries."That is to say they are cultivating youthful fantasiesof abnormal courtship, though, as East remarks, "innot a few one is reminded of the courtships of the farmyardand the love-antics and 'showingoff'indulged in bycertain animals."It isby a pseudo-atavism that this phallicism is openly