circumstances which are likely to introduce sexual associations.  From their earliest years children have been trained to fear whipping, even when not actually submitted to it, and an unjust punishment of this kind, whether inflicted on themselves or others, frequently arouses intense anger, nervous excitement, or terror in the sensitive minds of children.[117] Moreover, as has been pointed out to me by a lady who herself in early life was affected by the sexual associations of whipping, a child only sees the naked body of elder children when uncovered for whipping, and its sexual charm may in part be due to this cause.  We further have to remark that the spectacle of suffering itself is, to some extent and under some circumstances, a stimulant of sexual emotion.  It is evident that a number of factors contribute to surround whipping at a very early age with powerful emotional associations, and that these associations are of such a character that in predisposed subjects they are very easily led into a sexual channel.[118] Various lines of evidence support this conclusion.  Thus, from several reliable quarters I learn that the sight of a boy being caned at school may produce sexual excitement in the boys who look on.  The association of sexual emotion with whipping is, again, very liable to show itself in schoolmasters, and many cases have been recorded in which the flogging of boys, under the stress of this impulse, has been carried to extreme lengths.  An early and eminent example is furnished by Udall, the humanist, at one time headmaster of Eton, who was noted for his habit of inflicting frequent corporal punishment for little or no cause, and who confessed to sexual practices with the boys under his care.[119]

Sanitchenko has called attention to the case of a Russian functionary, a school inspector, who every day had some fifty pupils flogged in his presence, as evidence of a morbid pleasure in such scenes.  Even when no sexual element can be distinctly traced, scenes of whipping sometimes exert a singular fascination on some persons of sensitive emotional temperament.  A friend, a clergyman, who has read many novels tells me that he has been struck by the frequency with which novelists describe such scenes with much luxury of detail; his list includes novels by well-known religious writers of both sexes.  In some of these cases there is reason to believe that the writers felt this sexual association of whipping.

It is natural that an interest in whipping should be developed very early in childhood, and, indeed, it enters very frequently into the games of young children, and constitutes a much relished element of such games, more especially among girls.  I know of many cases in which young girls between 6 and 12 years of age took great pleasure in games in which the chief point consisted in unfastening each other’s drawers and smacking each other, and some of these girls, when they grew older, realized that there was an element of sexual enjoyment in their games.