[27] Fere, Comptes-Rendus Societe de Biologie, July 23, 1904.

[28] Transactions of the International Medical Congress, Moscow, vol. iv, p. 19.  A similar symbolism may be traced in many of the cases in which the focus of modesty becomes in modest women centered in the excretory sphere and sometimes exaggerated to the extent of obsession.  It must not be supposed, however, that every obsession in this sphere has a symbolical value of an erotic kind.  In the case, for instance, which has been recorded by Raymond and Janet (Les Obsessions, vol. ii, p. 306) of a woman who spent much of her time in the endeavor to urinate perfectly, always feeling that she failed in some respect, the obsession seems to have risen fortuitously on a somewhat neurotic basis without reference to the sexual life.

[29] Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem.  III, Subs.  I.

[30] It may be remarked here that while the eating of excrement (apart from its former use as a magic charm and as a therapeutic agent) is in civilization now confined to sexual perverts and the insane, among some animals it is normal as a measure of hygiene in relation to their young.  Thus, as, e.g., the Rev. Arthur East writes, the mistle thrush swallows the droppings of its young. (Knowledge, June 1, 1899, p. 133.) In the dog I have observed that the bitch licks her puppies shortly after birth as they urinate, absorbing the fluid.

[31] See, e.g., the previous volume of these Studies, “Sexual Selection in Man,” pp. 165 et seq., and Duehren, Geschlechtsleben in England, bd. ii, pp. 258, et seq.

[32] In the study of Love and Pain in a previous volume (p. 130) I have quoted the remarks of a lady who refers to the analogy between sexual tension and vesical tension—­“Cette volupte que ressentent les bords de la mer, d’etre toujours pleins sans jamais deborder”—­and its erotic significance.

IV.

Animals as Sources of Erotic Symbolism—­Mixoscopic Zoophilia—­The
Stuff-fetichisms—­Hair-fetichism—­The Stuff-fetichisms Mainly on a Tactile
Base—­Erotic Zoophilia—­Zooerastia—­Bestiality—­The Conditions that Favor
Bestiality—­Its Wide Prevalence Among Primitive Peoples and Among
Peasants—­The Primitive Conception of Animals—­The Goat—­The Influence of
Familiarity with Animals—­Congress Between Women and Animals—­The Social
Reaction Against Bestiality.

The erotic symbols with which we have so far been concerned have in every case been portions of the body, or its physiological processes, or at least the garments which it has endowed with life.  The association on which the symbol has arisen has in every case been in large measure, although not entirely, an association of contiguity.  It is now necessary to touch on a group of sexual symbols in which the association of contiguity with the human body is absent:  the various methods by which animals or animal products or the sight of animal copulation may arouse sexual desire in human persons.  Here we encounter a symbolism mainly founded on association by resemblance; the animal sexual act recalls the human sexual act; the animal becomes the symbol of the human being.