Exhibitionism—­Illustrative Cases—­A Symbolic Perversion of Courtship—­The Impulse to Defile—­The Exhibitionist’s Psychic Attitude—­The Sexual Organs as Fetichs—­Phallus Worship—­Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development—­Exhibitionism of the Nates—­The Classification of the Forms of Exhibitionism—­Nature of the Relationship of Exhibitionism to Epilepsy.

There is a remarkable form of erotic symbolism—­very definite and standing clearly apart from all other forms—­in which sexual gratification is experienced in the simple act of exhibiting the sexual organ to persons of the opposite sex, usually by preference to young and presumably innocent persons, very often children.  This is termed exhibitionism.[54] It would appear to be a not very infrequent phenomenon, and most women, once or more in their lives, especially when young, have encountered a man who has thus deliberately exposed himself before them.

The exhibitionist, though often a young and apparently vigorous man, is always satisfied with the mere act of self-exhibition and the emotional reaction which that act produces; he makes no demands on the woman to whom he exposes himself; he seldom speaks, he makes no effort to approach her; as a rule, he fails even to display the signs of sexual excitation.  His desires are completely gratified by the act of exhibition and by the emotional reaction it arouses in the woman.  He departs satisfied and relieved.

A case recorded by Schrenck-Notzing very well represents both the nature of the impulse felt by the exhibitionist and the way in which it may originate.  It is the case of a business man of 49, of neurotic heredity, an affectionate husband and father of a family, who, to his own grief and shame, is compelled from time to time to exhibit his sexual organs to women in the street.  As a boy of 10 a girl of 12 tried to induce him to coitus; both had their sexual parts exposed.  From that time sexual contacts, as of his own naked nates against those of a girl, became attractive, as well as games in which the boys and girls in turn marched before each other with their sexual parts exposed, and also imitation of the copulation of animals.  Coitus was first practiced about the age of 20, but sight and touch of the woman’s sexual parts were always necessary to produce sexual excitement.  It was also necessary—­and this consideration is highly important as regards the development of the tendency to exhibition—­that the woman should be excited by the sight of his organs.  Even when he saw or touched a woman’s parts orgasm often occurred.  It was the naked sexual organs in an otherwise clothed body which chiefly excited him.  He was not possessed of a high degree of potency.  Girls between the ages of 10 and 17 chiefly excited him, and especially if he felt that they were quite ignorant of sexual matters.  His self-exhibition was a sort of psychic defloration, and it was accompanied by the idea that other people