50. Erotogenesis
6. EROTICISM
Monograph 50
EROTOGENESIS
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Erotogenesis
02—22
2.
Erotic Roles
23—37
3.
The Oral Concept in Eroticism
38—48
4.
Kyemetrophilia
49—61
5.
Palaeotropolagnia
62—66
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INTRODUCTION
01. Eroticism differs from other forms of hedonia not only in its faithful
re-enactment, in a concrete or physical form, of the oro-mammary relation with
the genital organs—the penis and the vagina—playing the parts of the breast and
the mouth, respectively, but also in its unique feature of having a climax in the
form of the orgasm. In this monograph we shall explore the psychogenesis of
eroticism: a multitude of relevant details will be dealt with in the other monographs
on eroticism and elsewhere.
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50. Erotogenesis
Chapter 1
EROTOGENESIS
02. In its widest sense, eroticism (erotophronesia) may be defined as one of
the three main forms of biophronesia, representing the reflection in awareness of
the biological genital (or reproductive) function, i.e. of all that may be conducive
to erotic stimulation (eroterethia) and orgasm. Eueroticism or eulagnia, i.e. normal
or euphronesic eroticism, which is the primary sense of ‘eroticism’, includes all
physical (or bodily) relations between a man and a woman which may be
conducive to coitus, i.e. to phallovaginal penetration and, typically, mutual orgasm,
this phallovaginal penetration, which is the essential feature of normal coitus,
being also the essential feature of eueroticism, so that in eueroticism the genital
function, potentially if not actually, serves the reproductive function. By contrast,
dyseroticism or dyslagnia, i.e. pathological or dysphronesic eroticism, is
characterized, with a few exceptions (e.g. certain forms of hypereroticism), by
the fact that the genital function does not, actually or potentially, serve the
reproductive function, either because of the pervasion of eroticism by
cosmophobia of any form (collectively known as erotophobia) or because the
gratification of eroticism excludes heterolagnic genital penetration, viz. because
it requires partners of the opposite sex but excludes genital penetration with
orgasm, or because it does not require any erotic partners, or because it requires
partners of the same sex. Psychogenetically, eroticism represents a special form
of idiophilia (in dyseroticism—apart from erotophobia—with a greater or lesser
admixture of aphilia and/or replacement by autophilia which is also a derivative
of metrophilia) in which metrophilia (or metropalinodophilia) is characterized
by quasi-conceptive (or kyesioid or pregnancy-like) devouring (kyemetrophilia
or kyemetropalinodophilia), i.e. devouring that is preservative (except in the
phthoristic forms), concrete (or practical or physical), and mainly in the form of
genital, primarily bigenital (or genital-to-genital), penetration.
03. This definition of eroticism calls for a number of explanations and
comments, of which the most important is the distinction between normal
(euphronesic) and pathological (dysphronesic) eroticism, with which we shall
start our comments. The subject of kyemetrophilia will be dealt with later.
The term ‘eroticism’ (adjective ‘erotic’) primarily refers to normal eroticism
or normal ‘physical sexuality’, to which we more specifically refer as
‘eueroticism’. This covers all bodily, or physical, relations between a man and a
woman which are, or which may be, conducive to coitus and mutual orgasm.
Thus the essence of normal eroticism in both sexes, like the essence of normal
coitus, is the act of heterolagnic bigenital (or allelaedeolagnic), viz. phallovaginal
(or phallocolpolagnic) penetration which, with the help of frictional, thrusting,
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myotonolagnic pelvic movements (‘coital movements’), culminates in mutual
orgasm. Thus, normally, the genital function, at least potentially, serves
reproduction. (The genital function may serve reproduction potentially rather
than actually because the regulation of conception and control of world population
must necessarily imply that in the vast majority of cases coitus is associated with
contraception.)
04. However, in a broader sense, ‘eroticism’ also includes pathological or
dysphronesic eroticism, i.e. dyseroticism or dyslagnia. The main characteristic
of dyseroticism is that in it the reflection in awareness of the reproductive function
does not, actually or potentially, serve the reproductive function. There are a few
exceptions to this, of which hypereroticism (in that form in which eroticism is
pathologically excessive but is qualitatively normal) is the most obvious, though
by no means the only, example. But apart from these few exceptions, dyseroticism
characteristically represents a spurious form of eroticism which fails to serve
reproduction. We have to regard dyseroticism (in all its various forms) as erotic
because, in typical cases, it is associated with the phenomena of eroterethia (e.g.
erection of the penis or clitoris) leading to orgasm though by means which cannot,
actually or potentially, serve reproduction. It is worth noting that in eueroticism
the basic desire is for a penetrative, bigenital, heterolagnic relation, hence the
fact that it serves reproduction, whereas in dyseroticism, despite the occurrence
in most cases of eroterethia and orgasm, this generally does not involve the genitals
of the opposite sex, at any rate not in the full sense of bigenital (phallovaginal)
penetration and orgasm. Of course dyseroticism frequently occurs only in a
partial or incomplete form, in which case it may coexist with normal eroticism
rather than completely exclude it. In fact autolagnia, which forms the basis of
most of the severer forms of dyseroticism, rarely occurs in an absolutely pure
form: it is most often combined with greater or lesser heterolagnia or homolagnia,
though the latter is itself essentially an autolagnic condition.
Obviously the most typical example of dyseroticism representing a spurious
form of eroticism is that of autolagnia in all its forms (including homolagnia) in
both sexes.
05. The distinction between eueroticism and dyseroticism may be more
difficult in the case of heterolagnia. The main criterion—viz. whether the function
of reproduction is (actually or potentially) served or not—may be easy to apply
where the disorder is in a complete form that excludes bigenital penetration, but
may be difficult to apply with precision where the phallovaginal relation is not
excluded. Since many of the unquestionably normal accessories of coitus become
pathological if they exclude the bigenital act itself, while many unquestionably
pathological conditions occurring in an incomplete (or partial) form do not exclude
the phallovaginal relation, it is obvious that there are cases in which other criteria
could be of assistance. Mere frequency of occurrence is not a criterion of normality
in the true euphronesic sense, i.e. by postphobophronesic standards, as is evident
from the whole study of prephobophronesia and phobophronesia, both of which,
though universal at a certain level of human mental evolution, are nevertheless
completely dysphronesic. One obvious criterion is that of the rational standards
of postphobophronesia: for example, phthorolagnia in all its forms and degrees
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is clearly dysphronesic. Yet another criterion comes from a different source: in
practice we often find that heterolagnic disorders which are apparently
quantitative, i.e. are apparently mere exaggerations of the normal, prove on closer
examination to be qualitatively (as well as quantitatively) different from their
euheterolagnic equivalents. For example, normal foot- and shoe-eroticism in
men is predominantly (in fact virtually exclusively) visual, whereas foot- and
shoe-hypereroticism usually proves to be, not only quantitatively excessive, but
also qualitatively different since it is generally predominantly osphreticolagnic
(or, to be more precise, hyperosphreticolagnic), often with an admixture of such
factors as hapticolagnia and geusticolagnia (as in the great erotic pleasure derived
from licking smelly feet and shoes), all of which (viz. the osphreticolagnia,
hapticolagnia, and geusticolagnia) are specifically related to the dirtiness and
smelliness of feet and shoes, and are therefore specifically coproidolagnic (i.e.
coproidaestheticolagnic), so that their dyserotic nature is in no doubt.
06. Euheterolagnic orgasm need not be limited to the phallovaginal relation
in every single case, since orgasm from cheiraedeolagnia and stomataedeolagnia
in both sexes may be enjoyed as a variation of the bigenital relation. However, if
such orgasm is habitually sought in preference to phallovaginal orgasm then the
condition is dyserotic. For example, few women, if they are free from
cosmophobic taboos, would not enjoy, or would not want to enjoy, orgasm from
stomatovulvolagnia; but this, which we must regard as euphronesic, is very
different from obviously dysphronesic cases (which are very common in
phobophronesic civilization) in which the woman actually finds orgasm from
stomatovulvolagnia more satisfying than orgasm from phallocolpolagnic
penetration, to say nothing of those women for whom stomatovulvolagnia and/
or cheirovulvolagnia are the sole means of orgasm in heterolagnic relations, with
total coital anorgastia. Thus although most women are capable of enjoying noncoital orgasm, euerotic women invariably find coital orgasm the most satisfying.
07. Even apparently normal coitus may prove to be dyserotic on closer
examination. For example, whereas in the history of many adept women reference
is made to the lover who introduced them to coitus with the woman sitting astride
the man—a position which, with experience, opens up a whole vista of new
erotic enjoyment for the woman as it allows her to use the man’s penis in every
physically possible way for her maximum erotic enjoyment (in terms of
endintroitolagnia, enduterolagnia, and myotonolagnia, etc.), all of which is
perfectly euphronesic—those women who can only have orgasm if they are above
the man in coitus usually prove to be dyserotic, viz. to be suffering from active
female heterolagnia, often in association with active homogynolagnia and/or
pragmophthorolagnia. Again, coitus from behind with the woman in the genupectoral position is perfectly euphronesic as a variation that allows the man certain
hapticolagnic and pragmoscopolagnic advantages, but men who use this position
habitually, more or less to the exclusion of the dorsal positions of the woman,
often prove to have a preference for the posterior position of penetration because
they associate it with coproidolagnia and pragmophthorolagnia, partly because
of the greater proximity and better exposure of the woman’s anal area, and partly
because they see in putting the woman in the ‘doggie position’ (or quadruped1257
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like position of copulation) a means of humiliating her in the pragmophthorolagnic
sense—and similar considerations may apply, mutatis mutandis, to the woman.
(In some cases the condition may progress to full phalloproctolagnia, which in
both sexes may serve the same tendencies, viz. coproidolagnia, including
proctolagnia (endoproctolagnia in the woman, exoproctolagnia in the man), and
phthorolagnia (apragmophthorolagnia in the woman, pragmophthorolagnia in
the man).) Even in coitus in the dorsal position of the woman, women who
report that their greatest enderotic stimulation and satisfaction is derived mainly
from the posterior rim of the vaginal introitus, i.e. the part nearest the rectum,
often prove to be endoproctolagnic, and some may eventually more or less overtly
demand phalloproctolagnia for more direct stimulation of the rectum.
08. Another point arising from the definition of eroticism is that relating to
the word ‘erotic’. Strictly speaking ‘erotic’ is the simple adjective from ‘eroticism’,
but unfortunately the word is often used loosely in the sense of ‘erotopoeic’, as
in describing a novel or film as being ‘highly erotic’.
A comment is necessary on the terms ‘sexuality’ and ‘eroticism’. By ‘sexuality’
we mean the state of belonging to one sex (i.e. being a man or a woman) and/or
the relations between the two sexes in the widest sense, which include social
relations as well as physical (or bodily) relations. ‘Eroticism’, as the reflection
in awareness of the reproductive function, is limited to physical sexuality, both
normal and pathological, the latter (as noted before) being often, strictly speaking,
asexual in the sense of not relating to relations between the two sexes, as in
autolagnia and homolagnia, which represent pathological physical sexuality whose
pathogenicity has rendered it asexual. Marriage is a sexual social institution
which also includes physical sexuality (i.e. eroticism), and so is the sexual social
institution of prostitution and all other sexual social institutions which, whether
or not involving erotic relations, involve the domination and exploitation of
women, or discrimination against them in any way, by men.
09. Much of what we have said about normal eroticism applies also to coitus.
The essence of coitus is phallovaginal penetration (phallocolpolagnia), to which
the term is sometimes restricted. However, in a wider sense, coitus also includes
all forms of ‘erotic loveplay’ (or ‘precoital’ or ‘coital loveplay’ or ‘foreplay’
etc.), i.e. all erotic contacts that may precede (and accompany, and even follow)
the phallovaginal act; in this wider sense, ‘coitus’ is virtually synonymous with
‘normal eroticism’. The prefix ‘mixo-’ used to denote coitus, invariably refers
specifically to phallovaginal penetration, i.e. it refers to coitus in the strict, narrow
sense; for example, ‘mixorgastia’ and ‘mixanorgastia’ in women refer to a woman’s
ability and inability, respectively, to have orgasm from coitus in the narrow sense
of the phallocolpolagnic relation.
More loosely, and certainly undesirably, the term ‘coitus’ is sometimes applied
to any physical relation, heterolagnic or homolagnic, in which the erect penis is
inserted or rubbed into any hollow (any cavity, depression, or groove, etc.) in the
partner’s body. ‘Anal coitus’ (phalloproctolagnia), heterolagnic or
homandrolagnic, is the most precise, or least imprecise, of these terms that refer
to imitations of normal phallovaginal coitus, but other terms include
‘intermammary coitus’ (i.e. phallomesomastolagnia: rubbing the penis between
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the woman’s breasts, viz. in her intermammary sinus), ‘interfemoral coitus’ (i.e.
phallomesofemorolagnia: rubbing the penis between the partner’s thighs, viz. in
the interfemoral sinus, i.e. the potential space between the thighs as they are held
close together, as distinct from the ‘interfemoral space’ which is the space between
the thighs when they are parted), and ‘axillary coitus’ (i.e. rubbing the penis in
the partner’s axilla). Similarly, stomatophallolagnia (heterolagnic or
homandrolagnic) may be described as ‘oral coitus’. Even homogynolagnics have
been known to describe allelovulvolagnia (mutual friction of the two vulvae) as
coitus (or sexual intercourse). These, rather strange, uses of the term ‘coitus’ (or
‘sexual intercourse’) are understandable in the light of the oral concept of the
world as it applies to eroticism: for all these relations involve the apposition,
usually but not always with erotic penetration, of two ‘mouths’, the ‘mouth’ being
either orificial or somatic.
In this monographic series, ‘coitus’ without qualification invariably means
normal phallovaginal coitus.
*
*
10. The relation of eroticism to idiophilia is very important. Eroticism rests
on a phagobasis of idiophilia: it is a derivative of idiophilia: it is a special form,
viz. an erotic form, of idiophilia, i.e. it is erotic idiophilia or erotic love. In this
concept of eroticism as erotic idiophilia, ‘erotic’ (here as elsewhere) means
kyesioid or quasi-conceptive devouring, i.e. eroticism is kyesioid (or quasiconceptive or pregnancy-like) idiophilic (i.e. preservative) devouring. We may
pause here to consider the differences between eroticism and idiophilia in greater
detail. There are four main differences.
11. Firstly, idiophilia applies in relation to both sexes: it represents love of
fellow human beings of both sexes. By contrast, eroticism normally applies only
in relation to the opposite sex.
12. Secondly, idiophilia is ideal, i.e. it expresses love in an ideal form that is
typically not associated with any physical contact, though minimal physical
contact (e.g. in the form of an embrace and a fleeting kiss, usually not mouth-tomouth) is common, especially in polyphilic cultures. By contrast, eroticism is
concrete (or physical), i.e. it expresses love specifically in intimate bodily contact.
With the single exception of pregnancy (or gestation), coitus is the closest, or
most intimate, physical relation that can unite two human beings.
That eroticism is essentially physical or concrete is evident from the fact that,
although an element of love, i.e. of affection and tenderness, is usually present
even in the most casual relations (unless the relation—usually contracted for
money—is completely perfunctory and even resentful), nevertheless eroticism
basically represents the craving of flesh for flesh, and the union of flesh with
flesh. Thus in one sense eroticism is very personal: in it the person gives himself
or herself and not something they possess or something that can be parted with
or disposed of. Yet, in a different sense, eroticism may be quite, or almost,
impersonal: for although the individual’s body is involved, the personality (i.e.
the person himself or herself) need not be involved. In our time of erotic liberation
for both sexes, this is most obvious in all-night parties where men and women
are not interested who or what their partners are: they are often content to know
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each other merely by their first names, which may not even be their real first
names, and to enjoy an intimate erotic relationship with a complete stranger
whom they had never met before and will most probably never meet again.
It should be noted that although idiophilia is ideal, its ultimate origin in the
oro-mammary relation, i.e. the relation of the suckling child to his or her mother
as she is equated with her breast, is quite physical or concrete. Thus eroticism is
different from idiophilia in being physical or concrete, but is very similar in this
respect to the very concrete and physical metrophilic prototype of idiophilia in
the oro-mammary relation of the lactivorous stage of life.
13. Another point worth noting is that although the lactivorous stage of life
with its oro-mammary relation is a stage of ontogenetic development, ontogenetic
development is not separate from, or independent of, phylogenetic development.
It is evident that the whole of ontogenetic development is determined by
phylogenetic factors, or by hereditary or genetic factors as we commonly call
them in the study of the individual. Of course there was never a lactivorous stage
in human phylogenetic development, i.e. a stage when all human beings
throughout life lived on breast milk; but the very fact that each and every individual
in his or her ontogenetic development passes through a lactivorous stage is, of
course, phylogenetically determined and is subject to all the laws of heredity or
genetics. In the last analysis, the fact that every human individual has to start life
with a lactivorous stage is inherited from our countless human and prehuman
mammalian ancestors. And what is more: how that lactivorous stage is conceived
through the individual’s entire life, in which it forms the basis of his or her hedonia,
depends not so much—if indeed at all—on what actually happened in that stage
as on hereditary (or genetic) factors which may be completely at variance with
the individual’s actual circumstances so that, for example, an individual who was
perfectly well cared for as a child may grow up to suffer from lifelong severe
aphilia. That is why the reference to the ‘mother’ (and her breast etc.) in the
lactivorous stage of life applies, not to the individual’s own mother, but mainly
or wholly to the racial mother (and her breast etc.). Thus the individual’s attitude
to the ‘mother’ would be the same whether he was actually brought up by his
own individual mother or whether (because of his mother’s death during his
birth) he never had a mother.
14. Thirdly, the physical expression of erotic love takes specifically the form
of a kyesioid (or quasi-conceptive) relation, i.e. of a relation in which the man’s
penis is lodged in the woman’s womb in much the same way as a child is lodged
in the mother’s womb in pregnancy. Thus the essence of eroticism lies in
phallovaginal penetration in coitus: this fact of penetration, specifically of the
penetration of the vagina by the penis (or psychogenetically, the penetration of
the womb, the latter being the whole female genital tract with no distinction
between the anatomical vagina and the anatomical uterus), is the basic fact of
eroticism. We should remember here that the reason why men and women want
coitus, and enjoy it, and have orgasm, is ultimately biological: that reason is
simply that all mammals have this biological instinct for copulation which serves
the function of reproduction, and man is no exception in this respect. However,
man differs from other animals in the possession of awareness (or phronesia),
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and it is the way men and women conceive the biological instinct of reproduction
in awareness that concerns us here. In human awareness coitus is conceived in
terms of the metrophilic oro-mammary relation of the lactivorous stage of life.
The metrophilia represented by the oro-mammary relation forms the prototype
of all idiophilia, which in turn forms the basis of all philism, and indeed of all
hedonia. However, coitus—which forms the essence of eroticism—differs from
all other forms of hedonia in the fact that its satisfaction re-enacts the physical
relation of the infant’s oro-mammary relation with the mother but in a kyesioid
(or quasi-conceptive) form—and it is the fact that the re-enactment of the oromammary relation in coitus is kyesioid (or quasi-conceptive) that distinguishes
coitus, which is erotic, from its oro-mammary prototype, which is non-erotic.
That is why the word ‘erotic’ (the adjective from ‘eroticism’) ultimately means
kyesioid (or quasi-conceptive) devouring (or penetration or containment): for it
is kyesioid penetration, viz. the quasi-conceptive penetration by the penis into
the womb in coitus, that forms the essence of all eroticism, not only of eueroticism
but (as we shall see later) also of dyseroticism
15. To repeat: eroticism is essentially erotic idiophilia, or erotic love, i.e.
idiophilia rendered erotic by the addition of the element of quasi-conceptive
penetration. It is the element of erotic penetration, whose primary and most
important form is the phallovaginal (or phallocolpolagnic) coital relation, that
distinguishes the erotic from the non-erotic in personal relations. To take a simple
example: you may pass a young couple in the street talking to each other; this
only indicates that there is an idiophilic relation of some kind (or some degree)
between them: the friendly relation of one human being to another human being,
whether of the same or of the opposite sex. But if you pass the same couple a
little later and see them embracing and kissing passionately, then you know that
they are not just ‘friends’ but are ‘lovers’: their relationship is not that of two
human beings who love their fellow human beings, men and women alike, in the
general sense, but is that of a man and a woman whose erotic love, because it is
erotic, is not only manifested physically, but is specifically manifested in the
form of erotic penetration—in this case erotic penetration that is limited to
allelostomatolagnic penetration which would ordinarily be expected, in the
absence of specific inhibitions or cosmophobic taboos, to progress to full
phallocolpolagnic penetration and mutual orgasm, which is the only relation that
can fully express erotic love. All the phenomena of eroterethia (e.g. erection of
the penis and lubrication of the vagina with copious secretions) are manifestations
of the one central basic urge for quasi-conceptive genital penetration, which is
the essence of coitus and indeed of all eroticism.
16. To summarize, the essence of eroticism, and what distinguishes erotic
from non-erotic hedonia, is that the expression of eroticism is not only physical
or concrete but specifically takes the form of the quasi-conceptive (or kyesioid)
penetration by the man into the woman, which represents the active internal
preservative devouring of the woman by the man. We may variously describe
this quasi-conceptive penetration by the man into the woman, which forms the
essence of coitus and, ultimately, of all eroticism (since even dyseroticism is
based on the primary pattern of normal coitus, i.e. of phallocolpolagnia, between
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a man and a woman), as the quasi-conceptive internal devouring of the woman
by the man, or as the quasi-conceptive containment of the man by the woman,
etc. Whichever way we describe it, it is this bigenital penetration that forms the
essence of all eroticism and that gives rise in both sexes to the phenomena of
eroterethia which culminate in orgasm.
17. Thus, regarding erotogenesis, i.e. the psychogenesis of eroticism, eroticism
may be said to represent erotic, i.e. kyesioid, idiophilia, or (with reference to the
origin of idiophilia in metrophilia) kyesioid metrophilia (or kyesioid
metropalinodophilia). Hence we speak of eroticism as psychogenetically
representing kyemetrophilia or kyemetropalinodophilia, i.e. kyesioid metrophilia
or kyesioid metropalinodophilia (or, on the basis of the equation of the mother
with her breast, kyemastometrophilia or kyemastometropalinodophilia).
It will be noted that in the derivation of eroticism from the infantile metrophilic
oro-mammary relation, the man retains the sex of the partner (viz. female) but
substitutes the penetrative-active role for the receptive-passive role, i.e. substitutes
the mother’s role for the infant’s role; by contrast, in the development of eroticism
from the oro-mammary relation in the woman, the woman retains the receptivepassive role but substitutes the male for the female sex in the choice of a partner.
A word in passing about terminology: as the prototype of all hedonia (nonerotic and erotic) in the oro-mammary relation is non-erotic, therefore we cannot
speak of any such prototype as a ‘-lagnia’: it can only be a ‘-philia’. Hence the
terms ‘metrophilia’, ‘metropalinodophilia’, ‘kyemetrophilia’, and
‘kyemetropalinodophilia’, etc.
18. The cosmophobic form of kyemetrophilia, viz. kyemetrophobia, represents
the fear of coitus which forms the basis of aphormic sexual cosmophobia, i.e. of
fear of the womb, primarily of one’s own mother’s womb (the ‘mother incest
taboo’). (We should remember here that civilization has so far been created by
men, not by women.) It is obvious that even the lowest savages who did not
know about physical paternity, i.e. about the relation of coitus to conception in
the true biological sense, nevertheless knew full well about the connection between
the two in terms of female double penetrability, viz. female coital penetrability,
i.e. the woman’s penetrability in coitus, and female gestational penetrability, i.e.
the woman’s capacity to carry a child in her abdomen—both of which take place
in the same hollow of the woman’s body (viz. the womb or, in scientific terms,
the female genital tract): for even the lowest savages knew that the hollow or
cavity in the woman’s body in which coitus took place was the same hollow from
which babies came into the world. This explains the ancientness of the prohibition
of coitus between a man and his own mother, and in general the ancientness of
the rudiments of aphormic sexual cosmophobia, in the mental and cultural
evolution of the human race. This subject is dealt with more fully in the monograph
on The Psychogenesis of Marriage.
19. The fourth difference between idiophilia and eroticism is that idiophilia
tends to be more durable but less intense, whereas eroticism tends to be more
intense but less durable or even transient. This statement applies in different
ways, but we should remember that idiophilia and eroticism, far from being
mutually exclusive, often coexist and operate synergistically. As for the difference
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between them regarding durability and intensity, the most obvious example is
that of the fact that neither idiophilia nor indeed any other form of hedonia is
associated in its satisfaction with such a rapturous climax as that of erotic orgasm.
Orgasm, for all its brevity, represents the most intense pleasure of which a human
being is capable: it is a brief, but highly concentrated, experience of pleasure.
Another example of the difference between idiophilia and eroticism regarding
their durability and intensity is seen in the fact that—allowing always for wide
individual variations—idiophilic love may be quite permanent and ineffaceable,
in the sense that only the individual’s death will put an end to it, whereas erotic
love may range from a fleeting one-night relationship to relationships that may
last weeks, months, or years. Few married couples are lucky enough to have a
fulfilling erotic relationship after the first few years of marriage. That is why
marital erotosteresis and, more generally, marital anhedonia—which are often
referred to as marital boredom—are so common as to be in some cases almost an
integral part of the institution of marriage. In fact marital erotosteresis may
coexist simultaneously with hyperidiophilic mental undifferentiation from, and
dependence on, the marital partner. (Thus we can understand why even viable
erotic relationships in marriage tend to be very vulnerable after the first few
years so that, if they are damaged from whatever cause, the damage is nearly
always irreparable.) On the other hand, it used to be regarded in the past as an
immature adolescent phantasy for a man to see a pretty girl in the street and have
all sorts of thoughts about what he would like to do in bed with her, but the erotic
liberation of women in recent times, especially since the introduction of oral
contraception in the 1960’s, has not only made such erotic phantasies as common
in women as in men but has also made their realization relatively easy, e.g. at allnight parties at which repeated coitus between complete strangers for the duration
of the night is quite common.
20. Because idiophilia forms the phagobasis of eroticism, there is a fairly
constant relation between the two, and this applies individually as well as
culturally, though our concern here is primarily with the individual case. Thus,
broadly speaking, polyphilic cultures and individuals are also the polyerotic (and
also polysitophilic) cultures and individuals, while oligophilic (e.g.
polyneoscatistic) cultures and individuals are also the oligerotic (and
oligositophilic) cultures and individuals. Moreover, hyperphilic individuals are
frequently also hypererotic, though the hypereroticism, like the hyperphilia itself,
is usually spurious, viz. despite the patient’s preoccupation with eroticism and
daring advances to the opposite sex, a male patient may prove to be mixanorthotic
if he attempts coitus and a female patient is likely to be anorgastic in actual
coitus. (Hyperphilia, incidentally, is not usually associated with hypersitophilia,
and may indeed be associated with hypositophilia as the overactive patient may
be too busy singing and dancing etc. to be interested in food.) Finally, the effect
of aphilia on eroticism, like its effect on sitophilia, is variable: just as aphilia may
cause either hypositophilia or compensatory hypersitophilia, so it may cause either
aneroticism (usually of a minor kind) or compensatory hypereroticism. In the
latter case the patient may resort either to excessive masturbation or to casual
heterolagnic relations ‘just for comfort’. For example, an aphilic woman may
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have casual coitus with a different man every night just for the sake of receiving
love and affection that are erotically expressed, whether or not she derives actual
orgastic satisfaction from such casual coitus. A very different form of
compensatory hypereroticism may be seen in some aphilic, and even tetraphobic,
men (tetraphobia being a common complication of aphilia) whose hypereroticism
is manifested, not so much in having a strong erotic drive (though this is usually
present), as in taking great trouble to ensure that they never leave a girl unsatisfied,
which they may characteristically accomplish by being adept in
stomatovulvolagnia which hardly ever fails to give a girl, even one with fairly
gross dyseroticism, an orgasm (the relation between aphilia and
hyperstomatomastorganolagnia is discussed elsewhere). It is because of this that
girls with wide erotic experience frequently report their discovery, to their surprise,
that men with the most accomplished erotic technique (the ‘masters of sex’ in the
words of one such girl) are often reserved, shy individuals whose quiet and
unassuming demeanour does not at first sight suggest the trouble they take to
satisfy a girl in bed, whereas the flamboyant, conceited, exhibitionistic Don Juan
type of lover, for whom girls readily fall—the type of lover who arouses girls’
jealousy of each other and is often sought as a prize or ‘trophy’ by the girls
themselves—often proves to be a clumsy and disappointing lover in bed.
21. In a very different way, the fact that eroticism is derived from the oromammary relation (which gives rise to stomatomastorganolagnia, which exists
alongside aedeolagnia) explains the multitude of activities which constitute erotic
loveplay and which, objectively, may appear quite strange. Most of these activities
in fact consist of endless variations and combinations of oral, mammary, and
genital eroticism in their enderotic and exerotic forms. Thus in mouth-to-mouth
kissing (allelostomatolagnia), coitus is virtually enacted with the mouths instead
of the genitals, the tongue being inserted into, and sucked by, the partner’s mouth.
In mouth-breast relations (stomatomastolagnia), especially when the man’s kissing
of the woman’s breasts progresses to sucking her nipples (stomatothelolagnia),
we clearly see an enactment of the oro-mammary relation in which eroticism
replaces alimentation. In stomatovulvolagnia (‘cunnilingus’) and
stomatophallolagnia (‘fellatio’) we see the combination of oro-mammary
eroticism and genital eroticism resulting in an orogenital relation with the partner.
22. We have noted the basis of eroticism in general, and coitus in particular,
in preservative devouring. The main exception to eroticism resting on a basis of
preservative devouring is obviously that of phthorolagnia in all its forms—
pragmophthorolagnia, apragmophthorolagnia, autophthorolagnia, and
phthorolagnophobia in its different forms, including genital-erotic phthorophobia.
All these subjects are dealt with elsewhere in this series, but it is evident that in
all of them phthoristic destructiveness is ultimately derived from consumptive
devouring.
*
*
We often speak of the combination of heterolagnia and autolagnia. This may
mean one of two completely different things. On the one hand, there is the
simple combination of heterolagnia and autolagnia in the sense that a patient
may have a greater or lesser degree of autolagnia (or, to put it differently, may
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50. Erotogenesis
have an autolagnic disorder) coexisting side by side with greater or lesser normal
heterolagnia. On the other hand, the combination of heterolagnia and autolagnia
may amount to the actual pervasion of heterolagnia by autolagnia, resulting in a
condition which is heterolagnic in its outward appearance, i.e. in its presentation
or in the setting or context in which it occurs, but which is autolagnic in its
essence. This form of combination which results in altered heterolagnia—
heterolagnia that is essentially autolagnic, in the same way as stomach cells that
have turned malignant are a cancer rather than stomach cells—is better spoken
of as ‘pervasion’.
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Chapter 2
EROTIC ROLES
23. A corollary of the idiophilic phagobasis of eroticism is that the essence
of eroticism lies in preservative devouring. This subject is dealt with in the
monograph on The Oral Concept of the World, but it is important to refer to it
again here. The devouring is both external, e.g. in embracing, and (much more
importantly) internal, the latter is especially represented by the phallovaginal
relation which forms the essence of eroticism. The devouring is predominantly
active in the man, and predominantly passive in the woman. Hence we speak of
the man’s predominantly actively devouring eroticism as penetrative-active
eroticism, and of his role in eroticism in general and in coitus in particular as the
penetrative-active role; similarly, we speak of the woman’s eroticism, which is
mainly based on passive devouredness, as receptive-passive eroticism, and of
her role in eroticism in general and in coitus in particular as the receptive-passive
role. These roles are often loosely referred to as the active role and the passive
role, respectively. (The nouns from ‘active’ and ‘passive’ in relation to devouring
are ‘activeness’ and ‘passiveness’, respectively; thus ‘activeness’ refers to active
devouring, in contrast to passive devouring, whereas the word ‘activity’ is used
in the general sense of any kind of action: e.g. erotic activity, i.e. erotic behaviour,
may be active or passive.) Activeness is essential for penetrativeness in the man,
and passiveness is essential for the orgastic enjoyment (and even for the mere
acceptance) of penetrability (or receptivity) in the woman. Men who suffer from
passive male heterolagnia are usually mixanorthotic (except in the mildest cases);
similarly, women who suffer from active female heterolagnia are usually
mixanorgastic, i.e. incapable of enjoying coital orgasm (except in the mildest
cases in which the woman may be able to have orgasm only if she is on top of the
man in coitus and perhaps imagining that his penis is hers and that she is
penetrating him, and not vice versa). This does not exclude all activeness on the
part of the woman in normal loveplay, nor does it exclude all passiveness for the
man, but the fact remains that the normal man must be predominantly active in
order to be mixorthotic, while the normal woman must be predominantly passive
in order to be mixorgastic: he must be predominantly the devourer, and she must
be predominantly the devoured partner. In fact, as we shall presently see, coitus
in the man, unlike coitus in the woman, has two contrasting phases, of which the
first is very much longer than the second, and is the phase of typical masculine
activeness which includes everything that happens before the orgasm, i.e. before
ejaculation, whereas the second, and much shorter, phase coincides with the
orgasm (i.e. with the short-lived phase of intense pleasure associated with
ejaculation), and is essentially passive, but this passiveness is of no practical
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50. Erotogenesis
importance in relation to the male and female roles in coitus as the man’s second
phase is very short and is in any case terminal: for by the time he starts to ejaculate
coitus is effectively over.
24. Thus, to repeat, in normal heterolagnia much activeness in the woman
and passiveness in the man may be exhibited, and is not incongruous, provided
always that the basic roles of the man as the active partner and of the woman as
the passive one are retained—thus proving that these desires, though secondary,
are by no means non-existent. For example, a woman may occasionally insert
her tongue into her partner’s mouth and expect him to suck it, instead of the other
way round; or a man may occasionally rest his head on his partner’s breasts and
expect her to hold him in much the same way as his mother did in the lactivorous
stage—a position which, in adult relations, is more often adopted by the woman
in her lover’s arms. Again, it is not uncommon to find phantasies of a penetrativeactive type in entirely euerotic women, e.g. the phantasy, in kissing the man’s
abdomen, of penetrating his abdomen and becoming (in technical terms) his
‘internal child’ or ‘internal penis’—though this is basically a symphronesic
‘projection’ of what the woman would want him to do to her, rather than a true
penetrative-active wish.
25. We sometimes refer to receptive-passive eroticism, or (to be more precise)
the desire for the receptive-passive role in eroticism, as esodocholagnia. The
subject of esodochism (the taking-in concept) is particularly important in
anancosymphronesia and is dealt with in the monograph on that subject.
26. Here it is necessary to make three comments on erotic roles.
Firstly, it will be noted that these roles—the penetrative-active and the
receptive-passive—apply not only in normal heterolagnia (the primary form to
which they relate) but also in homolagnia, in reversed heterolagnia, and even in
autolagnia. Hence the penetrator’s role is generally regarded as that of the ‘man’
in the relation (even in homolagnia and autolagnia in both sexes), while the role
of the penetrated, or receptive, partner is regarded as that of the ‘woman’ in the
relation. References to this subject will be found in numerous places elsewhere.
27. Secondly, activeness and passiveness in the terms ‘penetrative-active’
and ‘receptive-passive’ are meant in the psychological sense, which may or may
not coincide with practical activeness and passiveness. This point is very important
and it must be emphasized: throughout our study of eroticism, unless otherwise
indicated or clearly implied, all references to activeness and passiveness should
be taken to mean psychological activeness and passiveness, whether or not these
tally with their corresponding practical forms. That psychological activeness
and passiveness may not always tally with their corresponding practical forms is
well exemplified by the fact that, in stomatophallolagnia, the allelorganolagnic
relation consists mainly of the woman sucking the man’s penis, rather than of the
man (or, for that matter, the woman) using quasi-coital in-and-out penetrative
movements; thus, generally speaking (since all kinds of variations exist), the
woman is the practical active partner in the relation and the man is the practical
passive partner—but, psychologically, the opposite is the case since the relation
basically represents the erotic penetration of the woman by the man, with her
mouth serving as a hysteroid, and her active internal preservative devouring by
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him. Similarly, in coitus with the woman above the man, usually the woman has
to perform most or all of the coital movements in this case, but this practical
activeness does not alter her basic receptive-passive psychological role. However,
it is important to note that although the man’s predominantly penetrative-active
and the woman’s predominantly receptive-passive roles are not altered by details
of technique, whether in erotic loveplay or in coitus itself, this may not apply
where a specific technique that reverses the roles is either used invariably or is
invariably required for one or both parties to have orgasm. For example, as
noted before, many experienced women sooner or later discover the wide variety
of erotic opportunities that are available to the woman in that coital position in
which the woman sits astride the man, but this as a normal coital variation is very
different from the clearly dyserotic case of the woman with active female
heterolagnia who can only have orgasm if she is lying on top of the man in order
to cherish the illusion that she is playing the penetrative-active role with him, and
indeed that the penis is hers and not his.
One more point regarding the frequent discrepancy between practical and
psychological activeness and passiveness is the fact that with women’s recent
partial erotic emancipation in Western European civilization, their practical erotic
activeness has considerably increased, but this of course has not altered their
predominant psychological passiveness, i.e. their predominantly receptive-passive
role in eroticism—on the contrary, it has enhanced and enriched it. For example,
a modern young woman, once erotic loveplay has started, may have little or no
hesitation to spontaneously and actively (in the practical sense of activeness) use
her hand, and perhaps also her mouth, to caress her boyfriend’s genitals, but such
practical activeness clearly only enhances her receptive-passive role, whether
this role is represented by her hand and/or her mouth used actively (in the practical
sense of activeness) as receptive hysteroids in relation to the man’s penis, or
whether such manual or oral stimulation of the penis, apart from its own erotic
value to her herself, enhances—both for herself and for her partner—the
subsequent phallocolpolagnic relation that is likely to follow, and in which of
course she plays the receptive-passive role in the fullest sense. An even more
obvious example of practical activeness in an erotically emancipated young
woman enhancing her receptive-passive role in coitus is that of the woman who
(in the usual dorsal position of coitus) fully reciprocates in coital movements, or
the woman who, as soon as the penis has been inserted into the vagina, applies to
it powerful rhythmic sucking-in contractions with her pelvic muscles, which are
erethopoeic both to herself and to her partner.
28. Thirdly, and finally, as we shall see later, at the phobophronesic level of
cultural evolution, palaeotropolagnia (or the sadistic-excretory concept of
eroticism) may result in the two erotic roles, the penetrative-active and the
receptive-passive, being conceived in phthoristic terms as the penetrative-sadistic
role and the receptive-masochistic role, respectively.
29. It is evident that receptive-passive eroticism is primary, whereas
penetrative-active eroticism is a secondary development, or a derivative from it.
For in the oro-mammary relation—the prototype of coitus in awareness—the
infant plays the receptive-passive role; for even though he or she actively sucks
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50. Erotogenesis
the mother’s breast, the comparatively enormous size of the breast, and still more
of the mother with whom the breast is equated, ensures that the infant is in the
receptive-passive role, while the mother (or her breast) is in the penetrative-active
role. But the fact that receptive-passive eroticism is primary, receives direct
confirmation from the study of eroticism itself. For whereas in normal coitus the
man’s penetrative-active role and the woman’s receptive-passive role are
determined for them biologically in any case, in homolagnics of both sexes (in
whom, of course, there are no biological differences between the partners to
determine activeness and passiveness) we find a distinct preponderance of
receptive-passive eroticism. (This fact of everyday clinical practice is most
glaringly observed in institutions for social offenders of both sexes, in which
homolagnia is usually very common (due to the close relation of homolagnia to
propeto-phthorism in both sexes): the admission of a new predominantly passive
(i.e. average or ordinary) homolagnic of either sex generally makes little difference
to the inmates, but on the rare occasions when an exclusively active homolagnic
of either sex is admitted, there is usually a great stir among the inmates of the
same sex, who flock in numbers to seek the new inmate’s ministrations.) Of
course most homolagnics of both sexes have to play both roles alternately or
simultaneously in order to satisfy each other; but the majority of them find the
receptive-passive role more satisfying—the main exception being those
homolagnics of both sexes who have very pronounced (non-erotic and erotic)
sadism, and who tend to be exclusively active. In fact some homandrolagnics
who cannot have orgasm from passive phalloproctolagnia (as many
homandrolagnics can) state that they still prefer the passive role in
phalloproctolagnia because they find it ‘spiritually’ fulfilling. Moreover, in
relations in which one partner regularly plays the penetrative-active role, it is
common to find this partner being ‘unfaithful’ to the other partner, part at least of
the ‘infidelity’ being in search of the receptive-passive role with other homolagnics.
We may put this more generally: whenever biological factors are excluded by
psychogenic pathological conditions, i.e. by dysphronesia, as is the case in
autolagnia in all its forms, there is usually a tendency for erotic passiveness to
prevail.
*
*
30. As noted before, in normal coitus preservative devouring is different in
the two sexes. Normal coitus in the man, i.e. the penetrative-active role, has two
phases, which we speak of as the first coital phase, which is predominantly active,
and the second coital phase, which is predominantly passive. By contrast, normal
coitus in the woman, i.e. the receptive-passive role, has only one phase, since it is
predominantly passive throughout.
31. In the man, the first coital phase, viz. the predominantly active phase, is
by far the longer and, on the whole, more typical, of the two phases since it is the
one that fully represents the penetrative-active attitude characteristic of the male.
This first phase includes virtually the whole of coitus except for the orgasm: it
includes precoital loveplay (kissing, embracing, and caressing, etc.) as well as
the actual phallocolpolagnic act short of the orgasm. In all this the man’s attitude
is predominantly one of active external and internal preservative devouring, the
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internal form of active preservative devouring being particularly evident in the
phallocolpolagnic relation in which the penis burrows its way deeper and deeper
into the woman’s abdomen, though the same applies on a smaller scale to other
forms of erotic penetration, e.g. in ‘tongue-kissing’. It is worth noting here that
external and internal devouring harmonize with, and indeed complement, each
other, rather than contrast or conflict with each other. On the other hand, the
occurrence of ejaculation and, with it, the orgasm, marks the very much shorter,
but also much more intense, second coital phase. This second phase is
predominantly one of passiveness since it is predominantly one of passive external
preservative devouredness: in it the woman vaginally devours the man externally
in the typical quasi-conceptive manner—devouring which is concrete or physical,
unlike the ideal devouring of idiophilia. Thus, although the first coital phase is
the main phase in terms of duration, and also in terms of the man’s general erotic
attitude to women in everyday life (the second phase being so much at variance
with the man’s ordinary awareness that the ancients regarded it as a state of
temporary madness), it is in the all-too-brief second phase that the man has the
profoundest experience of union—or unity—with woman. It is true that in the
almost complete (though fleeting) reinstatement of symphronesic unity with the
mother at the orgasm the line of demarcation between active and passive
preservative devouring tends to be hazy; nevertheless it is probably generally
true that at the orgasm in the man passiveness supervenes.
32. It is worth noting here that the ejaculation of the semen itself may have a
double significance to the man: on the one hand, it may represent the active
expulsive internal preservative devouring of the woman; on the other hand, since
the semen is left behind by the man (like any gift) to become part of the recipient,
i.e. of the woman, ejaculation may equally represent passive external preservative
devouredness. It is probable that ejaculation, while it is still being anticipated in
the first coital phase, is conceived by the man mainly in terms of the active
expulsive devouring of the woman, and so in line with the generally active attitude
of the first coital phase; however, during its actual occurrence in the second coital
phase, ejaculation is probably more generally conceived by the man in terms of
passive external devouredness by the woman, in line with the generally passive
attitude of the second coital phase. (Needless to say, these concepts, both of
which are based on preservative devouring, are not the only concepts of
ejaculation; in particular, the palaeotropolagnic concept of semen as ‘seminal
excrement’—which is dysphronesic—equates ejaculation with a sadistic act of
destruction (in an ideal sense, viz. in the sense of ‘dishonouring’ the woman),
and so ultimately with an act of consumptive devouring, i.e. ejaculation in these
terms represents the active expulsive internal consumptive devouring of the woman
by the man.)
33. In one way the difference between the two coital phases in the man is of
little importance: for in preservative devouring in general—unlike consumptive
devouring—it is relatively unimportant who devours whom since the net result is
the same, viz. preservative union, or unity, of both parties. However, in a different
way, the contrast between the two coital phases is of considerable psychogenetic
interest—a subject to which we shall now turn our attention.
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50. Erotogenesis
In the first coital phase—the much longer and, in temporal terms, predominant
phase—the man sets out to preservatively devour the woman, both externally
and internally, so as to make her part of himself. But in the second phase—so
short but so intense—he only becomes part of her: he is preservatively devoured
by her. In organophoric terms, he sets out to devour her internally with his penis,
and so to make her his penis, only to end up being externally devoured by her,
and thereby becoming her internal penis. This second phase of passiveness or
devouredness cannot be simply described as disappointing to the man, because it
is one of great joy and fulfilment. Yet, in a sense, it may be disappointing: for in
it the man has no control over himself, he loses his potency (mixorthosis), i.e. his
power of actively devouring the woman internally, and is thus suddenly reduced
from glorious activeness to passiveness which, though in one way is even more
glorious, is in a different way wholly inglorious. In this respect we should
remember that the orgasm, i.e. ejaculation, is an involuntary act: once it starts the
man has no control over it—which further emphasizes its passiveness: the man
now is no longer the devourer of the woman: he is as much devoured by her as
she is by him. Thus all the activeness, virility, masculinity, and manhood of the
first phase culminate in the passiveness and impotence of ejaculation (i.e. of the
second phase). The man, who was so active until a few seconds before, surrenders
himself to his partner as much as she surrenders herself to him. That is why
every man tries to ensure that his partner has her orgasm before he has his, or
(better still) that she is approaching orgasm simultaneously with him (since a
woman’s perception of her partner’s ejaculation, if she is quite ready, may be the
crucial factor in timing her orgasm): for once ejaculation has commenced he will
be in no position to satisfy her with more coitus.
34. In the woman, coitus is predominantly passive throughout, both in the
stage of eroterethia and at the orgasm. In other words, it represents predominantly
passive external and internal preservative devouredness. Although external
devouredness is by no means unimportant (for example, many women resent
coital positions that do not allow the man to hold them close in his arms as they
approach orgasm, and even in the dorsal position women have been known to
demand a closer embrace by the man as they approach orgasm), internal
devouredness is decisively more important, especially in the phallocolpolagnic
relation which represents quasi-conceptive internal preservative devouredness
by the penis. The ejaculation of semen, conceived in idiophilic terms as a gift
donated by the man to the woman, mainly represents passive expulsive internal
preservative devouredness; thus the gift of semen is somewhat different from an
ordinary gift of food because of the association of the semen with expulsive
devouring.
35. In dealing with coitus in the man we have had so much to say about the
essential passiveness, from his point of view, of the experience of ejaculation and
orgasm. This is not so from the woman’s point of view: the man’s ejaculation
does not make him passive from her point of view, nor does she feel active, or
any less passive, during his ejaculation when he himself feels passive. On the
contrary: to the woman, the sensation of the throbbing penis ejaculating in her
vagina complements, and indeed brings to a supreme climax, the active internal
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devouring power of phallic penetrativeness by adding to it the active expulsive
internal devouring power of the spurting semen. That is why many women,
rather than have their orgasm before the man has his and afterwards experience
the sensation of the throbbing penis in the vagina when they are no longer able to
respond to it, deliberately await the sensation of the ejaculating penis before
allowing themselves to have their orgasm simultaneously with the man’s orgasm,
and thus have a much more fulfilling orgasm than they would have had earlier,
partly because by waiting they capture the expulsive devouredness associated
with ejaculation as well as the receptive devouredness associated with phallic
penetrativeness, and partly because simultaneous orgasm is of much greater
idiophilic value since it amounts to a single shared, or mutual, orgasm. In all this
we are once again touching on the subject of semen as a special gift that is endowed
with the power of preservative expulsive devouring and is thus capable, with its
powerful spurts, of uniting the woman with the man and making her part of him.
Those women whose orgasm is deliberately calculated to synchronize with the
man’s, usually have no difficulty in timing it in this way, for to them the very
commencement of ejaculation inside—the very sensation of the penis throbbing
in the vagina, and the mental awareness that the man is now discharging his
seminal gift inside them (which is closely related to the mental awareness of
being erotically (i.e. quasi-conceptively) ‘filled up’, whether penetratively by
the penis or expulsively by the spurting semen)—may be so erethopoeic as to
make their orgasm an inevitable natural sequel (or accompaniment).
36. Finally, although our concern here is mainly with normal coitus, a brief
reference to three dyserotic conditions is relevant. One is that of the woman
who, because of inadequate precoital stimulation, or because of her husband’s
partial or complete propetorgastia, or simply because of his selfishness and lack
of consideration, or because she herself is slow to have orgasm due to partial
female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism or greater or lesser autolagnic
dyseroticism, may regularly miss orgasm in coitus early on in the marriage, and
may eventually learn to guard against such disappointment by not allowing herself
to get aroused at all in the first place. The second dyserotic condition is that of
the pragmophthorolagnic woman, who may or may not be completely
mixanorgastic, whose main or only interest in coitus may lie in the sense of
power it gives her over men: she has the power to satisfy them or, equally, if she
so wishes, to frustrate them. The third dyserotic condition is that of the
apragmophthorolagnic woman who not only conceives semen as ‘seminal
excrement’ and finds it erethopoeic to be ‘defiled’ by it (whether in coitus, in
stomatophallolagnia (which, to her, may represent mysoborolagnia), or in having
the semen ejaculated all over her face) but who also desires being defiled by the
man in an ideal form by the use of vulgar or ‘obscene’ language (mysolalolagnia),
which she may invite by using it herself. Thus the same language which
specifically debases women and their supposedly despicable receptive-passive
erotic role—the same language which would be most embarrassing to the ordinary
woman in phobophronesic civilization—may be highly erethopoeic to
apragmophthorolagnic women.
37. It is necessary here to say something about orgasm in both sexes. Female
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orgasm frequently differs appreciably from male orgasm. For though female
orgasm may be very similar to male orgasm in some cases, viz. in being intense,
transitory, and well-defined, in other cases it is much more protracted than male
orgasm so that it may be difficult to distinguish between what may be called split
orgasm, i.e. a single orgasm with a number of peaks, and multiple orgasm, i.e.
orgasm that is repeated once or more. In men, the orgasm is virtually always an
outburst of intense pleasure corresponding to the rhythmic contraction of
involuntary (smooth) and voluntary (striped) muscle fibres in the genital organs
and the muscles of the pelvic floor, which expel the semen from the body. The
bulk of the semen is expelled under very considerable pressure in the first one or
two spurts (hence some young women who embark on the practice of
stomatophallolagnia only after they have had considerable coital experience may
be overtaken by the fact that the very commencement of ejaculation brings out
the bulk of the semen which they may not be able to swallow all at once: judging
by their coital experience they expect the delivery of semen to be made in equal
instalments spread over a period of several seconds, like the throbbing of the
penis felt in the vagina during ejaculation). The male orgasm is usually completed
within a matter of seconds, and is followed by a ‘refractory period’, i.e. a period
during which a man is incapable of responding with erection of the penis regardless
of the intensity of the stimulus, though the refractory period shows very wide
individual and cultural variations, including variations within the same individual
depending on the stimulus provided (e.g. a casual relation at an all-night party
may be far more erethopoeic than marital relations after a few years of marriage)
and depending on age. These variations in the refractory period range from the
extreme of those men who cannot repeat coitus on the same night (or not until
the next morning) to the opposite extreme of the exceptionally virile young man
who (given adequate stimulus) may be able to retain sufficient residual erection
after the first ejaculation to continue coital movements of low amplitude that will
maintain his partner’s erotic arousal for a few minutes until he is able to regain
erection of the penis and repeat (or, from his partner’s point of view, resume)
coitus effectively. The important point to note is that, in men, despite the wide
variations in the refractory period, each orgasm is a recognizable entity. In women,
on the other hand, the orgasm may be exactly as in men, in which case multiple
orgasms are easy to recognize, or it may be split into a number of peaks. Thus
the woman may have a series of little peaks (or, if we prefer to call them that, of
little orgasms), rising in a crescendo of progressively increasing intensity to one
final supreme peak, or she may have a number of peaks of comparable intensity
with short intervals between them, or the peaks may follow a decrescendo
pattern—in all of which it may be difficult or impossible to distinguish between
split orgasm and repeated (or multiple) orgasm. It is evident that in some women
the orgasm may continue for a much longer period than that of the male orgasm.
Not a few women describe their orgasms by saying ‘I can go on and on’—a
statement which virtually has no equivalent in men. For example, one patient
who was having an affair with a man to whom she was greatly attracted erotically
stated that, with the help of a little alcohol to free her from inhibitions, she could
have a dozen or more orgasms in succession, with intervals of one or two minutes
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between them (she took the precaution of giving her lover his first ejaculation in
stomatophallolagnia so that afterwards coitus could be prolonged almost
indefinitely for her benefit). Such protracted orgastic patterns virtually have no
male equivalent.
This difference between the sexes in orgastic response, especially the capacity
of some women for split orgasm or multiple orgasms occurring in rapid succession,
probably has its explanation in the fact that coitus occurs inside the woman’s
body. Because coitus takes place inside the woman’s body, coitus stimulates the
man’s penis but it does not directly stimulate his pelvic muscles (and, of course,
we must bear in mind that orgasm is essentially a myotonolagnic phenomenon).
By contrast, coitus directly stimulates the woman’s pelvic muscles and this, in
appropriately predisposed women, may result in clonus-like contraction of the
pelvic muscles at the orgasm, which gives rise to a prolonged orgasm with multiple
peaks, i.e. it gives rise to split or multiple orgasm. In other words, in the man
contraction of the pelvic muscles at the orgasm occurs wholly reflexly and is (of
course) not due to direct stimulation, whereas in the woman, because coitus
actually takes place inside her pelvis, the direct stimulation of her pelvic muscles
by the rhythmic thrust of the penis may cause these pelvic muscles in some cases
to go into a clonus-like type of contraction at the orgasm, which is manifested by
the capacity of such a woman to have a protracted orgasm with multiple peaks
(whether we regard this as a single split orgasm or as multiple orgasms occurring
in rapid succession). It is worth noting that homandrolagnic men who obtain
orgasm from passive phalloproctolagnia may exhibit a capacity for split orgasm,
or multiple orgasms occurring in rapid succession, similar to that of the normal
women referred to above.
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Chapter 3
THE ORAL CONCEPT IN EROTICISM
38. In this chapter we shall deal with the oral concept of the world as it
applies to eroticism. First we shall deal with eueroticism, then we shall refer to
autolagnia proper, homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia.
The equation of a person, as of other animate beings (and of animistically
conceived inanimate objects), with his or her mouth explains why, in a sense,
mouth-to-mouth kissing (allelostomatolagnia) is more personal than coitus. Thus,
for example, many prostitutes who hire their bodies to men for full coitus would
not accept any mouth-to-mouth kissing: to them this form of kissing is too personal
and therefore unbefitting the strictly ‘professional’, i.e. impersonal, relation of
the prostitute to her client.
39. Another aspect of the oral concept of the world as it applies to eroticism
is seen in the apposition of orificial and/or somatic ‘mouths’ usually (but not
invariably) with erotic penetration, which forms the basis of most erotic relations,
including coitus itself, and which represents external and/or internal preservative
devouring. From the point of view of the oral concept of the world, the oromammary relation consists in the infant receiving the mouth of the mother’s
breast (i.e. the nipple) into his or her own true mouth. Coitus, i.e.
phallocolpolagnia, is basically a quasi-conceptive relation in which the man
preservatively devours the woman internally: in this internal preservative
devouring of the woman by the man, not only is the man equated with his penis
but the penis itself is equated with a mouth; similarly, the woman is equated with
her womb, which in turn is conceived as a mouth: thus, in terms of the oral
concept of the world, coitus is basically the penetration by the man, as represented
by the mouth of his penis, into the woman, as represented by the mouth of her
womb, and her internal preservative devouring by him. But apart from coitus
itself, the oral concept is all-pervasive in eroticism. Thus in allelostomatolagnia
(mouth-to-mouth kissing) the two partners in the erotic relation are represented
by their actual mouths, the tongue usually playing the penetrative part. In
stomataedeolagnia (stomatovulvolagnia and stomatophallolagnia), one erotic
partner is represented by his or her true mouth, the other by her or his genital
mouth. In stomatovulvolagnia, whatever the precise method used
(glossoclitoridolagnia, glossonympholagnia, glossintroitolagnia, or indeed
stomatovulvolagnia in the true sense of the wide application of the mouth to the
whole of the vulva), the ultimate implication (in an ideal sense) is the same, viz.
the penetration of the man with his true mouth into the receptive mouth of the
woman’s womb. In contrast to the penetrative role of the man’s mouth in
stomatovulvolagnia is the receptive role of the woman’s mouth in
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stomatophallolagnia. Stomatomastolagnia (mouth-breast eroticism) takes mainly
three forms. In stomatothelolagnia (mouth-nipple eroticism) the relation is
between the man’s true mouth and the woman’s mammary mouth, i.e. the mouth
of her breast, viz. the nipple. This type of relation, in which the man actually
sucks the woman’s nipple and the surrounding part of the breast, completely
re-enacts the infantile oro-mammary relation, but with the substitution of eroticism
for alimentation (and also with the reversal of roles: in the erotic relation the man
actively devours the woman’s breast (active external preservative devouring),
whereas in the infantile relation the child sucking the breast is, psychologically,
passively internally preservatively devoured by the breast (which is equated with
the mother)). In stomatomastolagnia proper, i.e. in kissing the general surface of
the breast, there is no way of clearly distinguishing between active external
preservative devouring of the breast and its active internal (i.e. penetrative)
preservative devouring (through an ad hoc somatic mouth burrowed (in an ideal
sense) by the man in the breast in order to penetrate it and devour it (as it is
equated with the woman herself) internally). Finally, in stomatomesomastolagnia
(kissing the woman between her breasts) the hysteroid significance of the
intermammary sinus is clear so that such kissing obviously represents internal,
rather than external, active preservative devouring of the breast and the woman,
i.e. it represents, in an ideal sense, a form of intramammary penetration and
active internal devouring. In stomatosomatolagnia (mouth-body kissing, e.g.
kissing the chest, abdomen, and limbs), again there is no clear distinction between
such kissing representing external, and its representing internal, active preservative
devouring of the partner (in the latter case, viz. in the case of internal devouring,
by burrowing an ad hoc somatic mouth in the partner’s body in order to penetrate
the partner, in an ideal sense, and devour her (or him) preservatively internally).
Similar considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to phallomastolagnia (penis-breast
eroticism), except that the penis, because of its penetrativeness, tends to be
associated exclusively with active internal devouring. Phallothelolagnia, i.e. the
apposition of the tip (or mouth) of the penis to the nipple, represents, in an ideal
sense, intramammary penetration by the penis through the mouth of the breast,
i.e. through its nipple, and its active internal preservative devouring by the penis.
Phallomastolagnia proper, i.e. the apposition of the penis to the general surface
of the breast, represents, in an ideal sense, the attempt by the penis to penetrate
into the breast through an ad hoc somatic mouth burrowed in the breast to serve
its active internal preservative devouring by the penis. Both phallothelolagnia
and phallomastolagnia proper are essentially erotic phantasies which are of little
practical importance, mainly because neither the nipple nor the general surface
of the breast can accommodate the penis even partly. These phantasies may
occasionally be enacted just for the sake of putting them into practice, or for the
sake of recording them in photographs. We regard them as inconsequential, but
euerotic, phantasies, rather than as forms of erotic fantasticism, because they do
not form the subject’s main erotic desire: on the contrary, they represent minor
forms of those ancillaries of coitus which are collectively referred to as ‘erotic
loveplay’. But the third main form of phallomastolagnia, viz.
phallomesomastolagnia, is relatively important (though still of limited importance
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50. Erotogenesis
by comparison with the various forms of stomatomastolagnia). For when the
two breasts are compressed together with the hands, they form, with the chest
wall, a sort of hysteroid sinus or tunnel into which the penis can be rubbed to
ejaculation. Thus phallomesomastolagnia represents the only practical method
of intramammary phallic penetration. Perhaps the main applicability of this
method is in those cases in which the woman is willing to engage in
stomatophallolagnia but is unwilling to take the semen in her mouth: the
anatomical proximity of the intermammary sinus to the mouth makes a quick
transfer of the penis to the breasts possible at the commencement of ejaculation
almost without a break.
40. A point already noted should be specially emphasized: in all erotic relations
between the sexes—in which, normally, the man is predominantly, but not
necessarily exclusively, the devourer and the woman is predominantly, but not
necessarily exclusively, the devoured partner—the devouring may be external or
internal or both. In some cases it is easy to make a distinction; for example,
internal devouring is obviously the main factor where there is definite penetration
(as in the phallovaginal relation and in kissing in which the tongue is inserted
into the partner’s mouth), or where the penis (an obviously penetrative organ) or
the vagina (an obviously receptive organ) is involved whether or not there is
actual penetration (as in stomatophallolagnia and stomatovulvolagnia), or in the
presence of certain other suggestive factors (e.g. entoplerolagnia). But in other
cases it may be difficult to draw a line between external and internal devouring:
the erotic relation in this case may represent either external or internal devouring,
or a combination of both. This is the case with the man using his mouth (and, to
some extent at least, also using his hand) to caress the woman’s breasts, chest,
abdomen, or limbs, etc.: without specific other associations, it is impossible in
these cases to specify if the caressing represents external devouring or (in an
ideal sense) an attempt at, or a wish for, penetration and internal devouring.
41. In a different way, conceiving various orifices in the female body as
receptive mouths, i.e. as being like the female womb, is responsible for perceiving
beauty in these female orifices—beauty whose praises have often been sung by
poets and recorded by other artists: painters and photographers, etc. The beauty
of the female mouth and lips is too familiar to require further comment. The
orifice of the eye, i.e. the palpebral fissure, has essentially the same significance,
so that wide-eyed women are often held to be highly beautiful.
*
*
42. The oral concept of the world also explains the variety of phantasies and
practices seen in dyseroticism: in autolagnia proper, in homolagnia, and in reversed
heterolagnia. Many of the phantasies—despite their erotic importance to the
subjects concerned—are physically impossible to put into practice, and are thus
examples of what we call erotic fantasticism, i.e. dyseroticism of such a type that
its realization is a practical impossibility. But we have to refer to erotosteretic
masturbation before we can deal with autolagnic masturbation and the rest of our
subject.
43. In simple erotosteretic masturbation in both sexes, in which frustrated
heterolagnia is served, through vicarious allophilia, by an autolagnic means of
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expression, the hand represents the genital mouth of the opposite sex, so that the
hollow of the fist represents a hysteroid in male masturbation
(autocheirophallolagnia) while the fingers represent a phalloid in female
masturbation (autodactylocolpolagnia), though the same still applies, in an ideal
form, to all forms of autocheirophallolagnia in men, whether or not the fist is
used, and to all forms of autocheirogynaedeolagnia in women, whether or not
the fingers are inserted into the vagina. Thus in all solitary manual masturbation,
even in erotosteretic masturbation, the very use of the hand provides the basic
characteristic of all autolagnia, viz. of the individual himself or herself being
simultaneously both penetrative and receptive, both active and passive—or, in
the terms of normal coitus (which, as we shall see later, forms the model of all
eroticism, normal and pathological), both man and woman. In erotosteretic
masturbation the individual has to do this as a matter of necessity, in autolagnic
masturbation he or she does it by choice (or by preference).
44. In true autolagnic masturbation the primary aim is that of genital selfpenetration, which is wholly impossible in practice so that substitutes must be
found. For genital self-penetration means that the patient’s own genitals should
simultaneously act as a phalloid and as a hysteroid so that the patient, as it were,
could have self-coitus, i.e. his or her genitals would at one and the same time act
as a penis and as a womb so that the penis could lodge in the womb as if the
patient were a man and a woman at the same time, the man having coitus with the
woman. As this fantastic desire for self-coitus is wholly impossible to realize in
practice, the patient (whether a man or a woman) has to find more realistic (or
rather less fantastic) ways of expressing this desire. (As we shall presently see,
some of these ways are only slightly less fantastic than the original desire.)
45. Thus, in true autolagnic masturbation in men, the desire for self-coitus
may take the form of a desire for anal self-coitus, i.e. of the patient inserting his
penis into his own rectum (autophalloproctolagnia). While this phantasy is
impossible to realize in practice, a gesture at putting it into practice may be enacted
by the patient pointing his penis backwards (as far as this is possible during
erection) towards his anus. (A more practical and commoner realization of this
practically impossible phantasy is that of autolagnic masturbation which combines
phallic stimulation with the simultaneous insertion of the fingers into the rectum
(autodactyloproctolagnia) in imitation of self-coitus.) Similarly, although the
autolagnic desire for autostomatophallolagnia (or self-fellatio) is impossible to
satisfy in practice, it may be vicariously satisfied by the patient ejaculating in his
hand in ordinary masturbation (autocheirophallolagnia) and then swallowing his
own semen.
46. In autolagnic masturbation in women, sucking the nipples with the mouth
(autostomatothelolagnia) is common. The nipples of the two breasts may also be
brought into apposition, as if they were ‘kissing each other’ (autallelothelolagnia).
(A heterolagnic form of allelothelolagnia is occasionally seen in the man who
playfully brings the nipples of his partner’s breasts in apposition, but this is of
little erotic importance.) Sometimes there may be an attempt to put into practice
the phantasy of putting the nipple of one breast to the vulva (autothelovulvolagnia)
as if to insert it into the vagina. As the phantasy of autostomatovulvolagnia is
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50. Erotogenesis
impossible to put into practice, a vicarious way of realizing this phantasy is for
the woman to indulge in ordinary masturbation (autocheirovulvolagnia) and use
her hand to convey her own vaginal secretions to her mouth (licking her fingers
etc.).
47. In homandrolagnia, the phantasy of bigenital, i.e. penis-to-penis,
penetration (allelophallolagnia) is very common, and is of immense theoretical
importance, but is impossible to put into practice as one man’s penis cannot
accommodate (or ‘take in’) another man’s penis as a woman’s womb can
accommodate a man’s penis in normal coitus. The nearest relation to bigenital
homandrolagnic coitus that is practically possible is that of
phallomesofemorolagnia performed face-to-face, thus bringing the genitals of
the two partners into proximity. Phallomesofemorolagnia, however, is clearly
both awkward and unsatisfactory owing to the incongruity of male genitals brought
into close proximity with other male genitals. By far the commonest
homandrolagnic practice is that of phalloproctolagnia: although
phalloproctolagnia in homandrolagnia represents a variety of factors (or satisfies
a variety of dyserotic idioms), including coproidolagnia (including
exoproctolagnia and endoproctolagnia) and endoprostatolagnia, its main
significance from the psychogenetic point of view lies in the fact that it represents
the nearest practical substitute for the primary homandrolagnic desire for penisto-penis penetration, which is a practical impossibility. (That is why, of course,
many homandrolagnics beg the doctors for a change of sex so that they could
receive the partner’s penis, not in the rectum, but in their genitals which are
supposed then to change from a protruding penis that cannot accommodate another
penis into a sort of womb that can accommodate a penis.) Finally, other
homandrolagnic practices which are easy to understand in terms of the oral concept
include stomatophallolagnia and stomatoproctolagnia (or, perhaps more precisely,
glossoproctolagnia).
In homogynolagnia, bigenital friction continued to mutual orgasm
(allelovulvolagnia) is a standard practice, and is often regarded as a form of
coitus (or sexual intercourse) by the patients who practise it. Thus whereas
allelophallolagnia is virtually impossible in homandrolagnia, allelovulvolagnia
in homogynolagnia is possible and can be mutually satisfying to full orgasm and
is indeed widely practised. However, it is evident that allelovulvolagnia, strictly
speaking, still represents a form of erotic fantasticism, for although such a bigenital
relation can result in mutual orgasm it is nevertheless merely a relation of bigenital
friction and not of bigenital penetration (except perhaps in an entirely ideal sense
in so far as the woman who lies on top of her partner may represent the ‘husband’,
i.e. the penetrative-active partner, in the relationship). Genital penetration of one
partner into the other may be made by the use of an artificial penis (or dildo or
vibrator etc.) or of other phalloid objects (cucumbers or carrots etc.). In some
cases a double artificial penis ensures simultaneous vaginal penetration of both
women, whether each of them regards the artificial penis in her vagina as the
gynophalloid belonging to her partner (so that both women may be able to
simultaneously enjoy the receptive-passive part with each other) or whether one
of them so regards it while the other one (if she is an exclusively active
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homogynolagnic) regards the whole double artificial penis as her own
gynophalloid which she (as if she were a man) is using to penetrate her partner
vaginally. Finally, the oral concept is also evident in such homogynolagnic
practices as those of stomatovulvolagnia (which is exceedingly common) and
the erotically unimportant but psychogenetically quite significant phantasies
(which may be inconsequentially put into practice) of allelothelolagnia and
thelovulvolagnia.
48. In reversed heterolagnia the basic desire is for reversed bigenital
heterolagnic penetration, i.e. bigenital penetration in which the woman with her
vulva, which is figured as a gynophalloid, penetrates the man’s genitals, which
are figured as an androhysteroid: this typical example of erotic fantasticism
satisfies the penetrative-active urge of active female heterolagnia in the woman
and the receptive-passive urge of passive male heterolagnia in the man. In the
mildest cases, coitus with the woman above the man may be imagined by one or
both parties (though more often by the woman with active female heterolagnia
than by the man with passive male heterolagnia) to represent exactly this form of
reversed bigenital heterolagnic penetration, but apart from these very mild cases,
reversed heterolagnia is impossible to realize in real life. Its substitutes in both
sexes may involve (in phantasy or, less often, in practice) heterolagnic relations
in which such objects as the woman’s breast and her excreta (i.e. mastoids and
skoroids) may serve as gynophalloids, while the man’s mouth and rectum may
serve as androhysteroids. (This subject is dealt with more fully in the monograph
on Autolagnia.)
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Chapter 4
KYEMETROPHILIA
49. The foregoing account of eueroticism and of autolagnia and its derivatives
was given in some detail to prepare the way for the all-important conclusion that
all eroticism, normal and pathological, is based on the model of normal coitus,
and therefore ultimately represents kyemetrophilia. In normal eroticism, all kinds
of sensory perception may contribute to eroterethia and ultimate orgasm, but the
essence of eroticism always remains in the quasi-conceptive containment of the
man by the woman, whether in its primary form in coitus proper
(phallocolpolagnia) or in the multitude of modifications of which we have
examined numerous examples (allelostomatolagnia, stomatovulvolagnia,
stomatophallolagnia, etc.). On the other hand, in dyseroticism, the most important
fact is that autolagnia—which accounts for most of the serious forms of
dyseroticism—basically represents not so much inanimatistic eroticism (though
this is how dyseroticism often, and very characteristically, appears) as animatistic
eroticism in which the erotic object is the subject himself or herself, so that all
autolagnia ultimately represents autokyemetrophilia, i.e. kyesioid mother-love
in which the individual simultaneously serves as subject and erotic object, and of
which the primary form is self-coitus, i.e. bigenital coitus with oneself, which is
impossible in practice, i.e. is a form of erotic fantasticism.
50. This brings us to the subject of autophilia, for just as eueroticism rests on
a phagobasis of idiophilia so does autolagnia rest on a basis of autophilia, which
is scatistic and which, like idiophilia, is a derivative of metrophilia. Autophilia is
the basis of all scatism, euphronesic and dysphronesic, including autolagnia (which
of course is dysphronesic).
Phylogenetically and ontogenetically scatism is a later development than
phagism, and it indeed rests on a basis of phagism. Phagism is allotropic and
animatistic and is ultimately derived from idiophilia, whose prototype is
metrophilia as represented by the oro-mammary relation of the lactivorous stage
of life. Scatism arises by the partial substitution of autophilia, i.e. self-love, for
metrophilia, i.e. mother-love, and the partial substitution of the autotropic and
inanimatistic interest in one’s own excretory processes for the allotropic and
animatistic interest in the mother (or her breast). The substitution of interest in
one’s own excretory processes for interest in the mother can only be partial:
scatohedonia can never provide a complete substitute for phagohedonia as
phagohedonia is essential to life. Hence we refer to phagohedonia as primary
hedonia or protohedonia, i.e. as indispensable hedonia which is essential to the
continuation of life and which is universal in all human beings above the level of
prephobophronesia. By contrast, we refer to scatohedonia as secondary hedonia
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or deutohedonia: scatohedonia is not universal at the diaphronesic level, and it is
not essential to the continuation of life. We know, for example, that the tendency
to dispense with protohedonia, i.e. to completely substitute deutohedonia for
protohedonia, is a major factor in sphalerohedonia.
51. Thus, because of the difference between metrophilia, which is the basis
of phagism, and autophilia, which is the basis of scatism, the object of hedonia
(and of cosmophobia) in phagism is in the environment and is animate, i.e. phagism
is allotropic and animatistic, whereas the object of hedonia (and of cosmophobia)
in scatism is in the subject’s own body, or is primarily derived from it, hence
scatism is autotropic and inanimatistic. But we must remember that phagism
and scatism cannot be compared on an equal footing, because phagism is primary,
constant (above the level of prephobophronesia), and essential, whereas scatism
is a secondary development of phagism which is not constant and not essential.
The most important implication of this is that metrophilia (the basis of phagism)
is primary, whereas autophilia (the basis of scatism) is secondary. Thus in reality
autophilia represents autometrophilia (or, on the basis of the equation of the
mother with her breast, automastometrophilia), i.e. autophilia represents a later
development of metrophilia in which the subject loves himself (or herself) in his
(or her) capacity as a substitute for the mother: hence autophilia in reality
represents, not a true alternative to metrophilia that stands on an equal footing to
metrophilia, but only a derivative of metrophilia which to some extent can (but
hardly ever completely, even in the most dysphronesic conditions) serve as a
substitute for metrophilia; hence autophilia ultimately represents autometrophilia.
In other words, metrophilia is the ultimate origin of all hedonia, and autophilia is
no exception.
52. The foregoing is so important that we may repeat it in a slightly different
form. Idiophilia ultimately represents metrophilia, i.e. love of the mother—more
specifically mastometrophilia, i.e. love of the mother’s breast or love of the mother
as she is equated with her breast. By contrast, autophilia ultimately represents
autometrophilia, i.e. love of oneself as one loved the mother or love of oneself in
one’s capacity as the mother—more specifically automastometrophilia, i.e. love
of oneself in one’s capacity as the mother’s breast. Thus the statement that all
hedonia ultimately represents metrophilia (= mother-love) or metropalinodophilia
(= mother-reunion-love or mother-reversion-love) applies to autophilia (which
is the basis of all scatism, including autolagnia). (Needless to say, the term
‘autophilia’ denotes a specific form of self-love: it does not cover all that may be
loosely called self-love. For example, the egoism of pleonexia does not come
under autophilia, and is indeed very different from it: pleonexia (which is phagistic)
is allotropic and finds its satisfaction in the environment, mainly at the expense
of fellow human beings, whereas autophilia (typified, for example, by selfwilledness, which is a scatistic idiom) is autotropic and finds its satisfaction mainly
in the subject’s own inner world, though it may secondarily involve other people
and other objects in the environment.)
53. Autophilia accounts for the autotropia and inanimatism which are the
two main characteristics of all scatism. It is evident that this in reality implies
that scatistic inanimatophilia rests on a deeper basis of animatophilia, viz. of
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autophilia or self-love. In other words, underlying all scatistic inanimatistic
interests there is self-love (which, of course, is animatistic). However, in practice
it is quite adequate to speak of scatism as being inanimatistic without reference
to this deeper animatistic, viz. autophilic, basis. The only exception is in the case
of eroticism, in which we can only understand autolagnic dyseroticism, which
represents an erotic form of autophilia, if we bear in mind its animatistic basis,
viz. its basis in erotic self-love (which is what ‘autolagnia’ or ‘auteroticism’
means).
54. The foregoing account of idiophilia and autophilia is of the utmost
importance in the understanding of eroticism. Eueroticism is ultimately derived
in both sexes from metrophilia, hence its psychogenetic basis is kyemetrophilia.
By contrast, dyseroticism (apart from erotophobia) arises from one or both of
two main causes: aphilia, more precisely the vitiation of kyemetrophilia by aphilia,
which is by far the commoner, but also the much less serious, cause; and
autolagnia, representing autokyemetrophilia or the eroticization of autophilia
(more precisely the eroticization of autometrophilia), which is the cause of the
much less common, but also much more serious, forms of dyseroticism.
Autolagnia (representing, as just noted, an erotic form of autophilia) may be
manifested in one or both of two main forms (though the special form cannot
occur without the general form), viz. in a general form (as autolagnia proper or
as homolagnia or as reversed heterolagnia) or in a special form in relation to any
of the specific idioms of scatism. Strictly speaking, scatolagnia, i.e. the erotic
form of scatohedonia, represents this latter, special form of autolagnia, covering
the eroticization (or the erotic form) of any of the specific idioms of scatism;
however, as the general form of autolagnia arises from the eroticization of
autophilia, which in fact is the basis of all (euphronesic and dysphronesic) scatism,
but which is only a general (not a specific) idiom or characteristic of scatism, it is
obvious that, in a wider sense, scatolagnia also includes general autolagnia, viz.
autolagnia proper and its derivatives: homolagnia and reversed heterolagnia. But
even if we do not use ‘scatolagnia’ in this wider sense, it is obvious that all
autolagnia, i.e. general as well as special autolagnia, is scatistic.
(That autolagnia in reality represents an erotic form of hyperautophilia, rather
than of normal autophilia, does not concern us here: that subject is dealt with in
the monograph on Autolagnia.)
55. It should be emphasized that general autolagnia (viz. autolagnia proper,
homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia) and scatolagnia (in the strict sense of the
erotic forms of specific scatistic idioms) frequently, though by no means always,
overlap; or, to be more precise, scatolagnia cannot occur without general
autolagnia, but general autolagnia (autolagnia proper, with or without homolagnia
and/or reversed heterolagnia) may occur without any scatolagnia. For example,
a girl may spend literally hours in front of a full-length mirror every time she
masturbates (with one or more orgasms), in the course of which she inspects,
both directly and in the mirror, her breasts, buttocks, and of course her genitals,
and affectionately caresses every part of her body until she achieves orgasm in
what really amounts to self-coitus in so far as self-coitus is at all possible (both in
the general sense of caressing her own body in ‘precoital love-play’ and in the
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strict sense of a bigenital relation with herself, which of course is a practical
impossibility). However, in this virtual self-coitus, which is obviously autolagnic,
she may have no specific scatolagnic phantasies of any kind, i.e. no erotic
phantasies about water or fire or open or enclosed space etc. Similar practices
may be used by young male patients, except that male patients are more likely to
engage in proctolagnic practices than female patients, but still with the same
basic pattern of engaging in self-coitus, as far as this is physically possible, but
without any specific manifestations of scatolagnia. However, in other cases
autolagnic masturbation may be largely, or even wholly and regularly, dominated
by specific scatolagnic phantasies. It is of the utmost importance to emphasize
here that although these scatolagnic phantasies may occur in a heterolagnic,
homolagnic, or autolagnic setting, they are—in so far as their scatolagnic content
is concerned—basically autolagnic whatever the setting, i.e. they are autolagnic
even if the setting is heterolagnic (homolagnia and reversed heterolagnia are in
any case basically autolagnic). For example, a girl may regularly masturbate
over the phantasy of watching a house ablaze (which is derived from an actual
experience she has had): the phantasy—apparently wholly inanimatistic (i.e. not
involving anybody else: only the inanimate fire) is basically purely autolagnic:
the pyrolagnia here is clearly entirely autolagnic. Or a married woman (who, of
course, is wholly mixanorgastic) may need several hours each time she masturbates
to indulge in her full skorolagnic (coprolagnic and urolagnic) ritual of soiling
her pants with long-retained urine and faeces. Here again scatolagnia, in the
form of skoroidolagnia, is entirely autolagnic. By contrast, another young woman
may masturbate regularly over the phantasy (evolved from some reading) of
men being torn to pieces by wild beasts or having their eyes gored with pokers
etc. Here the phantasy, since it concerns men, is heterolagnic, but its phthorolagnic
content, viz. the fact that she wants the men to be mutilated and killed, is autolagnic.
In other words, the phantasy combines elements of both heterolagnia and
autolagnia: its scatolagnic (viz. pragmophthorolagnic) content is autolagnic, but
it is heterolagnic in so far as that pragmophthorolagnic desire is directed against
men: phthorism is scatistic and therefore autophilic, the erotic form (viz.
phthorolagnia in all its forms) is autolagnic—and it is autolagnic whether the
setting of the phthorolagnia is wholly autolagnic or is combined with homolagnia
or (as in this case) heterolagnia. Another example: a young man’s entire erotic
life consists of going out at night to watch couples having coitus in parked cars:
he then goes home and masturbates over what he had seen. Here the setting
appears to be heterolagnic, but in reality the patient’s main erotic pleasure is
derived from the actual act of watching erotic relations: it is derived from
hyperpragmoscopolagnia and is therefore autolagnic. Such patients
characteristically never seek actual heterolagnic relations: they have no interest
in taking part in heterolagnia: their interest lies not only in the autolagnic
hyperpragmoscopolagnic act of watching heterolagnic relations in other people
but also in the equally autolagnic hyperpragmoscopolagnic reliving in
masturbatory phantasy over and over again the heterolagnic scenes they had
witnessed. One final example: a young man regularly masturbates over phantasies,
which he often puts into practice, of tying up young boys or other young men
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and torturing them, especially in their genital areas, before having active
phalloproctolagnia with them, or forcing them to have phalloproctolagnia with
him. Here again the phthorolagnia is wholly autolagnic; it occurs in a setting of
homolagnia, which is a special form of autolagnia.
56. It will have been noted from the foregoing examples that autolagnia is
autolagnic however it may be expressed—whether it is expressed entirely in
masturbatory phantasy (which itself may be imagined to take place in an
autolagnic, homolagnic, or heterolagnic setting) or whether it is put into practice
in real life whether in an entirely autolagnic form (e.g. in the case of a hydrolagnic
spending hours masturbating in the bath while lying fully dressed in the water),
or in a homolagnic or heterolagnic setting. Solitary masturbation is by far the
commonest, and in a sense the most congenial, method of expressing autolagnic
dyseroticism. Even where autolagnic dyseroticism, because of circumstances or
because of admixture with heterolagnia, is expressed in a heterolagnic form, it is
very common for such patients of both sexes to prefer solitary masturbation over
the memory of heterolagnic occurrences to the actual heterolagnic experience.
Moreover, in some cases of dyseroticism the heterolagnic experience itself is not
one of coitus but only of masturbation (by oneself or by the partner): it is as if the
patient has to auteroticize the heterolagnic experience (i.e. has to reduce the
heterolagnic experience to an autolagnic form) before he or she can enjoy it. For
example, there are married men and women who have always derived their main
erotic satisfaction from solitary masturbation—before the marriage, while
courting, and after the marriage (so that clearly marital erotosteresis is not a
factor). Even where these patients’ masturbatory phantasies are entirely
heterolagnic and of normal content, the very fact that the patients find greater
satisfaction in heterolagnic phantasy than in heterolagnic practice shows the basic
autolagnia of their eroticism despite its apparently heterolagnic content. This in
fact is a special form of having to auteroticize heterolagnia (in this case having to
present it to themselves in an autolagnic form, viz. in the form of phantasy)
before they can enjoy it. Again it is clinically common to see unmarried women
who have had innumerable affairs with all kinds of men they fancied, but who
have throughout the years derived either their greatest or their only erotic
satisfaction from solitary masturbation, which has continued unabated through
all their heterolagnic relationships, even when they were living with a man and
having regular coitus with him. Other women with wide heterolagnic experience
soon discover that they are incapable of coital orgasm, and learn in due course to
get the man in every case to give them their orgasm either manually
(cheirovulvolagnia) or orally (stomatovulvolagnia) before actual coitus: they are
capable of these forms of orgasm because in them they can forget that the orgasm
is heterolagnically induced: many of these women report that they can be aroused
(and, in favourable circumstances, orgastically satisfied) by men only in precoital
loveplay, or to be more exact as long as the penis is not involved: as soon as the
penis is involved in any way they immediately lose all interest—which is why
the more experienced ones among them ensure that they have their orgasm before
they come into any contact with the penis, coitus being a duty they have to do to
please their partners (or, perhaps more often, to pay for meals and entertainment
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etc.). This is a good example of heterolagnia that has to be auteroticized before
it can be enjoyed—if indeed we can count it as heterolagnia at all.
*
*
57. In conclusion, all eroticism—both eueroticism and dyseroticism—is
ultimately modelled on normal heterolagnic coitus, i.e. quasi-conceptive
phallovaginal penetration.
In normal heterolagnia, i.e. euheterolagnia, this quasi-conceptive
phallocolpolagnic relation may be imitated in a variety of ways, of which the
commonest is oral penetration with the tongue in allelostomatolagnia, though
other examples, including stomatovulvolagnia and stomatophallolagnia, were
also noted. In these relations the penetrative role of the phalloid and the receptive
role of the hysteroid are usually, though by no means invariably, distinct.
Moreover, with few exceptions, the man provides the phalloid while the woman
provides the hysteroid. Thus, for example, in stomatovulvolagnia the man’s mouth
represents the penetrative phalloid, while the woman’s vulva represents the
receptive hysteroid: whether or not there is an actual gesture at penetration by
the insertion of the tip of the tongue into the vaginal introitus, the man (in an
ideal sense) in every case orally penetrates into the woman’s womb. In
stomatophallolagnia, the penis is obviously the penetrative phalloid while the
woman’s mouth is the receptive hysteroid. However, much wider variations occur
in allelostomatolagnia, for this is the primary form of erotic kissing, i.e. of
stomatolagnia, in which the exerotic and enderotic elements readily blend in all
sorts of variations and combinations, as manifested in prolonged mutual sucking
and licking and exploration of the partner’s mouth with the tongue. Thus although
in allelostomatolagnia the man’s mouth, and especially his tongue, is
predominantly the phalloid, while the woman’s mouth that receives and sucks
the man’s tongue etc. is predominantly the hysteroid, this relation may temporarily
be reversed, the woman playing the penetrative-active role with her phalloid tongue
while the man temporarily plays the receptive-passive role with his hysteroid
mouth. Such temporary reversal of roles may serve more specific functions than
merely providing variety; e.g. a girl may use her tongue penetratively because
she wants the same to be done to her (in the same way as a girl who wants her
breasts caressed may suck her partner’s nipple to invite him to do the same to
her), or as a means of initiating loveplay leading to coitus, or in order to teach an
inexperienced boyfriend the art of ‘tongue-kissing’, or—not least, especially
among adept men and women, and especially when done at the height of passion—
because the woman’s tongue inserted into her partner’s mouth may represent the
gynotropic phalloid which she employs to induce her partner to redouble his
penetrative efforts, whether in allelostomatolagnia or in actual phallocolpolagnia
etc. All this is euphronesic, but of course there are women whose predilection
for the penetrative-active role in allelostomatolagnia is only part of their female
active heterolagnia which, if it is mild enough to be compatible with heterolagnic
coitus, may be more definitely manifested in the woman’s ability to have orgasm
in coitus only if she is on top of the man (or, less favourably, if coitus takes place
in the lateral position, face-to-face), but not if she is below the man.
58. In homolagnia in both sexes, which is a special form of autolagnia,
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bigenital (or allelaedeolagnic) penetration in imitation of normal heterolagnic
coitus is physically impossible—in male patients because the male genitals are
not penetrable (i.e. one man’s penis cannot accommodate another man’s penis,
as a woman’s vagina can), in female patients because the female genitals are not
penetrative (i.e. one woman’s womb cannot penetrate another woman’s womb).
Thus the nearest to heterolagnic coitus in homandrolagnia is the practice of
phalloproctolagnia, in which the penis of the penetrative-active partner represents
the true penis while the rectum of the receptive-passive partner represents the
androhysteroid; similarly, the nearest to heterolagnic coitus in homogynolagnia
is either bigenital friction (allelovulvolagnia) without any penetration, or
penetration effected by the use of a phalloid of some kind to represent the
gynophalloid. It is interesting to note that in both homandrolagnia and
homogynolagnia it is not uncommon for one partner to be designated the
‘husband’, i.e. the penetrative-active partner, in the relationship, and for the other
to be designated the ‘wife’, i.e. the receptive-passive partner, in the relationship.
These designations clearly show that homolagnic relations in both sexes are
basically modelled on normal heterolagnic coitus. (However, as there is a
preponderance of receptive-passive eroticism in homolagnics of both sexes, with
the result that most homolagnics have to play both parts in order to satisfy each
other, these designations of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ are of limited applicability.)
There are even homolagnic couples who, like their heterolagnic ‘originals’ (so to
speak), talk about ‘marriage’ (and may go to the length of buying engagement
and wedding rings). Even more interesting are those homolagnics of both sexes
who express the desire to bear children for their lovers. (Attempts to put all these
things into practice (e.g. having a homolagnic ‘marriage’ or adopting children by
a homolagnic couple) have, regrettably, sometimes been successful.)
59. Autolagnia, which is the main cause of most serious forms of dyseroticism,
is ultimately based on self-coitus, i.e. on genital self-penetration or self-genitalpenetration as if the subject were simultaneously a man and a woman in a bigenital
relation (which of course belongs to the entity of erotic fantasticism). Autolagnia
is most often and most typically expressed in solitary masturbation (autolagnic
masturbation, as distinct from erotosteretic masturbation), and its autolagnic nature
is essentially the same whether the associated masturbatory phantasies are wholly
autolagnic or are homolagnic or heterolagnic. Indeed autolagnia remains basically
the same, i.e. autolagnic, even where an admixture with heterolagnia or
homolagnia (the latter is a special form of autolagnia anyway) allows it to be
expressed in a heterolagnic or homolagnic context, as is typified by the case of
heterolagnically expressed scatolagnic disorders: in so far as the condition is
scatolagnic (for obviously scatolagnia, and for that matter autolagnia in general,
occurs in all degrees of combination with heterolagnia) it is an autolagnic condition
even if it is expressed in a heterolagnic setting.
60. Finally, as noted before, dysheterolagnia (or pathological heterolagnia),
apart from erotophobia, can be dyserotic either because of the intrusion of aphilia
or because of a greater or lesser pervasion by autolagnia, or because of elements
of both aphilia and autolagnia. Aphilic dysheterolagnia is dealt with in other
monographs; autolagnic dysheterolagnia has been dealt with above.
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(It will have been noted from the foregoing account that although ‘autolagnia’
means erotic autophilia, the word also has to be used in a narrower sense to
contrast with ‘heterolagnia’ and ‘homolagnia’. Thus, for example, we may say
that hydrolagnia (which is a form of scatolagnia) in a male patient may be
expressed in a heterolagnic form (e.g. in relation to phantasies and practices
relating to the observation of women bathing in the sea) or in an autolagnic form
(e.g. the patient spending hours lying fully dressed and masturbating in the bath
at home); from the psychogenetic point of view, however, all hydrolagnia—like
all scatolagnia—is autolagnic whether it is expressed in an entirely autolagnic or
(in phantasy or in practice) in a heterolagnic context: for the interest in water
which lies at the root of the patient’s disorder is autotropic, since it is ultimately
derived, like all hydrism (interest in, and fear of, water) from the subject’s interest
in his own urine: in its non-erotic, i.e. autophilic, form the interest in water
(hydrophilia) is euphronesic; in its erotic, i.e. autolagnic, form the interest in
water (hydrolagnia) is dysphronesic. Thus although hydrolagnia in a male patient
may be ‘heterolagnic’ (if it is expressed, in phantasy or in practice, in relation to
women), in so far as hydrolagnia concerns the erotic interest in water—including
the erotic association of women with water—it is always and invariably autolagnic
whatever way, or whatever form, it is expressed in. In fact this paradoxical use of
‘autolagnia’ and ‘heterolagnia’ has just been made yet again in referring to
phantasy: in one sense, a male patient’s erotic phantasies about women can only
be described as being heterolagnic; but, in a different sense, a male patient who
habitually (perhaps through a whole lifetime, with no exceptions) enjoys
‘heterolagnia’ only in phantasy proves that he is suffering from autolagnia: his
erotic life is in fact limited to his own inner world of phantasy.)
*
*
61. Throughout the preceding account we have had to refer to phantasy—a
very important phenomenon of erotic life, especially of autolagnic dyseroticism.
Rich phantasy and dream life is a scatistic idiom that may be associated with
almost any scatistic idiom, whether euphronesic or dysphronesic, and whether
palaeoscatistic or neoscatistic, hedonic or cosmophobic. The idiom is mainly a
manifestation of autotropia, which is one of the major characteristics of all scatism.
Phantasy and dreams are inherently autotropic as they belong to the individual’s
own inner world. In the case of eroticism, phantasy is of immense importance in
most forms of autolagnic dyseroticism, i.e. eroticism whose basis is autophilia.
In fact in some cases phantasy forms almost the whole of the patient’s eroticism.
This is particularly true of cases of erotic fantasticism, in which the realization of
the phantasy (at any rate in a complete form) is a practical impossibility: thus
phantasy, fantastic and impossible to realize as it is, is all that exists of the patient’s
eroticism: it is all that the patient’s eroticism really amounts to (apart from actual
masturbation). Finally, regarding dreaming, many individuals with an autolagnic
predisposition have a rich erotic dream life by night just as they have a rich erotic
phantasy life by day. Orgasm in sleep is common in such individuals and may be
a frequent and regular, rather than an occasional, occurrence and, in both sexes,
may be associated with dreams of a more or less euerotic or of frankly dyserotic
content, often with a specific recurrent motif or even with a specific recurrent
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dream. Thus a hydrolagnic may regularly dream about water with actual orgasm
in the dream, and, similarly, a hypsolagnic may regularly have dreams about
flying (sometimes about flying over water, if hypsolagnia is combined with
hydrolagnia, as is often the case), and these dreams may regularly culminate in
actual orgasm.
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Chapter 5
PALAEOTROPOLAGNIA
62. The kyemetrophilic concept of eroticism is the primary concept of
eroticism at all levels of diaphronesia, both phobophronesic and
postphobophronesic, in the sense of being both universal and essentially
euphronesic (though obviously autokyemetrophilia and the cosmophobic form,
viz. kyemetrophobia, are dysphronesic). However, there is another concept of
eroticism, which is dysphronesic and which is limited to the phobophronesic
level of human mental and cultural evolution, viz. the sadistic-excretory or
palaeotropolagnic concept of eroticism, or simply palaeotropolagnia. This concept
applies to eroticism in general and coitus in particular. Its basis is that of conceiving
the genital function as an excretory function and conceiving semen, not as a
secretion, but as an excretory product, i.e. as excrement. This is in contrast to the
euphronesic concept of semen in idiophilic terms as a gift donated by the man to
the woman in coitus. As discussed in the monograph on Philism, a gift is ultimately
conceived as a gift of food: by devouring it, the recipient preservatively devours
the donor of the gift. Thus the gift unites the donor and the recipient with an
idiophilic bond, or a bond of love. In the case of the semen in coitus, the gift (as
we have seen before) is a rather special kind of gift, viz. one with exquisite active
expulsive preservative devouring power which complements, and indeed quite
literally brings to a climax, the active internal preservative devouring power of
phallic penetrativeness. But these are all details: the important point is that in
eueroticism the semen is conceived in idiophilic terms as a gift that contributes
to the mutual preservative devouring which forms the essence of coital union.
Palaeotropolagnia, on the other hand, being palaeoscatistic, conceives semen in
excretory and phthoristic terms as an excretory product like urine and faeces,
viz. as seminal excrement, and attributes to it highly destructive properties like
those attributed to excreta. This phthoristic destructiveness is largely conceived
in an ideal form as shame or dishonour that is inflicted by the man on the woman
in coitus. (The relation of shame to phthoristic destructiveness is echoed in the
familiar reference to a man ‘ruining’ a woman by having coitus with her.) Thus,
according to the palaeotropolagnic concept, coitus is a sadistic act in which the
man defiles, and thereby dishonours (or inflicts shame on), the woman by
depositing his ‘seminal excrement’ inside her. Or, to put it differently, ‘seminal
excrement’ in coitus dishonours the woman, i.e. it destroys her in an ideal sense.
Thus, in palaeotropolagnia, which is dysphronesic, the penetrative-active role in
coitus is conceived as a penetrative-sadistic role, which is associated with sadistic
pride, while the receptive-passive role is conceived as a receptive-masochistic
role, which is associated with shame, viz. androphobic (= androlagnophobic)
shame or androphobia.
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50. Erotogenesis
63. We cannot deal here with all the corollaries of palaeotropolagnia, which
are discussed in other monographs, but reference should be made to three of
them: the taboo on eroticism and on nudity in public, the taboo on ‘obscene’
words, and (very briefly) androphobia.
64. The taboo on eroticism and on nudity in public, arises from conceiving
eroticism in general and coitus in particular as a shameful or shame-provoking
act (shame being another palaeoscatistic idiom, like skoroidism and phthorism)
because it is not only an act of excretion (and in phobophronesic civilization
excretory acts in public are taboo) but, even worse, a compound act of excretion,
viz. an act of excretion in which the excrement (viz. the ‘seminal excrement’)
that leaves the body is not merely disposed of like other excrements but is deposited
inside another human being. Thus coitus is taboo in all public places in
phobophronesic civilization, but the extent to which other forms of erotic
behaviour are prohibited varies considerably in different phobophronesic cultures;
for example, in Western Europe today, frankly erotic kissing in the street and in
parks etc. by fully dressed couples is freely allowed, but in some countries in the
East a man would be arrested if he gave his wife a fleeting kiss (or ‘peck’) on the
lips on parting at a railway station.
Not only is eroticism prohibited in public but, by extension, nudity—more
specifically the exposure of the genital organs—is also prohibited in public for
both sexes. The frequent extension of the taboo on exposing the genitals to the
female breasts, and especially the female nipples, is probably due to the pigmented,
dark, melanoid colour of the nipples and areolae as well as their erectility—both
of which assimilate them to the male penis. The taboo on the exposure of female
breasts (and nipples), however, has generally been relaxed in the case of art, and
even exposure in everyday life has shown wide cultural variations. For example,
in some civilizations in the East, despite the rigidly observed taboo on the exposure
of female breasts and nipples in everyday life, the maternal breast is exempted
from the taboo: women are often seen suckling their babies in public places: it is
as if the maternal breast were as sacred as the breast was otherwise (because of
its erotic associations) profane. The taboo on exposure of the genitals itself has
generally been severer in relation to the female genitals, probably because of the
concept of the ‘cesspit vagina’ (i.e. the vagina as the receptacle for ‘seminal
excrement’) (and no doubt also because of androphobia and sexual hectism (viz.
the private ownership of women by men)). For example, ancient Greek art freely
featured the male genitals, but the female pudendum was taboo. However, in
‘pornographic’ art—we are touching now on the concept of ‘obscenity’—this
relation has often been reversed, presumably because, in so far as the phenomena
of eroterethia are concerned, the female genitals show little (e.g. to a modern
photographer) that is conclusive evidence of eroterethia, whereas the erection of
the male penis is conspicuously conclusive.
65. The palaeoscatistic concept of ‘obscenity’ is the product of shame (which,
as noted before, is a cosmophobic idiom of palaeoscatism) in relation to excretory
matters and in relation to erotic matters conceived in palaeotropolagnic (or sadisticexcretory) terms. Or, to put it differently, ‘obscene’ (or ‘indecent’) matters are
excretory and erotic matters (excretory and erotic acts and products etc.) provoking
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shame, or shame morality, because they are conceived in palaeoscatistic terms.
The concept of ‘obscenity’, being cosmophobic and palaeoscatistic, is limited to
phobophronesia: it does not exist either at the prephobophronesic level or at the
postphobophronesic level. This implies that it is absent not only among savages
but also, though only in a relative sense, among the loiposymphronesic lower
classes of phobophronesic civilization. (The working-class man who, in speaking
to a doctor at a clinic, tries to substitute (as best he can, for he may often be lost
for words!) ‘respectable’ words for the words he uses freely in his own everyday
life, will be merely trying to pay lip-service to the upper classes and their
phobophronesic standards and institutions, as the lower classes often do or have
to do.) Thus it may be said that, to a great extent, the concept of ‘obscenity’ only
troubles the ‘enlightened’ or ‘better’ classes, i.e. the truly phobophronesic classes,
of phobophronesic civilization: it has little or no relevance to the
loiposymphronesic lower classes (depending on their degree of
loiposymphronesia). In the case of ‘obscene’ words—though it is difficult to
make generalizations that have no exceptions—these are generally words that
are used without shame, i.e. as part of the ordinary vocabulary of everyday life,
by the loiposymphronesic lower classes, in relation to excretory and erotic acts
and products (the acts and organs of excretion and of coitus, excreta, etc.): to
them these words are morally neutral. In English, despite the existence of
exceptions (since the influence of Latin, mainly through French, goes very far
indeed in the history of the language), these are mostly simple, short, often
monosyllabic, native Anglo-Saxon words. It is the ‘enlightened’, i.e.
phobophronesic, classes who attach palaeoscatistic associations to these native
words, and who therefore find them offensive or ‘obscene’, viz. these words
offend against their cosmophobia or cosmophobic morality, more specifically
against their shame morality. These ‘enlightened’ classes have to use words far
removed from these simple native words, and therefore less likely to provoke
shame. In English, these less familiar words are likely to be drawn from Latin or
Greek; typical examples include the following words, all of which refer to
excretory and erotic matters: faeces, urine, anus, penis, vulva, vagina, sexual
intercourse. The native, mostly Anglo-Saxon, equivalents of these words are all
‘vulgar’ words which would be regarded as ‘obscene’ if printed. It is interesting
to note that ‘obscene’ words, because of their association with palaeoscatism, are
commonly regarded as ‘dirty’ or ‘filthy’ or ‘foul’ (‘foul language’). They thus
have skoroidohedonic (skoroidophilic and skoroidolagnic), more specifically
mysohedonic, and more specifically still mysolalohedonic (mysolalophilic and
mysolalolagnic), associations. The use of these words in phobophronesic
civilization—in so far as literate, ‘enlightened’ people are concerned—constitutes
a breach of shame morality in particular, and of cosmophobic morality in general,
and is most often motivated by one or both of two factors, viz. mysolalohedonia
and antiphobic sadism. These factors have their cultural as well as their individual
implications. For example, it is understandable that an artist, e.g. a writer, may
sometimes need to use some of these ‘vulgar’ or ‘obscene’ words to convey the
full overtones of their palaeoscatistic associations. But this is very different from
both the mysohedonic passion for using these words exactly because they are
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50. Erotogenesis
felt to be ‘dirty’, as in the writings of some modern writers which consist of little
more than an array of these ‘obscenities’, and the antiphobic-sadistic trend, which
is especially common in some turbulent-backward and overmature-progressive
civilizations as well as in propeto-phthoristic individuals and cultures in general,
in which great pleasure is taken in defying or flouting the cosmophobic taboos
that form the essence of most morality in phobophronesic civilization, without
any attempt at outgrowing them. It will be noted that both factors, viz.
mysohedonia and antiphobic sadism (or, for that matter, propeto-phthorism in
general), are palaeoscatistic so that it is easy to understand why they are often
found, in both their individual and cultural forms, in combination.
66. Androphobia or androphobic shame is that form of shame that attaches
to receptive-passive eroticism, which is primarily the woman’s normal eroticism,
though androphobia also applies to receptive-passive homandrolagnia. It is of
no importance in homogynolagnia—because receptive-passive homogynolagnia,
unlike the receptive-passive role in both heterolagnia and homandrolagnia,
involves no true male penis and therefore no ‘seminal excrement’ to defile and
‘dishonour’ the woman.
Androphobia is a vast subject with wide cultural and psychiatric implications.
Its various aspects are dealt with in other monographs in this series.
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Monograph 51
AUTOLAGNIA
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Autolagnia
02—20
2.
Homolagnia
21—49
3.
Reversed Heterolagnia
50—62
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51. Autolagnia
INTRODUCTION
01. Homolagnia and reversed heterolagnia are derivatives of autolagnia. The
subject is of considerable cultural as well as psychiatric importance, and numerous
references to it will be found in other monographs in the series. The present
account is intended merely as a summary.
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Chapter 1
AUTOLAGNIA
02. Autolagnia or auteroticism is a form of dyseroticism representing erotic
autophilia, i.e. erotic self-love. As noted in the monograph on Erotogenesis,
autophilia is the basis of all scatism, normal and pathological; thus autolagnia is
a scatistic—wholly dysphronesic (dyserotic)—condition.
Autolagnia has two main forms: general autolagnia and scatolagnia. General
autolagnia comprises autolagnia proper, homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia.
(Thus, even though this may appear paradoxical at first sight, homolagnia and
reversed heterolagnia may be said to be special forms of the general form of
autolagnia.) General autolagnia may be manifested on its own, or it may be
manifested in association with scatolagnia. For example, a homolagnic of either
sex (whose homolagnia, of course, can only exist in association with autolagnia
proper) may not exhibit any specific form of scatolagnia (e.g. hydrolagnia,
pyrolagnia, or phthorolagnia); but a hydrolagnic, pyrolagnic, or phthorolagnic
will certainly exhibit greater or lesser general autolagnia, viz. autolagnia proper
and quite possibly also homolagnia and/or reversed heterolagnia.
03. To understand autolagnia and how it may sometimes present as autolagnia
proper and sometimes also as homolagnia or as reversed heterolagnia—and very
often as all of these in different combinations—we must understand its relation
to hypergeneosemeiophilia, viz. hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia and
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia, and its erotic forms, viz. homogeneosemeiolagnia
and hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia.
It will be noted that normal geneosemeiophilia (viz. heterogeneosemeiophilia
and homogeneosemeiophilia) is an integral part of idiophilia, which is the
phagobasis of normal eroticism (or eueroticism or normal heterolagnia). In this
normal eroticism arising on the phagobasis of idiophilia,
heterogeneosemeiophilia—but not homogeneosemeiophilia—gives rise to an
erotic form, viz. heterogeneosemeiolagnia, which is an integral part of normal
eroticism.
In the monograph on Erotogenesis we have noted that autolagnia represents
erotic autophilia (or erotic self-love). Here we may take things further. Autolagnia
is virtually always associated with excessive autophilia; hence we may quite
appropriately regard autolagnia as the ultimate culmination of autophilia. In
other words, autophilia has to be excessive, i.e. it has to amount to hyperautophilia,
before it can become erotic, i.e. before it can become ‘erotic autophilia’ or (more
precisely) ‘erotic hyperautophilia’ or simply ‘autolagnia’. This is true of virtually
the whole of autolagnia: for example, hydrolagnia is virtually invariably associated
with hyperhydrophilia so that hydrolagnia may be regarded as the ultimate
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51. Autolagnia
culmination of hyperhydrophilia, i.e. when hydrophilia is so great in a patient it
tends to be manifested in an erotic form (hydrolagnia) as well as in its original
non-erotic form (hydrophilia, or, rather, hyperhydrophilia).
Once we have grasped that autolagnia is derived from hyperautophilia rather
than from normal autophilia, we can not only understand the nature of autolagnia
itself, including its invariable association with a greater or lesser degree of
hypereroticism (viz. autolagnic hypereroticism, with which we shall deal later)
but we can also understand how autolagnia may give rise to one or both of two of
the commonest forms of dyseroticism: homolagnia and reversed heterolagnia.
For while we have no reason to believe that geneosemeiophilia is at all represented
in normal autophilia, there can hardly be any doubt that in hyperautophilia
geneosemeiophilia is represented in a form which is qualitatively as well as
quantitatively dysphronesic: it is to this dysphronesic form of geneosemeiophilia
that forms an integral part of hyperautophilia that we apply the term
hypergeneosemeiophilia—a collective term which, as noted before, comprises
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia and hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia. Moreover,
as hyperautophilia gives rise to autolagnia (= erotic hyperautophilia) so does
hypergeneosemeiophilia give rise to corresponding erotic forms: thus
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia gives rise to homogeneosemeiolagnia while
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia gives rise to hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia.
04. Thus autolagnia contains within its structure, including its basis in
hyperautophilia, a variable mixture of hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia/
homogeneosemeiolagnia
and
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia/
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia. It is these constituents, in different combinations,
that explain the variety of forms taken by autolagnia (in its general form):
autolagnia proper, homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia. For example, the
coexistence
of
elements
of
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia/
homogeneosemeiolagnia
and
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia/
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia is responsible for the basic characteristic of
autolagnia as a condition in which the patient himself or herself is simultaneously
man and woman, i.e. penetrative-active and receptive-passive—though one or
the other of these (more often the receptive-passive form) may predominate.
Another example: in the case of homolagnia it is obvious that the most important
and most constant constituent is homogeneosemeiolagnia arising on a basis of
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia, but the variable contributions of
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia,
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia,
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, heterogeneosemeiophobia, and also of
hyperhomaedeophilia and homaedeolagnia, may produce fairly different clinical
pictures of homolagnia. This subject was referred to in the monograph on
Geneosemeia and will be referred to again later in this monograph.
05. One fact that must be emphasized here as it is of the utmost importance
is that whereas normal (euphronesic) geneosemeiophilia, like the idiophilia of
which it is part, is allotropic—and so is the normal (euphronesic)
heterogeneosemeiolagnia which is derived from it—this is not the case with
hypergeneosemeiophilia and its erotic derivatives: hypergeneosemeiophilia, like
the hyperautophilia of which it is part, is autotropic, and its erotic derivatives are
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
also autotropic, i.e. are autolagnic. Thus hypergeneosemeiophilia and its erotic
derivatives differ from their euphronesic counterparts qualitatively, viz. in being
autotropic, and not only quantitatively. For example, the normal man’s erotic
interest in the woman is fully allotropic: he is interested in her because she is a
woman and because of all the characteristics that make her a woman: thus his
heterogeneosemeiolagnia is clearly allotropic.
By contrast,
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia in an autolagnic man may take different forms,
but they are all autotropic and not allotropic, i.e. they are all autolagnic. For
example, in autolagnia proper we may see hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia
expressed by a man masturbating in long sessions in front of a mirror dressed in
women’s underwear, e.g. wearing a brassiere (with the ‘cups’ filled with cottonwool to create the illusion that he has full breasts like women), a pair of women’s
nylon pants, stockings, and a suspender belt.
This patient’s
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia clearly takes the form of loving and admiring
the woman in himself. In homandrolagnics, hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia may
also take the form of transvestolagnia, but with or without transvestolagnia the
homandrolagnic may have a considerable interest in women because of his
autolagnic desire to be a woman himself and to be loved (i.e. preservatively
devoured, internally and externally) by men as a woman is loved by men. Yet
again, hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia in reversed heterolagnia may give a man
an immense interest in women with a considerable show of empathy and
‘understanding’ for them: in reality his affection for them is not that of a man for
women but that of a woman for men. This latter desire, viz. the male desire to be
loved by women as a woman is loved by men, was aptly described by one male
patient, referred to in the Notes to the monograph on Hydroidism, who practised
transvestolagnia on a large scale, both when he went out and even in bed at night
when he was on his own, by saying: ‘I am a passive lesbian’: by this he meant
that he liked women but he wanted the woman to be the ‘man’ in the relationship,
i.e. he wanted her to play the penetrative-active role and himself to play the
receptive-passive role.
*
*
06. Autolagnia proper is mainly manifested in the form of autolagnic
masturbation. Autolagnic masturbation is a prolonged, solitary form of
masturbation, in which the masturbatory session may last for hours, which the
patients generally spend contemplating themselves in the nude in front of a mirror
(usually a full-length mirror or, in some cases, two or more mirrors arranged in
such a way that the patients can see themselves, and watch what they are doing to
themselves, from different angles). The patient may actually pretend to have
erotic relations with himself or herself in the mirror—or, to be more precise, with
his or her image in the mirror. For example, such patients may kiss themselves in
the mirror, or may bring their genitals into apposition with the image of their
genitals in the mirror; in other words, they may try to have erotic loveplay as well
as bigenital penetrative coitus with themselves (or, rather, with their image) in
the mirror, i.e. penetrative allelophallolagnia in the case of male patients and
penetrative allelovulvolagnia (or, perhaps more accurately, penetrative
allelocolpolagnia) in the case of female patients. However, whether or not actual
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51. Autolagnia
erotic loveplay and bigenital coitus are attempted with themselves in the mirror,
it is clear that this is basically what autolagnic patients use the mirrors for. For
example, a girl is not content with actually fondling her own breasts with her
hands: she wants to see herself in the mirror doing this to herself. Similarly, she
is not content with inserting two or three of her fingers into her vagina: she wants
to have as complete and perfect a view as possible of her genitals in the mirror
while she is penetrating herself in order to create the illusion as far as possible
that she is actually having coitus with herself. The same is true of male patients,
whether their autolagnic masturbation is confined to their genitals or whether it
also involves (as it often does) the rectum; the combination of genital and anal
masturbation (autodactyloproctolagnia) is clearly the nearest the patient can come
to actual coitus with himself, especially if he also wants to watch himself in the
mirror practising this combination on himself.
However, the above description of autolagnic masturbation may not apply
where scatolagnia is present. For example, the hydrolagnic may practise
autolagnic masturbation not in front of a mirror but in the bath, and the optimum
setting for a pyrolagnic is that of masturbating at leisure while watching the barn
he has just set alight being gutted by the blaze.
07. We can understand why homolagnia is essentially a form of autolagnia.
Homolagnics of both sexes very often state that they are particularly attracted to
those members of their own sex in whom they can see an image of themselves,
e.g. if their looks (i.e. appearance) or manners or dress etc. remind them of
themselves as they are or as they were when they were younger. To a superficial
observer this is merely a matter of people being attracted to others with whom
they have much in common. However, when we say that a married couple have
much in common we really mean that they have many common interests in the
mental or ideal sense of ‘interest’; but in the case of homolagnics what often
attracts them to each other is not so much their common interests as the fact that
in one way or another (which of course may not at all be obvious to others) they
see an image—in the physical sense of image—of themselves in their partners.
Thus homolagnia is often a dramatization, as it were, of what we see in autolagnic
masturbation: instead of patients seeking, explicitly or implicitly, to have bigenital
coitus with themselves in the mirror in autolagnic masturbation, they seek to
have coitus with a real image of themselves, viz. with a real person that reminds
them of themselves.
08. Autolagnic masturbation should not be confused with erotosteretic
masturbation, though of course in many cases the two may overlap. Erotosteretic
masturbation, arising from vicarious allophilia, is much commoner than the
autolagnic form and, although dysphronesic, is ‘normal’ in phobophronesic
civilization, in which the various forms of erotophobia (aphormic erotophobia,
shame, etc.—the subject is dealt with in other monographs) make a greater or
lesser degree of erotosteresis a ‘normal’ condition of life, even for the married,
and still more for the unmarried. Not that erotosteretic masturbation (which
even now is still often confused with autolagnic masturbation) has always been
regarded as ‘normal’: on the contrary, until erotological research into these hitherto
tabooed subjects conclusively proved that masturbation was virtually universal
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in our civilization, at least among adolescent males, masturbation was regarded
as ‘unnatural’ and the aetherotophobia that it provoked in both sexes sometimes
had quite serious consequences. The subject is dealt with elsewhere in this series.
09. We have noted that autolagnic masturbation is generally prolonged and
performed in the nude in front of a mirror or a set of mirrors; by contrast,
erotosteretic masturbation is vicarious allophilia: it is merely a sort of safetyvalve, or a means of obtaining relief, for frustrated heterolagnia: in other words,
it is an autolagnic means of expressing heterolagnia necessitated by the presence
of sexual taboos, or cultural erotophobia, in phobophronesic civilization. Hence
we have to deal with it here as it is autolagnic in expression even though its
content is heterolagnic. Typically it is associated with exclusively heterolagnic
phantasies, but the presence of such phantasies is not conclusive proof that the
masturbation is erotosteretic: as noted in the monographs on Erotogenesis and
on Rich Phantasy and Dream Life, many autophilic and autolagnic patients enjoy
phantasy more than reality because phantasy is autotropic (it belongs to their
own inner world). In the case of eroticism, enjoying heterolagnia exclusively in
phantasy on a habitual or permanent basis may indeed be entirely due to
erotosteresis, and may thus be ‘normal’ in phobophronesic civilization, but equally
it may be due to autolagnia so that even though the content of the phantasies is
heterolagnic the condition may in reality be one of autolagnia. For example, we
often see recently married men and women—though this is less common now in
Western Europe than it used to be before the introduction of oral contraception
with its associated erotodelia for women no less than men—who had hoped that
marriage would cure them of masturbation, but who have found marriage (i.e.
heterolagnia) erotically very disappointing. In fact even now we occasionally
see the young woman who, ostensibly because she proudly wanted to remain
virgin till she was married, had only engaged in mutual masturbation before
marriage, in which cheirovulvolagnia (or rather dactyloclitoridolagnia) by her
future husband had given her the same satisfaction solitary masturbation had
always given her, but who has found coitus after marriage wholly unsatisfying.
In these cases—in both sexes—deeper probing usually shows that such patients
are in reality autolagnic: they kept their virginity before marriage not because of
their professed ‘high principles’ but only because, with their autolagnia, they had
no real use for heterolagnic relations, least of all heterolagnic coitus: their only
way of responding orgastically in heterolagnia is to continue with the masturbation
(cheiraedeolagnia) they used to practise on their own (autocheiraedeolagnia)
(though usually stomataedeolagnia is at least as satisfying, and often much more
so—autostomataedeolagnia having been denied to them in the past because of
its sheer physical impossibility).
10. In a different way, masturbatory phantasy, especially in women, may be
greatly modified or even abolished by the very sexual taboos that necessitate
erotosteretic masturbation in the first place. Thus the absence of masturbatory
phantasy in women may be due to the masturbation being autolagnic or it may be
merely due to androphobic and other (e.g. sexual-meionectic) taboos in the form
of female anancosymphronesia. This last point is very important: female
anancosymphronesia (whose most important single factor is androphobia, but
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51. Autolagnia
which is contributed to by sexual meionexia, aphilia, shame other than
androphobia, and tetraphobia) affects female eroticism as a whole and not only
female masturbation or masturbatory phantasy. Thus in the most extreme cases,
which are still very common in countries in which women have not achieved
erotic liberation, there may be a complete absence of all erotic desire and erotic
expression (female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism). This aneroticism may be
limited to the period before marriage, the woman being gradually initiated into
the joys of eroticism after marriage. Sometimes, however, such married women
may not overcome their female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism till they have
had their first—or in some cases not till the second or third—child: it is as if the
experience of motherhood sanctions eroticism in the eyes of these women—or,
to put it differently, it is as if the experience of motherhood allows these women
to appreciate the hypocrisy and injustice of a phobophronesic civilization which
not only tolerates but almost idolizes motherhood and which nevertheless
simultaneously views the normal female role in coitus as dirty, degrading, and
dishonouring—even though it is in reality the only means women have for
becoming mothers. In yet other cases, female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism
is a completely permanent condition that remains unaltered even after repeated
experience of motherhood (in Catholic countries, where contraception is not
practised, even after having eight or more children). On the other hand, the
effect of female anancosymphronesia may be less severe: an unmarried young
woman may be able to masturbate, but her androphobia may affect her erotosteretic
masturbation in one or more of a variety of ways, both as regards masturbatory
phantasy and as regards masturbatory method. For example, her erotic phantasies
about men may be fleeting and vague; or they may be romantic and affectionate
rather than overtly erotic, i.e. involving the expression of love and tenderness
rather than of phallic erection and phallocolpolagnia; or masturbatory phantasy
may be completely suppressed: the girl masturbates for sheer physical relief
without being able (because of androphobia) to bring herself to think about men
at all. The effect of androphobia on the method of masturbation is even greater.
Many women do not practise full vaginal masturbation (autodactylocolpolagnia)
because it is so overtly erotic: it unmistakably betrays the craving for men and
their penes. Thus they may content themselves with clitoridal masturbation
(autodactyloclitoridolagnia) or with rubbing the whole vulval area, which
stimulates the labia minora (or nymphae) as well as the clitoris
(autocheirovulvolagnia). In the most extreme cases—which used to be common
in the past, when any erotic thought or practice was claimed to be unworthy of,
and even abnormal for, a ‘respectable’ young woman—a girl would masturbate
by crossing her thighs and squeezing them hard together while bending forward
at the same time, all of which would combine to exert enough pressure on the
vulva to produce orgasm without using the hand at all, and of course without any
masturbatory phantasy. Many of these girls masturbated for years without
realizing that what they were doing was erotic, or that it in any way tarnished the
‘purity’ of thought and action of a ‘respectable’ virgin; this was of course an
example of anancosymphronesic self-deception. Finally, it is worth noting that,
apart from actual practice, women—again because of female-anancosymphronesic
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
standards of morality and conduct that are imposed on them by men—often lie
about masturbation and indeed about their eroticism in general. Thus some young
women who masturbate deny (at any rate initially) that they do; many who practise
vaginal masturbation (autodactylocolpolagnia) would only admit initially to
clitoridal masturbation (autodactyloclitoridolagnia); and many who have
masturbatory phantasies (whether euerotic, e.g. about coitus with famous ‘film
stars’ or sportsmen, or dyserotic, e.g. about orgiastic group coitus (reflecting,
inter alia, active and passive hyperscopolagnia)) may initially deny having any
phantasies in masturbation. It is obvious that androphobia (and other sexual
taboos for women: sexual meionexia etc.) may greatly restrict or even completely
suppress female eroticism, both normal and pathological; but in less androphobic
civilizations women may yield to temptation, but feel obliged to lie about it.
11. Vaginal masturbation in women is by no means always limited to
autodactylocolpolagnia: artificial phalloids may be used, e.g. bananas, carrots,
cucumbers, long-necked bottles, candles, and artificial penes (either dildos or
vibrators). Vibrators may be used on the clitoris (either before, or instead of,
being inserted into the vagina).
(Artificial penes are nowadays widely available for autolagnic, homolagnic
(especially homogynolagnic), and occasionally even heterolagnic practices. They
are generally used intrarectally by male patients whereas female patients (in
autolagnic masturbation or homogynolagnic relations) may use them
intravaginally, or externally on the clitoris, or, very occasionally, intrarectally (in
cases of proctolagnia or coproidolagnia in general). Strictly speaking, ‘dildos’
are artificial penes made of rubber or rubber-like materials, and usually shaped
exactly like a natural erect penis with a glans, neck, shaft, and sometimes even
scrotum. By contrast, vibrators are, typically, plain cylindrical instruments,
tapering at one end. However, the two types overlap; e.g. some vibrators may
have a slip-over sheath of latex to transform them into a sort of vibrating dildo.
(Of course, in a wider sense, any vibrator may be regarded as a vibrating dildo.)
Presumably vibrations are erethopoeic because they artificially stimulate the same
muscle proprioceptors that are stimulated naturally by the rhythmic contractions
of smooth and striped muscle at the orgasm. Variations in the design of dildos
include strap-on models for use by the active woman in vaginal ‘coitus’ with her
passive partner in homogynolagnic relations, as well as double dildos that allow
simultaneous vaginal penetration of both partners in homogynolagnic ‘coitus’.)
Finally, it will have been evident from the foregoing account that although
typical autolagnic masturbation is quite distinct from erotosteretic masturbation,
the distinction is by no means always easy. In particular, many cases of apparently
erotosteretic masturbation in unmarried young people prove conclusively after
marriage to have been autolagnic, viz. when the patient discovers for the first
time that heterolagnia is essentially alien to him or to her.
*
*
12. Scatolagnia is a collective term for the erotic forms of specific scatistic
idioms. These erotic forms are all dyserotic. They comprise the erotic forms of
palaeoscatistic idioms and of protoscatistic idioms, which are collectively referred
to as palaeoscatolagnia and protoscatolagnia, respectively. Palaeoscatolagnia
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51. Autolagnia
comprises skoroidolagnia (coproidolagnia and uroidolagnia), phthorolagnia
(pragmophthorolagnia, apragmophthorolagnia, and autophthorolagnia), and
propetolagnia. It should be remembered that palaeoscatism is dysphronesic in
its entirety; thus its non-erotic hedonic idioms (viz. skoroidophilia, phthorophilia,
and propetophilia, in all their forms), being dysphronesic, do not take the prefix
‘hyper-’. On the other hand, of the two forms of neoscatism, viz. protoscatism
and deutoscatism, deutoscatism has no erotic and no cosmophobic forms (though
it does have hyperhedonic forms, which are of course dysphronesic); hence
deutoscatism does not concern us in the study of eroticism. Protoscatism, which
of course is euphronesic in its non-erotic hedonic forms (protoscatophilia), has
three dysphronesic forms, of which two are hedonic, viz. hyperprotoscatophilia
and protoscatolagnia, while the third is the cosmophobic form, viz.
protoscatophobia. The important point to note here is that, in protoscatism,
protoscatolagnia is virtually invariably associated with hyperprotoscatophilia,
so that the former may be regarded as the ultimate culmination, or overflow (as it
were), of the latter. We have referred to the significance of this before.
13. Aestheticism requires a special mention here as its nomenclature is
different from that of other scatistic idioms. Aestheticism is a protoscatistic idiom,
of which the hedonic form, viz. aestheticophilia, is euphronesic while the
cosmophobic form, viz. aestheticophobia, is dysphronesic. However,
aestheticolagnia is not the erotic form of the scatistic idiom of aestheticism: in
fact aestheticolagnia is a euphronesic idiom of eroticism. It is
hyperaestheticolagnia, i.e. pathologically excessive aestheticolagnia, which is
scatolagnic and which indeed may be taken as the scatolagnic (and therefore
dysphronesic) form of the scatistic idiom of aestheticism. Hyperaestheticolagnia,
like other forms of scatolagnia, is autolagnic whatever its presentation (i.e. whether
autolagnic, homolagnic, or heterolagnic).
The various forms of scatolagnia are dealt with in relation to the various
idioms to which they belong: palaeoscatolagnia is dealt with in the monographs
on palaeoscatism and protoscatolagnia in those on protoscatism;
hyperaestheticolagnia is dealt with in the monograph on Aestheticolagnia.
*
*
14. A major characteristic of autolagnia in all its forms is its association with
hypereroticism. By this we mean that all autolagnic conditions (autolagnia proper,
homolagnia, reversed heterolagnia, and scatolagnia), apart from being dyserotic
in the qualitative sense, are always also dyserotic in the quantitative sense, viz. in
the sense of the eroticism being excessive. Thus, for example, a male homolagnic
or hydrolagnic is dyserotic not only because his eroticism is related to members
of his own sex or to water, but also because the part eroticism plays in his life is
usually incomparably greater than the part normal eroticism plays in the life of a
normal person. In fact some autolagnics (though by no means all) may be
preoccupied with their autolagnic conditions morning, noon, and night: their
autolagnia is the most important thing in their lives.
The implication of the foregoing statement, which must be emphasized, is
that a greater or lesser degree of hypereroticism is characteristic of all autolagnia.
In other words, autolagnic hypereroticism is an integral part, or an inherent
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characteristic, of autolagnia: there is no autolagnia without a greater or lesser
degree of hypereroticism. As we shall presently see, this is very different from
hyperphilic hypereroticism, which essentially represents a simple quantitative
(albeit spurious) exaggeration of normal eroticism.
15. Hypereroticism arises from three main causes: aphilia (aphilic
hypereroticism), hyperphilia (hyperphilic hypereroticism), and autolagnia
(autolagnic hypereroticism). Aphilic hypereroticism does not concern us here,
though hyperphilia of course is a derivative of aphilia, but the hyperphilic and
autolagnic forms must be dealt with here, especially as they sometimes overlap.
16. Hyperphilic hypereroticism is a form of aphilic dyseroticism, since all
hyperphilia arises ultimately from aphilia: aphilia is the primary condition,
hyperphilia is a secondary condition. Hyperphilic hypereroticism is due to the
fact that hyperphilia exaggerates all philophilic idioms, the central idiom of which
is idiophilia, which forms the phagobasis of normal eroticism so that its
exaggeration (hyperidiophilia) may result in a similar exaggeration of normal
eroticism (hyperphilic hypereroticism). This exaggeration of normal eroticism
typically results in eroticism that is qualitatively normal (i.e. its content is normal)
but that is quantitatively pathological (viz. its intensity is grossly exaggerated).
Thus, typically, hyperphilic hypereroticism is dyserotic only in the quantitative
sense: it is qualitatively more or less completely normal. However, two points
should be noted here. The first is that hyperphilia, because it is derived from
deeper aphilia, represents an essentially spurious exaggeration of hedonia. In
the case of hyperphilic hypereroticism, the increase in eroticism is usually
spurious, in the sense that, despite the patient’s preoccupation with eroticism and
daring advances to the opposite sex, if coitus is attempted a man is likely to prove
mixanorthotic and a woman mixanorgastic. The second point is that although
hyperphilia represents primarily an exaggeration of philophilia, it may secondarily
result in a diffuse exaggeration of all forms of the patient’s hedonia (hyperhedonia).
Of course hyperphilic eroticism is itself an example of such diffusion since
eroticism itself is not an idiom of philophilia; but the important point to note is
that although normal eroticism is derived directly from idiophilia and therefore
tends to be influenced by changes in idiophilia, in a different way the diffuse
hyperhedonia associated with hyperphilia may also affect scatohedonia and may
thus—in a secondary and temporary form which only lasts for the duration of the
hyperphilia—result in the appearance of all the manifestations of autolagnia to
which the patient is predisposed, e.g. homolagnia and scatolagnia, which may
have hitherto been largely or wholly limited to phantasy life and dreams, and
only rarely or never expressed in reality.
Thus the psychogenesis of hyperphilic hypereroticism lies essentially in the
exaggeration of the phagobasis of normal eroticism; this, in typical cases, results
in the spurious quantitative exaggeration of normal eroticism without altering it
qualitatively; however, in some cases hyperphilia may involve scatohedonia and
may thus result in a secondary, temporary form of autolagnia with hypereroticism
that is qualitatively as well as quantitatively dyserotic.
17. Turning now to the psychogenesis of autolagnic hypereroticism, we have
noted already that autolagnia arises on a basis of hyperautophilia, and that it
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51. Autolagnia
indeed represents the ultimate culmination of hyperautophilia. The important
point to note is that there is no real difference between autolagnia amounting to
erotic hyperautophilia and autolagnia amounting to hypererotic autophilia: it is
obvious that if autolagnia is essentially the ultimate culmination of hyperautophilia
then it is bound to be excessive: autolagnia is not only qualitatively dyserotic
(because it represents erotic self-love instead of erotic object-love) but also
quantitatively dyserotic (because it represents the ultimate culmination of
pathologically excessive self-love). To put it in simple words: if excessive selflove ultimately turns into erotic self-love then this erotic self-love is bound to be
excessive (by comparison with normal object-love).
18. Two points are worth adding here. The first is that, if we bear in mind the
fact that autolagnia comprises elements of hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia,
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia, and
homogeneosemeiolagnia, it is not difficult to see why autolagnic hypereroticism
frequently tends to be quite diffuse. For example, a pyrolagnic may not only be
preoccupied with fire all hours of the day and night apart from sleep, but—
especially if his scatolagnia (viz. pyrolagnia) is associated with reversed
heterolagnia and/or homolagnia, as it is most likely to be—may also be
preoccupied with the most varied heterolagnic and homolagnic phantasies, or
indeed with the whole subject of eroticism in all its aspects (ideal hypereroticism).
19. The other point is that autolagnia is the usual cause of hyperorganolagnia
in all its forms.
The main exception is in the case of
hyperstomatomastorganolagnia, whose milder forms are due to aphilia, though
the severer forms are usually, like other forms of hyperorganolagnia, due to
autolagnia. We may consider this in a little more detail.
Aphilic hyperstomatomastorganolagnia, manifested in both sexes by exerotic
and enderotic hyperstomatolagnia and by hyperexomastolagnia in men and
hyperendomastolagnia in women, is usually quite compatible with qualitatively
normal eroticism, including coitus. By contrast, in autolagnic
hyperstomatomastorganolagnia, hyperstomatolagnia may be so extreme as to
result in an excessive interest in both sexes in both forms of stomataedeolagnia
(viz. stomatovulvolagnia and stomatophallolagnia), which the patient may find
much more satisfying than normal coitus, and which in extreme cases may more
or less exclude coitus. Similarly, autolagnic hyperexomastolagnia in men and
hyperendomastolagnia in women may be so extreme that these patients may prefer
mutual masturbation (cheirogynaedeolagnia and cheirophallolagnia), in
association with prolonged cheiromastolagnia and stomatomastolagnia, to normal
coitus; if coitus is at all attempted, the male patient may prove mixanorthotic and
the female patient mixanorgastic. In more extreme cases the heterolagnic relations
may be limited to cheiro- and stomatomastolagnic contacts without involvement
of the genitals, orgastic satisfaction being entirely autolagnic in solitary
masturbation later at home. One example should suffice to illustrate this. A
hyperendomastolagnic young woman practises masturbation on a large scale,
the practice consisting mainly of prolonged autocheiromastolagnia and
autocheiroclitoridolagnia. With her boyfriends the pattern is the same, presumably
because she manages to guide them in this direction: cheiromastolagnia enables
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
her to have regular orgasm with them from cheiroclitoridolagnia, though such
ostensibly heterolagnic, and ostensibly orgastically satisfying, relations would
not stop her at any time from continuing to practise solitary masturbation. (She
would not practise cheirophallolagnia, but they can ejaculate on her body if they
want to.) Finally she decides to marry one of her boyfriends after having persuaded
him not to attempt coitus through the whole of their engagement: coitus proves
to be a bitter disappointment: the same young woman whose extreme
hyperendomastolagnia had convinced her lovers that she was erotically highly
responsive—which indeed she was, in cheiroclitoridolagnia, provided her
endomastolagnic needs were satisfied—proves to be wholly indifferent to coitus.
20. Hyperparaedeolagnia is virtually entirely autolagnic. It usually differs
from normal paraedeolagnia not only in being autolagnic but more specifically
in being essentially coproidolagnic. Thus, in both sexes the exerotic and enderotic
forms of normal pygolagnia, femorolagnia, cnemolagnia, and podolagnia are
mainly visual and tactile, i.e. scopolagnic and hapticolagnic, whereas the
corresponding hyperorganolagnic forms (hyperpygolagnia, hyperfemorolagnia,
hypercnemolagnia, and hyperpodolagnia), in their exerotic and enderotic forms
in both sexes, are usually mainly olfactory, i.e. hyperosphreticolagnic, and often
also phthorolagnic (both hyperosphreticolagnia and phthorolagnia are scatolagnic
and therefore autolagnic). For example, hyperexopygolagnia (which may
secondarily be visual) is largely dependent on the proximity of the buttocks to
the anus. The part played by phthorolagnia in hyperpygolagnia in both its exerotic
and enderotic forms is evident from the common use of the buttocks for physical
punishment; an interesting clinical example is that of a girl who was totally
mixanorgastic with all the boyfriends she had had, but who readily responded to
being pinched in the buttock by another girl: she was clearly hyperendopygolagnic,
and her hyperendopygolagnia was clearly related to apragmophthorolagnia (as
well as homolagnia). On the other hand, it is a familiar fact that most men with
hyperexopodolagnia (e.g. those who pay prostitutes to allow them to sniff and
lick their feet and shoes (hyperosphreticolagnia and hypergeusticolagnia)) are
also apragmophthorolagnic (as well as passive male heterolagnics).
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51. Autolagnia
Chapter 2
HOMOLAGNIA
21. Homolagnia or homeroticism, more fully homogeneolagnia or
homogeneroticism (= same-sex eroticism), is the erotic attraction of a man or
woman to members of his or her own sex, as against the normal erotic attraction
of men and women to members of the opposite sex. Where homolagnia and
heterolagnia coexist in the same individual we refer to this as amphilagnia or
amphieroticism (= amphigeneolagnia or amphigeneroticism).
Homolagnia obviously has two forms: erotic attraction between men is referred
to as male homolagnia or as homandrolagnia; erotic attraction between women
is referred to as female homolagnia or as homogynolagnia or as lesbianism.
Psychogenetically the two forms of homolagnia are quite identical, the only
differences in manifestation being those due to anatomical differences, viz. the
fact that homandrolagnics possess the true penis but not the true womb, while
homogynolagnics possess the true womb but not the true penis.
22. We shall deal with homolagnia under three main headings: the relation
of homolagnia to homaedeism, the relation of homolagnia to
hypergeneosemeiophilia, and the relation of homolagnia to palaeoscatism.
The relation of homolagnia to homaedeism is a very interesting subject.
Homolagnia is basically an autolagnic condition in which autolagnia causes the
individual to be erotically attracted to members of his or her own sex. As noted
in the monograph on Erotogenesis, the basic desire in homolagnia is for bigenital
penetrative quasi-conceptive union, based on the pattern of normal bigenital (i.e.
phallocolpolagnic) coitus between a man and a woman; thus the basic drive is
for penis-to-penis (or, perhaps more accurately, penis-into-penis) penetration in
homandrolagnics, and for vulva-to-vulva (or, more accurately, womb-into-womb)
penetration in homogynolagnics, the practical impossibility of these forms of
erotic fantasticism making it necessary for the patients to seek substitutes, of
which the most typical are phalloproctolagnia in homandrolagnics and vulval
relations (allelovulvolagnia) in homogynolagnics either amounting to friction
without penetration or with penetration effected by the use of artificial phalloids.
The combination of homolagnia with homaedeolagnia complicates homolagnia:
it not only greatly exaggerates the patients’ attraction to members of their own
sex, i.e. exaggerates their hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia and
homogeneosemeiolagnia, and thereby greatly exaggerates their
homogeneocentricity (androcentricity in homandrolagnics and gynocentricity in
homogynolagnics), but also to a great extent concentrates their attraction on the
genitals, both in the erotic and non-erotic sense. For it is these homolagnics,
whose homolagnia is further complicated by homaedeolagnia, who tend to be
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
the men who live physically and mentally in an all-male world and the women
who live physically and mentally in an all-female world and who, moreover, are
both erotically and non-erotically preoccupied with the genitals of their own sex,
in the concrete and ideal sense. Thus in their erotic relations the emphasis is on
the genitals rather than on erotic loveplay (which may explain the greater
predilection of homolagnics than of normal heterolagnics to completely casual,
impersonal relations), while in their everyday lives they may show the same, not
only homogeneocentricity, but more specifically homaedeocentricity. For
example, men may see a phalloid in almost everything that is upright or elongated
and pointed: they are phallocentric as well as androcentric. We should remember
in this respect that, here as elsewhere in scatolagnia, homaedeolagnia is usually
associated with hyperhomaedeophilia.
23. As for the relation of homolagnia to hypergeneosemeiophilia, homolagnia
is always associated with hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia, which forms its
autophilic (or, rather, hyperautophilic) basis, and with homogeneosemeiolagnia,
which is an integral part of homolagnia. However, hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia
differs very considerably in different patients, e.g. it tends to be greater in patients
with hyperhomaedeophilia and homaedeolagnia.
Variations in
hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia and hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia are greater
still, these idioms being minimal, or are even replaced by
heterogeneosemeiophobia, in some patients, while in others they may be very
marked and clinically important. Thus the balance between same-sex idioms
(hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia, homogeneosemeiolagnia, hyperhomaedeophilia,
and homaedeolagnia) and opposite-sex idioms (hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia
and hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia) shows very wide variations.
24. These facts explain why some homolagnics try to emulate the
characteristics of the opposite sex while others affectedly try to exaggerate the
characteristics of their own sex, the homandrolagnic wanting to appear a ‘he-man’
or an overmasculine man, i.e. exaggeratedly masculine, and the homogynolagnic
wanting to appear overfeminine or exaggeratedly feminine. The ‘characteristics’
with which we are concerned here, viz. the characteristics of the opposite or of
the same sex as these patients see them, are not necessarily genuine sexual
characteristics with a biological basis: in fact many of them relate to such matters
as dress and mannerisms which are wholly culturally determined: they are
characteristic of men or of women only because contemporary phobophronesic
civilization so ordains. A gross example is that of transvestolagnia, viz. erotic
pleasure from partly or completely dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex, in
which there is a clear attempt on the patient’s part to assimilate himself or herself
to the opposite sex. In our contemporary Western civilization there is a whole
range of affected mannerisms that women commonly adopt as a second nature,
and these may be imitated by (overt or ‘latent’) homandrolagnics. For example,
it is common for young women to ‘walk from the knees’, i.e. to minimize
movement at the hip-joints in walking on the assumption that ‘men walk from
the hips, women walk from the knees’. Some young women thrust the chest
forward in walking, which maximally protrudes the breasts. Some swing their
arms as they walk, the arms being either held straight by the sides (i.e. straight at
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51. Autolagnia
the elbows) or the elbow may be semiflexed (which may be used to help in
swinging the breasts from side to side in walking). All these affected gaits may
be imitated by homandrolagnics. Again, for no rational reason, it is accepted
practice in our culture for men to part their hair on the left while women have the
option of parting the hair on the right, on the left, or in the centre. As the rule is
not absolute, it is not uncommon for some ‘latent’ homandrolagnics to betray
their desire to assimilate themselves to the opposite sex in a subtle way by availing
themselves of the female options, and the same applies to the extremely sadistic,
exclusively active homandrolagnic or amphilagnic who betrays his receptivepassive cravings, which he may have enjoyed in practice when he was younger,
by parting his hair on the right. Another subtle betrayal of the same desire may
occur in speech: some homandrolagnics slur consonants in speaking as if they
were unwilling to close their mouths to pronounce them properly. This tendency
of the mouth to gape is certainly not characteristic of ordinary women in our
society, but women who work as photographic models are taught as basic rules
to ‘suck in their stomachs’ (as if to invaginate their abdomens) and to open their
mouths. In fact some of the men who slur their consonants prove to have had
problems with whether to keep their mouths open or closed in ordinary speech.
It is obvious that the gaping mouth, whether in a female photographic model or
in a homandrolagnic in conversation, is a hysteroid that is associated with
esodocholagnia. In photographic models, the esodocholagnic significance of
the gaping mouth is further enhanced by the fact that it is usual for women to
have an open mouth during the hyperventilation associated with the orgasm. On
the other hand, homandrolagnics who cannot (or, rather, would not) close their
mouths betray an esodocholagnic desire, while those among them who have had
a conflict over whether to open or close the mouth in conversation evidently
show an example of the anancosymphronesic conflict between esodocholagnia
and (due to androphobic shame) esodochophobia.
25. In contrast to these hyperheterogeneosemeiophilic manifestations there
is the affectedly deep masculine voice adopted as second nature by some
homandrolagnics, which is clearly hyperhomogeneosemeiophilic. It is interesting
to note that these opposing manifestations may be combined, though this is
uncommon. It is as if the man who tries to overcompensate for his esodocholagnia
by putting on affectedly overmasculine airs betrays his deeper nature by his
aversion to close his mouth momentarily for the proper pronunciation of
consonants.
It is hardly necessary to mention that none of the manifestations noted above
is pathognomonic of homandrolagnia, since wide individual variations occur in
any case. We certainly cannot diagnose latent homandrolagnia on the strength of
an affectedly deep masculine voice or the inability to close the mouth sufficiently
to pronounce consonants properly, or on the strength of an unusual gait or the
manner of parting the hair etc. Only an exhaustive psychiatric history can allow
us to draw firm conclusions.
26. In homogynolagnics comparable manifestations occur, but they are often
more difficult to detect. A major reason for this is that, in dress and mannerisms
etc., phobophronesic civilization puts most of the burden on women since they
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
are the enslaved sex who are treated as man’s pastime and plaything: rebellion
against the disabilities imposed on women in phobophronesic civilization is all
too often condemned as being ‘unfeminine’, if not downright masculine, but no
objective observer can accept that. For example, if a man wears high-heeled
shoes or makeup there can hardly be any explanation other than transvestolagnia
or hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia; but if a woman wants greater freedom of
movement by wearing low-heeled shoes, trousers instead of skirts, and short
instead of long hair, these could not be taken to indicate
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, and clinical experience confirms that in most
(though by no means in all) cases they do not. However, there are women who
not only like to wear men’s shirts but also like to wear them with cuff-links, or
who like to wear men’s neckties, etc. On the other hand, on the
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilic side, there are women who speak in the most
affectedly coquettish manner, and who adopt exaggerated coquettish or ‘feminine’
gestures, but who are basically exclusively active homogynolagnics with extreme
sadistic tendencies, though one of their hobbies may be to lead men ‘up the
garden path’ with their coquetry, only to frustrate them and humiliate them; one
might say that they combine female active heterolagnia and active homolagnia
with erotic and non-erotic pragmophthorolagnia.
27. The relation of homolagnia to palaeoscatism is, individually and culturally,
exceedingly important. Homolagnia, which is a manifestation of general
autolagnia (as distinct from scatolagnia), is undoubtedly closely related to
palaeoscatism. The association of homolagnia and palaeoscatism is by no means
invariable; in fact homolagnia may be associated with neoscatism and even with
deutoscatism, but this is uncommon, whereas the greater or lesser association
with palaeoscatism is so common as to be usual. Another point worth noting
here is that a greater or lesser element of reversed heterolagnia and/or homolagnia
is very common in all forms of scatolagnia, both palaeoscatolagnia and
protoscatolagnia. This is hardly surprising: scatolagnia is a special form of
autolagnia while reversed heterolagnia and homolagnia are general forms of
autolagnia. Thus, for example, in fully-developed cases of hydroidolagnia
(hydrolagnia, pyrolagnia, etc.) it is usual to find the patient more or less completely
autolagnic in the general sense: this general autolagnia will be in the form of
autolagnia proper, most often with well-developed homolagnia and/or reversed
heterolagnia. Similarly, we can understand why homolagnia is common among
sailors: it is common, not because of the absence of women at sea as is often
supposed (since lack of heterolagnic opportunity cannot transform heterolagnia
into homolagnia), but because hydrophilia—or, rather, in this case,
hyperhydrophilia—which makes a sailor, or indeed a family of sailors, is
frequently associated with homolagnia. Homolagnia is also common among
actors, actresses, singers, and others in ‘show business’ because of the frequency
of hyperapragmoscopophilia (i.e. excessive exhibitionism) in this type of work.
Some ballet dancers of both sexes, who are hyperkinetophilic rather than
polykinetophilic, are also homolagnic, and the same applies to some fiction writers
whose rich phantasy life (which is a scatistic idiom) is pathologically excessive.
28. The relation of homolagnia to palaeoscatism—which is also referred to
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51. Autolagnia
in other monographs—will be dealt with here under the two main headings of
the relation of homolagnia to propeto-phthorism and the relation of homolagnia
to skoroidism. As for the relation of homolagnia to shame (the fourth main
idiom of palaeoscatism), this is the least important: some homolagnics are
tetraphobic, and in fact tetraphobia in men is often regarded as ‘effeminate’ simply
because, in phobophronesic civilization, tetraphobia is regarded as ‘normal’ for
women, or even as a desirable feminine characteristic. However, tetraphobia is
in reality so common in both sexes that, although some homolagnics of both
sexes are tetraphobic, tetraphobics are only exceptionally homolagnic. Not least
important here is the fact that, in both sexes, homolagnia is frequently associated
with excessive exhibitionism (hyperapragmoscopophilia), which is the exact
opposite of tetraphobia and which explains the high incidence of homolagnia in
entertainers to which we have referred before.
29. The relation of homolagnia to propeto-phthorism is evident in a variety
of forms, both individual and cultural. Practical propetophilia is very common
in association with homolagnia and, together with ideal propetophilia and
phthorophilia, especially (though by no means only) pragmophthorophilia, makes
durable homolagnic relationships often stormy and unpredictable; they may vary
from day to day, and even from minute to minute, from one extreme to the opposite
extreme. Outbursts of temper are common and may be associated with the
destruction of furniture or with physical violence towards the partner (homicide
being relatively common), or with suicidal attempts (propetautophthorophilia).
Thus ‘ambivalence’—the association of love with hatred due to the presence of
pragmophthorophilia—is much commoner in durable homolagnic relationships
than in heterolagnic ones, the hatred being often combined with spitefulness and
violence. In fact the tension in such relationships, on the part of one or both
partners, may be such that, perhaps after many scenes in which furniture has
been smashed etc., one of them may just walk out for good—an adult version of
the child running away from home, never to be seen again, which is a common
feature in the history of propeto-phthorists. However, because of the frequent
association with propeto-phthorism, homolagnic relations are generally unstable,
so that many homolagnics rely entirely on casual or semi-casual relations, and
even among those cohabiting with a partner casual relations with other partners
are much commoner than among (married or unmarried) heterolagnic couples
living together.
30. The frequent association of homolagnia with pragmophthorolagnia in
particular, and with propeto-phthorism in general (whose most constant single
idiom is ideal propetophilia), accounts for the fact that homolagnia is exceedingly
common among violent criminals and among prisoners in general. Here again
there is no substance in the naive claim that prisoners acquire homolagnia in
prison because of lack of opposite-sex companionship. Synechautophthorophilic
gynocides serving long terms in prisons or other secure institutions do not usually
engage in homolagnia; on the other hand, propeto-phthoristic inmates usually
prove to have been (partly or exclusively) homolagnic all their lives, i.e. long
before they first went to prison. It should be noted that although these remarks
refer primarily to males, since there are far more male than female violent criminals
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
and prisoners, they in fact apply to both sexes. Women with violent propensities,
e.g. a passion for habitual stabbing or a history of homicide, often prove on
assessment to be homolagnic propeto-phthorists.
The frequent association of homolagnia with propeto-phthorism also explains
the high incidence of homolagnia in such unstable classes as those of prostitutes,
pimps, and drug-traffickers, many of whom prove to be agoneusic individuals
who uprooted themselves early on in life and found their way to the city where
they could live by crime and satisfy their characteristic passion for complete
‘freedom’.
31. Homolagnia is also closely related to propetoskoreticophilia. Thus
propetureticophilics (‘enuretics’) of both sexes are commonly autolagnic, and
many of them are homolagnic.
32. The relation of homolagnia to antiphobic sadism, which is a special form
of propeto-phthorism, is of cultural as well as individual importance. For example,
the rise of antiphobic sadism in great civilizations in their stage of overmaturity
and decline has sometimes been manifested, among other things, by the prevalence
of homolagnia—or, to be more precise, of homandrolagnia, since phobophronesic
civilization is a male creation, and it is the spread of homandrolagnia that
characterizes the cultural antiphobic sadism or, more generally, cultural propetophthorism. Thus homandrolagnia was rife in ancient Greece in its phase of
overmaturity. Similarly, in the ancient Islamic civilization in the Middle East,
homandrolagnia flourished in the overmature stage when Baghdad was a city of
luxury and affluence; its best known apostle was the famous poet Abu Nowwas.
The same is happening today in Western civilization with experts in both Europe
and America claiming to have discovered that homolagnia was a normal variant
of heterolagnia. Of course the implications of this contemporary trend are very
different on the two sides of the Atlantic: in Western Europe, whose civilization
at its height was predominantly neoscatistic, the advocacy of homolagnia is clearly
a manifestation of antiphobic sadism in association with cultural overmaturity
and decline, whereas in America, whose young civilization is predominantly
propeto-phthoristic, homolagnia is for all intents and purposes (though not in the
strict psychogenetic sense) an integral part of propeto-phthorism which, in the
case of America, is not a manifestation of decay but, on the contrary, is an
improvement on the far greater propeto-phthorism of former times. The admirably
scientific work by Alfred Kinsey and his co-workers published in 1948 (entitled
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, although in reality it dealt exclusively with
the population of the United States of America), in which statistics were based
on thorough interviewing (an exceedingly rare feature of statistical research
nowadays), gives the incidence of homandrolagnic experience amounting to full
orgasm for the total male population of the United States of America between
adolescence and old age as 37 per cent. This makes it virtually certain that the
incidence of homandrolagnia is many times (probably about 5-10 times) greater
in America than in Western Europe. Many other American publications show
that homandrolagnia in America is not a more or less isolated phenomenon as it
is in Europe but is much more an integral part of the American civilization and of
everyday life in America. For example, in England there are public houses (or
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51. Autolagnia
‘pubs’) that serve as a meeting place for homandrolagnics (as there are public
houses that are a meeting place for drug addicts), but this is radically different
from the through-and-through pervasion of everyday life by homandrolagnia in
America, even for married men. (An interesting example of this was studied and
described by Laud Humphreys in a book entitled Tearoom Trade (1970).)
Homolagnia in this respect is no different from homicide and other manifestations
of propeto-phthorism whose incidence is much higher in America than in Europe.
33. The relation of homolagnia to skoroidism is of great individual importance,
and is not without cultural importance. Homolagnia is closely related to both
forms of skoroidolagnia, viz. uroidolagnia and coproidolagnia, including
urethrolagnia and proctolagnia in both their enderotic and exerotic forms, but
both individually and culturally the relation to coproidolagnia, including
proctolagnia, is more important than the relation to uroidolagnia. As urethrolagnia
and proctolagnia—which are basically autolagnic manifestations—are most often
expressed in autolagnia proper and in homolagnic relations, though they are
sometimes also expressed in heterolagnic relations, we shall take this opportunity
to deal with the whole subject here, in its heterolagnic as well as its purely
autolagnic and homolagnic aspects.
The relation of homolagnia to skoroidism applies to virtually all idioms of
skoroidism, but we can hardly deal with the subject exhaustively here: we have
to concentrate on its most important aspects. However, a few examples of the
less important aspects may not be out of place. That mysophilia and mysolagnia,
in both their concrete and their ideal forms, are commonly associated with
homolagnia is illustrated by the prevalence of homolagnia in public lavatory
attendants, whose work may give them skoroidaestheticolagnic opportunities, in
relation to the excretory functions of members of their own sex, that are not
generally available in other types of work. Some of these attendants have been
known not only to enjoy the acoustic and olfactory experiences of being present
in the vicinity of people defaecating in their cubicles, which entails no breach of
the law, but even to vandalize the toilets they are supposed to look after by boring
holes in the doors or walls for skoroidopragmoscopolagnic purposes. On the
other hand, one of the paradoxes occasionally encountered in homolagnics is
that of the coexistence of mysolagnia with gross mysophobia; for example, some
homandrolagnics who regularly practise active and passive phalloproctolagnia,
with all its associated odours and sights etc., may be quite fussy about dirt, i.e.
mysophobic, in other aspects of everyday life, including (surprisingly) ‘body
odour’. Again, although mysolalophilia and mysolalolagnia are by no means
limited to homolagnics, clinically we find that their most passionate devotees are
often at least partly homolagnic, i.e. are amphilagnic or homolagnic.
34. Urethrolagnia and proctolagnia, in both their enderotic and exerotic forms,
are dyserotic entities. They are most appropriately included under skoroidism,
and not under organ-eroticism (organolagnia), because organ-eroticism in all its
forms is essentially euerotic (even though its hyper-forms are of course dyserotic).
Thus urethrolagnia, in its enderotic and exerotic forms is essentially a form of
uroidolagnia, even though it is obviously closely related to hyperureticophilia
and ureticolagnia as well as to urolagnia; similarly, proctolagnia, in its enderotic
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and exerotic forms, is essentially a form of coproidolagnia, even though it is
obviously closely related to hypercopreticophilia and copreticolagnia as well as
to coprolagnia.
35. We have noted that urethrolagnia and proctolagnia are not forms of
organolagnia but are dyserotic, viz. skoroidolagnic, entities. It is true that the
involuntary rhythmic contraction of smooth and striped muscle fibres in the pelvis
at the orgasm in both sexes involves muscle fibres in the urethra and (in some
individuals at any rate, probably mainly in women having pelvorgasm), also in
the rectum. But these are involuntary contractions which primarily emanate from
the genital organs, though they tend (especially in stronger orgasms) to spread
far and wide within the pelvis, so that it is only to be expected that they should
involve muscle fibres in the urethra and even in the rectal sphincters. Needless to
say, the urethra in particular is anatomically closely related to the genital organs
in both sexes: in men it is actually shared by the genital and the urinary functions.
But the important point to note is that the involuntary rhythmic contractions of
the orgasm, even if they involve the urethra or spread to the rectum, are very
different from the deliberate mechanical stimulation of, and the enjoyment of
erotic pleasure derived specifically from, the urethra or the rectum: this deliberate
mechanical stimulation always proves on close study to be basically autolagnic,
viz. scatolagnic, whether its actual expression is autolagnic, homolagnic, or
heterolagnic.
36. Another important point to note is that in urethrolagnia and proctolagnia,
because they are basically autolagnic, the difference between the enderotic and
the exerotic forms, where these conditions are expressed in either homolagnia or
heterolagnia, is usually very small: in fact the enderotic and exerotic forms largely
overlap in these cases. The reason for this is not difficult to understand. For in
autolagnia in general, however it may be manifested (i.e. whether it is manifested
autolagnically, homolagnically, or heterolagnically), the distinction between
enderoticism and exeroticism tends to be hazy, since the subject is simultaneously
subject and object (in the erotic sense). This blurred distinction between subject
and object tends to be manifested even by autolagnics having homolagnic or
heterolagnic relations. As noted before, homolagnics often seek partners who
remind them of themselves, proving that in many cases homolagnia—finding a
partner similar to oneself—is essentially only a more practical means of having
erotic relations (typically full penetrative coitus) with oneself. Hence the frequent
overlap of enderoticism and exeroticism in homolagnia: for example, since a
man having phalloproctolagnia with a boy may be attracted to the boy only because
he sees in him an image of himself when he was younger, it is understandable
that the man’s main interest in having active phalloproctolagnia with the boy
may lie in his autolagnic ability to identify himself with the boy, and so to
vicariously enjoy what he is doing to the boy, i.e. to enjoy the receptive-passive
role in eroticism. In other words, since a man’s phalloproctolagnia with a boy
who reminds him of himself basically represents coitus with himself, exeroticism
and enderoticism in a relationship like this tend to be more or less identified. In
fact autolagnic patients have been known to be capable of identifying themselves
with their partners, and so of vicariously enjoying their partners’ role in coitus,
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51. Autolagnia
even in heterolagnic relations. This is by no means limited to men who choose
women whom they regard as ‘boyish’, or women who choose men whom they
regard as effeminate, though obviously in these cases the identification with the
partner, or at all events perceiving a vicarious homolagnic (and ultimately
autolagnic) relation in what is formally a heterolagnic one, tends to occur more
readily.
37. Urethrolagnic and proctolagnic practices are referred to in the monograph
on Skoreticism, but the subject is much more complicated in the case of
proctolagnia and requires further treatment here. This is because urethrolagnic
practices are largely, though by no means entirely, limited to autolagnic
masturbation, whereas proctolagnic practices—because of the larger bore of the
rectum, which can fully accommodate a partner’s penis or an artificial penis—
occur in homolagnic relations in both sexes and in heterolagnic relations as well
as in autolagnic masturbation. Here we shall deal with the whole subject briefly.
38. In autolagnic masturbation, proctolagnic practices are commoner in male
than in female patients. This is probably, partly, because men, alike in their
eueroticism and dyseroticism, are erotically less inhibited than women (and vice
versa: the stronger sexual taboos imposed on women in phobophronesic
civilization tend to suppress all female eroticism (viz. in femaleanancosymphronesic aneroticism) whether it is euerotic or dyserotic); and, partly,
because in masturbation, in which the individual of either sex has to be man and
woman at the same time, the man lacks a hysteroid, and so is more likely to find
it in his rectum, whereas the woman lacks a phalloid, which her rectum cannot
provide.
Autolagnic anal stimulation may be in the form of autodactyloproctolagnia
(one, two, or even three fingers may be used), or by the use of such phalloids as
candles, carrots, and cucumbers, or by the use of an artificial penis (a ‘dildo’ or a
vibrator etc.). The main factors involved are probably dilatation of the anal
sphincter (as suggested by wanting to use more than one finger), frictional mucosal
stimulation of the anal canal, and, in men, endoprostatolagnia. Undoubtedly a
major factor is the psychological factor of being filled up, or of containment—in
this case, of self-containment. This psychological factor of being filled up by the
partner, or of containing or ‘taking in’ the partner inside oneself, is of course of
basic importance in normal coitus in women, in whom it represents the quasiconceptive essence of coitus, and in whom it may be more important than, or at
least as important as, local stimulation by the man’s penis in obtaining orgasm:
the point that concerns us here is that this applies too to autolagnic rectal practices
in both sexes: however important local stimulation may be in proctolagnia (in
terms of sphincteric dilatation and mucosal friction etc.), the ultimate significance
of the rectum (in a man or a woman) serving as a hysteroid in a quasi-conceptive
capacity (in this case representing autokyemetrophilia) must not be overlooked.
39. It is not uncommon for other factors to be involved. For example, the
close relation of endoproctolagnia to hypercopreticophilia and copreticolagnia
was well illustrated by the case of an autolagnic/homolagnic young man who
made the most of the act of defaecation every morning by imagining the faecal
mass dilating his anal sphincter to be a man’s penis. On the other hand, the
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
relation of proctolagnia to coprolagnia is seen in a variety of forms, including
other related idioms of coproidolagnia. Patients may practise dactyloproctolagnia
and then sniff or lick their fingers (thus evincing hyperosphreticolagnia and
coproborolagnia, respectively); and the same patients, in a homolagnic situation,
may use violence to get their partners to do the same thing, or a homandrolagnic
may use violence to get his partner (a young boy) to perform stomatophallolagnia
on him after he had had phalloproctolagnia with the boy. (The same may be
done in a heterolagnic relation: a man raping a woman may have
phalloproctolagnia with her and then use violence to force her to perform
stomatophallolagnia.) All these practices—autolagnic, homolagnic, and
heterolagnic—are obviously basically autolagnic and are motivated by
coproborolagnia and hyperosphreticolagnia.
40. In homolagnic relations, proctolagnic practices occur in both sexes, but
are commoner in homandrolagnics, probably for the same reasons noted in relation
to rectal practices in autolagnic masturbation. The practices concerned include
dactyloproctolagnia (in which, in male patients, stimulation of the prostate may
be an important factor, and these patients generally can identify their own and
their partners’ prostates); stomatoproctolagnia (in which—apart from the
biorificial relation representing ideal, if not actual, stomatoproctolagnic
penetration—the relation to coprolagnia, coproborolagnia, and
hyperosphreticolagnia is obvious); phalloproctolagnia in male patients; and the
use of phalloids, including artificial penes and vibrators, by female patients.
41. Although phalloproctolagnia is practised by male homolagnics mainly
faute de mieux because penis-to-penis (or penis-into-penis) penetration is
physically impossible, the fact that proctolagnic practices also occur in female
homolagnics (whose interest in the rectum of course cannot be merely for lack of
a hysteroid) shows the close relation between homolagnia in both sexes and
coproidolagnia (and, more generally, palaeoscatism).
42. Thus, in homandrolagnics, phalloproctolagnia serves three main functions.
Firstly, it serves the basic function of kyemetrophilia in the special dyserotic
form of homokyemetrophilia (or, rather, in the dyserotic form of
autokyemetrophilia, of which homokyemetrophilia is a special form), i.e. it serves
the purpose of quasi-conceptive penetration in which the lack of a hysteroid—
primarily the lack of a hysteroid in the partner’s genitals (i.e. in the partner’s
penis)—is made good by the use of the rectum as a substitute that can enable one
partner to quasi-conceptively contain the other partner as the woman quasiconceptively contains the man in normal coitus. Secondly, it serves
coproidolagnia, including endoproctolagnia and exoproctolagnia, coprolagnia,
mysolagnia, and hyperosphreticolagnia. Thirdly, it serves endoprostatolagnia
and exoprostatolagnia, of which endoprostatolagnia is by far the more important
form since it enables the experienced homandrolagnic to have full orgasm in the
receptive-passive role in phalloproctolagnia.
43. This last point is very important: many homandrolagnics find prostatic
orgasm more satisfying than phallic orgasm. This is an example of the reversal
of orgastic foci, which we frequently encounter in autolagnics of both sexes,
including homolagnics. Thus whereas the predominant orgastic focus in the
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51. Autolagnia
normal man is the penis (phallorgasm or phallorgastia) and the predominant
orgastic focus in the normal woman is the uterus (uterorgasm or uterorgastia),
i.e. whereas in normal heterolagnia the man is predominantly pudendorgastic
and the woman predominantly pelvorgastic (even though, in both sexes, an intense
orgasm will involve, to a greater or lesser degree, smooth and striped muscle in
both the external and the internal genital organs as well as the muscles of the
pelvic floor), in autolagnia it is common for male patients to be predominantly
prostatorgastic, and therefore pelvorgastic, and for female patients to be
predominantly clitoridorgastic, and therefore pudendorgastic.
44. Another factor that is frequently encountered in homolagnic prostatolagnic
practices is that of phthorolagnia. Phthorolagnia is a palaeoscatistic idiom that is
closely related to, but is not an idiom of, skoroidolagnia. It is usually, though by
no means invariably, seen in the form of pragmophthorolagnia in the active partner
and apragmophthorolagnia in the passive partner, which is particularly true where
the erotic roles are fixed, i.e. where the active partner is more or less always
active, and the passive always passive. Of homolagnic homicides—which are
relatively common—not a few occur during phalloproctolagnia, probably because
the coproidolagnic nature of the act (the involvement of faeces and of smell etc.)
may arouse the active partner’s pragmophthorolagnia beyond his control (an
element of propetophilia is evident here). Usually it is the active partner who
kills the passive partner in phalloproctolagnia, but the opposite may occur because
the passive partner, despite his endoprostatolagnic orgastic satisfaction, wants to
eradicate the man who has ‘dishonoured’ him. This may occur in a man who had
regularly played the passive part in phalloproctolagnia in a long relationship, but
in rare cases it has been known for a homandrolagnic whose androphobia had
prevented him from ever engaging in homolagnic relations to yield to temptation
once in a lifetime, have a rapturous orgasm in passive phalloproctolagnia (which
is very unusual in an inexperienced man), and then feel obliged to kill the man
who had ‘dishonoured’ him by giving him an unforgettable orgasm—an orgasm
on the memory of which he would live to masturbate for the rest of his life.
45. In heterolagnic relations, proctolagnic practices might, theoretically, be
regarded as euphronesic on the grounds that if it is euphronesic to imitate (or
dramatize) the basic phallocolpolagnic relation of normal coitus in all sorts of
ways (allelostomatolagnia, stomatovulvolagnia, stomatophallolagnia, etc.), then
phalloproctolagnia and other proctolagnic relations should also be regarded as
euphronesic. But clinical experience shows that this is not the case. For, on the
one hand, habitual phalloproctolagnia causes anal fissures and faecal incontinence;
no comparable local damage occurs, or can possibly occur, in any of the other
erotic practices noted above, or indeed in any erotic practice that qualifies for
being euphronesic (thus, for example, scratching in coitus, which usually breaks
the skin (albeit superficially), is dyserotic: it is pragmophthorolagnic to those
who enjoy doing it, and apragmophthorolagnic to those who enjoy receiving it);
on the other hand, the female rectum is too closely associated with faeces to be
regarded as an ordinary (i.e. euphronesic) hysteroid like any other hollow or
cavity in the female body. Thus the main reason for true interest in the female
rectum in heterolagnic relations, in the exerotic form in the man or in the enderotic
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
form in the woman, is the presence of coproidolagnia (in the man or the woman,
or both), which is palaeoscatistic and dysphronesic. Two other factors, besides
coproidolagnia, which will be noted later, are phthorolagnia (in both sexes) and
homandrolagnia (in men). It is true that many young couples, in their exploration
of the erotic potentialities of their bodies, experiment with phalloproctolagnia as
they experiment with everything else. But such couples, if their relationship is
euerotic, never persevere with proctolagnic practices (as they may well do with
other practices). Again, it is by no means rare for lower-class married couples to
use phalloproctolagnia as a method of contraception; this requires no further
comment. Similarly, the tight anus is occasionally a welcome discovery for the
husband of a multiparous woman whose lax and overdilated vagina has ceased
to grip the penis in coitus; fortunately this is becoming less common because of
the increasing attention paid to perineal repair after childbirth (and the ready use
of episiotomy, instead of risking perineal tears whose repair is much less
satisfactory). All these and similar factors, however, do not provide a basis for
true proctolagnic relations, as coproidolagnia in both sexes does.
46. In heterolagnic proctolagnic practices, the main coproidolagnic idioms
involved are coprolagnia, including coproborolagnia, proctolagnia in both the
enderotic and exerotic forms, and hyperosphreticolagnia. The only other factor
of significance, which is also palaeoscatistic and is closely related to
coproidolagnia, is phthorolagnia. In phalloproctolagnia, the relation is of course
endoproctolagnic for the woman (involving dilatation of the anal sphincter and
frictional stimulation of the anal mucosa as well as the psychological sense of
being filled up by, or of containing, the man, which arises from the use of the
rectum as a hysteroid) and exoproctolagnic for the man. As noted in the
monograph on Skoreticism, women with pronounced endoproctolagnia may more
or less directly invite phalloproctolagnia, but many are unable to do that, because
of shame, and have to content themselves with indirect endoproctolagnic
stimulation, as by having vaginal coitus regularly in the genu-pectoral position,
or in the dorsal position but with sustained lifting of the pelvis to concentrate
phallic friction on the posterior part of the vaginal introitus, and so indirectly on
the adjacent rectum. It is common for endoproctolagnic women to obtain orgasm
in phalloproctolagnia, or in vaginal coitus in one of the posterior positions of
coitus, by the simultaneous use of autodactyloclitoridolagnia. However, as noted
before, in proctolagnia and urethrolagnia, because they are basically autolagnic
conditions, endoproctolagnia and exoproctolagnia are often very closely related
and may even overlap. It is therefore not surprising that some men who practise
heterolagnic phalloproctolagnia, sooner or later ask their partners to perform
dactyloproctolagnia on them, and perhaps also stimulate their prostates, i.e. these
men may seek endoprostatolagnia as well as endoproctolagnia from their partners.
Much more rarely men may seek stomatoproctolagnic relations with their female
partners, which clearly involve greater or lesser coproborolagnia and
hyperosphreticolagnia.
Heterolagnic phalloproctolagnia, because of its relation to coproidolagnia, is
not uncommonly associated with phthorolagnia. Although men have been known
to want vaginal coitus habitually (as distinct from occasionally) with the woman
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51. Autolagnia
in the genu-pectoral position because they perceive this position as a means of
pragmophthorolagnically defiling the woman (with ‘seminal excrement’) and
humiliating her and debasing her by treating her like an animal in the quadruped
position (or ‘doggie position’), such phthorolagnic associations are usually much
greater in the case of phalloproctolagnia because of its direct relation to the
woman’s rectum and to her excreta. This may apply equally, mutatis mutandis,
to both partners: in fact in many cases phalloproctolagnia is motivated to a
considerable extent by pragmophthorolagnia in the man and
apragmophthorolagnia in the woman.
Occasionally, antiphobic sadism may in both sexes be, partly or mainly, the
reason for interest in heterolagnic phalloproctolagnia. This subject is dealt with
more fully in the account of antiphobic sadism given in the monograph on Acracy.
47. Finally, it is a familiar fact that many amphilagnic men, and most
homandrolagnics who have to have erotic relations with women (instead of men)
for social reasons, show evidence of hyperexopygolagnia and exoproctolagnia
in their relations with women, and a preference of phalloproctolagnia to
phallocolpolagnia. This preference of proctolagnic to colpolagnic relations may
be due, not only to coproidolagnia, but also to the abhorrence, and sometimes
even downright fear, of the penisless (or, to them, ‘castrated’) female vulva:
evidently, phalloproctolagnia saves them the (to them) repugnant and frightening
task of having to see the vulva, or touch it, or have anything to do with it.
48. The cultural aspects of the relation of homolagnia (more specifically
homandrolagnia, since phobophronesic civilization is a male creation) to
skoroidism are typified by the fashion of tight (skin-tight or overtight) trousers
for both sexes, often (though by no means exclusively) made of denim, that was
introduced in Western Europe in the 1970’s as part of the trend towards ‘casual
wear’ (or informal dress) which has been spreading ever since in Europe under
American influence, especially since the rise of America to world hegemony.
Throughout the modern era in Western Europe, before overmaturity and decline
set in, female dress was dominated by shame, mainly androphobic shame, in
relation to the female genitals, and the female pelvis (including the buttocks) in
general, with a compensatory overemphasis on (i.e. pathologically excessive
interest in) female breasts (so-called compensatory cultural hyperexomastolagnia).
This combination of shame in relation to the female pelvis and
hyperexomastolagnia in relation to the breasts was responsible for the invention
of such highly characteristic features of female dress in that era as those of the
corset (to compress the waist and the hips), the crinoline and the bustle (to conceal
the pelvis), and décolletage (to expose the upper parts of the breasts: exposure of
the nipples remained taboo). Besides décolletage, female dress, including the
corset, was specially designed to lift and protrude the breasts, e.g. by being tightfitting immediately below the breasts so as to press them upwards and so transform
their natural downward dangle (especially in mature, parous women) into a
forward projection. This emphasis on the breasts by lifting and protruding them
was eventually achieved with incomparably greater precision and versatility by
the invention of the uplift brassiere early in the twentieth century. The skirt was
a disability imposed on women: it covered the legs all the way down to the feet,
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
as trousers did for men, but, unlike trousers, the skirt with its ample material and
ample folds greatly limited movement, not so much for peasant women working
in open fields, but very badly in indoor urban life, and worst of all in confined
spaces such as public transport, when women’s skirts inevitably brushed against
doors and furniture etc. In the twentieth century, women’s skirts were gradually
shortened to the level of the knees, but this only meant that women—who were
by now allowed to go out to work in offices in the city, as distinct from agricultural
and factory work for lower-class women in former times—had to glue their thighs
together in sitting, otherwise they would be exposing their interfemoral space
and genital area to sight. The introduction of the ‘mini skirt’ in the 1960’s, which
took the skirt up to just below the pubic bones and the buttocks, and which (quite
significantly) coincided with the introduction of oral contraception for women
(even unmarried women), does not concern us here. But it is worth noting that
even after the Second World War, long after heavy corsets had ceased to be worn
by young women, lighter rubber or elastic girdles continued to be worn as an
essential female garment to compress the hips. That is why the advent of the
fashion of the tight denim (and other tight) trousers for women in the 1970’s was
nothing short of a radical revolution in female dress. Since then trousers have
become acceptable, and fashionable, dress for women even for going to work,
but they have not so far ousted the skirt completely, which continues to be worn
by women, often in alternation with trousers, in everyday life. From women’s
point of view, and from the long-term sociological point of view, the introduction
of trousers as acceptable dress for ‘respectable’ women (and not only for lowerclass factory workers or for work in the home or the garden) has meant the
liberation, albeit only partial liberation, of women from the skirt, and their virtually
complete (and, one hopes, final) liberation from the corset in all its forms,
including the lighter elastic girdle. But welcome as liberation must be to women
and to fair-minded men, closer examination suggests that in all probability this
liberation is quite incidental, and that the trousers fashion for women—which is
only part of the tight trousers fashion for both sexes—is most probably a
homandrolagnic invention which is only part of the homandrolagnic wave which
has been sweeping the West on both sides of the Atlantic recently, and whose
implications (as noted before) are radically different for the overmature,
polyneoscatistic civilization of Western Europe and the comparatively immature
propeto-phthoristic civilization of America. This makes the trousers fashion for
women rather precarious: instead of being considered as a right won by women
not to be lost again, it may well be treated as another fleeting fashion to be
replaced by other—more rational or more perverse—fashions in due course. The
important point to note here is that, since time immemorial, tight trousers had
been worn by homandrolagnic men who, deliberately or unwittingly, wanted to
display their genitals and their buttocks—the two basic areas of the
phalloproctolagnic relation that lies at the centre of homandrolagnia. Therefore,
for men, the tight trousers fashion has only served to sanction, and indeed to
enjoin as a fashion to be followed by everyone, what individual homandrolagnics
had been doing for a long time. But, for women, the tight trousers fashion has
very different implications. On the one hand, it has liberated them, albeit partly,
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51. Autolagnia
from the skirt, and has liberated them virtually completely from the corset. On
the other hand, it has not only neutralized but has actually reversed the timehonoured shame of Western European civilization, before its decline, in relation
to the female pelvis, by replacing the shame with hyperexopygolagnia and
exoproctolagnia. For now women not only do not have to either hide or compress
(or both compress and conceal) their pelves but are compelled by the force of
fashion to wear skin-tight trousers whose designer is not content with showing
the contours of the buttocks but insists on the garment digging deep into the natal
cleft (even though it is physically impossible to make the trousers show the small
depression of the anus). Women still have to display their breasts—in fact
variations and modifications have never ceased to be made to the uplift brassiere—
but now they also have to display the minutiae of their pelves, not even in the
euerotic manner of the mini skirt (which was a European, not an American,
invention, and which was euerotic even though it exploited women as man’s
plaything) but in a novel, essentially dyserotic manner (since it is based on
hyperexopygolagnia and exoproctolagnia), though one that has incidentally
liberated them partially from the skirt, and completely from the corset. One final
point is worth noting here. When compensatory cultural hyperexomastolagnia
was still prevalent—when young women, though free from the disability of the
bustle and of the long flowing skirts of an earlier age, still had to wear rubber or
elastic girdles to compress their hips—many of these young women adopted
what was regarded as a typically ‘feminine’ gait, in which the chest was maximally
thrust forward which, with the uplift brassiere as an essential item of dress,
maximally protruded the breasts. This was an example of female vanity (vanity
being a hyperphilic reaction to deeper aphilia) in relation to the breasts, with
shame (no doubt with aphilic associations) in relation to the hips (both aphilia
and vanity being ‘normal’ female characteristics at the phobophronesic level).
With the advent of the trousers fashion for women, in which, far from being
ashamed of their pelves they have to display them in full, this affected gait has
become much less common: obviously as shame in relation to the pelvis subsides
so does vanity in relation to the breasts.
*
*
49. A few closing remarks about homolagnia may not be out of place, though
most of these are recapitulations of material noted elsewhere.
Both as regards incidence, i.e. the number of patients affected, and as regards
intensity, i.e. the degree to which these patients derive satisfaction from either
role, there is a preponderance of receptive-passive eroticism over penetrativeactive eroticism in homolagnics of both sexes. As noted in the monograph on
Erotogenesis, in this clinical fact we see a clear and unequivocal proof of the
primary character of psychological passiveness, i.e. of the desire for preservative
devouredness, and the secondary character, or later origin, of psychological
activeness, i.e. of the desire for active preservative devouring. While in practice
most homolagnics of both sexes have to play both parts in eroticism in order to
satisfy each other, the small minority of more or less exclusively active
homolagnics of both sexes consists mostly of markedly pragmophthorophilic
and pragmophthorolagnic individuals whose extreme pragmophthorohedonia is
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
incompatible with the receptive-passive role, even though the desire for this role
may by no means be lacking. This does not mean that pragmophthorohedonia is
limited to exclusively active homolagnics of both sexes, but whereas in most
homolagnics pragmophthorohedonia tends to be associated with greater or lesser
practical and ideal propetophilia, in more or less exclusively active homolagnics
there is a greater tendency for the pragmophthorohedonia to be persistent, as
distinct from being impulsive, and therefore to be much more serious from the
social (or, more accurately, antisocial) point of view.
Whereas androphobia in relation to passive heterolagnia and passive
homandrolagnia may have far-reaching individual and cultural implications,
androphobia in relation to passive homogynolagnia probably does not exist. The
obvious reason for this is that in homogynolagnia there is no true male penis and
no ‘seminal excrement’ to defile and ‘dishonour’ the woman. However,
aetherotophobia may affect homolagnics of both sexes.
Androphobia is a major complicating factor in homandrolagnia.
Homandrolagnics are often reluctant to admit to passive desire and, if they do,
are apt to say that, although they enjoy passive phalloproctolagnia, they prefer
the active role. One homandrolagnic patient, on his first interview, aptly stated:
‘All that the passive partner has to do is to wait for his turn to be active: the active
part is the only thing that satisfies a homosexual’; he later admitted that he was
exclusively passive, and that he usually had orgasm in passive phalloproctolagnia.
In fact clinical experience shows not only that there are more homandrolagnics
who prefer the passive role, and that most homandrolagnics—even those who
cannot have an orgasm in passive phalloproctolagnia—find the passive role more
satisfying (at least ‘spiritually’, if not actually physically as is most often the
case), but also that, even among patients who happen at a certain time to be more
or less exclusively active, passiveness is often not far from the surface. For
example, most homandrolagnics are introduced to homolagnia, more specifically
to phalloproctolagnia, in the passive role, usually in childhood or adolescence.
As they grow older and maturer, they—partly through the pleonectic assimilative
devouring of their original seducers, and partly because of androphobia—tend to
become relatively more active and less passive—which is how they in turn may
introduce other children or adolescents to homandrolagnia. However, it is
remarkable that in quite durable, marriage-like homandrolagnic relationships in
which (often, though not always, with a definite age difference) one partner is
exclusively active and the other exclusively passive, it is usually the active partner
who is likely to seek casual homolagnic relations. Not only will he play the
passive role in at least some of these casual relations, but, most significantly, he
will specifically want to play the passive role with the very men towards whom
his erotic attraction is greatest. This last point in fact is sometimes so prominent
that the durable homolagnic relationship may seem to be like a marriage of
convenience: it guarantees the patient orgastic relief whenever he needs it and,
above all, bolsters up his self-confidence and self-respect (as against the
androphobic shame that attaches to passive relations), but his greatest erotic
satisfaction is derived from the casual relations with other men, especially with
those with whom he is particularly keen on playing the passive part in
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51. Autolagnia
phalloproctolagnia, more especially if his partner is an amphilagnic married man
who poses as a ‘normal’ man who would only play the active part in
phalloproctolagnia. Of course there are other factors in such marriage-like
homolagnic relations, e.g. the passive partner is often the more aphilic and more
dependent partner who is expected to do the housework for both of them—but
these factors are of secondary importance.
Again, an active homandrolagnic’s satisfaction may be largely due to his
autolagnic capacity to vicariously enjoy his partner’s passive role. This may be
seen in a large variety of ways. For example, among the commonest and surest
ways of guaranteeing exclusive and unchallenged activeness is the practice of
many mature homandrolagnics of seducing (male) children. Such men—
especially if they have some artistic aptitude—may portray boys as delicate,
effeminate little creatures whom they love in the same way, and with as much
affection and sentimentality, as men love women (at any rate in phobophronesic
civilization, in which helplessness, inadequacy, dependence, and aphilia are
regarded as feminine attributes that enhance the appeal of a young woman to her
lover). Yet careful study may show that the patient’s favourite type of child is
one who (in looks, manners, dress, or otherwise) reminds him of himself as a
child.
The homandrolagnic’s capacity to identify himself with his passive partner
may apply even in heterolagnic relations (if the patient is more or less
amphilagnic). This too may take a variety of forms. Men have been known to
fall in love and marry a woman exactly because she was the former wife or
girlfriend of their best man friend. This is a much more subtle form of the
homandrolagnic seeking relations with a phallic woman than that of the patient
who regularly invites a male friend to come to his house and have coitus in his
presence with his wife, the patient not only watching but also taking photographs
of his wife doing what he himself would have liked to do with his male friend.
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Chapter 3
REVERSED HETEROLAGNIA
50. By reversed heterolagnia we mean passive (i.e. receptive-passive)
heterolagnia in men (passive male heterolagnia) and active (i.e. penetrative-active)
heterolagnia in women (active female heterolagnia).
It is easy to understand the basic autolagnic nature of reversed heterolagnia.
For in autolagnia the individual himself or herself is both man and woman at the
same time: he or she is both penetrative-active and receptive-passive at the same
time: thus, whereas the normal man is predominantly penetrative-active, the
autolagnic man already has a receptive-passive woman in himself, and, similarly,
whereas the normal woman is predominantly receptive-passive, the autolagnic
woman already has a penetrative-active man in herself: reversed heterolagnia
consists exactly in the occurrence, in a heterolagnic form, of pronounced or
predominant receptive-passive eroticism in a man, and of pronounced or
predominant penetrative-active eroticism in a woman—which is ultimately due
to hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia and hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia.
51. In reversed heterolagnia, the basic desire is for reversed bigenital
heterolagnic penetration, i.e. the man with passive male heterolagnia wants the
woman to penetrate him in his genitals with her gynophalloid vulva, while the
woman with active female heterolagnia wants to penetrate the man in his genitals
with her gynophalloid vulva. These primary desires for reversed bigenital
heterolagnic penetration are, in both sexes, quite impossible to realize in practice
(except in the mildest cases in which coitus with the woman above the man may
give the man or the woman or both the illusion that the penis belongs to the
woman and that she is using it actively to penetrate the man’s genitals). That
these primary desires belong wholly to erotic fantasticism is evident from the
very fact that there is no such thing as a gynophalloid vulva: the vulva has no
gynophalloid; nor does the penis have an androhysteroid into which it can be
penetrated. Hence the fact that in all but the mildest cases the patients in their
heterolagnic relations—which are usually limited to phantasy in association with
autolagnic masturbation, but which may occasionally be put into practice in actual
heterolagnic relations—have to seek substitutes for bigenital relations. Generally
speaking, the passive male heterolagnic readily accepts his mouth and (in severer
cases) his rectum as androhysteroids, his major preoccupation being with female
gynophalloids, most of which, as we shall see later, belong to one of two main
groups, viz. mastoids and skoroids. On the other hand, the active female
heterolagnic has not only the relatively minor problem of finding suitable
androhysteroids in men but also the much greater problem of acquiring a
gynophalloid herself. Thus the active female heterolagnic may be predominantly
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51. Autolagnia
(instead of occasionally, or not at all) the penetrator in allelostomatolagnia
(‘tongue-kissing’); and while the dyserotic ordinary woman does not have many
opportunities for practising anal relations on men (though even this has
considerably changed with the recent erotic emancipation of women in the West),
a prostitute with active female heterolagnia may have no hesitation (with her
boyfriends, not her clients), in expressing her wish to explore the man’s rectum.
But acquiring a gynophalloid is on the whole a bigger problem for the active
female heterolagnic than finding an androhysteroid in the man. It is probable
that in some cases such a woman, in her heterolagnic relations, may show
considerable interest in men’s penes, not in the allotropic form of true
exophallolagnia, but in the autolagnic form (hyperexophallolagnia) of wanting
to acquire a penis to be a man—of wanting, as it were, to borrow the man’s penis
and perhaps also to use it on him (or, rather, in him) as if it were hers.
As noted in dealing with assimilative devouring in the monograph on The Oral
Concept of the World, active female heterolagnia and more or less exclusively
active homogynolagnia, which are basically autolagnic conditions, are most often
associated with sadistic pleonexia, in which the sexual pleonexia takes the form
of the assimilative devouring of a male figure (e.g. that of the father, the first
(male) lover, or the former husband), which results in the woman’s implicit or
explicit illusional belief that she is a man whose phalloid (i.e. her gynophalloid)
is capable of erotically penetrating men (in active female heterolagnia) and/or
women (in active homogynolagnia). (Apart from sexual pleonexia, such a woman
may also show evidence of other forms of pleonexia (or sadistic pleonexia), e.g.
of practical sadistic pleonexia as by being a highly successful businesswoman
and/or politician (in the narrow sense of politics) who competes with men and
even treats them with characteristic sadistic contempt; this contempt for men
shows that, in women, even practical sadistic pleonexia is most likely to have an
admixture of sexual sadistic pleonexia.)
52. In this respect we should remember what we have noted in the monograph
on Erotogenesis, which we may repeat here, viz. that whenever biological factors
are excluded by psychogenic pathological conditions, i.e. by dysphronesia, as is
the case in autolagnia in all its forms (general and scatolagnic), there is usually a
tendency for erotic passiveness to prevail. Hence the fact that, of the two forms
of reversed heterolagnia, passive male heterolagnia is much commoner than active
female heterolagnia, in much the same way as passive male homolagnia is much
commoner than active female homolagnia: in fact the two conditions, viz. reversed
heterolagnia and homolagnia, are closely related but are not identical: in reversed
heterolagnia it is usual to find an element—most often, but by no means always,
only a minor element—of homolagnia, viz. of passive (i.e. receptive-passive)
homolagnia in association with passive male heterolagnia, and of active (i.e.
penetrative-active) homolagnia in association with active female heterolagnia.
In addition to this difference in incidence there is the fact that, in phobophronesic
civilization, all erotic expression in women, both normal and pathological, is
much more restricted than in men even where there is a modicum of female
emancipation: where there is none, erotic expression in women may be virtually
non-existent. A corollary of this fact is that much dyseroticism in men finds its
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
main, or only, outlet with paid prostitutes, many of whom specialize in certain
forms of male dyseroticism, e.g. dressing in rubber and whipping
apragmophthorolagnic men: dyserotic women have no similar facilities that they
can obtain for money. In fact the most instructive information about active female
heterolagnia that is actually put into practice with male partners can be gleaned
from female patients who are (practising or retired) prostitutes, and sometimes
also from male patients who have freely mingled with prostitutes (e.g. working
as pimps or being their regular (unpaying) boyfriends).
53. Turning now to active female heterolagnia—in so far as this is
heterolagnically expressed (since in the majority of cases its expression is limited
to phantasy in association with autolagnic (solitary) masturbation)—this may be
expressed in the mildest cases in coitus with the woman always above the man
(and so performing the coital movements herself) as an indispensable condition
for having orgasm, often with the associated phantasy during coitus of being
herself the possessor of the penis and using it to penetrate the man’s genitals. In
severer cases the woman declines coitus (which is very easy for a woman in
phobophronesic civilization to do, e.g. on the pretext of fear of pregnancy, or of
being a ‘nice girl’ who does not go as far as coitus, or even the pretext of being a
‘virgin’ (though hardly in the strict medical sense of having an intact hymen))
but she regularly practises mutual manual masturbation (cheirophallolagnia and
cheirogynaedeolagnia) with her boyfriends, presumably to fulfil her desire for
acquiring a gynophalloid by prolonged manipulation of the male penis as if it
were hers (hyperexophallolagnia). In some cases the woman’s desire to penetrate
the man’s genitals may take the form of pushing her fingers roughly into the
scrotum, presumably as a gesture of wanting to penetrate him digitally through
his perineum (in much the same way as in normal precoital loveplay a man may
insert his fingers into the woman’s vagina). In one case a woman wanted to
watch her lover walk about with a cucumber hanging out of his rectum (which he
declined to do). Dactyloprostatolagnia may be practised by the woman on the
man, and may be quite acceptable to (or may indeed be requested by) an autolagnic
man. In the severest, and most typical, cases of active female heterolagnia the
woman may combine pleasure with financial gain by becoming a prostitute who
specializes in whipping apragmophthorolagnic men. It is obvious that in these
cases active female heterolagnia is associated with fully-developed
pragmophthorolagnia (just as the severest cases of passive heterolagnia in men
are those associated with apragmophthorolagnia). Such a prostitute, who derives
actual erotic pleasure from whipping men, may report that, if she is approaching
her orgasm while whipping a client, she may find herself convulsively continuing
with the whipping, beyond what she is paid for, until she has had her full orgasm.
It is worth adding that such a prostitute, despite the tremendous erotic satisfaction
she derives from her work, may refuse to let any man have coitus with her
regardless of what money he may offer her.
However, far more women—who are ordinary (or ‘respectable’) women, not
prostitutes—derive their orgastic satisfaction from heterolagnic
pragmophthorolagnia that is limited to phantasy: they regularly masturbate over
the phantasy of inflicting torture on, or killing, men in the most ruthless manner.
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51. Autolagnia
54. Passive male heterolagnia, which (as noted before) is much commoner
than active female heterolagnia, varies greatly in severity: the mildest cases may
allow a man to have apparently normal heterolagnic relations with women,
including full coitus, though closer study always reveals a wealth of pathology,
while the severest cases are entirely limited to masturbatory phantasy, and are
thus wholly autolagnic despite their ostensibly heterolagnic content.
55. Broadly speaking, passive male heterolagnia has two main characteristics:
a tendency to mixanorthosis (impotence) and a receptive-passive interest in
concrete and ideal gynophalloids, of which the most important are mastoid
gynophalloids and skoroid gynophalloids. Ideal gynophalloids are ideal properties
of concrete gynophalloids: unlike concrete gynophalloids, they have no penetrative
properties of their own, but the patient’s attitude to them is one of erotic passiveness
just the same.
56. Regarding the tendency to mixanorthosis, we have noted in the monograph
on Erotogenesis that predominant activeness (i.e. active internal and external
preservative devouring) is essential for mixorthosis in the man (and, similarly,
predominant passiveness is essential for mixorgastia in the woman). In passive
male heterolagnia, the occurrence or avoidance of mixanorthosis depends on the
severity of the condition. In milder cases, the autolagnic condition, viz. passive
heterolagnia, is not all-pervasive: the patient has much residual, more or less
(qualitatively) normal, heterolagnia, but this reduced (or impoverished) normal
heterolagnia may need to be whetted, i.e. may need extra stimulation, before the
patient can be mixorthotic. This whetting (or additional stimulation) has to come
from such sources as hyperexomastolagnia and hypererotendophoria.
Hyperexomastolagnia allays aphilia by reassuring the patient of the woman’s
love, but it does not actually counteract autolagnia. (The presence of aphilia and,
with it, hyperexomastolagnia is common and shows that even the patient’s residual,
qualitatively normal, heterolagnia is not entirely normal—but in the present
context we can regard it as normal (or ‘more or less normal’) only because the
existence of aphilic dyseroticism is a minor problem by comparison with the
coexistence of autolagnic dyseroticism.) By contrast, hypererotendophoria
powerfully counteracts the patient’s autolagnia, i.e. his passive heterolagnia: for
it suggests, not only the woman’s willingness, but her positive desire to be
erotically penetrated, thus serving to whet (or provide extra stimulation for) the
patient’s flagging normal heterolagnia, viz. whatever residual, more or less normal,
heterolagnia has been spared by the autolagnic disease-process, for it is on this
residual normal—i.e. penetrative-active (in contradistinction to reversed, i.e.
receptive-passive)—heterolagnia that the patient’s mixorthosis depends. (On the
other hand, coproidolagnia—as in the case of the man who is mixorthotic only if
his partner is wearing a plastic mackintosh—represents more than the whetting
of residual normal heterolagnia: coproidolagnia is autolagnic: its presence
indicates that what the patient is satisfying is not heterolagnia but autolagnia in a
heterolagnic setting.) All these conditions of precarious mixorthosis, or of
mixanorthosis that can be overcome in one way or another, are limited to the
milder cases of passive male heterolagnia. On the other hand, in all severe cases
of passive male heterolagnia—including severe cases of both
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
hyperexomastolagnia and hypererotendophoria, and virtually all but the very
mildest cases of skoroidolagnia—the condition is virtually entirely autolagnic
whether its actual expression is wholly in an autolagnic form or is in a heterolagnic
setting. One could hardly describe such men as being mixanorthotic: for they
are so autolagnic that to them coitus with a woman would be as irrelevant as
taking part in a running race would be for a paraplegic in a wheelchair.
57. It is in the receptive-passive interest in concrete and ideal gynophalloids
that we see erotic passiveness most clearly in passive male heterolagnia. These
gynophalloids belong mainly (though not exclusively) to two groups: mastoid
gynophalloids, interest in which is inseparably related to hyperexomastolagnia,
and skoroid gynophalloids (viz. uroid gynophalloids and coproid gynophalloids),
interest in which is inseparable from skoroidolagnia (viz. uroidolagnia and
coproidolagnia). Skoroidolagnia is generally associated with far greater erotic
passiveness than hyperexomastolagnia; in other words, passive male heterolagnia
that is associated with skoroidolagnia is usually much severer than passive male
heterolagnia that is associated with hyperexomastolagnia. Needless to say,
exomastolagnia (though, of course, not hyperexomastolagnia) is euerotic, whereas
skoroidolagnia is dyserotic in its entirety.
Mastoids and skoroids are the main gynophalloids in passive male
heterolagnia, but there are also other, less common ones. For example, in rare
cases the female hand may serve as a gynophalloid, resulting in handhypereroticism (hyperexocheirolagnia). (Of course the woman’s fingers serving
as a gynophalloid can be taken for granted: the hand in both sexes is a readily
available and highly versatile organ that can serve as a phalloid or as a hysteroid
depending on the need in any given (heterolagnic, autolagnic, or homolagnic)
situation.)
58. As for mastoid gynophalloids and hyperexomastolagnia, these phalloids
may be concrete, e.g. the breast itself, or ideal, e.g. smoothness (hyperleiolagnia)
and softness (hypermalakolagnia). It is obvious that the hyperexomastolagnia
with which we are concerned here is the severer, autolagnic form, and not the
milder, aphilic form. As noted before, aphilic hyperexomastolagnia is not only
compatible with coitus but may indeed be used in mild cases of passive male
heterolagnia, together with hypererotendophoria, to whet whatever residual, more
or less normal heterolagnia the patient may have, and may thus enable him to be
mixorthotic. By contrast, autolagnic hyperexomastolagnia in which the breast
represents a gynophalloid, usually involves a degree of passive male heterolagnia
that is more or less completely incompatible with coitus because, as noted before,
mixorthosis depends on the presence of predominant erotic activeness in the
man. It will be noted that the normal man’s attitude to the breast is one of active
(external and internal) devouring: the fact that the passive male heterolagnic’s
attitude to the breast is one of passive external and (more importantly) internal
devouredness explains the different type of breast such patients are attracted to.
For example, to the normal man the most attractive type of breast is the youthful,
firm, and proportionate breast. Moreover, normal exothelolagnia is qualitative
rather than quantitative: the nipple is of immense erotic interest mainly because
it represents the ‘mouth’ of the breast: details of its shape, and especially of its
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51. Autolagnia
size, are of relatively little importance. Above all, as just noted, the normal man’s
attitude to the breast, in terms of external devouring and/or penetration, is definitely
active. By contrast, in passive heterolagnic men the interest in the breast is quite
obviously passive, and the breast—which, to them, serves as a gynophalloid—
may be assimilated to the male penis. Thus these patients are usually interested
in grossly oversized, i.e. megalomastic or hypermegalomastic, breasts, so that
the breast is regarded as a massive, overpowering organ, i.e. as an actively
devouring, rather than a devourable, organ. The age of the woman bearing the
breasts is less important than their size, but the women most often preferred are
middle aged, or even old, women, who are much older than the patient. Thus the
patient is really looking for an overpowering mother-figure to re-create the
suckling infant’s passive relation to the mother’s breast. In fact in some cases
there is a special interest in lactating breasts, and the patient’s greatest desire
may be to be able to suck the nipples of a lactating woman, thus fully re-living—
in the passive role—the infantile oro-mammary relation. (Lactating breasts,
squirting their milk out, are often featured in the erotic pictorial magazines catering
for these men; another common feature in these magazines is that of bath scenes
showing women with lathered breasts: clearly the milk-white soap lather is a
galactoid gynophalloid, i.e. a milk-substitute or milk-equivalent gynophalloid.)
Frequently the type of breast that appeals to these patients is one that they can
assimilate to the male penis not only in size and power but also, and more directly,
in relation to the phalloid shape, size, and colour of the nipple. Thus the patients
are often attracted to large breasts with large, elongated, megalothelic or
hypermegalothelic, dark, erectile nipples whose finger-like shape and melanoid
colour, as well as their hardness when erect, clearly endow them with phalloid
properties. The typical masturbatory phantasy in these patients of taking such
elongated, hard nipples into their mouths clearly reflects these patients’ receptivepassive eroticism in relation to the breast in general, and the nipple in particular,
as a penetrative-active gynophalloid.
Two more examples of mastoid gynophalloids may be noted here: women’s
hair (hypertricholagnia) and women’s handkerchiefs (which are characteristically
feminine in their miniature size and their decoration with lace etc., as distinct
from men’s handkerchiefs which are usually much larger and quite plain). This
is because both women’s hair and women’s handkerchiefs may be conceived by
the passive male heterolagnics concerned as mastoid appendages; these are
therefore really examples of hyperprosthekolagnia.
59. However, it is in association with the interest in skoroid gynophalloids,
viz. in uroid gynophalloids and, even more, in coproid gynophalloids, and in
skoroidolagnia, viz. in uroidolagnia and, to an even greater extent, in
coproidolagnia, that we see the most extreme forms of passive male heterolagnia,
very often in combination with apragmophthorolagnia, which represents the
ultimate form of erotic passiveness, and which is usually much severer in cases
of coproidolagnia than in those of uroidolagnia.
60. The commonest uroid gynophalloid is urine itself. In the mildest cases,
the patient—who is usually more or less apragmophthorolagnic—may merely
want to watch women urinate, especially if they urinate, not squatting down as
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
women usually do, but standing up, i.e. in the position usually used by men, thus
assimilating the stream of urine flowing from the woman’s pudendum to a
gynophalloid similar to the male penis that hangs down from a man’s pudendum.
In severer cases the patient may want to drink the woman’s urine (uroborolagnia)
and may ask her to urinate on him or to urinate into his mouth.
61. Coproid gynophalloids, even more than uroid gynophalloids, may be
concrete or ideal: for example, dirtiness, which of course is ideal, applies to
urine but it applies incomparably more to faeces. Concrete coproid gynophalloids
include faeces themselves as well as a variety of malodorous objects, including
the organs of the lower part of the body, viz. the organs involved in
hyperparaedeolagnia, either because of their proximity to the anus, e.g. the
buttocks (hyperpygolagnia) and the thighs (hyperfemorolagnia), or because of
their own tendency to be sweaty and smelly, e.g. the feet (hyperpodolagnia).
Concrete coproid gynophalloids also include leather, rubber, and plastic; thus
the erotic interest in these materials is essentially coproidolagnic and is wholly
dyserotic. It will be noted that in hyperparaedeolagnia as well as in leather,
rubber, and plastic dyslagnia, the major factor is hyperosphreticolagnia, though
hyperxestolagnia may also be important. Ideal coproid gynophalloids are those
related to ideas of dirtiness (mysolagnia), though phthoristic destructiveness may
also be included as an ideal gynophalloid in apragmophthorolagnic men.
(However, although phthorism is closely related to skoroidism and both are
palaeoscatistic idioms, we do not actually include phthorism within skoroidism.)
The best example of ideal coproid (or skoroid) gynophalloids is that of the passive
form of mysolalolagnia in those men who are erotically aroused by the woman’s
use of ‘obscene’ or ‘four-letter’ words, as if such ‘dirty’ words coming from a
woman were capable of defiling them in much the same way as would be the
case if the woman urinated or defaecated on them. In some cases it may not be
enough for the patient to be ‘soiled’ or ‘defiled’ with ‘filthy language’ in private:
a patient may pay a prostitute to accompany him to a public house or some such
public place where she would shout at him using ‘foul’ language that is readily
overheard by everyone present.
62. It is important to note here that all the erotic motifs which, to the normal
man, represent either erotendophoria or the gynotropic phalloid, may be perceived
by the passive male heterolagnic as simple representations of gynophalloids.
This is particularly true of passive male heterolagnics who combine an interest in
coproid gynophalloids, including interest in leather, rubber, and/or plastic, with
apragmophthorolagnia. For example, in leather and rubber dyslagnia the patient
may be interested in women wearing gloves and boots made of these materials
because of the coproid material (viz. the leather or rubber): in so far as the
erotendophoric representation of the hand inside the glove and the foot inside the
shoe is concerned, the patient perceives a gynophalloid alike in the woman’s
hand and in her glove, alike in her foot and in her boot.
Many prostitutes cater specifically for coproidolagnic/apragmophthorolagnic
patients. Among the clients of such prostitutes we may see, for example, the
patient who pays them to sniff and lick their feet and/or their shoes, or to lick
faeces off their soiled pants (some prostitutes keep soiled underwear specially
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51. Autolagnia
for such clients), or to defile him with their excreta, or to sniff their flatus as it
emanates from the anus, or to be gagged and whipped by them while they are
dressed in rubber or leather. To such a patient, a woman (i.e. a prostitute) dressed
in complete rubber attire (or ‘rubber gear’) may abound in gynophalloids: her
black rubber brassiere, pants, gloves, and boots, with all the smell
(hyperosphreticolagnia) and feel (hyperxestolagnia) of rubber (and the colour
black itself as a phalloid); the long and pointed heels of her high-heeled shoes or
boots, with which she can penetrate him if she trod over him (the main erotic
value of high-heeled female shoes to a normal man is in their contribution to
sphericophilia and sphericolagnia by adding extra curves to the woman’s foot);
her long and pointed finger-nails (apart from their phthoristic ability to scratch);
her black goggles or facemask (the phalloid colour black again); the holes in the
‘cups’ of her brassiere, through which her breasts protrude (such breasts protruding
through a garment represent to him, not erotendophoria, but plain gynophalloids);
and the whip (both as a phalloid and as the inflictor of pain).
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Monograph 52
ORGANOLAGNIA
(ORGAN-EROTICISM)
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Classification of Organolagnia
02—08
2.
Geneosemeiolagnia
09—15
3.
Peristomatomastorganolagnia
16—42
4.
Periaedeorganolagnia
43—81
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52. Organolagnia
INTRODUCTION
01. The monographs on Erotogenesis, Autolagnia, and Organophoria contain
the study of the psychogenetic basis of eroticism in kyemetrophilia and its
implications in organophoric terms. However, in the study of the actual operation
of eroticism it is necessary to study organ-eroticism, which is the subject of this
monograph, and sensory eroticism, which is dealt with in the monograph on
Aestheticolagnia (and in other monographs, including this one). The two subjects
overlap to a very considerable extent, for obviously organ-eroticism could not
exist without sensory eroticism.
It will be noted that ‘organ’ in phronesic terms simply means any part of the
human body—which is very different from the physiological sense of the term.
Thus the hand and the thigh are ‘organs’ of the body in the phronesic sense.
Moreover, as is particularly important in the study of organophoria, the child in
relation to the mother is also an organ of hers: the child in the womb is an internal
organ (endopaedophoria), whereas the child in arms (or the young child in general)
is an external organ (exopaedophoria). It is obvious that an organ in the phronesic
sense may be subdivisible into smaller organs; for example, the genital organs in
each sex may be treated as one organ or as a number of organs, and the hand is an
organ even though each finger, or the fingers collectively, may be treated as an
organ.
Of course the monumental work of Ploss and Bartels, Woman (W), has been
perused in this and in other monographs, together with very many shorter
contributions that can be found in medical and physical-anthropological literature.
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Chapter 1
CLASSIFICATION OF ORGANOLAGNIA
02. Organolagnia or organ-eroticism is the experience of erotic pleasure in
relation to a specific organ, or part of the body; the organ concerned may be
either in the subject’s own body (endorganolagnia or enderoticism or subjecteroticism) or in the erotic object’s body (exorganolagnia or exeroticism or objecteroticism). Where organ-eroticism arises as a result of contact between two organs,
one of which in the subject’s body and the other in the object’s body, we speak of
this as allelorganolagnia. Thus whereas enderoticism and exeroticism specify
the one organ concerned in an either enderotic or exerotic capacity,
allelorganolagnia specifies the two organs concerned in an erotic contact, which
is a particularly useful formulation as in most erotic contacts there is simultaneous
mutual enderotic and exerotic pleasure. One example will illustrate all this. In
coitus—leaving aside all psychological implications—the man’s main
organolagnic pleasure is one of subject-eroticism in relation to his own penis
(endophallolagnia) and of object-eroticism in relation to the woman’s vagina
(exocolpolagnia); and vice versa: the woman’s main organolagnic pleasure is
one of enderoticism in relation to her own vagina (endocolpolagnia) and of
exeroticism in relation to the man’s penis (exophallolagnia). In allelorganolagnic
terms, the relation may be described as one of phallocolpolagnia, i.e. of penisvagina eroticism, or as one of allelaedeolagnia, i.e. of genital-to-genital (or
bigenital) eroticism.
03. In one sense the exerotic form, or object-form, of eroticism may be
regarded as the primary form, as it is the form that corresponds to the ‘-philia’
termination in non-erotic idioms: the ‘-philia’ termination always denotes objectlove. It is only in eroticism, which involves two human beings—i.e. in which
both the subject and the object are human beings—that we need to distinguish
between the subject- and object-forms. Eroticism in relation to inanimate objects,
as in scatolagnia in general (hydrolagnia, pyrolagnia, etc.) is, of course, objecteroticism. Even in relation to human beings, very occasionally the omission of
an ‘exo-’ or ‘endo-’ prefix presumes an exo-form, e.g. normal eroticism in men
may be spoken of as ‘heterogynolagnia’ while homolagnia in women is spoken
of as ‘homogynolagnia’: in both cases ‘gynolagnia’ refers to the woman as an
object, not as a subject.
Thus, to repeat: the classification into subject- and object-forms applies only
to eroticism: the terms ‘exerotic’ and ‘enderotic’ have no non-erotic equivalents:
all non-erotic hedonia is of the object-form. For example, ‘phallophilia’,
‘hysterophilia’, and ‘mastophilia’ all denote object-hedonia or hedonia
experienced by a subject in relation to the object specified (the penis, the womb,
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52. Organolagnia
and the breast, respectively); but ‘phallolagnia’, ‘colpolagnia’, and
‘mastolagnia’—and indeed virtually any form of erotic organ-hedonia—have
enderotic as well as exerotic forms.
04. Erotopoeicity means the capacity of an organ or of an inanimate object to
give erotic pleasure. In the case of an organ, the enderotic and exerotic capacity
to give pleasure is referred to as enderotopoeicity and exerotopoeicity, respectively.
For example, we may say that both the enderotopoeicity of the breasts in women
and the exerotopoeicity of the breasts in men show wide individual and cultural
variations.
‘Erethopoeicity’ is closely related to ‘erotopoeicity’ but the two terms are not
synonymous. For ‘erotopoeicity’ refers to erotic pleasure in the widest sense,
which may be very concrete (or physical) or may be purely ideal and therefore
unassociated with the physical phenomena of erotic arousal, whereas
‘erethopoeicity’ means specifically the capacity to give rise to eroterethia, i.e. to
the physical (or bodily) manifestations of erotic stimulation or erotic arousal,
both general (e.g. rapid pulse and deep breathing) and local, i.e. genital (e.g.
erection of the penis in men and copious vaginal discharge in women).
Erotopoeicity and erethopoeicity also apply to inanimate objects which, in
eueroticism or dyseroticism, give rise to erotic pleasure or erotic stimulation.
Obviously the erotopoeicity or erethopoeicity of inanimate objects can only be
in the exerotic form. Examples of such inanimate objects include silk and nylon
(leio-malakolagnia), leather and rubber and plastic (coproidolagnia), water
(hydrolagnia), fire (pyrolagnia), and open space (aethrolagnia).
05. No specific rule applies to the arrangement of the two elements of the
two-organ relation in allelorganolagnia, though we generally prefer to place the
practically-active before the practically-passive organ. Thus we generally speak
of phallocolpolagnia, stomatophallolagnia, and stomatovulvolagnia—but we
could reverse the order if we wished without altering the basic sense:
colpophallolagnia, phallostomatolagnia, vulvostomatolagnia.
06. Allelorganolagnic terms can be varied so as to be as general or as specific
as we want them to be. For example, we can speak of cheirovulvolagnia (handvulva eroticism) or even cheirogynaedeolagnia (hand-female genitals eroticism),
or we can be more specific: dactylocolpolagnia (finger-vagina eroticism),
dactyloclitoridolagnia (finger-clitoris eroticism), cheironympholagnia (handnymphae eroticism), etc. Similarly, we can speak of stomatovulvolagnia (mouthvulva eroticism) or more specifically of glossintroitolagnia (tongue-introitus
eroticism), glossoclitoridolagnia (tongue-clitoris eroticism), etc. However, it is
obvious that although allelorganolagnic terms can be made very specific, they
still have their limitations. For example, terms referring to the fingers
(dactylocolpolagnia, dactyloclitoridolagnia, etc.) do not specify the number of
fingers used. Even more importantly, allelorganolagnic terms do not specify the
type of movement or action used: this can only be surmised. For example,
phallocolpolagnia and glossintroitolagnia can only be assumed to involve
penetrative (as well as frictional) movement, whereas dactyloclitoridolagnia and
glossoclitoridolagnia can only be assumed to be purely frictional. Similarly,
‘stomatoclitoridolagnia’ does not specify whether the movement involved is one
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
of suction or of friction (with the lips or with the tongue), or all of these (but the
movement in ‘glossoclitoridolagnia’ can only be assumed to be purely frictional).
07. Special considerations apply to autolagnic practices, in which the subject
is simultaneously subject and object. In so far as allelorganolagnia is concerned,
we only need to prefix ‘auto-’ to indicate that the two organs involved belong to
the same individual. On the other hand, in so far as simple organolagnia is
concerned, we generally describe the pleasure produced in autolagnic practices
as enderotic on the grounds that, although in autolagnia the subject simultaneously
derives enderotic and exerotic pleasure from himself or herself, the enderotic
form is the predominant one. For example, in the case of a girl caressing her
breasts with her hands in autolagnic masturbation we describe the hand-breast
eroticism in this case as autocheiromastolagnia; and, although her pleasure strictly
speaking is both enderotic, viz. endomastolagnic, and exerotic, viz.
exomastolagnic, we would generally regard it as being predominantly one of
endomastolagnia.
*
*
08. Next we deal with the classification of organolagnia. There are two main
foci of organ-eroticism: the genital organs, which are the primary focus
(aedeorganolagnia or simply aedeolagnia, viz. andraedeolagnia with reference
to the male genitals, and gynaedeolagnia with reference to the female genitals);
and the mouth and the female breast (stomatomastorganolagnia), which is due to
the eroticization in adulthood of the oro-mammary prototype of the lactivorous
stage of life from which all eroticism is ultimately derived in human awareness.
From each of these two foci, eroticism spreads to nearby organs: we refer to this
as erotic diffusion. Thus erotic diffusion from the genital organs results in most
of the organs (or parts) of the lower part of the body possessing greater or lesser
organ-eroticism: the buttocks (pygolagnia), the thighs (femorolagnia), the legs
(cnemolagnia), and the feet (podolagnia). The eroticism of all these organs, viz.
of all the organs affected by erotic diffusion from the genitals, is referred to
collectively as paraedeorganolagnia or simply paraedeolagnia.
Stomatomastorganolagnia, which comprises stomatolagnia and mastolagnia,
shows similar erotic diffusion to most of the organs of the upper part of the body,
to which we refer collectively as parastomatomastorganolagnia. Thus
parastomatolagnia mainly involves the different organs of the face, e.g. the cheeks
and the eyes. Similarly, paramastolagnia involves those parts of the woman’s
body near the breasts, e.g. the paramammary sinuses, the upper part of the chest,
the neck, and the shoulders. Finally, we refer to aedeolagnia and paraedeolagnia
together as periaedeorganolagnia, and to stomatomastorganolagnia and
parastomatomastorganolagnia together as peristomatomastorganolagnia.
We may put the foregoing in a different way as follows. We classify
organolagnia into two main divisions: periaedeorganolagnia and
peristomatomastorganolagnia. Periaedeorganolagnia comprises aedeolagnia
(genital eroticism) and paraedeolagnia (paragenital eroticism). Similarly,
peristomatomastorganolagnia comprises stomatomastorganolagnia (oromammary eroticism, viz. stomatolagnia and mastolagnia) and
parastomatomastorganolagnia (paroro-mammary eroticism, viz.
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52. Organolagnia
parastomatolagnia and paramastolagnia). (In stomatomastorganolagnia (= mouth
and breast organ-eroticism) it is important to retain the element ‘-organo-’ in
order to distinguish it from stomatomastolagnia (= mouth-breast eroticism) which
is a form of allelorganolagnia.)
The study of organolagnia involves the investigation, in the case of each organ,
of the enderotic and exerotic forms in both sexes (where applicable), as well as
the investigation of the hyper-form, which is the main dysphronesic form in
organolagnia. Other relevant investigations include the geneosemeiolagnia of
the organ concerned, its morphology (in which organolagnia touches on physical
anthropology and aesthetics), and the correlation of its organolagnia with
aestheticolagnia. Regarding these last two points, it is obvious that the study of
organolagnia involves the study of both organomorphology, i.e. the physicalanthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic study of the form of the different
organs of the body, and organaestheticolagnia, i.e. erotic sensory perception in
relation to specific organs. An attempt will be made in this monograph to refer,
if only briefly, to all these aspects of organolagnia, especially in relation to the
three main organs of geneosemeiolagnic importance, viz. the breast, the female
genitals, and the male genitals. Hence in the case of organomorphology we shall
refer to mastomorphology, gynaedeomorphology, and andraedeomorphology;
similarly, in the case of organaestheticolagnia we shall refer to
mastaestheticolagnia, gynaedeaestheticolagnia, and andraedeaestheticolagnia. It
is evident that morphological variations, apart from their physical-anthropological
and aesthetic importance, have a bearing on the erotopoeicity of an organ, certainly
in relation to exerotopoeicity, and most probably also in relation to
enderotopoeicity (though our scientific knowledge is very deficient in this respect).
On the other hand, the correlation of organolagnia with aestheticolagnia is an
integral part of the study of organolagnia. Organoscopolagnia
(organopragmoscopolagnia and organapragmoscopolagnia) and
organohapticolagnia are the two main forms with which we are concerned in
organaestheticolagnia: in eueroticism, there is virtually no place for
organacousticolagnia, and only a limited scope for organogeusticolagnia and
organosphreticolagnia—the latter two mainly in relation to genital secretions:
male semen and female vaginal secretions during eroterethia. (However,
hyperosphreticolagnia, hypergeusticolagnia, and hyperacousticolagnia—in this
order—are of far greater importance in dyseroticism than in eueroticism.) In
practice, organohapticolagnia is the main form we have to deal with under
organaestheticolagnia since organoscopolagnia in most cases extends far beyond
the limits of strict organaestheticolagnia as it is related (among other things) to
special geneosemeiolagnia and organomorphology.
It must be emphasized (and I have tried to do this throughout this monograph)
that organaestheticolagnia is also of clinical importance, especially as eroticism
to this day remains shrouded in erotophobic mystery and shame. If we accept
that psychotherapy is not a mystic procedure aiming at eradicating mental illness
by altering the patient’s mind and giving him, as it were, a new disease-free (if
not disease-proof) mind, but is a perfectly realistic, rational, and wholly scientific
attempt at finding an actual solution to the patient’s problem in real life, viz. by
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
identifying the causes—including the precipitating causes—of the patient’s
problem and either eradicating them or avoiding them, then erotic problems are
in many cases amenable to treatment with psychotherapy with nothing more
(once the problem has been precisely identified) than factual advice (to the patient
and, in some cases, to his or her spouse or sexual partner).
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52. Organolagnia
Chapter 2
GENEOSEMEIOLAGNIA
09. Geneosemeiolagnia is the erotic form of geneosemeiophilia; the latter is
dealt with in the monograph on Geneosemeia. Eroticism represents erotic
idiophilia: in the rise of eroticism from idiophilia, geneosemeiophilia (which is
an integral part of idiophilia) gives rise to geneosemeiolagnia. However, whereas
idiophilia comprises both heterogeneosemeiophilia and homogeneosemeiophilia,
eroticism—which is normally exclusively heterolagnic—comprises only
heterogeneosemeiolagnia. We shall presently refer to the pathological (i.e.
dysphronesic) forms of these idioms, viz. hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia,
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia, and
homogeneosemeiolagnia. However, it should be noted that mastosemeiolagnia
(which normally is limited to men) has a double origin: on the one hand, it arises,
as noted above, as part of the rise of eroticism from idiophilia, including the rise
of heterogeneosemeiolagnia in men from heterogeneosemeiophilia; on the other
hand, it arises as part of the adult eroticization of the oro-mammary prototype to
form stomatomastorganolagnia, in which exomastolagnia in men inevitably
includes an erotic interest in the properties (or characteristics) of the breast, i.e.
includes mastosemeiolagnia.
10. So far we have only referred to eueroticism. Dyseroticism, on the other
hand, is mainly subdivisible into aphilic, autolagnic, and erotophobic forms.
Aphilic and erotophobic dyseroticism does not concern us here, but it is important
to note that autolagnic dyseroticism (or autolagnia) arises on a basis of autophilia,
and not of idiophilia as is the case with eueroticism. Autophilia, which is the
basis of all scatism—both euphronesic and dysphronesic scatism—is also the
basis of autolagnia, which is dysphronesic. But we have to examine this in greater
detail if we are to understand autolagnic dyseroticism. For autolagnia arises, not
from simple normal autophilia, but from autophilia that is so pathologically
excessive as to overflow, as it were, into an erotic form, i.e. into autolagnia. In
other words, autolagnia arises, not from normal autophilia, but from
hyperautophilia. Moreover, whereas normal autophilia (unlike idiophilia) has
no geneosemeiophilic content, hyperautophilia has a geneosemeiophilic content
which, because it is autotropic or autophilic (as against being allotropic, as is the
case in idiophilia), and because it is excessive, is qualitatively as well as
quantitatively dysphronesic, hence we speak of it as hypergeneosemeiophilia in
order to distinguish it from the euphronesic geneosemeiophilia of idiophilia.
Hypergeneosemeiophilia—which is an integral part of hyperautophilia—
comprises hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia and hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia,
which differ from their euphronesic equivalents in being autotropic (or autophilic)
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
as well as in being pathologically excessive. Moreover, in the rise of autolagnia
from hyperautophilia, they give rise to corresponding erotic forms, which too are
autotropic, i.e. autolagnic. Thus hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia gives rise to
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, while hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia gives rise
to homogeneosemeiolagnia. As noted in the monograph on Autolagnia, it is the
coexistence of these non-erotic and erotic idioms in the same individual that
accounts for the variety of forms that autolagnia may take: autolagnia proper,
homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia.
For the sake of completeness, we may note here that, theoretically, hyperphilic
hypereroticism must inevitably involve exaggeration of geneosemeiophilia (as
part of the exaggeration of idiophilia, i.e. as part of hyperidiophilia) and of
heterogeneosemeiolagnia (as part of the exaggeration of eroticism, i.e. as part of
hyperphilic hypereroticism), but these changes are quantitative and not qualitative,
and are therefore of no practical importance: hence we reserve the terms
‘hypergeneosemeiophilia’ and ‘hypergeneosemeiolagnia’ exclusively for the
hyperautophilic/autolagnic conditions, as explained before.
*
*
11. Geneosemeiolagnia, like geneosemeiophilia, is subdivisible into two
forms: general and special. In what follows no reference will be made to
mixosemeiolagnia: as noted (and fully discussed) in the monograph on
Geneosemeia, mixosemeiolagnia is virtually identical with the endophallophoric
form of erotendophoria.
General geneosemeiolagnia in terms of anatropolagnia and ortholagnia as
androsemeiolagnic idioms, and catatropolagnia and epipedolagnia as
gynosemeiolagnic idioms, is of limited importance: these idioms are much more
important in relation to the male penis and the female breast, respectively, but
this of course belongs to special geneosemeiolagnia. In eroticism, general
geneosemeiolagnia applies more in terms of male active preservative devouring
power and female passive preservative devourability. For example, some women
prefer tall, slender men (probably because of the association in awareness of
slenderness, alike in relation to general male physique and in relation to phallic
morphology, with greater motility or greater agility, with all the implications of
this in terms of greater devouring power, both general, e.g. in embracing, and
myotonolagnic, e.g. in coital movements); but more often women’s preference
(in purely physical, erotic terms) is for tall, big, muscular men. Thus many women
derive immense pleasure from watching wrestling matches on television, and
big, muscular athletes and sportsmen in general are common in women’s
masturbatory phantasies. Moreover, whereas muscularity (and, for that matter,
also hairiness, evoking trachylagnia) of the upper part of the male body (the
arms, chest, etc.) are more evocative of active external devouring (in terms of
holding and embracing the woman, etc.), muscularity (and hairiness) of the lower
part of the body (the lower limbs as a whole, notably the thighs and buttocks) are
more evocative of active internal devouring, since it is mainly the powerful muscles
of the man’s buttocks and thighs that propel the erect penis in rhythmic thrust
inside the woman in coitus. (We are touching here on exofemorolagnia and
exopygolagnia in women.) By contrast, but much less often, some men like
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52. Organolagnia
short, slender, ‘petite’ women whose small size makes them eminently erotically
devourable, externally and internally. Others prefer plumpish women, because
of the extra leio-malakolagnia of the plump (as against the skinny) woman.
However, the interest in extremely obese women, usually with huge breasts,
represents hyperleio-malakolagnia and hyperexomastolagnia: this is an autolagnic
condition, generally associated with greater or lesser passive male heterolagnia.
12. Special geneosemeiolagnia is best studied as part of the organolagnia
(i.e. the exorganolagnia) of the organ concerned. Hence reference will be made
to geneosemeiolagnic idioms later in this monograph in the course of our study
of the organolagnia of the breast and of the female and male genitals. Here it will
suffice to enumerate the idioms of special geneosemeiolagnia, which are simply
the erotic forms of the corresponding geneosemeiophilic idioms noted in the
monograph on Geneosemeia. The idioms of mastosemeiolagnia are leiolagnia,
malakolagnia, sphericolagnia, mastoleukolagnia, catatropolagnia,
artiarithmolagnia, and prosthekolagnia. The idioms of hysterosemeiolagnia are
hollowness, receptivity or penetrability (coital and gestational), fertility or
fecundity, and enterythrolagnia. Finally, the idioms of phallosemeiolagnia are
xestolagnia, sclerolagnia, oxylagnia, rhabdophalloidolagnia (ortho- and
streptophalloidolagnia), anatropolagnia, penetrativeness, melanolagnia, and
perissarithmolagnia.
A remark is necessary here about the use of the terms ‘penetrativeness’ and
‘penetrability’ or ‘receptivity’. Penetrativeness is a geneosemeiophilic and
geneosemeiolagnic, viz. a phallosemeiophilic and phallosemeiolagnic, idiom; it
also describes the male role, viz. the penetrative-active role, in coitus. Similarly,
‘penetrability’ or ‘receptivity’ is a geneosemeiophilic and geneosemeiolagnic,
viz. a hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic, idiom; it also describes the
female role, viz. the receptive-passive role, in coitus.
13. It is important to emphasize here that, though geneosemeiolagnia is
obviously related to exorganolagnia rather than endorganolagnia, we should
remember that in all autolagnic hypereroticism the distinction between endolagnia
and exolagnia tends to be blurred as the subject himself or herself is simultaneously
both subject and object, and therefore both endorganolagnic and exorganolagnic.
For example, leiolagnia and malakolagnia are normally limited to men because
mastosemeiolagnia, like exomastolagnia, is normally limited to men. However,
autolagnic hypermastolagnia in women is often not limited (as normal mastolagnia
in women is) to endomastolagnia: these women may have much
hyperexomastolagnia as well as hyperendomastolagnia, and some may therefore
be hyperleiolagnic and hypermalakolagnic even to the extent of being erotically
aroused by the feel of such materials as fur, velvet, and silk, and using such
materials for masturbation.
*
*
14. After the foregoing account, we can now consider in outline the whole
subject of mastosemeiolagnia, hysterosemeiolagnia, and phallosemeiolagnia in
both sexes, both in their euerotic forms and in their hyper-forms. It should be
noted at the outset that dysphronesic forms of geneosemeiophilic and
geneosemeiolagnic idioms should always have the prefix ‘hyper-’ in order to
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distinguish them from the corresponding euphronesic forms. (However, the
generic reference to an idiom does not take the prefix ‘hyper-’ even if the reference
is to a dysphronesic form; for example, we may say that as ‘leiolagnia’ (a generic
term) is dysphronesic in women, it should always be referred to in their case as
‘hyperleiolagnia’, and, similarly, as ‘xestolagnia’ (a generic term) is dysphronesic
in men, it should always be referred to in their case as ‘hyperxestolagnia’.)
As noted before, the prefix ‘hyper-’ primarily denotes pathological (or
dysphronesic) excessiveness of an idiom; the pathogenicity may be either one of
simple excessiveness, i.e. a quantitative pathogenicity without an associated
qualitative change, or it may be qualitative as well as quantitative. In the case of
geneosemeiophilia and geneosemeiolagnia, the hyper-forms usually denote a
simple quantitative change in the case of aphilic dyseroticism, but a qualitative
as well as quantitative change in the case of autolagnic dyseroticism.
The following outline of masto-, hystero-, and phallosemeiophilia and of
masto-, hystero-, and phallosemeiolagnia in both sexes, including the hyper-forms,
of course applies to the constituent idioms of these main idioms. Thus, for
example, it will be unnecessary to give a separate account of hyperleiolagnia,
hypermalakolagnia, hyperxestolagnia, and hypersclerolagnia: the former two are
idioms of hypermastosemeiolagnia, the latter two are idioms of
hyperphallosemeiolagnia.
15. Now for the outline itself.
Mastosemeiophilia, hysterosemeiophilia, and phallosemeiophilia are all
euphronesic in both sexes.
Mastosemeiolagnia, which is part of exomastolagnia, and
hysterosemeiolagnia, which is part of exogynaedeolagnia, are euphronesic in
men. Similarly, phallosemeiolagnia, which is part of exophallolagnia, is
euphronesic in women.
Mastosemeiolagnia and hysterosemeiolagnia are dysphronesic (viz.
autolagnic) in women, and therefore have to be described as
hypermastosemeiolagnia and hyperhysterosemeiolagnia: they are part of
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia/homogeneosemeiolagnia.
Similarly,
phallosemeiolagnia is dysphronesic (viz. autolagnic) in men, and therefore has
to be described as hyperphallosemeiolagnia: it is part of
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilia/homogeneosemeiolagnia.
Hypermastosemeiolagnia (like hyperexomastolagnia) in men is usually aphilic
in its milder forms and autolagnic in its severer forms. The aphilic forms are
usually part of aphilic hyperstomatomastorganolagnia. On the other hand, the
autolagnic forms are part of hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia/
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, and they may take different forms in autolagnia
proper, in reversed heterolagnia (in which the breast may represent a mastoid
gynophalloid with penetrative-active properties, and the patient may have a similar
attitude of erotic passiveness towards ideal mastoids, e.g. smoothness and softness
(hyperleiolagnia and hypermalakolagnia)), and in homandrolagnia.
Hyperhysterosemeiolagnia (like hyperexogynaedeolagnia) in men, and
hyperphallosemeiolagnia (like hyperexophallolagnia) in women, are autolagnic
conditions: they are part of hyperheterogeneosemeiophilia/
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52. Organolagnia
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia, and they may take different forms in autolagnia
proper, in reversed heterolagnia, and in homolagnia.
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Chapter 3
PERISTOMATOMASTORGANOLAGNIA
16. Peristomatomastorganolagnia comprises stomatomastorganolagnia and
parastomatomastorganolagnia. Stomatomastorganolagnia comprises
stomatolagnia and mastolagnia, while parastomatomastorganolagnia comprises
parastomatolagnia and paramastolagnia.
*
*
17. Stomatolagnia (endostomatolagnia and exostomatolagnia) in both sexes
is so important that a great deal has already been said about it in other monographs,
notably in the one on Erotogenesis, and that material need not be repeated here.
On the whole, stomatolagnic relations are the most personal erotic relations since
an individual tends to be equated with his or her mouth (and, more generally,
with his or her face)—a fact to which we have referred elsewhere. Hence kissing—
the main form of stomatolagnic expression—is virtually an invariable prelude to
coitus except in the most impersonal relations with professional prostitutes at the
lower end of the ‘profession’. This kissing is most often and most typically
mouth-to-mouth (allelostomatolagnia), but mouth-body kissing
(stomatosomatolagnia) and mouth-genital kissing (stomataedeolagnia) are also
common and are erotically important. Mouth-breast kissing (stomatomastolagnia)
is of special significance because of its relation to the oro-mammary prototype.
As in most forms of stomatolagnia the different parts (or organs) of the mouth,
notably the lips and the tongue, operate in unison, it is unnecessary to deal with
these organs separately in detail. It will suffice to refer here very briefly to the
lips (cheilolagnia), the tongue (glossolagnia), and the teeth (odontolagnia). As
for cheilolagnia, the lips, apart from their hapticolagnic capability, are important
in the suction, i.e. the creation of negative pressure, which forms the essence of
what we call ‘kissing’, and which ultimately represents the process of
preservatively actively devouring the partner externally or internally (or, in some
cases, of being internally devoured by the partner). In a different way, for men to
admire ‘full’ female lips (entoplerolagnia), and for women using lipstick to paint
the skin adjacent to the mucous membrane to make the lips appear ‘full’, partly
assimilates the lips to the breasts, i.e. partly assimilates cheilolagnia to mastolagnia.
Regarding glossolagnia, apart from the licking capability of the tongue, with or
without simultaneous suction by the lips, and apart from its hapticolagnic and
geusticolagnic capability, the penetrative tongue in any stomatolagnic act fulfils
a phalloid function; also, in some cases, the woman’s tongue inside her mouth
(i.e. like her teeth inside her mouth) may serve as an erotendophoric representation.
Finally, the limited importance of odontolagnia lies mainly in the erotendophoric
significance of a woman’s white (i.e. mastoleukolagnic) teeth showing through
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52. Organolagnia
her partly parted lips. (As repeatedly noted in these monographs, biting—an
attribute of the teeth—is not part of eueroticism.)
18. Allelostomatolagnia comprises elements of sucking, licking, and exploring
the partner’s mouth with the tongue or having one’s own mouth explored by the
partner. Because of this intimacy of contact between the mucous membranes of
the two mouths it is often referred to as ‘wet’ kissing. A characteristic feature of
allelostomatolagnia in the true erotic sense is the use of the tongue to penetrate
the partner’s mouth (as well as for licking the partner’s tongue and other parts of
the partner’s mouth), which introduces an element of erotic penetration: erotic
penetrativeness on the part of one partner—most often, but not invariably, the
man—and erotic receptivity on the part of the other partner (most often the
woman). Some of the variations in these roles, euphronesic and dysphronesic,
are referred to in other monographs.
19. Stomatosomatolagnia may apply to virtually any part of the body other
than the mouth, the breasts, and the genitals. Of special importance are the organs
covered by the terms parastomatomastorganolagnia and paraedeolagnia, especially
those nearest to the two main foci of organ-eroticism, but even that does not
include kissing the partner’s abdomen, which has an ideal implication of active
erotic penetrativeness.
The significance of stomatosomatolagnia may lie either in external or in
internal (i.e. penetrative) preservative devouring of the partner, or in a combination
of both.
20.
Stomataedeolagnia comprises stomatovulvolagnia and
stomatophallolagnia. The oral action is mainly one of sucking and licking,
involving the lips, the tongue, and the oral cavity. In the case of
stomatovulvolagnia this action is applied variously to the clitoris, the nymphae
(or labia minora), and the vaginal introitus. Wide individual variations occur in
women in relation to endoclitoridolagnia, endonympholagnia, and
endintroitolagnia.
Generally speaking, glossoclitoridolagnia (or
stomatoclitoridolagnia, since in some cases licking may be combined with suction)
is the most erethopoeic to the woman in terms of local stimulation, and therefore
the most readily orgastopoeic; it may range from gentle licking of the glans of
the clitoris with the tip of the tongue, whose very gentleness may be highly
erotopoeic to the woman, to the much more passionate practice of taking the
whole clitoris into the mouth and applying vigorous suction and licking to it
while at the same time pressing hard with the mouth against the woman’s pubic
bones with a rhythmic upward-and-downward rubbing movement. By contrast,
the practice of glossintroitolagnia (using in-and-out movements with the tongue)
is less common and, because of its psychological association with male
penetrativeness and female receptivity, the female response to it is much more
variable, e.g. autolagnic women who are often mixanorgastic may find
glossintroitolagnia indifferent or even repulsive, while pelvorgastic women may
find it intensely erethopoeic.
Stomatovulvolagnia is of immense clinical importance because it is about the
only form of heterolagnic practice which enables the vast majority of women,
both euerotic and dyserotic women, to have orgasm. In the case of euerotic
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
women, who are fully mixorgastic, stomatovulvolagnia offers a less satisfying
orgasm, or it may be used short of orgasm as a form of precoital loveplay. But in
the case of many autolagnic women—women with the most varied kinds of
autolagnic dyseroticism: autolagnia proper, homolagnia, pragmo- and
apragmophthorolagnia, etc.—stomatovulvolagnia, and especially
glossoclitoridolagnia, may be their only avenue to heterolagnic orgasm, and may
therefore enable them to lead an outwardly normal life and have boyfriends or
husbands like truly normal women. Clinically, it is interesting to note in passing
that, in the past, a mixanorgastic woman usually stated that she was anorgastic:
she would not count non-coital orgastia as a form of orgastia; but with the
erotodelia that has swept Western civilization since the 1960’s (approximately
coinciding with the introduction of oral contraception and the mini skirt) the
tendency has been for young women who are totally mixanorgastic (i.e. have
never had coital orgasm with any of their boyfriends) to take it for granted that
they are erotically ‘normal’, partly because of the large number of men with
whom they have had what they regard as successful coitus, and partly because
with nearly all these men they are likely to have had regular and almost invariable
orgasm, though usually from stomatovulvolagnia (cheirovulvolagnia as a means
of inducing female orgasm is now largely obsolete), never from phallocolpolagnia.
On the other hand, the oral action in stomatophallolagnia (apart from any
attempt to imitate coital movements by one or both partners) may again vary
between emphasis on local stimulation, for which deep oral penetration is both
unnecessary and undesirable since the most enderethopoeic part of the penis is
the glans and especially the frenulum, and emphasis on the psychological desire
for maximum penetration in both sexes (active penetration in the man and passive
penetratedness in the woman) in which the woman endeavours to take as much
of the penis into her mouth as she can without provoking her vomiting reflex.
21. In our phobophronesic, male-created civilization, exostomatolagnia in
men has not only created much poetry about the ‘beauty’ of female lips but has
also created the tradition of making women use cosmetics to give their lips a
rich—most often a red—colour. As noted in the monograph on Geneosemeia,
lipstick as used by women in phobophronesic civilization represents a variety of
motifs derived from hysterosemeiolagnia, erotendophoria, and enterythrolagnia;
the contribution of lipstick to the appearance of ‘fullness’ and evocation of
entoplerolagnia has already been referred to.
22. We have already implicitly referred to the main forms of
stomataestheticolagnia. Stomatohapticolagnia (feeling the partner’s mouth) is
evidently important in both sexes in allelostomatolagnia, and in the man in
stomatophallolagnia and in the woman in stomatovulvolagnia.
Stomatoscopolagnia is illustrated by the examples quoted before, e.g.
stomatopragmoscopolagnia is evident in men’s admiration of ‘beautiful’ female
lips, and stomatapragmoscopolagnia is evident in our phobophronesic civilization
in the practice of women exhibiting their lips by artificially painting them red
(which not only alters, or rather enriches, their natural colour but very often also
alters their shape, e.g. in the case of thin lips—and only Negro races have thick,
‘full’ pouting lips—by painting the adjacent skin to make them appear ‘full’ (the
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52. Organolagnia
same ‘fullness’ that evokes entoplerolagnia in relation to the breasts and cheeks
and other organs of the woman’s body): we are obviously touching here on the
subject of stomatomorphology). In allelostomatolagnia, the actual taste of the
partner’s mouth (stomatogeusticolagnia) and its smell (stomatosphreticolagnia)
are of minor importance, despite the common poetic reference to the erotic
partner’s lips being ‘sweet’.
It should be noted that, in organaestheticolagnia, the organ specified is the
object of sensory perception, not the organ serving sensory perception, i.e. not
the organ with which sensory perception is effected. Hence the reference above
to feeling, seeing, exhibiting, tasting, and smelling the mouth. In so far as the
organs serving sensory perception in eroticism are concerned, the mouth is one
of the three main organs that serve hapticolagnia (the other two being the hand
and the genitals in both sexes), and it is of course the organ that serves
geusticolagnia (even though geusticolagnia is of little importance in eueroticism).
23. Hyperstomatolagnia, like hyperstomatomastorganolagnia in general, is
due in its milder forms to aphilia and, in its severer forms, to autolagnia. Aphilic
hyperstomatolagnia does not exclude coitus and does not impair mixopraxia, i.e.
mixorthosis in men and mixorgastia in women. However, undoubtedly many
marriages break up because aphilic individuals take their partners’ indifference
to stomatolagnic relations (stomatomastolagnia, stomatovulvolagnia, and
stomatophallolagnia being the most important) as a sign of rejection, and the
cumulative aphilia or sense of unlovedness eventually becomes unendurable.
On the other hand, autolagnic hyperstomatolagnia characteristically results in a
preference of stomataedeolagnic orgasm to normal phallocolpolagnic orgasm,
and thus tends to partly, or almost completely, exclude coitus. For example,
women with autolagnic hyperstomatolagnia may not be totally mixanorgastic,
but they usually find stomatovulvolagnic (mainly glossoclitoridolagnic) orgasm
much more satisfying, and they generally show a similar interest in
stomatophallolagnia and stomatomastolagnia, and those of them with
hyperexophallolagnia may specifically have a restless drive to practise
stomatophallolagnia on, and to swallow the semen of, the largest possible number
of megalophallic men. These stomatolagnic relations form the main part of their
heterolagnic relations—and in many cases also of their homolagnic relations,
since many of them are amphilagnic. Of course it is usual to find autolagnic
masturbation in these cases (autocheirovulvolagnia), and evidence of other forms
of autolagnic dyseroticism is not uncommon.
*
*
24. Parastomatolagnia applies mainly to eroticism in relation to the rest of
the face. The eyes (ophthalmolagnia) are essentially openings like those of the
mouth (in fact, as noted in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World, we
speak of the ‘eye’ of a needle rather than its ‘mouth’). Wide palpebral fissures in
women are evidently hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic for, like the
mouth, they have inspired much poetry. Also, the eyeball (or rather the visible
part of it) lying inside the palpebral fissure may have an erotendophoric
significance. But of course the eyes have other implications in terms of vision:
eyes are (as it were) seeing mouths: the true mouth does not see. Moreover,
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
because man is predominantly a visual being, individuals are often equated with
their eyes rather than their mouths. The cheeks (pareiolagnia)—again speaking
of female beauty as admired by men—owe their erotopoeicity partly to their
proximity to the mouth, but probably mainly to their mastoid (i.e. mound-like)
roundness and ‘fullness’. Cosmetics, e.g. ‘rouge’, make the cheeks appear more
prominent and ‘full’ and more conspicuous, as against being hollow and sunken.
‘Fullness’ of the cheeks as an asset of beauty assimilates them to the breasts, for
though ‘fullness’ evocative of entoplerolagnia is not limited to any one part of
the female body, it is particularly associated with the breasts because of their
sphericity (or roundness). The exquisite enderotopoeicity of the ear lobules in
some women, e.g. in response to strong suction by the man, is worth noting here;
it is probably paramastolagnic rather than parastomatolagnic, due to the proximity
of the ear lobule to the neck.
A word is necessary here about hair-eroticism (tricholagnia). In our society,
women traditionally have had to have long hair, though from time to time fashion
has dictated that they should have short ‘boyish’ hair instead. This tradition—
which has no rational basis—of long hair for women and short hair for men is
essentially a manifestation of prosthekolagnia in which women’s hair is equated
with a mastoid appendage of the body: long hair shares with the breasts not only
their characteristic catatropia but also their softness and smoothness and is thus,
like the breasts, evocative of catatropolagnia and leio-malakolagnia as well as of
prosthekolagnia. Hence tricholagnia in men in relation to women’s hair is largely
related to exomastolagnia and mastosemeiolagnia. On the other hand, the
recurrent short-lived fashions of the short hair for women, most probably owe
their erotic appeal to evoking mixandrogynia (as noted in the monograph on
Geneosemeia). Finally, men who suffer from hypertricholagnia (some of whom
may go as far as stealing locks of hair from women by cutting the hair off with
scissors while standing behind the woman in a queue, while others may be mainly
attracted to women’s hair when it is braided, which obviously assimilates the
hair to a phalloid) are usually passive male heterolagnics for whom women’s
hair represents mastoid gynophalloids. (Therefore hypertricholagnia is essentially
a form of hyperprosthekolagnia.)
That this account of parastomatolagnia has had so much to say about
mastolagnia shows the close relation of the stomatolagnic and the mastolagnic
components of peristomatomastorganolagnia.
*
*
25. Mastolagnia (endomastolagnia in women and exomastolagnia in men) is
of special interest as to a considerable extent the properties of the breast are also
shared by the rest of the female body, e.g. smoothness (leiolagnia), softness
(malakolagnia), roundness (sphericolagnia), and even ‘fullness’ evoking
entoplerolagnia.
Broadly speaking, mastolagnia in both its exerotic and enderotic forms is
proportionate to the philism of individuals and cultures. Thus polyphilic
individuals and cultures are generally also polymastolagnic, while oligophilic
(e.g. polyneoscatistic, especially polyprotophasic-deutoscatistic) individuals and
cultures are generally oligomastolagnic. We can thus understand, for example,
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52. Organolagnia
why French, Italian, and American art (in somewhat different forms in the three
cultures concerned) has shown a greater interest in the breast than British art.
26. Mastolagnia, like eroticism in general, is based on preservative devouring,
either active or passive, and either external or internal, or a combination of both.
External devouring of the breast is familiar to us in likening the breast to a fruit
(an apple or a peach etc.), but the importance of the internal devouring, i.e. the
penetration, of the breast is generally underestimated as it is not immediately
evident. We have referred to this subject in the monograph on Erotogenesis,
including the fact that phallomesomastolagnia is a more realistic form of breast
penetration (or intramammary penetration) than phallomastolagnia proper or
phallothelolagnia. We shall refer to this subject again later, but here we shall
examine a different aspect of the subject. In the various forms of
cheiromastolagnia (stroking, pressing, firm rubbing, cupping, kneading, etc.), it
is obvious that some represent mainly external devouring while others represent
penetration (i.e. internal devouring) or a combination of both. For example,
whereas gentle stroking, evoking leiolagnia, represents external devouring, deep
pressure with or without a rubbing movement is predominantly a penetrative
manoeuvre, which may explain why deep pressure is generally more erotopoeic
both in exomastolagnia in the man and in endomastolagnia in the woman. The
same applies to the relation of simple cupping (representing active external
devouring) to kneading (representing active internal, or penetrative, devouring—
though this does not necessarily exclude simultaneous active external devouring).
In fact we may repeat here that the essence of malakolagnia in general lies in the
implication of hysteroid penetrability that is inherent in softness: for an object to
be soft implies that it is penetrable with the hand (or fingers). Thus malakolagnia
as a property of the breast, and of the female body in general, is closely related to
hysteroid penetrability. This explains why, at least in exomastolagnic terms, the
firm breast that possesses perfect natural resilience and elasticity (or springiness),
and which (despite wide individual variations) is generally associated with the
beginning of reproductive maturity in the teens, is generally the most erotopoeic;
and vice versa: the flabby breast that has lost its firmness, resilience, and elasticity
or springiness is generally the least erotopoeic. (We shall refer later to breast
consistency as regards pyknomastia and chalaromastia and its relation to the
mammary index.)
That softness (malakolagnia), which is a mastoid, i.e. a property of the breast,
is also (in a sense) a hysteroid inasmuch as its essence is penetrability, shows the
deeper basic identity of the breast and the womb even though in certain ways
they stand in contrast. In other words, though the breast is a prominence and the
womb is a hollow, there is a deeper identity of the two organs due (inter alia) to
the fact that softness is a mastoid and (in a sense) also a hysteroid: malakolagnia
is mastosemeiolagnic and also, in a sense, hysterosemeiolagnic.
27. As for mastosemeiolagnia, we have already referred to leiolagnia and
malakolagnia and their psychogenetic implications. Sphericolagnia has important
bearings on the concept of erotic fullness (entoplerolagnia), with which we shall
deal here, and on mastomorphology, with which we shall deal later.
Because of its inherent sphericity, the breast more than any other organ of the
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
female body lends itself to the sense of erotic fullness or entoplerolagnia.
Entoplerolagnia is largely an ideal form of erotendophoria: in erotendophoria
there is typically a representation of one object inside another, ultimately
representing the woman’s endorganophoria: in erotic fullness, or entoplerolagnia,
there is an appearance of fullness or swelling in the female organ concerned
(which may be any part of the female body), which is suggested by the tendency
to sphericity or roundness, and which is due to fleshiness of the organ but which
creates the impression of the organ being distended from within as if it contained
an endorganoid: thus the organ’s own fleshiness serves as an ideal endorganoid.
Here we may examine, from a different point of view, the example given in the
monograph on Stereoidism to explain the indirect relation of water to sphericity:
if a distensible cubical sac is filled with water it will gradually take a more spherical
(or rounded) shape as it fills: thus fullness and sphericity go together: fullness
produces sphericity or roundness, and vice versa: sphericity or roundness indicates
fullness. In the case of the breast, a firm and prominent (as distinct from a flabby
and drooping) breast gives the impression of fullness or swelling because of its
roundness, as if it were distended from within when in reality the only distension
is due to its own fleshiness. Thus fullness, swelling, fleshiness, and roundness
(or sphericity) are all closely related in the evocation of entoplerolagnia. (Of
course the firm, prominent breast is not the only type of breast that creates the
appearance of fullness: the lactating breast is ‘full’ in the literal sense of being
full of milk, as if it were a milk sac. However, attraction to lactating breasts
arises most often, not from simple entoplerolagnia, but from conceiving the breast
as a gynophalloid in cases of passive male heterolagnia.)
28. Mastoleukolagnia is evident in regarding white breasts as an asset of
female beauty—a concept of beauty which is all the more striking as it is widely
held even by darker (e.g. Mediterranean) races. It is interesting to note that
mastoleukolagnia—in which female skin may be likened in its whiteness to snow,
alabaster, marble, or ivory, etc.—applies not only to exomastolagnia but also to
exoparamastolagnia, e.g. to the upper part of the woman’s chest, her neck, and
her shoulders; more generally it applies to the woman’s body as a whole. It is
worth pointing out here that, though mastoleukolagnia (as distinct from
hydroleukolagnia) is ultimately derived from the whiteness of milk and the
equation of milk with the breast that secretes it, interest in actually lactating
breasts usually has different implications, which we have already noted.
29. In cheiromastolagnia one manoeuvre has a different implication from
those of the others: lifting the breast, as if to gauge its weight or mass, which
evokes catatropolagnia. This is because the breast, even if it is youthfully firm,
tends—unless it is very small and discoid—to be more or less pendulous: it is
this pendulosity that is responsible for catatropia as a mastoid, and so for
catatropolagnia as a form of mastosemeiolagnia. Catatropolagnia is the main,
but obviously not the only, factor in lifting the breast with the hand as a
cheiromastolagnic manoeuvre; malakolagnia, which is evocative of
hysterosemeiolagnic penetrability, is the most important other factor.
Catatropolagnia can be appreciated visually (i.e. pragmoscopolagnically) as
well as tactilely (i.e. hapticolagnically). Both of these forms of aestheticolagnic
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perception obviously apply with the woman in the standard, standing position,
but they apply even more to less usual positions which allow the breasts to hang
down free from the body, which maximizes their pendulosity or catatropia. For
example, catatropolagnia is frequently expressed in nude photography by featuring
a frontal view of a woman with pendulous breasts in a standing position but
bending forwards, or a frontal or lateral view of a woman in the knee-hand position
(which is the position that allows maximum breast pendulosity). Again, it is a
well-known fact that one of the advantages of coitus with the woman in the kneechest (or genu-pectoral) position is the opportunity it allows the man for holding
and fondling—including catatropolagnically lifting—the woman’s breasts as they
hang with all their weight down from her body (though obviously the knee-chest
position—in which the chest rests on the bed—does not allow the breasts to be
suspended completely free from the body as the knee-hand position does). (The
dorsal position, i.e. with the woman lying on her back, has the exact opposite
effect: the breasts—unless they are exceptionally firm—tend under the influence
of gravity to sink into the chest wall and the ‘axillary tail’ (the tail-like part of the
breast that extends towards the armpit), and so tend to be flattened.)
We shall refer to the mammary index later, but here we should note that there
is an inverse relation between breast firmness and breast pendulosity, and therefore
(to some extent) between malakolagnia and catatropolagnia: the firmer the breast
the greater its softness (in the sense of being resilient, elastic, or springy: springing
back when pressed), the greater its evocation of malakolagnia, the greater its
protrusion, the less its pendulosity, and the higher its mammary index; and vice
versa: the lesser the firmness of the breast the lesser its softness, the lesser its
evocation of malakolagnia, the lesser its protrusion, the greater its pendulosity,
the lower its mammary index, and (especially if the pendulosity is due to size
rather than to chalaromastia) the greater its evocation of catatropolagnia. Needless
to say, firmness and pendulosity—and so malakolagnia and catatropolagnia—
are not incompatible since a large breast will be pendulous no matter how firm it
may be, and a firm breast will have greater or lesser pendulosity unless it is very
small, but on the whole the firmer the breast the lesser its pendulosity.
Catatropia is virtually synonymous with the breast ‘hang’ or breast ‘dangle’,
which is the primary, and only constant, form of breast mobility, as we shall see
in dealing with mastokinetics later.
30. Concerning artiarithmolagnia as a mastosemeiolagnic idiom (in contrast
to perissarithmolagnia, which is a phallosemeiolagnic idiom), it is interesting to
note that, in organophoric terms (in which women are of course exomastophores),
the duality of the breasts (i.e. the fact that the woman has more than one breast,
viz. two) assimilates the breast to the internal child (endopaedophoria), which is
a major contributory factor to the concept of the internal breast (endomastophoria).
This is because plurality or multiplicity (in this case in the form of duality), as
distinct from unity, is associated with the concept of fertility or fecundity, which
is a hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic idiom (it is a
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom in this case, though generally speaking both fertility
and gestational penetrability are of greater importance as hysterosemeiophilic
than as hysterosemeiolagnic idioms, whereas coital penetrability is more important
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as a hysterosemeiolagnic than as a hysterosemeiophilic idiom). Thus whereas
the penis (which of course is unitary) is assimilated to the internal child because
in coitus it takes the same residence or abode as the internal child, viz. the womb,
the breast is assimilated to the internal child in a different way—in fact the breast
is assimilated to the internal child for at least three reasons: women grow breasts
on them just as they grow babies in them (i.e. in their wombs); whereas a man
has only one penis, a woman has multiple (viz. two) breasts and usually multiple
children, so that fertility—a hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic idiom—
applies alike to her breasts and to her children; and women carry their breasts
(exomastophoria) around with them (or on them) as they carry their babies
(exopaedophoria) with them (or on them, viz. in their arms).
Prosthekolagnia is typically exemplified by the irrational tradition in our
contemporary Western civilization of women having long hair, to which we have
already referred in dealing with tricholagnia, and of having long and brightly
painted finger- and toenails; these are examples of prosthekolagnic organolagnia—
a subject which is dealt with in the monograph on Geneosemeia.
31. Mastomorphology, i.e. the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and
organolagnic study of breast form, deals with the breast proper (mastomorphology
proper) as well as with nipple morphology (thelomorphology) and areolar
morphology. By way of illustration, we may dwell on this subject a little to give
an idea about its scope. However, from the physical-anthropological point of
view, all the classifications mentioned in this monograph, despite a wealth of
published reference material (including among many others the work of Ploss
and Bartels and the French work Tetoniana), are obviously very imprecise.
Mastomorphology comprises breast size, consistency, and shape. Hence three
points should be noted here.
The first point is that of the obvious wide individual (and quite possibly ethnic)
differences in size: the breast may be proportionate or average in size
(emmetromastia), small or below-average in size (micromastia), or large and
above-average in size (megalomastia). Thus we may speak either of the woman
or of the breast as being emmetromastic, micromastic, or megalomastic. Similarly,
in relation to the size of the nipple, in the study of thelomorphology, we may
speak of emmetrothelia, microthelia, and megalothelia. Breast size and nipple
size are essentially unrelated: micromastic women may be relatively megalothelic,
and vice versa: megalomastic, especially nulliparous, women may be relatively
microthelic (though of course they may be relatively megalothelic). However,
nipple size is partly related to nipple shape. The hemispherical nipple
(hemisphericothelia)—or, to be more precise, the conical/hemispherical nipple,
since all intermediate forms are seen between relative conicality (with convex
sides and a well-rounded apex) and hemisphericity—may be associated with
micro-, emmetro-, or megalothelia; the short-cylindrical, or brachycylindrical
nipple (brachycylindricothelia), which differs from the hemispherical nipple in
being relatively flat at its free end, and which is commoner in parous than in
nulliparous breasts, is usually associated with either emmetrothelia or
megalothelia; finally, the long-cylindrical or dolichocylindrical nipple
(dolichocylindricothelia), which is limited to parous breasts, and which in extreme
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52. Organolagnia
cases may be finger-shaped (i.e. the distance from the base to the tip of the nipple
considerably exceeds its radius), is usually associated with obvious megalothelia.
Slight irregularity of shape is common in all these morphological forms. The
inverted nipple is really a deformity and not a normal variation. On the other
hand, the areola varies considerably in size, both absolutely and relative to the
diameter of the nipple, and in pigmentation. It is usually pink or pinkish in the
fair nullipara but very dark brown in the parous brunette, and all shades between
these two extremes exist. Pregnancy has the effect of making the areola larger
and darker (or more heavily pigmented). We shall refer later to the elevated
areola.
(Methods have been devised for measuring the absolute size of the breast, such
as those suggested by F.G. Bouman (British Journal of Plastic Surgery, 1970, vol.
23, p.263 sq.), T.G. Kirianoff (Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 1974, vol. 54,
p.616), and R.E. Tegtmeier (Annals of Plastic Surgery, 1978, vol. 1, p.625 sq.).
These methods may be of use to plastic surgeons, but they cannot by themselves
serve physical-anthropological research without reference to measurements round
the trunk, and possibly also the woman’s height.)
32. The second point really concerns breast consistency, which is obviously
primarily a tactile or haptic property that is closely related to malakophilia and
malakolagnia, but breast consistency has a bearing on mastomorphology since it
affects breast shape. By the mammary index or breast index we mean the
percentage ratio, in the standard standing position, of breast prominence (the
distance from the chest wall to the base of the nipple) to breast height (the distance
from the upper border of the attachment of the breast to the chest wall to the
lowest, or most dependent, point in the breast). The mammary index is a measure
of breast firmness or pyknomastia (and so, indirectly, of breast fullness in the
entoplerolagnic sense), for the firmer the breast the greater is its protrusion from
the chest wall and the lesser its pendulosity—and vice versa: the loss of firmness
and elasticity (e.g. with age) causes the breast to be more pendulous and less
protuberant. It is worth noting, however, that pendulosity also depends on size:
a large breast, even if very firm, is likely to have greater or lesser pendulosity,
whereas a very small breast is not likely to be pendulous unless it has completely
lost its elasticity, and even then its pendulosity will be limited by its size. Finally,
it is obvious that the mammary index is a relative, and not an absolute, form of
mastometry (or organometry).
Breast firmness, which makes the breast prominent and gives it a high
mammary index, may be referred to as pyknomastia; the opposite condition, viz.
that of the lax, flabby, or drooping breast that has lost its resilience and elasticity
(or springiness), and that has a low mammary index, is referred to as chalaromastia.
It is evident that although both the pyknomastic and the chalaromastic forms
evoke greater or lesser sphericolagnia, only the pyknomastic form—with its
greater roundness and fullness—can evoke entoplerolagnia.
33. The third point is that, in the standard standing position (which is the
standard position for all anatomical terms of position: superior, inferior, medial,
lateral, etc.), the shape of the breast, despite the dominance of curvature, varies
between predominant sphericity (or roundness) and relative conicality (the sides
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of the cone being always more or less convex). Thus, in the standing position,
the breast may be predominantly spheroid (spheroidomastia), or predominantly
conicoid (conicoidomastia), or it may be conico-spheroid (conicospheroidomastia). The spheroid breast, which is the commonest, shows wide
variations: the breast may be discoid (i.e. small, firm (in the young nullipara),
and with no pendulosity (except in the parous or old woman)), hemispheroid
(i.e. medium-sized and, typically (especially in the very young nullipara), firm
enough to retain a more or less hemispherical shape with minimal pendulosity,
but much more often (alike in the maturer young nullipara and in the parous
woman) a greater or lesser degree of laxity causes the sphericity to be partly
flattened with a corresponding increase in the pendulosity), or cylindroid (i.e.
large and pendulous). The cylindroid breast, which is usually more or less elliptical
(rather than circular) in cross-section, has three varieties: the broad-cylindroid or
eurycylindroid (relatively wide, as the cylindroid breast most often is in white
races), the narrow-cylindroid or leptocylindroid (long but narrow or slender, and
therefore rather tubular in shape: this form is uncommon in white races but
common in Negroid races), and the pear-shaped cylindroid or apiocylindroid
(very large and pendulous and pear-shaped, i.e. relatively narrow above at its
attachment to the chest wall but swelling out below at its distal end). It will be
noted that, in reality, the discoid, hemispheroid, and cylindroid forms of the
spheroid breast represent the short-spheroid (or brachyspheroid), mediumspheroid (or metriospheroid), and long-spheroid (or dolichospheroid) forms of
the spheroid breast. On the other hand, the conicoid breast, which is much less
common (at any rate in European races) than the spheroid, may be short or long.
The short-conicoid or brachyconicoid breast is most often seen, among European
women, in pubescent and some adolescent girls with small but very firm, nonpendulous breasts: this is generally an immature type of breast that later fills out
to become hemispheroid or, if larger still, cylindroid. Another form of the
brachyconicoid breast, which may be seen in parous and old women and which
is wholly unrelated to immaturity, is that of the more or less conical (or, because
of flatness, triangular), completely flabby and pendulous breast whose pendulosity
is only limited by its small size. The long-conicoid or dolichoconicoid breast is,
like the apiocylindroid breast, a variation of the cylindroid shape but is the opposite
of the apiocylindroid shape, being widest at its attachment to the chest wall, from
which it gradually tapers towards the nipple as it hangs down pendulously; because
of this tapering it is usually narrower, and therefore overall smaller, than a
eurycylindroid breast of the same height, and much more so than an apiocylindroid
breast of the same height. The dolichoconicoid breast, like the mature (not the
immature) type of the brachyconicoid breast, is usually a parous, flabby, and
pendulous breast which has lost its elasticity, and both forms are probably
commoner in Negroid than in white races. Finally, the conico-spheroid breast is
usually one of a little above-average size, firm enough to retain its shape but
large enough to have a slight pendulosity, with a general roundness or sphericity
half-way between those of the hemispherical and the cylindroid shapes but with
the area around the nipple protruding from the rest of the rounded breast into a
cone whose rounded-off point is formed by the nipple. It is worth adding that the
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52. Organolagnia
conico-spheroid shape of the breast is essentially unrelated to the phenomenon
of the elevated areola. In the conico-spheroid breast, the conical part usually
includes the nipple, the areola, and the surrounding part of the breast proper, and
this conical shape is permanent. By contrast, the elevated areola may be
permanently elevated, which is not uncommon in immature conicoid breasts in
teenaged girls, or the elevation may be a variable phenomenon like nipple erection.
In either case the areolar elevation is strictly limited to the areola, i.e. it does not
involve any part of the surrounding breast proper, and is always spheroidal and
not conicoid, though the spheroidicity may vary from a shallow dome to an almost
complete hemisphere. However, the two conditions may coexist: the conical
part of a conico-spheroid breast may be surmounted by an elevated areola bearing
the nipple at its centre.
In short, mastomorphology in relation to breast shape comprises
spheroidomastia, conicoidomastia, and conico-spheroidomastia. Spheroidomastia
comprises brachyspheroidomastia (the discoid breast), metriospheroidomastia
(the hemispheroid breast), and dolichospheroidomastia (the cylindroid breast,
which in turn comprises eurycylindroidomastia, leptocylindroidomastia, and
apiocylindroidomastia). Conicoidomastia comprises brachyconicoidomastia and
dolichoconicoidomastia.
It is hardly necessary to add that all intermediate morphological variations
between those described are common. The importance of these different
mastomorphological shapes lies in the fact that breast roundness evokes
sphericolagnia and entoplerolagnia, which are entirely gynosemeiolagnic, whereas
breast conicality evokes the gynotropic phalloid motif. It is evident that the
combination of sphericity and conicality in the conico-spheroid breast is
particularly erotopoeic (or ‘beautiful’ or ‘attractive’ in an erotic sense) since it
combines the gynosemeiolagnia of sphericolagnia and entoplerolagnia with the
erotic provocativeness of the gynotropic phalloid motif, the two mutually
enhancing each other’s erotopoeicity.
(The significance of the elevated areola is different: it represents a small breast
lying on top of, or growing out of, the main breast. In fact this idea attaches even
more to the nipple: for the nipple, apart from being conceived as the ‘mouth’ of
the breast, may also be conceived as a little breast growing out of the main breast
(cf. Latin ‘mamma’ = breast, ‘mamilla’ (little breast) = nipple). Thus if the ordinary
breast is conceived as a double breast, viz. as breast proper plus nipple, the breast
with the elevated areola may be conceived as a triple breast, viz. as breast proper
plus areolar elevation plus nipple. All these ideas may be of interest to
polyexomastolagnic men and to hyperexomastolagnics of both sexes (in women
commonly in association with homolagnia).)
34. Closely related to mastomorphology is mastokinetics in the form of breast
mobility and nipple motility (viz. nipple erection). Organokinetics, or the study
of organ movement, mainly applies to two organs: the breast in the woman and
the penis in the man. (Undoubtedly it also applies to other organs; e.g. in relation
to buttock movement in walking (pygokinetics) and foot movement in relation to
both hyperplantar-flexion and walking in high-heeled shoes (podokinetics), and
also in relation to hand movements (cheirokinetics).) Apart from the erection of
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the nipple, all breast movement is passive, hence we speak of it as breast mobility.
By contrast, because phallic movement, typified by erection and penetrativeness,
is active we speak of it as phallic motility; however, though less important, the
penis also has phallic mobility, viz. in its flaccid state. Thus, unlike the penis,
which is highly motile, the breast (apart from its tiny nipple, which is motile,
though only in a minor way) is characterized by total inertia: it is wholly incapable
of any spontaneous movement. In fact the breast can only be moved in one of
two ways: by gravity or by momentum.
35. Gravity, unlike momentum, is a constant, unremitting force. The direction
of its pull is always downwards: this downward pull exerted on the breast by
gravity results in the characteristic catatropia (downward-pointing) and (what is
virtually synonymous with catatropia) pendulosity or breast hang or breast dangle
which is the primary and only constant form of breast mobility, and which is an
important mastosemeiophilic and mastosemeiolagnic idiom (catatropophilia and
catatropolagnia). The degree of hang or pendulosity depends on the size and on
the consistency (in terms of firmness or flabbiness) of the breast, and therefore
obviously affects the mammary index. Moreover, breast hang ensures that the
breast (except in the case of very small discoid breasts and some immature
brachyconicoid breasts, which may be too small to have any pendulosity) forms
a fold, or sinus, with the chest wall. Although gravity can only pull the breast
downwards, the breast in fact can assume a variety of positions relative to the
body, depending on the position of the body. In the standard, standing position,
the breast (for anatomical reasons) hangs, not directly downwards, but downwards
and laterally (i.e. infero-laterally). The sinus it forms with the chest wall in this
position lies below its attachment to the chest wall, hence we refer to it as the
inframammary sinus. However, if the woman lies on her side, then the ipsilateral
breast forms a lateral paramammary sinus with the chest wall, while the
contralateral breast forms a medial paramammary sinus with the chest wall; e.g.
if the woman lies on her right side then the right breast forms a lateral, while the
left breast forms a medial, paramammary sinus with the chest wall. If the woman
lies on her back but with her head and upper part of the trunk lower than the
lower part of her trunk (e.g. if she lies on her back across a bed with her head and
upper chest hanging over the edge of the bed) then the paramammary sinus formed
with the chest wall will be above the attachment of the breast to the chest wall
(supramammary sinus). Thus gravity is responsible for the formation of all the
paramammary sinuses except the intermammary sinus, which is due, not to gravity,
but to the duality of the breasts, viz. the fact that the woman has two breasts in
close proximity (though, in the natural state, only rarely in actual contact): the
intermammary sinus is the space or depression or hollow between these two
closely positioned breasts.
36. Momentum in the breast results from the continuation, and therefore
exaggeration, of movement initiated in the trunk, e.g. in walking and running.
Thus momentum is clearly a remittent, not a constant, force. In walking, the
breasts may be moved (or jerked or shaken) by the jerky movement of the trunk,
the type and amplitude of the resultant movement being dependent on a variety
of factors, e.g. the character of the gait, its speed, the size of the breasts, and the
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52. Organolagnia
sort of support they have (if any). Clearly different gaits may result in different
types of breast movement (e.g. whether the breasts are supported or not, ordinary
walking is different from walking with a deliberate attempt to jerk the trunk
upwards), and the faster the gait and the larger the breasts the greater their
movement; as for support, a strong, well-supporting brassiere may virtually
obliterate all movement, while an uplift brassiere with flimsy diaphanous cups
and elasticated shoulder straps will actually exaggerate, i.e. increase, natural breast
movement in walking. Breast mobility due to momentum may be of one of three
forms, or any combination of these forms: the swing (lateral, or horizontal, or
side-to-side, movement, which is probably the typical movement of the natural,
i.e. uncovered and unsupported, pendulous breast), the bounce (vertical, or
upward-and-downward, movement, which is probably the natural movement of
the small, non-pendulous breast, and—regardless of breast size and shape—is
also the typical movement produced in walking by the uplift brassiere), and the
wobble (the quivering or rippling movement that runs through the breast substance
itself due to its soft consistency, like the movement produced in semisolid jelly
when it is gently shaken; most marked in large breasts lifted and protruded by a
brassiere that leaves the upper parts of the breasts uncovered and unsupported
for low décolletage). Thus whereas the swing and the bounce represent movement
of the breast relative to the chest wall, the wobble represents movement of one
part of the breast relative to another. Combinations of these different forms of
movement are seen in the oblique movement (half-way between the lateral and
the vertical) and in the circular type of movement. Moreover, in the swing and
the bounce, the breasts generally move synchronously, i.e. in the same direction
at the same time, but occasionally the movement may be asynchronous, with the
two breasts moving in opposite directions.
It will be noted that all forms of breast mobility apart from catatropia bear a
superficial resemblance to the active motility of the penis, and may therefore
evoke the gynotropic phalloid motif. This may happen with the bare, natural
breast. As for the covered breast, we have already referred to the diaphanous,
flimsy brassieres which have been fashionable in recent times, which actually
exaggerate natural breast mobility both by lifting and protruding the breasts
without giving them much support (since the ‘cups’ are made of stretch (i.e.
elasticated) nylon that forms a thin, almost transparent, film when these ‘cups’
are stretched by the breasts that fill them) and by the incorporation of elasticated
shoulder-straps to make the breasts bounce up and down like a yoyo in walking.
Breast mobility is frequently featured (with the breasts covered of course) in
ordinary cinema and television films, and Larousse’s famous Grand Dictionnaire
du XIXe Siècle, published in 1876, had no qualms about quoting these two lines
of verse from Voltaire: ‘Teton charmant qui jamais ne repose, Vous invitiez les
mains à vous presser’.
Apart from the mobility of the breast proper there is the motility of the nipple,
in the form of erection, which of course is a form of active movement. Nipple
erection is usually associated with corrugation of the areola (the more or less
circular pigmented area around the nipple), which generally alters its circular
form to an elliptical form, the long axis of the ellipse being most often directed
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upwards and laterally (i.e. in a supero-lateral/infero-medial direction). Apart
from the fact that the nipple represents the ‘mouth’ or suckable point of the breast,
and therefore represents its most (ex- and end-) erotopoeic part (for which role it
is, of course, well adapted by its anatomical structure), both its erectility and its
pigmentation assimilate it to the male penis, hence the taboo on exposure of the
female nipples in phobophronesic civilization.
It is important to note that though nipple erection is a form of motility, the
erect nipple clearly has none of the penetrativeness and other characteristics of
phallic motility. However, as nipple erection is one of the manifestations of
general eroterethia in the woman (though it also occurs in response to temperature
change and other causes), it is commonly featured in erotic nude photography.
The ability of some women dancers to move the whole breast voluntarily up
and down, by rhythmically contracting and relaxing the platysma muscle, must
be regarded as a special form of breast motility which strongly evokes the
gynotropic phalloid motif; the subject is dealt with in the account of myotonolagnia
given in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World.
37. Clothes-eroticism (vestolagnia) is dealt with in the monograph on
Organophoria as it is best studied in relation to erotendophoria, which is the most
general specifically erotic factor in it. However, here we should refer briefly to
the uplift brassiere—a twentieth-century invention which is supposed to support
the breasts but which in everyday life largely serves eroticism. Basically the
uplift brassiere consists of a horizontal band, or girdle, to go around the woman’s
chest immediately below the breasts, with two hollow ‘cups’ attached to it in
front to receive the breasts, and two shoulder straps, each shoulder strap being
attached to a cup in front and goes over the ipsilateral shoulder to be attached to
the horizontal band at the back. Leaving aside general factors in clothes-eroticism,
e.g. erotendophoria, the most important function of the uplift brassiere from the
erotic point of view is to lift, and thereby protrude, the breasts, since lifting the
breasts converts their natural downward hang or pendulosity into outward
protrusion. The main effect of lifting and protruding the breasts is to give them
an appearance of youthful firmness and fullness; this fullness is probably the
most important factor in the erotic function of the brassiere. As noted before,
fullness is evocative of entoplerolagnia and is thus ultimately evocative of hysteroid
penetrability. But of course there are many other factors. Lifting and protruding
the breasts makes them more conspicuous—especially if tight sweaters or T-shirts
are worn—and so enhances their external devourability. Another factor is that of
the effect of lifting the breasts, especially if the direction of the pull is upwards
and medially rather than directly upwards, on deepening (and narrowing) the
intermammary sinus, thus enhancing exomesomastolagnia. This is because the
breast naturally hangs in an infero-lateral direction, and not directly downwards:
lifting it in exactly the opposite direction, viz. in a supero-medial direction, not
only maximizes its protrusion but also brings the two lifted and protruded breasts
closer together, and so greatly deepens the intermammary fossa which, being a
sort of hollow surrounded by (or embedded in) mammary tissue, is of considerable
exerotopoeicity as it associates the breasts with hysteroid penetrability. It is also
probable that in some cases lifting and protruding the breasts—especially if the
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lifting and/or the protruding is exaggerated, and more especially if the breasts
are moulded by the brassiere into a conicoid rather than a spheroid shape—may
partly assimilate natural mammary catatropia and sphericity to phallic anatropia
and pointedness, with the result that the lifted and protruded breasts may evoke
the gynotropic phalloid motif. This brings us to the next point: not least important
of the erotic functions of the uplift brassiere is that of moulding or shaping the
breasts—typically merely by the design of the ‘cups’, but sometimes more or
less entirely artificially by providing padded ‘cups’ which retain their shape
regardless of whether they are filled by the breasts or not: they are in reality
artificial (or prosthetic) breasts. As noted before in relation to the natural breast,
the rounded breast evokes sphericolagnia and entoplerolagnia while the pointed
breast evokes the gynotropic phalloid motif; these mastomorphological
considerations apply equally to the design of brassiere cups, so that the brassiere
may give the woman spheroid, conicoid, or conico-spheroid breasts. It is
interesting to note that in the bust-bodice, which was the forerunner of the
brassiere, the two breasts were enclosed in a single cavity, whereas the uplift
brassiere, so far in its history, has nearly always had two separate ‘cups’, one for
each breast. This difference has organophoric (viz. erotendophoric) as well as
technical implications of considerable erotic interest. In organophoric terms,
while the manufacture of a special garment to contain the breasts is (like all
vestolagnia in relation to female dress) basically erotendophoric, enclosing each
breast separately in its own cup, viz. by using a bilocular brassiere, assimilates
the breast as it fills up its individual cup as much to the ‘internal penis’ as to the
‘internal child’ or ‘internal breast’, whereas enclosing the two breasts together in
a single cavity, i.e. in a unilocular garment, emphasizes the plurality (in the form
of duality) of the breasts, and so assimilates the breasts more to ‘internal children’
or ‘internal breast-children’ than to the ‘internal penis’—in fact it provides a
perfect endomastophoric representation. As for the technical aspect, it is evident
that providing separate cups for the two breasts allows unlimited variety in lifting
them and moulding (or shaping) them. We have already noted the variety of
forms (spheroid, conicoid, and conico-spheroid) into which the breasts may be
moulded, the details of which allow for unlimited ingenuity and imaginativeness
which, because of the relation of polyexomastolagnia to polyphilia, explains the
international fame of certain female underwear manufacturers in some polyphilic
Western countries. It is obvious that the breasts cannot be moulded in anything
resembling their natural form if they are both enclosed together in one cavity,
whereas moulding them separately readily invites the creation of designs which
(at their best) represent idealized or complemented versions of natural breast
forms (according to the idealization (or complementation) principle). On the
other hand, from the point of view of brassiere mechanics (or mechanical action
on the breasts), the uplift of the breasts may have very different results depending
on whether the upward pull by the shoulder strap is exerted on the middle of the
cup, or on its lateral or on its medial edge. In the standard uplift brassiere, the
upward pull by each shoulder strap is exerted on the middle of the cup (usually
through two bands which form an inverted V, one band going to the lateral, and
the other to the medial, edge of the cup, in order to avoid pulling directly on the
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centre of the cup and thereby flattening the breast instead of protruding it: in fact
these two bands form the upper border of the cup). Thus in the standard brassiere
the central attachment of the shoulder strap to the cup ensures that the direction
of the uplift (or upward pull) is directly upwards. By contrast, the shoulder strap
may be attached to the lateral edge of the cup: this transforms the upward pull
into an upward and medial (i.e. supero-medial) pull which, as noted before, has
the effect of maximizing the conversion of the natural infero-lateral hang of the
breast into a forward protrusion, and also of deepening the intermammary sinus.
(The medial component of the supero-medial traction may be further increased
by such devices as the use of the ‘halter’ type of shoulder strap, in which a single
shoulder strap attached to the lateral edges of the two cups goes round the back
of the neck, or by making each of the two shoulder straps go over the ipsilateral
shoulder but cross to the opposite side of the body at the back.) Finally, the
shoulder strap may be attached to the medial edge of the cup, in which case the
direction of traction is upwards and laterally (or supero-laterally): this has the
effect of lifting the breasts but also splaying them, i.e. pushing them laterally
wider apart, which has the effect of minimizing the protrusion produced by the
uplift—a design which is used in the manufacture of brassieres for megalomastic
women who (even in our hyperexomastolagnic civilization!) want their breasts
to appear smaller (not larger) than they really are (an aim which could never be
genuinely achieved by an uplift brassiere of any kind, since lifting the breasts
inevitably makes them more prominent).
In conclusion, though the uplift brassiere is a relatively innocuous garment
(certainly by comparison with the corset of bygone days and the high-heeled
shoes which are still worn by women to this day), it is doubtful whether, in rational
(i.e. postphobophronesic) civilization, it could have a place—except, on the one
hand, in fancy-dress parties and on similar occasions and, on the other hand, for
certain types of women in certain circumstances or doing certain types of work
where genuine breast support is needed, e.g. pregnant and lactating women, and
megalomastic women taking part in strenuous sport.
38. The endomastolagnic aspects of mastomorphology require a brief
reference here. Available scientific knowledge does not allow us to formulate
general rules. Things are further complicated by the fact that mastomorphology
and thelomorphology, e.g. as regards size, are generally independent of each
other. However, it is fair to say that, in euerotic women, relative
polyendomastolagnia is commonly associated with small or average breasts with
relatively large nipples, while disproportionately large breasts are frequently
associated, not only with oligendomastolagnia, but even with discomfort or pain
in response to cheiro- and stomatomastolagnia.
39. Turning now to mastaestheticolagnia, we have already implicitly referred
to the various aspects of mastoscopolagnia (mastopragmoscopolagnia and
mastapragmoscopolagnia), e.g. in dealing with mastosemeiolagnia,
entoplerolagnia, mastomorphology, mastokinetics, and the brassiere as an example
of vestolagnia. As for mastohapticolagnia, here (as elsewhere) the three main
forms are the manual, the oral, and the phallic, i.e. cheiro-, stomato-, and
phallomastolagnia. As noted before, the ultimate psychogenetic significance of
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52. Organolagnia
these mastolagnic practices lies in either external or internal preservative
devouring, or a combination of both, except in the case of phallomastolagnia in
which, because of the property of penetrativeness characteristic of the penis,
devouring must be assumed to be more or less entirely internal. It will be noted
that the study of mastolagnia involves the study of exo- and endomastolagnia
proper, i.e. eroticism of the body or main part of the breast, of thelolagnia (exoand endothelolagnia), i.e. eroticism of the nipple, and of eroticism of the
paramammary sinuses, especially the intermammary sinus (exo- and
endomesomastolagnia)—though the study of the paramammary sinuses, strictly
speaking, comes under paramastolagnia rather than mastolagnia.
In cheiromastolagnia there are at least four common factors: superficial
stroking or superficial rubbing, which mainly evokes leiolagnia; deep pressure
into the breast of any form (firm pressure into the breast, deep rubbing, kneading,
etc.), which evokes malakolagnia (which in turn depends on the consistency of
the breast as regards firmness (pyknomastia) and flabbiness (chalaromastia)) and
is ultimately related, for both the man (i.e. in exomastolagnia), and the woman
(i.e. in endomastolagnia) to hysterosemeiolagnic penetrability (thus deep pressure
is essentially penetrative pressure); lifting the breast (whether the woman is in
the standing position, or is in the genu-pectoral position of coitus, etc.), which
mainly evokes catatropolagnia; and cheirothelolagnia (which again may range
from superficial stroking with the fingertips, or gentle traction with or rolling
between fingers and thumb, to deep pressure and rubbing applied with the palm
of the hand or the base of the hand (the area of the thenar and hypothenar
eminences), which may be part of deep pressure applied to the breast in general).
Stomatomastolagnia is generally more erethopoeic, in both the exerotic and
enderotic sense, than cheiromastolagnia, but wide individual variations occur.
Sucking and licking action may be applied both to the general breast
(stomatomastolagnia proper) and to the nipple (stomatothelolagnia), the latter
being the more ex- and enderethopoeic form. Because of the tendency of the
breast (and neighbouring paramastolagnic organs, e.g. the neck) to bruise easily,
stomatomastolagnia often leaves bruises for a day or two; these ‘love bites’ (a
misnomer) should be distinguished from true biting with the teeth which, like
scratching that breaks the skin, is a minor form of phthorolagnia (active in its
inflictor, passive in its recipient), and is thus dysphronesic.
Phallomastolagnia, though of little practical importance, is of considerable
theoretical interest, for in the concept of intramammary penetration, or of breast
penetrability, we see an echo of the origin of adult eroticism in the infantile oromammary relation, in which the mother is equated with her breast.
Phallomastolagnia may be in the form of phallothelolagnia (putting the ‘mouth’
of the penis, i.e. its tip bearing the external urethral orifice, to the ‘mouth’ of the
breast, i.e. to the nipple), phallomastolagnia proper (i.e. contact between the penis
and the general body of the breast), or phallomesomastolagnia (in which the
penis is rubbed in the intermammary sinus). As we shall see later in dealing with
mesomastolagnia as a form of paramastolagnia, the erotopoeicity of the
intermammary sinus is greatly enhanced by its pragmoscopolagnic and
hapticolagnic resemblance to the pygal cleft whose floor contains the vulva (i.e.
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the opening or ‘mouth’ of the womb). In correlating mesomastolagnia and
mesopygolagnia we should remember that both the breasts and the buttocks may
be conceived either as consisting of two symmetrically placed organs separated
by a hysteroid sinus, i.e. as two breasts or two buttocks, or as a single cleft organ
or bilobular organ, i.e. as a unitary breast or unitary rump with two symmetrical
lobes which are separated by a cleft or sinus, viz. the intermammary sinus and
the pygal sinus or cleft. In this way we can understand why
phallomesomastolagnia, which strictly speaking represents intermammary
penetration, psychologically represents intramammary penetration.
40. Hypermastolagnia, like hyperstomatomastorganolagnia in general, is
aphilic in its milder forms and autolagnic in its severer forms. Both aphilic and
autolagnic hyperexomastolagnia (in men and, in autolagnic cases, also in women)
may be associated with hyperleio-malakolagnia. In addition to the aphilic and
autolagnic forms, which of course have their cultural as well as their individual
forms, there has been in the modern era in Western Europe a cultural form of
hyperexomastolagnia, viz. compensatory cultural hyperexomastolagnia, due to
palaeotropolagnic shame in relation to the female genitals (the ‘cesspit vagina’)
and female buttocks, and typified by the hypermegalomastic ideal of female beauty
in contemporary Western civilization which seeks a bust measurement (the
measurement around the trunk at the level of the most prominent parts of the
breasts) in excess of the hip measurement—which is the opposite of natural
measurements. Thus whereas the ancient Greeks spoke openly of the beauty of
the female buttocks (and even their goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, was
credited with beautiful buttocks, hence the term ‘Aphrodite Kallipygos’, i.e.
Aphrodite with the beautiful buttocks (SLG p.201)), in modern Western Europe
the mention of the buttocks has been almost taboo, though much more so in
prudish Victorian times than in our own time. In fact this characteristically
European shame in relation to the lower part of the female trunk extends even to
the woman’s abdomen: the female ideal of beauty in the modern Western European
era has enjoined women to have no abdominal bulge at all: the natural rounded,
slight bulge of the abdomen—like the much bigger, and much more shameprovoking, bulge of the buttocks—must be effaced. Corsets used to do that but,
fortunately, they are now virtually obsolete. However, even now, photographic
models (young women photographed more or less nude) are generally shown in
the remarkably unnatural state of actually sucking in the abdominal wall so that
the natural slight bulge of the abdomen is replaced by a peculiar hollow: the
abdomen appears sunken, like that of an individual dying of starvation.
It is interesting to note that whereas, in Western Europe, cultural
hyperexomastolagnia is compensatory for the suppression of normal
exopygolagnia due to palaeotropolagnia and shame, in America cultural
hyperexomastolagnia (which is probably even greater than in Western Europe) is
due mainly to aphilia, and is thus essentially different from Western European
hyperexomastolagnia.
Aphilic hypermastolagnia, in the form of hyperendomastolagnia in women
and hyperexomastolagnia in men, is commonly associated with aphilic
hyperstomatolagnia and has a similar effect. Thus, as noted elsewhere, marriages
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52. Organolagnia
often eventually break up because women directly or indirectly ask their husbands
to kiss their breasts and are either ignored or their desire is only met when a
request is made and never spontaneously by the man, which results in a cumulative
sense of unlovedness and rejectedness; and the same may happen in men because
of their wives’ refusal to let them kiss their breasts, or their wives’ total indifference
to this form of erotic loveplay. However, although aphilia may result in
hypermastolagnia in both sexes, this does not usually impair the ability to have
normal coitus and orgasm.
By contrast, autolagnic hypermastolagnia may take a variety of forms and, in
extreme cases, may exclude coitus since the male patient is usually mixanorthotic
and the female (if she can tolerate coitus at all) is mixanorgastic. Moreover, in
autolagnic hypermastolagnia—always bearing in mind the close relation between
enderoticism and exeroticism in autolagnia—we frequently see
hyperexomastolagnia (as well as hyperendomastolagnia) in women, and
hyperendomastolagnia (as well as hyperexomastolagnia) in men. Not surprisingly,
the condition may also be associated with reversed heterolagnia (more often in
men than in women) and homolagnia (in both sexes). The condition may also be
associated with, or may be largely manifested as, hyperleio-malakolagnia. A
few examples may illustrate all this. As noted in the monograph on Autolagnia,
a common form of autolagnic hyperexomastolagnia in men is that of passive
male heterolagnia in which the breast serves as a gynophalloid. In other cases in
men, the patient’s hyperexomastolagnia in relation to women’s breasts may be
associated with hyperendomastolagnia in relation to his own male breasts, which
he may fondle in front of a mirror in his autolagnic masturbation, possibly in
association with other mammary games such as wearing a brassiere, with the
‘cups’ filled with cotton-wool, and imagining himself to have full female breasts
etc. Other forms of transvestolagnia as well as homandrolagnia may also be
encountered in such a patient. Occasionally, practising homandrolagnics may
show evidence of hypermastolagnia in relation to (their own and/or their partners’)
male breasts. On the other hand, in women, hyperendomastolagnia may make
prolonged manual caressing of their own breasts in front of a mirror a major
factor in their autolagnic masturbation. Their heterolagnic relations may be
similarly limited to prolonged cheiromastolagnia and mutual masturbation.
Homogynolagnia is not uncommon and endo- and/or exomastolagnia (or, to be
more precise, hypermastolagnia) may be freely expressed in it. Of special interest
are those cases of hyperleio-malakolagnia in women in which materials such as
fur and silk may be used in autolagnic masturbation.
*
*
41. Paramastolagnia comprises eroticism in relation to organs in the vicinity
of the woman’s breasts—mainly the paramammary sinuses, the upper part of the
chest, the neck, the shoulders, and the upper arms—and even the hands, to which
we shall refer later.
Examples of paramastolagnia are seen in the exerotic form in the amount of
kissing that is frequently bestowed on the woman in the area around the breasts
in coitus. Thus ‘love bites’ (a misnomer to which we have already referred) are
commonly seen in the upper chest and neck as well as in the breasts. Admiring
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the whiteness of these parts of the female body, and likening them to snow or
alabaster etc., is another example of exoparamastolagnia. On the other hand,
endoparamastolagnia is particularly evident in the fact that many women find it
highly erethopoeic to be kissed in the neck by a man. Strong suction of the
woman’s ear lobule by the man during the actual act of coitus may induce the
woman’s orgasm with remarkable facility.
Female hands have the usual gynosemeiolagnic characteristics of smoothness
and softness. However, the hand in both sexes has complicated erotic functions,
which may include both penetrative and receptive roles. In the rare condition of
hyperexocheirolagnia in men, the hand generally represents a gynophalloid—a
concept which is probably due mainly to the association (or identification or
confusion) of cheirokinetics with phallokinetics, especially the association of
the alternate flexion-and-extension movement of the hand at the wrist-joint with
the serpentine type of phallic motility (which itself is probably ultimately
conceived in terms of myotonolagnic phallic thrust or ‘coital movements’).
On the other hand, the fingers may also represent phalloids, in a euphronesic
or dysphronesic capacity. The fingers—especially the middle and index fingers,
each of them separately or the two of them together—may serve as phalloid
representations, e.g. in some of the subtle postures of the hands adopted by
professional dancers on the stage, and (in a coarse form, and often in conjunction
with abusive language using ‘obscene’ or ‘four-letter’ words) in the familiar ‘V’
sign (which uses the middle and index fingers) and its equivalents in other cultures
(using one or both fingers—the middle and index fingers—held more or less
straight at the interphalangeal joints but partially flexed at the metacarpophalangeal joint(s)). But the role of the finger as a phalloid is somewhat different
from that of the hand as a phalloid (although, of course, the two are closely
related since the fingers are part of the hand): the finger can readily represent
anatropic phallic motility (as in the postures described above) and (if desired)
other types of phallic motility, but no doubt its function as a phalloid is mainly
due to its rhabdophalloid shape and (because of its rhabdophalloid shape) the
fact that it frequently serves as a concrete phalloid, both in normal eroticism
(inserted by the man into the woman’s vagina in precoital loveplay) and in solitary
masturbation (inserted by the woman herself into her own vagina).
42. The paramammary sinuses require a special mention here. The fact that
they are hollows in the female body gives them a hysteroid significance. The
only natural sinuses in the standard standing position are the intermammary sinus
(the hollow between the breasts) and the inframammary sinus (the fold formed
by a pendulous breast with the chest wall). However, as we have already noted in
dealing with mastokinetics, in certain positions of the body, e.g. if the woman is
lying on her side or is lying on her back with the upper part of the trunk lower
than its lower part, the breast may form a medial or lateral paramammary sinus,
or a supramammary sinus, with the chest wall, i.e. a sinus that lies medial or
lateral to, or above, the attachment of the breast to the chest wall, respectively.
The size of the inframammary sinus has a direct relation to the size, but an inverse
relation to the firmness, of the breast; thus the larger the breast and the less firm
(or more lax or flabby) it is, the larger the inframammary sinus, and vice versa.
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52. Organolagnia
From the erotic point of view, by far the most important of the paramammary
sinuses is the intermammary sinus (or ‘cleavage’ as it is colloquially known), to
whose eroticism we refer as mesomastolagnia. (Thus, on the basis of the equation
of the intermammary sinus with an organ, we sometimes speak of
exomesomastolagnia in the man, and endomesomastolagnia in the woman.)
Mesomastolagnia is both scopolagnic (pragmoscopolagnic in the man,
apragmoscopolagnic in the woman) and hapticolagnic, the latter being represented
by cheiro- (or dactylo-), stomato-, and phallomesomastolagnia (manifested by
exploring the intermammary sinus with the hand or finger(s), kissing the woman
between her breasts, and rubbing the penis in the vagina-like tube formed by
compressing the breasts together against the sternum, respectively). As noted
before, exo- and endomesomastolagnia arise, not only from exo- and
endomastolagnia, but also from the ultimate equation, derived from oro-mammary
metrophilia, of the woman with her breast: the intermammary sinus—which is
essentially a hollow embedded in mammary tissue—represents a mammary
hysteroid or a ‘breast-womb’ whose penetration (with the hand, finger(s), mouth,
or penis) represents not only intramammary penetration but also ultimately (on
the basis of the equation of the woman with her breast) hysteroid female
penetrability in general. But there is also another factor in the hysteroid
significance of the intermammary sinus: the intermammary sinus, as a depression
between the two elevations of the rounded and soft breasts, owes much of its
erotopoeicity to its pragmoscopolagnic and hapticolagnic similarity to the pygal
cleft (i.e. the cleft between the two halves of the lower end of the trunk, comprising
the natal cleft posteriorly (the depression between the buttocks) and the
interfemoral sinus anteriorly (the space in front bounded, when the thighs are
held close together, by the thigh on either side and by the pudendum (i.e. the
genital area) above), eroticism of the pygal cleft being referred to as
mesopygolagnia). The main difference between the two is that the hysteroid
pygal cleft houses the womb in its floor, whereas the hysteroid intermammary
sinus houses nothing in its floor. However, the intermammary sinus provides a
relatively realistic means of erotic intramammary penetration since (as just noted)
it is effectively a hollow embedded in breast tissue.
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Chapter 4
PERIAEDEORGANOLAGNIA
43. Periaedeorganolagnia comprises aedeorganolagnia, or simply aedeolagnia,
and paraedeorganolagnia, or simply paraedeolagnia. Aedeolagnia comprises
gynaedeolagnia, i.e. end- and exeroticism in relation to the female genital organs,
and andraedeolagnia, i.e. end- and exeroticism in relation to the male genital
organs.
It will be noted that, in organolagnia, ‘gynaedeolagnia’ is used in preference
to ‘hysterolagnia’. This allows for a more precise anatomical subdivision of
female-genital organolagnia. (As noted repeatedly in these monographs, the
‘womb’ and the element ‘hystero-’ are used with reference to the womb as a
phronesic concept, which comprises the anatomical vagina and the anatomical
uterus, i.e. it comprises the female genital tract, or the hollow in the woman’s
body, which accommodates the penis in coitus and the child in gestation; by
contrast, the anatomical uterus is referred to as such or by the element ‘utero-’,
while the anatomical vagina is referred to as such or by the element ‘colpo-’. It
is obvious that, in certain contexts, e.g. in relation to coitus, ‘womb’ (or ‘hystero-’)
and ‘vagina’ (or ‘colpo-’) can be used interchangeably without materially altering
the sense since the ‘vagina’ is part of the ‘womb’.)
*
*
44. Gynaedeolagnia may be loosely equated with vulvolagnia, especially in
relation to cheirogynaedeolagnic and stomatogynaedeolagnic contacts, but this
of course could not be applied to coitus proper (phallocolpolagnia), which involves
the whole of the vagina (and not only the introitus) as well as the uterine cervix.
However, although in any detailed study we have to distinguish between the
vulva as a collective term for the external female genital organs, and the internal
female genital organs (of which only the vagina and the uterus are of phronesic
importance), we have to include the vaginal introitus in both groups since
introitolagnia is as important in predominantly vulval or external relations, such
as stomatovulvolagnia, as it is in fully internal relations typified by coitus
(phallocolpolagnia).
45. Vulvolagnia comprises mainly the end- and exerotic forms of
clitoridolagnia (clitoris-eroticism), nympholagnia (eroticism of the nymphae or
labia minora), introitolagnia (eroticism of the vaginal introitus), and, less
importantly, majorilabiolagnia (eroticism of the labia majora) and montolagnia
(eroticism of the mons pubis). Although vulvolagnic relations, typified by
cheirovulvolagnia and stomatovulvolagnia, clearly combine elements of both
external and internal preservative devouring (external devouring is particularly
evident in the hand holding the mons pubis and the whole vulval area around it,
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52. Organolagnia
and the mouth applying suction as well as licking to the delicate structures of the
vulva), these relations, whatever their details, basically represent—at least partly
and at least in an ideal form—the quasi-conceptive penetration and active internal
preservative devouring of the woman by the man, the role of the phalloid in
relation to the womb being represented by the man’s hand or mouth, even if no
actual penetration takes place.
46. Before we discuss the individual organs constituting the vulva it is worth
noting that the main heterolagnic relations involving vulvolagnia are
cheirovulvolagnia, stomatovulvolagnia, and phallovulvolagnia (not to be confused
with phallocolpolagnia). Hapticolagnia is obviously the main aestheticolagnic
factor in cheirovulvolagnia. On the other hand, in stomatovulvolagnia—allowing
always for wide individual variations in technique—there are two main factors
and two minor factors: scopolagnia, viz. pragmoscopolagnia in the man and
apragmoscopolagnia in the woman (or, more specifically,
gynaedeopragmoscopolagnia and gynaedeapragmoscopolagnia, respectively), and
hapticolagnia (in relation to the mouth, viz. gynaedeohapticolagnia) are important
to both sexes and are the main factors, whereas osphreticolagnia
(gynaedeosphreticolagnia) and geusticolagnia (gynaedeogeusticolagnia) are
minor factors and are relevant only to the man. Finally, phallovulvolagnia, i.e.
rubbing the penis with a forward-and-backward movement either against the
clitoris only or alongside the vulval cleft (to stimulate the nymphae, introitus
vaginae, and clitoris, as well as the penis itself), without inserting the penis into
the vagina, may be practised for one of two very different reasons. On the one
hand, it may be used by the man to enhance genital erethia either in his partner,
e.g. to prepare her for phallocolpolagnia, or in himself, e.g. to improve his erection
prior to repeating coitus. On the other hand—and sociologically much more
importantly—in cultures where loss of virginity (i.e. of the hymen) before marriage
may have dire consequences for a young woman, phallovulvolagnia is one of the
methods—the most daring and riskiest method (both as regards defloration and
as regards conception, since contraceptives are not used)—of seeking mutual
orgasm without breaking the hymen. The method is sometimes called ‘brushing’
(French ‘brosser’). Whatever the motive for phallovulvolagnia, it may be practised
with the woman on her back, either with her thighs flexed at the hip joints and
parted (more or less as in the usual dorsal positions of coitus, which vary slightly
in detail), or with the woman’s lower limbs fully extended flat on the bed and the
thighs held close together, the penis being inserted into the relatively tight (or
vagina-like) interfemoral sinus to rub in quasi-coital movements against the
woman’s vulva and her closely held thighs (phallomesofemorolagnia).
47. Clitoridolagnia is of considerable importance in heterolagnia, and is of
much greater importance still in autolagnia, including homolagnia. This is because
the clitoris is the main orgastopoeic organ in female pudendorgasm, and it is the
main orgastopoeic organ altogether in women with reversal of orgastic foci, which
is a common condition in all forms of autolagnia. In cheiroclitoridolagnia—or,
more precisely, dactyloclitoridolagnia—the direct stimulation of the glans, which
is the most sensitive part of the clitoris, may be painful, in contrast to its indirect
stimulation, by traction and rhythmic friction through the skin, by the application
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of a to-and-fro rubbing movement with a finger, or two fingers (one on either
side), placed on the skin-covered shaft of the clitoris. This detail may make all
the difference between dactyloclitoridolagnia being acceptable or unacceptable
to the woman as a form of precoital loveplay to prepare her for phallocolpolagnic
penetration and orgasm (or to give her full orgasm). By contrast, in
stomatoclitoridolagnia, the direct application of the tongue and lips to the glans
carries no risk of causing pain. As noted before, stomatovulvolagnia in general,
and glossoclitoridolagnia in particular (which is its simplest form), is of immense
practical importance as it is the most generally reliable method of inducing orgasm
in any woman who can at all tolerate heterolagnic relations, however euerotic or
dyserotic she may be in reality. Moreover, as noted before, with the recent
emancipation of women cheirovulvolagnia as a means of inducing female orgasm
has become almost obsolete, its place being taken by stomatovulvolagnia.
Apart from dactyloclitoridolagnia, cheirovulvolagnia may stimulate the clitoris
(and nymphae etc.) in a variety of indirect, or less direct, ways, as noted elsewhere.
48. Nympholagnia, in its enderotic form, varies considerably in different
women, and so does the exonympholagnic interest in men, many of whom in
both cheiro- and stomatovulvolagnia would concentrate on the clitoris to the
exclusion of everything else. However, where endonympholagnia is marked
(polyendonympholagnia), rubbing the whole vulval area with the hand, or
applying stomatonympholagnia in the course of stomatovulvolagnia, may give
the woman a more satisfying orgasm, or may prepare her more fully for coital
orgasm if such contacts are limited to precoital loveplay, than paying exclusive
attention to the clitoris. In solitary masturbation, an alternative to rubbing the
whole vulval area (mainly the vulval cleft) with the hand is that of rubbing it
against the edge of the bed (lying alongside the edge of the bed with parted
thighs, one foot on the bed and the other on the floor), or against the edge of a
chair, or against a pillow (or bedsheets rolled up into a bundle or a hot water
bottle etc.) that is placed between the thighs.
Introitolagnia will be presently dealt with under colpolagnia.
49. Majorilabiolagnia is of little importance except in the general stimulation
(e.g. with the hand) of the vulva as a whole. The labia majora are not of great
erotopoeicity to the woman (endomajorilabiolagnia); to the man
(exomajorilabiolagnia) their main importance is pragmoscopolagnic inasmuch
as they form the boundary of the rima pudendi.
50. Although montolagnia is of relatively little importance in itself because
the enderotopoeicity of the mons is very limited, the mons is nevertheless erotically
important, partly because of its prominence, which makes it possible for it to be
held in the hand, and partly because of its proximity to the clitoris and other
sensitive (i.e. enderotopoeic) parts of the vulva, which ensures that upward-anddownward movement of the mons applies rhythmic traction to the clitoris, while
direct compression of the mons (either in the hand or against the pubic bones) is
likely to involve the clitoris as well. Various combinations of these movements
may be seen in heterolagnic and autolagnic practices. In heterolagnic relations,
upward-and-downward deep rubbing movement compressing the montal area
against the pubic bones may be made by the man with his hand
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52. Organolagnia
(cheiromontolagnia) in the course of precoital loveplay, or it may be the result of
the woman pressing her pudendal area in intimate contact against the man’s
pudendal area, usually in the standing position and fully dressed.
(This latter method is of sociological interest. With the man standing with his
back leaning against a wall and the woman standing between his parted feet and
facing him—which is usually done in a public place (e.g. a dark alley), fully
dressed (apart from dispensing with overcoats), and without putting the hands to
the genitals—the woman leans forwards with the whole weight of her body against
the man, lifts herself up on her toes, and uses the full power of her gluteal muscles
to press her pubic bones (in the course of embracing and allelostomatolagnia)
against his pubic bones and genitals with a firm up-and-down rubbing movement
amounting to intimate bipudendal (or bigenital) contact, except that the genitals
are separated by four layers of clothing (two of underwear and two of outer
wear) (in the words of one patient, she would not stop until she could glide her
pubic bones up and down against her partner’s pubic bones: she had to masturbate
as soon as she got home). A very similar method of close bipudendal pelvic
contact, fully dressed and in a public place, may be adopted lying down on the
ground (e.g. on the lawn in a park), with the woman above the man (or vice
versa), but in this case the position is clearly quasi-coital, penetration being
prevented only by the fact that the couple are fully dressed. Although these
methods of intimate bipudendal friction are obviously mutually erethopoeic, it is
usual for the man to obtain prompt orgastic relief, but it is very rare for the
woman to reach orgasm. These are the forms of mutual pelvic contact of a fully
dressed couple in a public place that concern us in the study of montolagnia—an
intimate bipudendal contact, intimate enough for the woman to rub her pubic
bones up and down against the man’s. Another common, and (certainly on the
woman’s side) less intimate, form of pelvic contact that affords the man (but not
the woman) orgastic relief, is that in which—again in a face-to-face standing
position—the woman presses with her pelvis against the man, or has her pelvis
pulled close to him with his hands on her buttocks, but the contact in this case is
between the lower part of the woman’s abdomen (above the mons) and the shaft
of the man’s erect penis as it rises against the lower part of his abdomen,
stimulation of the penis with the woman’s pelvis (i.e. with the lower part of her
abdomen) being effected either by alternately pressing hard against it and partly
releasing the pressure, or by rubbing it with a firm side-to-side rhythmic
movement. Adept women, instead of using the lower part of the front of the
abdomen to stimulate the penis, may use one or the other of their anterior superior
iliac spines—a hard bony projection which can apply far greater pressure to the
penis than the soft abdomen, thus giving the woman the confidence of knowing
that she can give orgastic relief to almost any man, both reliably and quickly, not
only without any risk of pregnancy but also with minimal eroterethia on her part,
since feeling the man’s penis rolling from side to side under her anterior superior
iliac spine is much less erethopoeic than feeling it against her lower abdomen.
One additional manoeuvre worth noting here is that of scrotal—or, more precisely,
testicular—stimulation to induce ejaculation in a man who is more or less ready
for it, viz. by the woman pushing one of her thighs between the man’s thighs and
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gently pressing it up against his pudendal area, i.e. against his scrotum and testes
(an adept woman may specify regularly using her left thigh, the reason being that
men generally wear their genitals in the left leg of their trousers, and of course
the medial side of the thigh is much more erotopoeic—in this case enderotopoeic—
than the lateral side). How all these practices may be standardized was well
illustrated by a patient who had used them as a routine with all the boyfriends
who took her out, stating that early on she learnt that men ejaculated quicker the
harder she pressed, the faster she rubbed, and also if they parted their feet (which
would give her easier access to their genitals). All these practices are of
sociological interest as they are evidently a reflection of the erotosteresis that
forms an integral part of phobophronesic civilization, and of the erotophobia that
accounts for it, including both aphormic erotophobia, which is the main cause of
the erotosteresis, and shame erotophobia, which prohibits coitus in public, and,
finally, of the inequality of the sexes in phobophronesic civilization, with only
the man (except in very rare cases) obtaining orgastic satisfaction from what is in
reality a mutually erethopoeic experience. Undoubtedly these practices were
much commoner before the introduction of oral contraception in the 1960’s.)
On the other hand, in solitary masturbation, whether erotosteretic or truly
autolagnic, the mons may be used to stimulate the whole vulval area, as in the
case of the woman who inserts her middle finger into the vagina while the palm
of the hand holds the mons and compresses the whole vulva in the hand and at
the same time rubs it firmly up and down against the pubic bones; the pressure of
the hand rubbing the vulva against the pubic bones may be augmented by placing
the other hand over it, or—for maximum pressure—the woman may lie face
down (i.e. prone) and, with her two hands still covering the vulval area and her
finger in the vagina, use her powerful gluteal and femoral muscles to press and
rub her pelvis against the bed or floor etc.
One final point about montolagnia: the only visible part of the woman’s
pudendal area in the standing position is the V-shaped triangle of the upper part
of the mons pubis (bounded above by the abdomino-pudendal furrow, and laterally
on either side by the inguinal ligament). The exerotopoeicity of this V-shaped
triangle arises from the fact that it is often visible even through an ordinary dress
pressed against the body by the wind.
51. In colpolagnia, the most important single factor, both in endocolpolagnia
in the woman and exocolpolagnia in the man, is the psychological factor of quasiconceptive penetration, containment, and active internal preservative devouring
of the woman by the man. Various aspects of this quasi-conceptive penetration
are dealt with elsewhere in this series, including the monograph on Erotogenesis
and the account of myotonolagnia in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the
World. Although the factor of quasi-conceptive penetration applies primarily to
coitus, it also applies to other heterolagnic relations (e.g. cheiro- and
stomatogynaedeolagnia) and to autolagnic masturbation: it applies, in an ideal
form, even where no vaginal penetration occurs at all.
52. In exocolpolagnia, the whole vaginal tube is important to the man as it
provides a tight grip on the penile shaft. However, even though exocolpolagnia
comprises the whole vagina, the introitus (exintroitolagnia) is still of special
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52. Organolagnia
erotopoeicity to the man since it is the point that first grips the most sensitive
parts of the penis, viz. the glans and the frenulum. Thus the initial dilatation of
the introitus by the glans penis has a special erotopoeicity to both the man and
the woman that is unequalled by the subsequent dilatation of the rest of the vaginal
tube by the intromittent penis.
53. By contrast, in endocolpolagnia in the woman, endocolpolagnia in relation
to the main body of the vagina (i.e. endocolpolagnia proper) is largely
psychological whereas endintroitolagnia is both psychological and tactile.
Endocolpolagnia proper is closely related to the psychological sense of being
quasi-conceptively penetrated and ‘filled up’, first penetratively by the penis
(phallic penetrativeness) and later expulsively by the semen (expulsive devouring),
the latter being recognized by the woman by the sensation of the throbbing penis
during ejaculation. Endintroitolagnia obviously does not carry the same sense
of deep penetratedness or of being ‘filled up’, since introital penetration is
necessarily superficial penetration, but in terms of hapticolagnic local stimulation
endintroitolagnia is of immense importance. We have already noted that, in coitus,
the initial dilatation of the introitus by the penis is much more erotopoeic (to the
woman as well as to the man) than the subsequent dilatation of the rest of the
vagina. This concentration of hapticolagnic sensitivity in the introitus is also
evident in other practices involving the female genitals. For example, in
glossintroitolagnia as part of stomatovulvolagnia, the penetration of the man’s
tongue is limited to the introitus, but this is adequate in many women to produce
intense eroterethia and get them completely ready for phallocolpolagnia and
orgasm.
Some women who enjoy stomatovulvolagnic (usually
glossoclitoridolagnic) orgasm find it more satisfying if it is combined with
simultaneous dactylintroitolagnia. Similarly, in erotosteretic masturbation many
women have satisfying orgasm from autodactylintroitolagnia, with or without
general stimulation of the external genital organs (by compression and rubbing
etc.).
The importance of endintroitolagnia, even to the extent of being conducive in
severely erotosteretic girls to full ‘internal’ (i.e. uterine) orgasm, is particularly
evident in those cultures which have continued up to the present time to practise
female circumcision, in the form of clitoridectomy and nymphectomy (excision
of the clitoris and the nymphae), with the aim of preserving female ‘chastity’ by
removing the most enderotically sensitive parts of the vulva. Girls circumcised
in this way may still be able to practise autodactyloclitoridolagnia to orgasm by
stimulating the clitoridal stump, or autodactylintroitolagnia, not by inserting any
fingers into the introitus (as this would obviously damage the hymen and ruin the
girl’s chances of marriage), but by bunching the fingers of one hand together and
using the tips to apply firm pressure to the introital area with a forward-andbackward rubbing movement which—in an erotosteretic girl—is sufficient to
produce ‘internal’ (pelvic) orgasm (obviously such a pelvic orgasm is produced
reflexly, without any direct stimulation of the uterus). Similar practices may be
used in heterolagnic relations in order to preserve the virginity of the girl, i.e.
preserve her hymen—which, like the practice of phallovulvolagnia (which was
noted before), are sociologically interesting as they reflect the dilemma of young
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women in backward cultures, especially those women who are beginning to taste
social and economic, and even the rudiments of erotic, emancipation, but who
know that their lives would be ruined if they lost their virginity (in the strict sense
of possession of an intact hymen) before their wedding night.
54. Uterolagnia is of little importance in its exerotic form, though it is possible
that in some coital positions that permit maximal phallic penetration, direct
stimulation of the glans penis may be achieved by close frictional (as distinct
from thrusting) contact between the glans penis and the cervix uteri. By contrast,
enduterolagnia is of immense importance to the woman, as rhythmic phallic thrust
against the cervix uteri directly stimulates the uterus, and it is in the uterus that
the euerotic woman’s pelvic orgasm has its centre, which is usually much more
satisfying than pudendal orgasm. However, although pelvic orgasm is generally
obtained through full vaginal coitus, and is often most intense where phallic
thrust is of maximal depth, amplitude, and speed, pelvic orgasm may nevertheless
sometimes occur entirely reflexly without any direct stimulation of the cervix
uteri. In fact, as noted before, extreme erotosteresis in a virgo intacta may enable
her to have a full pelvic orgasm reflexly by rhythmic frictional stimulation of the
introital area without breaking the hymen. In heterolagnic relations, even more
or less exclusively clitoridal stimulation—especially if in the form of
stomatoclitoridolagnia rather than cheiroclitoridolagnia—may be sufficient in
exceptional cases to give an extremely erotosteretic woman full pelvic orgasm of
a reflex type.
55. Turning next to hysterosemeiolagnia, the main point to note is that, of the
two forms of hysteroid penetrability (or receptivity), coital penetrability is much
more important in hysterosemeiolagnia than in hysterosemeiophilia, whereas
gestational penetrability is more important in hysterosemeiophilia than in
hysterosemeiolagnia. Fertility (or fecundity), like gestational penetrability (to
which it is related), is more important as a hysterosemeiophilic than as a
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom. Finally, enterythrolagnia is also an important
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom; it is related to the pink colour of the mucous
membranes lining body cavities, in particular the cavity of the womb (most
conspicuous in the rosy colour of the introitus vaginae), and is therefore closely
related to hysteroid penetrability.
56. Gynaedeomorphology, from the erotic point of view, is considerably
different in relation to the external and internal female genital organs.
Colpomorphology is mainly important in relation to the relative sizes of the vagina
and penis in regular relationships such as marriage. Where the vagina is
excessively wide and lax, as is very common in multiparous women, it may not
grip the penis in coitus sufficiently for satisfactory frictional stimulation in either
partner. A similar condition arises much less often because the man’s penis is
too small (microphallia). However, it is remarkable that women who are either
polyerotic (or, for that matter, hypererotic) or polyendintroitolagnic may have no
difficulty in having full mixorgasm in virtually every act of coitus with every
man they have coitus with, despite a fairly lax, parous vagina. The opposite
condition arises either from excessive tightness of the vagina or from an
excessively large penis (megalophallia). Vaginal tightness is of course normal in
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52. Organolagnia
virgins but rarely persists after the first few acts of coitus. However, the condition
may also be seen in badly scarred vaginae after multiple surgical operations and,
in a purely functional form due to spasm of the pelvic muscles around the vagina,
in women with genital-erotic phthorophobia (‘vaginismus’). Rarely,
megalophallia may be responsible for causing dyspareunia to the woman: the
condition may range from discomfort to actual pain.
57. On the other hand, vulvomorphology (or gynaedeomorphology in relation
to the external female genital organs) is less important functionally, since it does
not interfere with the actual performance of coitus like colpomorphology (or,
rather, colpodysmorphology), but it has greater aesthetic overtones than
colpomorphology because the vulva is more conspicuous than the vagina. The
clitoris, though enderotically and exerotically very important, is, apart from the
glans, hidden under a layer of skin, which renders individual variations in its
shape and size relatively inconspicuous. By contrast, both the nymphae and the
labia majora are much more conspicuous. The nymphae (nymphomorphology)
vary greatly in different women as regards their length (i.e. their antero-posterior
extent), width (i.e. the distance at the widest part between the attached border
and the free border), shape, and thickness. Thus the nympha may be a long,
wide, thick fold, or it may be a very small delicate structure extending only a
short distance behind the clitoris. Moreover, the nympha may be regular or
irregular in shape; occasionally the two nymphae are asymmetrical in shape.
The labia majora show fewer variations; probably variations in thickness are
largely related to general adiposity or its lack in the body as a whole.
Of course erethic variations, including erection of the clitoris and corrugation
(or wrinkling) of its prepuce, differ widely in different individuals and on different
occasions in the same individual. Erethic vulval congestion, which reaches its
peak at the orgasm, may be only moderate or (in an intense orgasm) may be so
extreme as to result in gross elongation and swelling of the clitoris, the nymphae,
and the labia majora, with the whole vulva pulsating rhythmically with successive
outward thrusts for the duration of the woman’s orgasm. In some cases, at the
orgasm, the congested labia majora may not only be thick and pouting but also
so greatly elongated as to become markedly curved, like a crescent or semicircle,
with the convexity directed laterally. The labia majora may also show longitudinal
furrowing, presumably due to the contraction of the smooth muscle fibres in
them at the orgasm.
58. Concerning gynaedeaestheticolagnia, little need be added here as
numerous references to the subject will be found elsewhere in this and other
monographs, including references to cheiro-, stomato-, and phallogynaedeolagnia,
and to hysterosemeiolagnia (including hysteroid penetrability and
enterythrolagnia) and gynaedeomorphology. As noted before, in the case of
aedeolagnia (gynaedeolagnia and andraedeolagnia), in addition to the immense
importance of both scopolagnia (pragmo- and apragmoscopolagnia) and
hapticolagnia (including cheir- and stomataedeolagnia as well as allelaedeolagnia),
osphreticolagnia and geusticolagnia make a certain contribution which virtually
has no equivalent in other forms of euerotic organaestheticolagnia (but, of course,
hyperosphreticolagnia and (to a lesser extent) hypergeusticolagnia are of major
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importance in certain forms of autolagnic dyseroticism, including
hyperparaedeolagnia). Thus in gynaedeaestheticolagnia the main factors are
gynaedeoscopolagnia (gynaedeopragmoscopolagnia in the man and
gynaedeapragmoscopolagnia in the woman) and gynaedeohapticolagnia (mainly
in relation to the hand, mouth, and penis); gynaedeosphreticolagnia and
gynaedeogeusticolagnia play a minor part, mainly in stomatovulvolagnia in
relation to the copious vaginal secretions with which eroterethia in the woman is
associated. Perhaps we should add here that gynaedeopragmoscopolagnia and
gynaedeapragmoscopolagnia apply not only in relation to direct vision but also
in relation to all forms and degrees of concealment and exposure, evoking ideas
of visual penetration and erotendophoria etc. In this respect it is worth
remembering, in relation to mesofemorolagnia, that the interfemoral space (the
space between the thighs when they are parted) is, in the woman, itself a hysteroid
which may be penetrated visually as well as practically (with the hand or with
the trunk and penis etc.) by the man.
59. Andraedeolagnia, which is limited in eueroticism to the external male
genitals, comprises phallolagnia, which is its main form, and oscheolagnia, i.e.
end- and exeroticism of the scrotum, including the testes (orchiolagnia). Here
again, although it may not be easy to draw a sharp line between external and
internal devouring in every case (for example, we can only assume that the
woman’s cupping of the scrotum with her hand represents, at least partly, active
external preservative devouring on her part), no doubt in most forms of
heterolagnic relations involving andraedeolagnia the predominant factor is that
of male active internal preservative devouring (much more unequivocal in the
case of the penis than in the case of the scrotum, except that, as we shall presently
see, the scrotum is often conceived as an integral part of the erect penis, viz. as
the base of the ‘phallic axis’), with reciprocal passive internal preservative
devouredness on the part of the woman whether the contact involves her hand,
her mouth, her genitals, or indeed virtually any other part whatever of her body.
‘Phallolagnia’ is often used as a synonym for ‘andraedeolagnia’, and ‘penis’
as a synonym for ‘male genitals’. This is not only because, in both
endandraedeolagnia and exandraedeolagnia, phallolagnia is much more important
than oscheolagnia (after all, it is the penis, not the scrotum, that penetrates the
woman, and it is its erection that determines the occurrence or non-occurrence of
coitus), but also because the scrotum (including the testes) is often conceived as
an integral part of the erect penis. This is because, during erection, the penis
exchanges the downward curve it makes with the scrotum in its flaccid state for
upright straightness, in which position the scrotum quite naturally appears to
form an integral part, viz. the lower and broader part, of the erect penis. However,
the concept of a single external male genital organ comprising the erect penis
and the scrotum with its two testes is more precisely referred to as the phallic
axis. Thus the phallic axis is the concept of the external male genital organs as
consisting of a single organ forming a high anatropic triangle, the tip of the erect
penis forming the apex of the triangle while the testes form its base.
60. In endophallolagnia in the man, the whole of the penis—glans and shaft—
is psychologically important as regards the capacity to penetrate the woman
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52. Organolagnia
(phallic penetrativeness) and to lodge deep inside her (active quasi-conceptive
internal devouring of the woman). From the hapticolagnic point of view, however,
although endophallolagnia still applies to the whole penis, it is more marked
nearer the tip, viz. in the glans and the frenulum.
The normal man is predominantly phallorgastic, and therefore pudendorgastic,
whereas in autolagnia in all its forms it is not uncommon for the man to be
predominantly prostatorgastic, and therefore pelvorgastic. The subject of orgastic
foci, and the tendency to their reversal in autolagnics, is dealt with fully elsewhere
in this series.
61. Exophallolagnia in the woman is closely related to the pragmoscopolagnic
and hapticolagnic properties of the penis (phallosemeiolagnia) to which we shall
presently refer, and is most concretely expressed in cheirophallolagnia,
stomatophallolagnia, and phallocolpolagnia, in all of which quasi-conceptive
penetration is represented by the penis as the phalloid and the woman’s hand,
mouth, or vagina as the hysteroid. (Other, less important, relations, e.g.
phallomesofemorolagnia and phallomesomastolagnia are referred to elsewhere.)
In phallocolpolagnia, as previously noted, exophallolagnia in the woman takes
different forms in relation to the initial dilatation of the introitus by the tip of the
intromittent penis, which mainly evokes endintroitolagnia; in relation to rhythmic
phallic thrust against the cervix uteri, which evokes enduterolagnia and facilitates
uterine orgasm; and in relation to the mainly psychological, quasi-conceptive
filling up of the vagina by the whole shaft of the penis which, as emphasized by
rhythmic phallic thrust, goes deeper and deeper into the womb until the throbbing
sensation of the ejaculating penis suggests that expulsive active internal devouring
by the man has been added as the climax of his penetrative active internal
devouring.
In cheirophallolagnia, the stimulation may be digital, in the form of
rhythmically stroking the penis with the fingertips from the scrotum to the glans.
Or digital stimulation may be concentrated on the area of the glans or (since
direct friction with the glans, which is the most sensitive part of the penis, may
be painful rather than pleasurable to the man) on the area immediately proximal
to it (including the highly enderotopoeic frenulum), which stimulates the glans
indirectly by rhythmic traction on it if a to-and-fro rubbing movement (alternately
towards the tip of the penis and away from it) is used, or if a rolling movement
between fingers and thumb is used; of course frictional stimulation of the glans
through the skin is possible where the prepuce is preserved. The role of the
woman’s hand as a hysteroid takes a more practical, or less ideal, form where the
penile shaft is held fully in the fist, with a to-and-fro rubbing movement (towards,
and away from, the glans), which may be slow and deliberate like a milking
movement or (as eroterethia builds up) may be fast, and which stimulates the
shaft and, indirectly, also the glans by applying rhythmic traction to it; instead,
the fist may slowly and deliberately apply firm compression to the penile shaft,
alternating (after a few seconds of sustained pressure) with partial relaxation of
the grip, so that the compression has a rhythmic effect.
Stomatophallolagnia, as noted before, varies between partial penetration, with
the main sucking and licking action concentrated on the glans and the frenulum
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(with or without quasi-coital movements performed by either partner), and deeper
penetration, which satisfies the mutual psychological desire for maximum erotic
penetration but which carries the risk of provoking the pharyngeal (or vomiting)
reflex in the woman and also reduces the amount of tactile stimulation given to
the glans and the frenulum (which, in deep penetration, are away from the tip of
the woman’s tongue). Where stomatophallolagnia is carried through to ejaculation,
the woman’s attitude to the semen largely depends on whether she idiophilically
treats it as a gift or palaeotropolagnically treats it as excrement. In the former
case, swallowing it may be highly erotopoeic to her in a psychological sense, and
may be followed by digital massaging of the male urethra to express any remaining
droplets, especially from the dilated part of the penile urethra near its end (the
fossa navicularis or fossa terminalis) so that these too can be licked off and
swallowed. By contrast, the palaeotropolagnic concept of the semen as ‘seminal
excrement’ may make it unthinkable for the woman to swallow the semen: she
may either spit it out, with the risk of vomiting in the process, or she would insist
on ejaculation occurring outside her mouth (phallomesomastolagnia is frequently
used in the ejaculatory phase after stomatophallolagnia); of course the woman
may decline stomatophallolagnia altogether on the grounds that, even without
ejaculation taking place in her mouth, it is tantamount to skoroborolagnia.
62. Phallosemeiolagnia, even more than phallosemeiophilia, relates mainly
to the erect penis, but the non-erect (or flaccid) penis is not excluded (e.g. in
streptophalloidolagnia). Broadly speaking, the geneosemeiolagnic properties of
the penis are the opposite of those of the breast. Thus phallic smoothness
(xestolagnia) is associated with hardness (sclerolagnia), in contrast to mammary
smoothness (leiolagnia) that is associated with softness (malakolagnia). Similarly,
phallic rod-like shape (rhabdophalloidolagnia), pointedness (oxylagnia), and
upward-pointing when erect (anatropolagnia) contrast with mammary roundness
(sphericolagnia) and downward-pointing (catatropolagnia). Moreover, mammary
malakolagnia is closely associated with breast penetrability and, more generally,
hysteroid penetrability; by contrast, phallic penetrativeness is ensured by the
hardness of the erect penis (sclerolagnia), its straight, rigid shape
(orthophalloidolagnia), and its pointedness (oxylagnia). All the
phallosemeiolagnic idioms mentioned are erethopoeic to the euerotic woman,
and they greatly contribute to exophallolagnia. Their ultimate psychogenetic
significance lies in the fact that they represent the immense active internal
preservative devouring power of the erect penis. We shall presently amplify this
statement in dealing with phallic motility.
Melanolagnia as a phallosemeiolagnic idiom contrasts with mastoleukolagnia
as a mastosemeiolagnic idiom; it is perhaps related to the popular concept of
women’s ideal of the physically attractive man as one who is ‘tall, dark, and
handsome’. Finally, we have already referred to perissarithmolagnia, which is
derived from the penis being a unitary organ, when we contrasted it with
mastosemeiolagnic artiarithmolagnia.
63.
Andraedeomorphology comprises phallomorphology and
oscheomorphology, i.e. the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic
study of penis form and scrotum (including testis) form, respectively.
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52. Organolagnia
Phallomorphology is more important than oscheomorphology. However, as noted
before, the penis (the ‘phallic axis’) is often equated in awareness with the whole
of the external male genitals, the scrotum being conceived as an integral part of
the erect penis—in which case oscheomorphology may be regarded as a detail of
phallomorphology, but here we shall deal with the two separately.
Phallomorphology is of immense exophallolagnic and aesthetic as well as
physical-anthropological importance; from the woman’s point of view, there is
the psychological factor of being ‘filled up’ (which depends on size) as well as
such hapticolagnic factors as introital dilatation (which depends on girth) and
stimulation of the cervix uteri (which depends on length). The penis may be of
average size (emmetrophallia), i.e. of average length and average girth (or
thickness); it may be small (microphallia), i.e. both short and slender; it may be
large (megalophallia), i.e. above average in both length and girth; it may be long
but relatively slender (dolichophallia); finally, it may be stubby, i.e. short but
relatively thick (brachyphallia). We have already referred to problems arising
from phallo-vaginal disproportion. The megalophallus often features in both the
phantasies and the practices of erotically less inhibited women, and some of
them may also talk or joke among themselves about the subject in relation to
their male colleagues or superiors at work. On the other hand, the preference for
dolichophallia by some women may be decided by aesthetic considerations
(probably ultimately related to the association in awareness of slenderness (alike
in general male physique and in phallomorphology) with greater motility or agility,
and so with greater general and myotonolagnic devouring power) as well as by
erotic considerations, for it is possible that the dolichophallus may have the ability
to stimulate the cervix uteri without the discomfort that may be caused by the
megalophallus.
64. Turning now to phallokinetics, viz. phallic motility and, less importantly,
phallic mobility, all the phallosemeiolagnic idioms noted before contribute to
the sense of power, i.e. of active internal preservative devouring power, that is
associated with the erect penis—erect, congested and with bulging engorged
veins, enormously enlarged in size, and ready to exhibit its power of
penetrativeness (a geneosemeiolagnic idiom), of phallic thrust (a manifestation
of myotonolagnia, though closely related to penetrativeness), and of ejaculation
(representing active internal expulsive devouring).
Phallic motility, i.e. the capacity of the penis for active or spontaneous
movement, has at least five forms: anatropic, serpentine, penetrative, thrusting,
and throbbing.
Anatropic motility is an integral part of the phenomenon of erection in which
the penis, from its usual downward-pointing flaccid position, spontaneously rises
against the force of gravity to take an upward-pointing position. The reflection
of this striking biological phenomenon in awareness constitutes the
phallosemeiolagnic idiom of anatropolagnia.
Serpentine motility is a byproduct of anatropic motility that is represented by
the up-and-down writhing or jerking movement of the erect penis as if it were
connected to the body with a joint. Though of secondary importance—hence we
do not include it as a separate phallosemeiophilic/phallosemeiolagnic idiom—it
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is by no means unimportant. For example, in joking among young men, the
erect penis may be represented by holding, say, the right forearm just above the
wrist with the left hand and then moving the right hand rhythmically up and
down at the wrist joint. A very different example, drawn from clinical work, is
that of men who perceive a gynotropic phalloid motif in the rhythmic up-anddown movement of the feet in women walking in high-heeled shoes. The
conclusion to be drawn from all this is that rhythmic flexion-and-extension
movement at the wrist or ankle joint, producing a corresponding movement in
the hand or in the foot, may serve as a phalloid representation inasmuch as it
emulates serpentine phallic motility; this is of importance in both eueroticism
and dyseroticism.
Penetrative motility, i.e. the capacity of the erect penis to force its way into
the woman’s vagina with a sort of piercing movement, brings anatropic and
serpentine motility to their goal: the penetration of the woman. Penetrativeness
is one of the most important idioms of phallosemeiophilia and phallosemeiolagnia.
Thrusting motility, i.e. the rhythmic inward thrust of the erect male penis
inside the female vagina in coitus, takes phallic penetrativeness (to which it is
closely related) to the ultimate goal of ejaculation and mutual orgasm. Phallic
thrust (or pelvic thrust or ‘coital movements’) is a myotonolagnic manifestation
that is closely related to phallic penetrativeness. As noted in the monograph on
The Oral Concept of the World, phallic thrust is conceived in awareness as
representing in-and-in, rather than in-and-out, movement.
Finally, throbbing motility, i.e. the sensation of throbbing of the penis
experienced by the woman while ejaculation is taking place in her vagina in
coitus, is psychologically very important to the woman as it adds active internal
expulsive devouring by the semen to the active internal penetrative devouring by
the thrusting penis. This explains why, in many women, the perception of the
man’s throbbing penis in the vagina in coitus, i.e. the perception of his ejaculation,
is the crucial factor that induces the woman to have simultaneous orgasm with
the man.
It is important to note that of the five forms of phallic motility noted above,
three possess the rhythmicity which is highly characteristic of eroticism in general
(as noted in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World), viz. the serpentine,
thrusting, and throbbing forms of motility. By contrast, the anatropic and
penetrative forms of motility have no rhythmicity, though they are closely related
to the rhythmic forms of motility. The rhythmicity of serpentine motility is
probably ultimately conceived as an attenuated form of the rhythmicity of thrusting
motility: for serpentine motility is the motility of the erect penis when it is ready
to penetrate the woman but before actual coitus (i.e. actual phallocolpolagnia),
whereas thrusting motility is the motility of the erect penis when it is fully in
action, viz. during actual coitus (or actual phallocolpolagnia).
It may be noted in passing that the scrotum in the man, like the nipple in the
woman, is capable of a certain degree of motility that is by no means limited to
eroterethia since it also occurs in response to changes in temperature etc. Thus
the scrotum in eroterethia—as part of the phallic axis—contracts into a tightfitting, corrugated sac owing to the contraction of the dartos muscle.
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52. Organolagnia
Much less important in phallokinetics than phallic motility is the phallic
mobility of the flaccid penis—pendulous, swinging from side to side in walking,
tossed up towards the umbilicus in jumping or climbing stairs, etc. Women have
been known to ask their husbands or lovers to go about naked in the house for
them to satisfy their pragmoscopolagnic interest in phallic mobility.
65. Phallaestheticolagnia requires only a few remarks here as most of the
subject has already been covered in this and other monographs. Scopolagnia
(phalloscopolagnia: phallopragmoscopolagnia and phallapragmoscopolagnia) and
hapticolagnia (phallohapticolagnia) are the main aestheticolagnic forms
concerned, while phallogeusticolagnia and phallosphreticolagnia (mainly in
relation to the semen in stomatophallolagnia) play a minor part.
Phallohapticolagnia is manifested in cheiro- and stomatophallolagnia, in
phallocolpolagnia, and in such other less important forms as
phallomesofemorolagnia and phallomesomastolagnia. Of the phallosemeiolagnic
idioms referred to before, some are primarily appreciated visually, i.e. are
phallopragmoscopolagnic, while others are primarily appreciated tactilely, i.e.
are phallohapticolagnic; most of them can be appreciated to a greater or lesser
degree both scopically and haptically. The same applies to phallomorphology, in
which phallopragmoscopolagnia is the main factor, though phallohapticolagnia
(in relation to the hand, the mouth, the vagina, and otherwise) is obviously also
quite important. Phallic motility, from the aestheticolagnic point of view, is mainly
phallopragmoscopolagnic before phallic intromission into the vagina (though
obviously it can also be appreciated directly with the hand, i.e.
phallohapticolagnically), and mainly phallohapticolagnic after intromission. It
is worth noting that the phallaestheticolagnic factors involved in
stomatophallolagnia are very similar, mutatis mutandis, to those involved in
stomatovulvolagnia, viz. phallopragmoscopolagnia in the woman and
phallapragmoscopolagnia in the man, phallohapticolagnia in the woman (with
corresponding stomatohapticolagnia in the man), and the two less important factors
of phallogeusticolagnia and phallosphreticolagnia (mainly in relation to the semen
if the practice is continued to ejaculation) which are relevant only to the woman.
Even such details as the two tiny lips of the external urethral orifice in the man
may be of phallopragmoscopolagnic interest. Women have been known to spend
time opening up these lips, inspecting them, kissing and licking them, etc.,
especially in repeated stomatophallolagnia in order to observe at close quarters
the whole phenomenon of erection, from its inception in the flaccid, postejaculatory penis, through all its stages up to, and including, re-ejaculation and
post-ejaculation (licking residual semen etc.).
66. Oscheolagnia, which includes orchiolagnia, varies considerably both in
men (endoscheolagnia) and in women (exoscheolagnia). Many men find gentle
pressure on the scrotum erotopoeic, and the same applies to gentle traction on
the scrotum in a direction away from the tip of the erect penis (which may also
indirectly stimulate the sensitive parts at the tip of the penis). Gentle pressure on
the scrotum may be applied by the hand cupping it, or by the fingertips stroking
it (the stroking may be continued along the under-surface of the shaft of the
penis all the way to its tip, including the frenulum). Or the mouth may be similarly
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
used, either for superficial caressing or for gentle suction and traction etc. Such
stomatoscheolagnia may precede, while cheiroscheolagnia may precede or
accompany, stomatophallolagnia. However, among the most widely used methods
of scrotal (or testicular) stimulation is that of the application of gentle pressure to
these organs by the woman with one of her thighs that is pushed up between the
man’s thighs in the course of allelostomatolagnia in the standing position; we
have already referred to this method, which is practised while fully dressed
(without overcoats, or with open overcoats).
Probably the importance of exoscheolagnia is generally underestimated. Some
women who enjoy cheirandraedeolagnia and stomatandraedeolagnia always
include the scrotum, along with their primary interest in the penis. Perhaps the
most striking cases are of those women who report being aware of the scrotum
pressing against their perineum (i.e. the area between the vulva and the anus) in
coitus, and who find this specifically erotopoeic (either because of exoscheolagnia
or because of the implication of phallic penetration being maximal).
67. Oscheomorphology depends to a great extent (though by no means
exclusively) on the size of the testes, which has no relation to the size or shape of
the penis (phallomorphology); for example, megalophallia is not necessarily
associated with megalorchia, and vice versa: megalorchia is not necessarily
associated with megalophallia. From the exandraedeolagnic point of view,
megalorchia, like megalophallia, tends to be associated with, or conceived in
terms of, the active internal preservative devouring power of the penis (or, to be
more precise, of the phallic axis) in coitus.
The preceding account will have said enough about oscheaestheticolagnia.
68. Turning now to hyperaedeolagnia in both sexes, we could not speak of
hyperendaedeolagnia independently of hypereroticism. On the other hand,
in
men
and
hyperexaedeolagnia
(hyperexogynaedeolagnia
hyperexandraedeolagnia (mainly hyperexophallolagnia) in women) is a form of
autolagnic dyseroticism that is frequently seen in association with
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia; it takes different forms in autolagnia proper,
reversed heterolagnia, and homolagnia.
*
*
69. Paraedeolagnia, representing erotic diffusion from the genital organs to
the other organs of the lower part of the body, comprises the end- and exerotic
forms of pygolagnia (buttock-eroticism), femorolagnia (thigh-eroticism),
cnemolagnia (leg-eroticism, the ‘leg’ being the anatomical leg between the knee
and the ankle joints), and podolagnia (foot-eroticism). Broadly speaking, in
eueroticism the end- and exerotopoeicity of these organs is greater in relation to
the thighs and buttocks, which are closer to the genitals, than in relation to the
legs and feet, which are further from the genitals. We shall deal with the subject
under the following headings: exoparaedeolagnia in women, exoparaedeolagnia
in men, endoparaedeolagnia in both sexes, and hyperparaedeolagnia in its exand enderotic forms.
70. Exoparaedeolagnia in women, mainly in the form of exopygolagnia and
exofemorolagnia, is mainly related to the muscularity, firmness or hardness of
consistency (sclerolagnia), and roughness (trachylagnia) due to hairiness, of the
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52. Organolagnia
organs concerned. Muscularity in relation to male buttocks and thighs, which is
perceived by the woman pragmoscopolagnically and (in coitus)
myotonolagnically, is closely related to phallic penetrativeness (an
androsemeiolagnic idiom), phallic (coital) thrust (a myotonolagnic manifestation),
and the coital quasi-conceptive active internal preservative devouring of the
woman by the man. This is because it is mainly the man’s buttock and thigh
muscles that propel the penetrative and thrusting penis in coitus.
71. By contrast, exoparaedeolagnia in men is mainly related to the roundness
or curvature (sphericolagnia) of the organs concerned, and their smoothness
(leiolagnia) and softness (malakolagnia), the latter (viz. malakolagnia) evoking
hysteroid penetrability. As considerable differences exist between the different
organs concerned, they have to be dealt with individually.
72. Exopygolagnia in men in relation to female buttocks arises primarily
because of erotic diffusion, since the buttocks are so close to the genitals. However,
because of the pragmoscopolagnic roundedness (sphericolagnia) and
hapticolagnic smoothness and softness (leiolagnia and malakolagnia) of female
buttocks, certain reciprocal relations exist between exopygolagnia and
exomastolagnia. Not only are the buttocks and the breasts similar in consisting
of two rounded, soft, fleshy masses, but both also have a median cleft: the pygal
cleft with its mesopygolagnia in the case of the buttocks, and the intermammary
sinus with its mesomastolagnia in the case of the breasts. We have already noted
the fact that mesomastolagnia is greatly enhanced by the visual
(pragmoscopolagnic) and tactile (hapticolagnic) similarity of the intermammary
sinus to the pygal cleft, the main difference being that the floor of the pygal cleft
houses the vulva, i.e. the ‘mouth’ of the womb, so that the pygal cleft is a hysteroid
that leads to the true womb, whereas the floor of the intermammary sinus contains
nothing: the intermammary sinus is a tantalizing hysteroid lying within the soft
mammary tissue, but its floor has none of the mystery of the floor of the pygal
cleft. Because of this all-important difference, phallomesomastolagnia
(‘intermammary coitus’) is of very limited practical importance: if carried through
to orgasm, the man will only ejaculate over (or between) the woman’s breasts; by
contrast, coitus with the woman in the genu-pectoral position, which gives the
fullest access to the pygal cleft, may be (euerotically) motivated as much by
exomastolagnia and exomesomastolagnia as by exopygolagnia and
exomesopygolagnia: in it phallic penetration through the hysteroid represented
by the pygal cleft, with intimate contact with the surrounding soft buttocks, leads
to full phallocolpolagnic quasi-conceptive penetration and ejaculation.
Thus mesomastolagnia, though primarily representing the concept of
intramammary penetration that is ultimately derived from the metrophilia of the
oro-mammary relation which equates the mother with her breast, is secondarily
greatly reinforced by the basic similarity of the intermammary sinus to the pygal
cleft that houses the womb; on the other hand, interest in the posterior positions
of coitus may in some cases be partly motivated by mesomastolagnia—ultimately
by the desire for intramammary coitus.
However, in drawing the similarity and, in some ways, reciprocal interrelations
between exomastolagnia and exopygolagnia we should remember the general
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
rule that periaedeorganolagnia in general is more strongly erotic, but is less
personal, i.e. is less strongly idiophilic, than peristomatomastorganolagnia. In
the present example, the buttocks, being closer to the woman’s genitals, are more
erotopoeic, but the breasts, both because of their position higher up in the body
and because of the relation of the breast to the mouth in the oro-mammary relation,
are—like the mouth and the face in general—more personal in their erotopoeicity.
Another aspect of the reciprocal relation between exopygolagnia and
exomastolagnia is that of compensatory cultural hyperexomastolagnia in which
palaeotropolagnic shame in relation to the female genitals (the ‘cesspit vagina’)
and female buttocks results in a compensatory exaggeration of exomastolagnia,
i.e. results in hyperexomastolagnia. This subject was referred to before and is
dealt with more fully elsewhere in this series.
73. In exofemorolagnia, sphericolagnia—though still important in the gradual
narrowing of the thighs from above downwards with a distinct convexity,
especially at the back—is of less importance than in exopygolagnia, but leiolagnia
and malakolagnia are as important or, especially in relation to the medial sides of
the thighs, more important. In fact, the medial sides of the thighs, being in the
immediate vicinity of the vulva, are the most exerotopoeic (as well as
enderotopoeic) part of the whole paragenital area. A hand stroking the medial
side of the thigh is most unlikely to stop there: it will almost certainly find its
way to the genitals. The reference here is to the man’s hand caressing the woman’s
thigh, but women too, if they are hesitant about seeking cheirophallolagnia, often
place a hand on the man’s thigh in the sure knowledge that he will move it to his
penis.
Because of the position of the female genitals between the thighs, the space
between the woman’s thighs, whether actual or potential, has the significance of
being a vestibule or entrance to the womb, and is thus a hysteroid of immense exand enderotopoeic importance. We refer to the actual space when the thighs are
parted (or, to use a highly significant colloquialism, when the thighs are ‘open’)
as the interfemoral space; the potential space between the thighs when they are
held close together (or when they are ‘closed’) is referred to as the interfemoral
sinus. The corresponding forms of eroticism are referred to as space
mesofemorolagnia and sinus mesofemorolagnia, respectively. As noted before,
penetration into a woman’s interfemoral space, or penetration to her genitals
through the interfemoral space, may be physical (with the hand or with the trunk
and penis etc.) or merely visual and therefore ideal. In erotendophoria, here as
elsewhere, visual penetration may be complete, viz. to the woman’s own body
(in this case to her genitals) through her outerwear and/or underwear, or it may
be incomplete, viz. through her outerwear to her underwear.
74. In sharp contrast to exofemorolagnia, in exocnemolagnia in men
sphericolagnia is paramount, and aesthetic ideas in relation to the female leg are
predominantly related to its curves, which are mainly due to the fact that the
smooth and not overmuscular female leg typically narrows gradually from its
fleshy wider upper part (the calf) to its narrower lower part. However, despite its
aesthetic importance, the leg is of very limited erotic importance for the obvious
reason that it is much further from the genitals than either the thighs or the buttocks.
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52. Organolagnia
75. Exopodolagnia in men—the foot being the furthest part of the body from
the genitals—is the least marked, and least important, of all forms of
paraedeolagnia. Even apart from its distance from the genitals, the female foot is
not particularly smooth or soft, nor does it have any notable curves, since the
main curve, that of the heel, places the foot at right angles to the leg and so
(unlike the streamlined curves of the leg) tends to destroy the perception of any
sphericity or roundness. However, the female foot is in fact of considerable
importance in erotic art, for two main reasons which may be ultimately related:
the fact that in female orgasm the foot tends to be hyperplantar-flexed, and the
strange invention of the high-heeled shoe as a characteristically female item of
dress.
Because of the myotonolagnic hyperplantar-flexion of the woman’s feet at
orgasm, the hyperplantar-flexed female foot is of erotic significance (in the
myotonolagnic sense, though scopically perceived), and is widely featured in
erotic photographic art, with or without suggesting (by the posture of the body
and the facial expression etc.) that the woman photographed is experiencing
orgasm. The relation of the hyperplantar-flexed female foot to orgasm may also
provide the ultimate explanation for the invention of high-heeled shoes for
women—a type of shoe whose most characteristic and most basic feature is the
hyperplantar-flexion of the foot at the ankle joint, thus placing the female foot in
an inherently erotic posture, the association with eroticism being all the more
conspicuous as hyperplantar-flexion is a most unusual position for the foot to
take in ordinary everyday life. However, high-heeled female shoes are also
erotopoeic because of a number of other factors which may briefly be noted
here. The high-heeled shoe replaces the right angle of the natural ankle with a
succession of curves, both on the upper and on the lower surfaces of the foot,
extending from the ankle joint to the toes. Above all, the relative straightening of
the foot at the ankle joint—what may be described as the streamlining of the foot
in relation to the leg—is strongly evocative of sphericophilia and sphericolagnia.
Moreover, the high-heeled female shoe is often fenestrated, i.e. is often made of
openwork which partly conceals and partly exposes the foot. This evokes the
law of contrast and greatly enhances the erotendophoric motif of the ‘foot inside
the shoe’; however, the hyperplantar-flexion created by the high heel, with its
association with female orgasm (as noted above), makes an even greater
contribution to the erotendophoria of the high-heeled shoe than that of fenestration.
Finally, it will be noted that all these factors in euerotic shoe-eroticism are virtually
entirely visual, or are visually perceived.
The up-and-down rhythmic movement of the woman’s foot in walking in
high-heeled shoes evoking the gynotropic phalloid motif because of the similarity
of this type of movement to the serpentine form of phallic motility, is probably of
limited importance in euerotic shoe-eroticism.
It is evident that the high-heeled female shoe transforms the more or less
erotically and aesthetically indifferent female foot into an object of considerable
erotic and aesthetic appeal. But, as with most clothes fashions and cosmetics for
women, this is only achieved by the degradation of women by treating them as
man’s pastime and plaything. High-heeled female shoes may certainly have a
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
place at fancy-dress parties, but their use in everyday life is unworthy of any
civilization with even the rudiments of rationalism.
76. Endoparaedeolagnia in both sexes largely depends on proximity to the
genitals, being greatest in the thighs, especially their medial sides, less marked in
the buttocks, and negligible in the legs and feet.
77. Here it is important to refer briefly to mesofemorolagnia, i.e. eroticism
of the interfemoral sinus (with the thighs held close together) and the interfemoral
space (with the thighs parted), mainly in the woman, to which we refer as sinus
mesofemorolagnia and space mesofemorolagnia, respectively. That
mesofemorolagnia applies mainly in relation to the interfemoral sinus and space
in the woman is due to the obvious reason that the female genitals, unlike the
male genitals (which are prominent and are therefore fully conspicuous at all
times), lie largely hidden between the woman’s thighs and do not come into full
view unless the thighs are widely parted. In fact parting the thighs is virtually an
integral part of coitus for the woman. The immense importance of parting the
thighs in the woman in myotonolagnic terms is referred to in the monograph on
The Oral Concept of the World.
The interfemoral sinus and space, like the intermammary sinus and the pygal
cleft—all of which are hollows in the body which, in the woman, represent
hysteroids—may be treated as organs whose eroticism has endo- and exo-forms.
Thus we speak of endomesofemorolagnia in the woman and
exomesofemorolagnia in the man. More generally, the endo- and exo-forms in
relation to the eroticism of all these hysteroid hollows represent the woman’s
desire for erotic penetratedness and the man’s desire for erotic penetration,
respectively.
Thus—speaking always of the interfemoral sinus and space as hysteroids in
the female body—the importance of the interfemoral sinus lies, on the one hand,
in the fact that it forms part (viz. the anterior part) of the pygal cleft, and, on the
other hand, in the practice of phallomesofemorolagnia (‘interfemoral coitus’),
i.e. inserting the erect penis between the woman’s thighs (held close together) in
close proximity to her vulva, to which we have already referred in dealing with
phallovulvolagnia. By contrast, the interfemoral space, both because it exposes
the vulva to view and because of its close relation to coitus, is very important
enderotically to the woman and exerotically to the man. Space
endomesofemorolagnia is erotopoeic to the woman for at least three reasons:
firstly, because of myotonolagnia, parting the thighs (or having them parted by
the man) being as erotopoeic to the woman myotonolagnically as is pelvic thrust
to the man; secondly, because of apragmoscopolagnia, viz. the woman exposing
her genitals to the man; and, thirdly, because of the function (or role) of the
interfemoral space as a penetrable hysteroid—a sort of vestibule or entrance—
that leads to the primary hysteroid, viz. the womb, and that has to be penetrated
by the man before he can have access to the woman’s womb, either in the practical
sense (e.g. penetrating the interfemoral space with his hand, mouth, or trunk and
penis for the purpose of cheiro-, stomato-, or phallogynaedeolagnia) or in the
ideal sense (e.g. penetrating the interfemoral space visually in order to see the
woman’s genitals or her underwear, which is particularly important in
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52. Organolagnia
erotendophoria). The corresponding factors in space exomesofemorolagnia in
the man are pragmoscopolagnia, viz. seeing the woman’s genitals, and the
penetration (practical and ideal) of the interfemoral space as a hysteroid that
leads to the woman’s true womb (there is no equivalent in the man to the woman’s
myotonolagnia in parting her thighs: pelvic thrust in the man is related to the
woman’s genitals, not to her interfemoral space). The significance of all these
factors is well illustrated by the common practice in coitus, in the usual dorsal
position, of the woman clasping the man firmly between her thighs, putting her
feet on his back, and completely encircling him with her lower limbs. In the
clasping action we see the myotonolagnia of parting the thighs operating fully in
relation to the adductor muscles, whose contraction is probably much more
erotopoeic to the woman than that of the abductors of the thighs (this point is
dealt with in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World). In encircling
the man with her lower limbs we see the full significance of the interfemoral
space as a penetrable or receptive hysteroid so that we may refer to the woman’s
action in this respect as ‘taking the man in her thighs’ in the same way as a man
embracing a woman is said to ‘take her in his arms’. Finally, the woman’s feet
on the man’s back may be used to draw him closer to her (or to lift herself closer
to him) to maximize phallic penetration, but this does not concern us here.
78. Hyperparaedeolagnia is a vast subject, especially if we include its cultural
aspects and such closely related forms of dyseroticism as those of leather, rubber,
and plastic dyslagnia. Most of these subjects are dealt with elsewhere in this
series so that here we can concentrate on the main points.
Broadly speaking, hyperparaedeolagnia, in both its exerotic and enderotic
forms, is closely related to coproidolagnia, phthorolagnia, and, indirectly, to
homolagnia and (in men) reversed heterolagnia. From the aestheticolagnic point
of view, hyperparaedeolagnia is largely based on hyperosphreticolagnia and, less
importantly, hypergeusticolagnia; pragmoscopolagnia and hapticolagnia, though
important, owe their importance mainly to evoking osphreticolagnic and
geusticolagnic associations. This is in contrast to euerotic paraedeolagnia, which
is predominantly scopolagnic and hapticolagnic.
We can understand the essence of hyperparaedeolagnia if we view it, not as a
form of paraedeolagnia or paragenital eroticism, but rather as paraproctolagnia
or pararectal eroticism—hence the relation to palaeoscatistic idioms such as
coproidolagnia and phthorolagnia.
79. Hyperexopygolagnia and hyperexofemorolagnia in men are essentially
coproidolagnic conditions and are therefore forms of autolagnic dyseroticism.
Hyperosphreticolagnia is the main aestheticolagnic factor in them, due to the
proximity of the buttocks and the thighs to the anus—which typically illustrates
the statement made above about hyperparaedeolagnia being paraproctolagnic
rather than paraedeolagnic. Such men may also be apragmophthorolagnic to a
greater or lesser extent, and they generally suffer from passive male heterolagnia
in which the malodorous female buttocks and thighs represent coproid
gynophalloids. An admixture of (usually passive) homandrolagnia is also common
in these cases of passive male heterolagnia.
80. Hyperexopodolagnia in men, and the closely related condition of shoe1385
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
hypereroticism in relation to female shoes (i.e. shoes, slippers, etc.), are relatively
common. For although the feet are far-removed from the anus, they are sweaty
organs that generate their own malodour, which is imparted to the shoes they
wear. Thus hyperexopodolagnia and shoe-hypereroticism in men are essentially
coproidolagnic forms of autolagnic dyseroticism. These conditions are usually
associated with marked apragmophthorolagnia. The main aestheticolagnic forms
involved are those of hyperosphreticolagnia and, to a lesser extent,
hypergeusticolagnia, though both pragmoscopolagnia and hapticolagnia may play
an important role in evoking strong osphreticolagnic and geusticolagnic
associations. Reversed heterolagnia (i.e. passive male heterolagnia) is usual in
these men, often in association with a minor element of passive homandrolagnia.
The patients’ main interest lies in the desire to inspect, handle, and, above all,
sniff and lick women’s smelly feet and shoes: to them these objects (viz. women’s
feet and shoes) represent coproid gynophalloids. It is evident that the interest in
licking women’s smelly feet and shoes is essentially mysoborolagnic and (in
aestheticolagnic terms) hypergeusticolagnic. Moreover, female shoes with
excessively high and pointed heels—black is the usual colour preferred, which is
a phalloid—are often of special interest to these patients, not only because the
very long, pointed heels are of gynophalloid significance (because of their shape
and pointedness) but also because these heels are of immense
apragmophthorolagnic interest to the patients: clad in shoes with such high,
pointed heels, the woman can tread all over the patient as he is lying down,
including his genital area (genital-erotic masochism). Finally, these conditions
may be associated with leather, rubber, and/or plastic dyslagnia, and so with an
interest in women’s knee-high boots made of these materials, including their
odour (hyperosphreticolagnia), which is generally the primary factor, as well as
their feel (hyperhapticolagnia, in the form of hyperxestolagnia), and even the
creaking noise they make in walking (hyperacousticolagnia, in the form of
brontolagnia) and possibly also their taste (hypergeusticolagnia or
mysoborolagnia).
Although hyperexopodolagnia and shoe-hypereroticism in men are generally
basically hyperosphreticolagnic/coproidolagnic conditions in which the woman’s
smelly feet and shoes represent coproid gynophalloids, an occasional additional
factor is the visual (or pragmoscopolagnic) factor assimilating female podokinetics
to phallokinetics, viz. to the serpentine form of phallic motility, and thus providing
another visual gynophalloid representation in the female foot. We have noted
before that, in eueroticism, the up-and-down alternate movement of the woman’s
foot at the ankle joint in walking, especially in walking in high-heeled shoes,
may be evocative of the serpentine form of phallic motility, and may thus be
evocative of the gynotropic phalloid motif. In hyperexopodolagnia, the association
of female podokinetics with male phallokinetics results in, not the evocation of
the gynotropic phalloid motif, but the perception in yet another form of a
gynophalloid in the woman’s foot. That this visual factor is only of sporadic
importance in hyperexopodolagnia—as against the overwhelming importance
of the hyperosphreticolagnic/coproidolagnic factor—is evident from the fact that
although the hand has the same capacity as the foot for quasi-serpentine phalloid
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52. Organolagnia
motility (but, of course, none of the malodour of the foot), hyperexocheirolagnia
in men is a rare condition whereas hyperexopodolagnia and shoe-hypereroticism
are common conditions.
81. Hyperendoparaedeolagnia in both sexes, like the exerotic form, is usually
closely associated with coproidolagnia, phthorolagnia, and also with homolagnia
and/or (in men) reversed heterolagnia. For example, these patients may have an
apragmophthorolagnic desire to be whipped, scratched, pinched, or bitten on or
in the buttocks or the back (the back in this case seems to belong to the
paragenital—or pararectal—area) or the thighs. Moreover, patients who enjoy
such apragmophthorolagnia may have overt coproidolagnic tendencies, e.g. an
interest in proctolagnic (heterolagnic or homolagnic, including homogynolagnic)
relations.
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Monograph 53
ORGANOPHORIA
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Organophoria
02—05
2.
Erotendophoria
06—19
3.
Mixandrogynia
20—22
4.
Vestolagnia (Clothes-eroticism)
23—43
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53. Organophoria
INTRODUCTION
01. In the monograph on Erotogenesis we dealt with the basis of eroticism in
kyemetrophilia. Here we shall deal with the closely related concept of
organophoria and with three of its more important derivatives or applications:
erotendophoria, mixandrogynia, and vestolagnia (clothes-eroticism). The ground
has already been partly covered in other monographs, notably the one on
Geneosemeia, but there is still much to be said here.
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Chapter 1
ORGANOPHORIA
02. In the monograph on Erotogenesis we have seen that the essence of
eroticism is kyemetrophilia, i.e. kyesioid or quasi-conceptive mother-love. Closely
related to the quasi-conceptive concept of eroticism in general and coitus in
particular is organophoria, i.e. the concept of eroticism in terms of organ-bearing,
viz. the external bearing (exorganophoria) or internal bearing (endorganophoria)
by men and women of certain sexual organs, of which the most important are the
penis, the breast, and the child (as an internal (before birth) or external (after
birth) appendage or ‘organ’ of his or her mother). Thus the man is an
exophallophore, i.e. the bearer of an external penis, while the woman is an
exomastophore, i.e. the bearer of external breasts. Moreover, the woman is an
endopaedophore, i.e. the bearer of internal children (viz. before they are born)
and an exopaedophore, i.e. the bearer of external children (viz. after they are
born). (In fact a woman bears children first in her (i.e. in her womb), then on her
(i.e. in her arms, especially in the suckling stage), and finally around her (i.e.
when they are older and are running around her): the latter two represent
exopaedophoria, the first represents endopaedophoria.) Furthermore, on the basis
of the equation of breasts and children (e.g. women grow children (or babies)
inside them just as they grow breasts on them), the woman may be said to be an
endomastophore, i.e. the bearer of internal breasts; she is also an endophallophore
in coitus (so-called coital endophallophoria), i.e. the bearer of the man’s penis
internally in coitus. Finally, we refer to the external penis, the external child, and
the external breast as exorgans, and to the internal penis, the internal child, and
the internal breast as endorgans; and we refer to the representations of endorgans
in erotendophoria as endorganoids. (Thus the endorganoid may be a phalloid, a
paedoid, or a mastoid—or, more precisely, an endophalloid, an endopaedoid, or
an endomastoid.)
03. It will be evident from the foregoing account that organophoria has two
forms: exorganophoria, or simply exophoria, and endorganophoria, or simply
endophoria. Despite the equation, or equivalence, of the three organs concerned,
they obviously greatly differ in one very important respect: their active devouring
power or their passive devourability. Thus, in terms of the oral concept, the child
in utero is passively devoured (in the preservative sense) by his or her mother,
whereas the penis in coital endophallophoria is credited, by both the man and the
woman, with boundless active internal preservative devouring power. The euerotic
man regards the breast as being eminently (externally and internally) passively
devourable. By contrast, the man with passive male heterolagnia may perceive
the breast as a gynophalloid with active internal and external devouring power,
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53. Organophoria
while the homolagnic or amphilagnic man may perceive the woman who is
pregnant by another man as a phallic woman and may be attracted to her
specifically for this reason.
04. In addition to the basic organophoric concepts just mentioned, there are
numerous other less important organophoric concepts, some of which may be
noted here. Thus, because of the equation, or equivalence, of the three organs
concerned (the penis, the breast, and the child), the (external or internal) breast
may be conceived as a breast-child, while (especially on the woman’s part) the
(external or internal) penis may be similarly conceived as a penis-child (viz. as
the man’s penis-child or, in coitus, either as the man’s or as temporarily her own
penis-child). According to another organophoric concept, in so far as the man
actively devours the woman internally with his penis in coitus, she becomes (from
both his and her point of view) his (external) penis. However, it should be
emphasized here that endo- and exopaedophoria, and also exo- and
endomastophoria—which are all typically female characteristics—are closely
related to both gestational penetrability and fertility (which are hysteroids and
are hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic idioms) whereas
endophallophoria is closely related to the other form of hysteroid penetrability,
viz. coital penetrability (which is also a hysterosemeiophilic and
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom). (The relation of the plurality or multiplicity (viz.
duality) of the breasts to the concepts of the internal breast (endomastophoria)
and hysteroid fertility is dealt with in the monograph on Organolagnia.) In a
different way, coitus may be organophorically conceived in terms of the man
becoming, quasi-conceptively, the woman’s internal child, internal breast, or
internal penis, or her external penis. (Thus, in organophoric terms, the man may,
in one sense, be said to set out in his first coital phase to make the woman his
external penis, only to end up, in his second coital phase, becoming her internal
penis or her internal child.)
The various organophoric concepts cited above explain much clinical material
that would otherwise be wholly unintelligible, as in the case of the woman who
reports that, at a certain point in precoital loveplay, she invites coitus by telling
her husband ‘Bring my little boy to me’, or the one who nicknames her lover’s
penis ‘John Junior’ (John being her lover’s name), or for that matter those lovers
of both sexes who, in their erotic loveplay, give nicknames to the woman’s breasts
or refer to them as ‘the twins’—to say nothing of actual erotic practice,
heterolagnic (euerotic and dyserotic), autolagnic, and homolagnic.
(Not so long ago, when ‘oral sex’ (stomataedeolagnia) was not as openly
talked about as it is now, a popular belief widely held by many women—true to
our hyperexomastolagnic civilization that prizes hypermegalomastia as the ideal
of female beauty—was that regular stomatophallolagnia with the swallowing of
semen causes a woman’s breasts to enlarge. This belief, which was sometimes
used by married women to justify what they otherwise cosmophobically regarded
as a shameful stomatolagnic interest, essentially rests on the concept that just as
semen (commonly called ‘seed’) ‘sown’ in the woman’s womb grows into a child,
so does semen sown higher up—in her mouth—grow into breasts. We can
understand why the ‘internal child’ (the fetus in utero) is frequently equated, not
only with the ordinary (or external) breast, but also with an ‘internal breast’.)
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05. We shall have more to say about other organophoric concepts when we
deal with the subjects of erotendophoria and mixandrogynia. Here, however, it
is worth noting that, in one way, we contrast the penis and phallophoria as male
characteristics with the breast and the child, and so with mastophoria and
paedophoria, as female characteristics; yet, in a different way, we correlate these
characteristics in the two sexes. This correlation is not only because phallophoria
is the equivalent in the man of mastophoria and paedophoria in the woman but
also, and more importantly, because of the quasi-conceptive visitation of the
womb by the penis in coitus, in which the penis lodges in the woman’s womb in
much the same way as the child (or fetus) does through the whole duration of
pregnancy—a similarity which is obvious even without any knowledge of physical
paternity (as was the case among the lowest savages) but which acquires greater
significance with the discovery of the relation of coitus (i.e. the quasi-conceptive
lodgement of the man’s penis in the woman’s womb) to conception (i.e. the
lodgement of the child in the mother’s womb till birth). It is in this context that
we can understand all the different concepts of organophoria. For example, we
can understand why the woman may, inter alia, conceive the penis as the man’s
external penis or as his (external) child or (in the visit of the penis to her womb in
coitus) as her own internal child or as her own internal or external penis. Moreover,
in so far as the woman may entertain phantasies of a penetrative-active kind, she
may cherish the wish to penetrate the man and become his internal child or his
internal penis (all of which, in the case of the euerotic woman, is most likely to
be basically a reflection of her own desire for quasi-conceptive coital
penetratedness).
In short, whereas the equation of breasts (external or internal) with children
(external or internal) is derived mainly from the fact that women characteristically
have both (or they grow both, as it were, viz. they grow children in them and
breasts on them), the equation of the penis with the breast and the child is derived
not only from the equivalence (in organophoric terms) of the penis in the man to
the breast and the child in the woman but also, and above all, from the assimilation
of the penis and the child inasmuch as they both share the same dwelling-place
so to speak, viz. the woman’s womb (the penis in coitus, the child in pregnancy).
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53. Organophoria
Chapter 2
EROTENDOPHORIA
06. Erotendophoria (or erotic endophoria or the insideness concept) is an
organophoric concept derived from the erotic aspects of endophoria, viz. the
woman’s coital endophallophoria, her gestational endopaedophoria, and (on the
basis of the equation of breast and child) her endomastophoria; thus
erotendophoria is closely related to hysterosemeiolagnic coital and gestational
penetrability and to mixosemeiolagnia (from which (viz. mixosemeiolagnia)—
in so far as endophallophoria is concerned—it is virtually indistinguishable);
erotendophoria is represented by one object being inside another, usually in
relation to the woman’s body and/or her clothing and makeup etc. Thus an
erotendophoric representation has two components (or two elements): the
endorganoid inside and the hysteroid outside. As noted before, the endorganoid
may be a phalloid, a paedoid, or a mastoid. In general—and without in the least
trying to draw hard and fast rules—plurality (or multiplicity), i.e. the representation
of an endorganoid by more than one object (or by multiple endorganoids inside
the same hysteroid), suggests a paedoid or mastoid endorganoid, whereas unity
(or singularity) of the endorganoid is more suggestive of a phalloid endorganoid.
This is obviously due to the fact that the penis is a monadic organ whereas the
plurality of both the breasts (in the form of duality) and children (a woman
generally produces several children) is closely related to another
hysterosemeiophilic and hysterosemeiolagnic idiom: fertility or fecundity. For
example, in odontolagnia, the woman’s white teeth showing through her slightly
parted lips, because of their multiplicity, represent a mastoid or paedoid, rather
than a phalloid, endorganoid. However, it is important to emphasize that the
three main forms of erotendophoria—viz. endophallophoria, endopaedophoria,
and endomastophoria—cannot be sharply separated as essentially they all
ultimately represent one and the same thing: female penetrability. We have indeed
recognized the subdivision of female penetrability into coital penetrability and
gestational penetrability, but we have also emphatically categorized coital
penetrability as being quasi-conceptive. Similarly, we have recognized that the
hysteroid properties of coital penetrability, gestational penetrability, and fertility,
all have their erotic (hysterosemeiolagnic) as well as their non-erotic
(hysterosemeiophilic) geneosemeic forms. In the same way we have to recognize
the subdivision of erotendophoria into three forms depending on the endorganoid
represented—a subdivision to which we frequently have to refer as it is not without
importance—but we should equally recognize the deeper basic unity of female,
i.e. of hysteroid, penetrability. Thus the most important point to note is that the
three forms of erotendophoria, far from being mutually exclusive, generally blend
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together, even though one form may be eminently predominant. In this overlap,
or blend, of the different forms, erotendophoria owes its erotopoeicity ultimately
to the fact that it evokes the penetrative-active drive in the man and the receptivepassive drive in the woman.
07. Erotendophoria—the concept of insideness—is closely, and indeed
inseparably, related to the concept of erotic penetration. The main difference
between erotendophoria and erotic penetration is that erotendophoria is a state or
condition, viz. the state or condition of one object being inside another, whereas
penetration is an act or action—but this difference is only relative since penetration,
once the act has taken place, becomes a state, and the term ‘penetration’ itself
can be used to describe a state as well as an act. Moreover, the perception of
erotendophoria frequently involves penetration (e.g. inside the woman’s clothing),
either in an ideal sense, e.g. visually, or in a concrete sense, e.g. with the hand.
Thus erotendophoria and erotic penetration, though not synonymous—erotic
penetration is in fact a much more general term than erotendophoria—are, in
certain respects, very closely related. As noted before, erotendophoria is
erotopoeic because it evokes the penetrative-active impulse in the man and the
receptive-passive impulse in the woman. That is why hypererotendophoria, e.g.
in the form of hypervestolagnia, is common in autolagnics in whom (as noted in
the monograph on Autolagnia) erotendophoric motifs may be used to whet their
flagging (or precarious) heterolagnia (precarious, of course, because of its
admixture with autolagnia).
That organolagnic hapticolagnic perception does not always reduce the
importance of simultaneous erotendophoric perception is illustrated by the case
of those individuals for whom it makes a great deal of difference whether
hapticolagnic contact—manual, oral, and even coital—is made with the woman
completely naked or with her partly, or even fully, dressed (with her clothes
disarranged or displaced to allow access to her body). This explains, for example,
the availability on the market at the present time of so-called ‘open-crotch pants’,
i.e. women’s pants or knickers with a vertical opening to overlie the vulva—an
opening which allows full coitus without the pants having to be taken off or even
taken down, the woman being doubly penetrated, viz. her clothing as well as her
body are penetrated.
Whereas coitus and gestation—the prototypes of erotendophoria—represent
erotendophoria in a completely concrete or practical form, entoplerolagnia (erotic
fullness) represents it in an ideal form since the endorganoid distending the ‘full’
organ from within (viz. distending the breast or female cheek or lip etc.) is an
ideal endorganoid: it is merely the swelling fleshiness and roundness of the organ
itself.
08. As the basic factor in erotendophoria in relation to vestolagnia is hysteroid
penetrability, erotendophoric vestolagnia is always related to the receptive-passive
role in eroticism, and this is true of heterolagnia as well as of homolagnia and
even autolagnia proper, in both sexes. Thus in erotendophoric vestolagnia it is
always the receptive-passive individual who wears the vestolagnic clothing. This
means that in normal heterolagnia—the primary form of all eroticism—
erotendophoria in both men and women is related to female clothing as it is worn
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53. Organophoria
by the woman. That is why an account of erotendophoric vestolagnia will
necessarily be mainly an account of female dress. However, pathological cases
also occur, in the form of hypererotendophoric vestolagnia in both sexes, in a
heterolagnic, homolagnic, or wholly autolagnic context. Since it is always the
receptive-passive individual who wears the erotendophoric clothing, this means
that erotendophoric clothing is worn by—or erotendophoria is perceived in relation
to the dress of—the woman in the case of normal heterolagnia (which is the
primary form of erotendophoric vestolagnia), the man in the case of a heterolagnic
relation in which either the woman or the man suffers from reversed heterolagnia,
the receptive-passive partner in a homolagnic relation in either sex, and, finally,
the patient himself or herself in autolagnia proper if he or she has a predominance
of receptive-passive over penetrative-active desire in his or her autolagnia.
Because of this association of erotendophoria with receptive-passive eroticism,
erotendophoric vestolagnia in both sexes, whether euerotic or dyserotic, most
often, though by no means invariably, involves female (as distinct from male)
clothing. For example, in autolagnia proper, hypererotendophoric individuals of
both sexes generally masturbate wearing female, not male, (outer and/or under-)
clothing. However, a woman with reversed heterolagnia may not be able to ask
her husband or lover to dress in women’s clothes, and may therefore have to
express her erotendophoric vestolagnic interest in him in relation to his ordinary
male clothing.
Concerning the tendency in all forms of erotendophoric vestolagnia—euerotic
and dyserotic—for female clothing to be used, it should be noted here that all
female clothing, by the very fact that it is designated by phobophronesic society
as female, is inseparably associated with erotendophoria, i.e. with the hysteroid
penetrability of the female.
09. The perception of erotendophoria is mainly visual (i.e. scopolagnic) and,
to a lesser extent, tactile (i.e. hapticolagnic). In all cases there is also a large
psychological (or ideational) factor (hence the term ‘the insideness concept’),
which is closely and inseparably related to scopolagnia (since much of human
thought rests on a visual basis). For example, women usually get dressed in front
of a mirror, which allows the woman visual as well as tactile perception of the
erotendophoric vestolagnia of her clothing; but, above all, there is her mental
awareness, which is ultimately based on visual perception, of herself inside (or
enveloped by) her clothing (which is particularly true if the clothes she puts on
are meant to be ‘attractive’ or ‘sexy’, i.e. erotopoeic).
The visual or scopolagnic perception of erotendophoria—pragmoscopolagnic
in the man and apragmoscopolagnic in the woman in normal eroticism—
frequently involves visual penetration, i.e. penetration (in an ideal sense) with
the eyes. Thus, in the case of erotendophoric vestolagnia, looking up a woman’s
skirt or down a woman’s blouse implies, as it were, visual penetration into (or
inside) her clothing. Similarly, in the case of erotendophoric organolagnia,
admiring a woman’s blue eyes (i.e. her colourful eyeballs as they lie inside her
palpebral fissures) or her snow-white teeth (i.e. her mastoleukolagnic teeth as
they lie inside her mouth), has the same implication of visually penetrating into
a cavity (or cavities) in the woman’s body. However, it is evident that there is no
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
visual penetration in the perception of erotendophoria in a colour contrast in the
same layer of clothing, or in a colour contrast produced in a woman with a very
white skin by her jet-black hair or by the pink pigmentation of the nipples of her
breasts, or for that matter by artificially painting her lips and her fingernails and
toenails with bright-red cosmetics.
It is obvious that visual penetration in the case of erotendophoric organolagnia
represents, in an ideal sense, erotic penetration into the woman herself (e.g. into
her eyes, i.e. her palpebral fissures, in the case of erotendophoric ophthalmolagnia,
and into her mouth in the case of erotendophoric odontolagnia). But it is important
to note that this applies equally to erotendophoric vestolagnia: for in
erotendophoric vestolagnia the woman’s clothing is equated with the woman
herself, or is regarded as part or as an appendage of her, so that penetrating her
clothing visually—or, for that matter, penetrating it practically (or physically or
concretely, e.g. with the hand, mouth, or penis)—is tantamount to erotically
penetrating the woman herself.
The tactile or hapticolagnic perception of erotendophoria is typically
represented, in the case of vestolagnia, by the woman as she wears her own
female clothing (which may apply to the woman (always in relation to receptivepassive eroticism) in a heterolagnic, homolagnic, or completely autolagnic context,
and may apply to a male transvestolagnic (again always in relation to receptivepassive eroticism) in a completely autolagnic or in a homolagnic or, very rarely,
passive-heterolagnic context).
10. Erotendophoric representations may be naturally occurring or they may
be artificially contrived. Regarding the former, coitus and gestation are of course
the ultimate prototypes of erotendophoria, but here we shall deal with examples
of organolagnia involving erotendophoria (erotendophoric organolagnia).
Regarding artificially contrived erotendophoric representations, these are usually
created in the name of art (in the widest sense of art); the best examples are seen
in the vestolagnia of female dress and in female cosmetics. We shall deal with
erotendophoric vestolagnia at some length later.
*
*
11. First we deal with erotendophoric organolagnia. This, in relation to eyeeroticism (ophthalmolagnia), is due to the fact that the palpebral fissure (i.e. the
fissure or opening between the two eyelids) has a hysteroid significance in the
woman—hence, inter alia, the fact that it is regarded in many parts of the world
as being more ‘beautiful’ the wider it is, and also the fact that in phobophronesic
civilization it is often emphasized by the practice (or custom) of women painting
their eyelids with cosmetics in the same way as they paint the lips of their mouths
(cf. in our own civilization the use of ‘mascara’, ‘eye-shadow’, and ‘eye-liner’
for the eyes and ‘lipstick’ for the lips). However, the erotendophoric significance
of the female eye goes deeper: the eyeball in the woman (or, to be more precise,
the visible part of it)—lying as it is inside her palpebral fissure, colourful (and so
evocative of erotendophoric colour contrast), highly motile (motility being a
phallic characteristic), and equally capable of hiding away and of peeping out at
the outside world (which enhances its motile associations)—is frequently evocative
of erotendophoric organolagnia. The teeth (odontolagnia) are other little organs
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53. Organophoria
that lodge inside a cavity in the woman’s body. The fact that they are generally
admired for their (presumably mastoleukolagnic) whiteness, and also the fact of
their plurality (or multiplicity), suggest that their erotendophoric representation
is endomastophoric or endopaedophoric rather than endophallophoric. The
erotendophoric significance of odontolagnia explains the poetic descriptions of
the ‘beauty’ of white female teeth, the poet expressing his desire to press them to
his lips, etc. In general, the main erotic importance of the tongue (glossolagnia)
lies partly in its capacity to lick (which has hapticolagnic, and sometimes also
geusticolagnic, implications as well as being frequently associated with sucking
with the lips), and partly in its phalloid capacity to penetrate the partner’s body,
e.g. in allelostomatolagnia. However, the erotendophoric significance of the
tongue (the ‘tongue inside the mouth’ motif)—which may be combined with its
other roles—is evident in the case of the man who, in allelostomatolagnia, not
merely inserts his tongue into the woman’s mouth but also specifically seeks her
tongue inside her mouth to rub the tips of the two organs together (or more of
them, at the height of passion). In a very different way, a woman’s face that is
partly or largely hidden from view by her hair (or, of course, by a veil whether
worn for ‘modesty’ or for decoration, but this touches on the subject of
erotendophoric vestolagnia), may evoke erotendophoria (the additional
significance in this case of the hair falling over the face as a catatropolagnic and
prosthekolagnic mastoid appendage does not concern us here). Yet another
example of erotendophoric organolagnia which, though organolagnic, is partly
contrived, is that of the erotendophoric motif enacted with the breasts and the
arms that is commonly seen in contemporary nude photography, in which the
woman uses one or both arms to form some kind of circle through which one or
both breasts protrude (as noted in the monograph on Geneosemeia).
Erotendophoria evoked by organolagnic colour contrasts, e.g. in relation to
black hair or nipple pigmentation against white skin, has been referred to, and
will be dealt with more fully later, in this chapter.
*
*
12. Erotendophoric vestolagnia, which is normally exclusively limited to
female dress, is the most important single manifestation of erotendophoria. It is
easy to see the relation of dress or clothing, as distinct from natural nudity, to
erotendophoria. For the concept of insideness, like the law of contrast, is inherent
in dress: clothing, by its very nature, partly or wholly covers and envelops the
body. We shall return to this point later, but here we may note that the concept of
insideness, with its inseparability from the concept of female penetrability, is
inherent in any clothing that covers the female body. Thus erotendophoria is
inherent in the woman’s body as a whole being inside her dress just as it is inherent
in her hands being inside her gloves, her feet inside her shoes, her legs inside her
stockings, her genitals inside her pants, her breasts inside the ‘cups’ of her brassiere
or the bodice of her dress, etc. In fact erotendophoria and the law of contrast are
inherent in the very idea of dress, i.e. of covering the (female) body with some
form of clothing, to such an extent that they may be evoked even if the clothing
is not worn by the woman and does not actually cover any part of her body at all
but is merely lying in juxtaposition to it, the assumption being that it has just
been taken off.
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Erotendophoria is the most general and most important specifically erotic
single factor in vestolagnia—normal and pathological vestolagnia, in a
heterolagnic, homolagnic, or completely autolagnic context—even though other
factors may also be present, and may in some cases overshadow erotendophoria.
(The law of contrast—the only other factor inherent in dress—is not specifically
related to eroticism.) For example, in the hyperleio-malakolagnic and
coproidolagnic forms of dysvestolagnia, erotendophoria may be overshadowed,
but in the majority of cases the patients are not content with merely acquiring
clothing made of their favourite material (silk, nylon, rubber, etc.): they like to
masturbate while actually wearing it, i.e. they like to be inside (or enveloped by)
their favourite material while they are masturbating: they like to feel and see
themselves inside the material, and possibly also inspect themselves in a mirror
or set of mirrors, while wearing it—which shows the basic importance of
erotendophoria even in cases in which it is overshadowed by other forms of
vestolagnia.
13. To return to female clothing in normal heterolagnia: generally speaking
the erotopoeicity of female underclothes is greater than that of outer clothes.
This is due to the obvious fact that underclothes are closer to the body, and are
therefore more readily identified with the woman herself. Moreover,
erotendophoria may be evoked not only by the woman’s body being inside her
(outer and/or under-) clothing but also by one layer of her clothing being inside
another, e.g. by her underwear being inside her outerwear. For example, the lace
trimming of petticoats may be allowed to show below the hem of a woman’s
skirt: what the skirt reveals is not the woman’s body but her underwear. Similarly,
dresses have sometimes been made of lace or of diaphanous material, with a
lining of either provocatively flesh-coloured or brightly coloured, but quite opaque,
material. The same principle applies to the pinafore dress—a collarless and
sleeveless dress worn over a blouse or sweater with a collar and sleeves—but
such erotendophoria in relation to two layers of outer clothing is usually much
weaker than that involving underclothing.
14. Entoplerolagnia, as we have noted, is a special form of erotendophoria.
The contribution of female dress, especially female underwear, to the evocation
of entoplerolagnia is often evident in everyday life, and is frequently featured in
art (photography, cinematography, and even sculpture). A typical example is
that of the evocation of entoplerolagnia by the slight bulge of soft feminine flesh
at the edge of a garment, especially in relation to underwear (e.g. brassiere, pants,
and stockings), as if too much feminine flesh is being crammed or impacted into
the garment, or—to put it differently—as if the garment is being overdistended
or stretched from within by the swelling feminine flesh inside it, as in the case of
the slight bulge of a swelling breast overhanging the cup of a brassiere, or the
slight bulge of flesh at the lower border of the girdle part of a brassiere, or at the
opening for the waist or the openings for the thighs in pants, or at the top of a
stocking where the thigh enters the stocking. It may be noted that all these
examples also show how the malakolagnic softness of the female body can be
visually (or scopolagnically) evoked by female clothes, viz. by the edge of a
garment, especially of underwear, gently indenting the soft flesh. However, it is
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53. Organophoria
obvious that the evocation of malakolagnia is a much simpler matter than the
evocation of entoplerolagnia: for virtually anything gently touching the soft female
body—even the tip of a finger—will indent it, and will thus visually evoke
malakolagnia, but it takes more than simple indenting to evoke entoplerolagnia.
It is interesting to note that, in relation to vestolagnia, both the indenting of
soft feminine flesh by the edge of a garment, which is evocative of malakolagnia,
and the swelling or bulge of feminine flesh next to where it is indented or
compressed, which is evocative of entoplerolagnia, are ultimately evocative of
the same basic concept of female penetrability.
*
*
15. In relation to the woman’s body (organolagnia), her clothes (vestolagnia),
and her cosmetics (which are closely related to vestolagnia in so far as they are
intended to ‘artistically’ beautify the woman), erotendophoria may take a
chromatic form, viz. it may be evoked by colour contrasts. Typically, in
erotendophoric colour contrasts a dark colour is represented against the
background of a light colour, but—less typically—this relation may be reversed,
the lighter colour being represented inside the darker colour. The two contrasting
colours may be as different as black and white, or they may be two allied colours,
e.g. brown and yellow, or two shades of the same colour, e.g. deep red and pink
or dark (‘navy’) blue and light (‘sky’) blue.
16. In addition to the erotendophoric significance of the colour contrast itself,
individual colours may have their own geneosemeiolagnic or other significance,
which may augment the erotopoeicity of the colour contrast. Broadly speaking,
black (melanism) and dark colours in general have androsemeiolagnic, more
specifically phallosemeiolagnic, associations, while white (leukism) and light or
pale colours in general have gynosemeiolagnic, more specifically
hysterosemeiolagnic and/or mastosemeiolagnic, associations. Thus, for example,
black in a colour contrast may sometimes—in addition to evoking chromatic
erotendophoria—evoke mixandrogynia in the form of the gynotropic phalloid
motif. A typical example of this is that of black stockings (which are generally
regarded as ‘sexy’ or erotopoeic, in an ideal or practical sense): the woman’s
lower limb (foot, leg, and lower two-thirds of the thigh), closely ensheathed by
the stocking, clearly creates an endophallophoric (or phallovaginal) type of
erotendophoric representation, which applies of course whatever the colour of
the stocking, but black stockings greatly augment the erotopoeicity of
erotendophoric representation by evoking the gynotropic phalloid motif because
of the phallosemeiolagnic significance of the colour black.
Another colour that is of immense geneosemeiolagnic importance is red
(enterythrolagnia). Red in all its shades—including scarlet, crimson, magenta,
and pink—is hysterosemeiolagnic (i.e. enterythrolagnia is a hysterosemeiolagnic
idiom) because of its association with the red (or pink) colour of mucous
membranes (and so of such hysteroids as the cavity of the mouth and the cavity
of the womb, viz. of the visible vaginal mucosa). Thus, in a colour contrast, red
in all its shades may be simultaneously evocative of both erotendophoria and
enterythrolagnia. Moreover, red in colour contrasts may be contrasted either
with a lighter colour, e.g. red against a white background, or with a darker colour,
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e.g. red against a black background: it will be noted that in the former case—viz.
red against a white background—red simultaneously represents a hysteroid in
relation to enterythrolagnia and the endorganoid (not the hysteroid) in relation to
the erotendophoric colour contrast.
Red—perhaps because of its enterythrolagnic significance—is widely used
alike in female dress and in female cosmetics, in many situations simultaneously
serving erotendophoric colour contrast (against another colour in the woman’s
clothing or against the woman’s own white skin) and enterythrolagnia.
17. Erotendophoric colour contrasts may be natural or artificial, and may be
organolagnic, vestolagnic, or related to cosmetics—in normal eroticism always
in relation to the woman.
Organolagnic colour contrasts are typically exemplified by the contrast against
the background of the woman’s skin (whether she is a blonde or a brunette) of
the colour of her eyes (whatever it is), the colour of her hair (virtually any colour
from blond to jet-black), and the pigmentation of her nipples and areolae.
However, it is obvious that some organolagnic colour contrasts are more striking
than others, e.g. jet-black hair in a woman of a very white complexion, and the
rosy-pink pigmentation of the nipple and areola in a very white breast. Regarding
the perception of an erotendophoric motif in the relation of the nipple (including
the areola) to the rest of the breast, it is worth noting that this arises both from the
colour contrast (a dark object in the middle of white skin) and from the motility
of the nipple (which—in the case of erotendophoria—assimilates the nipple to a
phalloid or, rather, to an endophalloid). (On the other hand, the nipple may be
conceived as a little breast (mamilla) lying inside a bigger breast (mamma), which
in erotendophoric terms echoes endomastophoria. This example shows the
frequent overlap and inseparability of the different endorganoids—endophalloids,
endopaedoids, and endomastoids—and indeed the basic identity (or unity) of
female penetrability.)
Combined with artificial colouring, organolagnic colour contrasts are evoked
by women’s practice of painting their lips, and sometimes also their fingernails
and toenails, a bright red colour (in which case erotendophoric colour contrast is
combined with enterythrolagnia—but this of course does not apply if colours
other than red are used, e.g. if fingernails are painted white, though white has its
own gynosemeiolagnic significance).
Organolagnic colour contrasts—natural or artificial—are particularly
important in relation to body orifices. This is evident in the use of cosmetics to
artificially colour the lips and the eyelids—or artificially deepen or alter their
colours, since both the lips and the eyelashes have their own natural colours. It is
obvious that the lips and the eyelids guard the entrances to the hysteroid cavities
of the mouth and of the sockets of the eyes (containing the eyeballs), respectively.
In a different way, the natural pigmentation of the nipple and areola provides
colour contrast in relation to the ‘mouth’ of the breast.
18. In vestolagnia, colour contrasts are particularly important where they
occur around or near openings in garments. However, other factors are also
frequently involved, either in the evocation of erotendophoria or of other forms
of vestolagnia. For example, frills or lace decorating openings in female
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53. Organophoria
underwear may simultaneously serve as mastoid prosthekolagnic appendages
and as erotendophoric representations through colour contrast (if they are of a
different colour from that of the garment they decorate), while the fact that they
emphasize openings in the garments enhances not only the hysterosemeiolagnic
representation of these openings but, more importantly, their erotendophoric
representation since these openings in the garments must have parts (or organs)
of the woman’s body going through them (e.g. the neck, the arms, the thighs, or
the trunk) thus converting the hysteroid representation of the openings in the
garments into a complete mixoid (or erotendophoric) representation.
Stripes in female outer and underwear, if they are of a different colour from
the background, may be used in a purely decorative capacity to add colour
enrichment, which essentially reflects the philophilic love of decoration and of
bright colours in general; in a different way, stripes may provide an erotendophoric
colour contrast; finally, in some cases stripes may evoke the gynotropic phalloid
motif.
*
*
19. Hypererotendophoria may be only quantitatively dyserotic, as in the
hypererotendophoria shown by some men with mild passive male heterolagnia
in their attempt to whet the more or less normal part of their heterolagnia in order
to achieve mixorthosis. On the other hand, hypererotendophoria may be
qualitatively as well as quantitatively dyserotic, as in all autolagnic cases in general,
including those of homolagnia as well as of autolagnia proper, and including
those of autolagnic erotendophoria in association with either hyperleiomalakolagnic or coproidolagnic dysvestolagnia. For example, apart from the
common practice among some passive homandrolagnics of dressing in female
outer and/or (more often) underwear, homandrolagnics have been known in rare
cases to dress their passive partners in special clothing to which home-made
devices have been added (e.g. zips, buckles, or buttons) to allow the patients to
have phalloproctolagnic or cheirophallolagnic relations with their partners without
the latter having to take off their clothing.
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Chapter 3
MIXANDROGYNIA
20. By mixandrogynia (or coital androgynia) we mean the temporary creation
in the coital union, conceived as unity rather than union, of one human being
who is both man and woman, i.e. a man-woman or androgyne.
Theoretically—viz. in the idealized (or complemented) form of
mixandrogynia, in which the woman may simultaneously have all the attributes
of femininity, including (exo- and endo-) paedophoria and mastophoria, as well
as endophallophoria—endophallophoric erotendophoria (with or without the
addition—not the substitution—of (exo- and endo-) paedophoria and mastophoria)
is mixandrogynic. However, in practice, mixandrogynia generally refers to far
less complete forms than that of the idealized (or complemented) form. Thus the
type of mixandrogynic representation generally encountered in practice may not
involve the genitals at all and, if it does, this is most often merely in a form that
expresses longing for the genitals of the opposite sex rather than one representing
the genital union of the sexes.
The implication of the foregoing statement is that although in practice we
generally regard a phalloid representation in relation to the woman (or her clothing
or makeup etc.) as being erotendophoric (viz. endophallophoric) if it is combined
with a hysteroid representation but as being mixandrogynic if it is not associated
with a hysteroid representation, we must remember that, strictly speaking,
endophallophoria is mixandrogynic in the full sense of being an integral part of
mixandrogynia as the representation of the coital unity of the sexes. To take a
hypothetical example: in our time, in which it is common for young men and
women to wear comic or ‘saucy’ badges, we can imagine the practice of young
men wearing badges bearing a representation of the female vulva, and young
women wearing badges bearing a representation of the male penis. Obviously
such saucy badges would serve as an expression of the longing by the wearers
for erotic relations with the opposite sex, more specifically coitus, but the important
point that concerns us here is that such representations are mixandrogynic but
not erotendophoric because the representation is either a hysteroid or a phalloid
representation but is not one that combines a phalloid with a hysteroid component
as erotendophoric (endophallophoric) representations do.
21. Thus, in a sense, coitus has a feminizing effect on the man, inasmuch as
in it he desires unity with a woman, and a masculinizing effect on the woman,
inasmuch as in it she desires unity with a man. It is interesting to note that the
myth of Hermaphroditos in ancient Greek mythology, from which the modern
scientific term ‘hermaphroditism’ is derived, clearly reflected the androgynic
concept of eroticism. Hermaphroditos, the son of the god Hermes and the goddess
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53. Organophoria
Aphrodite, is said to have had coitus with the nymph Salmacis in her fountain in
Caria, as a result of which they grew together into a single being that combined
male and female attributes. Licht mentions this myth and gives several other
interesting examples of the androgynic concept of eroticism among the ancient
Greeks, in relation to both their mythology and their customs or traditional
practices (SLG p.125 sqq.). Thus he refers to the hermaphroditic forms sometimes
made of the gods Eros, Dionysus, Priapus, and also of satyrs. The relation of all
these mythical beings to eroticism requires no comment. Again, he mentions the
practice in certain parts of ancient Greece of wearing the dress of the opposite
sex at marriage. Thus in Sparta the bride wore male dress, while in Cos the
bridegroom wore female dress. In Crete, brides were sent to bed before their
wedding night with a wooden image of Leucippus—a deity who had originally
been female but who was later turned into a male. The image of Leucippus was
hermaphroditic: in form and dress it was female, but the genitals were male.
22. Clearly the concept of mixandrogynia, which is derived from the
androgynic union that lies at the very basis of normal heterolagnia, has no more
to do either with homolagnia or with any fanciful psychic hermaphroditism
(whatever name may be given to it) than the normal inability to see or hear during
sleep has to do with blindness and deafness. As noted in detail in the monograph
on Geneosemeia, the gynotropic phalloid motif—which is one of the commonest
mixandrogynic representations in female dress—may be said to have its prototype
in the case of a hypothetical female dancer at a night-club who parades herself in
front of her audience holding a model penis in her hand: no one would think that
she is a lesbian who longs to be a man: on the contrary, she would be readily
assumed to be expressing (albeit with none of the ‘modesty’ or shame befitting a
‘respectable’ phobophronesic young woman) her normal heterolagnic desire for
a man or for men, more specifically for the penis (exophallolagnia). The same
applies for the hypothetical example we gave earlier of young men and women
wearing badges bearing a design of the genitals of the opposite sex. (Or, to take
an example from ordinary everyday life, in allelostomatolagnia a girl may insert
her tongue into her boyfriend’s mouth, not because of any (even fleeting and
perfectly normal) penetrative-active desire on her part, but merely to tell him
without words, ‘This is what I want!’ The man may take this to mean either that
she wants him to insert his tongue into her mouth or—in a fuller interpretation—
that she wants the full phallocolpolagnic relation.) This, in a greatly diluted
form, represents the ultimate significance of female dress with phallosemeiolagnic
motifs, e.g. black colour and certain types of stripes. We can understand why
black in female dress is popularly regarded as ‘sexy’, and why in some cultures
to this day unmarried young women are prohibited from wearing black outer or
underwear: black—unlike white or pink—is not the colour of virginity or female
‘purity’.
(One well-known medical writer was puzzled by the case of a man who was
erotically aroused by the sight of a girl smoking. Yet it is not at all difficult to see
the erotendophoric—in this case endophallophoric (or phallovaginal)—
significance of a woman having a cigarette (an elongated object of rhabdophalloid
shape) in her mouth (an obvious hysteroid). In fact, in nude photography, a
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
common motif is that of the nude young woman covering her genitals with one
hand while sucking the thumb (or another finger) of the other hand: the mere
combination of nudity and sucking leaves no doubt in the mind of the average
man in our time about what the young woman is supposed to want. A much
more overt representation is that of a young woman—even a fully dressed young
woman—putting a half-peeled banana to her open mouth. It is true that seeing a
girl eating a banana in the street would be no more erotopoeic to the ordinary
man than seeing one smoking a cigarette, but that both sights can readily be
conceived in erotic terms is obvious from the fact that in our time, with its
preoccupation with erotic matters, no man would imagine that a photographer
has gone to the trouble of taking a close-up photograph of a girl’s gaping mouth
ready to receive a banana merely for alimentary reasons.)
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53. Organophoria
Chapter 4
VESTOLAGNIA (CLOTHES-EROTICISM)
23. Vestolagnia, or clothes-eroticism, is only one aspect of the psychology of
clothes. Clothes—both outer and underclothes—have certain rational functions,
such as protection against the weather, e.g. against the cold and against rain, in
the case of outer clothes, and hygiene, e.g. absorption of sweat and traces of
excreta, in the case of underwear. But in phobophronesic civilization, clothes—
like other products of such civilization—are subject, on the one hand, to all the
irrational taboos of phobophronesia and, on the other hand, to all the rational and
irrational considerations of ‘art’, ‘beauty’, or ‘taste’, which have been
characteristically vitiated by such irrational factors as sacrificing comfort for
(real or imaginary) artistic beauty, the exploitation of one social class by another
(especially of women by men), and commercial greed. These latter factors have
been all-pervasive in clothes-eroticism.
24. In so far as cosmophobic taboos are concerned, the most important is the
shame taboo on nudity. This prohibits the exposure of the genitals in both sexes
in public and, in most cases, also of the female breasts (especially the nipples).
In its most complete form it has ordained that women in public places should
only be allowed to expose their faces, hands, and feet—even the faces have had
to be veiled in some cases. The taboo on exposing the genitals in both sexes,
which lies at the centre of the taboo on nudity, is (as noted in other monographs)
mainly due to conceiving eroticism in general, and coitus in particular, as an
excretory function in which the genitals perform a doubly excretory act: the man
not only excretes his ‘seminal excrement’ but also deposits it inside the woman—
in fact the concept of the ‘cesspit vagina’ adds to the taboo on exposing the
female genitals in public. Of course there are other taboos in the prohibition of
nudity, including the private ownership of women by men in phobophronesic
sexual stratification, but the point that concerns us most here is that whereas in
certain phases of phobophronesic civilization taboos, especially on female dress,
may be so rigid as to leave little room for vestolagnia, in other phases of
phobophronesic civilization, notably in the overmature phase of progressive
civilization, a variable combination of partially outgrowing cosmophobic taboos,
which represents a postphobophronesic trend, and partially flouting them, which
represents an antiphobic-sadistic trend, usually supervenes, with the result that a
great deal of time and energy may be wasted, usually in the name of art, on
partially baring what taboos had ordained should be covered, and partially
exhibiting what taboos had ordained should be only done in private. This, inter
alia, opens the floodgates to vestolagnia.
It is obvious, therefore, that in our present study of vestolagnia we are primarily
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concerned with clothes-eroticism, both euerotic and dyserotic, whichever way it
is evoked: we are not here concerned with the rationality or otherwise of
phobophronesic dress, which in many cases—including its very basis in the taboo
on nudity—reflects all the irrationalities of phobophronesic civilization referred
to above (shame, sexual and economic exploitation, etc.).
25. Here we should refer briefly to comparative cultural idiomology in relation
to dress. It is interesting to note, for example, that the phallosemeiophilic
civilizations (Islamic and Turkish etc.) which, because of their oxyphilia, adopted
the balanoid pointed arch and pointed dome style in their architecture, and which
(because of a different but related phallosemeiophilic idiom) invented the bellydance, often evinced a similar predilection for pointedness in the headgear worn
by their men (and such headgear was not merely a passing fashion: it lasted long
enough to be a characteristic feature of the dress of those civilizations). By
contrast, no doubt modern European dress for both sexes has shown a basic
philophilic tendency, which is not surprising in view of the major contribution
made to it by the French. This is evident, for example, in its emphasis on the
female breasts by the employment of ingenious, and even exotic, devices, ranging
from décolletage and tight-fitting waists to the forcible constriction of the waist
with corsets (in order to add more sphericolagnic curves to the female torso as
well as push the breasts up and protrude them) and the development of exotic
corsetry in general. This exaggerated emphasis on the breasts has been associated
with, and partly due to, shame in relation to the female genitals (the ‘cesspit
vagina’) and, by extension, the female buttocks. This compensatory cultural
hyperexomastolagnia is dealt with in other monographs. It will suffice here to
say that the corset, in its final days (when it was generally reduced to a ‘roll-on’
elastic girdle), concentrated on compressing the woman’s hips (or buttocks) while
the uplift brassiere simultaneously exaggerated the protrusion (and in many cases
even artificially exaggerated the size) of the breasts; in its earlier days, however,
when the woman’s buttocks were completely concealed by the crinoline or the
bustle or by wearing numerous (half a dozen or more) petticoats with flounces,
the corset concentrated mainly on constricting the woman’s waist, sometimes to
an almost unbelievable degree.
26. Another point concerning comparative cultural idiomology in relation to
dress is that flamboyant male dress is common in polyphilic cultures. In Western
Europe in the earlier part of the modern era, when philophilia was more marked
and more widespread, and also when the influence of France over the whole of
Western Europe was greater, male dress was much more colourful, and was often
richly decorated. Men sometimes even dressed entirely in silk or velvet of bright
colours, and frills, embroidery, and jewellery were often extensively used for
adornment. However, since about the middle of the nineteenth century—no doubt
because philophilia in Western Europe was receding in the face of growing
neoscatism (as manifested, inter alia, by the ‘Industrial Revolution’)—men’s
clothes have tended to be sedate: bright colours, excessive decoration, and
flamboyance in general have tended to disappear. The rise of America to world
hegemony, especially since the Second World War, has tended to reverse this
trend—but, so far, only to a limited extent and in a rather trivial manner (e.g.
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53. Organophoria
wearing colourful T-shirts with inscriptions and drawings etc., i.e. graffiti, in
them, and denim trousers, instead of plain white shirts and formal suits).
*
*
27. There are four main factors in vestolagnia: geneosemeiolagnia (viz.
androsemeiolagnia in relation to male dress and gynosemeiolagnia in relation to
female dress), the law of contrast, erotendophoria, and mixandrogynia. In so far
as eueroticism is concerned, erotendophoric vestolagnia is limited to female dress,
whereas the other three factors apply (to varying degrees and in different forms)
to both male and female dress. On the other hand, in dyseroticism—which
includes transvestolagnia, which is a clinical (and not a psychogenetic) entity
representing dyserotic pleasure from partially or completely dressing in the clothes
of the opposite sex—all these factors may apply in different ways to both sexes
(the only exception being mixandrogynia, whose representations tend to be totally
differently perceived in dyseroticism). Dyseroticism (viz. dyserotic vestolagnia,
or dysvestolagnia) also includes another factor which is qualitatively entirely
dyserotic in both sexes: coproidolagnia (coproidolagnic dysvestolagnia).
We have already dealt with erotendophoria and mixandrogynia. Here we
shall deal mainly with geneosemeiolagnia and the law of contrast, with a brief
additional reference to mixandrogynia.
28. As noted before, by their very nature clothes cover the body: hence dress—
as distinct from natural nudity—is inherently associated with the law of contrast
in relation to the clothes of both sexes, and with erotendophoria in relation to
women’s clothes, both of which are inseparably related to the concept of covering.
The fact that these two factors, viz. the law of contrast and erotendophoria, are
inherent in clothes explains why dress (as against natural nudity) artificially
exaggerates eroticism, and the exaggeration is much greater if the body has to be
covered not because of rational reasons—which implies dispensing with dress
whenever possible—but because of cosmophobic taboos which prohibit nudity
(as well as erotic and excretory acts) at all times in public.
Thus dress in both sexes may not necessarily evoke either geneosemeiolagnia
or mixandrogynia (in fact geneosemeiolagnia is primarily related to organolagnia
and is only secondarily related to vestolagnia), but its greater or lesser evocation
of the law of contrast in relation to the clothes of both sexes and of erotendophoria
in relation to women’s clothes, is inevitable: it can be minimized, or it can be
greatly exaggerated, but it cannot be totally abolished.
*
*
29. Geneosemeiolagnic vestolagnia (androsemeiolagnic vestolagnia and
gynosemeiolagnic vestolagnia) applies in normal eroticism (eueroticism) only
in relation to the clothes of the opposite sex as they are worn by that sex (though
in pathological cases (in autolagnia in all its forms: reversed heterolagnia,
homolagnia, and autolagnia proper) it may apply in other ways). Thus
androsemeiolagnia in relation to male dress is limited to women, while
gynosemeiolagnia in relation to female dress is limited to men. However, we
should remember that phobophronesic civilization is entirely a male creation:
men are responsible for the design of women’s clothes as well as their own—
which implies that, in phobophronesic civilization, male clothes are designed by
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
men to be essentially vestophilic rather than vestolagnic, and exceptions to this
(e.g. in the case of overmature civilizations) are at least as likely to be motivated
by homandrolagnia as by the desire on men’s part to make male dress erotically
attractive (i.e. vestolagnic) to women, whereas female clothes are designed by
men (apart from considerations of shame, e.g. of ‘modesty’ and prudery) to be
vestolagnic (as well as vestophilic). We shall presently return to this point when
we discuss the vestolagnia of male dress.
30. Geneosemeiolagnic vestolagnia, viz. androsemeiolagnic vestolagnia in
relation to male dress and gynosemeiolagnic vestolagnia in relation to female
dress, falls into two categories: the erotic effect of dress on the body of the wearer,
and eroticism of the dress itself. In phobophronesic civilization, the
geneosemeiolagnic effect of dress on the body of the wearer is mainly manifested
in the emphasis on, and artificial exaggeration of, geneoid characteristics, viz. of
android characteristics in men and of gynoid characteristics in women, while the
geneosemeiolagnia of the dress itself is mainly manifested in the form of
phallosemeiolagnia in relation to male dress, and mastosemeiolagnia and
hysterosemeiolagnia in relation to female dress.
31. As for androsemeiolagnic vestolagnia in relation to male dress, this has
undoubtedly been the main factor in the vestolagnia of male dress in
phobophronesic civilization—in the true sense of the vestolagnia of male dress
as perceived by erotically emancipated women. For, of the other three main
factors in vestolagnia, erotendophoria does not normally apply to male dress
while the law of contrast and mixandrogynia—though they could be fully
applied—have most often been only feebly applied, if at all. However,
phobophronesic civilization is entirely a male creation: regardless of what women
may feel and may or may not like, phobophronesic civilization is created by men
for men, and not by women. (Any women clothes designers—and there have
been many—must work exclusively to meet the demands of the master sex, i.e.
of men.) Thus vestolagnia in relation to female dress in phobophronesic
civilization aims—apart from the cosmophobic considerations of shame (or
‘modesty’) etc.—at making women (in all kinds of subtle and overt ways)
erotically more attractive to men. But interest in male dress in phobophronesic
civilization is vestophilic and not vestolagnic. However, there are two main
exceptions to this statement, representing women’s point of view and the
homandrolagnic point of view, respectively. Women’s perception of vestolagnia
in relation to male dress—though little taken into consideration even by
overmature phobophronesic civilizations, and not at all by dormant ones—is
obviously of immense theoretical importance as it is the only form of true
vestolagnia in relation to male dress. Almost certainly it is not—and can never
be—as important as vestolagnia in relation to female dress, for the simple reason
that erotendophoria (the most important single factor in the eroticism of clothes)
is absent in it, since hysteroid penetrability (coital and gestational) does not apply
to men (in so far as normal eroticism is concerned). Obviously women’s
perception of vestolagnia in relation to male dress in phobophronesic civilization—
and the reference here is not to women designing male dress to make men erotically
more attractive to them but to women’s ability, despite their ‘normal’ female
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53. Organophoria
anancosymphronesia, to perceive eroticism—depends on the degree of erotic
liberation achieved by them in a given phobophronesic civilization, which has
varied from virtual non-existence in some backward, and even in some mature
progressive, civilizations to a good modicum of liberation in some overmature
civilizations. On the other hand, the contribution of homandrolagnia to true
vestolagnia (as distinct from vestophilia) in male-created phobophronesic
civilization has shown very wide variations—homandrolagnia generally tending
to flourish in overmature civilizations as a result of the appearance and spread of
antiphobic sadism, though inherent propeto-phthorism in a civilization that is
not overmature is another cause. It is interesting to note that whereas women’s
contribution to male-dress vestolagnia has never been direct—they have had to
take whatever the master sex allowed them to have, since women have never had
the upper hand in designing male dress, or indeed in any other sphere in
phobophronesic civilization—the direct homandrolagnic contribution to male
dress is well illustrated by contemporary fashions in our own time, e.g. in the
fashion of ‘hipster’ trousers which, like women’s ‘bikini pants’, seek to bare the
male belly or to bare as much of the trunk as possible: such dress is clearly
hyperhomogeneosemeiophilic and homogeneosemeiolagnic. In fact, as noted in
the monograph on Autolagnia, the pervasion of contemporary fashions by
homandrolagnic influence is evident in female no less than in male dress (in any
case the dress may be the same for both sexes, as in the case of the tight trousers
at present worn by men and women alike).
32. The androsemeiolagnic-vestolagnic emphasis on, and exaggeration of,
android characteristics in men is well illustrated by the design of suit jackets with
padded, artificially broad shoulders which assimilate a man to overmuscular
athletic men. Women’s attraction to military uniform arises from its association
with physical power, and so ultimately with active preservative devouring power,
though many women (because of androphobia etc.) may not be able to conceive
it in overtly erotic terms. More overtly erotic is male dress that emphasizes, or
artificially exaggerates, the genital bulge. The codpiece was the typical example
of this in days when Western Europe was more philophilic and less deutoscatistic
than it is now, and when men (apart from having less shame or ‘prudery’) evinced
the typical philophilic idiom of uninhibitedness in expressing their pride. (It was
pride and not vanity—in the psychogenetic senses of these words—because it
had a deeper basis of sadism (the suggestion of prowess, etc.), not aphilia.) And
though the codpiece is now a thing of the past, the recent introduction in Western
civilization of tight trousers has come to serve the same purpose—except that
tight trousers display the buttocks and the natal cleft as well as the genitals, which
links them with homandrolagnia and coproidolagnia (the two are not unrelated)
rather than with ‘normal’ phobophronesic male pride. In fact there are on the
market at present underpants for men with padding in the genital area to augment
the genital bulge, but the wearing of padded underpants has never been as prevalent
among men as the wearing of padded brassieres or of artificial breasts has been
among women.
33. Phallosemeiolagnia in relation to male dress—which is androsemeiolagnic
from women’s point of view, but which is undoubtedly androsemeiophilic from
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
the point of view of the male creators of phobophronesic civilization—has varied
a great deal in different civilizations depending, inter alia, on the presence or
absence of pronounced cultural phallosemeiophilia—a subject to which we have
already referred in dealing with comparative cultural idiomology in relation to
dress. In contemporary Western European civilization, the tendency has been
for men to dress in striped, predominantly dark, suits, the counterpart for women
being dresses with colourful floral patterns. The phallosemeic significance of
stripes and of dark colours, and the hysterosemeic significance of flowers and of
light colours, have already been referred to in this and in other monographs. The
necktie and the top-hat are examples of male garments that are of phallosemeic
significance because of their rhabdophalloid (elongated and vertical) shape.
34. The gynosemeiolagnic-vestolagnic emphasis on, and exaggeration of,
gynoid characteristics in female dress is referred to in numerous places in this
monographic series. It will suffice here to note that the corset, the bustle, highheeled shoes, and the uplift brassiere are all typical female garments which
sacrifice (or sacrificed) the woman’s comfort, and in some cases even reduce her
to relative disability, in order to emphasize her female characteristics or, more
oppressively still, to give her grossly exaggerated sphericolagnic curves. For
example, the bustle completely concealed the buttocks, because of cosmophobic
shame, under a huge sphericolagnic dome, and both the corset (underwear) and
outer dress were designed to synergistically lift and protrude the woman’s breasts,
whose prominence was further emphasized by the ruthless constriction of the
waist below it by the corset. This emphasis on the breasts has now been largely
taken over by the brassiere—a much more humane garment than the corset of the
past. Prosthetic breasts (or artificial breasts, which have gone under a wide variety
of names) have been worn by women with small breasts even long before the
invention of the brassiere: at present such women have the option of two forms
of prosthetic breasts: the padded brassiere (i.e. with padded cups that permanently
retain their shape and size) and the artificial breasts to be worn inside the cups of
an ordinary brassiere. In many cases women who are painfully conscious of
their small breasts are physically perfectly normal women: it is just the
compensatory cultural hyperexomastolagnia that idolizes hypermegalomastic
women that makes them feel aphilically deficient. High-heeled shoes—which
are still worn by women to this day—may restrict a woman’s ability to walk so
much as to almost reduce her to a cripple, all for the sake of ruthlessly converting
the right-angled curve of the natural foot to a streamlined series of curves (and,
no less importantly, to produce titillating—i.e. erotopoeic—hyperplantar-flexion
of the foot that is visually (or scopically) evocative of the similar myotonolagnic
posture of the feet in female orgasm).
Emphasis on gynosemeiolagnic leio-malakolagnia has sometimes been as
extreme and irrational as the emphasis on sphericolagnia: women are inundated
with advertisements for all kinds of cosmetics (creams etc.), not only to (genuinely
or fictitiously) make their skin smoother and softer but also to epilate it as if
every minute hair posed a menace of the skin losing its feminine smoothness.
Sometimes massage and other dubious techniques are advocated.
35. Mastosemeiolagnia in relation to female dress is mainly represented by
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53. Organophoria
leio-malakolagnia (leio-malakolagnic vestolagnia) and prosthekolagnia
(prosthekolagnic vestolagnia).
Leio-malakolagnic vestolagnia is evident in the interest in leio-malakolagnic
materials—e.g. silk, nylon, velvet, and fur—for making women’s outer and/or
underclothes. It is hardly necessary to say more about this subject here as it is
adequately covered in other places. As noted before, in the past, in Western
Europe, these materials were often worn by men in a leio-malakophilic (rather
than leio-malakolagnic) capacity, but these materials—in a leio-malakolagnic as
well as leio-malakophilic capacity—are now mainly limited to female dress.
In a different way, how female clothes may serve to visually (or
scopolagnically) evoke the malakolagnic softness of the female body has already
been noted in dealing with entoplerolagnia in relation to female dress.
Prosthekolagnic vestolagnia in relation to female dress is evident in the
incorporation of decorative prosthekolagnic appendages of various kinds both in
outer and in underclothes: frills, lace, trimmings, ruffles, and pleats of all kinds.
However, in many cases other factors also coexist. As noted before, in the case
of frills or lace decorating openings in female underwear (slips, brassieres, and
pants) this decoration may be of significance in several different ways. As an
additive decoration it represents a prosthekolagnic appendage. As a decoration
of an opening in a female garment, it emphasizes the hysterosemeiolagnic
significance of such an opening. Moreover, as this opening in the garment will
almost certainly have an organ of the woman’s body passing through it when the
garment is worn (e.g. the neck, an arm, the trunk, or a thigh), the decoration
emphasizes not only the hysteroid representation of the opening but also its
erotendophoric representation as it encircles whichever organ of the woman’s
body passes through it. If the frill or lace is of a different colour from that of the
garment it decorates—as is often the case—then the resultant colour contrast
may have its own erotendophoric significance. Finally, the colour of the frill—
or colours, if the frill contains more than one colour—may have their own
geneosemeiolagnic significance (e.g. in relation to the gynosemeiolagnic
associations of white and red, and the androsemeiolagnic associations of black
that may be evocative of mixandrogynia).
Lace requires a special mention here. Lace is characteristically fenestrated,
which—as with diaphanous material—allows the eye to see through it or, rather,
to see inside it, i.e. it allows visual penetration into it. Thus, apart from serving
any other function, e.g. as a prosthekolagnic appendage, lace serves both the law
of contrast, inasmuch as it simultaneously conceals and bares the body, and
erotendophoria, inasmuch as it allows visual penetration into the clothing. (This,
incidentally, is a typical example of the close association, and virtual inseparability,
of the law of contrast and erotendophoria in the case of female dress.) Finally,
while lace may be used minimally in female dress for trimming, it may also be
used to form a considerable part of an outer or undergarment.
Other prosthekolagnic appendages in female dress include colourful ribbons
and (natural or artificial) flowers worn in the hair (or of course in the clothes
themselves). Female handkerchiefs and scarves (the latter being much more
versatile in their erotic representations, e.g. if they are tied round the neck or
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
round the hair to produce an erotendophoric representation), are other
prosthekolagnic appendages with a much greater importance in
hyperprosthekolagnic patients than in normal individuals. All prosthekolagnic
appendages in female dress may represent mastoid gynophalloids in
hyperexomastolagnic men with passive male heterolagnia.
In a more general sense, female dress as a whole—underclothing more than
outer clothing, and leio-malakolagnic clothing more than other types of female
clothing—may have a prosthekolagnic significance as representing essentially
an appendage of the female body. This concept, like other factors in female
dress, acquires exaggerated importance in some pathological cases.
36. Hysterosemeiolagnia in relation to female dress mostly belongs to two
main types of representation: rings and hollows. Most of these hysteroid rings
and hollows are converted into erotendophoric representations by the organs of
the woman’s body which (in the case of rings) pass through them, or which (in
the case of hollows) fill them up and are ensheathed by them. Though some of
these erotendophoric representations, e.g. in the case of stockings and of most
rings, are clearly predominantly endophallophoric, in others no sharp line can be
drawn between endophallophoria, endopaedophoria, and endomastophoria. This
is best illustrated by the case of the breasts: while the containment of the two
breasts together in a single hollow, e.g. in the bodice of a woman’s dress without
a brassiere, is much more likely (because of the plurality of the occupants of the
hollow, viz. the two breasts or ‘breast-children’) to evoke endomastophoria or
endopaedophoria than to evoke endophallophoria, the encasement of each breast
separately in its own cup in the case of the usual bilocular type of brassiere may
evoke endomastophoria, endopaedophoria, or endophallophoria.
The ring type of hysterosemeiolagnic representation in female dress includes
openings in outer and underclothes, necklaces and other items of clothing (e.g.
scarves and ribbons) that encircle the neck or the hair, and belts. In all of these
the ring is traversed by a certain organ of the woman’s body (the neck, a limb, the
hair, etc.) which completes the erotendophoric (most often, but not necessarily,
endophallophoric) representation. As noted before, openings in female dress,
because of their hysteroid significance, are often lavishly decorated with frills or
lace etc.
The hollow type of hysterosemeiolagnic representation in female dress is
typified by the cups of a brassiere and by stockings. Each brassiere cup receives
a breast in its hollow, and the cup may be lavishly decorated, especially at its
edge, and may be shaped in a variety of forms (spheroid, conicoid, or conicospheroid), and may be opaque or even heavily padded or may be flimsy and
diaphanous or fenestrated (e.g. made of lace). Stockings are perhaps the most
perfect endophallophoric representation in the whole of present-day female attire.
The stocking is an elongated, closely fitting, sheath into which the woman’s
lower limb—from the toes to above the middle of the thigh—is inserted, the
point of entry of the thigh into the stocking being close to her genitals. Though
in everyday life stockings have now been replaced by tights (which cover the
whole of both lower limbs as well as the pelvis, like trousers), stockings still
remain exceedingly popular as ‘sexy’ (or erotopoeic) female dress. Moreover,
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53. Organophoria
the top of a stocking—representing the ‘mouth’ or entrance to the hollow of the
garment—is of special erotopoeicity, which may be enhanced by wearing a garter.
Clearly the garter—with its colourful ribbon and contrasting frilly lace etc.—is
an elaborate example of the lavish decoration of an opening in a female garment:
it has all the characteristics noted before of a decorative frill around an opening
in a female garment, apart from being an independent ring through which the
thigh is inserted.
*
*
37. The law of contrast or, more fully, the law of stimulus augmentation by
contrast, is the augmentation of a stimulus by the natural or contrived presence
of contrast. The law of contrast is not limited to eroticism: it applies to other
forms of hedonia and indeed also to cosmophobia. For example, the perception
of aethrophilia is heightened if the open countryside or the open sea is seen
through an archway or from under a bridge or through a door or window or a
break in the trees or through some other narrow or confined space. For the same
reason, a vast valley surrounded by hills may evoke aethrophilia more intensely
than the uncontrasted open space seen from the summit of a hill. The same
applies to the cosmophobic form of the idiom: the aethrophobic may find walking
down the street outside his house much more distressing than being in a field in
the open countryside. As open spaces go, the street of a town or city is not much
of an open space, but the element of contrast—of the open space of the street or
square in a town or city being surrounded by tall buildings—may make open
spaces in built-up areas much more aethrophobic than the open countryside.
In works of art (in painting, photography, and cinematography) it is common
to portray hydroids (open space, water (e.g. the sea, a lake, or a river), etc.) and
stereoids (hills or mountains, woods or forests, a building or a built-up area, also
confined space (evoking entostereophilia), etc.) in juxtaposition in order to produce
mutual enhancement of the perception of the two contrasting elements, viz. the
hydroid and the stereoid. A good example of this is that of the hydroido-stereoid
junction motif, which is referred to in the monograph on Stereoidism.
38. In eroticism, partial nudity—whose very essence is the simultaneous
combination of covering and baring, or of concealment and exposure—is often
much more erotopoeic than complete nudity. Similarly, the actual process of
baring (or exposing) the body may be, both to the subject doing it and to the
observer watching it, much more erotopoeic than the resultant (partial or complete)
nudity. Thus total nudity of the two sexes, as in a nudist camp, soon abolishes
the artificial erotopoeicity of the uncovered body, which is due to the inherent
association of all forms of dress with the law of contrast in both sexes and with
erotendophoria in the case of female dress, and which is further exaggerated in
phobophronesic civilization by the cosmophobic taboos on nudity. To most men
the sight of a woman lying on the beach with parted thighs in her (two-piece)
bathing costume, which hardly covers more than the pudendal area and the nipples,
is far less erotopoeic than that of the same woman in the same bikini swimwear
after she has put on a skirt. (It is obvious, however, that a skirt heightens the
erotopoeicity of the view of the woman’s parted thighs not only because of the
element of contrast (i.e. partial covering in conjunction with partial baring) but
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
also because allowing a view ‘up her skirt’ has the erotendophoric implication of
allowing visual penetration into her skirt to her body or underwear.)
39. The operation of the law of contrast in the vestolagnia of female dress, in
which it is usually closely associated with erotendophoria, takes a variety of
forms, which may be briefly noted here. Partial exposure, or partial baring,
which is the simplest form, is typified by the décolletage tradition, in which lownecked dress reveals the upper parts of the (usually artificially lifted and protruded)
breasts without revealing the nipples, which are the centre of mammary
erotopoeicity (mastolagnia), whose exposure is taboo; another example is that of
the mini skirt which was introduced in the 1960’s, which bares almost the whole
of the thighs, but still covers the hips and genitals. A different mode of partial
exposure evoking the law of contrast is that of fenestrated clothing of all kinds,
ranging from openwork female shoes consisting of a number of strands that reveal
most of the feet to the various fenestrated types of material, e.g. lace, that are
widely used in female outer and underwear. The use of diaphanous material is
another means of evoking the law of contrast. It may be used in underwear or,
more daringly (i.e. in defiance of cosmophobic taboos), in outer clothes. The
erotopoeic effect, here as elsewhere, is greatest if such material is used to cover
the most erotopoeic parts of the female body, e.g. the genitals (or the pelvis in
general) and the breasts. In our time we have progressed from muslin to nylon
and other synthetic materials which can be made, sometimes in an elasticated or
‘stretch’ form, with almost transparent thinness, and which are now widely used
in the manufacture of brassieres and pants. Not least important of the methods of
evoking the law of contrast is that of the use of skin-tight clothing which reveals
the contours of the organs it is supposed to cover without actually baring them.
Skin-tight sweaters for the provocative display of the breasts (usually lifted and
protruded, and perhaps also artificially augmented, with an uplift brassiere) are a
typical example. The recent introduction of skin-tight trousers for both sexes—
in a male-created phobophronesic civilization—probably reflects an underlying
homandrolagnic trend.
It will be noted that in all the forms mentioned, the operation of the law of
contrast in the case of female dress (and, in dyseroticism, sometimes in relation
to male dress worn by men or female dress worn by either sex) is virtually
inseparably and invariably associated with the evocation of erotendophoria.
40. In phobophronesic civilization, as noted before, the operation of the law
of contrast and (in the case of female clothing) erotendophoria in conjunction
with the cosmophobic taboo on nudity endows clothes with a greatly exaggerated,
and wholly artificial, erotopoeicity of an explosive degree. The very fact that we
have to wear clothes at all times in public, inevitably artificially exaggerates the
erotopoeicity of all parts of the body that are covered, so that exposure of all
parts of the body comes to be erotopoeic, and the greater the taboo on exposure
of any organ the greater the erotopoeicity of its exposure. This implies that the
mere wearing of clothes, artificially exaggerates the erotopoeicity of uncovering
the body in general, and those parts whose exposure is taboo in particular. At all
levels of phobophronesic civilization except the most dormant, much valuable
time and effort are expended on the partial breach of these taboos—in the form
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53. Organophoria
of ‘night life’ (night-clubs etc.), organized prostitution, provocative dress even in
everyday life, etc.—usually mainly, if not entirely, for the benefit of the male
sex. Clearly, in rational, postphobophronesic civilization, freedom from
cosmophobic taboos must ensure the tolerance of total nudity whenever and
wherever weather conditions and expediency allow it—which should certainly
be possible indoors, at least for leisure activities, anywhere in the world, all the
year round: in most parts of the world it may be possible outdoors as well, at any
rate in the summer. This should abolish much unnecessary artificial erotic
stimulation, without impairing the true aesthetic or artistic appreciation of the
human body and of dress. In this respect we should remember that we in the
West have lost none of our appreciation of the beauty of the female face through
our women freely exposing their faces in public at all times: in civilizations in
which women have to wear veils to cover their faces whenever they go out or are
likely to be seen by men other than their husbands, exposure of the face by a
woman is of explosive erotopoeicity, which does not enhance the aesthetic
appreciation of the female face but merely makes it dysphronesically exaggerated.
In the same way, in rational postphobophronesic civilization, complete nudity
should lose its dysphronesically exaggerated erotopoeicity, but none of its natural
appeal. Phobophronesic civilization, because of the depth of its cosmophobic
taboos, regards the dressed state as the natural state while nudity is regarded as
an artificial condition. If we see a photograph of a nude we take it for granted
that her nudity is the result of undressing, as if she were born clothed—and not
the other way round: born naked but has to be clothed only because of irrational
cosmophobic taboos.
*
*
41. Mixandrogynic vestolagnia is evoked by any hint of the opposite sex—
provided the hint (and this is where ‘taste’ or artistic judgement varies widely)
suggests a normal heterolagnic longing for the opposite sex and not a dyserotic
desire for the true assimilation to the opposite sex, i.e. a desire to be a member of
that sex. Obviously the dividing line between the provocative (i.e. the erotopoeic)
and the downright repulsive may be very delicate—apart from the existence of
wide individual and cultural variations. The subject is dealt with in the monograph
on Geneosemeia, and there are numerous references to it in this monograph.
Here we may content ourselves with a brief reference to an example which applies
to both sexes: the recent introduction in Western society of ‘unisex’ fashions (in
dress as well as in hair-styles etc.). For men and women to wear identical (or
‘unisex’) clothes undoubtedly bears a long-overdue element of
postphobophronesic (or rational) thinking, but in our society it has been exploited
for erotic ends as suggested by the fact that such a garment worn by both sexes as
the tight denim trousers, far from catering for the requirements of comfort and
free movement (which are another rational prerequisite), has concentrated on the
display of the buttocks, and sometimes also the thighs and the legs: the garment
may in fact be so tight that it may take the young person who wears it several
minutes to extricate himself or herself out of it.
*
*
42. Dysvestolagnia, i.e. clothes-dyseroticism or clothes dyslagnia, arises from
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
one of two main causes, viz. aphilia and autolagnia, which not uncommonly
coexist—unless we include the cosmophobic taboos relating to nudity and dress
in phobophronesic civilization as a third, cosmophobic cause. Hypervestolagnia
may be used as a synonym, conveying quantitative change (excessiveness) with
or without qualitative change. However, ‘hypervestolagnia’ could not be used in
coproidolagnic cases because of the absence of a euerotic form.
Hyperexomastolagnic dysvestolagnia is represented mainly by hyperleiomalakolagnic and hyperprosthekolagnic dysvestolagnia. The subjects of leiomalakolagnia and prosthekolagnia have been dealt with, in their normal and
pathological forms, in this and other monographs. Here it will suffice to say that,
as with hyperexomastolagnia in general, the milder cases in men are usually
aphilic while the severer cases in men, and all cases in women, are autolagnic. In
women, apparent hyperprosthekolagnia may mask hyperphallosemeiolagnia and
hyperexophallolagnia, and may thus blend indistinguishably with the active female
heterolagnic and active homogynolagnic desire to be a man. For example, a
woman whose social status prevents her from dressing as a man, may show a
predilection for female dress approximating male dress, e.g. in the form of a
costume (jacket and skirt, as distinct from a man’s jacket and trousers or a woman’s
dress), with a blouse underneath (approximating a man’s shirt) that has a large
ruffle or some other prosthekolagnic appendage down the front as a substitute
for a man’s (phallosemeiolagnic) necktie (a manifestation in this case of
hyperheterogeneosemeiolagnia).
Hypererotendophoria was dealt with in the chapter on erotendophoria.
Coproidolagnic dysvestolagnia, which is qualitatively dyserotic, is mainly
represented by interest in coproidolagnic materials (leather, rubber, and plastic,
which may apply to these materials even in the form of sheets etc., as well as
garments that can be worn) and by shoe-hypereroticism. The subject is adequately
covered elsewhere.
43. Transvestolagnia—which is a clinical and not a psychogenetic entity—is
autolagnic in all its forms in both sexes, and is particularly closely related to
reversed heterolagnia and homolagnia. However, whereas erotendophoria (or,
rather, hypererotendophoria, since the condition is autolagnic) is usually an
important factor in men who like to dress in female clothing, it is characteristically
absent in women who like to dress as men. This is no doubt due to the fact that
in men the condition—in an autolagnic, homolagnic, or heterolagnic setting—is
predominantly associated with receptive-passive eroticism, whereas in women it
is associated with penetrative-active eroticism.
The interest in uniforms is too heterogeneous to be regarded even as a clinical
entity. We have already referred to some women’s attraction to men in military
uniform. This is wholly different from the attraction of some men who are severely
aphilic, erotophobic (mainly in the tetraphobic sense), and in most cases even
autolagnic, to immature girls in schoolgirl uniform: female children are the only
women with whom these men can assert themselves. This in turn is completely
different from the attraction of some men to women in a uniform that represents
some kind of authority, e.g. a policewoman’s or nurse’s uniform, the main interest
in this case being in having erotic relations, including or excluding coitus, with
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53. Organophoria
the woman wearing the uniform. The condition is clearly due to antiphobic
sadism: a policewoman or a nurse in uniform represents an official in a position
of authority (whether in the organizational or in the sadistic-pleonectic sense): in
ordinary life to have erotic relations with such a woman while she is wearing her
uniform (i.e. while she is working in an official capacity) would amount to a
gross impropriety—a sort of debasing or defiling the authority she represents
(the law in the case of a policewoman, the integrity of the medical profession in
dealing with patients objectively in the case of a nurse): such debasement or
defilement is erotopoeic to a patient with erotic antiphobic sadism. (One patient
expressed this aptly, albeit in vulgar terms, by saying that he ‘wanted to f--- a
policewoman because he wanted to f--- the law’.) The female equivalent of this
antiphobic sadism is seen in those women who set out in the most determined
manner to seduce the men in authority who are morally, professionally, and
possibly also legally, bound not to have coitus (or any other erotic relations) with
the women they deal with professionally: priests (Catholic, who are not even
allowed to marry), vicars, and doctors (especially, but by no means only, general
practitioners or ‘family doctors’) are the commonest targets for these women.
Moreover, it is not uncommon for such an antiphobic sadistic woman, if she has
succeeded in seducing one man in authority, to be spurred on by her success in
the relentless pursuit of other men in authority (whether or not these men wear
uniform in the strict sense—the clergy do, doctors in their white coats also (in a
sense) do).
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Monograph 54
DYSEROTICISM AND
DYSORGASTIA
An outline
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Causes of Dyseroticism
02—12
2.
Dysorgastia
13—20
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54. Dyseroticism and Dysorgastia
INTRODUCTION
01. This monograph aims at bringing together, in the briefest possible outline,
all the causes of dyseroticism. A brief account of dysorgastia will also be given.
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Chapter 1
CAUSES OF DYSEROTICISM
02. There are three main causes of dyseroticism: aphilia (aphilic dyseroticism),
autolagnia (autolagnic dyseroticism, or, simply, autolagnia), and cosmophobia
(erotophobia). Aphilia in this classification includes hyperphilia, which is a
derivative of it. Autolagnia, which is synonymous with autolagnic dyseroticism,
comprises autolagnia proper, reversed heterolagnia, homolagnia, and scatolagnia.
Erotophobia is a collective term for a variety of cosmophobic conditions that
may, singly or in various combinations, affect eroticism; it comprises aphormic
erotophobia (aphormic sexual hectophobia or aphormic sexual cosmophobia),
androphobic erotophobia (androphobia or androphobic shame), shame
erotophobia (other than androphobic shame), tetraphobic erotophobia (tetraphobia
as it affects eroticism), and aetherotophobia (which is a form of aetheophobia).
Androphobia is the main factor in female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism. The
only condition outside this broad classification is that of palissymphronesia,
especially synhedonia, which may have a profound deleterious effect on hedonia
in general, including eroticism.
(Of course aphilia is, strictly speaking, a cosmophobic condition, but we do
not include it under erotophobia because aphilia is partly hedonic and partly
cosmophobic (it represents the pervasion of hedonia by cosmophobia).)
03. We may summarize the causes of dyseroticism in tabular form as follows.
Prephobophronesic conditions:
Palissymphronesia (especially synhedonia).
Female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism (due to
androphobia and other cosmophobic factors).
Phagistic conditions:
Aphormic sexual hectophobia (aphormic erotophobia).
Aphilia and hyperphilia.
Scatistic conditions:
Androphobia (androphobic shame).
Shame (other than androphobic shame).
Tetraphobia.
Autolagnia proper.
Reversed heterolagnia.
Homolagnia.
Scatolagnia.
It will be noted that there is some overlap between some of the conditions
listed above, e.g. shame, androphobia, and tetraphobia. Organic causes of
dyseroticism (endocrine, metabolic, neurological, iatrogenic (due to side-effects
(or complications) of drugs), etc.), though not included, are obviously clinically
important.
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54. Dyseroticism and Dysorgastia
04. We refer to the lack of eroticism, whether complete or partial, as
aneroticism (pananeroticism if it is complete). On the other hand, pathological
exaggeration of eroticism is referred to as hypereroticism. Where hypereroticism
is mainly limited to an organ or a group of organs we refer to it as
hyperorganolagnia. Hyperorganolagnia, whether aphilic or autolagnic, is usually
associated with greater or lesser general hypereroticism.
Both normal and pathological variations in eroticism affect both the facility
for orgasm (the ease with which an individual can achieve orgasm) and the
frequency of orgasm (how often an individual desires, or needs, orgasm).
Broadly speaking, aphilic dyseroticism represents the milder but much
commoner forms of dyseroticism, characterized mainly by a quantitative change,
i.e. a decrease (or depression) or an increase (or exaggeration) in eroticism without
any, or without any significant, qualitative change. By contrast, autolagnic
dyseroticism is usually qualitative—the primary qualitative change being the
very fact that the condition is autolagnic—as well as quantitative, since autolagnia
is virtually always associated with the greater or lesser exaggeration of eroticism
(autolagnic hypereroticism).
05. As for aphilic dyseroticism, aphilia generally affects eroticism
quantitatively and not qualitatively. Thus normal, heterolagnic eroticism may be
decreased or increased, but its content remains qualitatively normal. Because
philism (more specifically idiophilia) is the prototype of all hedonia, aphilia may
be associated with a generalized reduction in, or depression of, hedonia, and this
may involve eroticism which is directly derived from idiophilia. This aphilic
aneroticism is usually only partial or mild, unless aphilia is complicated by a
more serious condition such as autophthorophilia.
06. On the other hand, aphilia—whether or not it is complicated by
hyperphilia—may result in a compensatory increase in, or exaggeration of,
eroticism. The mildest form of aphilic hypereroticism is that seen in some lonely
individuals who want an abundance of casual erotic relations just ‘for comfort’.
More serious hypereroticism may sometimes occur as a result of aphilia being
complicated by hyperphilia (hyperphilic hypereroticism). This subject is dealt
with in other monographs. It will suffice here to say that hyperphilic
hypereroticism, in typical cases, represents a quantitative increase in normal
eroticism without altering its qualitative content, and that the exaggerated eroticism
(like the exaggeration of hedonia in general in hyperphilia) tends to be spurious.
07. Aphilic hypereroticism may be limited to certain organs, i.e. may take
the form of hyperorganolagnia. Because of the origin of philism in the oromammary relation of the lactivorous stage of life on the one hand, and because
of the adult eroticization of this oro-mammary prototype giving rise to
stomatomastorganolagnia on the other hand, it is not surprising that by far the
commonest form of aphilic hyperorganolagnia is that of aphilic
hyperstomatomastorganolagnia, comprising hyperstomatolagnia and
hypermastolagnia (hyperendomastolagnia in women and hyperexomastolagnia
in men).
08. As for autolagnic dyseroticism, autolagnia in all its forms (autolagnia
proper, reversed heterolagnia, homolagnia, and scatolagnia) tends to be inherently
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
associated with greater or lesser hypereroticism (autolagnic hypereroticism).
Moreover, most forms of hyperorganolagnia, i.e. of localized hypereroticism
(though this is usually also associated with greater or lesser general
hypereroticism), are autolagnic. This includes the severer cases of
hyperstomatomastorganolagnia (as distinct from the milder cases, which are
usually due to aphilia).
09. Female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism is primarily a cultural condition.
The main factor in the condition is androphobia, but other factors include sexual
meionexia, aphilia, shame (other than androphobia), and tetraphobia—all of which
are cosmophobic, and all of which are ‘normal’ for women at the phobophronesic
level of civilization, especially where female emancipation is lacking. In extreme
cases—which form the norm in many backward civilizations—the women may
be totally anerotic (pananerotic) and totally anorgastic (pananorgastic).
10. On the other hand, in female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism in
unmarried young women enjoying a modicum of emancipation, we may see all
gradations between pananeroticism and (especially in those who have had some
coital experience) full-blown erotosteretic masturbation. In the most completely
anerotic among them there is no eroticism at all, heterolagnic or autolagnic. In
less severe cases there is masturbation, without phantasies, and perhaps with no
direct genital contact with the hand, as by crossing the thighs and squeezing
them together against the abdomen to obtain orgasm, or rocking may be used, or
the hand may be put to the genitals to exert pressure but without recognizing that
the pleasure obtained is erotic (anancosymphronesic self-deception). Then there
are those who practise external (mainly or wholly clitoridal) masturbation, but
would feel guilty about vaginal masturbation. Next are those who practise vaginal
masturbation but feel too ashamed to admit it, at any rate initially, even in strictly
confidential treatment. (Of course lying about masturbating in any form is also
common—and for the same reason, viz. androphobia.) Finally, there are those,
usually with some coital experience, who practise vaginal masturbation, using
one or more fingers with overt erotic phantasies of having coitus with a man, and
in some cases even using phalloid objects (e.g. long-necked bottles) or
homandrolagnic photographic erotic literature showing megalophallic men.
It will be noted that female-anancosymphronesic aneroticism, though primarily
directed against normal female eroticism, in practice suppresses all female
eroticism, euerotic and dyserotic.
11. Pananeroticism in men is exceedingly rare, except in some
palissymphronesics. The nearest one comes to seeing it in clinical practice, apart
from palissymphronesia, is in the case of young men whose apparent lack of
erotic desire usually proves to be due to their inability—as in women, because of
androphobia—to accept their homolagnia (so-called ‘latent homandrolagnia’).
These young men usually characteristically enjoy the company of other young
men, often with a tendency to alcoholism, but are wholly indifferent to female
company. Even if they are forced by social custom to find a girlfriend, they may
only choose the former wife or girlfriend of a man to whom they have a
homolagnic attraction: the relationship may be ‘Platonic’ with no coitus or any
intimacy, or the patient may prove mixanorthotic if he attempts coitus, or
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54. Dyseroticism and Dysorgastia
successful coitus (and even marriage) may provide vicarious homolagnic
satisfaction with the woman’s former husband or lover, discussing her former
relationship with him being the main interest they have in common even in a
marital relationship.
12. Aphormic sexual hectophobia (aphormic erotophobia) is another cultural
condition that is of immense importance since it lies at the very foundation of the
institution of marriage as a means of regulating sexual relations in phobophronesic
civilization. It is dealt with, together with other forms of erotophobia, in the
monograph on Marriage. Aphormic sexual hectophobia is a common cause of
mixocholia in both sexes where sexual taboos are broken, e.g. in extramarital or
non-marital coitus.
The effect of palissymphronesia on eroticism is dealt with in the chapter on
synhedonia in the monograph on Palissymphronesia.
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Chapter 2
DYSORGASTIA
13. Dysorgastia, i.e. pathological (or dysphronesic) orgastia, is a clinical,
and not a psychogenetic, entity. For orgasm is an integral part of eroticism,
whether the eroticism is normal (eueroticism) or pathological (dyseroticism).
The only exception is in the case of propetorgastia (propetolagnia), which is
indeed a psychogenetic entity. Dysorgastia is thus only part of dyseroticism: the
presence of dysorgastia indicates the presence of dyseroticism though the cause
may not necessarily be psychogenic. This latter point has become particularly
important in our time because of the constant introduction of new pharmaceutical
drugs for the treatment of both physical and psychiatric conditions, many of
which prove eventually to have psychiatric side-effects (or complications), which
may range from aneroticism and anorgastia in previously mixopractic men and
women, to mental depression and determined, and successful, suicide.
14. Euorgastia, i.e. euphronesic orgastia, is the condition in both sexes in
which four criteria are met: capability of fully erethic and fully satisfying orgasm;
capability of coital orgasm; superiority of coital orgasm; and optimum duration
of preorgastic genital erethia. We shall deal with these four criteria in order.
15. The capability of fully erethic and fully satisfying orgasm—orgasm has
to be fully erethic if it is to be fully satisfying—contrasts with the condition of
some individuals of both sexes in whom orgasm is associated with little, or hardly
any, general and local (i.e. genital) erethia, the latter in the form of erection of the
penis in the man and vulval congestion, vaginal secretions, and clitoridal erection
in the woman. We refer to this latter condition, in which orgasm in either sex
occurs in association with little or no general and genital erethia, as anerethic
orgasm or hyporgasm. Typically, hyporgasm, whether in coitus (which may not
be possible in the case of the man) or in masturbation, takes a long time to achieve,
i.e. it is a delayed as well as a poor and unsatisfying orgasm; however, hyporgastia
may coexist with propetorgastia (propetohyporgastia), in which case orgasm may
be both precipitate (or premature) and unsatisfying. This subject is dealt with in
the monograph on Propetism, in which both propetorgastia and hyporgastia in
their various forms are fully discussed.
16. As for the capability of coital orgasm, individuals clearly fall into three
categories: those who are mixorgastic, i.e. capable of coital orgasm, those who
are mixanorgastic, i.e. incapable of coital orgasm, often (but not necessarily)
with the implication of being capable of non-coital orgasm, and those who are
pananorgastic, i.e. incapable of orgasm either in coitus or otherwise. (Thus a
mixanorgastic individual may or may not be pananorgastic.)
Although coital orgastia is an essential condition of eueroticism, the existence
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54. Dyseroticism and Dysorgastia
of coital orgastia does not necessarily indicate the presence of eueroticism. For
example, the woman whose mixorgastia depends on conjuring up, during coitus,
phantasies of rape and torture, and the woman whose mixorgastia depends on
manipulating her body in such a way as to have indirect endoproctolagnic
stimulation by the penis through the perineum, are examples of dyseroticism in
association with mixorgastia.
17. It will be noted that in men mixorgastia is virtually synonymous with
mixorthosis or potency, i.e. the man’s ability to have and to maintain sufficient
erection of the penis to penetrate the woman’s vagina and perform coitus, and
vice versa: mixanorgastia is virtually synonymous with mixanorthosis or
impotence. (The main exception is in cases of incipient, but not yet fully
developed, mixanorthosis, in which coitus is possible but ejaculation is
inordinately delayed or may not occur at all, i.e. ejaculation may be impossible
for the man to achieve.) Hence we refer to mixorgastia in women and mixorthosis
in men collectively as mixopraxia; similarly, we refer to mixanorgastia in women
and mixanorthosis in men collectively as mixocholia.
Of course a mixanorthotic man may be fully orthotic in masturbation—which
is tantamount to being mixanorgastic but capable of non-coital orgasm. On the
other hand, pananorthosis in a man is not necessarily synonymous with
pananorgastia: orgasm may be possible in masturbation (since coitus would be
impossible anyway) but may be both delayed and erotically unsatisfying
(hyporgasm).
(‘Orthosis’ as a term for erection of the penis is short for ‘phallorthosis’; thus
‘mixorthosis’ = ‘mixophallorthosis’, ‘mixanorthosis’ = ‘mixophallanorthosis’,
and ‘pananorthosis’ = ‘panphallanorthosis’.)
18. As for the superiority of coital orgasm, it is not uncommon in autolagnic
dyseroticism for the individual to derive greater erotic satisfaction from noncoital than from coital orgasm. For example, hyperstomatolagnic individuals
may find stomataedeolagnia more satisfying than normal coitus, and many
individuals with autolagnia proper find masturbation more satisfying than normal
coitus.
19. Closely related to the question of superiority of mixorgastia is the question
of orgastic foci, including the reversal of orgastic foci. Whereas the normal man
is predominantly phallorgastic, and therefore pudendorgastic, autolagnic men
may be predominantly prostatorgastic, and therefore pelvorgastic. Similarly,
whereas the normal woman is predominantly uterorgastic, and therefore
pelvorgastic (in the sense of finding pelvic orgasm more satisfying than pudendal
orgasm), autolagnic women are often predominantly clitoridorgastic, and therefore
pudendorgastic.
20. As for the optimum duration of preorgastic genital erethia, there are
clearly wide individual and cultural (or ethnic) variations, but the point that
concerns us here is that both premature or precipitate orgasm (propetolagnia or
propetorgastia) and delayed orgasm (commonly in the form of anerethic orgasm
or hyporgasm) have their problems—a subject that is dealt with in the account of
propetolagnia given in the monograph on Propetism.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Monograph 55
AESTHETICOLAGNIA
An outline
01. Aestheticolagnia may be defined as sensory perception in eroticism, or,
simply, as sensory eroticism. As the role of aestheticolagnia in eroticism is allpervasive, much of the subject has already been dealt with in other monographs,
implicitly if not explicitly. This short monograph aims at providing a basic
classification and filling any gaps not adequately covered elsewhere. In particular,
only a brief reference will be made here to myotonolagnia, which is dealt with
fully in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World. In that same monograph
the relation of sensory perception (which of course includes aestheticolagnia) to
devouring is also discussed, so that there is no need to refer to this subject here.
02. Aestheticolagnia is subdivisible into scopolagnia, i.e. erotic visual
perception, comprising pragmoscopolagnia, i.e. active scopolagnia or active erotic
visual perception, and apragmoscopolagnia, i.e. passive scopolagnia or passive
erotic visual perception or erotic exhibitionism; hapticolagnia, i.e. erotic tactile
perception; acousticolagnia, i.e. erotic auditory perception; osphreticolagnia, i.e.
erotic olfactory perception; geusticolagnia, i.e. erotic gustatory (or taste)
perception; and myotonolagnia, i.e. erotic proprioceptive perception. These
sensory forms are not of equal importance: pragmoscopolagnia is by far the largest
field, followed by hapticolagnia. This is because, whereas most mammalian
animals are predominantly olfactory beings, i.e. live largely by their sense of
smell, man is predominantly a visual being, i.e. he lives mainly by his sense of
sight, and this is true of non-erotic and erotic life. What is even more important
is that pragmoscopophilia in an ideal form plays a major part in the process of
human thinking (in thinking we ‘see’ things with our minds). Moreover, in both
aestheticophilia and aestheticolagnia, it is often impossible to draw a sharp
distinction between visual perception in the strict sensory (physical) sense and
ideal visual perception (or mental perception). This is why it would be quite
impossible to give an exhaustive account of either pragmoscopophilia or
pragmoscopolagnia: in the former case we would have to cover most of the field
of human awareness, in the latter case we would have to cover most of the field
of eroticism, and the task in any case would be impossible because of the
impossibility of drawing a sharp line between practical and ideal
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55. Aestheticolagnia
pragmoscopophilia or pragmoscopolagnia. For example, in the case of eroticism,
geneosemeiolagnia in both its general and special forms is largely (though by no
means exclusively) based on visual perception, but we would not reduce such
idioms as catatropolagnia, anatropolagnia, sphericolagnia, oxylagnia, or for that
matter erotendophoria and entoplerolagnia, to mere forms of pragmoscopolagnia
even though pragmoscopolagnia is implied in all of them.
03. Aestheticolagnia is an idiom of eroticism: it is not the erotic form of
aestheticism, which is scatistic and which has a dyserotic, viz. scatolagnic, form
represented by hyperaestheticolagnia, which comprises hyperscopolagnia
(hyperpragmoscopolagnia and hyperapragmoscopolagnia), hyperhapticolagnia,
hyperacousticolagnia, hyperosphreticolagnia, hypergeusticolagnia, and
hypermyotonolagnia. Like all scatolagnia, hyperaestheticolagnia is autolagnic
whether it presents in a heterolagnic, homolagnic (which is essentially autolagnic),
or completely autolagnic setting.
04. Aestheticolagnia in relation to specific organs is referred to as
organaestheticolagnia. Organaestheticolagnia may be studied in relation to any
organ that possesses organolagnia. Obviously the most important organs are
those studied in special geneosemeiolagnia, viz. the genital organs in both sexes
(aedeaestheticolagnia: andraedeaestheticolagnia with reference to male genitals,
and gynaedeaestheticolagnia with reference to female genitals) and the breasts
(mastaestheticolagnia). The same terminology applies to the different forms of
organaestheticolagnia, e.g. we may speak of mastohapticolagnia or
phallohapticolagnia in relation to hapticolagnic contact (with the hand, mouth,
or genitals, etc.) with the breast or the penis, respectively, as the object of the
hapticolagnic contact. Much on this subject will be found in the monograph on
Organolagnia.
*
*
05. The importance of scopolagnia (pragmoscopolagnia and
apragmoscopolagnia), as noted before, can only be appreciated by a full
consideration of the accounts given in other monographs in this series of such
subjects as geneosemeiolagnia, organomorphology, erotendophoria, and
entoplerolagnia. Here it will suffice to say that there are wide individual (and no
doubt also cultural) variations in scopolagnia, in which imaginativeness plays a
major part. Thus while some lovers pay minimal attention to precoital loveplay,
and may be content to have coitus with the lights turned out, others imaginatively
exhaust all the scopolagnic and hapticolagnic possibilities of eroticism in the
leisurely inspection and exploration of each other’s body. Some couples even
have mirrors in their bedrooms and bathrooms—coitus in the bathroom being by
no means uncommon among young lovers—to exhaust all visual possibilities.
Ideal pragmoscopolagnia is of great importance in art, including the concept
of beauty in its erotic aspects, and (in association with analytic hyloidophilia) in
science. In art, in our male-created phobophronesic civilization, the male point
of view has greatly predominated since female eroticism has generally tended to
be suppressed because of such factors as androphobia and sexual meionexia.
However, the study of geneosemeiolagnia in women, and of the closely related
subject of organomorphology, shows that undoubtedly there is an equivalent
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
female point of view, though women—even where they have achieved partial
erotic emancipation, and much less where they have not—may not feel free to
express it: indeed where they are not liberated they may not be able to admit their
own feelings even to themselves (because of female anancosymphronesia), let
alone express them to others and risk being stigmatized as being ‘unvirtuous’,
immoral, or indeed as having fallen from the rank of ‘respectable’ women to that
of ‘whores’ or prostitutes. Unfortunately, because of the enslavement of women
in phobophronesic civilization, even the male concept of female beauty is often
distorted by the degradation of women, as by expecting them to spend all their
time—or, with their recent partial liberation, a major part of their time—on
artificially beautifying themselves for the master sex, contorting their bodies with
the most unnatural dress to produce artistic effects that are widely at variance
with normal morphology, painting their faces as if they were canvas to be dubbed
with the most elaborate array of colours, etc.
06. Hyperscopolagnia, comprising hyperpragmoscopolagnia and
hyperapragmoscopolagnia, is a scatolagnic, and therefore autolagnic, condition
whether it presents in a heterolagnic or autolagnic setting. In essence, in
hyperscopolagnia vision, instead of being a means to an end, becomes an end in
itself, viz. an autolagnic end.
In a heterolagnic setting, hyperscopolagnia is typified by orgiastic practices
in which a group of people engage in coitus simultaneously with the specific aim
of observing and being observed. A more purely autolagnic form of
pragmoscopolagnia is that of young men whose main erotic occupation is to go
out at night to surreptitiously watch scenes of erotic interest, e.g. couples having
coitus in parked cars or (by peeping through insufficiently drawn curtains) young
women at women’s hostels getting undressed in their bedrooms, the memories of
such scenes forming the main phantasy content of their autolagnic masturbation.
The apragmoscopolagnic counterpart of this is typified by young men who are in
the habit of exposing their genitals and masturbating in quiet public places when
they see a woman, or a group of women (e.g. of schoolgirls) approaching; these
men are usually severely tetraphobic and aphilic as well as
hyperapragmoscopolagnic, and most of them prove to have had very little, or
absolutely no, actual heterolagnic experience. It is much less common, but by
no means unknown, for hyperpragmoscopolagnic young women to frequent dark
lonely lanes at night where lovers are known to go for coitus: their
hyperpragmoscopolagnic activities feed their autolagnic masturbatory phantasies.
However, the most purely autolagnic form of hyperscopolagnia, in which the
patient is simultaneously active and passive, is that of the use of a full-length
mirror, or a set of mirrors, in autolagnic masturbation, the patient inspecting and
caressing his or her own body at great leisure, possibly pretending to be having
coitus with himself or herself, as such or with his or her image in the mirror, until
orgasm is reached.
07. Hapticolagnia is of immense importance in eroticism since, unlike
scopolagnia, it involves direct physical contact, including that of the
phallocolpolagnic relation itself.
Hapticolagnia may involve any part of the body, but the most important organs
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55. Aestheticolagnia
concerned are the hand, the mouth, the breast (in women), and the genitals (in
both sexes). Many specific forms are discussed in other monographs on eroticism:
e.g. cheiro-, stomato-, and phallomastolagnia; allelostomatolagnia; cheiro- and
stomatogynaedeolagnia; cheiro- and stomatophallolagnia; and, of course,
phallocolpolagnia.
Idioms that are primarily related to hapticolagnia—though in some cases they
may also be appreciated visually—include leiolagnia, malakolagnia, xestolagnia,
sclerolagnia, and trachylagnia. These idioms are of considerable
geneosemeiolagnic importance, and are all dealt with elsewhere in this series.
08. Hyperhapticolagnia is an essentially autolagnic condition whatever setting
it occurs in. For example, a girl in her twenties found the slightest contact with
a man—even holding hands—sufficient to put her in a state of eroterethia. She
had never had coitus with a man, partly because of fear of pregnancy and partly
because of religious qualms, but had practised autolagnic masturbation regularly,
in which she spent a great deal of time inspecting and caressing her body in front
of a mirror. She eventually sought contraceptive advice, was fitted with a Dutch
cap, and had regular coitus with more than one man, usually with plenty of time
to spend with the man concerned. Although she showed great curiosity in relation
to andraedeaestheticolagnia, both scopic and haptic, she was completely
mixanorgastic—which amply confirmed the autolagnic nature of her condition,
including her hyperhapticolagnia.
In some cases hyperhapticolagnia may take the form of extreme erotic
sensitivity of such unusual organs as the toes and the webs of the fingers.
Of immense importance in hyperhapticolagnia are the hyper-forms of the
primarily hapticolagnic geneosemeiolagnic idioms noted above, viz. hyperleiomalakolagnia and hyperxesto-sclerolagnia. The former is generally associated
with hypermastolagnia (in aphilic men or in autolagnic men and women); the
latter is typically seen in leather, rubber, and plastic dyslagnia in both sexes,
though usually hyperosphreticolagnia is a more important factor in these cases.
09. Acousticolagnia has a limited place in eueroticism. Lovers talk, exchange
endearments, etc., and both the subject-matter and the tone of voice may be
acousticolagnic.
10. Hyperacousticolagnia, like all hyperaestheticolagnia, is a form of
autolagnic dyseroticism, and is frequently associated with other forms of
autolagnic dyseroticism such as phthorolagnia and homolagnia.
Hyperacousticolagnia is frequently an integral part of brontolagnia, a subject
which is dealt with in the monograph on Stereoidism. However, it may also be
related to the human voice, as in the case of the woman who masturbates to a
man on the telephone because she finds his dominant voice erotopoeic as he tells
her what to do, step by step, till she reaches orgasm (an element of
apragmophthorolagnia is evident here).
11. Osphreticolagnia is of limited importance in eueroticism, but is the major
factor in certain forms of dyseroticism (in the form of hyperosphreticolagnia).
Natural body odours tend to be associated with lack of hygiene and therefore to
be repulsive rather than attractive. However, osphreticolagnia is evoked by genital
secretions, viz. the male semen and the female vaginal secretions that are produced
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abundantly in eroterethia. In stomataedeolagnic relations (stomatovulvolagnia
and stomatophallolagnia), osphreticolagnia may be associated with geusticolagnia.
Finally, the thriving perfumery trade—and perfumes are among the most expensive
items of cosmetics used by women—shows another aspect of osphreticolagnia.
12. Hyperosphreticolagnia is so important in skoroidolagnia, viz. in
uroidolagnia and, even more, in coproidolagnia, that we often regard it as being
virtually an idiom of skoroidolagnia, though this is not strictly so. Thus
hyperosphreticolagnia is commonly found in association with urolagnia,
coprolagnia, uroborolagnia, coproborolagnia, proctolagnia (including dactylo-,
stomato-, and phalloproctolagnia), and mysolagnia. Hyperosphreticolagnia is
also a major factor in hyperparaedeolagnia (hyperpygolagnia, hyperfemorolagnia,
and hyperpodolagnia), in shoe-hypereroticism, and in leather-, rubber-, and
plastic-dyseroticism. All these subjects are dealt with elsewhere.
13. Geusticolagnia is largely ideal in all stomatolagnic relations, the main
exceptions, viz. those of concrete or physical geusticolagnia, being those of
stomataedeolagnia. Thus for a man to tell a woman that her lips ‘taste like honey’
is purely poetic: for allelostomatolagnia, even with deep penetration of the tongue,
is (apart from the basic psychological factor of erotic penetration) essentially
tactile. The geusticolagnic factor in allelostomatolagnia is negligible—except
on the negative side: a foul-smelling mouth due to neglected teeth may have a
bad taste as well as a bad smell.
Stomataedeolagnia in both sexes is open to wide variations, both as regards
technique and as regards whether or not it is carried through to orgasm. Women
who swallow the semen in stomatophallolagnia may describe it as salty, acid, or
sour, but may recognize differences both in its amount and in its taste in different
men, or in the same man before and after vasectomy. Similarly, men who practise
stomatovulvolagnia with different girlfriends may recognize more than one odour,
if not more than one taste, and may classify the girlfriends they have had in this
respect into at least two categories.
14. Hypergeusticolagnia is closely related to hyperosphreticolagnia. For
example, in skoroborolagnia and in hyperpodolagnia taste and odour may be
very closely associated, though odour is usually the predominant factor.
*
*
15. As noted before, myotonolagnia and hypermyotonolagnia are dealt with
in the monograph on The Oral Concept of the World.
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Part Four
MISCELLANEOUS MONOGRAPHS
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1432
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Monograph 56
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
A study in group psychology
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01—02
1.
Collective Identity
03—10
2.
Group Idiomology and Interaction
11—24
Conclusions
25—26
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INTRODUCTION
01. This study is an extension of the study of phobophronesic civilization
with its various conflicts. In the monograph on Civilization—Backward and
Progressive, in the course of studying civilization in its dormant, turbulent, and
progressive forms we examined some examples of the application of the same
principles to the understanding of smaller groups, e.g. so-called ‘closed
communities’ and the slums or ‘rough areas’ of our cities. Here we carry the
application of these principles further by applying them to the understanding of
group reactions, or interactions, in the international, religious, ethnic, and other
spheres—in fact wherever there is an awareness of collective identity.
02. The group concept is of course entirely relative. A group may be a small
religious sect or ethnic minority struggling for survival in a hostile environment,
or it may be a small nation with limited natural resources endeavouring to thrive
in the midst of what must appear by comparison as giant nations; for in all cases
the struggle for survival, and sometimes for affluence, must go on. Alternatively,
a group, especially in our overpopulated world of today, may be a nation with a
population of over one hundred million, comprising many minorities, and perhaps
trying to bully its smaller neighbours.
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56. Collective Identity
Chapter 1
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
03. Human beings are different, physically and mentally, and as long as they
are different they are bound to fall, or to be classifiable, into groups (or types or
sections etc.) the members of each of which have one or more characteristics in
common. In itself this division of people into groups (or types etc.) is a purely
objective fact which is of great (scientific, philosophical, and artistic) interest,
but which does not cause problems or conflicts. Thus it is an objective fact that
human beings have widely differing physical attributes, e.g. height, weight, and
colour of skin, and widely differing mental attributes, e.g. in their optimism or
pessimism, in their inclination to generosity or hoarding, and in their specific
hobbies and interests. Problems arise only when a certain group of people,
whatever its size, become aware of themselves as having a collective identity,
and, furthermore, of that collective identity setting them aside from other people
in a factious sense, i.e. in a phthoristic-dyshectistic sense, either sadistic-pleonectic
or phthorophobic-meionectic.
04. This point is of vital importance in our study and we have to be very clear
about it. Objectively speaking, all human beings are individuals, each with his
or her own identity (or individuality or personality). We can classify them into
groups (or sections or types etc.); some classifications are so obvious that they
have been known to humanity since the dawn of awareness, e.g. the division of
mankind into two sexes; other classifications are abstruse scientific classifications
which are not immediately evident, e.g. the medical classification of people into
different ‘blood groups’. Of course these divisions have immense scientific (and
other) implications. For example, only women can have all the diseases of the
female genital organs, and those associated with pregnancy and childbirth, which
are medically studied under the headings of ‘gynaecology’ and ‘obstetrics’;
similarly, only men can be affected by the diseases commonly known to occur in
the prostate and testicles. Again, we know that the study of blood groups is of
immense practical importance. The important point is that all these are objective
differences which can be used scientifically (and otherwise), and often very
usefully too, to classify human beings in innumerable different ways. Problems
arise only when two conditions are met: a group of people is aware of itself as
having a collective identity, whether based on existent or purely imaginary criteria,
and that collective identity has phthoristic-dyshectistic implications.
05. Thus, for example, to take the case of the division into sexes, to be aware
of oneself as a man or as a woman, possibly (at any rate theoretically) even if that
awareness is a collective awareness in terms of ‘we men’ or ‘we women’—and
indeed it need not be a collective awareness—will not result in strife. Strife will
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only begin once men, implicitly or explicitly, set themselves against women, or
women set themselves against men, in some phthoristic and/or dyshectistic form,
e.g. as being superior to the other sex (which is pleonectic) or as the other sex
being ‘contemptible’ (contempt is a manifestation of sadism)—or, equally, as
being inferior to the other sex (which is meionectic) or as being ashamed of
one’s sex (such shame (and shame, like phthorism, is a palaeoscatistic idiom) is
common in relation to being humiliated and despised in the sadistic sense, as by
being defeated in war—in this case in the ‘war between the sexes’). However, it
is sadistic pleonexia, rather than phthorophobic meionexia, that is the more typical
reaction—and the one that is more likely to cause strife.
06. In this case we have chosen an example in which collective identity has
a factual basis, but collective identity most often has no factual basis: it arises
most often from belief, which has no objective existence. Even in the case of the
division into sexes, at a truly rational (i.e. postphobophronesic) level of awareness
an individual’s awareness of his or her sex is individual and not collective. In
other words, even where the division has a factual basis, the presence of collective
(as against individual) identity is always suspect, i.e. it usually, probably always,
imparts a basically primitive, irrational idea to the factual division. On the other
hand, such divisions as national and religious divisions usually rest more or less
entirely on belief, i.e. on criteria which have no objective existence. For example,
although nations may indeed have wide phronesic idiomological differences,
this is not why nations have fought wars: the collective awareness of a nation of
itself as a nation has little foundation other than itself, i.e. other than the belief by
a certain group of people that they form, or belong to, a certain unity: a nation.
Often objective differences are included, e.g. language, but these are entirely
secondary and incidental: a ‘nation’ is proud of its language only because of its
sadistic-pleonectic awareness of itself as a nation, which gives rise to what is
commonly known as ‘nationalism’: that sadistic-pleonectic awareness, i.e. that
‘nationalism’, will make the nation (in the opinion of its members) superior to all
other nations in all respects: if the nation has its own language then that language
would acquire the same delusional superiority. In fact there is not one objective
criterion that explains or justifies the awareness of being one nation: even
language—one of the commonest and most definite objective differences between
nations—is not a constant factor. The difference is even hazier in the case of
religious factiousness: men could fight wars because one group believed that
there was one god while the other believed that there were two or a multitude of
gods: there is no objective difference: only a difference in belief.
07. However, whether or not collective identity has a factual basis—and, as
just noted, even a factual basis does not justify collective (as against individual)
identity—it is the association of this collective identity with factiousness, i.e.
with phthoristic dyshectism, that causes conflicts. That is why we are justified in
stating categorically that collective identity, whether or not it has a factual basis,
is collectivistic, i.e. is derived from the confusion (or identification) of different
individuals. Collectivism may be defined as the prephobosymphronesic inability
to recognize the independence or separateness of a number of individuals who
are similar in some real or imaginary respect with the result that they are treated
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56. Collective Identity
as if they were all the same. Collectivism in its most complete form is characteristic
of savages because of their low level of awareness representing the level of mental
undifferentiation (the level of prephobophronesia, whose main constituent is
prephobosymphronesia). This subject is dealt with at length in the monograph
on The Psychogenesis of Collectivism and Totemism. In the case of savages, we
see the extreme of collectivism in confusing different persons who are (or are
thought to be) similar and treating them as if they were identical. Thus, for
example, whereas in our phobophronesic civilization the mother incest taboo
prohibits a man from having coitus with his own mother, in savage society the
mother incest taboo prohibits (or prohibited, since true savages no longer exist) a
man from having coitus with any of his tribal mothers, i.e. his own mother (the
woman who gave birth to him) as well as all the women his father (i.e. the man to
whom his mother was allotted, since physical paternity was still unknown) might
have married but did not. In fact in totemism, we see not only the confusion of
human beings who are thought to be similar, but also their confusion with a
certain species of animal or plant or (less often) an inanimate object such as
water or thunder. For example, among the Australian aborigines, members of
the kangaroo clan would speak of their ancestors indiscriminately as kangaroo
men or as men kangaroos, and they believed that they themselves had affinities
with that species of animal, i.e. that they and kangaroos were one and the same
thing. Thus totemism is a special form or manifestation of collectivism in which
a group of human beings identify themselves not only with one another but also
with a particular species of animal or plant or an inanimate object.
08. It is considerations like these that show us, on reflection, that collective
identity in our society is basically collectivistic, being no more and no less than
an attenuated form of the much more complete collectivism of savages. In other
words, at the prephobophronesic level of savagery, which was predominantly
symphronesic, individualism was rudimentary or non-existent, while collectivism
existed in its most complete, or most extreme, form, viz. in the so-called primitive
collectivistic phenomena. At the phobophronesic level of civilization, with its
relative mental differentiation, individualism predominates, but collectivism also
survives in an attenuated form in the imaginary collective identity that underlies
international, religious, ethnic, and other group conflicts. At a higher phronesic
level still, that of postphobophronesia (or rationalism) represented by classless
world civilization, individualism is complete, and therefore there is no room for
collective identity or collectivism.
09. Indeed we may go even further. Modern nations are probably as deluded
in the belief in their unity or oneness as savage clans were in their belief that they
were animals or plants or inanimate objects. In other words, the bond that unites
the members of a modern nation is as irrational as the animal or plant or inanimate
object that united the members of a clan among our remote savage ancestors.
Just as the kangaroo united the members of the kangaroo clan with one another
and with kangaroos (and there is no reason to think that our own ancestors did
not have the same totemism even though they may not have had the same animals
and plants as the Australians), so do present-day national emblems, such as the
national flag and the animal or plant or other national emblem, unite the members
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of a modern nation with one another and with their emblem or emblems. Men
salute the national flag, and rivers of blood have been shed by warring nations
defending their national flags or emblems. In our time, the national flag is the
most formal, and most universally used, national emblem. It is also, in our time,
the commonest emblem of factiousness.
National emblems, like savage totems, may be a certain species of animal or
plant or a certain design of some kind. Familiar examples of these neototems,
apart from flags, include the lion, the dragon, the eagle, the bear, the leek, and
the thistle.
But neototems, or group emblems, are not limited to national divisions. We
see them in religion (e.g. the Christian cross, the Islamic crescent, and the Jewish
Star of David) and even in the ‘trademarks’ of manufacturing firms. Thus we
may eat the Kangaroo Brand of butter and the Ship Brand of frozen fish, use the
Double Cow Brand of matches, the Triangle Brand of computers, etc. In fact few
firms do not have their emblems.
However, of the multitude of emblems that we have, not all imply factiousness,
as most national and religious emblems do, and, to some extent, as most trademarks
implicitly do. Some are purely artistic, in the sense that they imply no factiousness
whatsoever (as against being artistic but in the service of factiousness): just as
magic and animism survive, and will always survive, in art, in which (if art is
truly civilized) they are completely innocuous, so may totemism. Thus just as
lovers may figure the breeze as whispering their love, so they may call each other
‘mouse’ or ‘rabbit’ etc.
In short, the sociological importance of these emblems, or neototems, depends
on whether or not, and to what degree, they are associated with phthoristic
dyshectism.
10. Collective identity in relation to social stratification is seen in the greater
empathy that characterizes the lower political class (the ‘working class’) and
women, i.e. the lower sexual class. This greater collectivism of the lower classes
in this respect contrasts with the greater individualism of the upper classes; for
example, in both the upper political class and in men (as against women) empathy
is much less common and less pronounced.
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56. Collective Identity
Chapter 2
GROUP IDIOMOLOGY AND INTERACTION
11. Group interaction (i.e. interaction between groups) can only be properly
understood in terms of the phronesic idiomology of the two groups concerned.
This implies the distinction not only between the phagistic and the scatistic forms
of mental orientation but also between the individual idioms of each of these
main entities. Here we can only examine some typical examples along general
lines.
12. In the case of minority-majority reactions, looking at the reaction of the
majority to the minority first, we are struck by the frequency and magnitude of
two factors which often operate together: aetheophobia and anorthodoxophobia.
These two factors have often resulted in intolerance and persecution of minorities.
Anorthodoxophobia (fear of unorthodoxy, dissidence, or nonconformity) is the
practical form of aphormic hectophobia, which is phagistic. There are often
delicate dividing lines between mere suspiciousness, actual intolerance, and finally
full-blown persecution. For example, in England, no doubt because of the
prevalence of personal independence and of self-restraint (which is a deutoscatistic
idiom), there has been a marked tendency to religious tolerance and indeed to
tolerance of dissidents in general. That is why, for example, the medieval
Inquisition in England showed few of the atrocities that characterized its
persecution of dissidents on the Continent; and that is also why Newton was able
to publish his work in England with impunity. However, even with all this
tolerance, religious minorities in England were barred from the universities until
the nineteenth century. Similarly, aetheophobia (fear of the unusual) may vary
from suspiciousness to harbouring the most fantastic ideas about minorities,
blaming them for all sorts of national misfortunes, which may readily result in
their persecution. Aetheophobia is certainly a rife source of misunderstandings
between different groups of people, including different nations, because of the
irrational fear of others who are different giving rise to what is euphemistically
called ‘preconceived ideas’, which in reality may be just unfounded fears.
13. Of course some of the reactions of the majority to the minority may have
a factual basis in the phronesic idiomology of the minority. Obviously much
depends on the similarity or dissimilarity of the idiomology of the majority and
that of the minority. For example, a majority with pronounced personal
independence is much more likely to tolerate a dissident minority showing the
same tendency to personal independence than a polyphilic majority whose own
gregariousness may make it difficult for them to understand why the minority
does not want to integrate. Here we can see how the same idiom may have two
opposite results: philophilic gregariousness is characterized by friendliness which,
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together with optimism (another philophilic idiom) and the general happy-golucky attitude to life, usually invites tolerance of outsiders; yet the same gregarious
polyphilics who may give strangers visiting them a characteristically warm
welcome, may be intensely suspicious of individuals or minority groups (including
visitors who stay long enough) if the latter show any signs of personal
independence or individualism: to the gregarious polyphilics everybody should
be gregarious, and the attitude of individuals or groups with marked personal
independence may be readily interpreted in aphilic terms as one of rejection, and
may be reacted to accordingly. Similar considerations may apply in a different
way to a polyphilic minority and a polyneoscatistic majority with marked personal
independence: polyphilic gregariousness may be expected to make it easier for
the minority to make friends among the majority and generally become integrated,
but in practice it is more likely to have the opposite effect: the polyphilic minority
is likely to interpret the personal independence of the majority as unfriendliness
or even (in aphilic terms) as rejection, which will only drive them deeper and
deeper (through their gregariousness) into becoming a closely-knit community,
and perhaps ultimately a ‘closed community’.
14. The British, who have a marked degree of personal independence, have
always tolerated their eccentrics who, in a polydeutoscatistic culture, are most
likely to be excessively self-willed individuals, i.e. individuals exhibiting the
extreme of personal independence. The international aspect of this is seen in the
fact that the British as a nation are often regarded by other Europeans as being a
little eccentric, or as being ‘different from everybody else’ as one well-known
Continental travel guidebook put it. But bias apart, the British have indeed shown
a measure of self-willedness in driving on the left side of the road when others
drive on the right, and in retaining imperial units when others were using metric
units. Since joining the European Union, the metric system has been adopted
and the change to driving on the right is receiving serious consideration. It is fair
to add, however, that, as we have noted before, it is the British inclination to
personal independence, together with such other idioms as self-restraint, that
account for the fact that, in the Middle Ages and earlier part of the modern era,
there was far greater freedom of thought and tolerance of dissidents and
nonconformists in this country than anywhere else in Europe.
15. We have said so much about personal independence. Of course similar
considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to other idioms. For example, a polyphilic
majority that is given to generosity may react to a minority that is given to hoarding
(which is a scatistic idiom) variously with optimistic indifference, with
disparagement because of its ‘ungenerosity’, or with resentment or even
persecution, especially in time of adversity or scarcity (e.g. in time of war when
wealth as well as resources have to be mobilized for the common weal). By
contrast, a hoarding minority in the midst of either a hoarding or a markedly
pleonectic majority would pass unnoticed, at any rate in so far as the idiom of
hoarding is concerned.
16. Turning now to the reaction of the minority to the majority, about which
something has been said already, this again depends mainly on the idiomology
of the minority, especially in relation to the idiomology of the majority. Here we
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56. Collective Identity
should remember that phagism—and this is particularly true of philism—is
basically a reaction to a world of abundance, whereas scatism is predominantly a
reaction to a world of scarcity and adversity. Thus, in the struggle of a minority
for survival, a polyphilic minority, ill adapted to cope with the adversity it finds
itself in, may soon be resigned to its fate, and may thus gravitate to a ghetto or
slum in a city from which it may never emerge. By contrast, a scatistic minority,
being well adapted to cope with scarcity and adversity, may struggle not only for
survival but even for affluence, by combining pleonexia with hoarding, i.e. by
combining acquisitiveness with frugality. Other related idioms may coexist, and
may greatly help the minority not only to improve its lot but indeed to enrich the
whole community around it. Examples of these idioms include polyergophilia
(love of work), personal independence (especially in relation to the single-minded
pursuit of goals), and perseverance. Thus these are hard-working minorities that
contribute to culture far in excess of their numbers. We see numerous examples
of such minorities in Europe. For example, here in Britain, the hardy, hardworking, and frugal Scots have made a disproportionately great contribution to
culture not only in Britain but virtually all over the world. The same applies to
such small countries of Northern Europe as the Netherlands, Denmark, and
Sweden which have contributed, and continue to contribute, to modern civilization
far in excess of their small populations.
17. But scatism may also have its seamy side. Pleonexia and hoarding may
be combined with such extreme personal independence, and with such pride due
to the ability to amass wealth, that members of the minority group may feel that
they do not belong to the rest of the community, and their attitude towards the
majority may be one of suspicion, mistrust, and even contempt (which is closely
related to sadism and pride). Of course the suspicion and mistrust may be due to
actual persecution in the past or to discrimination against them as regards work,
educational opportunities, etc. However, the antagonism of the majority may
itself be due to the extreme aloofness and egoism of members of the minority
group who may feel that they are, as it were, entitled to be utterly selfish because
their numbers are small: the majority, they feel, can look after themselves because
they are in the majority, but they, the minority, have to be selfish in order to
survive. This inevitably impairs the sense of social feeling, or social morality, in
relation to the community as a whole. Yet, paradoxically, this sadistic pleonexia,
combined with hoarding, and unfettered by any social feeling, may be associated
with extreme phthorophobia, moral and otherwise, due to the fear of the majority,
on whom their livelihood and their wealth depend. This extreme phthorophobia
may result in a deep sense of insecurity which only serves to further aggravate
the pleonexia, sadism, and hoarding to guard against any possible turn of fortune.
Thus underneath the pious outward appearance of phthorophobic morality to
appease the mistrusted majority, there is the lack of social feeling and social
morality, and the urge to bleed the community in which, and on which, they live.
Certainly their contribution to the community may be disproportionately great,
but, from their point of view, this is purely incidental: it is not motivated by any
social morality or interest in the welfare of the community as a whole.
18. For example, Switzerland is a tiny country in the centre of a continent
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that is dominated by a number of much larger countries. Yet Switzerland, with a
small geographical area, limited natural resources, and a small population, is a
comparatively very wealthy nation. The Swiss make their money abroad, and
they know how to keep it. They used to be ‘watch-makers to the world’. Now
they have competitors in this field, but they have developed other industries and
their products—usually light but sophisticated—are sold on a large scale
worldwide. Formal Swiss morality can be gauged from the fact that Switzerland
is a neutral country and a staunch supporter of all humanitarian movements—the
Red Cross is a typical example. It is a matter of opinion whether this neutrality
and support for humanitarian work is due to social morality or to the awareness
that a tiny country, landlocked by factious giants, could only survive, not by
merely observing strict neutrality, but by making itself positively useful to all
parties concerned by mediating regarding prisoners of war and other matters of
mutual interest to the warring parties. On the other hand, private Swiss morality,
as represented by the major Swiss firms, has been suspect for a long time,
especially in the poorer countries of the world where the prevalence of ignorance
and corruption makes it easy for unscrupulous European industrialists to sell
products which could be harmful or dangerous to the local population. In recent
years, however, the ethics of Swiss firms have been called into question, and
have even caused embarrassing scandals, in the progressive countries of the world,
including Britain, the European Union, and Japan. This was not limited to the
use of unscrupulous or illegal means to make exorbitant profits: in some cases it
involved exposing people in neighbouring countries to the dangers of poisonous
chemicals. When egoism drives a tiny nation in the struggle for survival, and
indeed for affluence, to bleed bigger nations, that is one thing; when egoism
recklessly endangers human life or welfare, that is a completely different order
of social crime. Swiss firms often boast about their immense contribution to
science and research; the claim is well-founded, but the contribution is incidental.
Swiss banks have a certain notoriety that puts them in a unique position among
all world banks. Fortunately, up till now, the Swiss could not be said to control
the financial markets of Europe or of the world, even though Zurich makes some
pretence to being a relatively important financial centre. Finally, how the Swiss
view their own position in the world is best illustrated by a certain minor but
significant occurrence: immediately after reorganization in 1985, Swiss Radio
International (international!), in its English broadcasts (English being the most
internationally spoken language today) stopped giving the times of its broadcasts
in Greenwich mean time or universal time: it gave them in Swiss local time!
(This phase later moderated by using universal time for non-European broadcasts
in English, and ‘Central European (summer) time’ for all English broadcasts to
Europe.)
19. We have referred repeatedly to the contrast between philophilic
gregariousness, making it easier for polyphilics (under favourable circumstances)
to integrate, and scatistic personal independence, making it harder for those with
this idiom well developed to integrate. One major illustration of this contrast can
be seen in the former history of modern European exploration and imperialism.
At one end of the scale we see the British and the Dutch—two nations with
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56. Collective Identity
marked personal independence—hardly mixing with the local population of their
empires; at the opposite end of the scale we see the polyphilic Spaniards and
Portuguese who freely mixed with the local population to produce the mixed
races of present-day Latin America.
20. Because of their unique phronesic idiomology, it is impossible in our
present-day divided world to think of eventual world unity without thinking about
the British, more specifically the English who form the majority in Britain. The
characteristic shrewdness and relative fairness of the English arise mainly from
their predominantly protophasic polydeutoscatism, i.e. their polyprotophasia.
Their self-restraint (encratophilia) and pragmatophilia make it easier for them to
accept compromise and ‘common sense’ (in contrast, for example, to the
polydeutophasic Germans whose perfectionism (teleophilia) inclines them to be
uncompromizing). (Incidentally, this same idiom of self-restraint, by which we
have to lay much store for the ultimate establishment of world unity, and which
has earned the British a reputation for being fair, or inclined to ‘fair play’, has
also earned them a reputation for being emotionally cold and unartistic—which
reminds us that most idioms have their assets and their drawbacks: we have just
noted the example of German perfectionism, which has produced wonders in
German industry, but which has the drawback of being wholly uncompromising.)
Closely related to self-restraint is another protophasic idiom: patience
(cartericophilia). Personal independence, though in one way it makes compromise
more difficult (and so has the opposite effect of self-restraint), since a self-willed
person likes to have his own way, in a different way makes tolerance of others
who think and behave differently easier, since the self-willed individual prefers
to walk his own way and to let others walk theirs (the opposite of philophilic
gregariousness with its tendency to familiarity and interference). But no less
important are the idioms which the English lack. Propetism (which, in its hedonic
form (impulsiveness), is the opposite of self-restraint) is a palaeoscatistic idiom
that is remarkably lacking in the English; in fact the English lack—and abhor—
impulsiveness or precipitateness so much that they have a reputation for being
conservative: change is only made after due consideration, never (or hardly ever)
precipitately or ‘on the spur of the moment’. Closely related to propetism, but of
incomparably greater importance culturally and individually, is another
palaeoscatistic idiom, phthorism, whose main constituent idioms are sadism,
masochism, autophthorophilia, and phthorophobia. The relative freedom from
phthorism—though this, of course, is only relative, since phthorism is an integral
part of phobophronesic civilization, second in importance only to hectism—has
again been characteristic of the English, alike at home and abroad.
21. This English phronesic idiomology has been of immense importance,
both to the English at home and to other nations abroad. Tolerance and fairness
have been exhibited to the full in relation to their immediate neighbours, the
Welsh and the Scots, whom they were prepared to treat truly as equals, which has
resulted in this remarkable and basically stable union of what are in reality three
different nations with appreciably different cultures. That this ‘United Kingdom’,
or Britain, has failed to incorporate Ireland is a sad fact to which we shall refer
later.
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22. On the other hand, abroad, the English—or rather the British, as Britain
is now a united country—have exhibited the same characteristics noted above
about the English, but to a lesser extent. To speak of absolute fairness or tolerance
in relation to imperialism would be a plain contradiction in terms, but, by the
standards of Western imperialism in general, the British indeed exhibited
characteristic self-restraint, relative tolerance and fairness, and, above all, relative
freedom from sadism. No invader can be loved, and the British abroad were no
exception. But it has been aptly said of the British in their imperialism that if
they were not loved at least they were respected. Of course they did all they
could to further their own interests, but always with self-restraint and a modicum
of rational morality, especially when it came to bloodshed. The ‘divide and rule’
policy that characterized British imperialism was, for all its iniquities, still much
more humane than the unrestrained pleonexia and sadism of other Western nations,
e.g. of the Belgians who, in the ‘Belgian Congo’, were prepared to have the
hands of natives amputated if they failed to bring in the appropriate amount of
rubber, to say nothing of the United States which continued to import African
slaves until well into the nineteenth century.
23. Of course there were exceptions, not only in the form of occasional
blunders (e.g. selling Palestine over the heads of its native inhabitants to the Jews
towards the end of the First World War) but, above all, in the fact that although
the British were relatively fair to the backward nations they dominated, and to
the higher savages who were already on the threshold of civilization, they did not
stop the extermination of the lower savages in the Australian continent and in
North America. But apart from this it is true to say that bloodshed, abuse of
power when such abuse would have been only too easy and very tempting, and
corruption, were all characteristically uncommon or unknown in the British
Empire. Much reform was undertaken, which by no means was done by all
European imperialists. All this may explain the fact that when the inevitable
time came for Britain to renounce its Empire, it resisted as much and for as long
as it could, but in the end, true to British self-restraint, ‘common sense’ prevailed,
and the formidable sacrifice had to be made with far less bloodshed than was
possible for other European nations that had to renounce their empires. Perhaps
the most important point from our present point of view is that, even with the
breakup of the British Empire, the British have managed to salvage some of the
respect they had enjoyed in the past by the creation of the Commonwealth—
another remarkable achievement which, despite the vicissitudes it has had,
especially because of the difficulties that Britain itself has had since, certainly
proves that world unity might be practicable if nations were prepared to show
self-restraint, tolerance, and fairness. That Britain, both because of its phronesic
idiomology and because of its cultural maturity, is the nation best suited to
undertake this mission in the world, is a subject that is dealt with in the monograph
on Acracy.
24. In the move towards integration and ultimate world unity, one major
stumbling block—as Britain has found out to its detriment—is that of propetophthoristic groups. Propeto-phthorism (which, in its cultural form, is dealt with
in other monographs, e.g. those on Government, Acracy, and Civilization) is
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56. Collective Identity
palaeoscatistic and will no doubt eventually be outgrown, like all dysphronesic
idioms of phobophronesia (including the whole of phthorism). The exceptional
resistance of propeto-phthoristic groups to integration with non-propetophthoristic groups—the use of guns and explosives is not uncommon in this
respect—arises not so much from a strong collective identity, though this is indeed
usually present, as from the factual basis of this collective identity: the common
dislike of organization, which they themselves euphemistically describe (or
possibly themselves perceive) as love of ‘freedom’ or ‘liberty’. The extreme of
this dislike of organization, order, and discipline is seen in the teachings, as well
as the practices, of the anarchists: those who, in defence of the ‘freedom’ of the
individual, advocate the abrogation of social organization and social order, and
often use bullets and bombs to support their cause. In a milder form, the propetophthoristic love of ‘freedom’ is characteristic of some social groups. The most
international group is the gypsies who, everywhere in the world, have rejected
organized society and social order, and have continued to live a ‘free’ nomadic
life. Probably there are other ethnic, and perhaps also religious, groups with
similar tendencies, though not necessarily to the same degree. As a national
characteristic, this brand of the love of ‘freedom’ has left its impression on English
history in the remarkable independence from the United Kingdom secured by
both the United States and Ireland. The United States was a colony whose amazing
love of ‘freedom’ caused it to seek, and obtain, independence from Britain at a
time when the British Empire, far from showing any signs of breaking up, was
growing apace. It is not surprising that the United States is often represented by
its most characteristic landmark: the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour,
which greets the foreigner, and perhaps warns him about what ‘liberty’ means to
Americans. What ‘liberty’ or ‘freedom’ actually means to Americans is amply
portrayed in the thriving American ‘cowboy film’ industry, in which the cowboy—
a man who lives by his gun entirely for himself, who recognizes no law or higher
authority, and who can only associate with other ‘free’ men like himself: in short,
the extreme of propeto-phthorism—clearly represents the American ideal of
‘freedom’. American propeto-phthorism is of immense cultural importance; it
could even decide the fate of modern civilization in the age of nuclear weapons;
the subject is dealt with elsewhere in this series. Ireland, on the other hand, has
been the only part of the ‘British Isles’ to resist integration with England. Today,
independent Ireland is a small and relatively poor country that relies heavily on
Britain for its economy, and the Irish emigrate to Britain on a large scale, where
they are readily given equal rights, or are accepted as British. Yet, significantly,
far from the Irish wanting to unite with Britain at the present time to make up for
time lost, their terrorists—whom they no doubt regard as ‘freedom’ fighters—
have used guns and explosives in the attempt to take that small part of Ireland
that has united with Britain, viz. Northern Ireland. No less significant is the fact
that, although Britain and the United States have been allies for a long time,
including two World Wars, the anti-British Irish ‘freedom’ fighters have the
sympathy of many Americans, and are probably mainly supported, both financially
and with weapons, by Americans. Of course many Americans are of Irish origin,
but whether this is part or the whole of the explanation in this particular case, the
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
common love of ‘freedom’ in the two nations, and the use of bullets and bombs
to defend that ‘freedom’, is obvious.
1446
56. Collective Identity
CONCLUSIONS
25. Group conflicts arise, not from the fact that human beings are different,
and so fall into groups, types, or categories, but from the existence of primitive
collectivistic group identity, or collective identity, which may or may not have
any factual basis, and the association of this collective identity with phthoristicdyshectistic (sadistic-pleonectic or phthorophobic-meionectic) phobophronesia.
Collectivism, including collective identity, is prephobosymphronesic, and is
the opposite of individualism, which is postphobophronesic. Thus, where
postphobophronesia, or rationalism, prevails, there is no room for collective
identity even where people obviously fall into groups. The fact that a man is a
man and not a woman, that he is white and not black, and that he lives in a certain
part of the world, are all examples of facts which, in a truly rational civilization,
are entirely of individual significance: they do not give rise to collective identity
and have no collectivistic implications in any way.
26. For example, in the past, cities had their own walls and gates, which were
closed at night. This meant, for argument’s sake, that nobody could enter
Manchester or Liverpool without explaining at the gate why he wanted to be
there. It was a matter of every city being potentially against every other city, and
every county being potentially against every other county. Today we recognize
that there are people who live in Liverpool and others who live in Manchester;
we may even recognize that ‘Liverpudlians’ and ‘Mancunians’ have differences
not only in the dialects they speak but also in temperament. But these differences
do not isolate them from each other, or set them against each other, or for that
matter isolate them from the rest of the country—unless, of course, Liverpudlians
or Mancunians were to allow themselves to become a ‘closed community’. (In
the monograph on Civilization we referred to a rural community that existed
some time ago where a hospital authority fiercely resisted national integration:
as it turned out, the ‘confidentiality’ about which they were concerned was not
the confidentiality or privacy of individuals: it was the collective privacy of the
closed community as a whole that was being guarded against the rest of the
country.) The reason Liverpudlians and Mancunians are not isolated—the reason
these words have no factious implications—is that whatever factual differences
there may be between them, or for that matter whatever characteristics they may
share, we still treat them entirely as individuals: to be a Liverpudlian or a
Mancunian is not a nationality (that is why the words ‘Liverpudlian’ and
‘Mancunian’ are commonly used jocularly), and Liverpool and Manchester are
not City States: Liverpudlians and Mancunians are no more and no less British
than anybody else anywhere else in Britain. Anybody anywhere in Britain can
enter (or go) to Liverpool or Manchester any time, by day or night, to visit, or to
work there, or to settle down there permanently and become a Liverpudlian or a
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Mancunian. But this is the important point: we have overcome most of the local
factiousness of the past that set county against county and city against city, but
we still have national boundaries which, like the city gates of the past, cannot be
crossed without permission. Our human society is still divided into ‘nations’
each with its own ‘sovereignty’, each with its own collective identity, each setting
itself apart from the rest of mankind. If we have outgrown most of the local
factiousness that dominated our society in the past, surely it is not too much to
hope that, in centuries (or millennia) to come, we will outgrow the national,
religious, ethnic, and other factious divisions that are tearing human society at
present. At the present time, it is customary for enlightened people to say that all
people are entitled to have, and to foster (through education and the holding of
meetings etc.), their own collective identities. This is a completely mistaken
idea. For when individualism, the true characteristic of rational
(postphobophronesic) civilization, is complete, there will only be individuals in
our world and no factious, collectivistic divisions.
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57. Antiphobic Sadism
Monograph 57
ANTIPHOBIC SADISM
01. Antiphobic sadism may be defined as the sadistic destruction, typically
characteristically extreme, uncontrollable (i.e. propetophilic), and only temporary,
of any or all of the cosmophobic standards of phobophronesia, such as those of
aphormic and stratificatory hectophobia, phthorophobia, and shame, thus freeing
the individual or the community from cosmophobic taboos, which may include
virtually the whole of phobophronesic morality, in an unpredictable manner which
may equally destroy all reason. This monograph complements other accounts of
antiphobic sadism, e.g. in the monographs on palaeoscatism and on Acracy.
02. Antiphobic sadism is seen in a most typical, or most complete, form in its
acute form, in which it may be completely uncontrollable; the chronic form is
usually milder, or less complete, but is more sustained and may indeed last
indefinitely. Both forms may be seen in individuals or in small or large groups,
including a whole community or a whole nation, but usually the involvement of
two or more individuals greatly facilitates the loss of (cosmophobic or rational)
inhibition or restraint. Closely related to this is the fact that alcohol frequently
plays an important part in individual cases or in small groups: in large groups,
e.g. communities, alcohol may play no part at all.
03. Antiphobic sadism is closely related to propetophilia, with a greater or
lesser degree of which (practical and/or ideal) it is nearly always associated.
More generally, it is related to propeto-phthorism, though the exact components
of propetism and phthorism that may be present in propeto-phthorism (e.g.
propetophilia, propetophobia, non-erotic and erotic sadism, non-erotic and erotic
masochism, and autophthorophilia and even autophthorolagnia), and also whether
they are concrete or ideal, show wide variations. Thus the chronic forms in
particular are much more likely to be seen in individuals and nations with propetophthoristic propensities.
It is obvious that, in the last analysis, antiphobic sadism itself is in fact a
special form of propeto-phthorism, viz. one that is characterized by propetophilia,
primarily ideal though practical propetophilia may also be present, and sadism
which is also primarily ideal, though concrete sadism may be present and may be
extreme.
04. The relation between antiphobic sadism and sadistic pleonexia is less
direct but still quite important. In a sense, antiphobic sadism represents the
ultimate in sadistic pleonexia and, in particular, in sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
As we have noted repeatedly in other monographs, sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’
is in fact immorality rather than morality, and this immorality may from time to
time pass over into antiphobic sadism. It is important to emphasize that the
relation between sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’ and antiphobic sadism is not direct
or constant: sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’ may, as it were, spill over into antiphobic
sadism: it is a sort of overflow which, though it happens frequently where sadistic
pleonexia prevails, is still an exceptional and not a constant occurrence. In other
words, antiphobic sadism may be said to be a common complication of sadistic
pleonexia.
There are important differences between sadistic pleonexia and antiphobic
sadism. In sadistic pleonexia the pleonexia is usually the dominant component.
On the other hand, in antiphobic sadism there is usually an important element of
propetophilia. However, it is easy to see that these differences are not basic:
sadism is the common link between the two conditions—in fact sadism is a
common link between sadistic pleonexia and propeto-phthorism in general.
05. In turbulent backward civilizations the predominant idioms are those of
sadistic pleonexia. However, one frequently encounters instances of antiphobic
sadism in the rampant corruption of these civilizations, of which it may aptly be
said that there is no rule or law that is too sacred to be broken: in religion, politics,
and sexuality one encounters examples of sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’ passing
over into frank antiphobic sadism. Again, it is evident that in riots and revolutions
the rebellion basically represents an upsurge of sadistic pleonexia in the
phthorophobic-meionectic classes—but this can easily pass into greater or lesser
antiphobic sadism.
06. Antiphobic sadism very often features in enantioscatism. In enantioscatism
there is a hedonic/cosmophobic conflict, mainly between palaeoscatistic
dyshedonia on the one hand, e.g. sadism, propetophilia, and coprophilia, and, on
the other hand, moral phthorophobia. These are the main factors in the conflict,
but other factors are often also present, e.g. masochism and autophthorophilia,
including moral autophthorophilia, and the erotic forms of the idioms mentioned.
The point of most interest to us here is that sadism, which is a major factor in
enantioscatism, very often includes antiphobic sadism. This antiphobic sadism
usually attacks the patient’s most cherished cosmophobic taboos and moral
standards—religious (resulting in ‘blasphemous’ thoughts), sexual or erotic
(resulting in ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’ thoughts), and political (resulting in criminal
thoughts of impulsive, uncontrollable violence, e.g. involving children, old people,
or other helpless people). Autophthorophilia may also be involved, e.g. thoughts
of impulsive suicide by jumping from a height or in front of a passing car. The
antiphobic-sadistic character of all these thoughts is evident from the fact that
they are so excessive, exotic, fantastic: the ‘blasphemy’, ‘indecency’, and
‘criminality’ involved have no limits. However, antiphobic sadism in
enantioscatism hardly ever leads to any action: instead of demolishing
cosmophobic morality it is usually kept well in check by it. Moral phthorophobia
is the main factor here, although moral autophthorophilia and other forms of
phobophronesic morality, as well as rational morality, may also play a part. But
although antiphobic sadism (with very rare exceptions) is confined to the patient’s
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57. Antiphobic Sadism
thoughts, the continual struggle to keep it under control may produce a state of
extreme tension. To repeat all this in other words, everywhere else antiphobic
sadism sweeps away cosmophobic morality, at any rate temporarily: only in
enantioscatism does cosmophobic morality (mainly moral phthorophobia) keep
antiphobic sadism in check—but the antiphobic sadism does not go away: it
continues to torment the patient, and the struggle by moral phthorophobia (and
other forms of morality) to keep it under control often produces a state of severe
tension that wears the patient out.
*
*
07. In individuals and small groups, as noted before, antiphobic sadism is
particularly common in association with propeto-phthorism and is often facilitated
by alcohol. The taboos most often broken are those on eroticism, including both
taboos regarded in phobophronesic civilization as forming the very essence of
morality and taboos on ‘unnatural eroticism’ (aetherotophobia). (‘Unnatural
eroticism’—a subject dealt with elsewhere—is an ill-defined entity whose content,
whether euerotic or dyserotic, is very differently conceived by different individuals
and by different cultures.) Thus, for example, a couple may try in their erotic
relationship everything which they feel is ‘wild’ or ‘exotic’ or ‘bad’: they may
try stomatophallolagnia (‘fellatio’) in unusual positions, or including ejaculating
semen all over the woman’s face, or may try phalloproctolagnia, or may insert a
crucifix into the vagina to the accompaniment of blasphemous curses. Groups
may go even further in their breach of taboos: ‘wife swapping’ may be practised;
men and women may have coitus in the presence of, or while watching, each
other; two men may share one woman, who may be the wife of one of them, by
having coitus with her alternately, or by her simultaneously receiving the penis
of one in her vagina and that of the other in her mouth; or the threesome may
consist of one man and two women; in either case there may or may not be
homolagnic relations between the two women or the two men in the threesome;
etc. The fact that such orgies find a place in contemporary erotic literature or
‘pornography’—books, magazines, and films—is an example of the part of
antiphobic sadism in the ‘excesses’ of overmature civilizations.
08. Antiphobic sadism may also be seen in individual criminals and in
prostitutes. Both crime in men and prostitution in women, broadly speaking, fall
into two categories. By far the larger category is that of crime as an abortive
sadistic-pleonectic attempt, or an attempt at bourgeoisie, by a member of the
phthorophobic-meionectic (i.e. lower) classes. The smaller category is that of
propeto-phthorism, and it is in this category in particular that we occasionally
see antiphobic sadism (often in association with homolagnia in both sexes, but
this will be referred to later). Such men and women, at least in one aspect of their
lives, may have no moral restraint of any kind, phobophronesic or rational. Here
we see the man who has no qualms about killing little children, and the prostitute
who is prepared to do anything whatever for money, including having her clients
beaten and robbed. (An interesting example of the breach of cosmophobic taboos
in prostitution came, not from prostitutes, but from conversation between two
young nurses, both fairly promiscuous, who were ‘phantasizing’ about what it
would be like to be a prostitute. ‘Would you have intercourse with your father?’
asked one. ‘Of course I would, ‘ replied the other, ‘if he paid!’)
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
*
*
09. Antiphobic sadism embroiling a whole community in an acute form is
seen in riots and revolutions. The extremes of what can be done—which may be
totally irrational—are well documented in the history of the French Revolution
of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917 and, more recently, in the descriptions
and actual photographs and video tapes of riots. Virtually every rule and every
taboo may be broken. Kings and political rulers, who are virtually unapproachable
in ordinary times, may be captured and put to death. Buildings (and, in recent
times, cars) may be set on fire, and shops may be looted. Churches may be burnt
down, and Satan or some other mystic figure, or even a pretty woman, may be
proclaimed the new deity. It is obvious that in riots and revolutions, without any
need for alcohol to overcome inhibitions, a mob may cast aside, not only all
phthorophobic-meionectic standards, but even all phobophronesic and rational
restraints. The turmoil may be quite unpredictable: a leader may emerge as a
hero, but equally the mob may suddenly turn against him, declare him a traitor,
and put him to death.
10. Riots and revolutions are certainly not limited to propeto-phthoristic
cultures. In many cases they only represent, as indeed they did in the French and
Russian Revolutions, the only phobophronesic mechanism of casting aside all
cosmophobic taboos when phthorophobic meionexia could no longer be endured.
Antiphobic sadism, irrational as it is, is then the only means of telling the
oppressive upper classes that their oppression would be tolerated no longer. As
noted before, the primary process in riots and revolutions is the upsurge of sadistic
pleonexia in the phthorophobic-meionectic lower classes: it is this outburst of
sadistic pleonexia which may—or may not—spill over into antiphobic sadism.
(There are, of course, bloodless coups in which regimes are toppled without any
violence, or without any uncontrollable—antiphobic-sadistic—violence.)
*
*
11. But apart from stormy riots and revolutions, there is another, much more
peaceful, and much more chronic, cultural aspect to antiphobic sadism that needs
to be considered here: its relation to cultural overmaturity in the case of great
progressive civilizations. Since the overmaturity of progressive civilizations is a
combination of relative postphobophronesia and the re-emergence of turbulence,
some of the phenomena we are about to consider may also be seen in turbulent
backward civilizations. But although there are similarities there are also important
differences. Here we shall limit ourselves to overmature progressive civilizations.
In overmature civilizations, antiphobic sadism frequently contributes to the
‘excesses’ that are usually seen in them—though the primary factors in the
appearance of these ‘excesses’ are the relative postphobophronesia of progressive
civilizations (which is greater in the mature than in the incipient stage, and much
greater still in the overmature stage), the ‘superfluity of the upper classes’, and
the ‘revolt of the oppressed’ occasioned by the lower classes rising from
phthorophobic meionexia to relative sadistic pleonexia in which the life of leisure
and pleasure of the upper classes is emulated. (See the monographs on Acracy
and on Civilization.)
12. Examples of antiphobic sadism in cultural overmaturity can be cited
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57. Antiphobic Sadism
from ancient Roman history (witness the preoccupation of the Romans with
gladiatorial games in the later days of the Empire), but it is both more profitable
and more precise to turn our attention to what is happening in contemporary
Western European civilization. We shall find, to begin with, that many of the
things that were viewed in the past with awe or dread are now viewed very
differently: the objects of cosmophobic fear in the past, including the objects of
aetheophobia and aetherotophobia, are now partly treated rationally—the result
no doubt of relative postphobophronesia—but are also partly treated by defying
or flouting the old cosmophobic taboos instead of abrogating them completely
(as we should do, if our postphobophronesia were greater). It is in this defiance
or flouting of old cosmophobic fears and taboos, instead of outgrowing them and
putting them behind us as things of the immature and irrational past, that we see
numerous examples of antiphobic sadism.
To use the familiar metaphor: it is postphobophronesic, i.e. it is rational, to
realize that the mystery of the ‘forbidden fruit’ (a forbidden (or tabooed) pleasure)
was the product of cosmophobia, i.e. of irrational fear, and, accordingly, to
abrogate or abolish that taboo completely; but if the mystery of the ‘forbidden
fruit’, though partly eroded (or outgrown), still remains and only stealing the
forbidden fruit is made easier, then it is here that antiphobic sadism may flourish:
the taboo is not so much abrogated or outgrown as defied or flouted—and the
difference between outgrowing a taboo and flouting a taboo is the difference
between postphobophronesia (i.e. rationalism) and antiphobic sadism.
13. Take, for example, the case of pornography (literally = literature, of
whatever kind, about prostitutes and their world). The prostitute has always
been shrouded in mystery. This mystery surrounding the prostitute and, in general,
surrounding pornography, is ultimately due to the tabooless freedom with which
the prostitute promiscuously has coitus with virtually any man whatsoever—in
sharp contrast to the sexual taboos that have to be observed in phobophronesic
civilization by ordinary men and, to an even greater extent, by ordinary women.
In this respect it is a familiar fact of everyday life that the taboos of phobophronesic
civilization so distort our way of thinking that completely unnatural conduct in
the observance of these taboos may be regarded as natural, while perfectly natural
conduct may be regarded as unnatural and may provoke (among other things)
aetheophobia and be punishable. In practical everyday life, we regard it as natural
for people to be fully dressed and severely punish any individual who walks in
the street naked or who merely appears in the window of his (or her) house
naked, although in reality nudity is of course the natural state.
14. As discussed in detail in the monograph on The Psychogenesis of
Marriage, since the dawn of cosmophobia in savagery, man has shown irrational
fear (aphormic sexual cosmophobia) in relation to coitus: after all, coitus represents
a man’s quasi-conceptive (or pregnancy-like) lodgement in the woman’s womb,
and ultimately represents quasi-conceptive mother-reunion, i.e. kyemetrophilia.
This cosmophobic fear of coitus, or fear of the womb (remembering always that
civilization so far has been a male creation), which is the basis of aphormic
sexual cosmophobia, ultimately represents kyemetrophobia, and is due to the
mysterious appearance of life in the womb. Hence it applies primarily to one’s
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
own mother’s womb, which is the origin of the so-called mother incest taboo—
the oldest and most basic of all sexual taboos; secondarily, it applies to other
women, the number of these women varying depending on cultural and individual
factors: it ranges from the analogous prohibition of coitus between father and
daughter to the total prohibition of coitus observed, for example, by the monastic
orders in Christianity and by similar orders in other religions. For the vast majority
of people, and taking phobophronesic civilization as a whole, ordinary men have
to restrict their eroticism to their wives with the option of occasional casual
relations with prostitutes (unless they are very wealthy and can keep a mistress
or a number of concubines), while ordinary women have to confine their sexuality
strictly to their husbands. A very high level of erotosteresis (erotic privation) is
‘normal’ in, and is an integral part of, phobophronesic civilization: in other words,
in phobophronesic civilization, sexual taboos on every side, and persistent
erotosteresis, are regarded as ‘natural’, just as being fully dressed is legally and
socially obligatory and is regarded as natural—as noted before. It is against this
‘natural’ or ‘normal’ pervasive erotic prohibition and persistent erotosteresis in
phobophronesic civilization that the total erotodelia (i.e. erotic expressiveness)
of the prostitute evokes (or provokes) a mixture of cosmophobic fear, because
she flouts the aphormic sexual-cosmophobic taboos which have to be observed
by ordinary men and (even more) women, and hedonic craving for the boundless
and unfettered erotic satisfaction that she, unlike ordinary men and women, can
have. In incipient progressive civilizations (and much more in dormant backward
ones, but this does not concern us here), the mystery of the prostitute is decidedly
that of the cosmophobic (or, rather, the cosmophobopoeic, or cosmophobiaprovoking) woman who is ‘dirty’ (an idea derived from the sadistic-excretory
concept of eroticism) and immoral (because she flouts aphormic sexualcosmophobic taboos as well as the aetheophobic taboos that enjoin conformity
and that regard nonconforming behaviour as ‘unnatural’ and horrifying).
Prostitution is usually at a very low ebb at this level. But as the progressive
civilization passes into maturity, and especially as it passes into overmaturity, the
hedonic aspect of prostitution begins to prevail. Prostitution, hitherto almost
non-existent, now flourishes and gradually develops into a complicated institution
with different classes of prostitute to suit every pocket: from the brothel girl or
street walker who charges a minimal fee for a hastily performed act of coitus to
expensive concubines, hetaerae, or mistresses, who can only be kept by wealthy
men, but who open up all the secrets of eroticism at leisure and without restriction.
Simultaneously with this, greater or lesser emancipation of women (i.e. of ordinary,
‘respectable’, marriageable women) often occurs in overmature civilizations.
Thus, whereas the ordinary, marriageable girl in the incipient and the mature
stages of progressive civilization takes female virginity before marriage for
granted, and (as we know clinically) may view the prostitute and her practices as
horrifyingly aetherotophobic, in the overmature stage girls erotodelically indulge
in coitus with men they are attracted to, certainly before marriage and perhaps
even after marriage, and in doing so are keen to explore to the full all the sensual
delights of the hitherto horrifyingly aetherotophobic world of the prostitute.
15. The surprising thing about the overmature stage in our time is that the
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57. Antiphobic Sadism
prostitute is not treated rationally but retains much of the mysticism of the past—
though this time the mysticism is mainly an object of interest rather than fear. If
prostitutes were really the mistresses of the erotic art, there is no reason why our
contemporary civilization, with greater rationalism than its predecessors, should
not openly study these secrets of eroticism and make them common knowledge
available to all. To some extent this has indeed been done scientifically—as
witness the countless manuals on erotic technique that flood the market at present.
Again, if women have anything to learn about the secrets of eroticism from the
perfume, cosmetics, and underwear worn by prostitutes, there is no reason why
this should not be done—in fact it has already been done: there is virtually no
kind of makeup, perfume, or erotic clothing worn by prostitutes that cannot now
be bought and worn by any ordinary woman, married or unmarried. Of course,
from the rational point of view, the prostitute should have no place at all in civilized
society: she had a place only when ordinary ‘respectable’ women were privately
owned by men, mainly for providing them with legitimate offspring, so that the
prostitute was the only common property, or (in the higher forms of prostitution)
the only relatively free woman, who could satisfy men’s erotic needs as such and
not for reproduction. Again, this has changed: at present any girl over the age of
16 years can go on oral contraception and indulge in coitus and all its variations
with as many men (or ‘boyfriends’) as she likes, without any question of marriage
or reproduction, and often without even any pretence of being in love. Yet in the
middle of all these rational, or postphobophronesic, changes in our society we
find a thriving ‘pornography’ industry in which books, pictorial magazines, films,
and video tapes are sold and advertised under the now, not repulsive, but apparently
fascinating word ‘pornography’ (or ‘porno’ as it has come to be colloquially
known). Photographic and cinematographic material portraying the female body,
including the details of the vulva, and of coitus and other normal erotic activity,
is not sold purely as art that no longer fears the cosmophobic taboos of the past
(and most of this material—though by no means all—is in fact still illegal, at
least in some Western European countries), but only as ‘hard-core porno’. The
implication of this is that the cosmophobically forbidden fruit of the irrational
past still remains essentially forbidden: what has been achieved is not the complete
iconoclastic abrogation of the prohibition but only its partial erosion coupled
with greater ease of stealing the forbidden fruit. This defiance, or flouting, of
taboos—as distinct from their total, rational abrogation—represents the difference
between antiphobic sadism and rational (postphobophronesic) morality, as we
have noted before.
16. But normal eroticism, whose portrayal in art remains to this day partly
prohibited in some countries of Western Europe, is only part of pornography.
The thriving pornography industry of today includes a great deal of dyseroticism—
and the growth of this part of the industry, much more than the growth of the
normal (or euerotic) part, reflects the increase in antiphobic sadism in recent
times. However, although, as we shall presently see in the case of homolagnia
(‘homosexuality’), the flourishing of dyseroticism (or ‘sexual perversions’) in a
progressive civilization is a sure sign of overmaturity and decay, and more
specifically of antiphobic sadism, here as elsewhere we should distinguish between
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violent and non-violent practices—violence, actual or potential, being the main
prohibition to apply in rational (i.e. postphobophronesic) civilization. (Yet, in
our society at present, while the law prohibits the publication of a photograph of
a couple having perfectly normal coitus, true-to-life homicide can be seen on our
television screens almost any time.)
17. Having dealt with the subject of pornography at length, we can deal with
other subjects briefly. The underlying antiphobic sadism in the flourishing of
dyseroticism and the spread of drug abuse is easy to understand. In the pursuit of
pleasure in leisure and pleasure orientated overmature civilizations, people are
eventually not content with the pleasure that the normal human body and the
normal human mind can yield. Hence the search for the exotic, the fantastic—
for things ‘out of this world’. Of course the legalization of male homolagnia
(‘male homosexuality’) in Britain in the 1960’s was a rational and long overdue
act. For it is as irrational to punish a homolagnic as it is to punish a hunchback.
But the story of male homolagnia is more complicated than that. Homolagnia—
a true form of dyseroticism—was understandably quite often the object of
aetherotophobia (cosmophobic fear of (true or imagined) unnatural eroticism).
In the past, many young men, once they realized that they were suffering from
homolagnia, not only reacted with aetherotophobic horror but some actually
committed suicide. Aetherotophobia, in conjunction with characteristically
deutoscatistic teleophilia, also explains the severity with which English law dealt
with male homolagnics: for example, phalloproctolagnia was punishable, not
even by a fine, but only by imprisonment. (In fact although the legalization of
male homolagnia has legalized homolagnic phalloproctolagnia, heterolagnic
phalloproctolagnia remains a criminal offence under English law, no doubt because
of the same aetherotophobia.) But where we see antiphobic sadism is not in the
legalization of homolagnia but in the claim now widely made that homolagnia is
normal, or just a variation of the normal, or even that homolagnics are actually
superior to normal, heterolagnic people. Thus homolagnia, which in the past
often drove young men to suicide through aetherotophobia, has now come, through
antiphobic sadism, to be the object of boasting, as in the writers and poets who
more or less boast of their homolagnia as if it opened up to them mysteries that
are unknown to normal men. (It may be noted in passing that, although there are
homolagnics of both sexes who are virtually normal in most other respects, and
who indeed may be men and women of integrity, there is a definite association
between homolagnia and propeto-phthorism. On the one hand, bad temper,
impulsiveness, smashing furniture, etc. are quite common in homolagnics of both
sexes, and so is the ideal form of propeto-phthorism manifested by instability
and an extremely unsettled life. On the other hand, in the study of violent criminals
of both sexes—those who fall in the category of propeto-phthorism rather than
abortive sadistic pleonexia—there is an exceedingly high incidence of homolagnia
(antedating any imprisonment—not that any serious research worker would believe
that imprisonment could transform a hitherto genuine heterolagnic into a
homolagnic). Men and women with a long history of stabbing, causing ‘grievous
bodily harm’, and repeated homicide, often fall in this category. Finally, the
association between propeto-phthorism and homolagnia has its cultural
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57. Antiphobic Sadism
applications as well: it is probable that cultures with pronounced propetophthorism have a much higher incidence of homolagnia.)
18. Similar considerations apply to drug abuse. In our time, drugs are resorted
to explicitly in order to enable the body and the mind to experience more than the
normal human body and mind can experience. So-called ‘psychedelics’ or
‘hallucinogenic drugs’ are said to ‘expand the mind’. In a sense they do: they
produce hallucinations or illusions which healthy normal people do not experience.
Here again, such hallucinations were in the past viewed with horror as a sign of
a deranged mind: today youth, flouting all standards, rational and irrational alike,
are excited by the prospect of a hallucinatory ‘trip’ that is alien to the normal
mind. Cannabis and LSD are the drugs most often used to produce hallucinations,
some of which can be pleasant (e.g. the illusion that an act of coitus lasted a very
long time, or its association with fantastic imagery), while others have ended
tragically when the ‘trippers’ killed themselves while responding to their
hallucinations.
Stimulants, e.g. amphetamines and cocaine, have also been widely used. Idle
youth with money could be excited by the prospect of going for days or weeks
without sleep, and almost without food, spending the time listening to ‘pop music’
while under the influence of such drugs.
*
*
19. In conclusion, antiphobic sadism is closely related to propeto-phthorism,
and so to instability, unpredictability, violence, and crime. Undoubtedly it has
often contributed to progress, but obviously it is a barbaric way of sweeping
away the irrational values of the past. For, because of its uncontrollability and
unpredictability, it may equally sweep away rational values. Thus, at best,
antiphobic sadism can indeed abrogate cosmophobia, but the effect may only be
temporary (in the sense that cosmophobia may return, after the acute antiphobicsadistic phase has passed, not partly but completely as before), and always with
the risk of rationalism (i.e. postphobophronesic standards) being abolished at the
same time: to use a familiar expression, it may throw away the baby with the
bathwater. At worst, antiphobic sadism, in its chronic form, is like a festering
sore that does not heal: it defies and flouts cosmophobic taboos without eradicating
them, thus leaving a culture in a dilemma: it has neither the relative stability of
phobophronesic morality nor the true freedom of postphobophronesic standards.
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Monograph 58
ANHEDONIA
A study in depression,
apathy, and suicide
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Symptoms of Anhedonia
02—09
2.
Psychogenesis of Anhedonia
10—22
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58. Anhedonia
INTRODUCTION
01. Hedonia is the search for, and gratification of, pleasure in all its forms,
physical and mental; hedonia forms the essence of the will (i.e. the desire) to
live. Anhedonia is the impairment of hedonia, and so of the will to live, of
whatever degree, and whether transient or durable.
Numerous references to hedonia and anhedonia, some brief and some lengthy,
will be found in other monographs in the series. The present monograph does
not attempt to repeat what is discussed elsewhere but rather to present an outline
of the subject of anhedonia.
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Chapter 1
SYMPTOMS OF ANHEDONIA
02. Anhedonia is manifested by three main symptoms: depression, apathy,
and suicide. These symptoms may coexist, but suicide is related to depression
rather than apathy.
03. Depression may be defined as a feeling of sadness arising from a sense of
loss, which ultimately represents hedonic loss (loss of hedonia or of a hedonic
object or of hedonic objects), and culminating in its severe forms in suicide due
either to loss of the will to live (i.e. to the anhedonia itself) or to a positive desire
(or ‘longing’) to die.
04. Apathy may be defined as loss of feeling, emotional indifference, or
(especially in its severer forms) the inability to experience emotion, especially
joy and sorrow. Fear, both emotional and intellectual, is usually retained.
05. Severe depression is often associated with, or becomes partly replaced
by, apathy; i.e. feelings of sadness are partially replaced by, and mixed with,
emotional indifference. Because suicide is related to depression rather than apathy,
it happens sometimes, e.g. in autophthorophilia (especially in middle-aged
patients), that profound depression that passes over into partial apathy takes the
patient beyond the risk of suicide; however, when the patient begins to improve,
and the apathy (probably manifested in this case by extreme physical and mental
retardation or even stupor) clears up, the depression may once again supervene
and the risk of suicide may return.
06. We have just noted that apathy in association with depression—in a sense,
complicating depression—is usually manifested by extreme physical and mental
retardation (i.e. slowing down), which in its highest degree amounts to stupor.
This is particularly true of autophthorophilia, in which severe depression may
pass into—or become complicated by—apathy. By contrast, apathy occurring
as a primary symptom, as is most typically seen in chronic palissymphronesia,
may not only be unassociated with depression but may indeed be associated with
a characteristic sense of contentedness. This sense of contentedness is
characteristic because it is not one of positive joy, and certainly not of sadness,
but just of contentedness with utter aimlessness in life. We see this contented
form of apathy most typically in chronic cases of symphronesic
palissymphronesia, in which patients usually totally lack insight into their
condition. On the other hand, in synhedonic palissymphronesia, in which patients
are usually intellectually well-preserved and may have some insight into the
change that has come over them, apathy is often mixed with some feelings of
depression. It should be noted that synhedonia itself may be manifested by
depression, but this is not what concerns us here: the reference above to apathy
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58. Anhedonia
in synhedonic palissymphronesia being frequently associated with (usually mild)
depression concerns specifically the fact that such patients, because of their
freedom from florid symphronesic symptoms, often have enough insight to view
with sorrow, i.e. with depression or sadness, the fact that they are no longer
capable of experiencing emotion (including real, deeply-felt sadness) as they
used to in the past.
07. Suicide, i.e. self-killing, may arise either from loss of the will to live, i.e.
from the anhedonia itself, or from a positive desire to die. In the former case
there is the sense that there is nothing to live for any more; in the latter case,
which is most typically seen in some cases of autophthorophilia, there is the
longing or yearning to die as a positive hedonic (albeit dyshedonic) craving
representing the concrete aspect of autophthorophilia. It will be noted that
autophthorophilia (= self-destructiveness) as a psychiatric disorder is most often
manifested in an ideal form; suicide, however, represents a concrete form of the
disorder.
08. The subject of euthanasia is dealt with elsewhere in this series, but a brief
reference is necessary here. In phobophronesic civilization, whose very
foundations abound with violence and homicide (e.g. men are sent to prison or
killed outright if they refuse to fight and kill the ‘enemy’ in time of war, and
ritual homicide by a society of an offender is euphemistically referred to as ‘capital
punishment’), suicide may be regarded either as a criminal offence (attempted
suicide used to be a felony in England punishable by imprisonment) or—what
amounts largely to a newer version of the same irrational concept—as indicating
serious mental disorder necessitating the compulsory detention of the individual
concerned in a psychiatric hospital or ward. From the rational, i.e.
postphobophronesic, point of view, all homicide, in any form whatsoever, is
antisocial and, like violence in general, actual or potential, may, in rational
civilization, necessitate restricting a person’s freedom (both for treatment—not
punishment—and for the protection of others). On the other hand, in rational
(i.e. postphobophronesic) civilization, an individual’s life is his (or her) own
right: no one under any circumstances whatsoever can deprive him of the right to
live; but, equally, no one under any circumstances can compel him to live. The
desire to die may arise from pathological causes, but it may also be a perfectly
rational (i.e. postphobophronesic) desire, intellectual and not emotional. It should
be remembered that all human life is limited (only the lowest savages thought
that a person could live for ever); hence, once the taboos surrounding death have
been overcome, every individual must be entirely free to choose if and when he
(or she) wants to die. Euthanasia, i.e. painless planned suicide, must be freely
available on demand from medical practitioners. Those who want to die because
of pathological (i.e. dysphronesic) reasons, will no doubt be offered the necessary
advice and, if they are willing, treatment—but the final decision as to whether an
individual lives or dies must always rest entirely with the individual concerned.
On the other hand, the desire to die may arise, on a purely intellectual basis, from
rational, i.e. postphobophronesic, reasons. The most obvious rational reason for
wanting to die is having an incurable illness of some kind, physical or mental,
especially (but no means only) if physical pain is present. And, since a demented
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person cannot decide for himself, so that society is under obligation to maintain
him until he dies naturally, it should perhaps be an acceptable practice for those
who so wish to make a ‘will’ while they are still in possession of their mental
faculties stating that, should they become grossly demented (from natural causes
or after serious head injury etc.), they would prefer to have their lives terminated.
(Dementia, of course, implies an irreversible condition.)
09. Euthanasia should be a matter for the individual concerned to carry out:
he should obtain the necessary drugs from, and after consultation with, a medical
practitioner, and swallow them or inject them etc. On the other hand, those who
need assistance, as in the case of patients with advanced dementia who had ‘made
a will’, should have the assistance they require.
Thus we have to acknowledge that it is irrational to compel a person to live if
he wants to die (as by sending him to prison—which of course has no place in
postphobophronesic civilization—or by admitting him against his will to a
psychiatric ward), and that it is a person’s right to demand euthanasia if and
when he wants to die, whether his reasons for wanting to die are euphronesic or
dysphronesic.
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Chapter 2
PSYCHOGENESIS OF ANHEDONIA
10. Anhedonia is not an independent psychogenetic (or phronesiological)
entity: it may arise from a variety of causes. Hence we have to classify it according
to cause, and the clinical picture varies with the cause.
11. Anhedonic anhedonia is anhedonia arising from actual hedonic loss or
deprivation in real life. Examples of hedonic loss include the death of a beloved
person, separation and divorce, bankruptcy (especially for a hitherto successful
businessman), and gross disability due to illness or accident. Hedonic deprivation
may be due to cultural or individual factors, e.g. phthorophobic-meionectic
morality in the religious, sexual, and practical spheres. Typical examples are
those of cultural erotosteresis due to erotophobia of various forms, and marital
erotosteresis due to boredom. Imprisonment with solitary confinement represents
the most complete form of hedonic deprivation.
Anhedonic anhedonia is essentially a normal (euphronesic) condition (or
reaction), but it is frequently complicated by other, pathological forms of
anhedonia, such as aphilia and autophthorophilia. Its main manifestation is
depression, with feelings of sadness and a sense of loss. Apathy is unusual.
There is no suicidal tendency, but this does not exclude rational euthanasia where
the subject’s life is irrevocably ruined.
12. Asthenic anhedonia is anhedonia due to temporary or permanent physical
exhaustion, ranging from ordinary fatigue to cachexia in patients with terminal
illness. Severe pain, even if short-lived, tends to impair hedonia to a greater or
lesser extent. Apathy is commoner than depression in asthenic anhedonia: often
the individuals concerned are characteristically indifferent to things which in
ordinary life (in the case of fatigue) or in the past (in the case of severe physical
illness) would have given them much pleasure. This emotional indifference is all
the greater if there is pain. Patients with persistent pain who are aware of having
a terminal illness, may have a desire for death, which must be assumed to be
basically rational, but in phobophronesic civilization patients are expected to
continue to endure to the bitter end. There are, however, medical practitioners of
the highest integrity who prescribe badly-needed analgesics for patients in pain
and, though nothing is ever said about it, they know that though the pain requires
the drug, the impaired detoxification ability of the cachectic patient is likely to
give him more than the temporary relief that the drug is supposed to procure. No
doubt rational euthanasia has its main indication here.
13. Aphilic anhedonia usually produces typical depression with feelings of
sadness, but often with additional features which are characteristic of aphilia,
e.g. a sense of unlovedness or rejectedness, and jealousy. It is commoner, and
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generally severer, in women than in men, especially young women (because, in
polydeutoscatistic cultures such as ours, philism reaches its peak in later childhood
and adolescence and tends to abate with age, whereas deutoscatism usually does
not reach its peak until mature adult life). Serious suicidal intent is rare; its
presence usually suggests admixture with scatism, e.g. propeto-phthorism and
propetautophthorophilia. However, ‘suicidal gestures’ are exceedingly common,
e.g. taking a small overdose of tablets to win attention and affection from parents
or a boyfriend.
It is worth noting here that aphilia is of immense importance at the
phobophronesic level of civilization. In phobophronesic civilization, anhedonic
anhedonia—or discontent, unhappiness, or stress in general—is nearly always
conceived, at least partly, in aphilic terms. In fact aphilia is the typical ‘normal’
reaction to stress at the phobophronesic level in the same way as
anancosymphronesia is the typical ‘normal’ reaction to stress at the
prephobophronesic level (i.e. in savages and loiposymphronesics etc.). Aphilia
itself may remain simple or may be complicated by such conditions as hyperphilia,
hypersitophilia, or autophthorophilia.
14. Autophthorophilic anhedonia is the commonest form of anhedonia with
a serious suicidal risk, which (as the very term ‘autophthorophilia’ indicates) is
due to the fact that in this condition the longing for death is a positive hedonic
(or, to be more precise, dyshedonic) craving. The sexes are affected about equally,
and there is a marked hereditary factor.
15. Autophthorophilia has two forms: impulsive (propetautophthorophilia),
which occurs in association with propetophilia, and persistent
(synechautophthorophilia), which is the form we usually mean when we speak
of ‘autophthorophilia’ without qualification. There are no doubt important cultural
differences: propetautophthorophilia is common in countries with pronounced
propeto-phthorism, such as Ireland and the United States of America, whereas
synechautophthorophilia is commoner in polydeutoscatistic countries such as
Britain and other countries of northern and central Europe. Even within the
same country there are regional variations—but this does not concern us here. It
will suffice here to say that suicide on impulse (or impulsive suicide) is not
uncommon in propetautophthorophilia.
16.
If we concentrate our attention in what follows on
synechautophthorophilia, we find that though this condition can occur at any
age, certainly in the teens and possibly even before, the severest cases usually
occur when philophilia has abated, viz. in middle and old age. In younger patients,
depression predominates, but in older patients (the ‘involutional melancholia’ of
descriptive psychiatry) there are often additional features that are highly
characteristic of autophthorophilia. To begin with, there is hypochondria,
including the characteristic delusion of ‘blockage of the bowels’ which very aptly
describes the biological basis of the disorder, viz. indefinite prolongation of the
protophase of the deutoscatistic cycle, or indefinite faecal retention (which may
indeed be associated in reality with severe constipation, about which the patient
may continue to complain even when large doses of laxatives have caused him to
have faecal incontinence). The hypochondria is often related to lethal or dreaded
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58. Anhedonia
diseases, such as cancer, tuberculosis, and syphilis. These diseases are supposed
to eat away the patient’s body—when in reality (in an ideal sense) it is his
indefinitely retained faeces (which are thought to have highly destructive
properties) that are eating away his body. Moreover, in view of this biological
basis of autophthorophilia it is significant that the hypochondria is often associated
with ideas of dirtiness, physical (e.g. of the body rotting away or being infested
with worms, etc.) or moral, or both. In fact moral autophthorophilia is another
characteristic feature, with profound feelings of shame and unworthiness, and
sometimes with a strange preoccupation with past misdemeanours which may
not have troubled the patient at the time. These may range from having done
some amateur prostitution in her younger days (in the case of a woman) to having
stolen apples from orchards when he was a boy or having indulged in masturbation
(in the case of a man). Other aspects of moral autophthorophilia include selfhatred and a desire for punishment to atone for supposed guilt. Sometimes moral
autophthorophilia (together with moral phthorophobia, both resting on a
phagobasis of aphilia) may give rise to frankly cosmophobic delusions; e.g. in
the above example the patient may believe that the police are coming to arrest
him for stealing apples when he was a boy.
17. In the severest forms of autophthorophilia occurring in middle and old
age, the condition may gradually proceed to a state of hypersynnoophilia, i.e. of
mental stagnation, in which depression may be replaced by apathy, with
consequent temporary reduction of the suicidal risk since the profoundly
hypersynnoophilic patient is, as it were, mentally paralyzed, and may therefore
be too apathetic even to contemplate suicide: in a sense, he has lost not only the
normal will to live but even the autophthorophilic will to die: with gradual recovery
from autophthorophilia, he may regain the will to die before he finally regains
the normal will to live. Autophthorophilic hypersynnoophilia is usually associated
with extreme retardation, physical and mental, which in the severest cases may
amount to stupor—which is very different from sphalerohedonic
hypersynnoophilia. In sphalerohedonic hypersynnoophilia the patient struggles
hard to terminate the indefinite prolongation of the first deutoscatistic phase (which
forms the basis of hypersynnoophilia), but cannot, because of the precarious
hedonia of the third deutoscatistic phase. This struggle often results in extreme
tension and anxiety. By contrast, in autophthorophilic hypersynnoophilia the
patient is resigned to his fate: he does not struggle to terminate the indefinite
prolongation of the first deutoscatistic phase—hence the extreme retardation. It
will be noted in this respect that, because of the supposedly highly destructive
character of faeces, the perpetuation of the first deutoscatistic phase in
autophthorophilia is tantamount to ideal (or psychological) death.
18. In the preceding account we have compared severe sphalerohedonia with
severe autophthorophilia in order to show the differences between them as clearly
as possible. However, the close relation between the two conditions should also
be emphasized. Both have their biophronesic basis in the indefinite prolongation
of the protophase (or first deutoscatistic phase), i.e. in hyperprotophasia. Although
typically the sphalerohedonic fights against the prolongation of the protophase
whereas the autophthorophilic is resigned to it, the clinical picture in both
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conditions varies widely. To begin with, in sphalerohedonia the patient’s attitude
to the prolongation of the protophase may be contradictory: with the
precariousness of the hedonia of the tritophase, he welcomes the secondary
hedonia (or deutohedonia) of the protophase as a temporary substitute (hence,
for example, he may collect all sorts of rubbish and be quite unable to part with
anything that comes his way, even used bus tickets and supermarket till receipts);
yet, at the same time, the indefinite prolongation of the protophase is (as noted
before) ultimately tantamount to ideal death (or psychological death), and
therefore cannot be tolerated: in fact terminating the protophase, and proceeding
to the tritophase, is a vital matter to the patient: it is (in the psychological sense)
literally a matter of life and death. Of course in this ‘matter of life and death’ the
basic problem is that the patient does not wish to die. Not so in autophthorophilia:
here the patient does indeed want to die. In fact some cases of sphalerohedonia
may be complicated from time to time by autophthorophilia: this means that
such a sphalerohedonic patient from time to time gives up the struggle against
death (in the ideal, or psychological, sense) and becomes resigned to it. However,
it should be noted that although the essence of autophthorophilia is selfdestructiveness (primarily in the ideal, or psychological, sense, though actual
suicide is common), the clinical picture depends on the balance between the
autophthorophilia (which is a form of dyshedonia) and the normal hedonia which
the patient may still have. Hence, in mild and moderate autophthorophilia, it is
not uncommon to find the patient, because of the normal hedonia he still has,
reacting with alarm to the autophthorophilic illness that is coming over him: he
may indeed be almost as anxious, tense, and restless (the ‘agitated depression’ of
descriptive psychiatry) as the sphalerohedonic. It is only in severe
autophthorophilia that the autophthorophilia supervenes almost to the complete
exclusion of normal hedonia. In fact in the severest cases it is amazing how a
previously hard-working, honest, intelligent man becomes so completely
submerged by the autophthorophilia that all that used to matter most to him—
people and things—no longer matters: he is now completely autocentric and
virtually out of touch with reality: his mind is wholly preoccupied with ideas of
nihilism—of death and destruction involving not only himself but perhaps also
his wife, his children, and all his material property (such nihilism, obviously
combines sadism (pragmophthorophilia) with autophthorophilia). The alternative
to this extreme autophthorophilia (with or without sadism) is to go one step further
still—to that state of hypersynnoophilic apathy, or mental paralysis, with greater
autocentria still, in which (as noted before) the patient temporarily loses even the
will to die: he is just too paralyzed mentally to have much emotion of any kind
any more.
19. Hyperphronesic anhedonia, or simply hyperphronesia, is mental
overdifferentiation resulting in the outgrowing of hedonia in much the same way
as cosmophobia is outgrown in normal postphobophronesia; the condition is of
course dysphronesic.
Hyperphronesic anhedonia frequently (perhaps always) coexists with an
element of autophthorophilic anhedonia suggested by the presence of
hypochondria. Surprisingly, the condition may first manifest itself at a very
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58. Anhedonia
early age (in the teens, even the early teens). Clinically, it is difficult to draw the
line between hyperphronesia and mild autophthorophilia; much depends on how
far one can accept the objectively valid argument that since human life is ephemeral
it need not be lived at all. However, the presence of hypochondria always suggests
autophthorophilia rather than hyperphronesia.
It is worth noting in passing that there is much autobiographical material in
existence that suggests that a number of great scientists and philosophers quite
early on in their lives reflected on the futility of human life, because of its
ephemerality or because of the emptiness of just working for a living etc. However,
after discovering their own congenial field of scientific or philosophical endeavour
they seem to have accepted life, perhaps feeling that carrying out their highly
original work would justify living it, and the anhedonic phase passed uneventfully.
Both Einstein and David Hume seemed to have had this experience. (AE; see
also the monograph on Genius.)
20. Shame anhedonia is typified by the case of well-known public figures
who suddenly find themselves involved in a scandal and who choose to kill
themselves rather than go to prison or face the cruel publicity.
21. Synhedonic anhedonia is a condition that occurs in both forms of
palissymphronesia, viz. the symphronesic form, in which prephobosymphronesic
symptoms (magical and animistic etc.) predominate, and the synhedonic form,
in which synhedonia is predominant and prephobosymphronesic symptoms more
or less absent. In either case synhedonia is the same: it is the pervasion of hedonia
by the process of mental dedifferentiation which forms the essence of
palissymphronesia, resulting in loss of the polarity (or duality) of subject and
hedonic object. By far the commonest, and most typical, manifestation is apathy,
with loss of the capacity to experience emotion, especially joy and sadness, and
often with the characteristic contentedness of apathy that is not secondary to
depression. Fear is not affected—in fact the patients, in the symphronesic form
of the disease, may have florid cosmophobic symptoms, and mild cosmophobic
symptoms are not uncommon in the synhedonic form. Synhedonic apathy is a
highly malignant condition which, once established in a chronic form, is usually
permanent.
22. Much less often synhedonic anhedonia takes the form of depression,
which may coexist with apathy. Suicide is relatively rare, but where it occurs the
cause may be either synhedonic depression or it may not be synhedonic at all: it
may be the animistic, magical, and cosmophobic manifestations of
prephobophronesia in symphronesic palissymphronesia. For example, the patient
may make a serious suicidal attempt quite on impulse because his dead mother
keeps telling him to join her, or because God has spoken to him and instructed
him to sacrifice himself immediately. In both cases the suicidal attempt is clearly
animistic, not synhedonic. It should be noted that the insightless symphronesic
palissymphronesic, like the savage, does not think much of human life: he takes
human life very lightly— not with the gravity with which we take it in civilization,
though even we in phobophronesic civilization (to complete this account of
anhedonia) can be made to take human life, including our own lives, lightly like
the savage, as in fighting in war in general, and such things as carrying out a
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‘suicide mission’ in particular. To this reference to political phobophronesic
institutions we may add another, to religious phobophronesic institutions: the
Biblical story of a man who was willing to sacrifice his son (though not himself)
because God told him to do so.
Palissymphronesic suicide is often characteristically cruel: the patient makes
no attempt to avoid pain or reduce suffering.
The subject of synhedonia is dealt with at length in the monograph on
Palissymphronesia. The correlation of the palissymphronesic’s frequent
indifference to pain with similar phenomena in savages is dealt with in the
monograph on Anodynia.
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59. Anodynia
Monograph 59
ANODYNIA
A study in the attitude to
pain in prephobophronesia
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
01
1.
Anodynia in Savages
02—13
2.
Anodynia in Palissymphronesics
14—17
Conclusions
18
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INTRODUCTION
01. Palissymphronesics (‘schizophrenics’) often show a remarkable
indifference to pain. It is true that cosmophobia may occasionally have the
opposite extreme effect; e.g. a young man may dread the needle prick necessary
to take a blood sample, or a young woman may exhibit a condition similar to
genital-erotic phthorophobia (‘vaginismus’), because of their cosmophobia. But
by and large palissymphronesics show an exceptional, and in some cases almost
incredible, capacity to endure physical pain and suffering, which is most clearly
exhibited in their merciless, and often fatal, self-mutilation, as well as in their
deliberate choice of drowning and other ruthless methods for suicide. All this is
strikingly reminiscent of the remarkable indifference to pain that was exhibited
by savages in their customs and rituals.
Anodynia may be defined as the relative indifference to physical pain and
suffering, which is a manifestation of prephobosymphronesia, and which is seen
in its most complete form in the lowest savages and in palissymphronesics, and
in a partial form in loiposymphronesia and anancosymphronesia.
In this monograph we shall examine anodynia in some detail, both in the
lowest savages known to us, viz. the Australian aborigines, and in
palissymphronesics.
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59. Anodynia
Chapter 1
ANODYNIA IN SAVAGES
02. In the marriage ceremonies of Central Australian tribes in which individual
marriage was practised, a young woman, after having her vulva cut with a stone
knife—which was really the main initiation rite for women—had coitus with a
large number of men in succession, and the whole thing was usually repeated the
next day. Roth, writing about the Queensland aborigines of Australia (QA p.174
sqq.), informs us that among the different tribes studied by him different methods
were used in this initiation rite for women: the vaginal orifice was torn either by
slitting the perineum with a stone knife then sweeping three fingers round in the
vagina; or the operator, without using a knife, tore the girl’s perineum by sheer
force with three fingers that were wound round and round with opossum-string;
or, instead of the knife, the perineum was torn with a two-foot long stick made of
very hard wood at the end of which a penis was rudely carved. Among at least
one of these tribes, after the operation was over, followed as usual by all the men
present having coitus with the girl, all the semen which was deposited in the
vagina, and which was blood-stained from the operation, was collected and was
given to any sick person who happened to be in camp to drink as it was supposed
to aid recovery (the belief that blood—rather than semen—aided recovery was
widespread in Australia: we shall refer to it later). Now in our modern Western
civilization, no woman who has even a small wound in the vulva—and not one
inflicted with a crude stone knife or just by tearing with the fingers or with a
stick—would be expected to tolerate coitus with her husband, let alone with a
whole succession of men and repeating the entire ritual the next day, to say nothing
of the manipulations necessary for recovering the semen after the men have
finished having coitus with her. The important thing to bear in mind in this, as in
all the examples we are dealing with here, is that such torture was inflicted on
every girl in the tribe without exception, not because she was an enemy but, on
the contrary, because she was a member of the tribe.
03. Among the Central Australian tribes the initiation ceremony for a woman
consisted of little more than the performance of a cruel operation followed by a
large number of men having coitus with her before she could become the property
of only one man (compare the contemporary tradition of ‘kissing the bride’): the
element of expiation as the basis of female initiation ceremonies is quite evident
here. But the initiation of a boy in these tribes was a much more elaborate matter
(CA p.212-385). Male initiation was also associated with cruel practices, notably
circumcision and the much more drastic operation (which was often repeated) of
subincision, but it was not associated with any sexual licence for the youth who
was being initiated. In the Arunta tribe, to whom this account mainly relates, the
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
initiation of the boy was carried out in stages, each stage involving ceremonies
(or corroborees) covering days, weeks, or even months. The first stage of the
initiation usually took place when the boy was about 10 or 12 years of age; the
last might not take place till he was about 25 or 30 years of age. The great
importance of male initiation lay in the fact that in it the boy learnt for the first
time about the sacred secrets of the tribe, i.e. about its mythical traditions: e.g.
about the mythical ancestors who lived in the ‘alcheringa’ (the mythical far past
in which these mythical ancestors were supposed to have lived), and all their
doings, and also about the sacred stones and sticks (‘churinga’) which were looked
after by the old men with great care, and which were closely associated with the
totems since, in Australia, each totemic group had, as it were, a scared storehouse
in which its ‘churinga’ were hidden. (This instruction of the novice in the mythical
history or tradition of the tribe is similar of course to the mythology of the Old
Testament of the Bible which purports to give the whole history of the world
from its creation by God and the ‘fall of man’ up to the salvation of mankind by
Jesus—but the main difference is that the Australian tribes did not propitiate or
conciliate their ancestors: there was no element of worship in their ceremonies:
they still existed at the level of prephobophronesic atheism.) These ceremonies
were in fact the most important means of keeping tradition alive, and of passing
on to the younger men the knowledge that was carefully treasured up by the
older men of the unwritten history of the tribe, especially as it related to the
‘churinga’ and the totems—unwritten history that was full of extravagant
mythology, but that also often revived old and long discarded practices such as
those of complete sexual licence and (in a symbolic form, by enacting the scene
in some ceremonies) cannibalism. These tribal secrets were never revealed either
to the women, regardless of age, or to children, including uninitiated boys. In his
initiation ceremonies a youth was sternly warned that divulging these secrets to
the women and children would mean a sure death for him and possibly for others
as well. In so far as the sacred sticks and stones (‘churinga’) were concerned,
these were never shown, or even mentioned, to the women and children. Women
in fact did take part in many of the initiation ceremonies, but not in those
ceremonies or parts of ceremonies which had to do with tribal secrets. We shall
have more to say about this secrecy presently. Here it is worth noting how
important orthodoxy or conformity was to the savage: there was no question of a
boy or young man doubting the truth or authenticity of the mythical beliefs in
which he had received instruction from the old men: dissent or unorthodoxy in
belief or practice was virtually unknown among savages—for their mental
undifferentiation, especially their collectivism that almost completely obliterated
the identity of the individual, and to a lesser extent their rudimentary cosmophobia,
ensured the spontaneity and virtual invariability of conformity by all members of
the tribe. Needless to say, any individual showing the slightest deviation from
accepted tribal tradition and custom was mercilessly killed. Change in fact did
occur, as we know, for example, in the emergence of individual marriage from
group marriage and in the gradual disappearance of cannibalism, but the rate of
change was exceedingly slow.
04. In a series of initiation ceremonies in the Arunta tribe described in detail
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59. Anodynia
by Spencer and Gillen, corroborees were held for days and nights on end. Then
the operation of circumcision was performed amidst the thundering noise of the
bull-roarers or whirlers (the noise made by whirling round and round a ‘churinga’
attached to a hair-string) and of the men present singing a certain ‘circumcision
song’ at the top of their voice. The women, who were present earlier in the
ceremony, had retired to their camp by then: women and children were brought
up to believe that the sound of the bull-roarers was the voice of a certain spirit
called Twanyirika who was supposed to live in wild and inaccessible regions and
to come out only at initiation ceremonies to enter the body of the youth and take
him away into the bush until the youth’s wound had healed, when the spirit would
return him to the camp. The operation was performed by two men, the assistant
holding the foreskin and pulling it as far as possible while the operator himself
cut it off with a small flint knife. As the boy, who showed remarkable endurance,
was bleeding from the wound, he was stood up to receive the congratulations of
the other men (not those who operated on him), then a man brought up some of
the bull-roarers and pressed them against the wound and told him that it was
these, the sacred ‘churinga’, and not the spirit Twanyirika, that were making the
noise—to all of which the boy listened in silence. The boy was then taken away
by an old man in whose charge he remained, staying away in the bush (the women
and children believing that he had been taken away by the spirit Twanyirika)
until his wound was healed, by which time he was ready to undergo the operation
of subincision. However, during his stay in the bush between the two operations,
he was visited from time to time by some of the men. On each visit the boy had
to endure yet another type of ceremony: the ceremony of head biting. Each time
this ceremony was performed the boy had to lie on his stomach, then a number of
men (usually two to five) had each to bite his scalp, and sometimes also his chin,
once, twice, or thrice, until blood flowed freely, while the other men present sang
a song about biting the boy’s head and urging the biters to bite deeply.
05. In the operation of subincision the penile urethra (i.e. the part of the
urethra that runs through the penis) was opened up with a stone knife through the
under-surface of the penis for a variable distance—sometimes all the way from
the external urethral orifice to the junction of the penis with the scrotum. All this
was done, of course, with a stone knife and without anaesthetic. What is surprising
is not only the courage with which a boy or young man endured such a procedure,
but, even more, the fact, recorded by Spencer and Gillen, that quite often, after
the operation had been performed on a novice, one or two young men who had
already undergone the operation asked voluntarily to have it done on them again
in the belief that the first operation did not go far enough. This wish was usually
immediately granted. In fact most men in the Arunta tribe sooner or later had a
second operation, and some even asked for—and got—a third operation;
apparently a man was not quite satisfied until his penis had been cut right down
to the scrotum. After the operation of subincision, a man could not pass urine in
a stream, as a man normally does, because the penile urethra was open in part or
in most of its course. It is noteworthy that, in the Arunta tribe, circumcision was
performed only once, but subincision—the more mutilating operation—was
performed usually more than once on the same man. The female operation which
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
was described earlier was regarded as equivalent to subincision (not circumcision)
in the male; but the female operation, unlike subincision, was not repeated.
06. Two comments are necessary in connection with the secrecy on the part
of men in the initiation ceremonies just described. On the one hand, we see in
this secrecy the rudiments of sexual stratification: even among the lowest savages
we know of, the sacred secrets of the tribe were the monopoly of initiated men:
not only children but women also were regarded as being wholly unworthy of
knowing these secrets. On the other hand, this secrecy provides us with yet
another perfect example of the mistrust, even of one’s nearest and dearest, that is
often engendered by cosmophobia, including rudimentary cosmophobia as we
see it in the belief in magic. In this particular case a man was suspicious even of
his own mother, sisters, and wife, but in other cases magical belief could turn a
man against almost anybody whether a stranger, a friend, or a relative: after all,
any of these could be the person who had pointed, or was thought to have pointed,
a stick or a bone at the individual concerned. It is the atavistic reappearance of
the similar tendency in palissymphronesics that explains why in their delusions
(or beliefs) they often think that certain people are against them—it could be
their neighbour, a friend, an acquaintance, or a member of their own family—
and occasionally the patients may attack or even kill their imaginary enemy, an
enemy who is usually as innocent as were most of the enemies imagined by
savages in their magical beliefs.
07. In East and South-East Australia, the initiation of men was done by the
knocking out of teeth (CA p.450 sqq.). Thus the knocking out of teeth in these
tribes was limited to men, and was the equivalent of circumcision and subincision
in the case of the tribes of Central Australia. As a matter of fact the knocking out
of teeth was practised by the Central Australian tribes, but among these it was not
an initiation rite and was available to women as well as men who wanted it. It is
interesting to note that although the practice was voluntary in Central Australia,
most men and women had the operation done as otherwise they would be liable
to ridicule—and to the Australian native nonconformity, even in optional matters
such as this, was something he could hardly endure himself or tolerate in others.
As practised in Central Australia, the operation was done by packing the
mouth of the person to be operated on with fur-string, then the sharp, hard end of
a spear was pressed against the tooth and the wood struck with a stone until the
tooth was knocked out. The operator then held the tooth up for all present to see,
then he threw it in the direction in which the mother of the person who had been
operated on was believed to have lived in the ‘alcheringa’ (i.e. the direction in
which the spirit individual of which his mother was the reincarnation lived in the
mythical far past or ‘alcheringa’). Roth similarly describes the avulsion of the
two central upper incisors in both sexes in the tribes he knew, usually after first
loosening them with the fingers, again as a matter of custom which was wholly
voluntary (QA p.111).
The interesting thing about the knocking out of teeth by savages is that they
ate their food almost raw: no one could have needed every one of his teeth more
than the savage, yet it was exactly the savage who deliberately disabled himself
in this way, either because the knocking out of teeth was an initiation rite and
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59. Anodynia
was therefore sacred, or simply because it was the custom the breach of which
was likely to make him the object of ridicule—ridicule because he was a fit
person and was not mutilated like the other men and women of his tribe.
08. Looking at the matter from a different point of view, it is quite possible
that customs like the knocking out of teeth, nose boring, and the decoration of
the body with a multitude of scars, which were practised entirely for decoration
(in so far as the Central Australian aborigines were concerned), were originally
practised for either a magical or other prephobosymphronesic reason: as this
supposedly utilitarian prephobosymphronesic use died out, or was outgrown, the
practice continued as a form of decoration, i.e. as a form of art (which was also
symphronesic (this time representing rudimentary hedonia, viz. philophilic love
of decoration) but was not utilitarian). Whether or not this was so in the particular
case of the avulsion of teeth, nose boring, and the decoration of the body with
scars, there is no doubt that in the evolution of culture many of the practices that
are abandoned or outgrown, and are therefore no longer thought of as necessities
(whether or not they were in fact necessary when they were practised), survive in
the form of art (in the broad sense, including decoration). The process continues
in our own civilization, sometimes in foolish ways, such as the wearing of rings
on the fingers which is still highly fashionable although we no longer require the
rings as amulets, sometimes in less absurd ways as in the way we—in the age of
the fast and elegant motor-car—regard horse-drawn carriages, and even vintage
cars from the earlier part of the twentieth century, as being objects not only of
historical but indeed of artistic interest: they are beautiful as well as being
historically instructive.
In initiation ceremonies and in the very need for their existence, we see the
feeling among savages of the respect that children were supposed to owe to adults,
the uninitiated to the initiated, and, in general, the young to the old, all of which
makes for the perpetuation of tradition and stagnation, and the hindrance of
progress, in primitive society.
09. We have referred in another monograph to the institution of the ‘kurdaitcha’
among the Central Australian tribes (CA p.478). Here we may note the practice
of dislocation of a toe which every kurdaitcha man had to undergo before he
could go on his mission. A stone was heated until it was red hot and was then
applied to the ball of the small toe of one foot (either foot would do), the object
being to ‘soften’ the joint so that the toe could be pulled out with a sudden jerk
thereby dislocating the joint. Only then—with a dislocated toe—was a man
regarded as being fit to undertake his mission. Apart from its cruelty, the absurdity
of the practice is evident: logically a man who had to creep stealthily into an
enemy’s camp to kill should be completely fit, most of all in his feet as his mission
was, of course, carried out entirely on foot. Yet not only was a disabled, mutilated
man accepted (our modern armies insist on completely fit young men!) but, on
the contrary, a man had to be mutilated first before he was accepted as a suitable
candidate for the mission.
10. Among the coastal tribes of South-East Australia, there was a widespread
practice of mutilating the little finger of a fisherwoman (SEA p.746 sq.). Either
all the women of a fishing tribe or part of a tribe, or only those girls who were to
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
become fisherwomen, had to have two joints of one little finger amputated when
they were very young. Here again the cruelty of the practice, which could only
impair the efficiency of the woman even if it was the little finger of the left hand
that was amputated, is evident.
11. Nose boring was practised by most Central and other Australian natives
of both sexes. The nasal septum was perforated in a little ceremony to enable the
person to wear a bone in the nose for the purpose of decoration. The bone—
perhaps the fibula of a kangaroo or the radius of an emu—could be as long as
40 cm in length (CA p.459, 574).
12. Blood was used extensively by the Central Australian natives in the
performance of certain magical ceremonies for the increase of the food supply,
in initiation ceremonies, for painting the body (which was done for a variety of
reasons), and it was also drunk under different circumstances (CA p.460 sqq.;
QA p.114, 162, 170). The blood was obtained by opening a vein in the arm in
the area of the elbow, or sometimes in the back of the hand, with a stone knife,
which was done either by the subject himself or by somebody else. In some
cases blood was obtained by deeply puncturing the finger-tips under the nails,
while in other cases a man would give blood by jagging the scar of his subincised
penis with a piece of flint. Blood was also obtained at the circumcision of a boy
by collecting it as it dripped from his wound. Blood from women was obtained
either at the initiation ceremony of the woman or at other times from the woman’s
labia minora.
Blood used in corroborees of different kinds (for the increase of the food
supply, in initiation ceremonies, etc.) was either shed on the ground or on certain
stones, or it was used by the men only to decorate themselves by painting it on
the body and using it as it coagulated to stick down obtained from either birds or
plants. Blood used for decorative purposes was strictly drawn by men: women
were not allowed to witness the operation. In cases of weakness and/or sickness,
the patient’s body was generally smeared with grease and red ochre, the red
ochre was believed to be the blood shed by certain women in the alcheringa.
However, if the patient was very ill, blood was obtained, in the case of a sick
man, from a woman’s labia minora, or, in the case of a sick woman, from a man’s
subincised penis. In both cases the patient would drink some of the blood then
the rest would be used for smearing his or her body, after which an additional
coating of grease and red ochre would be applied to the body. Less often, sweat
obtained from under the armpits was used in smearing the patient’s body, or the
blood-stained semen obtained from a woman who had just been initiated, after
she had had coitus with the men who took part in the ceremony, was given to the
patient to drink. Blood from the circumcision of a boy or from the cutting of the
vulva of a woman (in this case without the semen) was used ceremonially for
smearing the body and/or drinking by certain relatives of the person who was
operated on. Blood was also drunk by men who were starting on an avenging
expedition, in order to give them both strength and a sense of unity, and also at
meetings of reconciliation as a substitute for having to fight (in which case each
party would drink the blood of its own members). Blood was sometimes also
used simply to assuage thirst and hunger: in fact when a Central Australian native
was very thirsty he might open a vein in his arm and drink the blood.
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59. Anodynia
13. Nearly all Australian natives had raised scars on the body and arms which
were made with flint (glass was also used after the advent of Europeans), and
which were characteristically grossly prominent, being sometimes raised by as
much as 15 mm above the level of the skin, and as much as 20 mm wide. No
doubt the prominence of the scars was due to the fact that the freshly made
wounds were rubbed with ashes or with down of eagle-hawk, in the belief that
this aided healing, although in fact it had the opposite effect. Most of the scars
were made in a horizontal direction on the front of the chest and the abdomen,
usually with a few more on the arms. An individual might have only a few scars,
or he or she might have literally dozens of them—in one case Spencer and Gillen
counted as many as 40 scars in a woman in the area extending from just above
the breasts down to the navel. A minority of these scars were made at initiation
ceremonies (for example, in the initiation of a boy, certain of his female relatives
might have to have a few scars), and in mourning (thus a woman might be proud
of the permanent scars left by the wounds which she inflicted on herself at the
time of mourning as these scars proved that she had properly mourned for her
dead). However, the majority of these scars, at all events at the time these
aborigines were studied by the ethnographers, had no special significance: they
were made entirely for the purpose of decoration, and both sexes had them despite
the agony—or what must appear to us as agony—associated with making them
(CA p.40 sqq.).
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Chapter 2
ANODYNIA IN PALISSYMPHRONESICS
14. The foregoing examples should suffice to show the relative indifference
of savages to physical pain and suffering. The subject is of considerable
importance in the understanding of palissymphronesics. For example, when a
palissymphronesic mutilates himself (or herself) with a razor blade or with a
piece of broken glass or crockery (whether or not this mutilation involves the
genitals, as it often does), we are apt to jump to the conclusion that the patient
must be feeling depressed and suicidal. But we are much more likely to gain a
deeper understanding of the patient if we bear in mind that savages—and the
palissymphronesic is essentially an anachronistic savage—mutilated themselves
for a variety of reasons, ranging from initiation rites to self-decoration or even
simple thirst. (A palissymphronesic would be considered completely mad if,
like a savage, he opened a vein in his elbow and gave, as an explanation, the fact
that he was feeling desperately thirsty.) In fact suicide in palissymphronesics
may be due to synhedonic depression, but it may equally be due to the animistic,
magical, and cosmophobic manifestations of prephobosymphronesia which are
atavistically reproduced in the illness. For example, a patient may seriously
attempt suicide in order to join his dead mother who keeps asking him (in his
auditory hallucinations) to join her, or in order to escape the evil influence of an
imaginary persecutor. But whether suicide is due to synhedonic depression or to
prephobosymphronesic symptoms the indifference to pain and suffering that the
patients exhibit in dealing with themselves is highly characteristic. For example,
suicide by drowning is common, e.g. jumping from a bridge, whereas the methods
commonly used for suicide by autophthorophilics are uncommon or rare, e.g.
hanging, coal gas, and overdose of drugs. But, on the whole, the greatest brutality
is seen in self-mutilation, which is particularly characteristic of acute symphronesic
palissymphronesics with florid animistic, magical, and cosmophobic symptoms.
Some patients may stop at, say, slashing the genitals, but others may inflict
innumerable wounds on themselves, not even sparing a normally untouchable
organ such as the conjunctiva of the eye, and the self-mutilation may culminate
in the patient slashing open his trachea and cutting some of the blood vessels in
the neck.
The same callous indifference to pain is seen in palissymphronesic homicide.
15. In both palissymphronesic suicide and palissymphronesic homicide, quite
apart from cruelty, we often see the palissymphronesic’s attitude to life and death
and the little distinction he draws between them. In this, as in other respects,
palissymphronesia reproduces savagery: in the monograph on The Psychogenesis
of Religion we have seen how savages generally took death lightly, e.g. if they
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59. Anodynia
considered it merely as an absence, or if they regarded sleep or illness as temporary
death. Thus, just as the savage would kill a man simply because he saw that man
working evil magic against him in a dream, so would a palissymphronesic in our
midst be prepared to kill himself or somebody else simply because a voice kept
telling him to do so.
16. Two brief case histories will illustrate anodynia in palissymphronesics.
The first is that of a chronic female palissymphronesic, 43 years old and single,
who had been in psychiatric hospitals on numerous occasions since the age of 25.
In the course of an acute exacerbation she enucleated her own right eye and
eventually had to have a glass eye. How determined she was to do what she did
will be evident if a few details are given. She had been avidly indulging in
reading the Bible about the time of her relapse. Apparently the crucial passage
that influenced her was that about plucking out the right eye (‘And if thy right
eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee’ (St. Matthew 5:29)). The
nurse on duty on the ward reported that she heard a scream and went to investigate,
only to find the patient with a finger to the second knuckle in her eye. The
patient was saying that she did not manage to pull her eye out, and kept repeating
‘Let me get my eye out, the devil is in it!’ She was restrained. Examination
showed extensive bruising of the conjunctiva, and the patient was transferred to
the ophthalmic department of a general hospital. She seemed to settle down, and
the nurses no longer had to hold her hands to prevent her from putting them to
her face. However, barely two hours after admission to the ophthalmic ward she
pulled her eye out.
17. The second case is that of a white South African man, 39 years old and
single, and with a previous psychiatric history, who attempted suicide shortly
after admission, and might well have been homicidal. On admission to hospital
he was very restless and, from time to time, ignored the interview, put his hand to
his ear as if he was holding a telephone receiver and speaking to relatives in
South Africa. He lost no time in announcing his main preoccupation: ‘God spoke
to me and said that in three years all the churches will be burnt for the good of
mankind. There will be agriculture instead. It will not be painful: only when I
push the knife here [pointing to his chest]: I have to do that myself because it is
the same as he [God] did—the same as his son [Jesus].’ In this slightly
disconnected account it was evident that the patient was having florid religious
delusions and hallucinations, and that he had a suicidal intent because of
identifying himself with Jesus and his death. ‘God spoke to me this morning and
showed me how to build the new way to save the world. This is why I keep to a
diet: to prove to the world that I diet for the useful disposal of my body but I will
rise again in seven days.’ One quotation from his ‘telephone conversations’ will
suffice: ‘Hello, yes! Have they killed him? Cut his wrists? and killed John and
Bill and ...? and how about you, are you alive?’ The confusion of life and death,
so reminiscent of savage belief, is evident here. He was even asking the person
at the other end of the line if he was alive! Furthermore, when he was asked who
he had been talking to he replied: ‘I was talking to my mother and three brothers
whom I killed today!’ Later on, at the end of a long interview, he was left for
barely a minute on his own as I went to ask the nurse in charge to take him over.
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But he managed in that time to get to the ward kitchen and find a knife with
which he slashed both wrists and his neck down to the deep fascia. Though
assistance was immediately available, he not only refused help but proved to be
as ferociously homicidal as he was suicidal. He hit a nurse with a chair, and
although no important vessels were cut he must have lost a good pint of blood
before he could be restrained.
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CONCLUSIONS
18. Anodynia, i.e. the relative indifference to physical pain and suffering,
is—like the closely related indifference to death—essentially a manifestation of
prephobosymphronesia that reflects the limited (or rudimentary) awareness (or
phronesia) that is implied in the very term ‘symphronesia’ or ‘mental
undifferentiation’. This phenomenon is seen in its most complete form culturally
in savages, and individually in palissymphronesics, but it is by no means limited
to these two groups: in a partial form it may be seen in other forms of
prephobosymphronesia, such as loiposymphronesia (in the ignorant lower classes
of civilized nations) and anancosymphronesia.
Savages were often indifferent to what we in civilization would regard as
excruciating pain. They also frequently confused life and death. In fact such
was the relative indifference to pain and to death of the lowest savages, such as
those of Tasmania and Australia, that the Europeans who exterminated them hardly
met with any resistance.
We may state the above differently by saying that the lowest savages as well
as palissymphronesics—and, to a lesser extent, also loiposymphronesics and
anancosymphronesics—often show an indifference not only to physical pain but
also to life or living. In this respect we should bear in mind that the will to live as
we know it, is a product of hedonia, and hedonia itself is a product of diaphronesia.
Savages, who were predominantly prephobophronesic, lived their lives largely
on the purely biological level, like animals; of course they had rudimentary
hedonia (and rudimentary cosmophobia), but the appearance of a well-developed
will to live depends on the possession of hedonia proper, which existed among
the higher, but not among the lowest, savages. This fact will enable us to
understand why, in a certain class of chronic palissymphronesics and
anancosymphronesics, any treatment suggested is immediately accepted by the
patients—whether the treatment is surgical, chemotherapeutic, electrical
(electroconvulsive therapy or ECT), or otherwise. Such patients survive largely
because of the care and attention they receive from others, otherwise if they were
literally left to starve, many of them would starve to death without a word of
protest.
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Monograph 60
GENIUS AND
HYPERPHRONESIA
01. Genius, whether in science, philosophy, or art, is a rare phenomenon, but
it has contributed so much to human civilization and happiness that it deserves to
be studied on a par with the much commoner phenomena of the human mind.
Hence the recurrent reference to the subject in these monographs. For although
individual details have inevitably varied a great deal, many of the basic
characteristics can be discerned in pioneers in very different fields—as different,
for example, as those of science and art. Genius is not a single phenomenon or
idiom, but it no doubt has its constituent idioms which have been exhibited in
endlessly varied combinations and degrees in the lives of the great men (and the
few great women that have existed so far) who have represented it.
This monograph is a tentative study of the contribution which mild
hyperphronesia seems to have made to the creativity of some of the greatest
pioneers in science and philosophy. To be more precise, it seems that the
determination of the pioneers concerned, usually quite early in life, to do great
work of durable value was partly a hedonic reaction to mild hyperphronesia (or
hyperphronesic anhedonia). Elsewhere in this series of monographs we have
referred to the part that autophthorophilia, especially moral autophthorophilia,
has played in the lives of many great men; here we shall endeavour to have a
glimpse into the part played by hyperphronesia. Frequently the two conditions
occur together.
02. In the lives of numerous pioneers in science and philosophy we see an
early preoccupation with death, both as such and as a preoccupation with the
emptiness and futility of human life, ephemeral and perishable as it is. This
heightened awareness of death, occurring perhaps in the teens—i.e. at a time of
life when most people would hardly pause to think of death, let alone plan their
lives around it—has all the characteristics of rationalism, or of objectivity
dispassionately carried to its ultimate logical conclusion, and therefore can only
be assumed to be due to a certain degree of hyperphronesia. In the complete
objectivity of hyperphronesia, the total futility of human life is fully revealed.
There are all the hazards of living. Physical and mental suffering is an everpresent possibility, a possibility that is renewed afresh with the dawn of every
day of life. Accidents, sickness, pain, and shame—to take but a few examples—
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60. Genius and Hyperphronesia
may have to be faced as a possibility, or actually endured as a reality, all for the
sake of an inherently ephemeral experience which must inevitably come to an
end sooner or later. It is obvious that, objectively speaking, life, being ephemeral,
is not really worth having. It is here that we can see the close relation between,
and the explanation of the frequent association of, hyperphronesia and
autophthorophilia. In particular, hyperphronesia, by partly outgrowing hedonia,
weakens normal, life-loving hedonia (i.e. weakens the will to live) and so renders
the individual more vulnerable to any autophthorophilic tendency he may have;
on the other hand, autophthorophilia, provided it is not severe enough to blot out
all rational thought, partially frees the individual from normal (i.e. life-loving)
hedonia and thus, to a certain extent, puts him in a position to view human life
relatively dispassionately and indifferently. Thus, in a way, autophthorophilia
represents a sort of pseudohyperphronesia: despite its superficial resemblance to
hyperphronesia, it differs from it not only in being phobophronesic and not
postphobophronesic, but also in being hedonic (even though its hedonia is of a
‘bastard’ or dyshedonic type). Hyperphronesia destroys hedonia by outgrowing
it: it represents an excessive development of postphobophronesia in which not
only is cosmophobia outgrown but hedonia itself is also partly outgrown, or is
threatened with being outgrown. By contrast, autophthorophilia destroys hedonia
because, although it is itself hedonic, its hedonia aims at self-destruction, and not
at loving and preserving life like normal hedonia; that is why we describe
autophthorophilia as ‘bastard hedonia’: it is like the soldier who is sent to the
battlefield to defend his country, only for him to turn round and use his ammunition
to exterminate the people he is supposed to defend.
03. But apart from any association with autophthorophilia, which may give
rise to hypochondria, usually of a transient or self-limiting type, hyperphronesia
tends to produce a more lasting type of reaction which may dominate the rest of
the individual’s life: a hedonic counter-reaction to the anhedonia of
hyperphronesia, characterized by three deutoscatistic idioms: teleophilia, creativity
(a manifestation of metamorphophilia), and aeoniophilia (love of permanency or
immortality, not to be confused with the exhibitionistic love of fame or
recognition)—in all three of which we see neoscatism, mainly in its consummate
form as deutoscatism, as a reaction to a ‘world of adversity and scarcity’ (the
typical concept of the world in scatism) steadfastly clinging to life in the face of
the anhedonic threat of hyperphronesia. The essence of this deutoscatistic reaction
to hyperphronesia is the determination, usually at quite an early age, to create
something of lasting value, i.e. something which, by virtue of its genuineness
and perfection, is calculated, if not to last for ever, at least to survive its creator
for a long time to come. Thus we see here a striking combination of the teleophilic
love of perfection, the metamorphophilic love of creation, and the aeoniophilic
determination to conquer death and the ephemerality of life by the individual
devoting himself to a task whose accomplishment he regards as being more
important than his own life: the imperfect, mortal man wanting to create a perfect,
immortal monument that will survive long after he himself will have perished.
The characteristic inanimatism of scatism is evident here, for the immortal creation
that the individual strives for is certain to be either material or abstract: it could
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not be animate (even though it may concern animate beings, as in the study of
biology), otherwise it would be, like the individual himself, mortal and perishable.
There is clearly a realistic acceptance of, or resignation to, death and perishability,
combined with a hedonic teleophilic and aeoniophilic creativity in which the
permanence of the inanimate world is sought as a substitute for the impermanence
of human life (which is why aeoniophilia is a scatistic idiom: it is specifically
inanimatophilic). Thus hyperphronesia, after an initial brief period of anhedonia,
is counteracted with heightened hedonia, mainly of a deutoscatistic type.
04. It is necessary here to deal briefly with aeoniophilia. Aeoniophilia has
two sides: interest in the inherently immortal or eternal, and oneself creating
something immortal or durable that will survive oneself. In both cases aeoniophilia
is based on scatistic inanimatophilia, and so on the love of the material and the
abstract, whose permanence or durability contrasts with the mortality or
perishability of the animate, as in phagistic animatophilia. For the majority of
men and women, the simplest means of conquering human mortality is by
producing offspring. This is a practical biological method of ensuring immortality,
a method which man shares with animals, and which is practised equally by the
illiterate peasant and the enlightened scientist. This is the reason why people are
usually particularly pleased by having grandchildren, for then their immortality
will have been almost completely assured. We must have some regard for those
philosophers and scientists who were not only completely devoted to their work
but who sought no other way of ensuring their immortality; they either never
married or married but (one assumes at least in some cases by design) never had
any children. The important point in all this is that having offspring as a method
of securing immortality is, of course, animatophilic, since its essence is the
production of more life. By contrast, aeoniophilia is inanimatophilic even where
it involves the study of the animate, i.e. of plants, animals, or human beings, as in
the study of biology and sociology. The simplest and crudest form of
aeoniophilia—or, more accurately, a forerunner of aeoniophilia, since this is not
aeoniophilia in the true sense—is seen in ‘immortalizing’ great (or supposedly
great) men by building statues to them: a statue, depending on the material it is
made of, survives for centuries, or even millennia, when the person it represents
could not hope to live even for one full century. However, on a higher plane, the
concept of the durable or eternal is much more refined, and may relate, for
example, to the eternal material world, e.g. the earth or the universe; or (in a
slightly less inanimatistic form) to the never-ending succession of generations of
plant, animal, or human life (as distinct from any one individual, or one generation,
that are bound to be mortal and perishable); or to completely abstract matters,
which are immune to erosion by time. As noted before, the immortal or durable
objects of aeoniophilia may be objects which are inherently so, or they may be
the individual’s own creations. For example, one aeoniophilic may love the earth
and may take a great interest in the science that studies it, viz. geology, whereas
another aeoniophilic, perhaps after a hyperphronesic episode in his teens, may
go further: from the love of the eternal (in this case the earth) he may progress to
the love of creating something which is durable, and may end up contributing a
major theoretical system to the science of geology embracing the totality of the
subject.
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60. Genius and Hyperphronesia
Not least interesting of the manifestations of aeoniophilia—though this does
not concern us in the present context—is scientific invention which represents a
deutoscatistic refinement of statue-building which, as noted before, may be
regarded as the crude forerunner of aeoniophilia. Such scientific invention is
typified by modern scientific phonography, photography, and cinematography.
For example, the modern gramophone or CD player reproduces the full living
voice of a person many years after his (or her) death. Even more impressive is
cinematography, including digital recordings, in which people can be seen walking
and talking like ordinary living human beings when in fact they may have been
dead for decades.
05. Regarding the role of teleophilia in the deutoscatistic reaction to
hyperphronesia, the emphasis here is on genuineness, which alone can impart
durable or lasting value to a creation. Genuineness can be assessed by a creative
individual only if he applies standards that are rigorously measured by the most
objective criteria of which he, born and bred in a phobophronesic environment,
is capable. Such teleophilia does not exclude the elements of ambition and of
exhibitionism—of the love of wealth and fame etc.; indeed we know, for example,
that David Hume had an ambition for both fame and wealth (both of which, to
some extent, he eventually realized, though not so much with his serious
philosophical as with more ephemeral, but to him equally enjoyable, writings),
and that Darwin boasted in private of the money he made from the sale of his
books. But the important point is that such motives, if at all marked, are completely
subordinated to teleophilia in its unrelenting and uncompromising insistence on
genuineness. The individual is not indifferent to the judgement of his
contemporaries, but he is far more concerned with the final verdict of posterity—
if indeed there is such a thing, since ‘posterity’ knows no time limit, and the final
verdict may not be possible until the lapse of thousands, rather than hundreds, of
years.
06. A few examples will illustrate the contribution made to genius in some
cases by hyperphronesia. How a man can value his work more than his life was
well demonstrated by Darwin who, during the 22 years of speculation and
accumulation of factual evidence that preceded the publication of The Origin of
Species, at one time put aside a large sum of money with instructions that, should
anything happen to him, that money should be used to publish his work on
evolution. Evidently he was resigned to death as a man, but he could not imagine
his work perishing with him: his work had to live on after he had died. In fact, far
from dying at an early age before he could publish his work, he lived, despite his
pessimism and hypochondria, well into old age and had ample time to publish
the extensive factual evidence which he had collected, and of which only a small
fraction was included in The Origin of Species. Elsewhere we have referred to
Darwin’s autophthorophilic morality and hypochondria, but here we see other
interesting aspects of the personality of a great man: his pessimism, his lifelong
devotion to his work (scatistic interest in the inanimate, although in fact the subjectmatter of his work was the evolution of life on earth), and his hyperphronesic
undervaluation of his own life, in contrast to his teleophilic and aeoniophilic
valuation of the work he had created. (It is hardly necessary to mention that
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other men may make provision for the posthumous publication of their work, but
only because of ambition and/or exhibitionism, and not because of any genuine
teleophilia in wanting to make a serious contribution to human progress.)
07. David Hume seems to have started his philosophical speculations well
before the age of 15. At the age of 18 he had an attack of hypochondria which he
described in a long letter, addressed to a physician but apparently never posted,
in the words: ‘all my ardour seemed in a moment to be extinguished’. That
attack lasted for nine months, but when he wrote the letter, at the age of 23, that
illness was still there, and indeed he was beginning to despair of its ever clearing
up. He says in the same letter: ‘I undertook the improvement of my temper and
will, along with my reason and understanding. I was continually fortifying myself
with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all calamities
of life.’ Then he goes on to record his ‘peevish reflections on the vanity of the
world and of all human glory; which, however just sentiments they may be
esteemed, I have found can never be sincere, except in those who are possessed
of them.’ Thus he obviously had not given in to anhedonia. He blamed his
illness—which he regarded as a sort of ‘lazy temper’ or ‘distemper’—on two
things: ‘study and idleness’, the ‘idleness’ no doubt referring to the retired, solitary,
and largely sedentary life of philosophical speculation, and he saw the cure in
the two opposite trends: ‘business and diversion’. This explanation, though we
cannot accept it entirely at its face value, is of the utmost interest. For it was the
retired life of study and deep speculation that had shown him the abyss of
hyperphronesia, and this insight was probably of crucial importance in determining
the unique content of his philosophy which, as published later, critically questions
the fundamentals of human knowledge which others comfortably prefer to take
for granted: this questioning had a deep influence on Einstein who used it to free
himself from old scientific dogma, and who unreservedly declared that there are
no such things as axioms in science: all axioms and all postulates must be
recognized as arbitrarily chosen conventions that suit a particular level of human
knowledge (AE p.13). On the assumption that his ‘distemper’ was due to ‘study
and idleness’, Hume understandably thought that the cure for the condition lay
in forgetting all about philosophical speculation, at least for a while, and leading
a physically more active, more practical, and more ‘normal’—i.e. more ordinary—
life, devoted to making money and enjoying the mundane pleasures for which
‘normal’, or ordinary, people strive. Thus Hume concludes his letter to the
physician by announcing that he had decided to go to Bristol to work with a
successful merchant ‘with a resolution to forget myself, and every thing that is
past, to engage myself, as far as is possible, in that course of life, and to toss
about the world, from one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me.’
However, even with this decision to go into business he was far from repudiating
the life of speculation: ‘I resolved to seek out a more active life, and though I
could not quit my pretensions in learning but with my last breath, to lay them
aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them.’ (LC i. 30
sqq.; DH iii. 18 sqq.)
08. We know of course the rest of the story. His career in Bristol was very
short-lived. He soon gave up the idea of leading a physically more active, and
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financially more rewarding, life. He went to France where he spent three years
in largely solitary contemplation while working on his magnum opus, A Treatise
of Human Nature—a crucial period of his life about which he later wrote in his
brief autobiography: ‘I there laid that plan of life, which I have steadily and
successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my
deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard
every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in literature.’
With that teleophilic solution, in which he repudiated the practical standards of
ordinary people and congenially adhered to his own standards, especially his
own inanimatistic interest in metaphysical speculation, he seemed to have put an
end to the hypochondriacal—probably hyperphronesic and autophthorophilic—
episode which must have troubled him for about five years, viz. between the ages
of 18 and 23.
09. Einstein related how, at quite an early age, he perceived the emptiness of
all the hopes and strivings of ordinary men. To him such strivings merely satisfied
man’s stomach, but not his mind. That he was looking for something durable, or
something of permanent value, as against the evanescence of ordinary human
life, was suggested by his revelation that for a short time he sought escape from
the ‘merely personal’ world of ordinary men with its ‘primitive feelings’ in the
‘paradise of religion’. However, he soon realized, as a person of his degree of
awareness was bound to do (although he was then only 12 years of age), that
religion was false, and he gradually turned to the ‘paradise of science’, with its
concern with the eternal material world at large. The road to this paradise, unlike
the religious one, offered him the ‘liberation’ and ‘inner freedom’ which he realized
other great men had found before him: these men were the true, permanent friends
who could not be lost: presumably the permanency of their friendship arises
from the ubiquity and permanency of their work: they do not belong to any one
nation or one generation. Einstein even went to the length of saying that he
agreed with Schopenhauer that one main reason why some men devote their
lives to art and science is the desire to escape the ‘deadly dullness’ of everyday
life. (AE; WISG.)
10. Thus it is highly probable that Einstein too went through a hyperphronesic
phase in his teens before he found the cure for the ‘deadly dullness’ of life in the
preoccupation with the eternal material world: the universe at large. The remark
about the ‘deadly dullness’ of life is very interesting. Perhaps there is an
implication in this (though this is not what Einstein actually said) that if life,
which in any case the individual did not choose to have (that was decided for him
by his parents), is ephemeral and futile, then the individual can do no better than
to try to employ, or ‘fill in’, the time usefully, i.e. in a way that is enjoyable to
himself and beneficial to others; in this way one’s life will not have been lived in
vain. Even if this is a happy solution, there will be two ways of looking at it. On
the one hand, the individual may assume that the ephemerality of his life is
counteracted by the endless continuity of the succeeding generations who will
benefit from his work. Hyperphronesia may thus have an overall effect of
enhancing, rather than depressing, hedonia: the glimpse—provided it is not much
more than a glimpse—of the utter nihilism of hyperphronesic anhedonia may
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serve to stimulate, rather than weaken, the love of life, and this is particularly
likely to happen in the hardy deutoscatist with his excellent adaptation to the
‘world of adversity and scarcity’: as one writer (Sherwood Anderson) put it,
‘Life, not death, is the great adventure’. On the other hand, the individual may,
with greater scepticism, assume that since our race is made up of individuals in
any case, this benefit to humanity can only be given contemptuously: it is benefit
to those fools who are stupid enough to care for the ephemeral experience.
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61. Comparative Cultural Idiomology
Monograph 61
REFLECTIONS ON
COMPARATIVE CULTURAL
IDIOMOLOGY
01. The study of comparative cultural idiomology is a fascinating aspect of
the cosmophobia theory, references to which will be found in numerous other
monographs in this series so that only the briefest account is necessary here to
allow for a similarly brief account of the leading civilization in the world today,
that of the United States of America.
Although comparative cultural idiomology is mainly applied to different
cultures existing at the same or at different times in history, it can also be applied
to different religions, different systems of marriage, and different political systems.
However, we have emphasized in dealing with these latter subjects in other
monographs that it is important to concentrate on the original creators of these
institutions, as distinct from those who—congenially or uncongenially—adopted
them later. For example, the significance of Protestantism in Christianity can
only be assessed in the nations that created Protestantism, not in the nations that
later (congenially or uncongenially) adopted it. Similarly, the cultural significance
of Islam can only be fully studied in the ancient Islamic civilization, even though
certain aspects of it may still be worth studying in certain parts of the contemporary
Islamic world. Again, the true significance of the concept of ‘democracy’, with
all its achievements and limitations, can only be studied in the European
civilizations that created it.
In the monograph on Art we had occasion to compare both ancient and
contemporary civilizations; the history of architecture in particular can be studied
as far back as ancient Egypt. Here we may categorize the main civilizations of
the contemporary Western world as follows: the Italian civilization is
predominantly polyphilic; the French is predominantly hectophilic-polyphilic;
the German is polydeutophasic deutoscatistic (or philophilio-deutoscatistic); the
British is polyprotophasic deutoscatistic; finally, the American civilization is
predominantly polyphilic-propeto-phthoristic.
*
*
02. The American civilization—by which we mean the civilization of the
United States of America—has emerged as the leading civilization in the world
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mainly since the end of the Second World War. The main competitor was the
Soviet Union until its demise in 1991. Hence we are fully justified in speaking
of American world hegemony, for no one can seriously deny that America, for
better or worse, is the dominant cultural force in the world today.
As discussed at length in the monograph on Civilization, all progressive
civilizations arise from turbulent (as distinct from dormant) backward civilizations.
In the case of the United States, this rise from turbulence was gradual, undramatic,
and somewhat incomplete—unlike the rise of the Soviet Union to progressiveness
through the revolution of 1917, which was accompanied and followed by much
bloodshed.
03. It is understandable that immigrants in a resourceful country such as the
United States should be proud of their freedom, having put all the traditions of
the Old World behind them in order to build anew, and on a larger scale, in the
New World with all the unlimited possibilities that it holds for them. The visitor
to America is greeted by the Statue of Liberty in New York harbour. But in point
of fact the love of ‘freedom’ is a complicated subject, and its frequent association
with propeto-phthorism was noted in other monographs. American phronesic
idiomology, which we shall presently examine, also explains the characteristic
American passion to build on a grand scale—much grander than real life—for
whatever Americans do has an air of sumptuousness and grandeur about it. This,
though always obvious, was not so glaringly obvious when Western European
nations had their empires, but when these empires were lost—and with them, of
course, their resources and the wealth they contributed—the reality of the situation
came into full relief: the United States is a vast country with a big population and
with enough natural resources to make it relatively self-sufficient, whereas Western
European countries are all small (indeed even the larger ones among them are
quite small by comparison with the United States) and with such limited resources
that even if they united politically, as has been the avowed intention of the
European Union, it is unlikely that they would be in any way as nearly selfsufficient as are the United States, Russia, and China. In so far as Western
civilization as a whole is concerned, only Americans can afford the vast capital
necessary for making and installing modern, highly sophisticated and highly
automated, machinery in industry; for all kinds of scientific research (in the
physical and social sciences, in medicine, etc.); and, of course, for research into,
and the making and testing of, nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and other highly
sophisticated weapons. Hence Western European civilization has been largely
overshadowed by the far more prosperous, and politically far more powerful,
civilization of the United States. Indeed in the present polarization of the world
into a communist block (led by China) and a capitalist block, Western Europe is
largely dependent on the United States. For although imperialism has eluded the
Americans (it being an anachronism in our time even though the Americans have
continued to try it, in Vietnam and more recently in Afghanistan and Iraq), the
American sphere of influence has nevertheless been vast, and has included Western
Europe whose countries, impoverished by two World Wars and the loss of their
empires, are to a great extent dependent on America not only economically and
politically but indeed in every sphere of culture.
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04. Although in the short run Western Europe can only be grateful for this
American hegemony, in the long run we see the story of ancient Greece and
Rome being enacted all over again. The eclipse of the predominantly deutoscatistic
ancient Greek civilization by the predominantly philophilic and sadistic-pleonectic
Roman civilization is so similar to the recent eclipse of Western European
civilization by the American civilization. Deutoscatism is not equally distributed
in Western Europe: it is decidedly more characteristic of Britain (predominantly
protophasic) and Germany (predominantly deutophasic), less characteristic of
France, and least characteristic of Italy. Hence the fact that Britain and Germany,
with their greater deutoscatism, have made the major contribution to science and
technology and to philosophy, while France (mainly hectism) and Italy (mainly
philism), with their greater phagism, have made the major contribution to
administration and to art, respectively. However, because the most characteristic
feature of Western European civilization as a whole has been its contribution to
science and technology and to serious philosophy, and also because European
civilization as a whole is comparatively deutoscatistic (e.g. even polyphilic
European nations, such as Italy, do not have the extreme polyphilia of some
Middle and Far Eastern civilizations), it is evident that it is deutoscatism that
forms the outstanding characteristic of Western European civilization—just as it
did, on a much smaller scale, in the ancient Greek civilization, for although art as
an outstanding feature of civilization goes as far back as ancient Egypt, serious
philosophy (i.e. rational philosophy as opposed to plainly religious or mystic
speculation) and serious science were largely created by the ancient Greeks. In
the case of American phronesic idiomology, the outstanding idioms are polyphilia,
pleonexia, and propeto-phthorism. Of these, propeto-phthorism is the most
characteristic American idiom (or group of idioms), and is probably unique in its
magnitude among all the great (i.e. progressive) civilizations of human history.
05. American polyphilia is manifested by the familiar idioms of this form of
mental orientation which Americans exhibit to a marked degree, notably
friendliness, affability, gregariousness, generosity, informality, familiarity,
uninhibitedness, gaiety, agility, odophilia, optimism, and aphilia. A few examples
will suffice. British visitors to America are nearly always impressed by American
friendliness, hospitality, and generosity. Sometimes they are surprised, or a little
shocked, by American informality. American generosity often amounts to
extravagance, e.g. in the cult of the disposable: even sumptuous, expensive motorcars are (at least theoretically) intended to last one year: a new model is brought
out every year, and people face all kinds of inducement to exchange their old car
for a new one every year. American gaiety, among other things, is exuberantly
exhibited in the boisterous celebrations of national holidays and important
occasions, e.g. the noisy singing and dancing all over the country at the time of
presidential elections (street life in England does not change in the least when a
new government is elected). American agility is very important in relation to the
popular dances America has contributed to the world, e.g. the Charleston, swing,
and rock-and-roll. However, other factors also have contributed to some of these
dances, e.g. propeto-phthorism and eroticism or dyseroticism. American optimism
reflects the happier and lighter attitude to life, by comparison with Western Europe
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(though the extremes of lightness, passing into superficiality and triviality, are
due to propeto-phthorism rather than philophilia). The weak side of optimism is
seen in the occasional poor design of American products, reflecting light-hearted
thoughtlessness where thoroughness and precision might be expected. In this
respect even the American space programme, although it succeeded in landing
men on the moon, has frequently been delayed or jeopardized by trivial, easily
preventable faults, while long-suspected serious faults were ignored until disaster
actually struck. American odophilia (love of singing) is reflected in the boisterous
celebrations on festive occasions referred to above, in folk-songs, and revivalist
hymns, etc. However, jazz—which is America’s most important and most
characteristic contribution to music—is brontophilic rather than odophilic, and
is closely related to American propeto-phthorism. American polyphilia—in this
case geneosemeiophilia, more specifically gynosemeiophilia—is also evident in
American modern architecture, in which (apart from the achievements of modern
technology) the bold straight line, predominantly horizontal, is a characteristic
feature. Finally, American polyphilic uninhibitedness, which contrasts so sharply
with British reserve and prudery, has made it possible for Americans to publish
much valuable erotological research in English—a privilege hitherto reserved
for the Germans, French, and other Continentals. Havelock Ellis’s epoch-making
work was published in America long before it was allowed in Britain. American
scientists have since produced probably the most extensive study of human
sexuality and eroticism ever undertaken. More recently, American medical
research has broken time-honoured cosmophobic taboos by the direct observation
and study of human coitus. This simple but daring innovation must be viewed
with humility here in Europe, even though the actual results published have been
mostly shallow and even trivial. (The closely related ‘sex therapy’ movement,
daring as it is in disposing of conventional erotophobic taboos, has produced a
vast mass of scientific material that is typical of the superficiality of much
American scientific research.)
06. As eroticism is a direct derivative of philism, the polyphilic nations of the
world are also its polyerotic nations. Regarding American polyeroticism, there
is no doubt that the reputation of Paris as the capital of eroticism in modern
civilization has now passed to America. Not only are such things as women’s
cosmetics, perfumes, lingerie, and clothes fashions being increasingly influenced
by America, but the very word ‘sex’—an English word used colloquially to cover
the whole of eroticism—has now penetrated virtually all European languages.
However, American polyeroticism differs from French polyeroticism in a number
of ways: American eroticism, far more than French eroticism, is influenced, on
the one hand, by aphilia and, on the other hand (and more importantly and more
characteristically), by propeto-phthorism and, in general, palaeoscatism (including
palaeoscatolagnia). A few examples will suffice. To begin with, cultural
hyperexomastolagnia (the excessive erotic interest in the female breast) has been
a striking characteristic feature of modern Western European civilization (in
contrast to ancient Greek and Roman civilizations), in which it is no doubt
compensatory, being due to shame in relation to the female buttocks. However,
American hyperexomastolagnia is still much greater than its European counterpart,
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and is due to aphilia rather than shame. Again, ‘obscenity’ (by which, in the
present context, we mean mysolalophilia and mysolalolagnia, the taboo on which,
like all the taboos on ‘obscenity’ and ‘indecency’ etc., is obviously cosmophobic)
has by no means been uncommon in Western European literature, but only in
America can a writer, not just take the liberty of including ‘obscene’ words, but
actually pour out literature consisting of little more than strings of ‘obscenities’.
(Thus here again we see the discrepancy between the freedom that Americans
enjoy in writing about eroticism and the use to which this freedom is put: the
taboo on ‘obscenity’ is irrational and cosmophobic, but the need to use ‘obscene’
words arises from, i.e. is a manifestation of, palaeoscatism.) But by far the most
important form of dyseroticism in America, which is an important feature of
American eroticism, is that of homolagnia. Statistics, as well as the detailed
accounts of actual practice, which have featured prominently in American
erotological research, from the epoch-making work of Alfred Kinsey and his coworkers onwards, make it practically certain that the incidence of homolagnia is
much higher in America than in Western Europe (a fact further confirmed, in the
case of Britain, since the repeal of the law prohibiting male homolagnia). This is
not surprising, because we know clinically that propeto-phthorism is very
frequently associated with homolagnia in both sexes: in fact propeto-phthorism
is closely, but not directly, related to homolagnia. (It is interesting to note in
passing that AIDS—a new disease which was in the past predominantly a disease
of male homolagnics—was for some time largely an American problem before it
began to spread to the rest of the world and to non-homolagnics, including children
receiving blood transfusions and, occasionally, medical personnel dealing with
infected patients.) It is probable that homolagnia (viz. homandrolagnia) has had
far greater cultural influence than is generally acknowledged, e.g. on certain
‘informal’ American dances, and on the current fashion of the excessively tight
denim (and other) trousers for both sexes which emphasize the natal cleft and the
nates. (Women in our time must be grateful for this unexpected appearance of
male hyperexopygolagnia which has relieved them from having to wear corsets
as women through all the centuries of modern Western European civilization had
had to do.)
As for ‘informal’ American dances, we see the development from the formal,
restrained, and graceful foxtrot (which was introduced just before the First World
War), through such forms as the Charleston, to those completely jerky forms
(‘rock-and-roll’ etc.) which are based not so much on philophilic agility as on
myotonolagnic and phallosemeiolagnic imitation coital movements, and which
reflect the full propeto-phthoristic love of ‘freedom’, i.e. freedom from order or
discipline (hence the ‘informality’).
07. American pleonexia has created the most acquisitive, and most
‘commercialized’, capitalist system that has ever existed, and, in combination
with generosity, probably also the most extravagant and wasteful and, by the
standards of a progressive civilization, also the most unscrupulous. A new
dimension, probably due to the all-pervasive trivial and trivializing influence of
propeto-phthorism, has been introduced in capitalism: the emphasis on
presentation and appearance on the one hand, and on advertising on the other,
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with relative indifference to substance or content or, in many cases, morality.
Often the cost of advertising a product is substantially greater than the actual
cost of making the product itself. The biggest and the smallest American
companies may behave unscrupulously, and may make exorbitant profits that
way. Simple examples are those of the enormous commercial success achieved
by the Americans, even on an international scale, in the sale of such trivial products
as chewing gum and effervescent (non-alcoholic) drinks—products which had
been known and used in Europe but only within the limits of their triviality.
Again, we may compare the luxurious sumptuousness and supreme technological
perfection with which American films and American CDs and books are produced,
with the generally poor quality, superficiality, and even triviality of their artistic
(or, in the case of books, scientific) content. It is interesting to note that Americans
themselves—as befits a truly progressive nation—are fully aware of, and have
indeed studied and freely written about, the abuses of their brand of capitalism,
in which expensive, overpowering, and often unscrupulous, advertising campaigns
are used to virtually compel people to buy, regardless of the merit or otherwise of
the product itself. Even the election of a president, which is supposed to be
‘democratic’ and straightforward, and the use of ‘pressure groups’ and lobbyists,
among many aspects of American civilization, all involve a colossal expenditure
of money. It is not surprising that one BBC correspondent in America made the
remark, ‘As cynics would say, “America is the best democracy money can buy!”
’.
08. Propeto-phthorism, which is palaeoscatistic, accounts for much of the
instability, violence, and superficiality that characterize American culture.
Instability, due to ideal propetophilia, is typified, in the political sphere (in the
narrow sense of politics), by America’s lack of a well-defined foreign policy.
American foreign policy is characterized by vacillation, changeability,
unpredictability, inconsistency, and whimsicality: it lacks forethought, planning,
and ‘diplomacy’. It is as if Americans made and unmade their policies on a dayto-day basis on the spur of the moment, and though they have shown a certain
support for other agoneusic cultures, they have generally shown a striking absence
of a guiding political or moral principle in their policies, any pretence to such
principles usually proving to be a sham adopted for the exigencies of the moment.
Violence has been a striking feature of American society throughout its
existence. We see this violence in its past and in its recent history, in the atrocities
of the American Civil War as in the atrocities of recent American military
involvement in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; in the massacres of the Indian
aborigines as in the only use so far ever made of nuclear weapons in war—the
only actual use, though by no means the only time America has threatened to use
nuclear weapons. Thus American society is essentially a violent society: it is
violent in the relations of its members with one another as it is in its relations
with the outside world. The world can hardly look to America for salvation, as
America can hardly guarantee its own salvation. America cannot protect the
world as it cannot protect itself against itself.
09. The extent and magnitude of American pleonexia and propeto-phthorism
are easily understandable. Sadistic-pleonectic phobophronesia is a dominant
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factor in all progressive civilizations (together with a modicum of
postphobophronesia), but the United States is probably unique among all nations
in human history that have created great civilizations in that it consists almost
entirely of relatively recent immigrants—after all, America was not discovered
until the beginning of the modern era. Emigrants are motivated in the adventure
they undertake first and foremost by ambitiousness and acquisitiveness; most of
them, therefore, are sadistic-pleonectic almost by definition. In addition to their
motivation, and often closely related to it, is the fact, already noted in the
monograph on Civilization, that whenever there is a mass movement of population
from a settled environment to a new environment, be it a movement from the
country to the city within the same national boundaries, or from one country to
another, such movement tends to attract propeto-phthorists. There is always the
possibility of the newcomers creating a sadistic-pleonectic, or turbulent,
environment wherever they settle, for often, once they are freed from the ties of
their original environment, they lose the phthorophobic-meionectic morality that
had regulated their behaviour in that environment, without being able to replace
it with a modicum of postphobophronesic morality. Thus they end up with only
sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’. Of course whether this happens or not depends
mainly on the mental constitution (or heredity or genetic endowment) of the
individual, but another very important factor, which is environmental, is the
coming together of such agoneusic individuals or groups. It is a fact that many
individuals and groups of people who had not in the least exhibited any evidence
of sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’ or of propeto-phthorism in their former settled
environments, do so once they have willingly or unwillingly, completely or
partially, severed their ties with their old environments. Undoubtedly in most
cases it is exactly the individual who is predisposed to sadistic-pleonectic
phobophronesia and/or propeto-phthorism, even if he had not manifested these
trends before, who chooses to uproot himself from his old, settled environment,
either by moving from the country to the city or by going abroad. On the other
hand, even those who are uprooted from their own environment completely against
their will, as has often happened in war, will—if they have any predisposition at
all—exhibit the sadistic-pleonectic and/or propeto-phthoristic tendency, especially
if the new environment allows it or encourages it. Needless to say, many who
move from the provinces to the capital, or who emigrate, are already unstable
sadistic-pleonectic and/or propeto-phthoristic individuals who want a freer
environment with less risk of detection, censure, or punishment: some of them
may already have had a criminal record. In all this the coming together of
agoneusic people is so important as often to be a crucial factor. A stranger in a
city living as a lodger with a family, even if he has a considerable sadisticpleonectic or propeto-phthoristic tendency, may not show signs of instability, but
the tendency to instability would be most encouraged in a hostel for workers (or,
worse still, in a hostel for the unemployed) whose residents are thrown together
because of their working conditions but with nothing in common except their
agoneusia. In the same way a family moving from the provinces to the capital
does not usually show any signs of instability, but when families are uprooted on
a mass scale from their old environments and moved to a new housing estate, the
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chances of instability and turbulence breaking out are much greater. That the
constitutional or genetic factor, or, in general, the level of awareness, is of
paramount importance even here is shown by the fact that a hostel for university
students is unlikely to show turbulence as a hostel for manual factory workers
might do, although in both cases the residents are drawn from all over the country:
the phronesic level is obviously very different in the two groups. Similarly, the
residents of a new private housing estate, where people buy their own houses,
hardly ever show any of the problems seen in new council housing estates, where
people are offered accommodation at minimal rents.
10. In so far as mass migration from one country to another is concerned, it
is evident that sadistic-pleonectic phobophronesia and propeto-phthorism apply
with far greater force in a country in which immigrants preponderate, as was the
case in the founding of every colony. The greater the heterogeneity of the
immigrants—the more varied their cultural backgrounds were—the greater was
the likelihood of turbulence and propeto-phthorism, both as regards extent and
as regards intensity. Sadistic-pleonectic ‘morality’ and propeto-phthorism were
exhibited not only in the relations of the settlers with one another but even more
in their relations with the natives—the latter, as we know, were always
economically and sexually exploited, and often ruthlessly exterminated in areas
where their interests clashed with those of the settlers, or in some cases just for
the satisfaction of sadism. Today, however, while the problems between the
settlers and the natives continue to cause trouble, more serious in some places
than in others, at least the majority of these former colonies have now developed
into nations whose members have more in common than their agoneusia and the
disruptive forces of acquisitiveness with its associated ambitiousness, greed, and
irresistible desire to plunder and ravage; indeed most of the former colonies have
their own national identities and aspirations, and have come to drastically restrict
further immigration. But there have been considerable variations: no country in
the world has attracted emigrants as much as the United States has done and, to
some extent, continues to do. It is by far the largest nation of immigrants in the
world. More recently—with the restriction of immigration—the United States
has been importing the cream of talent, especially scientific and technological
talent, from all over the world. But this is not how the country was founded: like
all colonies, it was founded by ambitious, agoneusic sadistic-pleonectic and/or
propeto-phthoristic ‘settlers’, ‘settler’ being a euphemism for a certain type of
pirate.
But quite apart from the fact that emigration on a mass scale particularly
appeals to sadistic pleonectics and to propeto-phthorists, it is a well-known fact
that an appreciable proportion of Americans came originally from Ireland. Of
course the two factors may be combined: emigration may appeal most to the
most propeto-phthoristic section of a markedly propeto-phthoristic nation.
11. Such in fact have the turbulence and propeto-phthorism been in the United
States that, as recently as the late nineteenth century, the West—an area larger
than all the countries of Western Europe combined—was virtually dominated by
cowboy gangsters to whom a gun was little more than a toy: they killed for the
most trivial reasons, or even out of sheer bravado or perhaps sheer sadism. Every
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61. Comparative Cultural Idiomology
town in the ‘cow country’ (as it was then known) had its ‘boot hill’—a graveyard
for those killed in their boots. In addition to the cowboys, the American West in
those days was full of gangs of robbers who raided banks, business premises,
and railways. It is significant that the cowboy tradition, with all its rampant
pleonexia and propeto-phthorism, far from being buried and forgotten as part of
the dismal past, has been, and is being, perpetuated and glorified by the American
film industry, and indeed forms one of the most characteristic lines of American
film production, that of ‘cowboy films’ or ‘westerns’ as they are popularly known.
This shows that the cowboy culture, though dead in practice, is still cherished in
the minds of Americans, and the implied hero-worship of criminals is by no
means limited in America to adolescents. Clearly the cowboy—a man with a
gun who lives essentially for himself, who recognizes no law or higher authority,
and who can only associate with ‘free’ men like himself—represents the ideal of
‘freedom’ for Americans. The American Constitution guarantees every American
the ‘right’ to carry a gun, and the murder rate is many times higher in the United
States than in England (e.g. it was more than 10 times higher in 1958 (T. Morris
and L. Blom-Cooper, A Calendar of Murder (London, 1964) p.277-282)). Even
now that America has progressed enough to be the leading nation in the world,
crime in general, and organized crime in particular, is more prevalent, and on a
far greater scale as well, than in any other progressive country in the world.
Organized crime dealing with drug traffic, gambling, protection rackets, and
prostitution, is sometimes run on a regional or even on a nationwide basis, on a
scale almost unimaginable in Western Europe; this is the type of criminal
organization or criminal syndicate that virtually represents a ‘State within a State’.
American sociologists candidly admit that the existence of organized crime is
possible only because of its involvement of some corrupt officials.
12. These are few examples of the phenomena, big and small, which point to
the recency, and incompleteness, of the emergence of the United States from
turbulence to progressiveness. Evidence of residual discrepancy between ideal
and practice has survived in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most striking single
example was that of Prohibition, which lasted from 1920 to 1933. That all
alcoholic drinks were prohibited, or could be prohibited, in a country like the
United States—a feat which no settled nation would even attempt—was so
surprising. Of course Prohibition was foredoomed, as history has amply proved.
Again, if we compare the results of American sexual research into the prevalence
both of non-marital erotic relations and of male homolagnia, with the legal codes
(at any rate in the not too distant past) of the different States concerning
‘fornication’, ‘adultery’, and homolagnia, we will see a gulf between ideal and
practice far greater than that in any Western European nation, although hypocrisy
is by no means unknown in Europe. Finally, it is perhaps a measure of American
hypocrisy and superficiality that, at the present time, America poses throughout
the world as the passionate advocate of ‘democracy’ and of ‘human rights’, in
the sense of constantly telling other nations how to treat their own nationals. It is
strange that the call for ‘democracy’ and for the respect of ‘human rights’ should
come—not humbly or repentantly for its dubious past, but with all the pomposity
of lovers of ‘freedom’—from a nation that came into existence, partly by the
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extermination of the native aborigines, and partly by the large-scale importation
of African Negroes to serve as owned slaves, and despite the fact that to this day
both the surviving aborigines and the American Negroes remain oppressed classes
within America itself. In fact, despite this ostentatious advocacy of ‘democracy’,
there has been worldwide concern from many neutral bodies about the torture
and violation of ‘human rights’ by the Americans among the detainees at the
Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba.
(The relevance of the above account to everyday life may be illustrated by a
hypothetical example. Mr. A, a British sociologist, meets Mr. B, an American
sociologist, at an international conference, and the two arrange to discuss a subject
of mutual interest over a cup of tea. Initially, Mr. A is impressed by Mr. B’s
friendliness and affability. However, in the course of conversation Mr. A quite
casually mentions that he is an agnostic—whereupon, to his amazement, Mr. B,
without even allowing him to finish his sentence, stands up, shakes hands with
him, and just walks away, never to be heard from again. To Mr. A such behaviour
seemed both impulsive (i.e. propetophilic) and immature: he could hardly believe
that, in our enlightened age, a university graduate could be offended by the mention
of agnosticism, or indeed by any form of unorthodox opinion. But Mr. B, on his
part, believed that he had acted with great self-restraint: in response to ‘subversive’
opinions unworthy of a ‘free’ country like the United States, he merely walked
away from his evil-minded adversary, and even condescended to shake hands
with him: he did not act impulsively as, for example, by producing a gun and
silencing his adversary for ever in order to rid the world of his evil.)
13. American propeto-phthorism is of immense importance. Seeing that
America has the largest and most sophisticated arsenal of nuclear weapons in the
world, American propeto-phthorism could well decide the future of human
civilization on earth. No doubt America will eventually outgrow its propetophthorism, just as all phobophronesic civilization must eventually outgrow its
sadistic pleonexia. But until this happens there will always be the risk of American
propeto-phthorism getting out of control, which in a nuclear age may mean the
end of human civilization and possibly even the end of the human race.
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62. Education and Authoritarianism
Monograph 62
EDUCATION AND
AUTHORITARIANISM
Reflections on the
political scientist
01. Education, like leadership—with which we dealt at length in the
monographs on Government and Acracy—is of two types: rational and
authoritarian. The two are not mutually exclusive. Indeed while all education in
phobophronesic civilization purports to be rational, it is nearly always
authoritarian, whether or not it also has a rational component.
Rational education aims at informing, i.e. at imparting existing knowledge.
This saves the younger generation the task of having to discover anew the human
heritage that has already been discovered and utilized by previous generations.
By contrast, authoritarian education aims primarily at ensuring the orthodoxy
or conformity of the new generation, and its continued phthorophobic-meionectic
submission to the authority of the sadistic-pleonectic factions in phobophronesic
civilization. Because of this, authoritarian education always teaches religion as
an essential subject, as well as the respect of authoritarian authority in general,
not only in religion but also in politics (respect of the rulers and of the (rulers’)
law) and within the family (respect of parents).
02. In the last analysis, authoritarian education may be regarded as a derivative
of sexual social stratification in phobophronesic society, reflecting, in an ideal
form (ideal, since it applies to whole generations and not only within the family
unit), the sadistic-pleonectic authority of parents over children, and the closely
related demand for cosmophobic orthodoxy or conformity on the part of the
children. Here, as elsewhere in phobophronesic civilization, sexual, political,
and religious institutions are closely associated and may show considerable
overlap.
03. We have noted in other monographs that even in the exceedingly
rudimentary social stratification that existed among the Central Australian
aborigines, there was a big gulf, not only between women and uninitiated men
on the one hand and initiated men on the other, but also between ordinary initiated
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men and the old men. Initiation, with all its cruel procedures, allowed a man
access to the sacred magical secrets of the tribe, but even then his authority was
limited: the ultimate authority rested with the old men. Thus the position of the
young man about to be initiated, the initiated man, and the old man was essentially
that of the apprentice, the craftsman, and the master craftsman, respectively, in
phobophronesic civilization—an arrangement which applies throughout our
educational system, including the universities.
04. Rational education acknowledges that, given sufficient interest and
reasonable intelligence, anybody can acquire knowledge of any subject up to
any standard he or she desires. By contrast, some postgraduate colleges boast of
the low success rate in their examinations. The difference between the two
represents the difference between acknowledging that education, with or without
examinations, can only impart existing knowledge, and endowing examinations
with all the mysticism of savage initiation ceremonies (which may explain the
fact that at some universities, up to our own time, the presentation of degrees is
made at special ceremonies in which bizarre gowns and headgear are worn).
*
*
05. True scientists devote their lives to science for its own sake. There is
room for normal ambition and even for a modicum of exhibitionism in wanting
recognition and fame; but these factors, if they exist at all (and they by no means
always exist), are of secondary importance: the primary factors are the love of
truth and/or the ethical service of humanity—i.e. they are epistemophilia and
social morality—not euexia or ideal apragmoscopophilia, let alone pleonexia
and sadism.
Hence true scientists devote their lives in humility to learning, for they are
overwhelmed by our ignorance: by what there is to learn. If they have to undertake
teaching, they approach their task with diffidence and humility, being painfully
aware of the fact that they—the greatest men of their time—know so little. These
are the men described by Einstein as being ‘strange, taciturn, and lonely fellows’
(WISG p.10). We see a few of them in our universities, and outside our universities.
Most of them live a quiet life, and many of them—which applies equally to those
who devoted their lives to philosophy and art—lived and died in poverty, or
completely unknown, the value of their work being only recognized many years
after their death.
06. By contrast, scientists have had their own politicians and journalists—
these alien intruders for whom science is not an end in itself but merely a means
to an end. They are not interested in science itself, nor does it matter to them that
they are a great hindrance to its progress. They represent the authoritarianism of
phobophronesic society, and they use science, as other ambitious men in
phobophronesic society use other means, as a means to power, authority, and
self-aggrandizement. Unfortunately these men, with their burning ambitiousness
and lust for power, all too often manage to trample the true, quiet, unassuming
scientists, to assume the key positions in the scientific world. These are the men
who are often tormented by a burning desire to teach. Like children in an
authoritarian society waiting impatiently to grow up and have their own children
in order to revel in the experience of authoritarian domination, these ‘scientists’
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62. Education and Authoritarianism
are keen to finish their postgraduate training and obtain higher qualifications so
that they can reach positions of power from which they can dictate to others what
to do. As teachers they may nominally profess their ignorance while in practice
recognizing no limits to their abilities to teach; indeed with their confident sense
of omniscience they may even claim to be able to teach others how to discover
what they themselves have failed to discover. These are the men who insist on
the postgraduate training of young scientists before the latter are allowed to take
any part in research, this training being the means by which men of originality—
the true scientists—are carefully weeded out: few of the latter would have the
influence to get in in the first instance, and those who do get in would probably
be purged of all originality by the training; for the training that qualifies a candidate
for the research post is the very experience that renders him wholly unfit for
original work.
07. Equally important is the fact that whereas for the majority of people, who
lack all originality, education is about the only way they can acquire and utilize
knowledge, there is a very small minority, on whom all major progress depends,
who are capable of original thought provided that they are given the opportunity
to express it. For these people with originality, education is a potential danger as
it tends to stifle their originality, especially because most original thinkers have
to begin at the beginning by unlearning all that with which they had been
indoctrinated in the course of their formal education. Moreover, the vast majority
of original ideas occur before the age of 30, and often (at all events in a rudimentary
form) long before the age of 20. University education already extends into the
20’s, so that it is clear that if we are to avoid stifling original thought, the whole
question of so-called ‘postgraduate education’ must be viewed with great
scepticism, as over-education—even if it is not authoritarian—is at least as harmful
as inadequate education. If university education were to allow for specialization
at an early age, as it does not do at present, then the need for postgraduate education
and training would be either greatly reduced or, preferably, completely eliminated.
For in the 20’s we are approaching the danger period, and the longer the training
we give at this time of life the greater the risk of stifling (if we do not deliberately
seek to eradicate) all original thought. As Einstein has aptly remarked, it is a
miracle that the present system of education has not completely extinguished the
‘holy curiosity of enquiry’ (AE p.17). After all, he, at the age of 12, knew that
his interest lay in physics; he published his special theory of relativity at the age
of 26 (largely by behaving as a very bad university student who devoted his time
to his own lifework rather than to what he was supposed to be cramming), and,
despite much personal unhappiness, including the breakup of his first marriage,
he managed to publish his epoch-making general theory of relativity 10 years
later. That is the typical story of most of the greatest original thinkers: although
a few were late developers, the majority conceived their original ideas, at any
rate in their first, crude forms, quite early in life. Moreover, late publication does
not necessarily mean late development; for example, Darwin waited almost a
quarter of a century before he published his work on evolution. We may contrast
all this with the young graduate who consults his professor concerning possible
lines of research, follows his professor’s advice, and is duly rewarded with a
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
doctorate a few years later. And what is more: once he has obtained his doctorate
degree he is now qualified to be a lecturer at the university and may, in due
course, himself become a professor and hand out research ideas to those graduates
who, like himself, in their late 20’s still do not have the slightest idea about what
research they want to do—nor do they care what research they do as long as it
satisfies their ambition for a university post.
08. Of course these politicians of science do not have the same influence in
all countries or in all branches of science. But where they have a pronounced
influence, the effect on scientific progress is usually disastrous. For here we see
the head of the well-financed research project team whose only credentials in
science, apart from the qualifications he holds, are the fact that he has failed to
solve any of the major problems in his specialty, and who nevertheless claims to
be able to train others to discover (or to do research towards the discovery of)
what he himself has failed to discover. Even if human nature in the phobophronesic
era were more benevolent than it is—even if science were not vitiated, as it
undoubtedly is, like everything else in phobophronesic society, by competitiveness
and ambitiousness—would anybody really believe that young scientists could be
taught, or trained, to discover the unknown? Clearly to discover what is not
known you will most probably need to employ methods that themselves are still
not known. There is only one way to discover the unknown: to be given the
opportunity. Anyone who claims that he can train others to discover what he
himself has failed to discover declares himself to be a liar.
09. Probably it is here that we have the main (though not necessarily the
whole) explanation of the failure of present-day research workers the world over,
despite the vast expenditure since the Second World War on research into the
causation of cancer and ‘schizophrenia’, to discover anything of significance in
either field. For the candidates for such research posts (and there are thousands
of ambitious men who hanker after such plum posts) need not only personal
influence but also what is regarded as the appropriate training for this type of
work (the two of course are closely related)—all of which ensures that those
with original ideas are excluded, their original ideas being a menace or challenge
to those in authority, while only conformists who have influence and ambition,
but no original ideas, obtain the training that enables them to follow the same
barren lines pursued by their masters with the same barren results.
10. Of course other factors may also be at play. For example, we cannot
expect cancer research that is financed by the charity of capitalist industrialists to
probe the possibility of food additives (artificial colouring agents, sweeteners,
etc.) causing cancer. Nor can we expect anthropological research financed by
capitalists to question, as did Frazer, the origin of the institutions that form the
basis of capitalist society. In the case of ‘schizophrenia’ we can reasonably expect
generous capitalists to give donations for research into the supposed (by now
clearly mythical) metabolic cause of the disease, but they could not be expected
to contribute towards research that links the disease with much that is irrational
in our own society, including the very institutions to whose existence these
capitalists owe their wealth. In short, in capitalist society, in which so much of
all research in science, and so much of all art, is possible only through the charity
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62. Education and Authoritarianism
of capitalists, one can hardly expect scientists or artists to be free—for they could
not afford to bite the hand that feeds them. It is true that some scientists and
artists have solved this problem by living the life of martyrs (and undoubtedly
risking their work being lost for ever), but even this is no solution for a scientist
who needs an expensive and sophisticated laboratory to do his research: such a
scientist may not stand a chance in our competitive society in which, in science
as in everything else, those who are most generously rewarded are often not the
most capable but the most ambitious, most acquisitive, and perhaps also the most
unscrupulous—in short, the most sadistic-pleonectic.
*
*
11. So much for the politicians of science—men of the world who really do
not belong to science and yet who, in practice, often manage not only to intrude
into the scientific world but even to dominate it in some cases. The same applies
to the journalists of science—the editors of some scientific journals who wield a
great deal of power and yet whose interest lies not in science but merely in the
use of science as a means of gratifying their desire for power. Of course this
applies only to a limited number of editors, but these do enough harm to the
cause of science as a whole. A scientific journal should be a free forum for the
expression of all sorts of views on a particular subject, no matter how unorthodox
or dissident these views may be. After all, it is mostly on unorthodoxy that
scientific progress depends. Moreover, we know from the history of science
(and the same is true of the history of philosophy and art) that much that was
treated lightly or ignored in its day, has proved to be of lasting value, while much
that was acclaimed in its day has subsequently been committed to oblivion as it
was unworthy of preserving. Clearly the final judgement on any work in science,
philosophy, or art must rest with posterity. A true scientist editing a journal
recognizes this fact; this is how men like Einstein and Freud managed to publish
some of their most unorthodox views. But things are different with authoritarian
editors who pose as self-styled examiners who have the power of passing or
failing authors, by accepting or rejecting their articles. Authors in fact may be
required to re-write their articles, or their articles may be re-written for them by
men who, even in science, claim god-like omniscience perhaps on the strength
of having at their elbow the latest edition of a well-known American book on the
subject: whatever contradicts this unofficial Bible on the subject is assumed to be
in need of correction. Why do authors accept to be treated like that? The answer
lies probably in the fact that many, or most, of these authors, like the masters
who are teaching them to write, have no interest in science as such: they are
simply ambitious men who have to publish articles either for prestige or for the
simple reason that the publication of a minimum number of articles in recognized
journals in the specialty is one of the requirements for certain senior posts.
This is how scientific publishing deteriorates into being part of a system in
which mediocrities with influence help others like themselves to forge ahead and
eventually to become their successors in order to perpetuate the system.
*
*
12. In conclusion, there are two categories of workers in civilized society:
the technicians and the original workers (whether the original work is in science,
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philosophy, or art—though our concern here is mainly with science). The term
‘technician’ is used here in the widest sense to cover all those at all intellectual
levels who are engaged in routine work using existing knowledge; for example,
a doctor in his ordinary everyday clinical work is a technician, whereas a cancer
research worker is an original worker. It is important that schools, technical
colleges, and universities train enough technicians to meet all the needs of civilized
economy, but in doing so it is vital not to overlook, let alone eradicate or weed
out, those exceedingly few individuals with talent on whose original work human
progress largely depends.
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63. Cannibalism
Monograph 63
REFLECTIONS ON
CANNIBALISM
CONTENTS
Chapter
Section
Introduction
1
1.
Cannibalism in Australia
2—5
2.
The Significance of Cannibalism
6—8
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INTRODUCTION
1. In the savage practice of cannibalism we see man not only as a carnivore
but as the carnivore of man. The concrete form of cannibalism no longer troubles
us in civilization, but its ideal form remains the basis of the cardinal institutions
of our phobophronesic civilization.
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63. Cannibalism
Chapter 1
CANNIBALISM IN AUSTRALIA
2. Among the Australian aborigines—the lowest savages in the world—there
were three forms of cannibalism (CA p.473 sqq., 264; SEA p.748-56). Firstly,
there was the eating of the dead of one’s own tribe: this was done ceremonially
and obviously there was no element of hostility or revenge in it: the dead person,
of course, was not killed for the purpose of being eaten: it was only when he or
she happened to die from whatever cause that he or she was eaten by his or her
tribesmen and tribeswomen. The details of the practice varied from tribe to tribe,
both as regards what was eaten (for example, in some tribes the flesh of the dead
was eaten, in others only the fat was eaten) and as regards the relationship to the
dead of those who partook of his (or her) body (for example, individuals of the
same totem as the dead person might be prohibited from partaking of his flesh).
3. Secondly, there was the widespread practice of infanticide in which the
infant was eaten by some, though not by all, tribes. Sometimes when there was
a weak and sickly child in the family and another child was born, or when the
mother with all her duties in food gathering already had to take a young child
around with her and another one was born, the latter—the younger child—was
killed and the flesh was either given to the older, weak child in order to give
strength to the latter, or the flesh was eaten by the adults. In other cases, however,
in times of extreme shortage of food, new-born children were killed and eaten. It
should be noted that although infanticide did keep the numbers of the tribes
down—in the Arunta most families had only two or three children, and four or
five was about the maximum—savages were not in the least lacking in affection
for the children they kept: on the contrary, they were very fond of their children,
treated them with indulgence, and a mother would go hungry herself to feed her
young children.
4. Thirdly and finally, there was the eating of enemies—probably the most
important form of cannibalism although it tended to disappear rapidly under the
influence of Europeans, leaving behind its enactment in totemic ceremonies (such
as those held at the circumcision of a boy in Central Australia). Howitt gives a
good many examples of cannibalism in all its forms as it was practised in SouthEast Australia. In some cases the practice was not limited to enemies in the strict
sense of the word: any man, woman, or child who died from any cause, provided
the body was in a good condition, was sure to be eaten. Spencer and Gillen
record that the Luritcha tribe still ate their enemies at the time these two
ethnographers were carrying out their research among the Australian aborigines.
The members of this tribe, however, in eating their enemies, had to take the
trouble of carefully destroying the bones after the flesh had been consumed as
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
they believed that if this was not done the bones could come together and the
person would then come back to life and follow and harm those who had killed
and eaten him. In particular the skull of the eaten person had to be destroyed: if
the head was not destroyed—so they believed—the person could come back to
life and seek revenge. It is probable in fact that the practice of eating enemies
among savages tended to die out in the course of evolution in the first instance
because of the belief in the souls of the dead surviving after death and being able
to haunt and harm the living: it is this fear of the dead that tended to abolish
cannibalism and, to a much lesser extent, to reduce homicide in general.
5. Of course the opposite extreme of cannibalism is the irrational, and clearly
cosmophobic, abhorrence of disturbing the bodies of the dead for whatever reason.
Although nowadays the dissection of the human body is fully accepted as an
essential part of the training of a medical student, and although the performance
of autopsies, or post mortem examinations, is carried out whenever there is any
doubt about the cause of death, which indeed forms the basis of the science of
pathology without which medicine would never have attained the level of progress
it now enjoys, there are still people who object, for example, to the use in scientific
research of embryonic tissue obtained from fetuses dying from whatever cause.
It is obvious that, from the rational (i.e. postphobophronesic) point of view, it is
one thing to kill a person, i.e. deprive a person of the right to live, but a completely
different thing to make whatever use can be made of the body of a person who is
already dead. It is irrational to commit a corpse to irrevocable destruction (as by
burial or cremation etc.) if any use could be made of it. (However, it is equally
obvious that human nature being what it is at the phobophronesic level, any
liberalization of the use that can be made of cadavers might encourage surreptitious
homicide.)
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63. Cannibalism
Chapter 2
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CANNIBALISM
6. The practice of cannibalism in all its forms is of great sociological interest.
The eating of the dead of one’s own tribe is particularly interesting where the
dead are treated like the totemic animal or plant whose name they bear so that a
relative is allowed to eat as much or as little (if any) of the dead person depending
on how much or how little he is allowed to eat of the totem animal or plant to
which the dead person belonged. The complete identification of an individual
with his totem is quite evident here.
7. In the case of the eating of children, we see the most primitive form, or
prototype, of the exploitation of children by adults. In civilized societies, parents
may have the right to chastise their children or even to put them to death—but
they do not eat them. We can see how in the evolution of human civilization,
especially with regard to the private ownership of children by their parents or, in
the case of savages with their primitive socialism, by the adult members of the
tribe, the private ownership rights first include the right to kill and eat the child,
but at a higher level of civilization the power of life and death over the child is
lost, though domination and exploitation continue. In our own Western
civilization, the rights of children have been only very partially recognized—on
the whole they still remain unrecognized. And while this is true of the rights of
parents over children whom they already have (and privately own), the rights of
the unborn child remain virtually totally unrecognized in our modern society, as
shown by the fact that any two individuals, regardless of their physical and mental
fitness for procreation, or its lack, can marry, as long as they do not break certain
cosmophobic taboos (such as those of incest), and can then produce as many
children as they like.
8. Finally, as regards the eating of enemies, here again we see the most
primitive form, or prototype, of political domination and economic exploitation.
At our level of civilization, domination and exploitation are all that is left of the
older, concrete (or practical) use to which enemies, though as human as their
captors, were put. Among the lowest savages enemies were quite literally eaten:
they were used as food; at a higher level of civilization enemies were used as
slaves: they were fully owned privately by their captors who could keep them or
sell them; finally, when slavery (in the literal sense of the word) was outgrown
there came the stage, at which our present Western civilization exists, at which
enemies are only dominated and exploited though they are not bodily owned by
their masters. Needless to say, the cannibalism of savages, both in relation to
children and in relation to enemies, shows the phagistic nature of domination
and exploitation as we see them in our own society: the domination and
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
exploitation of children and of enemies are the relics of the original practices of
actually feeding on children and enemies, man using fellow human beings in this
respect in much the same way as he used the animals he hunted in the bush.
1510
64. Socialism
Monograph 64
REFLECTIONS ON
SOCIALISM
1. While most enlightened people today accept that the future is for socialism,
there are broadly two conflicting schools of thought: one, typified by the British
Labour Party, which seeks the implementation of socialism by peaceful means,
and the other, typified by former Soviet communism (or ‘Marxism-Leninism’),
which insisted on revolution as the only means of establishing socialism. The
distinction of communism as revolutionary socialism was made by Marx, who
insisted that violent revolution was indispensable for the ‘overthrow of the
bourgeoisie’ and the establishment of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’.
Paradoxically, it was that ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ that was supposed to
eventually bring about the ‘withering away of the State’ as ‘the government of
people will give way to the administration of things’. It is remarkable that Marx’s
belief in the capacity of the human mind to evolve was so naive that he thought
that men could outgrow the institutions of religion, marriage, and government,
not within thousands of years, or even within a few centuries, but within a single
generation. The Soviet experience, therefore, which purported to represent the
implementation of true Marxism, and which ended with the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1991, is particularly instructive, all the more so as the Soviet
Union was at that time one of the two leading civilizations in the world—the
other, of course, being the United States of America.
2. It is evident that the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917 was the crucial point in
the emergence of the Soviet Union from turbulent backwardness to
progressiveness. (Of course turbulence represented the highest cultural
development in pre-revolutionary Russia: the mass of the population, mostly
peasants, were still at the phthorophobic-meionectic level of dormancy.) Although
Soviet ideals were originally essentially postphobophronesic—as were those of
the French Revolution of 1789 long before it—Soviet culture in fact had all the
characteristics of a young progressive civilization that had not yet emerged (or
that was only beginning to emerge) from the incipient stage of awakening—
hence the limited freedom of thought and the intolerance shown to all that was
‘reactionary’, which it was hoped would be relaxed as the civilization matured.
In so far as the postphobophronesic ideals were concerned then these, as in the
case of the French Revolution, merely served to bring about the undoubtedly
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
progressive, but equally undoubtedly still phobophronesic, civilization of the
Soviet Union. It is noteworthy that although atheism, agamy, and socialism—all
more or less of the postphobophronesic type—were the original ideals of the
Russian Revolution, as indeed they were the ideals promulgated by Marx and
Engels in their Communist Manifesto published in 1848 (CM), there was not the
slightest suggestion of the ‘withering away of the State’ or of the disappearance
of any of the cardinal institutions of phobophronesic civilization. As we learn
from Sidney and Beatrice Webb, there were major achievements, very important
by the standards of pre-revolutionary Russia, and even by the standards of Western
Europe; for example, an effort was made for the first time in history to base
morality on a rational foundation, instead of deriving it from religious and other
traditional sources, and with the nationalization of all industry there was no
capitalist class as such, and no booms followed by slumps, as in the West, since
all economy was planned. Nevertheless, with the doubtful exception of religion
(which was largely superseded by the teaching of Marxism-Leninism as a quasireligious dogma), the phobophronesic institutions of civilization remained
essentially the same: not only did money still exist but wages were just about as
unequal as they were in the West; and any earlier tendency towards the
establishment of postphobophronesic agamy was long replaced by a determined
effort to establish marriage and the family on a sound foundation—as is usual in
progressive phobophronesic civilizations in their incipient stage of awakening
(SCNC p.966 sqq., 847 sqq.).
3. Thus the Soviet Union, until its dissolution in 1991, far from being
postphobophronesic, was not only thoroughly phobophronesic but was even less
ready than Western Europe to adopt social (i.e. postphobophronesic) morality,
which is essential for building postphobophronesic civilization.
4. We in Britain, in a fully mature civilization, seem to be moving towards
the same policy of nationalizing industry. The great difference between the British
Labour movement and former Soviet communism lies not only in the fact that
we in Britain are in the stage of cultural maturity while the Russians were in the
stage of cultural awakening, but, even more importantly, in the fact that the British
process, though much slower, is entirely peaceful: it is wholly free from the
convulsions of revolution and the dangers of dictatorship. In fact the British
Labour movement does not in the least take a vindictive attitude towards the
capitalist class—all vindictiveness, such as is implied in Marx’s famous phrase,
‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’, is condemned outright. Thanks to this slow
but peaceful British process, we can enjoy a great measure of intellectual freedom.
5. But here again there can be little doubt that difference in phronesic
idiomology is an important factor. For the British, no doubt because of their
polyprotophasia with its self-restraint and patience etc., unlike most other nations,
have evolved over the centuries without revolution, and there is no reason to
think that future evolution will call for any. This ability of the British to evolve
by peaceful means is often popularly epitomized by saying that in Britain common
sense always prevails in the end. However, such peaceful evolution has not been
possible for other nations in which ‘common sense’ was not heeded, nor allowed
to prevail, in the war between the classes, with the result that their history has
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64. Socialism
been punctuated by social upheavals and political revolutions, and it would be
too optimistic to hope that their future evolution, for some time to come, may not
show the same tendency. After all, cultural phobophronesia, like adolescent
phobophronesia, has (to a greater or lesser extent) to take its course: we can do
much to mitigate the dangers, and shorten the duration, of the phobophronesic
stage, but we cannot altogether dispense with it since it is an inevitable intermediate
stage in the evolution from savagery to true (i.e. postphobophronesic) civilization.
But although it is unavoidable for human civilization to have a prephobophronesic
stage before the phobophronesic stage, and a phobophronesic stage before the
postphobophronesic stage, it is absurd to think—as Marx did—that revolution,
or for that matter violence in any form, is essential for the establishment of
socialism (or, rather, of postphobophronesic atheism, agamy, and acracy). In
fact postphobophronesic socialism is, by definition, incompatible with violence
of any kind. All that violence proves, even if it took a certain community a little
further in the path of progress, is that that community is still well within the stage
of phobophronesia.
6. In this respect it will be noted that the rudimentary socialism which existed
in the Soviet Union (and which, on account of its association with revolution and
dictatorship, was called ‘communism’), as well as the rudimentary socialism
that exists in Britain today, are—despite the differences pointed out earlier—
both based on a foundation of capitalism: they do not abolish either money or
private property as such: they merely nationalize industry. Hence the fact that
they have been quite aptly called ‘State capitalism’. Such State capitalism is
essentially capitalism with an admixture of socialism: the socialism in it is quite
rudimentary, its value lies only in the fact that one day, we hope, in centuries (or
perhaps millennia) to come, it will blossom into true socialism—or, to be more
accurate, into a world civilization based on postphobophronesic atheism, agamy,
and acracy.
7. The recent decline in British socialism, as witness the tendency to the
privatization of formerly nationalized industries, will hopefully be a temporary
setback, otherwise its place will be taken, not by thriving nineteenth century type
capitalism (as some Conservative Party leaders seemed to delude themselves
about), but by resurgence of turbulence. For one thing is certain: admirable as
the Victorian British civilization was in the nineteenth century, with its Empire
‘on which the sun never set’ and with its relatively admirable genuine morality,
much progress towards overmaturity has taken place since, including not only
the loss of the Empire but also the resurgence of turbulence aided in part by
Britain emulating the United States of America. The United States, from its utter
lawlessness, turbulence, and propeto-phthorism until the nineteenth century, has
now progressed into a progressive society with a modicum of genuine morality,
but that, of course, is still far below Victorian morality, let alone true
postphobophronesic morality which we are aiming at. Thus Britain, instead of
emulating the United States in its foolhardy sadistic pleonexia, turbulence, and
imperialist policies (including Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, with all their
bloodshed and atrocities), should live up to its protophasic and moral ideals of
self-restraint and patience, and try to help the United States in achieving socialism
in Britain (and elsewhere in Western Europe) and peace in the world.
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The future of this planet, especially now that it is threatened with the
extermination of civilization with nuclear weapons, desperately needs leaders
with acumen to work in peaceful cooperation for the future of mankind.
Unfortunately, so far, we have only had mediocrities who have been constantly
threatening the peace.
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65. Reason and Unreason in Civilization
Monograph 65
REFLECTIONS ON
REASON AND UNREASON
IN CIVILIZATION
1. Among the Australian aborigines the knocking out of teeth was widely
practised, either as an initiation rite or merely for decoration. Thus those tribal
savages who ate their food almost raw, and who needed all their teeth, deliberately
destroyed some of their teeth because of some irrational force, including what
might be called the force of fashion, viz. disposing of teeth for no better reason
than the fact that everybody else in the tribe did the same and nonconformity
would bring ridicule and ostracism. Not that destroying teeth as an initiation rite
was any more rational: man disabling himself because of irrational belief handed
down from generation to generation.
2. This in fact was not the only disability the Australian aborigines inflicted
on themselves where they most needed to be able-bodied. For example, in Central
Australia every member of an avenging party (the equivalent of the army in our
time) had to have a toe dislocated. Of course such primitive military missions
were carried out on foot, so that nothing could have been more foolish than
deliberately disabling the feet in any way whatever. Again, in South-East Australia,
it was usual for the aborigines to mutilate the little finger of a fisherwoman in
one hand. Thus a manual worker had to have physical disability deliberately
inflicted on one hand.
3. But we would be deceiving ourselves if we thought that superstition, or
irrational belief in all its forms, is non-existent or even unimportant in our own
modern Western society. It is true that practices causing actual pain or actual
mutilation have almost completely disappeared: even circumcision, which still
exists among us (though no longer universally) as it did among the lowest savages,
is generally done nowadays under anaesthesia. The practice of piercing girls’
ear lobules so that they can wear earrings is another savage custom that survives
in our own time. Nor do we have to refer here in detail to all the disabilities and
inconveniences which are associated with, and which to a great extent form the
very essence of, our phobophronesic institutions. Hardly anyone today pays
‘tithes’ to the Church, as our unfortunate medieval forefathers had to do, and all
the medieval punishments for ‘heresy’—from the wearing of the cross of infamy
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
to being flogged in public in the church—are completely unknown to us in this
age. Similarly, monasticism and asceticism are largely things of the past, although
to this day Jews and Moslems do not eat pork, and Roman Catholics do not use
contraceptives—to say nothing of the widespread practices of religious fasting,
whether the prohibition on food is total or is limited to certain types of food at
certain times. Apart from incest, few sexual taboos survive among us in an absolute
form: this applies not only to non-marital, and especially premarital, coitus but,
above all, to such ancient taboos as those of secluding menstruating women: on
the contrary, a menstruating girl is nowadays expected to go to work, and even
take part in sport, as usual. However, erotosteresis is still so marked and so
widespread in our culture that erotic literature, and erotic art in the widest sense,
are among the most extensively exploited commercial channels at the present
time. Political domination of one nation by another has largely died out—the
day of imperialism is essentially over—and economic (i.e. economicopolitical)
exploitation has been greatly restricted: not only are the life and well-being of
the factory worker respected, but he is even expected to get a reasonable living
wage no matter how menial his job may be. Nevertheless the phobophronesic
institutions of religion, marriage, and government, and their ancillary institutions,
still remain the foundation on which our present civilization, like all those that
went before it, rests. They have been modified, and many of their extravagances
and abuses have been removed, but in essence they remain the same. Here,
however, instead of dealing with the cardinal institutions of our civilization and
the untold suffering they have caused to the human race, from religious persecution
to nuclear war, let us briefly examine how the force of tradition and custom
largely embodied in that theoretically completely voluntary institution of fashion
affects our lives even in this most enlightened age of mankind’s history on earth.
The same applies to many absurd customs and traditions concerning ‘good
manners’ or ‘etiquette’ and a whole host of other things. For in all this we can see
that anorthodoxophobia affects even the trivial details of our lives.
4. Let us for argument’s sake imagine that an ethnographer from another
planet has arrived in London to study some of the customs and traditions prevalent
in Western Europe at present. Walking down a busy street with an English
informant our ethnographer may notice a number of young girls wearing peculiar
shoes, with pointed heels about 10 cm or more high. He watches these girls
walking carefully along, as if they all had artificial legs, and asks the informant,
‘Why do girls wear such shoes? Do they have to wear them?’ and his informant
is likely to reply, ‘Oh no! But it is the fashion nowadays for women to wear
shoes like these! Some women can hardly walk in them, and they look funny
when they try to run in them to catch a bus, but they are pleased with them
because it is the fashion! Our boys and girls like to be fashionable!’ Our
ethnographer watches young women, and young men too, with long hair that
keeps falling over their faces and obstructing their vision. He exclaims with
surprise, ‘These young men and women keep shaking their heads all the time to
keep the hair off their faces! Surely here on earth you must have discovered easy
ways of keeping hair off the face—perhaps cutting it short or tying it at the
back...’ ‘Of course’, the informant replies, ‘these and other methods are known
1516
65. Reason and Unreason in Civilization
and have been used for centuries, but it is fashionable now to have long hair.
Even the constant shaking of the head to keep the hair off the face, which you
thought was a nuisance, is in fact considered sophisticated. Young women, and
young men, feel that they are “with it” if they have to keep doing that all the
time!’ Our ethnographer sees girls wearing spectacles with huge lenses and
enquires, ‘Surely you do not have to cover half your face with lenses like that!’
But then he catches a glimpse of another young woman who is wearing spectacles
with very small lenses. ‘This is strange’, he says, ‘these lenses are so small she
could hardly see comfortably with them!’ But the informant again brushes the
whole thing aside: ‘Fashion for lenses often swings from one extreme to the
other. It all has to do with fashion. You see that girl wearing glasses but putting
them up over her hair? That may seem silly to you but girls do that a lot—it is
considered sophisticated!’ Our ethnographer again remarks on the number of
young women and young men wearing trousers so tight over the hips that he
could only give credit to the tailors who made sure the stitching did not give way
from the first wearing, and yet the same trousers are so wide at the heels that they
flap as if the youngsters had wings. Similarly with women’s skirts: these have
alternated between excessive tightness, making it difficult for the woman to walk,
as if she had fetters on her feet, and excessive width, brushing furniture and
presenting a fire and accident risk—and again between excessive length, which
is particularly restrictive if combined with excessive tightness, and excessive
shortness (the ‘mini skirt’), baring virtually the whole thighs.
5. Of course in the case of fashion, changes are constantly being made, and
quite unnecessarily, simply for the designers of clothes etc., and their
manufacturers, to multiply their profits. Fashion changes twice a year—every
summer and every winter—which means that people, especially women, have to
quite wastefully dispose of good clothes from previous years simply because
they have ‘gone out of fashion’. But there is no such economic motive in the
unchanging, or much more slowly changing, customs regarding ‘table manners’,
‘etiquette’, etc. To go back to our imaginary ethnographer, he may watch ‘society’
people, to whom such petty things mean a lot, eating their food strictly with the
knife in the right hand and the fork in the left, and ask if it would be permissible
to cut up all the food and then eat it with the fork only, held in the right hand, or
perhaps even with a spoon which seems so natural for eating food that has been
cut up. He will be told quite sternly that any deviation from the knife-and-fork
tradition would be frowned upon by English people of good class; certainly cutting
up your food and then eating it with a spoon would be regarded with horror—
you are not likely to see it except in a mental hospital, or on a geriatric ward,
where people do eat naturally without observing the irrational taboos of
phobophronesic civilization.
6. Our imaginary ethnographer may be amused to note that although in all
walks of life the rule of ‘ladies first’ applies, in fact women in our society do not
have the same opportunities as men in most cases: getting equal pay for doing
the same work as men, and getting equal opportunities to do all the types of work
that are still mostly reserved for men. After all, most secretaries are women
while most ‘bosses’ are men.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
7. Finally, our imaginary ethnographer may enquire if these peculiar
customs—positive customs as well as prohibitions—are compulsory. He will be
told, ‘In a few cases yes, but not in the majority of cases. Not so long ago a girl
whose skirt did not reach down to the knees would have been prosecuted. Now
fashion has changed, and as long as the genitals and the nipples of the breasts are
covered the police are satisfied. There was a question some years ago of “topless
dresses” that completely bared the breasts, but the police would not allow it. In
most cases you are not obliged to follow the fashion, but you may have no choice
anyway: most shops stock only fashionable clothes and in practice you may not
be able to buy anything else. Even if you succeed in breaking the rules of custom
you will only be regarded as an eccentric or a crank, or as being old-fashioned or
“square”. You may have heard of Albert Einstein, one of the greatest men of all
time. He did not bow to tradition, not because he wanted to flout it but simply
because he wanted to be comfortable in his own way: he used to sit in his study
in an open shirt and an old pullover, he disliked wearing ties or socks and often
preferred slippers to shoes if he did not have to go out, but he was regarded as an
eccentric for all his genius.’
8. All these are little things, yet they fill our daily lives. Their presence
shows that, boast as we may of being civilized, we are in fact still fettered in most
aspects of our lives, big and small, by institutions, traditions, and customs which
may not be quite as irrational as those of savages, but which nevertheless—to an
objective observer—bear the same stamp of unreason, irrationality, or superstition.
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Monograph 66
A GLOSSARY
OF THE
COSMOPHOBIA THEORY
INTRODUCTION
The scientific terms in this glossary fall broadly into three categories. The
first is that of common words, such as ‘religion’ and ‘marriage’, which are widely
used but which have to be precisely defined if they are to be used in science. The
second is that of scientific terms, such as ‘matrilineal descent’ and ‘physical
paternity’, whose definition is included here in order to remove all ambiguity in
their use. The third, and by far the largest, category is that of terms coined
specifically for the cosmophobia theory, including the word ‘cosmophobia’.
Because of the flexibility of Greek, and no doubt partly also as an
acknowledgement of the indebtedness of modern science and philosophy to
ancient Greece, nearly all the words used in the cosmophobia theory are derived
from Greek. However, Latin elements (prefixes, suffixes, and roots) have been
used whenever this seemed to contribute to clarity or reduce ambiguity, e.g.
‘prephobophronesia’ in preference to ‘prophobophronesia’, and ‘femorolagnia’
in preference to ‘merolagnia’. The transliteration of the Greek alphabet generally
follows accepted rules. In the brief etymology, eta is represented by ‘ë’ and
omega by ‘ö’.
I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the many reference works
consulted, especially the following: A Greek-English Lexicon, by H.G. Liddell
and R. Scott (9th edition, Oxford, 1940, reprinted 1968); An Intermediate GreekEnglish Lexicon (founded on the 7th edition of Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, Oxford
1889, reprinted 1978); An Expository Lexicon of the Terms, Ancient and Modern,
in Medical and General Science, by R.G. Mayne (London, 1860); The New
Sydenham Society’s Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences, based on
Mayne’s Lexicon (edited by H. Power and L.W. Sedgwick, London, 1881-1899);
The Oxford English Dictionary (Compact Edition, Oxford, 1971); English-Greek
Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, by S.C. Woodhouse (London,
1932, reprinted 1971); An English-Greek Lexicon, by C.D. Younge (abridged
1519
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
from the larger work, London, 1902); and A Latin Dictionary, by C.T. Lewis and
C. Short (Oxford, 1879, reprinted 1975).
1520
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
A GLOSSARY OF
THE COSMOPHOBIA THEORY
A-, an-: a prefix of privation or negation = without, not; in the cosmophobia
theory, this may be either euphronesic (e.g. ‘atheism’, ‘agamy’, and ‘acracy’)
or dysphronesic (e.g. ‘aneroticism’ and ‘anorgastia’). Cf. Hyper-, Hypo-,
Oligo-, Poly-. [Grk (alpha privative)]
Acousticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to
the sense of hearing. [Grk ‘akouö’ = to hear]
Acousticolagnia: see Aestheticolagnia.
Acracy: absence of the institution of government, rule, or politics (see
Government) due to absence of the dysphronesic forms of practical hectism.
Acracy may be prephobophronesic (prephobophronesic or primitive acracy),
as was the case among the lowest savages, or postphobophronesic
(postphobophronesic acracy), viz. in postphobophronesic world civilization.
Acracy unqualified always means postphobophronesic acracy. See Anarchism
and Anarchy. [Grk ‘a-’ privative; ‘kratos’ = rule, sovereignty]
Adolescence: approximately the decade between the ages of 15 and 25 years,
though its prodromata are usually evident in the early teens.
Adulthood: the period of the individual’s life after adolescence, i.e. approximately
after the age of 25 years. Adulthood is subdivisible into early adulthood
(approximately 25—40 years of age), middle age (approximately 40—65 years
of age), and old age (over 65 years of age).
Aechmism: a form of phthorism represented by the love or fear of wounding or
being wounded, and often associated with haematism. [Grk ‘aichmë’ = the
point of a spear]
Aedeism: a collective term for phallism and hysterism. [Grk ‘aidoia’ = the genitals]
Aedeolagnia: eroticism (exeroticism, i.e. exaedeolagnia, and enderoticism, i.e.
endaedeolagnia) of the genital organs; comprises gynaedeolagnia in relation
to the female genitals, and andraedeolagnia in relation to the male genitals.
[Grk ‘aidoia’ = genital organs + -lagnia]
Aeolophasia: the tendency in some deutoscatists to have marked contrasting
alternations of the first and second deutoscatistic phases, as against having a
relative predominance of either the first or the second phase, i.e. having either
polyprotophasia or polydeutophasia; on the dysphronesic side,
hyperaeolophasia may complicate amphiphilia, with autophthorophilia and/
or sphalerohedonia (i.e. hyperprotophasia) complicating the aphilic phase,
and hyperdeutophasia complicating the hyperphilic phase. [Grk ‘aiolos’ =
changeful]
Aeoniophilia: a neoscatistic idiom representing the love of permanency or
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
immortality, and based on scatistic inanimatophilia, i.e. on the love of the
material and the abstract, whose permanence or durability contrasts with the
mortality or perishability of the animate, as in phagistic animatophilia; there
are two sides to aeoniophilia: interest in the inherently immortal or eternal,
and oneself creating something immortal or durable that will survive oneself.
[Grk ‘aiönios’ = eternal]
Aerism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of air.
[Grk ‘aër’ = air]
Aesthetic: used in two different, though ultimately related, senses: (1) of, or
pertaining to, sensory perception; (2) of, or pertaining to, art or beauty. Hence
aesthetics = (1) the entity of sensory perception; (2) the study of art or beauty.
[see Aestheticism]
Aestheticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to
sensory perception. [Grk ‘aisthësis’ = perception by the senses]
Aestheticolagnia: an idiom of eroticism representing sensory perception in
eroticism; aestheticolagnia is essentially euerotic, unless it is pathologically
excessive (hyperaestheticolagnia, which is scatolagnic); aestheticolagnia
comprises scopolagnia, i.e. erotic visual perception (viz. pragmoscopolagnia
or active scopolagnia, i.e. active erotic visual perception, and
apragmoscopolagnia or passive scopolagnia, i.e. passive erotic visual perception
or erotic exhibitionism), hapticolagnia, i.e. erotic tactile perception,
acousticolagnia, i.e. erotic auditory perception, osphreticolagnia, i.e. erotic
olfactory perception, geusticolagnia, i.e. erotic gustatory perception, and
myotonolagnia, i.e. erotic proprioceptive perception. [see Aestheticism]
Aetheomorphophobia: (pronounced ‘a-eth-’) irrational fear of strange, unusual,
or disfigured persons and objects; it is a special form of aetheophobia. [see
Aetheophobia]
Aetheophobia (pronounced ‘a-eth-’): a form of cosmophobia characterized by
the irrational fear of the unusual, strange, ‘unnatural’, incomprehensible, or
novel; aetheophobia is all-pervasive in cosmophobia and may be seen in the
archecosmophobia of savagery, and its survival or recurrence in
loiposymphronesia and palissymphronesia in civilization, as well as in the
cosmophobia proper of phobophronesic civilization, in which (among other
things) it is closely related to all three forms (animistic, sexual, and practical)
of aphormic hectophobia. [Grk ‘aëthës’ = strange, unusual: ‘a-’ privative;
‘ëthos’ = custom, usage]
Aetherotophobia (pronounced ‘a-eth-’): irrational fear of strange, unusual, or
‘unnatural’ forms of eroticism (whether these are in reality euerotic or
dyserotic); it is a special form of aetheophobia. [see Aetheophobia]
Aethrism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of open
space. [Grk ‘aithrë’ = clear sky]
Aethrotacticophilia: see Kenotacticophilia.
Agamy: absence of the institution of marriage due to absence of sexual hectism.
Agamy may be prephobophronesic (prephobophronesic or primitive agamy),
as was the case among the lowest savages, or postphobophronesic
(postphobophronesic agamy), viz. in postphobophronesic world civilization
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
with no class distinctions. Agamy unqualified always means
postphobophronesic agamy. [Grk ‘a-’ privative; ‘gamos’ = marriage]
Agoneusia (rootlessness): the common propeto-phthoristic characteristic, in
individuals (individual agoneusia) and cultures (cultural agoneusia), of either
having no roots, e.g. by being illegitimate, or severing the roots one had, e.g.
by abandoning one’s family in the country and drifting to the city to live by
crime, or the cultural equivalent of this in the case of mass emigration, as in
colonization. [Grk ‘a-’ privative; ‘goneus’ = a begetter, progenitor, ancestor]
Allelorganolagnia: erotic pleasure involving two specified organs, typically one
organ in each of two individuals of the opposite or of the same sex, but in the
case of autolagnia (always distinguished by the prefix ‘auto-’) the two organs
are in the subject’s own body. E.g. the phallovaginal relation in normal coitus
may be described as phallocolpolagnia or as allelaedeolagnia, and mouth-tomouth kissing as allelostomatolagnia, while the commonest form of
masturbation in men is that of autocheirophallolagnia. [Grk ‘allëlön’ = one
another, mutually, reciprocally + Organolagnia]
Allophilia, vicarious: see Vicarious allophilia.
Allotropia: the condition of being related to the outside world, as opposed to
autotropia: the condition of being related to the subject himself (or herself).
Thus phagism is predominantly allotropic, whereas scatism is predominantly
autotropic. [Grk ‘allos’ = another; ‘autos’ = self; ‘tropos’ = turning]
Ambivalence: a descriptive term for the coexistence of hatred with love due to
the coexistence of sadism with idiophilia.
Amphilagnia (amphieroticism): partial homolagnia that does not completely
exclude heterolagnia. [Grk ‘amphi’ = both, of both kinds + -lagnia]
Amphiphilia: a dysphilistic condition representing the irregular alternation of
extreme aphilia and extreme hyperphilia, with or without periods of relative
normality in between, and with or without deutoscatistic complications in the
form of hyperaeolophasia, viz. hyperprotophasia (autophthorophilia or
sphalerohedonia) complicating the aphilic phase and hyperdeutophasia (e.g.
hyperergophilia) complicating the hyperphilic phase. [Grk ‘amphi’ = both, of
both kinds; ‘phileö’ = to love]
Analytic hyloidophilia (more fully analytic-synthetic hyloidophilia): a deutophasic
deutoscatistic idiom representing the analytic and synthetic, and so the
potentially scientific, approach in the love of the material world (or matter),
and comprising analytic hydroidophilia and analytic stereoidophilia as well
as ideophilia, i.e. ideal hyloidophilia or love of the abstract; it is closely related
to such other deutophasic idioms as metamorphophilia and
anthropopoietophilia (‘artificialism’); it contrasts with holistic hyloidism, which
is protoscatistic and which, in its hedonic forms, is autophyophilic
(‘naturalistic’) and potentially artistic. [Grk ‘hylë’ = matter]
Anancosymphronesia (stress symphronesia): a symphronesic reaction, basically
of the prephobosymphronesic type, to environmental stress, whether the stress
is of an individual or of a cultural (or social or sociological) kind. [Grk ‘anagkë’
= constraint, necessity + Symphronesia]
Anancosymphronesia, female: see Female anancosymphronesia.
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Anarchism: although the term is differently interpreted by different protagonists,
is generally understood to refer to a condition of society in which there is
either no social organization at all (‘individualistic anarchism’) or only social
organization of a limited type (‘collectivistic’ or ‘communistic anarchism’,
including ‘syndicalism’), in both cases there being an underlying belief in the
‘natural’ goodness of man. Thus anarchism differs from postphobophronesic
acracy in two basic respects: acracy implies the highest degree of social
organization, on a worldwide basis, whereas anarchism implies either limited
or no social organization; and the social organization of acracy is wholly
scientific (and science, though not ‘unnatural’, is certainly artificial), whereas
the belief in ‘naturalness’ in anarchism is basically propeto-phthoristic and is
unscientific and even anti-scientific. See Acracy and Anarchy.
Anarchy: social chaos or social disorder, which is due to lack of organization.
The nearest man may come to anarchy is in the sadistic-pleonectic condition
of turbulent backward civilization. However, at least the ‘individualistic’ type
of anarchism would imply anarchy, or social chaos. See Anarchism.
Anatropism: the idiom of upward-pointing; it is an idiom both of geneosemeism
and of stereoidism; in geneosemeiophilia, anatropophilia is both a general
androsemeiophilic idiom and a phallosemeiophilic idiom; the idioms of
anatropism and orthism are closely related. [Grk ‘ana’ = up; ‘tropos’ = turning]
Andraedeaestheticolagnia: see Organaestheticolagnia.
Andraedeolagnia: see Aedeolagnia.
Andraedeomorphology: see Organomorphology.
Androcentricity: a homandrolagnic’s total preoccupation with men in his erotic
and non-erotic life to the virtual exclusion of women. Cf. Phallocentricity,
Gynocentricity, Hysterocentricity. [Grk ‘anër’ = man; ‘kentron’ = centre (of a
circle)]
Androgyne, androgynia: see Mixandrogynia.
Androhysteroid (male hysteroid): a womb-like but male object, concrete or ideal,
which in erotic fantasticism endows a man, in his eyes or in the eyes of his
partner, with the capacity for erotic receptivity or penetrability, i.e. the capacity
to be erotically penetrated by his (male or female) partner, primarily in a
bigenital relation, in much the same way as a woman would be penetrated
vaginally by a man’s penis in normal coitus; the concept of the androhysteroid
applies mainly to male homolagnia (in relation to the subject himself in the
passive male homolagnic, and in relation to the partner in the active male
homolagnic) and to reversed heterolagnia (in relation to the subject himself in
male passive heterolagnia, and in relation to the male partner in female active
heterolagnia). [Grk ‘anër’ = man; ‘hystera’ = womb]
Androids: see Geneoids.
Androphobia (androphobic shame or androlagnophobia or androlagnophobic
shame): a special form of shame which is associated with the receptive-passive
role in coitus in particular, and in eroticism in general, based on the
dysphronesic concept of coitus as an excretory act (palaeotropolagnia) in which
the man deposits his ‘seminal excrement’ (= semen conceived as an excretory
product like urine and faeces) inside the woman, i.e. as an act in which the
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
man defiles the woman; androphobia applies to heterolagnia in women and
passive homolagnia in men. See Palaeotropolagnia. [Grk ‘anër’ = man +
-phobia]
Androsemeiophilia: see Geneosemeiophilia.
Anerethia: see Aneroterethia.
Aneroterethia (sometimes shortened to anerethia): lack of eroterethia (q.v.). [An+ Eroterethia]
Aneroticism: lack of eroticism, whether complete (pananeroticism) or partial.
[An- + Eroticism]
Aneroticism, female-anancosymphronesic: see Female anancosymphronesia.
Anhedonia: impairment of hedonia, and so of the will (i.e. the desire) to live, of
whatever degree, and whether transient or durable. [An- + Hedonia]
Anidiophilia: the central idiom of aphilia, in the same way as idiophilia is the
central idiom of philophilia, representing a sense of being unloved, rejected,
or unwanted, i.e. a sense of unlovedness, rejectedness, or unwantedness. [An+ Idiophilia]
Animatism: the state of being animate, i.e. of being endowed with life, or of
living or being alive; this applies to living beings, whether real or imaginary,
e.g. human beings, animals, plants, and gods, as well as to inanimate objects
which the doctrine of animism endows with a conscious personality, e.g. rivers
and mountains. The term is also used as an idiom, comprising animatophilia
and animatophobia, i.e. love and fear of (real or imaginary) animate beings.
Animatism is characteristic of phagism, in contrast to inanimatism, which is
characteristic of scatism. [see Animism]
Animism: the prephobosymphronesic belief in spirits or souls in any form
whatever; in a restricted sense, the belief that inanimate objects possess spirits;
without qualification ‘animism’ always refers to the general sense. [L ‘anima’
= life, soul]
Anodynia: the relative indifference to physical pain and suffering, which is a
manifestation of prephobosymphronesia, and which is seen in its most complete
form in the lowest savages and in palissymphronesics, and in a partial form in
loiposymphronesia and anancosymphronesia. [Grk An- + ‘odynë’ = pain]
Anorthodoxophobia: practical aphormic hectophobia, i.e. the practical form (as
distinct from the animistic and sexual forms) of aphormic hectophobia (q.v.).
[Grk ‘an-’ privative + orthodoxy + -phobia]
Anorthosis (short for phallanorthosis): partial or complete lack or loss by a man
of the capacity for erection of the penis under the influence of physical and
mental erotopoeic stimulation, whether in relation to coitus (mixanorthosis)
or at all times even in masturbation (pananorthosis). [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis;
‘a-’ privative; ‘orthos’ = straight, upright, erect]
Anthropopoietophilia (‘artificialism’): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom
representing the love of artificial or man-made objects, and of artificially
making objects; it is closely related to metamorphophilia and analytic
hyloidophilia; it is the opposite of autophyophilia (love of natural or unspoiled
objects or love of naturalness (‘naturalism’)), which is holistic and is an integral
part of holistic hyloidophilia (which is protoscatistic) and of phagophilia and
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eroticism. [Grk ‘anthröpos’ = man (a human being); ‘poiëtos’ = made. (After
‘cheiropoiëtos’ = made by hand.)]
Antiphobic sadism: the sadistic destruction, typically characteristically extreme,
uncontrollable (i.e. propetophilic), and only temporary, of any or all of the
cosmophobic standards of phobophronesia, such as those of aphormic and
stratificatory hectophobia, phthorophobia, and shame, thus freeing the
individual or the community from cosmophobic taboos, which may include
virtually the whole of phobophronesic morality, in an unpredictable manner
which may equally destroy all reason. [Grk ‘anti’ = opposite, against + -phobia
(cosmophobia) + Sadism]
Antitheticism: a neoscatistic idiom of somateidism representing interest in, and
dislike of, antithesis, in the concrete and ideal sense, and arising ultimately
from the contrast between the front and the back of the human body. [Grk
‘antithësis’ = antithesis]
Apathy: loss of feeling, emotional indifference, or (especially in its severe forms)
the inability to experience emotion, especially joy and sorrow; apathy is a
manifestation (or symptom) of anhedonia and may therefore arise from a variety
of causes: it is not a psychogenetic entity. Apathetic: adjective. [Grk ‘a-’
privative; ‘pathos’ = suffering, passion]
Aphilia (philophobia): the cosmophobic form of philism whose central idiom is
anidiophilia, arising from the penetration or pervasion of philophilia (whose
central idiom is idiophilia) by cosmophobia; strictly speaking, aphilia comprises
anidiophilia (q.v.) and a reduction or impairment of the associated idioms of
idiophilia (q.v.), but in practice we often use ‘aphilia’ loosely as a synonym of
anidiophilia. [Grk ‘a-’ privative; ‘phileö’ = to love]
Aphormic hectophobia (aphormic cosmophobia): the primary cosmophobic factor
in each of the three cardinal institutions of phobophronesia, viz. religion
(aphormic animistic hectophobia), marriage (aphormic sexual hectophobia),
and government (aphormic practical hectophobia); see Religion, Marriage,
Government, Hectism. [Grk ‘aphormë’ = a starting-point]
Aplastic art: decadent art that is more or less chaotic, shapeless, or free from
rules, e.g. ‘free verse’ in poetry and atonal music in music. [Grk ‘aplastos’ =
not moulded, unshapen]
Apsophism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing love and fear of
silence or stillness. [Grk ‘apsophos’ = noiseless]
Archecosmophobia (rudimentary cosmophobia): the rudiments of cosmophobia
in prephobophronesia (q.v.); archecosmophobia differs from cosmophobia
proper mainly in being unsystematized or poorly systematized. [Grk ‘archë’
= a beginning, origin + Cosmophobia]
Art: in the wider sense, is skill in the satisfaction of hedonia, i.e. the ability to
derive as much pleasure as possible, physical and ideal, in the satisfaction of
hedonia; in the narrower sense, this applies only to the ‘higher’ forms of hedonic
satisfaction, i.e. those which are more ideal or less concrete; the type of hedonia
art satisfies is mainly sensory and emotional, and essentially non-utilitarian,
in contrast to science and philosophy, both of which, though ultimately also
hedonic, are intellectual rather than emotional or sensory, and are often, though
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by no means always, utilitarian (which applies much more to science than to
philosophy). [L ‘ars’ = skill, art]
Artiarithmophilia: see Numbers.
Artificialism: see Anthropopoietophilia.
Associated idioms of idiophilia: the idioms of philophilia other than idiophilia,
which is its central idiom; they comprise optimism, gaiety, love of decoration,
agility, generosity and hospitality, gregariousness, familiarity, uninhibitedness,
emotional expressiveness, phatophilia (speech, more precisely volubility and
linguistic ability), and odophilia (love of singing).
Atheism: absence of the institution of religion due to absence of animistic hectism.
Atheism may be prephobophronesic (prephobophronesic or primitive atheism),
as was the case among the lowest savages, or postphobophronesic
(postphobophronesic atheism), viz. in postphobophronesic world civilization.
Atheism unqualified always means postphobophronesic atheism. [Grk ‘a-’
privative; ‘theos’ = god]
Authoritarian, authoritarianism: see Leadership.
Autocentria (self-absorption): a descriptive term (not a psychogenetic idiom)
denoting a subject’s preoccupation with his (or her) own inner world with
consequent greater or lesser detachment from the environment; its mildest
form is that of ordinary ‘absent-mindedness’ while its severest forms are seen
in palissymphronesia, in which the patient’s total absorption in his own chaotic
prephobophronesic world may result in incoherence or the arbitrary use of
language. [Grk ‘autos’ = self; ‘kentron’ = centre (of a circle)]
Autolagnia (auteroticism): a form of dyseroticism representing erotic autophilia,
i.e. erotic self-love; autolagnia has two main forms: general autolagnia, which
comprises autolagnia proper (manifested mainly in autolagnic (as distinct from
erotosteretic) masturbation, which ultimately represents the desire for selfcoitus, i.e. genital self-penetration), homolagnia, and reversed heterolagnia;
and scatolagnia, which is a collective term for the erotic forms of specific
scatistic idioms; however, ‘autolagnia’ is also sometimes used in a narrower
sense to contrast the autolagnic form of a scatolagnic idiom with its heterolagnic
and homolagnic forms even though in reality a scatolagnic idiom is basically
autolagnic in all its forms. [Grk ‘autos’ = self + -lagnia]
Autophilia: self-love which is derived from metrophilia, and which is the basis
of all scatism in both its euphronesic and dysphronesic forms; the erotic form
of autophilia, viz. autolagnia (q.v.), is entirely dysphronesic and is one of the
three main forms of dyseroticism (the other two being the aphilic and the
cosmophobic or erotophobic). Autophilia is not a collective term for any
form of what might be loosely called self-love; in particular it should not be
confused with pleonectic egoism. [Grk ‘autos’ = self]
Autophthorophilia: an idiom of phthorism (which is one of the main idioms of
palaeoscatism) representing self-destructiveness in a variety of forms, both
concrete (or practical) and ideal (including moral autophthorophilia); ideal
autophthorophilia may either be combined with propetophilia
(propetautophthorophilia or impulsive autophthorophilia) or, in a persistent
form (synechautophthorophilia or persistent autophthorophilia), it may pervade
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the deutoscatistic protophase resulting in hyperprotophasia (indefinite
prolongation of the protophase) or, more precisely (since the content of the
protophase in this case is palaeoscatistic and not deutoscatistic),
pseudohyperprotophasia; the term ‘autophthorophilia’ unqualified generally
refers to synechautophthorophilia. [Grk ‘autos’ = self; ‘phthora’ = destruction,
ruin]
Autophyophilia (‘naturalism’): love of natural or unspoiled objects, or of
naturalness, which is an integral part of holistic hyloidophilia (which is
protoscatistic) and of phagophilia and eroticism (the latter being a derivative
of idiophilia); autophyophilia is the opposite of anthropopoietophilia
(‘artificialism’), which is a deutoscatistic idiom closely related to
metamorphophilia and analytic hyloidophilia. [Grk ‘autophyës’ = natural]
Autotropia: see Allotropia.
Awareness, human awareness: see Phronesia.
Backwardness (backward phobophronesic civilization): see Civilization.
Balanoid (adjective and noun) of, or pertaining to, the glans penis; glans-penislike; shaped like, or representing, the glans penis; the typical balanoid
configuration is a bulbous shape that is pointed at the top and is trachelate (i.e.
has a constriction or ‘neck’) at the base, but, less typically, it may be pointed
but not trachelate or trachelate but not pointed. [Grk ‘balanos’ = acorn, glans
penis]
Barbarism: the phobophronesic stage of civilization, i.e. the stage of human mental
evolution that lies between prephobophronesia and postphobophronesia, and
that is mainly characterized by the three institutions of religion, marriage, and
government, and their derivative institutions, e.g. war; adjectives: barbarian,
barbaric, barbarous; see also Civilization.
Beauty: that which gives pleasure in art. Cf. Art.
Biological awareness: see Biophronesia.
Biophronesia (biological awareness): awareness of the self and the environment
in terms of the three main biological functions of the body, viz. alimentation
or feeding, excretion, and reproduction, the reflection in awareness of which
gives rise to phagophronesia or phagism, scatophronesia or scatism, and
erotophronesia or eroticism, respectively. [Grk ‘bios’ = life + Phronesia]
Biorificial devouring: see Orificial devouring.
Brontism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing love and fear of
explosives and explosive and other discontinuous sounds such as those of
thunder and creaking or crackling. [Grk ‘brontë’= thunder]
Cartericophilia (patience): a protophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing
patience, perseverance, and endurance. [Grk ‘karterikos’ = patient, capable
of endurance]
Catatropism: the idiom of downward-pointing; it is an idiom both of
geneosemeism and of hydroidism; in geneosemeiophilia, catatropophilia is
both a general gynosemeiophilic idiom and a mastosemeiophilic idiom; the
idioms of catatropism and epipedism are closely related. [Grk ‘kata’ = down,
downwards; ‘tropos’ = turning]
Catharophilia (cleanliness): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing the
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
love of cleanness. Catharophilia, which is deutoscatistic and hedonic, should
not be confused with mysophobia, which is palaeoscatistic and cosmophobic.
[Grk ‘katharos’ = clean]
‘Cesspit vagina’: the palaeotropolagnic concept of the female vagina as the
receptacle for ‘seminal excrement’.
Cheilolagnia: eroticism of the lip, which we generally treat as part of
stomatolagnia. [Grk ‘cheilos’ = lip + -lagnia]
Cheiro- = hand-, e.g. ‘cheiromastolagnia’ (hand-breast eroticism) and
‘cheirophallolagnia’ (hand-penis eroticism). [Grk ‘cheir’ = hand]
Childhood: the period before the individual is 15 years of age, and especially
before he or she is 10 years of age.
Chlorism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydrochromatism representing love and dislike
or fear of the colour green. [Grk ‘chlöros’ = green]
Chromatism: interest in, and dislike of, specific colours or colour in general; the
idiom belongs partly to philism and eroticism, including geneosemeiophilia
and geneosemeiolagnia, and partly to neoscatism, viz. to hyloidism, in which
it belongs partly to hydroidism (hydrochromatism) and partly to stereoidism
(stereochromatism, which is virtually synonymous with panxanthism). [Grk
‘chröma’ = colour]
Civilization (culture): in its wider sense, ‘civilization’ or ‘culture’ is a collective
term for the manifestations or creations of the human mind in relation to society
as distinct from those in relation to the individual (whether the unit of society
is taken to be the clan, the tribe, the nation, or mankind as a whole): in this
general sense, ‘civilization’ or ‘culture’ includes ‘savagery’ (or ‘primitive
civilization’ or ‘primitive culture’); in its narrower, or more specific, sense
(more strictly referred to as ‘civilization proper’ or ‘culture proper’, which is
contrasted with ‘savagery’, ‘primitive civilization’, or ‘primitive culture’),
‘civilization’ or ‘culture’ is the level of human mental evolution characterized
by the discovery of the domestication of animals and the cultivation of plants,
the use of metal, and writing; from the psychogenetic point of view, savagery
with its institutions of magic, animism, collectivism, and totemism broadly
represents the stage of prephobophronesia, while civilization proper with its
cardinal institutions of religion, marriage, and government represents the stage
of phobophronesia (sometimes referred to as barbarism), which in turn is
superseded by the stage of postphobophronesia (sometimes referred to as true
civilization) when phobophronesic institutions have been outgrown
(postphobophronesic atheism, agamy, and acracy) and completely superseded
by the institutions of science, philosophy, and art in a worldwide civilization.
Thus civilization proper represents the stage of diaphronesia, which comprises
phobophronesia and postphobophronesia. In phobophronesic civilization,
dormant backwardness (dormancy) is due mainly to phthorophobic-meionectic
phobophronesia, whereas turbulent backwardness (turbulence) is due mainly
to sadistic-pleonectic phobophronesia; progressiveness is mainly the product
of the combination of sadistic-pleonectic phobophronesia with a modicum of
postphobophronesia, especially postphobophronesic morality.
Classificatory system of relationship: a manifestation of collectivism among
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savages which involved counting kin between groups rather than between
individuals.
Cleanliness: see Catharophilia.
Clitoridoid (adjective and noun): clitoris-like; shaped like, or representing, the
clitoris.
Clitoridolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the clitoris.
Clitoridorgasm (clitoridorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Cnemolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the leg, i.e. the part of the lower limb
between the knee and the ankle. [Grk ‘knëmë’ = leg (between knee and ankle)
+ -lagnia]
Coitus: the penetration of the erect male penis into the female vagina
(phallovaginal penetration, or phallocolpolagnia), typically with mutual
orgasm.
Collecting: see Hoarding.
Collectivism: the prephobosymphronesic inability, most marked in savagery but
with important survivals in phobophronesic civilization, to apprehend the
independence or separateness of individuals who are similar in some real or
imaginary respect with the result that they are treated as if they were all the
same; thus collectivism is the opposite of individualism, which is
postphobophronesic: in collectivism the group is the unit, whereas in
individualism each individual is a unit in his or her own right.
Colpolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the vagina. [Grk ‘kolpos’ = vagina + -lagnia]
Commodities: a collective term for the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life
whose production and distribution constitutes the process of economy.
Communism: see Socialism.
Complementation (or idealization) principle: the tendency in awareness to perceive
hedonic and cosmophobic objects, not in their natural incomplete or limited
forms, but in perfected or complemented or idealized forms, which is how
most biophronesic idioms come about.
Complications of aphilia: all the dysphronesic conditions (phagistic, scatistic,
and erotic) which may be precipitated or aggravated by aphilia.
Copreticism: see Skoreticism.
Coprism: see Skoroidism.
Coproborism: see Skoroborism.
Coproid: faeces or a faeces-like object, whether concrete, e.g. dirt, or ideal, e.g.
dirtiness (including ‘dirty’ or ‘foul’ language); also used as an adjective =
faeces-like, in a concrete or ideal sense. [Grk ‘kopros’ = dung]
Coproidacousticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Coproidaestheticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Coproidism: see Skoroidism.
Coproidogeusticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Coproidohapticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Coproidoscopism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Coproidosphreticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Cosmophobia: irrational fear of the environment, animate (including fellow human
beings) and inanimate, the reference being mainly to intellectual or ideational
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fear, whether or not it is associated with emotional fear; in this respect, all
intellectual fear is irrational. Cosmophobia in the last analysis represents the
fear of being consumptively devoured, and so of being destroyed, i.e. killed.
But a number of partial forms of this basic fear also exist, e.g. having less (i.e.
meionexia) in the case of hectism, and being unloved or rejected (i.e. aphilia)
in the case of philism. See also Archecosmophobia. [Grk ‘kosmos’ = universe
(term originally used with reference to the worship of nature); ‘phobos’ =
fear]
Creativity (special sense): the love of creating or making something new, in the
concrete or abstract sense; creativity is a manifestation of metamorphophilia,
which is a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom.
Crime: antisocial behaviour, the unit of society concerned being mankind as a
whole. Individual crime involves individuals or a small number of people
working together. Social crime involves a large number of people, such as a
social class acting against another social class, or one nation acting against
another. Crime unqualified usually refers to individual crime. See also Spurious
crime.
Cubicity: the condition of a solid object having multiple, more or less flat, surfaces
separated by more or less sharp (or angled) edges, regardless of the number of
surfaces and of their geometrical regularity or otherwise; cubism, i.e. the love
and dislike of cubicity, has its basis in oxyism. [Grk ‘kybos’ = a cube]
Culture: see Civilization.
Cyanism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydrochromatism representing love and dislike
or fear of the colour blue. [Grk ‘kyanos’: name of a dark-blue substance]
Dactylo- = finger-, e.g. ‘dactylocolpolagnia’ (finger-vagina eroticism). [Grk
‘daktylos’ = a finger]
Dancing: repetitive movement, primarily of the nature of modified walking and
gesturing, performed for no concrete utilitarian reason, to the accompaniment
of specially contrived rhythmic sound.
Delusion: a false belief unamenable to reason; see also Hallucinations.
Democracy: government or rule by the people. Since the very terms ‘government’
and ‘rule’ imply domination and exploitation, the term democracy is, strictly
speaking, meaningless as it implies ‘equal inequality for all’ or ‘unequal equality
for all’. However, the term is used, euphemistically, to refer to government
that is free from the most extreme forms of political inequality, such as the
right to take as a slave a fellow citizen who is unable to repay a debt. [Grk
‘dëmos’ = the commons, the people; ‘kratos’ = rule, sovereignty]
Depression: a feeling of sadness arising from a sense of loss, which ultimately
represents hedonic loss (loss of hedonia or of a hedonic object or of hedonic
objects), and culminating in its severe forms in suicide due either to loss of the
will to live (i.e. to anhedonia as such) or to a positive desire (or ‘longing’) to
die; depression is a manifestation (or symptom) of anhedonia and may therefore
arise from a variety of causes: it is not a psychogenetic entity.
Deutoscatism: a term synonymous with the deutoscatistic cycle (q.v.) and its
idioms.
Deutoscatistic cycle: a three-phase scatistic cycle whose biological basis consists
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of a first phase of prolonged faecal retention, followed by a short but intense
phase of thorough faecal evacuation, and finally a third, phagistic, mainly
philophilic, phase, typically of allotropic and animatistic hedonia
(protohedonia), which contrasts with the autotropic and inanimatistic hedonia
(deutohedonia) of the first two phases. [Grk ‘deuteros’ = second + Scatism]
Devouring, expulsive, kinetic, orificial, pneumatic, somatic, etc.: see the adjectives.
Dianalysis (dianalyticophilia): pleasure in reducing all things in a certain sphere
of thought to two contrasting principles, ultimately corresponding to the
contrasting duality of urine and faeces. [Grk ‘dis’ = twice + analysis]
Diaphronesia (mental differentiation): man’s mental differentiation, based on the
concepts of space and time, from his environment, animate (including fellow
human beings) and inanimate; diaphronesia comprises the stages of both
phobophronesia and postphobophronesia, in racial and in individual mental
development, as well as a certain pathological condition known as
hyperphronesia (q.v.). [Grk ‘dia’ = apart + Phronesia]
Differentiation, mental: see Diaphronesia.
Diffusion, erotic: see Erotic diffusion.
Disomatic devouring: see Somatic devouring.
Dormancy (dormant backward phobophronesic civilization): see Civilization.
Dys-: a prefix denoting pathogenicity in the true dysphronesic sense (see
Euphronesia and dysphronesia). Cf. Eu-. [Grk ‘dys-’ (prefix) = bad]
Dyshectism (dysphronesic hectism): includes all forms of hectism other than
euexia, viz. the whole of animistic and sexual hectism and aphormic practical
hectophobia and stratificatory practical hectism, viz. practical pleonexia and
meionexia. See Euexia. [Dys- + Hectism]
Dyshedonia: dysphronesic, i.e. pathological, hedonia; includes palaeoscatophilia
and dyseroticism in their various forms, and all the pathologically exaggerated
forms (the hyper- or pleo-forms) of otherwise normal hedonic idioms. [Dys+ Hedonia]
Dysorgastia (dysphronesic orgastia): a clinical, not a psychogenetic, entity, since
orgasm is an integral part of eroticism, whether the eroticism is normal
(eueroticism) or pathological (dyseroticism), and, in the case of dyseroticism,
whether the dyseroticism is psychogenic or (as is particularly common in cases
with dysorgastia) is due to physical causes, e.g. senility and pharmaceutical
drugs. See also Euorgastia. [Dys- + orgasm]
Dysphronesia: see Euphronesia.
Dyssymphronesia: a collective term for the dysphronesic forms of symphronesia,
viz. prephobosymphronesia, childhood symphronesia, loiposymphronesia,
anancosymphronesia, and palissymphronesia. [Dys- + Symphronesia]
Ecbasiophobia: fear of going out arising from any psychogenic cause; thus
ecbasiophobia is a symptom and not a psychogenetic entity. [Grk ‘ekbasis’ =
a going out]
Economic: of, or pertaining to, economy (q.v.); hence, by extension, often used
to refer to wealth, whether the latter is based on private or on social ownership.
See also Economics.
Economics: in a general sense, means economic matters collectively; specifically,
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the science that deals with economic matters, whether on the basis of private
ownership, as in all phobophronesic civilizations, or on the basis of social
ownership, as in postphobophronesic civilization. For convenience,
‘economics’, like ‘politics’, is always used as singular, whatever the sense.
Economy: the production and distribution of the necessaries, comforts, and
luxuries of life, the prototype of all of which is food, which is the basic necessity
for life.
Emotional expressiveness: a philophilic idiom representing the capacity for
experiencing and expressing feeling or emotion; emotional expressiveness in
relation to art is referred to as artistic expressiveness.
Emprosthism: a neoscatistic idiom of somateidism and hydroidism representing
interest in, and dislike of, the front aspect of objects, in the concrete and ideal
sense. [Grk ‘emprosthen’ = before, in front]
Enantiocopreticism: see Enantioskoreticism.
Enantioscatism: see Sphalerohedonia.
Enantioskoreticism: a palaeoscatistic condition in which there is a conflict, in a
concrete (or practical) form, between the hedonic and the cosmophobic forms
of propetoskoreticism, the cosmophobic form usually predominating;
enantioskoreticism comprises enantiocopreticism and enantiureticism, in
relation to defaecation and urination, respectively. [Grk ‘enantios’ = opposite,
opposing + Skoreticism]
Enantiureticism: see Enantioskoreticism.
Encratophilia (self-restraint): a protophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing selfcontrol in relation to emotion, behaviour, and thought. [Grk ‘egkrateia’ =
self-control]
Enderoticism: see Organolagnia.
Endo- and exo-: (or end- and ex- before a vowel): these prefixes are used in two
different senses: (1) to describe subject-eroticism and object-eroticism,
respectively, in organolagnia; words in this group have the termination ‘-lagnia’;
(2) to describe the internal and external bearing of organs, respectively, in
organophoria; words in this group have the termination ‘-phoria’. For all
other uses (for which ‘internal’ does not need to be contrasted with ‘external’)
‘ento-’ is used in preference to ‘endo-’, e.g. entokoilophilia, entostereophilia,
entohysterophilia, and entoplerolagnia. Thus endophallolagnia (penis subjecteroticism) describes the man’s erotic pleasure from his own penis (e.g. in
coitus), while exophallolagnia (penis object-eroticism) describes the woman’s
erotic pleasure from the man’s penis. The man is an exophallophore: he bears
an external penis, whereas the woman in coitus is an endophallophore: she
bears an internal penis (or bears a penis internally). [Grk ‘endon’ = in, within;
‘exö’ = out, outside]
Endomastoid, endomastophoria: see Organophoria.
Endopaedoid, endopaedophoria: see Organophoria.
Endophalloid, endophallophoria: see Organophoria.
Endorgan, endorganoid, endorganophoria: see Organophoria.
Enteroid: a space in, or a pathway running through, solid matter; the prototype is
the concept of the intestine as a pathway traversing the faeces-filled abdomen.
Cf. Urethroid. [Grk ‘enteron’ = intestine]
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Enterythrism: see Erythrism.
Entohydrism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism and somateidism, representing
love and fear of being inside water, as in diving. [Grk ‘entos’ = within, inside
+ Hydrism]
Entokoilism: a collective term comprising entostereism, entohydrism, and
hysterosemeism. [Grk ‘entos’ = within, inside; ‘koilos’ = hollow]
Entoplerolagnia (erotic fullness): a form of erotendophoria in which there is an
appearance of ‘fullness’ in relation to the female body (e.g. the breasts, cheeks,
or lips, or in relation to general feminine plumpness) arising from simple
fleshiness or roundness, but giving the appearance of swelling as if due to
distension from inside by an endorganoid [Grk ‘entos’ = within, inside; ‘plërës’
= full]
Entostereism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism and somateidism representing
love and fear of enclosed spaces; see also Kinetentostereism,
Entostereopragmoscopism, and Entostereohapticism. [Grk ‘entos’ = inside;
‘stereos’ = solid]
Entostereohapticism: the tactile aspect, hedonic and cosmophobic, of entostereism.
[Entostereism + Hapticism]
Entostereopragmoscopism: the visual aspect, hedonic and cosmophobic, of
entostereism, whose main forms are looking from outside into an enclosed
space, looking outside from an enclosed space, and visual exploration of the
interior of an enclosed space while inside the enclosed space itself.
[Entostereism + Scopism]
Entostereotacticophilia: see Kenotacticophilia.
Entostoma: the stoma (or mouth or opening) through which it is possible to get
into, or out of, an enclosed space. [Grk ‘entos’ (entostereism); ‘stoma’ =
mouth]
Epipedism: the idiom of horizontality; it is an idiom both of geneosemeism, in
which it is gynosemeistic, and of hydroidism, even though hydroidism also
includes hypsism which is closely related to orthism. [Grk ‘epipedos’ = to the
level of the ground, level]
Epistemophilia: an idiom of analytic hyloidophilia (which is a deutophasic
deutoscatistic idiom, and which includes ideal hyloidophilia, i.e. ideophilia)
in which ideal pragmoscopophilia plays a major part, and which represents
the love of knowledge. [Grk ‘epistëmë’ = knowledge]
Eremism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing love and fear of deserted
places. [Grk ‘erëmos’ = solitary]
Erethia: see Eroterethia.
Erethopoeic: giving rise to eroterethia, i.e. not only erotopoeic but specifically
producing physical manifestations of erotic arousal. [Grk ‘erethö’ = to provoke;
‘poieö’ = to make]
Ergophilia (intensive work): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing
autotropic pleasure in working, quite apart from the content of the work that is
done. [Grk ‘ergon’ = work]
Erotendophoria (erotendorganophoria, erotic endophoria, erotic endorganophoria,
or the insideness concept): an organophoric concept derived from the erotic
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
aspects of endophoria, viz. the woman’s coital endophallophoria, her gestational
endopaedophoria, and (on the basis of the equation of breast and child) her
endomastophoria; thus erotendophoria is closely related to hysterosemeiolagnic
coital and gestational penetrability and to mixosemeiolagnia (from which (viz.
mixosemeiolagnia)—in so far as endophallophoria is concerned—it is virtually
indistinguishable); erotendophoria is represented by one object being inside
another (the former being the endorganoid, and the latter the hysteroid,
component of the erotendophoric representation), usually in relation to the
woman’s body and/or her clothing and makeup etc. [Grk ‘erös’ = sexual love;
‘endon’ = in, within; ‘pherö’ = to bear]
Eroterethia (sometimes shortened to erethia): the physical manifestations of erotic
stimulation which, if not checked, will ordinarily intensify until they culminate
in orgasm; general eroterethia covers such general manifestations as rapid
pulse and loud deep breathing, while local eroterethia covers genital
manifestations such as erection of the penis in the man and the occurrence of
copious vaginal discharge and erection of the clitoris in the woman. [Grk
‘erös’ = sexual love; ‘erethö’ = to provoke]
Erotic devouring: a collective term for preservative devouring of all forms in
normal eroticism.
Erotic diffusion: the spread of eroticism from one of the two main erotic foci to
nearby organs; erotic diffusion from the genital organs gives rise to
paraedeolagnia while erotic diffusion from the mouth and the (female) breast
gives rise to parastomatomastorganolagnia (comprising parastomatolagnia and
paramastolagnia). We refer to aedeolagnia and paraedeolagnia collectively as
periaedeorganolagnia, and to stomatomastorganolagnia and
parastomatomastorganolagnia collectively as peristomatomastorganolagnia.
Thus periaedeorganolagnia and peristomatomastorganolagnia are the two main
divisions of organolagnia.
Erotic fantasticism: dyseroticism of such a type that its realization in actual life
(as distinct from phantasy) is a practical impossibility.
Eroticism (erotophronesia): in its widest sense, is one of the three main forms of
biophronesia, representing the reflection in awareness of the biological genital
(or reproductive) function, i.e. of all that may be conducive to erotic stimulation
(eroterethia) and orgasm. Eueroticism (or eulagnia), i.e. normal or euphronesic
eroticism, which is the primary sense of ‘eroticism’, includes all physical (or
bodily) relations between a man and a woman which may be conducive to
coitus, i.e. to phallovaginal penetration and, typically, mutual orgasm, this
phallovaginal penetration, which is the essential feature of normal coitus, being
also the essential feature of eueroticism, so that in eueroticism the genital
function, potentially if not actually, serves the reproductive function. By
contrast, dyseroticism (or dyslagnia), i.e. pathological or dysphronesic
eroticism, is characterized, with a few exceptions (e.g. certain forms of
hypereroticism), by the fact that the genital function does not, actually or
potentially, serve the reproductive function, either because of the pervasion of
eroticism by cosmophobia of any form (collectively known as erotophobia)
or because the gratification of eroticism excludes heterolagnic genital
1535
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
penetration, viz. because it requires partners of the opposite sex but excludes
genital penetration with orgasm, or because it does not require any erotic
partners, or because it requires partners of the same sex. Psychogenetically,
eroticism represents a special form of idiophilia (in dyseroticism—apart from
erotophobia—with a greater or lesser admixture of aphilia and/or replacement
by autophilia which is also a derivative of metrophilia) in which metrophilia
(or metropalinodophilia) is characterized by quasi-conceptive (or kyesioid or
pregnancy-like) devouring (kyemetrophilia or kyemetropalinodophilia), i.e.
devouring that is preservative (except in the phthoristic forms), concrete (or
practical or physical), and mainly in the form of genital, primarily bigenital
(or genital-to-genital), penetration. [Grk ‘erös’ = sexual love]
-eroticism: see -lagnia.
Eroticism, ideal: see Ideal eroticism.
Eroticism, vicarious: see Vicarious eroticism.
Erotodelia: erotic expressiveness; the opposite of erotosteresis. [Grk ‘dëlos’ =
visible, manifest]
Erotogenic: arising or originating from eroticism, i.e. erotic in origin. This is the
opposite of the sense in which the term is commonly used (viz. giving rise to
eroticism), for which the term ‘erotopoeic’ is used here. [Eroticism + -genic]
Erotology: the scientific study of eroticism. Erotologist: a person who specializes
in the scientific study of eroticism.
Erotopoeic: producing, or giving rise to, erotic pleasure, either in the subject
himself or herself (enderotopoeic) or in the partner (exerotopoeic).
Erotopoeicity: the quality or condition of being erotopoeic; hence
enderotopoeicity and exerotopoeicity. [Eroticism + -poeic]
Erotosteresis: erotic deprivation, usually due to erotophobia, whether cultural or
individual; the opposite of erotodelia. [Grk ‘erös’ = sexual love; ‘sterësis’ =
deprivation]
Erythrism: love and dislike of the colour red; the idiom is partly hysterosemeistic,
and so geneosemeistic and philistic, in which form it ultimately represents the
pink colour of mucous membranes lining body cavities, and so evokes female
penetrability, hence we refer to it as enterythrism; and partly a form of
stereochromatism (panxanthism), and so neoscatistic. [Grk ‘erythros’ = red]
Esodochism (the taking-in concept): the desire for, and fear of, taking in; the
main importance of esodochism is in relation to female penetrability, though
the same applies to homandrolagnics; thus, to a woman, eating represents
esodochophilia, coitus represents esodocholagnia, while the androphobic fear
of coitus represents esodochophobia. [Grk ‘esö’ = to within, into; ‘dechomai’
= to take, receive]
Eu-: a prefix denoting normality in the euphronesic sense (see Euphronesia). Cf.
Dys-. [Grk ‘eu’ = well]
Euexia: the only euphronesic form of hectophilia, is derived from practical
hectophilia but differs from its dysphronesic form (viz. practical pleonexia) in
(a) being entirely limited to non-human ownership and (b) all this non-human
ownership being wholly social, i.e. belonging to mankind as a whole. [Grk
Eu- + ‘hexis’ = a having, possession]
1536
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Euorgastia (euphronesic orgastia): the condition in both sexes in which four criteria
are met: capability of fully erethic and fully satisfying orgasm; capability of
coital orgasm; superiority of coital orgasm; and optimum duration of preorgastic
genital erethia. See also Dysorgastia. [Eu- + orgasm]
Euphilia: a condition of normal, i.e. euphronesic, lovedness (or wantedness), as
opposed to the unlovedness (or unwantedness or rejectedness) of aphilia and
the overlovedness (or overwantedness) of hyperphilia. Cf. Aphilia and
Hyperphilia. [Eu- + Philism]
Euphronesia and dysphronesia: normal and pathological thought, respectively,
by the objective, rational standards of postphobophronesia; opposed to
‘normality’ (always written between inverted commas) which is only relative
to an earlier level of mental development (in the phylogenetic or ontogenetic
sense), e.g. the ‘normality’ of prephobosymphronesia at the level of savagery
and of pleonexia and sadism at the phobophronesic level. [Eu-, Dys- +
Phronesia]
Eusymphronesia (essential symphronesia): a collective term for the euphronesic
forms of symphronesia, including hedonia, biophronesia, language, and the
very process of thinking. [Eu- + Symphronesia]
Euthanasia: painless, planned suicide.
Exeroticism: see Organolagnia.
Exhibitionism: see Scopism.
Exo- (ex- before a vowel): see Endo-.
Exogamy (‘marrying out’): a manifestation of collectivism among savages
characterized by the rule which prohibited a man from marrying a woman of
the same group, whether kinship or local, to which he himself belonged. [Grk
‘exö’ = out, outside; ‘gamos’ = marriage]
Exomastophoria: see Organophoria.
Exopaedophoria: see Organophoria.
Exophallophoria: see Organophoria.
Exorgan, exorganophoria: see Organophoria.
Expressiveness: see Emotional expressiveness.
Expulsive devouring: in the terms of the oral concept of the world, expulsion (or
ejection) from a body orifice, whether material or abstract, that serves the
purpose of, or has the same effect as, active or passive, preservative or
consumptive, devouring in the ordinary ingestive sense.
External breast, child, penis: see Organophoria.
Fantasticism, erotic: see Erotic fantasticism.
Female anancosymphronesia: a cultural or social or sociological (as distinct from
individual or clinical) form of anancosymphronesia that is ‘normal’ in women
at the phobophronesic level of civilization, and in which women adopt the
moral standards imposed on them by men, of which androphobia is the most
important single element, so as to acquire from puberty onwards, through
anancosymphronesic self-deception, a spurious second nature which they adopt
as if it were their true ‘feminine’ nature. Where female anancosymphronesia
wholly or partly purges the woman of erotic desire we refer to this as femaleanancosymphronesic aneroticism. [see Anancosymphronesia]
1537
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Femorolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the thigh. [L ‘femur’ = thigh + -lagnia]
Fertility (fecundity): a hysteroid and a hysterosemeiophilic and
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom representing the capacity to bear offspring or be
fruitful; it is related to animateness and animatophilia on the one hand, and to
gestational penetrability on the other hand.
Geneoids: sexual characteristics, whether concrete or ideal; geneoids thus
comprise androids, i.e. male characteristics, gynoids, i.e. female characteristics,
and mixoids, i.e. coital characteristics. [Grk ‘genos’ = sex]
Geneosemeia: the representation of the characteristics of the sexes in awareness.
The term is sometimes used loosely as a synonym for geneosemeiophilia,
which is a philophilic idiom. [see Geneosemeiophilia]
Geneosemeiology: the study of geneosemeiophilia proper as well as its farreaching implications to other phronesic idioms, e.g. those of hyloidism. [see
Geneosemeiophilia]
Geneosemeiophilia: a special form of idiophilia representing interest in the
representation in awareness of the characteristics of the sexes, and comprising
a large number of idioms, some of which are androsemeiophilic, i.e.
representing interest in male characteristics, some are gynosemeiophilic, i.e.
representing interest in female characteristics, and some are mixosemeiophilic,
i.e. representing (in a non-erotic form) interest in the characteristics of the
coital union of the sexes; in both sexes there is a combination of
heterogeneosemeiophilia, i.e. interest in the characteristics of the opposite
sex, and homogeneosemeiophilia, i.e. interest in the characteristics of the same
sex, though in euerotic individuals (and geneosemeiophilia forms part of the
idiophilic phagobasis of eroticism), and notwithstanding the possible
coexistence of homaedeophilia (which is also euphronesic), there is generally
a greater or lesser predominance of heterogeneosemeiophilia. [Grk ‘genos’ =
sex; ‘sëmeion’ = a sign]
-genic: a terminal element with the sense ‘arising from’; the opposite of ‘-poeic’
= giving rise to. [Grk ‘-genës’: ‘gignomai’ = to come into being]
Genuine morality: see Morality.
Genuineness: in teleophilia, the emphasis on what is essential, i.e. on substance
as against appearance.
Geusticolagnia: see Aestheticolagnia.
Glaukism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydrochromatism representing interest in, and
dislike of, the colour light grey or silver-grey. [Grk ‘glaukos’ = bluish green,
grey]
Glossolagnia: eroticism of the tongue, which we generally treat as part of
stomatolagnia. [Grk ‘glössa’ = tongue + -lagnia]
God, goddess, deity: a supernatural being that is worshipped, i.e. propitiated and
conciliated with prayer and sacrifice etc., which worship is a manifestation of
animistic hectophobia.
Government (or rule or politics, the three terms are used largely synonymously):
one of the three cardinal institutions of phobophronesic civilization (cf. Religion
and Marriage), is the domination and exploitation of man by man other than
in the religious or sexual spheres. Psychogenetically, government is the main
1538
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
manifestation of practical hectism (or, rather, practical dyshectism) at the
phobophronesic level of cultural evolution, and is derived mainly from
aphormic practical hectophobia, viz. anorthodoxophobia, and stratificatory
practical hectism which accounts for the division of phobophronesic society
into two political classes: a minority upper or pleonectic class, represented by
those who dominate and exploit (other than in the religious and sexual spheres),
and a majority lower or meionectic class, represented by those who are
dominated and exploited. ‘Politics’ (or ‘government’ etc.) has a narrow sense
that only includes the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of
‘government’, and a much wider sense that covers all domination and
exploitation of man by man other than in the religious and sexual spheres.
Graphophilia: a form of metamorphophilia (q.v.) representing pleasure in writing,
i.e. in the marking of paper which enhances the value of the paper. [Grk
‘graphë’ = writing + -philia]
Gynaedeaestheticolagnia: see Organaestheticolagnia.
Gynaedeolagnia: see Aedeolagnia.
Gynaedeomorphology: see Organomorphology.
Gynocentricity: a homogynolagnic’s total preoccupation with women in her erotic
and non-erotic life to the virtual exclusion of men. Cf. Hysterocentricity,
Androcentricity, Phallocentricity. [Grk ‘gynë’ = woman; ‘kentron’ = centre
(of a circle)]
Gynocide: murder by a man of a wife or girlfriend. [Grk ‘gynë’ = woman, wife;
L ‘caedere’ = to kill]
Gynoids: see Geneoids.
Gynophalloid (female phalloid): a penis-like but female object, concrete or ideal,
which in erotic fantasticism endows a woman, in her own eyes or in the eyes
of her partner, with the power of erotic penetrativeness, i.e. the power to
erotically penetrate her (female or male) partner, primarily in a bigenital
relation, in much the same way as a man would penetrate a woman’s vagina
with his penis in normal coitus; the concept of the gynophalloid applies mainly
to female homolagnia (in relation to the partner in the passive homolagnic
woman, and in relation to the subject herself in the active homolagnic woman)
and to reversed heterolagnia (in relation to the female partner in male passive
heterolagnia, and in relation to the subject herself in female active heterolagnia).
[Grk ‘gynë’ = woman; ‘phallos’ = penis]
Gynosemeiophilia: see Geneosemeiophilia.
Gynotropic phalloid: a form of mixandrogynic representation in which the
association of a woman with a phalloid, whether the phalloid is concrete or
ideal, serves to suggest heterolagnic desire on her part, ultimately and more
specifically an exophallolagnic desire. [Grk ‘gynë’ = woman; ‘tropos’ =
turning]
Haematism: a form of phthorism represented by the love and fear of seeing blood
and bleeding, and often associated with aechmism. [Grk ‘haima’ = blood]
Hallucinations (hallucinatory delusions): false sensory perceptions; more
precisely, false beliefs (i.e. delusions) associated with, or taking the form of,
false sensory perceptions.
1539
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Hapticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to the
sense of touch. [Grk ‘hapsis’ = touching]
Hapticolagnia: see Aestheticolagnia.
Hectism: One of the three main divisions of phagism, based on the equation of
food (or aliment) with property, and derived from consumptive devouring.
Cf. Philism and Sitism. Hectism has three main forms: animistic, sexual, and
practical, which largely account for the institutions of religion, marriage, and
government, respectively, in phobophronesic civilization. In each of these
three main forms, in phobophronesic civilization, hectism comprises aphormic
hectophobia (or aphormic cosmophobia) (viz. aphormic animistic, sexual, and
practical hectophobia) and stratificatory hectism (viz. stratificatory animistic,
sexual, and practical hectism). Cf. Euexia. [Grk ‘hexis’ = a having, possession]
Hedonia: the search for, and gratification of, pleasure in the widest sense, including
both physical and mental pleasure, which gives meaning to life and creates
the will (i.e. the desire) to live. [Grk ‘hëdonë’ = pleasure]
-hedonia: a terminal element denoting either non-erotic or erotic love of, or interest
in, the object denoted by the first element; thus ‘-hedonia’ can be used in
collective terms where it is specifically desired to indicate the inclusion of
both the non-erotic and the erotic forms of an idiom; e.g. ‘hydrohedonia’ =
hydrophilia (non-erotic) + hydrolagnia (erotic). [see Hedonia]
Hetereroticism: see Heterolagnia.
Heterolagnia (hetereroticism): (short for ‘heterogeneolagnia’ or
‘heterogeneroticism’) erotic attraction to members of the opposite sex, i.e. to
women in the case of males and to men in the case of females; this is basically,
but not necessarily, normal, i.e. euphronesic. [‘heteros’ = the other of two,
other, different + ‘genos’ = sex]
Hoarding: pleasure in preserving, retaining, or storing up objects of either
protohedonic value (hoarding proper) or deutohedonic value (collecting), as
distinct from pleasure derived from the actual consumption or use of these
objects; hoarding is a scatistic idiom which arises in a general form from
scatism as a reaction to a world of scarcity and adversity, and in a more marked
special form as a protophasic idiom (i.e. as an idiom of the first phase of the
deutoscatistic cycle), which is euphronesic where it is selective and does not
exclude consumption or use of the objects hoarded when needed, but is
dysphronesic where there is indefinite prolongation of the first deutoscatistic
phase (hyperprotophasia), as in sphalerohedonia, in which case it tends to be
excessive and unselective and to exclude consumption or use of the objects
hoarded.
Homaedeism: a neoscatistic idiom representing interest in, and fear of, the subject’s
own genital configuration; thus it takes the form of homophallism in men and
homohysterism in women. [Grk ‘homos’ = same; ‘aidoion’ (pl. ‘aidoia’) =
genital organs]
Homaedeocentricity: a collective term for phallocentricity in men and
hysterocentricity in women. [Grk ‘homos’ = same; ‘aidoia’ = genital organs;
‘kentron’ = centre (of a circle)]
Homeroticism: see Homolagnia.
1540
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Homogeneocentricity: a collective term for androcentricity in men and
gynocentricity in women. [Grk ‘homos’ = same; ‘genos’ = sex; ‘kentron’ =
centre (of a circle)]
Homohysterism: see Homaedeism.
Homolagnia (homeroticism): (short for homogeneolagnia or homogeneroticism):
a form of dyseroticism in which the individual’s erotic attraction is to members
of his or her own sex; in the case of men we refer to this as homandrolagnia or
male homolagnia or male homeroticism; in the case of women we refer to it as
homogynolagnia or female homolagnia or female homeroticism;
psychogenetically, homolagnia represents a special form of autolagnia. [Grk
‘homos’ = same; ‘genos’ = sex]
Homophallism: see Homaedeism.
Human: of, or pertaining to, man or mankind. Used in two different senses, as in
the phrase ‘human environment’ which may mean (a) the environment of man
(of the human race as a whole or a particular section of it, e.g. a tribe or a
nation); (b) the human part of man’s environment, i.e. fellow human beings,
as opposed to the non-human part of the environment, viz. animals, plants,
and inanimate or material objects. Cf. Human heritage and Human ownership.
Human heritage: social property in the postphobophronesic sense, i.e. property
that belongs to the whole of mankind, whether material or abstract.
Human ownership: the ownership of man by man, in any form and of any degree.
Opposed to ‘non-human ownership’ (q.v.). Human ownership is the main
factor underlying the three cardinal institutions of phobophronesic civilization,
viz. religion, marriage, and government.
Hyalism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydrochromatism representing love and dislike
of colourless transparency. [Grk ‘hyalos’ = glass]
Hydrism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of water.
[Grk ‘hydör’ = water]
Hydrochromatism: interest in, and dislike of, the various colours of water and its
ultimate prototype, viz. urine; comprises hydroleukism, xanthism, cyanism,
glaukism, hyalism, and stilbism. [Hydrism + Chromatism]
Hydroid: water or a water-equivalent, e.g. open space or movement. [see Hydrism]
Hydroidacousticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroidaestheticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroidism: a neoscatistic idiom representing the love and fear of water (hydrism)
and water-equivalents, e.g. fire (pyrism), open space (aethrism), height
(hypsism), movement (kinetism), light (photism), heat (thermism), and air
(aerism); hydroidism is part of hyloidism and may be protoscatistic and holistic,
and therefore (in its hedonic forms) potentially artistic, or it may be
deutoscatistic and analytic, in which case it is entirely hedonic and is potentially
scientific. [see Hydrism]
Hydroidogeusticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroidohapticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroidopragmoscopism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroidosphreticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Hydroido-stereoid junction: the line of junction between a hydroid, e.g. water or
open space, and an adjoining stereoid, e.g. a forest or mountain.
1541
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Hydroleukism: see Leukism.
Hyloidaestheticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation
to sensory perception in hyloidism, and comprising hydroidaestheticism, i.e.
sensory perception in hydroidism, and stereoidaestheticism, i.e. sensory
perception in stereoidism. Hyloidaestheticism may be visual (hyloido-,
hydroido-, and stereoidopragmoscopism), tactile (hyloido-, hydroido-, and
stereoidohapticism), auditory (hyloid-, hydroid-, and stereoidacousticism),
olfactory (hyloid-, hydroid-, and stereoidosphreticism), or gustatory (hyloido-,
hydroido-, and stereoidogeusticism). Similar constructions are used in relation
to the central idiom of hyloidism, viz. hylism which comprises hydrism and
stereism, and (where applicable) in relation to the other idioms of hyloidism,
viz. of hydroidism and stereoidism. [Hyloidism + Aestheticism]
Hyloidism: a neoscatistic idiom comprising hydroidism, i.e. love and fear of
water (hydrism) and its equivalents, and stereoidism, i.e. love and fear of solid
matter (stereism) and its equivalents; hyloidism may be protoscatistic, in which
case it is holistic and has hedonic and cosmophobic forms, the hedonic forms
being potentially artistic; or it may be deutoscatistic, in which case it is analytic
(or, more fully, analytic-synthetic) and comprises a third, ideal form (ideal
hyloidophilia or ideophilia); deutoscatistic hyloidism is entirely hedonic, and
is therefore usually referred to as analytic hyloidophilia (or, more fully, analyticsynthetic hyloidophilia), and is potentially scientific. [Grk ‘hylë’ = matter]
Hyper-: a prefix primarily denoting pathological (i.e. dysphronesic) excessiveness;
the pathogenicity, however, may be either one of simple quantitative change
without any qualitative change, or it may be qualitative as well as quantitative.
Cf. A-, Hypo-, Oligo-, Poly-. [Grk ‘hyper’ = over, beyond, overmuch]
Hyperaeolophasia: see Aeolophasia.
Hypereroticism: pathological exaggeration of eroticism, the commonest causes
being hyperphilia (hyperphilic hypereroticism) and autolagnia (autolagnic
hypereroticism); where hypereroticism is limited to an organ or a group of
organs we refer to it as hyperorganolagnia. [Hyper- + Eroticism]
Hyperhydroposia, psychogenic: excessive water-drinking in patients with
hyperureticophilia and ureticolagnia. [Grk ‘hydroposia’ = water-drinking]
Hyperphilia (hyperphilophilia): a dysphilistic idiom representing a pathologically
exaggerated form of philophilia; its central idiom is hyperidiophilia, which is
a pathologically exaggerated form of idiophilia, representing a sense of
overlovedness or overwantedness arising from the forcible preservative
devouring of the aphilic object, whose prototype is the racial mother. [Hyper+ Philism]
Hyperphronesia (mental overdifferentiation, hyperphronesic anhedonia): a
dysphronesic postphobophronesic condition in which hedonia is (usually only
partially) outgrown, in much the same way as cosmophobia is outgrown in
normal postphobophronesia. [Hyper- + Phronesia]
Hypersynnoophilia (mental stagnation): a dysphronesic condition that occurs in
hyperprotophasia (sphalerohedonia and autophthorophilia) in which thoughts
go round and round without reaching their normal conclusion and
pseudosymphronesia may supervene. In sphalerohedonia, hyperprotophasia
1542
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
is enforced and hypersynnoophilia is commonly manifested by the
phenomenon of obsession (interminable thoughts and doubts etc. which the
patient desperately wants to bring to a conclusion), and by pseudosymphronesia
usually in the form of resorting to pseudomagical belief to bring the enforced
hyperprotophasia to an end. In autophthorophilia, hyperprotophasia is not
enforced, and hypersynnoophilia is therefore only rarely of clinical importance:
obsession does not occur because, though interminable thoughts and doubts
etc. are common, the patient has no wish to terminate them, and
pseudosymphronesia is rare but may then give rise to quasi-magical and quasianimistic delusions and hallucinations. [Hyper- + Synnoophilia]
Hypertictophilia: see Tictophilia.
Hypo- a prefix denoting pathological (i.e. dysphronesic) deficiency. Cf. A-,
Hyper-, Oligo-, Poly-. [Grk ‘hypo’ = under, below]
Hypochondria: a descriptive term applied loosely to somatic (or bodily) symptoms
of psychogenic origin, as distinct from genuinely physical, or organic,
symptoms. Hypochondriasis is sometimes applied to the state or condition of
having hypochondria. [Grk ‘hypo’ = under, below; ‘chondros’ = gristle,
cartilage (no relation to current use)]
Hyporgasm, hyporgastia, or anerethic orgasm or anerethic orgastia: weak and
characteristically inadequately satisfying orgasm in either sex occurring in
association with incomplete general and local (i.e. genital) eroterethia (erotic
excitement). [Hypo- + orgasm]
Hypsism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of height.
[Grk ‘hypsos’ = height]
Hysterism: a collective term for non-erotic interest in, and fear of, the womb;
hysterism thus comprises hysterosemeism in both sexes (which is
geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and homohysterism in women (which
is homaedeistic and therefore neoscatistic). Cf. Phallism, Aedeism, Mastism.
[Grk ‘hystera’ = womb]
Hystero-: see Womb.
Hysterocentricity: a homogynolagnic’s total preoccupation with the female
genitals (the womb) and other hysteroids, which form the centre alike of her
non-erotic and her erotic life. Cf. Gynocentricity, Phallocentricity,
Androcentricity, Homaedeocentricity, Homogeneocentricity. [Grk ‘kentron’
= centre (of a circle)]
Hysteroid: a womb or a womb-like object, whether concrete or ideal; there are at
least four hysteroids: hollowness, receptivity or penetrability, fertility or
fecundity, and enterythrism. [see Hysterosemeiophilia]
Hysterosemeiophilia: a geneosemeiophilic idiom representing interest in
hysteroids, whether concrete or ideal. [Grk ‘hystera’ = womb; ‘sëmeion’ =
sign]
-ic: see -ism.
Ideal: 1 existing only in idea, not actual, abstract; opposed to ‘practical’,
‘concrete’, or ‘physical’; 2. exemplary, perfect.
Ideal eroticism: eroticism that is unassociated with overt eroterethia. [Grk ‘erös’
= sexual love]
1543
The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Ideal hyloidophilia, ideophilia: see Hyloidism.
Idiom, phronesic (or mental): a mode of phronesic expression. General
characteristics of any form of phronesic orientation may be referred to as
general idioms (as distinct from specific idioms, which is the usual meaning
of the term). [Grk ‘idiöma’ = peculiarity, specific property]
Idiomology: the study of phronesic idioms in cultures or in individuals. For
example, ‘comparative cultural idiomology’ is the study of different cultures
as regards their phronesic idioms.
Idiophilia (love proper): the central idiom of philophilia, representing a sense of
belonging to another person, or an emotional bond between two persons, of
the opposite or of the same sex; the prototype of idiophilia is the relationship
of the child of either sex to his or her (racial or instinctual) mother (metrophilia);
the cosmophobic equivalent of idiophilia is anidiophilia, which is the central
idiom of aphilia. [Grk ‘idios’ = one’s own; ‘phileö’ = to love]
Impotence: see Mixorthosis.
Inanimatism: the state of being inanimate, whether material or abstract. The term
is also used as an idiom, comprising inanimatophilia and inanimatophobia,
i.e. interest in and fear of inanimate objects. Inanimatism is characteristic of
scatism, whereas animatism is characteristic of phagism. [see Animism]
Individualism: a postphobophronesic idiom which represents the rational,
diaphronesic antithesis of prephobosymphronesic collectivism.
Insideness concept: see Erotendophoria.
Institution: any set of beliefs, whether true or false, held by a society and the
practices arising from these beliefs.
Intensive work: see Ergophilia.
Internal breast, child, penis: see Organophoria.
Introitoid (adjective and noun): introitus-like; shaped like, or representing, the
vaginal introitus, i.e. the opening of the vagina in the postero-inferior part of
the rimal ovoid. [L ‘introitus’ = entrance (in modern anatomy: entrance to the
vagina)]
Introitolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the introitus vaginae.
Ischocopreticism: see Skoreticism.
Ischoskoreticism: see Skoreticism.
Ischureticism: see Skoreticism.
-ism: in the cosmophobia theory, a suffix denoting an idiom in both its hedonic
and cosmophobic forms, the hedonic form being denoted by the terminal
element ‘-hedonia’ (comprising the non-erotic form in ‘-philia’ and the erotic
form in ‘-lagnia’) while the cosmophobic form is denoted by the terminal
element ‘-phobia’. Adjective: -istic (not -ic). The simple adjectival termination
‘-ic’ has no specific relation to any particular idiom; for example, ‘kinetistic’
means ‘of, or pertaining to, kinetism’ whereas ‘kinetic’ simply means ‘related
to movement’, and so ‘kinetic’ may refer to agility, kinetism, or myotonophilia,
which are three different idioms, or indeed it may refer to movement in any
sense whatsoever. [Grk ‘-ismos’: suffix forming nouns of action from verbs
in ‘-izein’]
Kenism: love and fear of space, whether open or enclosed; thus kenism is a
1544
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
collective term for the two neoscatistic idioms of aethrism (open space), which
is a form of hydroidism, and entostereism (enclosed space), which is a form
of stereoidism. [Grk ‘kenos’ = empty]
Kenotacticophilia: a special form of kenophilia representing interest in the
arrangement of objects in space, and comprising aethrotacticophilia (interest
in the arrangement of objects in open space) and entostereotacticophilia
(interest in the arrangement of objects in enclosed space or inside solid matter).
Kenotacticophilia may also be classified into kinetic kenotacticophilia, e.g.
spatial configuration in dancing, and static kenotacticophilia, e.g. spatial
configuration in architecture. [Grk ‘kenos’ = empty; ‘taxis’ = arrangement,
order]
Kinetaethrism: see Kinetokenism.
Kinetentostereism: a combination of kinetism and entostereism representing love
and fear of movement in relation to enclosed space, and comprising getting
into enclosed space, getting out of enclosed space, and movement inside
enclosed space. [Kinetism + Entostereism]
Kinetic devouring: in the terms of the oral concept of the world, is a form of
somatic devouring represented by devouring by movement without the
involvement of a body orifice; kinetic devouring may be concrete (or practical),
involving direct physical contact between subject and object, or ideal, involving
no contact (or only token contact). [Grk ‘kinësis’ = movement]
Kinetism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of
movement. [Grk ‘kinësis’ = movement]
Kinetokenism: a combination of kinetism and kenism, which comprises
kinetaethrism in relation to movement in open space and kinetentostereism in
relation to movement in enclosed space. [Kinetism + Kenism]
Kyemetrophilia (kyemetropalinodophilia): the kyesioid (or quasi-conceptive or
pregnancy-like) penetration of the man into the woman, or the kyesioid
containment of the man by the woman, or the kyesioid internal preservative
devouring of the woman by the man, whose primary form is the
phallocolpolagnic relation of normal coitus based on the oro-mammary
prototype of the lactivorous stage of life, and so representing kyesioid
metrophilia or kyesioid metropalinodophilia; in autolagnic dyseroticism,
kyemetrophilia takes the modified form of autokyemetrophilia, of which
homokyemetrophilia in homolagnia is a special form since homolagnia is a
special form of autolagnia; autokyemetrophilia and homokyemetrophilia are
forms of erotic fantasticism based on genital self-penetration (or self-coitus)
and bigenital homolagnic penetration (or bigenital homolagnic coitus),
respectively; kyemetrophobia (kyemetropalinodophobia) is the fear of coitus
which forms the basis of aphormic sexual cosmophobia, i.e. the fear of the
womb, primarily of one’s own mother’s womb (the ‘mother incest taboo’)
(remembering always that civilization has so far been created by men, not by
women). [Grk ‘kyësis’ = pregnancy; ‘mëtër’ = mother]
Kyemetrophobia (kyemetropalinodophobia): see Kyemetrophilia.
-lagnia, -eroticism: a terminal element denoting erotic love of, or erotic interest
in, the object denoted by the first element. Cf. -philia, -hedonia. [Grk ‘lagnos’
= lascivious, lustful; ‘erös’ = sexual love]
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Law of contrast, or the law of stimulus augmentation by contrast: the augmentation
of a stimulus by the natural or contrived presence of contrast. E.g. the
heightening of the perception of aethrophilia by observing open space through
an archway.
Leadership is of two types: rational leadership and authoritarian or sadisticpleonectic leadership, i.e. authoritarianism. Rational leadership is either based
on merit (merit leadership) or necessitated by, and is an integral part of, rational
organization (organizational leadership), in either case without any implication
of the domination and exploitation of others. Authoritarian or sadisticpleonectic leadership, which is often simply referred to as authoritarianism,
rests entirely on the domination and exploitation of the majority by the minority,
and is an integral part of the social stratification of phobophronesic civilization,
hence it has three forms, viz. religious, political, and sexual authoritarianism.
The two types of leadership may coexist; indeed most of the authoritarianism,
or sadistic-pleonectic leadership, in phobophronesic society is implicitly or
explicitly justified on the grounds that it is rational leadership (i.e. arising
either from merit or from the need for organization, or both).
Leiism: the idiom of smoothness that is associated with softness (malakism), as
distinct from smoothness (xestism) that is associated with hardness (sclerism);
leiism is an idiom both of mastosemeism (which is geneosemeistic and therefore
philistic) and of hydroidism (which is neoscatistic). Because of the usual
association of leiism and malakism we often speak of leio-malakism. [Grk
‘leios’ = smooth]
Leukism: the idiom of the colour white: it is an idiom both of mastosemeism
(mastoleukism, which is geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and of
hydroidism (hydroleukism, which is neoscatistic). [Grk ‘leukos’ = white]
Loiposymphronesia (survival symphronesia): prephobosymphronesia surviving
in phobophronesic civilization in the form of superstition, folklore, etc. [Grk
‘loipos’ = remaining over + Symphronesia]
Lonchism: a form of phthorism derived from the internal form, as distinct from
the more usual external form, of consumptive devouring in its hedonic and
cosmophobic forms, and represented by a special interest in, or fear of, stabbing
or piercing (with a knife, spear, arrow, or bullet, etc.). [Grk ‘logchë’ =
spearhead]
Magic: the prephobosymphronesic belief, and the practice based on this belief,
that man can influence nature without the propitiation and conciliation of
supernatural beings or deities, and without the operation of natural law.
Majorilabial: of or pertaining to a labium majus, or the labia majora, of the female
vulva; majorilabioid (adjective and noun): labium-majus-like; shaped like, or
representing, a labium majus. Cf. Nymphae.
Majorilabiolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the labia majora of the vulva.
Malakism: the idiom of softness; it is an idiom both of mastosemeism (which is
geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and of hydroidism (which is
neoscatistic). Because of the usual association of leiism and malakism we
often speak of leio-malakism. [Grk ‘malakos’ = soft]
Mammary index: the percentage ratio, in the standard standing position, of breast
1546
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
prominence (the distance from the chest wall to the base of the nipple) to
breast height (the distance from the upper border of the attachment of the
breast to the chest wall to the lowest, or most dependent, point in the breast);
the mammary index is a measure of breast firmness or pyknomastia (and so,
indirectly, of breast fullness in the entoplerolagnic sense). [L ‘mamma’ =
breast]
Marriage (= individual marriage): one of the three cardinal institutions of
phobophronesic civilization (cf. Religion and Government), is the institution
whereby one man owns, and has an exclusive sexual right to, one or more
women. Individual marriage may be monogamous or polygamous (i.e. a man
may have one or may have a number of wives), but polyandry (a woman
having more than one husband) does not exist except in group marriage in
which a number of men communally share a number of women, as was the
case among some of the lowest savages. Psychogenetically, marriage is the
main cultural manifestation of sexual hectism, and is derived from its two
main factors: aphormic sexual hectophobia and stratificatory sexual hectism.
Aphormic sexual hectophobia contributes the phenomenon of the prohibited
degrees of marriage, or incest taboos, which are collectivistic in savages but
individual in the civilized. Stratificatory sexual hectism accounts for the
division of phobophronesic society into two sexual classes: a minority
pleonectic class, represented by men, and a majority meionectic class,
represented by women and children; more generally it accounts for the
ownership of women by their husbands and of children by their parents,
especially their fathers (which applies even in the absence of knowledge of
physical paternity, since a man who owns a woman also owns her children).
Masochism: see Phthorism.
Mastaestheticolagnia: see Organaestheticolagnia.
Mastism: a collective term for non-erotic interest in, and fear of, the breast; thus,
unlike ‘phallism’ and ‘hysterism’, the term ‘mastism’ is synonymous with
mastosemeism, which is geneosemeistic and therefore philistic; this is because
homaedeism, which is a neoscatistic idiom, has no equivalent in the case of
the breast. [Grk ‘mastos’ = breast]
Masto- = breast- e.g. ‘mastolagnia’ (breast-eroticism) and ‘stomatomastolagnia’
(mouth-breast eroticism). [Grk ‘mastos’ = a woman’s breast]
Mastoid: a breast or a breast-like object, whether concrete (e.g. having the shape
of the breast) or ideal (e.g. softness or sphericity); also used as an adjective =
breast-like, in a concrete or ideal sense. [Grk ‘mastos’ = breast]
Mastokinetics: a term comprising breast mobility and nipple motility (viz. nipple
erection); breast mobility is breast movement, which (apart from the erectile
nipple) is wholly passive, being either due to gravity (catatropia, pendulosity,
or breast hang or dangle) or due to momentum producing lateral or horizontal
movement (breast swing), vertical movement (breast bounce), or a quivering
or rippling movement in the breast substance itself (breast wobble), or any
combination of these. [Masto- + Grk ‘kinësis’ = movement]
Mastolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the breast. [Masto- + -lagnia]
Mastoleukism: see Leukism.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Mastomorphology: the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic
study of breast form; in terms of size, the breast may be proportionate or
average (emmetromastia), small (micromastia), or large (megalomastia); in
terms of consistency (which affects shape) the breast may be firm (pyknomastia)
or flabby (chalaromastia); in terms of shape, the breast may show predominant
sphericity (spheroid breast (spheroidomastia): discoid, hemispheroid, or
cylindroid (broad or eurycylindroid, narrow or leptocylindroid, or pear-shaped
or apiocylindroid), representing the short-spheroid or brachyspheroid, the
medium-spheroid or metriospheroid, and the long-spheroid or dolichospheroid
forms, respectively (i.e. brachyspheroidomastia, metriospheroidomastia, and
dolichospheroidomastia, respectively)), or predominant conicality with convex
sides (conicoid breast (conicoidomastia): short-conicoid or brachyconicoid,
or long-conicoid or dolichoconicoid (i.e. brachyconicoidomastia or
dolichoconicoidomastia)), or a combination of both (conico-spheroid breast
(conico-spheroidomastia)). [Masto- + Grk ‘morphë’ = form]
Mastophoria: see Organophoria.
Mastosemeiophilia: a geneosemeiophilic idiom representing interest in mastoids,
whether concrete or ideal. [Grk ‘mastos’ = breast; ‘sëmeion’ = a sign]
Materialism: a postphobophronesic idiom which represents the rational,
diaphronesic antithesis of prephobosymphronesic animism.
Materialization of the abstract: the prephobosymphronesic process of conceiving
the abstract in concrete terms due to the incapacity for abstract thought, e.g.
conceiving pain as a foreign body lodging in the body (the materialization of
pain) or conceiving discontent (or unhappiness) as somatic illness (the
materialization of discontent).
Matrilineal descent: descent counted in the female line. Cf. Patrilineal descent.
[L ‘mater’ = mother + lineal]
Mechanophilia: an idiom of analytic hyloidophilia, which is a deutophasic
deutoscatistic idiom, representing love of utilizing matter (or material objects)
to perform quasi-animate work for man. [Grk ‘mëchanë’ = contrivance]
Meionexia: see Stratificatory hectism.
Melanism: the idiom of the colour black; it is an idiom both of phallosemeism
(which is geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and of stereoidism (which is
neoscatistic). [Grk ‘melas’ = black]
Mental differentiation: see Diaphronesia.
Mental orientation: see Phronesic orientation.
Mental undifferentiation: see Symphronesia.
Mesofemorolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the interfemoral sinus (with the thighs
held close together: sinus mesofemorolagnia) and the interfemoral space (with
the thighs parted: space mesofemorolagnia), mainly in the woman, in whom
the interfemoral space is a hysteroid that leads to the primary hysteroid, viz.
the womb. [Grk ‘mesos’ = middle; L ‘femur’ = thigh + -lagnia]
Mesomastolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the intermammary sinus. [Grk ‘mesos’
= middle; ‘mastos’ = breast]
Mesopygolagnia: eroticism of the pygal cleft (q.v.). [Grk ‘mesos’ = middle;
‘pygë’ = rump, buttocks + -lagnia]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Mesostereism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing interest in, and
dislike of, the amorphic, rugged interior of solid objects. Cf. Xestism. [Grk
‘mesos’ = middle + Stereism]
Metamorphophilia: a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing pleasure in
transforming the quality or nature of things, as by transforming the worthless
into the valuable in teleophilia, the chaotic into the orderly in taxiphilia, and
the dirty into the clean in catharophilia, hence we refer to all deutophasic
deutoscatistic idioms collectively as the metamorphic idioms, and to the
deutophase itself as the metamorphic phase; ultimately metamorphophilia
represents a creative attitude to the deutophase in which, in an ideal sense,
excreta, which are inherently worthless, shapeless, and dirty, etc. are
transformed into material that is valuable, orderly, and clean, etc. [Grk
‘metamorphösis’ = transformation]
Metrophilia (mother-love), metropalinodophilia (mother-reunion or motherreversion or mother-retrieval love): idiophilia in relation to the mother, i.e. the
prototype of idiophilia in mother-love whose roots go back to the oro-mammary
relation of the lactivorous stage of life. [Grk ‘mëtër’ = mother; ‘palin’ = back,
again; ‘hodos’ = way, path]
Mixandrogynia (coital androgynia): the temporary creation in the coital union,
conceived as unity rather than union, of one human being who is both man
and woman, i.e. a man-woman or androgyne. [Grk ‘mixis’ = sexual intercourse;
‘anër = man; ‘gynë’ = woman]
Mixanorgastia: see Orgastia.
Mixanorthosis: see Mixorthosis.
Mixocholia: a collective term for mixanorgastia in women and mixanorthosis in
men. [Grk ‘mixis’ = coitus; ‘chölos’ = lame]
Mixoid: a representation, either concrete or ideal, of the coital union of the sexes.
[Grk ‘mixis’ = sexual intercourse]
Mixopraxia: a collective term for mixorgastia in women and mixorthosis in men.
Mixopractic: adjective. [Grk ‘mixis’ = coitus; ‘praxia’ = a doing, an action, an
act]
Mixorgastia: see Orgastia.
Mixorthosis (mixophallorthosis, potency): a man’s ability to have and to maintain
sufficient erection of the penis to penetrate the woman’s vagina and perform
coitus; the lack of such ability is called mixanorthosis (mixophallanorthosis)
or impotence. [Grk ‘mixis’ = sexual intercourse + Orthosis]
Mixosemeiophilia: see Geneosemeiophilia.
Monanalysis (monanalyticophilia): a neoscatistic idiom of somateidism
representing pleasure in reducing all things in a certain sphere of thought to a
single principle, and arising from the desire to trace urine and faeces, in the
ideal entokoilopragmoscopophilic sense, through the urethroid and the enteroid
to their ultimate common origin as food in the mouth. [Grk ‘monos’ = alone,
only, single + analysis]
Monosynthesis (monosyntheticophilia): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom
representing the desire to construct into one whole. [see Monanalysis]
Montolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the mons pubis of the vulva.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Morality (= genuine (or true) morality): a code of conduct, or set of rules, which
regulates the behaviour of individuals for the good of society as a whole; such
a set of rules may be rational or, as is usual in prephobophronesic and
phobophronesic societies, irrational: if irrational it must produce some genuine
benefit for society as a whole before it can be recognized as ‘morality’ at all;
the unit of society in prephobophronesic and phobophronesic morality may
be the clan, tribe, or nation, but in postphobophronesic (or social or rational)
morality it is mankind as a whole.
Motif: any specific form of artistic expression.
Music: sound, including adaptations of the human voice, that is specially contrived
either because it is pleasing in itself or because it provides regular rhythm for
dancing, or both.
Myotonism: a neoscatistic idiom of aestheticism representing pleasure and fear
in relation to the proprioceptive muscle sense. [Grk ‘mys’ = muscle; ‘tonos’ =
stretching]
Myotonolagnia: a form of aestheticolagnia, which is an idiom of eroticism,
representing erotic pleasure in relation to the proprioceptive muscle sense,
arising either from the active contraction or passive stretching of voluntary
muscle, or from the (usually rhythmic) involuntary reflex contraction of
voluntary (striped) and involuntary (smooth) muscle; the main forms of
myotonolagnia in both sexes are femoro-pelvic myotonolagnia, represented
by pelvic thrust and other movements in coitus involving the pelvic and thigh
muscles, generalized myotonolagnia, especially immediately before orgasm,
and orgastic myotonolagnia, i.e. the rhythmic involuntary contraction of smooth
and striped muscle in and around the genitals that forms the essence of orgasm.
[see Myotonism]
Mysism: a palaeoscatistic idiom of skoroidism representing interest in, and fear
of, dirt and dirtiness. Pragmo-, apragmo-, and automysophilia and -mysolagnia
represent, respectively, the desire to soil or defile, to be soiled or defiled, and
to soil or defile oneself, in the non-erotic and erotic sense. [Grk ‘mysos’ =
uncleanness (of body or mind)]
Mysoborism: a palaeoscatistic idiom of skoroidism representing the love and
fear of eating dirt. [Grk ‘mysos’ = uncleanness; ‘bora’ = food]
Mysolalism: a palaeoscatistic idiom of skoroidism representing the love and fear
of using ‘dirty’ words. [Grk ‘mysos’ = uncleanness; ‘lalos’ = talkative]
Naturalism: see Autophyophilia.
Naturism: the pre-eminence in thought of the concept of nature, i.e. of animals,
plants, and/or other aspects of the immediate environment. As applied to art,
it refers to the lowest forms of hedonic (as distinct from purely magical,
animistic, or other prephobosymphronesic) art, whose motifs are
characteristically drawn either from nature (animals, plants, etc.) or from the
routine of everyday life. As applied to language, it refers to ‘picture-writing’,
or a form of writing using figures drawn from nature or from everyday life to
represent ideas or words, or, at a higher level, to represent sounds. Cf.
Autophyophilia (naturalism).
Neoscatism: one of the two main divisions of scatism, representing the whole of
1550
66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
scatism excluding palaeoscatism (q.v.); neoscatism represents a higher level
of awareness than that of palaeoscatism because in it excreta are of value in an
ideal sense, mainly as hyloids. Neoscatism is subdivided into protoscatism
and deutoscatism. [Grk ‘neos’ = new + Scatism]
Neototem: see Totemism.
Non-human ownership: the ownership of objects in the environment other than
fellow human beings. Opposed to ‘human ownership’.
Numbers: the frequent association of even numbers (artiarithmophilia) with
femininity, and of odd numbers (perissarithmophilia) with masculinity, arises
from the mastosemeiophilia of even numbers, due to the duality of the breasts,
and the phallosemeiophilia of odd numbers, due to the penis being a monadic
median organ. [Grk ‘artios’ = even; ‘perissos’ = odd; ‘arithmos’ = number]
Nymphae: the labia minora of the female vulva: nymphal adjective; nymphoid
adjective and noun = nympha-like, or shaped like, or representing, a nympha.
Cf. Majorilabioid. [Grk ‘nymphë’ = nymph (as a guardian of the urinary
stream rather than the vaginal introitus)]
Nympholagnia: end- and exeroticism of the nymphae (or labia minora).
Object-eroticism: see Organolagnia.
‘Obscenity’ (‘indecency’): ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’ matters are excretory and erotic
matters (excretory and erotic acts and products etc.) provoking shame, or shame
morality, because they are conceived in palaeoscatistic terms; ‘obscenity’ in
relation to eroticism is based on the palaeotropolagnic (or sadistic-excretory)
concept of eroticism, which is itself palaeoscatistic.
Obsession: see Hypersynnoophilia.
Obstinacy: see Self-willedness.
Odontolagnia: tooth-eroticism (mainly the female teeth inside the mouth as an
endophoric representation). [Grk ‘odous’ = tooth + -lagnia]
Odophilia: a philophilic idiom representing love of singing. [Grk ‘öidë’ = song]
Oligo-: a prefix denoting reduction or scantiness within normal (i.e. euphronesic)
limits. Cf. A-, Hyper-, Hypo-, Poly-. [Grk ‘oligos’ = few, little]
Ontopsychogenesis: see Psychogenesis.
Ophthalmolagnia: eroticism of the eye. [Grk ‘ophthalmos’ = eye + -lagnia]
Opisthism: a neoscatistic idiom of somateidism and stereoidism representing
interest in, and fear of, the back aspect of objects, in the concrete and ideal
sense. [Grk ‘opisthen’ = behind, at the back]
Oral concept of the world: conceiving the world in terms of the mouth.
Orderliness: see Taxiphilia.
Organ: in the phronesic sense, any part of the human body, e.g. the hand or the
thigh; in organophoria, also the child in relation to the mother: the child in the
womb is an internal organ (endopaedophoria) whereas the child after birth is
an external organ (exopaedophoria). [Grk ‘organon’ = organ]
Organaestheticolagnia: erotic sensory perception in relation to specific organs;
e.g. mastaestheticolagnia in relation to the breast, gynaedeaestheticolagnia in
relation to the female genitals, and andraedeaestheticolagnia in relation to the
male genitals. [Organ + Aestheticolagnia]
Organ-eroticism: see Organolagnia.
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Organic: see Physical and Somatic.
Organokinetics: the study of organ movement, which applies mainly (though by
no means exclusively) to the female breast (mastokinetics, i.e. breast mobility
and nipple motility) and the male penis (phallokinetics, i.e. phallic motility in
relation to the erect penis and, less importantly, phallic mobility in relation to
the flaccid penis). [Organ + Grk ‘kinësis’ = movement]
Organolagnia (organ-eroticism): the experience of erotic pleasure in relation to a
specific organ, or part of the body; the organ concerned may be either in the
subject’s own body (subject-eroticism or endorganolagnia or enderoticism)
or in the erotic object’s body (object-eroticism or exorganolagnia or
exeroticism); where organolagnia arises as a result of contact between two
organs, one in the subject’s body and the other in the object’s body, we refer to
this as allelorganolagnia. For the classification of organolagnia see Erotic
diffusion. [Organ + -lagnia]
Organometry: the measurement of organs in the study of organomorphology
(q.v.). [Organ + Grk ‘metron’ = measure]
Organomorphology: the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic
study of the form of the different organs of the body; e.g. mastomorphology,
gynaedeomorphology, and andraedeomorphology. [Organ + Grk ‘morphë’ =
form]
Organophoria: the concept of eroticism in terms of organ bearing, according to
which men and women are the external (exorganophoria) or internal
(endorganophoria) bearers of certain sexual organs, of which the most important
are the penis, the breast, and the child (as an (internal or external) appendage
or ‘organ’ of the mother). Thus the man is an exophallophore (he has an
‘external penis’) and the woman an exomastophore (she has ‘external breasts’)
and, on the basis of the equation of the child and the breast, she is also an
endomastophore; in coitus the woman is an endophallophore (she has an
‘internal penis’), while in pregnancy she is an endopaedophore, but an
exopaedophore after the child is born. We refer to the external penis, child,
and breast as exorgans, and to the internal penis, child, and breast as endorgans,
and to the endorgan-like representations in erotendophoria as endorganoids
(which comprise endophalloids, endopaedoids, and endomastoids). [Grk
‘organon’ = organ; ‘pherö’ = to bear]
Orgastia: the capacity to have orgasm; contrasted with anorgastia: the incapacity,
partial or complete, to have orgasm; both terms can be used for either sex, but
are more often applied to women since in men the ability to have erection of
the penis (orthosis) is generally more important. Both terms may be qualified,
e.g. ‘a woman with full coital orgastia (mixorgastia)’ or with ‘coital anorgastia
(mixanorgastia)’.
Orgastic foci, reversal of: see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Orgastopoeic: inducing orgasm; orgastopoeicity: noun. [Orgasm + -poeic]
Orientation, phronesic (or mental): see Phronesic orientation.
Orificial devouring: in the terms of the oral concept of the world, devouring with
a body orifice, i.e. with the mouth proper or with any body orifice serving as
a ‘mouth’; where orificial devouring involves a body orifice in both the devourer
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
and the devoured, we speak of biorificial devouring, where it involves a body
orifice in one partner and the general body of the other partner we speak of
orificio-somatic (or somato-orificial) devouring. See also Expulsive devouring,
Kinetic devouring, Pneumatic devouring, Somatic devouring. [L ‘os’ = mouth;
‘facere’ = to make]
Orificio-somatic devouring: see Orificial devouring.
Ornithophilia and ornithophobia: descriptive, not psychogenetic, terms for the
specific love and fear of birds (as distinct, for example, from the love of birds
as part of nature); ornithophilia in this sense is generally phallophilic in both
sexes, viz. homophallophilic in men and phallosemeiophilic in women, while
ornithophobia is generally phallophobic (viz. homophallophobic) in men but
phthorophobic in women. [Grk ‘ornis’ = bird]
Oro-mammary relation: the relation of the suckling child of either sex to the
mother, more specifically the mother’s breast, or the mother as she is equated
with her breast and with her milk.
Orthism: the idiom of verticality; it is an idiom both of geneosemeism and of
stereoidism; it is not an idiom of hydroidism except in so far as it is associated
with hypsism; in geneosemeiophilia, orthophilia is both a general
androsemeiophilic idiom and a phallosemeiophilic idiom; the idioms of orthism
and anatropism, and (in a different way) of orthism and hypsism, are closely
related. [Grk ‘orthos’ = upright, erect]
Orthophalloidism: see Rhabdophalloidism.
Orthosis (short for phallorthosis): possession by a man of the capacity for erection
of the penis under the influence of physical and mental erotopoeic stimulation.
Cf. Mixorthosis. [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis; ‘orthos’ = straight, upright, erect]
Oscheolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the scrotum, including the testes
(orchiolagnia). [Grk ‘oscheon’ = scrotum + -lagnia]
Osphreticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to
the sense of smell. [Grk ‘osphrësis’ = sense of smell]
Osphreticolagnia: see Aestheticolagnia.
Ovoid, rimal: see Rima.
Ownership: see Property.
Oxy-: an element denoting pointedness or angularity; opposed to ‘spherico-’.
Oxyism: the idiom of angularity or pointedness; it is an idiom both of
phallosemeism (which is geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and of
stereoidism (which is neoscatistic). Oxyism is the basis of cubism. [Grk
‘oxys’ = sharp, pointed]
Paedophoria: see Organophoria.
Palaeism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing love and dislike of old
objects. [Grk ‘palaios’ = old, ancient]
Palaeoscatism, whose four main idioms are skoroidism (the central idiom,
comprising coproidism and uroidism), phthorism, propetism, and shame, is
the lowest, or most archaic, division of scatism, representing the concept of
excreta as a worthless, and so by implication as a highly destructive, product,
hence the fact that palaeoscatism, even in its hedonic forms, is not adapted to
rational civilization, and is therefore antisocial and dysphronesic in its entirety.
[Grk ‘palaios’ = old, ancient + Scatism]
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
Palaeotropolagnia, palaeotroperoticism, or the palaeotropolagnic concept of
eroticism: the sadistic-excretory concept of eroticism, which is wholly
palaeoscatistic and therefore dysphronesic, according to which the penetrativeactive role in coitus is one of defiling and sadism, with pride in oneself and
contempt for one’s partner, while the receptive-passive role is one of shame
and ‘dishonour’, i.e. of androphobic shame or androphobia; hence, in
palaeotropolagnia, these two roles may be referred to as the penetrative-sadistic
role and the receptive-masochistic role, respectively. See Androphobia, ‘Cesspit
vagina’, ‘Seminal excrement’. [Grk ‘palaios’ = old, ancient; ‘tropos’ = turning,
way of life, custom. (After ‘archaiotropos’ = old-fashioned)]
Palinodia (or recurrence or reversion): in its complete form, a triphasic construction
in art—using ‘phase’ in the widest possible sense—in which the third phase is
more or less a repetition of the first. A typical example in music is that of the
repetition of a melody or ‘theme’ in the A-B-A sequence. Assonance and
alliteration are examples of incomplete recurrence. [Grk ‘palin’ = back, again;
‘hodos’ = way, path]
Palissymphronesia: a psychogenic atavistic disorder of awareness characterized
by the anachronistic reappearance, at a higher level of awareness, of the
magical, animistic, and other prephobophronesic beliefs (or ‘delusions’) of
savagery, usually in a distorted and useless or harmful form, and/or by mental
dedifferentiation in relation to hedonia (synhedonia) resulting in profound
changes, mostly in the form of impoverishment, in the patient’s emotional
life, ability to work, and eroticism. [Grk ‘palin’ = back, again + Symphronesia]
Pananeroticism: see Aneroticism.
Panhedonia: in so far as savagery in phylopsychogenesis and childhood in
ontopsychogenesis are symphronesic, and in so far as hedonia is symphronesic
(it represents the partial survival of symphronesia into the stage of
diaphronesia), we may speak of the prephobosymphronesia of both savagery
and childhood as a stage of panhedonia; panhedonia is not true hedonia: the
latter is diaphronesic and is therefore limited to the stages of phobophronesia
and postphobophronesia. [Grk ‘pas’ = all + Hedonia]
Panphagism: conceiving prephobosymphronesia in devouring or oral terms, viz.
in terms of the mouth that unites man with the whole world in all time, i.e.
without limit of space or time; panphagism is not true phagism: the latter is
diaphronesic and is therefore limited to phobophronesia and
postphobophronesia. [Grk ‘pas’ = all + Phagism]
Panxanthism: interest in, and dislike of, the colour range yellow, orange, red,
brown, and black; panxanthism is a neoscatistic idiom and is virtually
synonymous with stereochromatism. [Grk ‘pas’ = all; ‘xanthos’ = yellow]
Paraedeolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Paramammary sinuses: the folds formed by the pendulous breasts with the chest
wall in different positions of the body (in the standing position, the sinus is
below the breast attachment to the chest wall: the inframammary sinus); the
intermammary sinus is due, not to the action of gravity on the breasts, but to
their duality, i.e. the fact that there are two of them with a hollow or depression
between them. [Grk ‘para’ = beside; L ‘mamma’ = breast; ‘sinus’ = curve,
bend, fold, hollow]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Paramastolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Parastomatolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Parastomatomastorganolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Pareiolagnia: eroticism of the cheeks. [Grk ‘pareia’ = cheek]
Patience: see Cartericophilia.
Patrilineal descent: descent counted in the male line. Cf. Matrilineal descent. [L
‘pater’ = father + lineal]
Pelvorgasm (pelvorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Penetrability (receptivity): (1) a hysteroid and a hysterosemeiophilic and
hysterosemeiolagnic idiom representing the capacity of the womb to receive
or accommodate both the penis in coitus (coital penetrability or coital
receptivity) and the child in pregnancy (gestational penetrability or gestational
receptivity); (2) ‘penetrability’ or ‘receptivity’ is also used with reference to
the receptive-passive role in eroticism. Cf. Penetrativeness.
Penetrativeness: (1) a phalloid and a phallosemeiophilic and phallosemeiolagnic
idiom representing the capacity of the erect penis to penetrate the woman’s
vagina in coitus; (2) ‘penetrativeness’ is also used with reference to the
penetrative-active role in eroticism. Cf. Penetrability.
Perfectionism: see Teleophilia.
Periaedeorganolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Perissarithmophilia: see Numbers.
Peristomatomastorganolagnia: see Erotic diffusion.
Personal independence: a collective term for the desire to have one’s own way,
which may arise from one or more of four main, broadly related but different,
sources, viz. autotropia, which is a general scatistic idiom; stubbornness, which
combines autotropia with sadism or propeto-phthorism; self-willedness, which
is a general deutoscatistic idiom; and individualism, which is a
postphobophronesic idiom that contrasts with prephobosymphronesic
collectivism.
Phagism (phagophronesia): one of the three main forms of biophronesia,
representing the reflection in awareness of the biological function of
alimentation. Phagism has three main divisions, viz. philism, sitism, and
hectism. [Grk ‘phagein’ = to eat, devour]
Phagobasis (phagistic basis): the deeper, phagistic precursor of a specific idiom
of scatism or eroticism, or of scatism or eroticism as a whole. [Phagism +
basis]
Phallanorthosis: see Anorthosis.
Phallic axis: a more precise term than ‘penis’ for the concept of the external male
genital organs in eroterethia as consisting of a single organ forming a high
anatropic triangle, the tip of the erect penis forming the apex of the triangle
while the testes form its base.
Phallic woman: a concept cherished mainly by some homandrolagnics where
the patient seeks vicarious homandrolagnia with another man by having a
(consummated or unconsummated) relationship with that other man’s former
wife or girlfriend etc., on the basis that a woman who has had regular coitus
with another man will have acquired that man’s penis (in an ideal sense, which
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
will be partly made concrete if she is bearing, or has borne, his child), and will
be capable of transmitting that penis to the patient if he has coitus with her (if
he is capable of coitus with a woman).
Phallism: a collective term for non-erotic interest in, and fear of, the penis; phallism
thus comprises phallosemeism in both sexes (which is geneosemeistic and
therefore philistic) and homophallism in men (which is homaedeistic and
therefore neoscatistic). Cf. Hysterism, Aedeism, Mastism. [Grk ‘phallos’ =
penis]
Phallo- = penis, e.g. ‘phallolagnia’ (penis-eroticism) and ‘phallocolpolagnia’
(penis-vagina eroticism, i.e. coitus). [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis]
Phallocentricity: a homandrolagnic’s total preoccupation with the penis and other
phalloids, which form the centre alike of his non-erotic and his erotic life. Cf.
Androcentricity, Hysterocentricity, Gynocentricity, Homaedeocentricity,
Homogeneocentricity. [Grk ‘kentron’ = centre (of a circle)]
Phalloid: a penis or a penis-like object, whether concrete (e.g. an artificial penis
used in masturbation, or the pointed and/or trachelate type of dome in Islamic
architecture) or ideal (e.g. angularity or pointedness); also used as an adjective
= penis-like, in a concrete or ideal sense. [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis]
Phalloid, gynotropic: see Gynotropic phalloid.
Phallokinetics: a term comprising the phallic motility of the erect penis and the
less important phallic mobility of the flaccid penis; phallic motility is the
capacity of the erect penis for active or spontaneous movement, which has at
least five forms: anatropic, serpentine, penetrative, thrusting, and throbbing.
[Grk ‘phallos’ = penis; ‘kinësis’ = movement]
Phallolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the penis. [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis + -lagnia]
Phallomorphology: the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic
study of penis form; the penis may be: of average size, i.e. of average length
and average girth or thickness (emmetrophallia); small, i.e. both short and
slender (microphallia); large, i.e. above average in both length and girth
(megalophallia); long but relatively slender (dolichophallia); or stubby, i.e.
short but relatively thick (brachyphallia). [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis; ‘morphë’ =
form]
Phallophoria: see Organophoria.
Phallorgasm (phallorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Phallorthosis: see Orthosis.
Phallosemeiophilia: a geneosemeiophilic idiom representing interest in phalloids,
whether concrete or ideal. [Grk ‘phallos’ = penis; ‘sëmeion’ = sign]
Phatophilia (speech, more precisely volubility and linguistic ability): a philophilic
idiom representing the love of talking and of language, or the ‘gift of the gab’.
[Grk ‘phatis’ = speech, words, language]
-philia: a terminal element denoting love of, or interest in, the object denoted by
the first element; properly speaking, ‘-philia’ denotes only non-erotic love or
interest, in contrast to ‘-lagnia’ which denotes erotic love or interest; ‘-hedonia’
is a collective term that includes both the non-erotic and the erotic forms. Cf.
‘-lagnia’, ‘-hedonia’. [Grk ‘phileö’ = to love]
Philism: one of the three main divisions of phagism, based on the equation of
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
food (or aliment) with love, and derived from preservative devouring. Cf.
Sitism and Hectism. [Grk ‘phileö’ = to love]
Philophobia: see Aphilia.
-phobia: a terminal element denoting the cosmophobic fear of the object denoted
by the first element. [see Cosmophobia]
Phobophronesia: the cosmophobic stage of mental development in the race and
in the individual, viz. the stage at which cosmophobia proper (as distinct from
rudimentary cosmophobia or archecosmophobia) is fully manifested;
civilization above the primitive (i.e. savage) level has so far in history been
mainly phobophronesic, and it is mainly from cosmophobia that the three
cardinal institutions of religion, marriage, and government are derived, but
mature and, even more, overmature progressive civilizations have usually
shown an important postphobophronesic (or rational) tendency; in the
development of the individual, phobophronesia is largely represented by the
period of adolescence, in which it reaches its height before showing some
abatement in mature adulthood when the individual is likely to reach the highest
degree of relative (of course only relative, or partial) postphobophronesia he
or she is capable of. [Cosmophobia + Phronesia]
Phonophilia (vocal ability, vocalization): a collective term for the two philophilic
idioms of phatophilia and odophilia. [Grk ‘phönë’ = voice]
Photism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear or dislike
of light. [Grk ‘phös’ = light]
Phronesia (awareness, human awareness): man’s awareness of himself and his
environment in space and time, which we equate with human thought or the
human mind. [Grk ‘phronësis’ = thinking, understanding]
Phronesic (or mental) orientation: awareness (or phronesia) in terms of one of its
main divisions, e.g. prephobophronesia, phobophronesia, and
postphobophronesia, or any of their main divisions, e.g. phagism, scatism,
and eroticism, or any of the main divisions of these, e.g. philism, sitism, and
hectism in the case of phagism, and palaeoscatism, protoscatism, and
deutoscatism in the case of scatism. [see Phronesia]
Phronesiology: the study of human awareness (in general or in any of its aspects).
Phthorism: a palaeoscatistic idiom representing destructiveness, which may be
active, i.e. a desire to destroy (pragmophthorophilia or sadism), or passive,
i.e. a desire to be destroyed (apragmophthorophilia or masochism), or it may
be in the form of self-destructiveness (autophthorophilia); the corresponding
erotic forms (phthorolagnia) are pragmophthorolagnia or erotic sadism,
apragmophthorolagnia or erotic masochism, and autophthorolagnia; the
cosmophobic form is phthorophobia, the erotic form of which is
phthorolagnophobia or erotic phthorophobia. [Grk ‘phthora’ = destruction,
ruin]
Phthoristic-dyshectistic phobophronesia (or phthoristic dyshectism): a collective
term for sadistic-pleonectic and phthorophobic-meionectic phobophronesia.
Phylopsychogenesis: see Psychogenesis.
Physical: A. of, or pertaining to, inanimate matter, as distinct from animate beings,
e.g. physical science (e.g. physics and chemistry) as distinct from biology;
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
B. bodily, belonging to the body: in this sense ‘physical’ may be contrasted
with: 1. social, e.g. in the distinction between physical sexuality (e.g. coitus)
and social sexuality (e.g. the domination and exploitation of women by men
in general, including the institution of marriage as the private ownership of
women by men); 2. ideal, e.g. kinetic devouring is said to be physical or
concrete if it involves actual physical contact, but is ideal if there is no physical
contact; 3. mental, phronesic, or psychogenic, though the two (mental and
physical) are not necessarily mutually exclusive, e.g. abdominal pain due to
carcinoma of the stomach is a physical condition that is truly physical or
organic, whereas abdominal pain due to autophthorophilia (or
autophthorophilic hypochondria) is a physical (or somatic) symptom that is
psychogenic (or phronesic or mental) in origin. See also Somatic. [Grk ‘physis’
= nature (different senses)]
Physical paternity: the role of the father in conception, which was unknown to
the lowest savages.
Pleo-, pleon-: a prefix denoting pathological (i.e. dysphronesic) excessiveness,
which may be only quantitative or may be qualitative as well as quantitative;
this prefix is used in a few constructions as a substitute for ‘hyper-’, which is
the more generally used prefix. [Grk ‘pleiön’ = more (comparative of ‘polys’)]
Pleonexia: see Stratificatory hectism.
Pneumatic devouring: in the terms of the oral concept of the world, devouring by
breath, i.e. devouring in which breath is used; pneumatic devouring is the
basis of infantile crying (its prototype), singing (odophilia), speech
(phatophilia), and pnigosis. [Grk ‘pneuma’ = breath]
Pnigosis (pnigotic anancosymphronesia): a form of anancosymphronesia based
on infantile crying, in which actual hedonic loss (anhedonic anhedonia)
precipitates shortness of breath (dyspnoea) with a sense of suffocation; the
condition is typified by psychogenic asthma and psychogenic nocturnal
dyspnoea. [Grk ‘pnigö’ = to choke]
Podolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the foot. [Grk ‘pous’ = foot + -lagnia]
-poeic: a terminal element with the sense ‘giving rise to, causing, producing’; the
opposite of ‘-genic’ = arising from. [Grk ‘poieö’ = to make]
Political: of, or pertaining to, government, rule, or politics; see Government.
Politics: see Government.
Poly-: a prefix denoting abundance, either in amount or in number, that is within
normal (i.e. euphronesic) limits. Cf. A-, Hyper-, Hypo-, Oligo-. [Grk ‘polys’
= much, many]
Postphobophronesia: the stage of mental development in the race and in the
individual at which both cosmophobia and dyshedonia will have been
outgrown; its four main idioms are: individualism, as against collectivism;
materialism, as against animism; realism, as against subjectivity, arbitrariness,
and cosmophobia; and rational (or social or postphobophronesic) morality, as
against the prephobophronesic and phobophronesic forms of morality. In
culture, postphobophronesia entails outgrowing the institutions of religion,
marriage, and government, which are superseded by science, philosophy, and
art. [see Phobophronesia]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Potency: see Mixorthosis.
Practicality: see Pragmatophilia.
Pragmatophilia (practicality): a protophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing an
empirical approach to life, viz. an approach based on experience and ‘common
sense’ rather than on ideas and ideals, thus pragmatophilia is to a great extent
the antithesis of the metamorphic idioms of the deutophase such as teleophilia,
metamorphophilia, and monosynthesis. [from ‘pragmatic’ (Grk ‘pragma’ =
deed, act)]
Prephobophronesia: the precosmophobic stage of mental development in the race
and in the individual, viz. the stage of mental undifferentiation
(prephobosymphronesia), usually combined with only the rudiments of
cosmophobia (i.e. rudimentary cosmophobia or archecosmophobia); it
corresponds approximately to the stage of savagery in the evolution of the
race, and to the period of childhood in the development of the civilized
individual. The main manifestations of prephobophronesia are the belief in
magic, the belief in animism, the collectivistic phenomena, and totemism.
[see Phobophronesia]
Prephobosymphronesia: see Prephobophronesia and Symphronesia.
Pride (more fully sadistic pride): a palaeoscatistic idiom which is the hedonic
equivalent of shame (which is cosmophobic), and which is derived from sadism;
pride generally, though not invariably, has some foundation of actual
achievement in reality, this achievement may be antisocial and dysphronesic,
e.g. arising from sadistic pleonexia, or it may be euphronesic, e.g. arising
from deutoscatistic teleophilia; pride itself is dysphronesic since it is a
manifestation of sadism, whether it is provoked by euphronesic or by
dysphronesic achievement. Cf. Vanity.
Primitive civilization, primitive culture: see Civilization.
Primitive group solidarity (or primitive social solidarity): a manifestation of
collectivism among savages, which may survive in phobophronesic civilization,
characterized by the tendency for the individual to identify himself (or herself)
with the group to which he (or she) belongs so completely as to be hardly
aware of himself (or herself), or be recognized by others, as an individual with
an independent existence.
Proctolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the rectum (in either sex), which is a
coproidolagnic, and therefore skoroidistic, condition in which, in its complete
form, erotic pleasure is obtained by the mechanical stimulation of the rectum,
either in autolagnic masturbation or in homolagnic or heterolagnic relations;
proctolagnia is closely related to hypercopreticophilia, copreticolagnia, and
coprolagnia. [Grk ‘pröktos’ = anus]
Progressiveness (progressive phobophronesic civilization): see Civilization.
Promiscuity: having a variety of erotic partners in a more or less indiscriminate
manner; the term is strictly relative to the degree of erotodelia permitted by a
given society. [L ‘promiscuus’ = mixed]
Property or ownership: in its complete form, is the exercise of complete control
over an object in the environment to the exclusion of others, which is based in
the last analysis on consumptive devouring. In the case of human ownership
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
in progressive civilizations, property may be partial rather than complete.
Property may be private, i.e. belonging to an individual or a small group of
people, or social, i.e. belonging to society, the unit of society may be the clan,
tribe, nation, or, in true postphobophronesic civilization, mankind as a whole.
‘Property’ without qualification always refers to private property. Social
property in the postphobophronesic sense (i.e. property belonging to the whole
of mankind) is referred to as human heritage.
Propetautophthorophilia: see Autophthorophilia.
Propetism: a palaeoscatistic idiom representing lack of control, or impulsiveness;
it may be manifested in one or more of four forms, viz. in relation to excretion
(excretory propetism or propetoskoreticism), in relation to eroticism
(propetolagnia or propetorgastia), in the practical sphere (practical propetism
or practical impulsiveness), and in an ideal form (ideal propetophilia or
instability). [Grk ‘propetës’ = headlong, precipitate]
Propetocopreticism: see Propetoskoreticism.
Propetolagnia (propetorgastia): a condition occurring in either sex in which erotic
arousal (eroterethia) develops so quickly as to result in precipitate or premature
orgasm (propetorgasm). [Propetism + -lagnia]
Propeto-phthorism: a palaeoscatistic condition characterized by ideal
propetophilia, i.e. instability, as its central idiom, with a variable combination
of the other idioms of propetism and phthorism, viz. pragmophthorophilia,
including antiphobic sadism, apragmophthorophilia, autophthorophilia,
phthorophobia, and their erotic equivalents, in the case of phthorism; and
propetoskoreticism, propetolagnia, and practical propetism, in their hedonic
and cosmophobic forms, in the case of propetism. [Propetism + Phthorism]
Propetorgasm (propetorgastia): see Propetolagnia.
Propetoskoreticism or excretory propetism: the hedonic (or, rather, dyshedonic)
practice, and the cosmophobic fear, of precipitate or premature excretion, viz.
urination (propetureticism) and/or defaecation (propetocopreticism).
[Propetism + Skoreticism]
Propetureticism: see Propetoskoreticism.
Prostatorgasm (prostatorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Prosthekism: a concrete mastosemeistic idiom representing (on the hedonic side)
interest in decorative appendages of all kinds (e.g. in the human body, in dress,
and in architecture), which are ultimately conceived as mastoid appendages.
[Grk ‘prosthëkë’ = an addition, appendage]
Protoscatism: the whole of neoscatism excluding deutoscatism; or (what amounts
to the same thing) the whole of scatism excluding palaeoscatism at one end
(i.e. the four idioms: skoroidism, phthorism, propetism, and shame) and
deutoscatism at the other (i.e. the deutoscatistic cycle and its idioms). [Grk
‘prötos’ = first + Scatism]
Pseudocyesis: a woman’s false (i.e. delusional) belief that she is pregnant; the
symptom is most often due either to palissymphronesia, in which case it may
be part of magical and animistic (including religious) delusions, or to
anancosymphronesia, in which case it is usually due to the confusion of wish
or fear with reality. [Grk ‘pseudës’ = false; ‘kyësis’ = conception]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Pseudosymphronesia: a condition simulating the prephobosymphronesia of
savagery but arising from the hypersynnoophilia that commonly occurs in
hyperprotophasia, i.e. in sphalerohedonia and autophthorophilia. In
sphalerohedonia, pseudosymphronesia is common and is mainly manifested
by the resort to quasi-magical belief in omens and rituals to bring the enforced
hyperprotophasia to an end. In autophthorophilia, hyperprotophasia is not
enforced and pseudosymphronesia is rare, being manifested, when it occurs,
in the form of quasi-magical and quasi-animistic delusions and hallucinations.
[Grk ‘pseudës’ = false + Symphronesia]
Psychogenesis: mental (or phronesic) evolution or development, both in the race
(phylopsychogenesis) and in the individual (ontopsychogenesis). [Grk ‘psychë’
= breath, soul, mind; ‘genesis’ = origin, generation; ‘phylon’ = race, tribe;
‘eimi’ = to be]
Psychotherapy: treatment by talking, as distinct from ‘physical methods of
treatment’ including chemotherapy (i.e. treatment by drugs); where drugs are
given to aid talking (e.g. by making the patient more relaxed) and not for their
effect on the disorder itself, this may be described as chemopsychotherapy.
Psychotherapy may be realistic or mystic. Realistic psychotherapy aims at
finding actual solutions in real life to the patient’s problems by rationally and
scientifically identifying these problems and their causes, including their
precipitating causes, and eradicating, mitigating, or avoiding these causes.
Mystic psychotherapy aims at, and claims to be capable of, altering the patient’s
mind or the pathological processes themselves, so as to give the patient a
disease-free, or even a disease-immune, mind with the implicit or explicit
total disregard of the basic (albeit little understood) facts of heredity (or genetics
or ‘constitution’).
Pudendorgasm (pudendorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Pygal cleft: the cleft between the two halves of the lower end of the trunk; it
comprises the natal cleft (the depression between the buttocks) posteriorly
and the interfemoral sinus (the sinus in front bounded, when the thighs are
held close together, by the thigh on either side and by the pudendum (i.e. the
genital area) above) anteriorly; its main importance is in the woman, in whom
it houses the vulva (as well as the anus) in its floor. See also Mesopygolagnia.
[Grk ‘pygë’ = rump, buttocks]
Pygolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the buttocks. But cf. Pygal cleft. [Grk
‘pygë’ = rump, buttocks]
Pyrism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear of fire.
[Grk ‘pyr’ = fire]
Realism: a postphobophronesic idiom which represents the rational antithesis of
subjectivity and arbitrariness, which are prephobophronesic, and of
cosmophobia, which is phobophronesic.
Religion: one of the three cardinal institutions of phobophronesic civilization
(cf. Marriage and Government), is the belief in supernatural beings who are
thought to control man and nature wholly or in part, and, more specifically,
the worship of these supernatural beings, i.e. their conciliation and propitiation
with prayer, sacrifice, etc. Psychogenetically, religion is the main cultural
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manifestation of animistic hectism, and is derived from its two main factors:
aphormic animistic hectophobia and stratificatory animistic hectism. Aphormic
animistic hectophobia contributes the fear of supernatural beings (mostly
animated nature and dead ancestors) and their worship. Stratificatory animistic
hectism accounts for the division of phobophronesic society into two religious
classes: a minority upper or pleonectic class, represented by those who claim
to be gods, or to represent the gods or to be connected with them in a special
way, and a majority lower or meionectic class, represented by the mass of the
worshippers.
Reversal of orgastic foci: the frequent tendency of autolagnic (including
homolagnic) men to be predominantly pelvorgastic, i.e. to have their most
satisfying orgasm in the pelvis, viz. in the prostate (prostatorgasm or
prostatorgastia), and not in the penis (phallorgasm or phallorgastia) as in normal
men, and the similar frequent tendency of autolagnic (including homolagnic)
women to be predominantly pudendorgastic, i.e. to have their most satisfying
orgasm in the pudendum, viz. in the clitoris (clitoridorgasm or clitoridorgastia),
and not in the uterus (uterorgasm or uterorgastia) as in normal women; in
other words, normal men are predominantly pudendorgastic, viz. phallorgastic,
and normal women are predominantly pelvorgastic, viz. uterorgastic, whereas
autolagnic men are frequently predominantly pelvorgastic, viz. prostatorgastic,
and autolagnic women are frequently predominantly pudendorgastic, viz.
clitoridorgastic.
Rhabdophalloidism: the phallosemeistic idiom of rhabdophalloids, i.e. rod-like
phalloids, which broadly fall into two groups: those that are rigid and straight,
and often (though by no means always) also upright (i.e. vertical), pointed,
and/or balanoid, i.e. of a bulbous shape that is pointed and/or trachelate
(orthophalloids, the idiom being orthophalloidism), and those that are long,
narrow, and flexible, and with or without a balanoid end (streptophalloids, the
idiom being streptophalloidism); the former represent the erect penis, the latter
represent the flaccid penis, but the two partly overlap. [Grk ‘rhabdos’ = rod;
‘orthos’ = straight; ‘streptos’ = flexible, pliant; ‘phallos’ = penis]
Rhythm: in music, ‘rhythm’ covers the time factor in all its forms, and thus has
two opposite senses, viz. the unequal and the equal temporal spacing of musical
notes; in general, in relation to melody ‘rhythm’ means the unequal spacing of
notes (‘melodic rhythm’), whereas in relation to the beat and in relation to
dancing ‘rhythm’ means the equal spacing of notes. Rhythmic and rhythmicity,
whether used in relation to music or anything else (e.g. rhythmic muscular
contraction), virtually always mean regularly recurring or equally spaced (or
regularity of recurrence, and therefore equal spacing). [Grk ‘rhythmos’ =
measured motion, time, rhythm]
Rima: (more fully rima pudendi) or pudendal cleft: the sagittal fissure between
the labia majora of the female vulva; when this fissure is opened up by pulling
the labia majora apart, an ovoid or approximately triangular space is revealed
(the rimal ovoid or rimal triangle) whose antero-superior pole (or apex) is
occupied by the clitoris, while its wider postero-inferior pole (or base) is
occupied by the vaginal introitus. [L ‘rima’ = fissure, cleft]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Rudimentary cosmophobia: see Archecosmophobia.
Sadism: see Phthorism.
Sadistic-excretory concept of eroticism: see Palaeotropolagnia.
Savagery: see Civilization.
Scatism (scatophronesia): one of the three main forms of biophronesia,
representing the reflection in awareness of the biological functions of excretion.
Scatism has two main divisions, viz. palaeoscatism and neoscatism, neoscatism
being subdivided into protoscatism and deutoscatism, so that scatism may be
said to have three main divisions altogether, viz. palaeoscatism, protoscatism,
and deutoscatism. [Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure]
Sclerism: the idiom of hardness; it is an idiom both of phallosemeism (which is
geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and of stereoidism (which is
neoscatistic). [Grk ‘sklëros’ = hard]
Scopism: a neoscatistic idiom of aestheticism representing pleasure and fear in
relation to vision; scopophilia may be active (pragmoscopophilia), i.e. pleasure
in seeing, or passive (apragmoscopophilia or exhibitionism), i.e. pleasure in
being seen; scopophobia is fear of being seen or observed, or (less often) fear
of seeing or observing. [Grk ‘skopeö’ = to look at, behold; ‘pragma’ = deed,
act]
Scopolagnia: see Aestheticolagnia.
Scotism: a neoscatistic idiom of stereoidism representing love and fear of darkness.
[Grk ‘skotos’ = darkness]
Scybala: the more or less cylindrical masses of normally formed faeces, which
are smooth outside but are completely amorphic inside, these two characteristics
being the biological prototypes of the stereoidistic idioms of xestism and
mesostereism, respectively. [Grk ‘skybalon’ = dung, excrement]
Self-restraint: see Encratophilia.
Self-willedness (obstinacy): a general deutoscatistic idiom representing the
inflexible determination to pursue one’s own course, and arising ultimately
from the extreme autotropia of the triphasic deutoscatistic cycle in which the
individual, impervious to external influence, retains his (or her) faeces when
he wants to (first deutoscatistic phase), evacuates them when he wants to
(second deutoscatistic phase) which is normally followed by the third
deutoscatistic phase of sociable recreation (in contrast to the two autotropic
preceding phases).
‘Seminal excrement’: the palaeotropolagnic concept of semen as an excretory
product, like urine and faeces, that is deposited inside the woman by the man
in coitus.
Sexual: 1. of or pertaining to the sexes; either male or female; e.g. a ‘sexual
characteristic’ = a male or female characteristic; 2. of or pertaining to relations
between the sexes, either social, e.g. ‘human sexual ownership’ (viz. of women
by men in marriage), or physical or bodily, i.e. erotic, of which the most
complete form is that of ‘sexual intercourse’ or coitus. Physical sexuality is
best referred to as eroticism, which is the reflection in awareness of the genital
function. [L ‘sexus’ = a sex (male or female)]
Shame: a sense of impropriety or wrong-doing in relation to something private
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which is felt to be wrong to make public as this would be improper or, more
specifically, ‘immodest’, ‘indecent’, or ‘obscene’ (which are the main taboos
guarded by shame); it applies mainly in relation to acts of excretion and in
relation to eroticism conceived in excretory terms, and ultimately reflects the
irrational fear of producing, or disposing of, something worthless that was an
integral part of the body, with the characteristically strictly solitary or ‘private’
manner in which this occurs, for, unlike alimentation (which freely allows the
sharing of food, which is the prototype of all value), in excretion sharing is
neither necessary nor indeed possible.
Sinus, inframammary, intermammary, paramammary, etc.: see Paramammary
sinuses.
Sitism: one of the three main divisions of phagism, representing food (or aliment)
as food (cf. Philism and Hectism); the love and fear of food. [Grk ‘sitos’ =
corn, food]
Skoraestheticism: a palaeoscatistic idiom of skoroidism representing sensory
interest, non-erotic and erotic, in, and sensory fear of, excreta and excretion
involving others, viz. faeces and defaecation involving others (copraestheticism)
and urine and urination involving others (uraestheticism), which may be
olfactory (skor-, copr-, and urosphreticism, which we usually simply include
in its hedonic forms under hyperosphreticohedonia (hyperosphreticophilia and
hyperosphreticolagnia)), tactile (skoro-, copro-, and urohapticism), acoustic
(skor-, copr-, and uracousticism), visual (skoro-, copro-, and uroscopism), or
gustatory (skoro-, copro-, and urogeusticism, which are virtually the same as
skoro-, copro-, and uroborism). [Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure + Aestheticism]
Skoreticism: a neoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to
one’s own excretory acts, viz. in relation to urination (ureticism) and defaecation
(copreticism), including the retention of excreta (ischoskoreticism), viz. of
urine (ischureticism) and of faeces (ischocopreticism); skoreticism should be
distinguished from skoroidism, which is a palaeoscatistic idiom representing
pleasure and fear in relation to excretory products (viz. urine and faeces), in
relation to (concrete or ideal) excreta-like objects (e.g. foul odour and dirtiness),
and in relation to excretory acts where these acts involve other people (viz.
excretory acts in other people and the subject’s own excretory acts if they
involve other people). [Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure]
Skorism: the central idiom of skoroidism, comprising coprism (the central idiom
of coproidism) and urism (the central idiom of uroidism); see Skoroidism.
[Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure]
Skoroborism; an idiom of skoroidism representing love and fear in relation to
the eating of excreta, viz. of faeces (coproborism) and of urine (uroborism).
[Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure; ‘bora’ = food]
Skoroid: excreta or an excreta-like object, whether concrete or ideal; also used as
an adjective = excreta-like; skoroids comprise coproids and uroids. [see
Skoroidism]
Skoroidaestheticism: a palaeoscatistic idiom of skoroidism representing pleasure
and fear in relation to sensory perception in skoroidism, and comprising
coproidaestheticism, i.e. sensory perception in coproidism, and
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uroidaestheticism, i.e. sensory perception in uroidism. Skoroidaestheticism
may be olfactory (skoroidosphreticism: skoroidosphreticophilia and
skoroidosphreticolagnia (which we usually include under hyperosphreticophilia
and hyperosphreticolagnia, respectively) and skoroidosphreticophobia), tactile
(skoroidohapticism: skoroidohapticophilia, skoroidohapticolagnia, and
skoroidohapticophobia), auditory (skoroidacousticism: skoroidacousticophilia,
skoroidacousticolagnia, and skoroidacousticophobia), visual (skoroidoscopism:
skoroidopragmo- and skoroidapragmoscopophilia, skoroidopragmo- and
skoroidapragmoscopolagnia, and skoroidoscopophobia), or gustatory
(skoroidogeusticism: skoroidogeusticophilia, skoroidogeusticolagnia, and
skoroidogeusticophobia). Similar constructions are applied to the two main
divisions of skoroidism, viz. coproidism and uroidism, to the central idioms
of coproidism and uroidism, viz. coprism and urism, and (where applicable)
to other idioms of coproidism and uroidism. See Skoraestheticism. [see
Skoraestheticism]
Skoroidism: a palaeoscatistic idiom representing pleasure and fear in relation to
excreta and (concrete or ideal) excreta-like objects, e.g. foul odour and dirtiness,
and in relation to excretory acts where these acts involve other people, viz.
excretory acts in other people and the subject’s own excretory acts if they
involve other people; in relation to faeces and faeces-like (concrete or ideal)
objects and defaecation involving others, skoroidism is referred to as
coproidism, which includes coprism in relation to faeces themselves and
defaecation involving others; in relation to urine and (concrete or ideal) urinelike objects and urination involving others, skoroidism is referred to as
uroidism, which includes urism in relation to urine itself and urination involving
others. [Grk ‘skör’ = dung, ordure]
Social: of, or pertaining to, society or a significant part of it, such as a social
class, the unit of society concerned being the clan, tribe, nation, or (in rational,
postphobophronesic civilization) mankind as a whole. E.g. ‘social crime’ is
crime committed by a society as a whole, or by one of its classes, or, very
often, by an individual or one social class in the name of society as a whole:
opposed to ‘individual crime’, or crime in the ordinary sense, viz. crime
committed by an individual or by a small group of people.
Social morality: see Morality.
Socialism: social (or collective or communal) ownership, the unit of society
concerned being the clan, tribe, or nation or, in true postphobophronesic
civilization, mankind as a whole. The insistence on socialism being possible
only through violent revolution is referred to as communism.
Somateidism: a neoscatistic idiom representing concrete and ideal interest in,
and fear of, human body-image, conceived in terms of one’s own body. [Grk
‘söma’ = body; ‘eidos’ = form, shape]
Somatic: of symptoms, is strictly speaking synonymous with ‘physical’, i.e. bodily;
however, in practice we reserve ‘somatic’ for bodily symptoms which are
psychogenic in origin, while ‘physical’, which is the more general term for
‘bodily’ (= belonging or relating to, or arising from, the body as distinct from
the mind, psyche, or awareness), is applied more strictly (though not
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exclusively) to symptoms which are ‘organic’, or bodily, in origin. See also
Physical. [Grk ‘söma’ = the body]
Somatic devouring: in the terms of the oral concept of the world, devouring with
the general body, in contradistinction to orificial devouring; somatic devouring
may be disomatic devouring, viz. where no body orifice is involved in either
partner, or it may be orificio-somatic (or somato-orificial) devouring, viz. where
it involves a body orifice in one partner and the general body in the other
partner. [Grk ‘söma’ = the body]
Somato-orificial devouring: see Orificial devouring and Somatic devouring.
Sphalerohedonia (precarious hedonia): a hyperprotophasic deutoscatistic disorder
in which, on a phagobasis of aphilia, uncertainty about the protohedonia of
the tritophase (‘precarious hedonia’) results in an enforced indefinite
prolongation of the protophase with two main closely-interwoven features:
on the one hand, mental stagnation (hypersynnoophilia), manifested clinically
by the phenomenon of ‘obsession’ (i.e. interminable thoughts, doubts, etc.
which the patient desperately wants to bring to a conclusion) and by
pseudosymphronesia (mainly pseudomagic, especially preoccupation with
omens and rituals); and, on the other hand, a palaeoscatistic reaction
(enantioscatism), consisting of dyshedonic idioms provoked by the uncertainty
of the tritophase (such as sadism, including antiphobic sadism, coprophilia,
mysophilia, and propetophilia) conflicting with their cosmophobic equivalents,
especially with extreme moral phthorophobia (‘overconscientiousness’);
because the content of enantioscatism is palaeoscatistic, sphalerohedonia
represents, partly, pseudohyperprotophasia rather than true hyperprotophasia.
[Grk ‘sphaleros’ = ready to fall, precarious + Hedonia]
Sphericism: the idiom of roundness, sphericity, or curvature, in relation to both
surfaces and solids; it is an idiom both of mastosemeism (which is
geneosemeistic and therefore philistic) and, indirectly, of hydroidism (which
is neoscatistic). [Grk ‘sphaira’ = ball]
Spherico-: an element denoting roundness or sphericity or curvature; opposed to
‘oxy-’.
Spurious crime (or false crime): behaviour, or even belief, which is punishable
in phobophronesic or prephobophronesic society—although it has, from the
objective or scientific point of view, no antisocial implication—only because
it offends either against cosmophobic fear or against other irrational beliefs,
e.g. animism.
Stereism: a neoscatistic idiom representing love and fear of solid matter in its
various forms. [Grk ‘stereos’ = solid]
Stereochromatism: see Panxanthism.
Stereoid: solid matter or a solid-matter-equivalent, e.g. darkness and roughness
of surface.
Stereoidacousticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stereoidaestheticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stereoidism: a neoscatistic idiom representing love and fear of solid matter in its
various forms (stereism) and solid matter equivalents, e.g. hardness (sclerism),
smoothness that is associated with hardness (xestism), roughness of surface
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(trachyism), silence or stillness (apsophism), explosives and explosive and
other discontinuous sounds (brontism), darkness (scotism), and enclosed spaces
(entostereism); stereoidism is part of hyloidism and may be protoscatistic and
holistic, and therefore (in its hedonic forms) potentially artistic, or it may be
deutoscatistic and analytic, in which case it is entirely hedonic and is potentially
scientific. [Grk ‘stereos’ = solid]
Stereoidogeusticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stereoidohapticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stereoidopragmoscopism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stereoidosphreticism: see Hyloidaestheticism.
Stilbism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydrochromatism or of photism (in either case
it is a hydroidistic idiom) representing love and dislike of glistening due to the
reflection of light. [Grk ‘stilbö’ = to glisten]
Stomato- = mouth-, e.g. ‘stomatolagnia’ (mouth-eroticism) and
‘allelostomatolagnia’ (mouth-to-mouth eroticism, i.e. mouth-to-mouth kissing).
[Grk ‘stoma’ = mouth]
Stomatolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the mouth. [Stomato- + -lagnia]
Stomatomastorganolagnia: one of the two main foci of organ-eroticism (the other
being genital eroticism or aedeolagnia) represented by the mouth and the female
breast, i.e. by stomatolagnia and mastolagnia in their enderotic and exerotic
forms; it arises from the eroticization in adulthood of the oro-mammary
prototype of the lactivorous stage of life from which all eroticism is ultimately
derived in human awareness. Stomatomastorganolagnia should not be confused
with stomatomastolagnia (= mouth-breast eroticism), which is a form of
allelolagnia. See also Erotic diffusion. [Stomato- + Masto- + Organ + -lagnia]
Stratificatory hectism: hectism (q.v.) that results in social stratification.
Stratificatory hectism comprises pleonexia and meionexia in relation to the
upper and lower social classes, respectively, in the three main forms of hectism,
viz. animistic, sexual, and practical hectism; it excludes aphormic (animistic,
sexual, and practical) hectophobia as well as euexia.
Streptophalloidism: see Rhabdophalloidism.
Stubbornness: a palaeoscatistic idiom arising from a combination of autotropic
personal independence with sadism or propeto-phthorism, often resulting in
an element of negativism since all compliance, and even co-operation, is
interpreted as masochistic submission or masochistic surrender, and is
accordingly reacted against with characteristic sadistic defiance, which is all
the worse if the phthorism is combined with ideal propetophilia (propetophthorism). Stubbornness should not be confused with self-willedness or
obstinacy, which is a deutoscatistic idiom.
Subject-eroticism: see Organolagnia.
Suggestion or suggestibility: the readiness with which wish or fear suggested
from outside is confused with reality.
Survival symphronesia: see Loiposymphronesia.
Sustained thought: see Synnoophilia.
Symmetrism: a neoscatistic idiom of somateidism representing interest in, and
dislike of, symmetry, in the concrete and ideal sense, and ultimately arising
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from the bilateral symmetry of the human body. [Grk ‘symmetria’ = symmetry,
due proportion]
Symphronesia (mental undifferentiation): man’s relative mental undifferentiation
from his environment, both animate (including fellow human beings) and
inanimate, which is ultimately due to the relative lack of the concepts of space
and time (on which mental differentiation, or diaphronesia, depends); the
prototype of symphronesia is that of prephobosymphronesia (see
Prephobophronesia), but symphronesia is also important both in certain
essential forms, collectively called eusymphronesia (q.v.), and in certain
pathological forms, collectively called dyssymphronesia, e.g.
palissymphronesia and anancosymphronesia. [Grk ‘syn’ = together +
Phronesia]
Symphronesia, survival: see Loiposymphronesia.
Synechautophthorophilia: see Autophthorophilia.
Synhedonia: see Palissymphronesia.
Synnoophilia (sustained thought): a protophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing
autotropic pleasure in the process of thinking or speculating quite apart from
the content of thought. See also Hypersynnoophilia. [Grk ‘synnoos’ = in
deep thought, thoughtful]
Taboo: a general term for an irrational prohibition, whether in savagery
(prephobophronesic) or in phobophronesic civilization; taboos mostly (but
not invariably) arise from cosmophobia, either rudimentary cosmophobia
(archecosmophobia) or cosmophobia proper; taboos do not constitute an
institution in its own right but may belong to such institutions as those of
magic, animism, religion, marriage, and government.
Taking-in concept: see Esodochism.
Taxiphilia (orderliness): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing love of
order, both in the practical and in the ideal sense. [Grk ‘taxis’ = arrangement,
order].
Teleophilia (perfectionism): a deutophasic deutoscatistic idiom representing love
of perfection, both in the qualitative sense of wanting what is believed to be
the best, or highest, quality possible, and in the quantitative sense of wanting
completeness. [Grk ‘teleos’, ‘teleios’ = complete, perfect]
Tetraphobia: a tetrad of scatocosmophobic idioms commonly found together,
comprising shame, phthorophobia, propetophobia, and scopophobia. [Grk
‘tettares’ = four]
Thelolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the nipple of the breast. [Grk ‘thëlë’ =
nipple + -lagnia]
Thelomorphology: the physical-anthropological, aesthetic, and organolagnic study
of the form of the nipple of the breast; in terms of size, the nipple may be
average (emmetrothelia), small (microthelia), or large (megalothelia); in terms
of shape, the nipple may be hemispherical (hemisphericothelia), shortcylindrical or brachycylindrical (brachycylindricothelia), or long-cylindrical
or dolichocylindrical (dolichocylindricothelia). [Grk ‘thëlë’ = nipple; ‘morphë’
= form]
Thermism: a neoscatistic idiom of hydroidism representing love and fear or dislike
of heat or warmth. [Grk ‘thermos’ = hot, warm]
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
Tictophilia (motherhood or the ‘maternal instinct’ in the phronesic, as distinct
from the purely biological, sense): a special form of idiophilia representing a
woman’s love for her children; tictophilia may be pathologically exaggerated
(hypertictophilia), usually at the expense of normal eroticism, especially in
women with extreme female anancosymphronesia (a clinically similar
condition in some palissymphronesic women is synhedonic and not
hyperhedonic). [Grk ‘tiktö’ = to bring forth]
Totemism: a special form of collectivism characterized by the identification by a
group of people of themselves with a particular species of animal or plant or
(less often) with an inanimate object (e.g. water or thunder); totemism, like
collectivism in general, is prephobosymphronesic and therefore mainly a
characteristic of savages; its survival in phobophronesic civilization is seen in
the ‘neototems’ that unite people together, such as national emblems, including
flags, religious emblems (e.g. the cross for Christians and the crescent for
Moslems), and trademarks.
Trachyism: the idiom of roughness of surface (cf. Leiism and Xestism); trachyism
is an idiom of stereoidism (which is neoscatistic) and also of general
androsemeism (which is geneosemeistic and therefore philistic). [Grk ‘trachys’
= rough, rugged]
Transvestolagnia: a clinical, not a psychogenetic, entity representing dyserotic
pleasure from partially or completely dressing in the clothes of the opposite
sex; the condition is autolagnic in all its forms in both sexes, and is particularly
closely related to reversed heterolagnia and homolagnia. [L ‘trans’ = across;
‘vestis’ = clothing, attire]
Triangle, rimal: see Rima.
Tricholagnia: hair-eroticism, which is a form of prosthekolagnia. [Grk ‘thrix’ =
the hair of the head]
Turbulence (turbulent backward phobophronesic civilization): see Civilization.
Undifferentiation, mental: see Symphronesia.
Unification, love of: a collective term for monanalysis and monosynthesis.
Uninhibitedness: a philophilic idiom representing the tendency in individuals
and cultures to behave in a natural, unaffected, and unrestrained manner, giving
expression by word and deed to what they think and feel without any
premeditation or forethought. Cf. Propetism.
Uracousticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Uraestheticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Urethroid: a space in, or a pathway running through, liquid matter; the prototype
is the concept of the urethra as a pathway traversing the urine-filled abdomen.
Cf. Enteroid. [Grk ‘ourëthra’ = urethra]
Urethrolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the urethra, which is a uroidolagnic, and
therefore skoroidistic, condition in which, in its complete form, erotic pleasure
is obtained by the mechanical stimulation of the urethra, usually in autolagnic
masturbation but occasionally in homolagnic relations; urethrolagnia is closely
related to hyperureticophilia, ureticolagnia, and urolagnia. [Grk ‘ourëthra’ =
urethra]
Ureticism: see Skoreticism.
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Urism: see Skoroidism.
Uroborism: see Skoroborism.
Urogeusticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Urohapticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Uroid: urine or a urine-like object, whether concrete or ideal; also used as an
adjective = urine-like. Cf. Coproid. [Grk ‘ouron’ = urine]
Uroidaestheticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Uroidism: see Skoroidism.
Uroscopism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Urosphreticism: see Skoroidaestheticism.
Utero-: see Womb.
Uterolagnia: end- and exeroticism of the uterus. [L ‘uterus’ = uterus + -lagnia]
Uterorgasm (uterorgastia): see Reversal of orgastic foci.
Uterus: see Womb: the two are not used synonymously in the cosmophobia theory.
Vagina: see Womb.
Value: utility or usefulness in the satisfaction of hedonia, whether the hedonia is
phagistic (phagohedonia), scatistic (scatohedonia), or erotic (eroticism), and
whether the satisfaction is concrete (or physical or practical) or ideal. Food or
aliment is the prototype of all value.
Vanity: a philistic, viz. hyperphilic, idiom in which conceit, like all the
characteristically spurious hedonia of hyperphilia, is essentially empty and
unfounded. Cf. Pride.
Vestolagnia: clothes-eroticism. [L ‘vestis’ = clothing, attire]
Vicarious allophilia: allophilia, whether in philophilia or in eroticism (of which
philophilia is the phagobasis), which, because normal allophilia is prevented
or prohibited, has to be expressed in an autophilic form. Thumb-sucking in
children is an example of this.
Vicarious eroticism: an anancosymphronesic condition in women in which
androphobia neither suppresses eroticism completely (femaleanancosymphronesic aneroticism) so that, for all practical purposes, it is nonexistent, nor does it allow it to be fully recognized by the woman as
erotosteresis, the result being that eroticism, or (more precisely) erotic
discontent, seeks an unsatisfactory outlet in a materialized form as psychogenic
somatic symptoms for which the woman wants repeated physical examination;
thus vicarious eroticism is essentially a special form of the anancosymphronesic
materialization of female-erotic discontent.
Vocal ability, vocalization: see Phonophilia.
Vulvoid: a special form of hysteroid characterized by having a triangular or ovoid
outline representing the rimal triangle, i.e. the rima pudendi (or pudendal cleft)
when it is opened up, with the clitoris at the upper pole or apex, and the introitus
vaginae (the ‘mouth’ of the womb) at the lower pole or base. [L ‘vulva’ or
‘volva’ = womb, uterus; in modern anatomy: the external female genital organs]
Vulvolagnia: end- or exeroticism of the vulva. [see Vulvoid]
Woman, phallic: see Phallic woman.
Womb (combining form: hystero-): in the cosmophobia theory, the penetrable
female genital tract, which comprises the anatomical vagina and the anatomical
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66. A Glossary of the Cosmophobia Theory
uterus, and which is doubly penetrable, viz. penetrable both by the penis in
coitus and by the child (or fetus) in gestation. By contrast, we use uterus
(combining form utero-) for the anatomical uterus, and vagina (combining
form colpo-) for the anatomical vagina.
Worship (in religion): see Religion.
Xanthism: love and dislike of the colour yellow; the idiom is neoscatistic but is
partly a form of hydroidism, viz. a form of hydrochromatism, and partly a
form of stereoidism, viz. a form of stereochromatism which we virtually equate
with panxanthism. [Grk ‘xanthos’ = yellow]
Xestism: the idiom of smoothness that is associated with hardness (sclerism), as
distinct from smoothness (leiism) that is associated with softness (malakism);
xestism is an idiom both of phallosemeism (which is geneosemeistic and
therefore philistic) and of stereoidism (which is neoscatistic). Because of the
usual association of xestism and sclerism we often speak of xesto-sclerism.
[Grk ‘xestos’ = smoothed, polished]
Zoophobia: a form of phthorophobia representing fear of animals such as mice
and insects (cockroaches, spiders, etc.). [Grk ‘zöon’ = animal]
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The Conquest of Cosmophobia
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