The incidents of the parable that indicate exhibitionism are those where the wanderer sees, through locked doors (Sec.
And in addition to this the infantile sexual components of exhibitionismfind satisfaction, for whose gratification the covering of the procreation mystery is made of glass.
The supposition that exhibitionism is the forbidden erotic impulse element that we were looking for is, however, groundless, if we recollect that these very elements appear most openly in the parable.
Some children manifest exhibitionism with a certain independence of environment.
Femininity in a woman, the womanly woman, or the eternal feminine, may indeed be defined by the degree of somatic and psychic exhibitionism she presents.
At puberty, when the sex glands bloom, and the complex of the sex instincts is activated, exhibitionism manifests itself in a host of guises and disguises.
Exhibitionism is not rare among insane women and I have myself treated two typical cases.
I am here obliged to contradict Krafft-Ebing, who regards exhibitionism as the effect of the impotence of certain individuals depraved by excesses, or as the unconscious act of certain epileptics.
No subject of exhibitionism should be sent to prison without expert medical examination.
The conception of exhibitionism as a process of erotic symbolism, involves a conscious or unconscious attitude of attention in the exhibitionist's mind to the psychic reaction of the woman toward whom his display is directed.
The two kinds ofexhibitionism may be combined in the same person: Thus, in a case reported by Hoche (p.
It seems probable that a form of erotic symbolism somewhat similar to exhibitionism is to be found in the rare cases in which sexual gratification is derived from throwing ink, acid or other defiling liquids on women's dresses.
We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship.
It is undoubtedly true that many cases of real or apparent exhibitionism occur in epileptics.
It is necessary to insist upon this fact, as distinguishing exhibitionism in children from exhibitionism in adults.
I have myself hardly ever observed this form ofexhibitionism in children.
Exhibitionism in the male is exhibited not only towards adult females, but also towards children, commonly towards girls, but in exceptional instances towards boys.
Kovalevsky[62] contends that the tendency to exhibitionism is observed in the male sex especially during childhood at the approach of puberty, and in old age.
