German psychiatrists said that there is one such pervert in three hundred people. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was one of the most widely commented on deviations. And while the whole world of sexology believed in her, that same perversion ... didn't even exist.
Sometimes the ideas of the century could be influenced by the views and perceptions of one scientist. This was undoubtedly the case with Sigmund Freud. The most fanciful perversions of the interwar period were born in the mind of this Austrian doctor. And since he became a real star of contemporary science, the whole world quickly believed in his theories. And he began vigilantly looking for evidence to confirm them.
Woman with a mirror. Pre-war photography
Freud was convinced that sons felt an unhealthy attraction to their mothers. And daughters to their fathers. The famous Oedipus complex, however, was not at all the basis of human sexual development. The father of psychoanalysis maintained that the "original degree of love" was ... narcissism.
Imaginary complex
As his acolytes explained, at the earliest stage of development, "the only object of libido is the child's own body." Only with time "narcissism is gradually suppressed and the child begins to search for a new sexual object" (mother, father, and only finally - a partner of the opposite sex). However, not every individual underwent natural emancipation. Some have stopped at the pathological autoerotic stage.
Zygmunt Freud in portrait photography
Albert Dryjski, author of the work Problems of child sexuality and school youth , wrote about narcissists that these are people "sinking into themselves, taking themselves as a sexual object" . Narcissism was not - as it is today - treated as a disorder of self-esteem. If someone was talked about this way, it was primarily to draw attention to their sexual degeneration.
German psychiatrist and criminologist Paul Näcke was of the opinion that one perverted narcissist accounts for about three hundred people. Not much, but it should be remembered that it was a deviation to a large extent artificially created. Doctors found what they desperately wanted to find. Anyway, the clinical cases were one thing and another - the observations of supposedly natural, vanishing narcissism.
"Primary degree of love"
Albert Dryjski stated with full conviction that "even under ordinary conditions many boys and girls experience sexual shock for the first time after seeing their bodies in the mirror ”.
"In the lower forms of narcissism, self-delight usually ends with masturbation," he explained. In another work it can be read that "such an individual becomes sexually aroused, looking at himself in the mirror, he is constantly in love with himself body and soul". At least it was added that it was a deviation "completely harmless". For there was an effective remedy for them. As explained by Paweł Klinger, a Łódź venereologist and author of the textbook Vita sexualis. The truth about human sex life :
Mirrors play a huge role in the sexual life of these perverts, thanks to which they can even intercourse in a completely normal way, provided they can observe the sexual act and themselves during intercourse .
This information must have reassured the readers. Though they would probably be even calmer if they were honestly told that no plague of erotic narcissists exists.