Waldemar: Demoniac Element in Sexual Urge
When the sexual urge can no longer be controlled and assumes exaggerated and incalculable dimensions, it enters the dark depths of the soul where the mind can exercise no influence, and where demons hold sway.
Such frantic sexual urges conquer only to succumb. They rule only to turn the individual into a slave; they breathe voluptuousness and cupidity only to bring death and destruction upon themselves and those affected by them. People so possessed by demons experience life as an enjoyment of death. They take their abysmal pleasures in destroying those they love no less than themselves.
Love is closely connected with hate - the one may be considered the reverse of the other. Thus, emotions let loose by uninhibited sexual urges are all to often charged with such negative dynamism that actual crimes may be committed.
Driven by this hatred, all the intellectual, tender and emotional faculties are discarded and sheer vindictiveness results in the most incredible action. The secret of Mayerling [explained in the next paragraph] may be based on circumstances of this kind.
Many books published in Austria (some banned by censorship) maintain that Baroness Vetsera was seduced by the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf when he had no intention of marrying her. In order to avenge her violated honour, she emasculated him [this event is called the Mayerling incident]. Strangely enough, this account has never been officially denied - a fact which might tend to increase its credibility.
If there is any truth in this strange story, it would constitute an extremely rare exception. The two sexes even in cases of excessive hatred and jealousy, usually spare one another's genitals. In any case, literature can cite no similar incident to that of Baroness Vetsera. Only in exceptional cases of rape and murder combined might the male occasionally mutilate the woman's vulva.
Sexual desire in the female to a morbid extent is known as nymphomania. Nymphomaniacs are women whose uncontrollable sensuality knows no bounds and who use the other sex merely as a means of gratifying the frenzy and fury of their boundless sexual desires. In ancient Rome women possessed by maniacal sexual desire could visit brothels where a considerable number of young men were available for their benefit. To prevent misuse, the penes of these youngsters were "secured" by golden clasps (a contrivance similar to the chastity belts of the Middle Ages) which prevented sexual knowledge until the clasp was removed.
Men with excessive sexual needs, who indulge in one erotic adventure after another and even commit sexual crimes, are said to suffer from "satyriasis". This, incidentally, is a more frequent affliction than nymphomania. Such a state may be permanent and may occur periodically. It is almost invariably caused by lascivious imagination, which engenders an abnormally increased desire and a corresponding reaction on the part of the sexual organ. It may reach such a degree of sexual hyperaesthesia that the man literally goes "sexually mad". In such a state of bestial sexuality he may indulge in pederasty, intercourse with animals, or rape.
But the normal sexual act often enough also approaches a state of delirium. It should always therefore be subject to a certain conscious control.
A man overwhelmed by the cacodaimon (evil demon) of his sexual instinct is as though hypnotised, the only difference being that his sexual energies turn to murderous urges which are increased by permanent rapport. In these cases, his interests may gradually become concentrated on his own body and mind to such a degree that a dangerous isolation results. This may eventually develop into sexual narcissism, which is that self-sufficing state of mind, often found in the insane and known as "autism". In such a mental condition, all persons "outside" seem nothing but shadowy phantoms. Narcissism completely devalues the external world and regards it in the same light as a woman obsessed by love for her own beauty regards her mirror: all events are experienced as mere reflections of the personal desire. This explains why the narcissist proper permanently lives in front of the mirror and in the mirror. The consciousness of such a "mirror man" or "mirror woman" is split: the subject is at the same time the observing ego and, in the depths of the unconscious, the object of ambivalent emotions. The greater the predominance of the sexual instincts, the deeper the split in the personality, until at last every internal connection with the true and better ego, with fellow human beings and with environment is lost. For this reason every attempt to experience sexual pleasure without consideration for the partner is in itself a form of diabolic act, going some way towards transforming the sexual personality into a dark and demoniac separate being and acting contrary to the conscious ego and the conscious will.
In women, sadism corresponds to the degree of their vanity. Basically women are better able to control their sexual instincts than men and are therefore less likely to be dominated and enslaved by them. It is interesting to note that "letter sadism" (as in poison-pen writing) is only infrequently found in men.
The self-control of women, which often appears limitless, almost invariably arises from the desire to humiliate others and to provoke and increase a hidden sensuality which finds complete gratification in that intoxicating sense of power.