Psychopathia Sexualis
So, as many of you may know--I am going to college to become a sex therapist. So, obviously, I am very interested in sex and sexual disorders. Imagine my surprise when in Blockbuster a few months ago, of all place, a come across a movie called Psychopathia Sexualis (Sci-co-pay-the-a Sex-u-ahl-lis). I would later find out this was a movie version of a book written by Richard von Kraft-Ebbing in 1886, which pre-dates Freud.
Psychopathia Sexualis was the first book ever to be written about sexuality and sexual deviance. It was very much a book of it's time, ya know, insofar as the thinking that female sexuality and pleasure were psychological disorders, and stuff like that....homosexuality is a mental disorder, shit like that.
Anyway, so I take the movie home, and start watching it. The Prologue covers lust-murders...most specifically those of Vacher The Ripper. I had never heard about him before that, and now that have, I have been desparately trying to find out more about him. But, no such luck.
The movie, and all of the cases in it, which can be found in the book and are real issues von Kraft-Ebbing analyzed within people, left my truly fascinated. The book covers lust-murder, vampirism, homosexuality, sadomasochism, pseudo-necrophilia, necrophilia, masturbation, pedophilia, rape, lesbianism, hypnotism, and climaterica melancholia/hysteria (LOL, now known as "menopause") I mean, all kinds of sexually deviant things.
My favorite part of the movie is when this Baron and Baroness are watching a shadow play about Sgt. Francois Bertrand. I real man who live in the 1840's....who had a compulsion for dead bodies. He start masturbating at an early age, and when he was a child is fantasies of women including him "ravaging" them, and them murdering them. Since he couldn't find bodies--as a adolescent he start killing animals.....pulling out the entrails, and then masturbating as he did this. Once the compulsion got said bad that he could not control it and went to graveyard. Unfortunately, he came upon the body of a newly dug grave. He had no shovel, nothing....he just started digging. There were people right in the cemetary that could have caught it, but he couldn't help himself. He dug her up.....and mutilated her body as he jacked off. Soon after he came upon the dead body of 16 year old in the woods. He caressed, it and made love to it. Eventually, this man got caught....but only served 10 months since he hadn't ever actually hurt anyone (LOL!), and no one knows what happened to him after that.
Anyway, so this Baron and Baroness are watching a a shadowplay (It is the Victorian Era, after all) about this dude, and all of a sudden they just start fucking doggie style. I was like "HOLY SHIT!!! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!" the first time I saw it.
And yet, I find it so interesting. Not in a "Oh, I wanna fuck dead people" way. It is more of a "Holy crap, these people and how they progressed into that is so fascinating" kind of way. So, I've been trying to find things about lust-murders, and necrophilia. LOL, anyone know any good books about this.
The movie is so intriquing though. It also talks about the conditions of the mental institutions at the time. Which my Mama cried about while watching the movie with me, because since my brother is autistic, that's where he would have been if we had lived in that time. And, it was just horrible. One of von Kraft-Ebbing's collaboraters, who ran a mental institution talked about how some patients, most notably women, will often have hallucinations(sp?) of people sexually hurting them and go into hysterics. Come the fuck on, if that guy wasn't raping the women then you can cut off my right tit....since it gets in the damn way anyway. :P
It was just so interesting, and it's made me increasingly more interesting in sexual "deviance," and I can't wait to get the actual book and dig into depravity!
Have a piqued your interest? You can buy the movie, or at least check out the website here.
By the way, this is one of the most "What the Fuck" videos I have ever seen. I know this great, but please--read the post and comment, don't just comment on the video. If you do, I shall E-KEEL YOU!
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