rst chapter, to which von Krafft-Ebing has
given the name of _sexual paradoxy_. Activity of the sexual impulse is
sometimes observed at an age at which this impulse is normally
quiescent. The term applies alike to cases in which the sexual impulse
becomes active in early childhood, and to cases in which the impulse
persists to an advanced age. Whilst the cases in which the phenomena of
contrectation alone occurred have commonly been overlooked, considerable
attention has been paid to those cases in which the sexual impulse
manifests itself by peripheral changes, more especially by premature
impulse towards masturbation or towards actual sexual congress with one
of the other sex. It was shown, however, in the last chapter, that
active manifestations of the sexual impulse during childhood are not
always paradoxical. If we examine cases which have been published as
coming under this latter category (I limit myself here to cases
occurring in childhood, and am not speaking of sexual paradoxy in old
age), we find that they are characterised more particularly by the
strength with which the peripheral sexual impulse manifests itself.
There is, in fact, a marked distinction between cases, according as we
have to do with an occasional general sensation in the genital organs,
or with masturbation to excess and with sexual assaults upon others. But
we must not describe as sexual paradoxy all manifestations of the sexual
life occurring in early childhood. A reference to the last chapter will
show that the cases of sexual paradoxy, when accurately studied, differ
from the normal rather quantitatively than qualitatively. During the
first period of childhood, and more especially during the first few
years of life, a case in which sexual activity in a child threatens the
well-being of members of that child's social environment is so sharply
differentiated from the normal that there can hardly arise even
momentary hesitation regarding the paradoxical nature of the
manifestation. On the other hand, we shall do well to follow von
Krafft-Ebing in excluding from the category of sexual paradoxy those
cases in which sexual excitement is caused solely by peripheral
inflammatory stimuli, balanitis (inflammation of the glans penis),
threadworms, and the like. These are not instances of sexual paradoxy,
because the essential characteristic of the latter is that it originates
centrally, even though its manifestations take a peripheral form.

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