life these incidents are
for the most part forgotten. But to X., who when grown-up became
affected with rose-fetichism as a sequel of a specific experience, it
seems that his sexual fetichism is causally dependent upon his childish
love of flowers--and probably he is right in so thinking. But we must
not for this reason assume that his childish preference had any sexual
character. It is more likely that the abnormally great fondness for
flowers, beginning in childhood, was a favouring factor of the
subsequent development of the rose-fetichism. What applies here to a
pathological instance, may also be assumed to be true of the normal
sexual life. _That is to say, the experiences of childhood, which have
not as yet any relationship with sexual life, are nevertheless of great
significance in relation to the subsequent upbuilding of the sexual
life, and above all in relation to the development of the psychosexual
sentiments._

For the sake of completeness I must allude here to two additional
processes which are also related to the sexual life of the child, viz.,
exhibitionism and skatophilia. As regards exhibitionism, Lasegue[61]
describes as exhibitionists those persons who display their genital
organs to others from a certain distance, without attempting any other
improper manipulations, and above all without making any endeavour to
effect sexual intercourse. 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. He records the following case:
"The headmistress of a boarding-school one day brought to see me a boy
fourteen years of age, very well behaved and intelligent, who
experienced from time to time an irresistible impulse, when he met one
of the little girls of the school, to expose his penis. As a rule he was
able to withstand this terrible impulse, but occasionally he yielded to
it. He then experienced a sense of confusion in his head and his vision,
and his whole body seemed to become tense, whilst at the same time he
experienced a voluptuous sensation in the penis and in the body
generally. This state lasted for one or two minutes, and was succeeded
by a moderate sense of weakness and a very distressing sense of shame.
The acts of exhibition were never accompanied with seminal emission,
although he sometimes had such emissions during the night." I have
myself hardly ever observed this form of exhibitionism in c