nditions, epileptic
disturbances of consciousness may lead to sexual offences against
children.

None of these cases have anything to do with poedophilia erotica. And
there are yet other cases which it is desirable to distinguish from this
class, especially those cases in which a marked hyperaesthesia was the
determining cause of the sexual act. In such a case, it is to the person
thus affected almost a matter of indifference with whom the sexual act
is performed. Anything warm and alive will do, and inasmuch as a child
is often most readily available, a child often serves as victim, whilst
in other cases an animal is utilised.

Fritz Leppmann,[114] to whom we are indebted for a full and excellent
study of cases of this kind, distinguishes the influences which are
subjective to the offender from those which operate from without. Among
the latter he refers especially to the _Schlafbursch_ or
night-lodger;[115] it may be a young man in his prime, sleeping in the
same room or even in the same bed with little girls; also to
unemployment, which very readily gives occasion for sexual excesses; to
the practice of allowing little girls to run about without proper
supervision; to premature sexual development in children, which renders
these latter especially liable to be the subjects of sexual misconduct;
to child-prostitution, often at the instigation of the parents; to the
lack of proper sexual reserve; to obscenity, dances, and popular
festivals, whereby the sexual impulse may be stimulated; to unhappy
marriage; and, above all, to the effects of alcohol. Occupation and
position have also to be considered, for, in the case of many males, an
authoritative position (that of schoolmaster, priest, doctor, employer,
stepfather, tutor) gives extraordinary facilities for committing sexual
offences against children.

Although children of all ages, and even infants in arms, may be the
victims of sexual misconduct, in the majority of such cases we have to
do with children who are no longer quite young; and this is true, more
especially, of most cases of paedophilia erotica. This latter passion may
be directed against children of the same sex as the offender, but more
commonly it is directed towards children of the opposite sex. Not
infrequently, however, the impulse in such persons lacks sharp
differentiation, the paedophile showing inclination, now for immature
boys, now again for immature girls. Occasionally, paedophilia is the onl