, for instance. The oft-quoted case of Rousseau has previously
been mentioned in this work. It is thus evident that the subject of the
punishment of children needs to be considered, not merely from the
general educational point of view, but also from the special outlook of
sexual education. The principal question is whether as a result of
corporal punishment, either personally experienced or witnessed, an
enduring sexual perversion may be induced in a child; and this problem
must be carefully distinguished from another problem, which, however, is
also of very great importance, namely, that of the sexual excitement
which may be experienced by the person who inflicts the punishment. The
significance of the materials available to guide us to a conclusion
upon these questions, is not, however, perfectly clear in all cases. I
may refer to what was said upon p. 130 _et seq._; and will here merely
add that the question whether the infliction of corporal punishment
really originates a perversion in the sufferer, or whether it merely
awakens to activity a pre-existent tendency, and one which, in the
absence of this particular exciting cause, would almost certainly have
been awakened by some other and unavoidable cause, some influence acting
from without--this is a question to which conflicting answers have been
given.

But corporal punishment entails other dangers, in addition to the risk
of the origination or the awakening of a sexual perversion. Certain
children, having experienced sexual stimulation as a result of such
punishment, will endeavour to secure its repetition. I have known cases
in which sexual perverts have deliberately misconducted themselves in
school, in order to be punished, and thus to enjoy voluptuous
sensations. Finally, there is a third danger to be taken into account,
and this is a danger of whose reality I have been convinced by the
direct confessions of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, that they have
struck their pupils for the purpose of thereby enjoying sexual
stimulation. Even if no such admissions had ever been made to me, I
should have regarded it as by no means improbable that such incidents
should from time to time occur. Let no reader draw the inference that
whenever a master chastises a naughty boy, he acts always under the
influence of a sadistic inclination; I do not even consider that
sadistic inclinations are a frequent cause of the infliction of corporal
chastisement. The danger of such