and of erotic temperament. His
general health has always been good, but he is a high-strung,
neurotic man, with quick mental reactions. His habits had for a
long time been decidedly alcoholic, but two years ago, a small
quantity of albumen being found in the urine, he was persuaded to
leave off alcohol, and has since been a teetotaller. Though
ordinarily very reticent about sexual matters, he began four or
five years ago to commit acts of exhibitionism, exposing himself
to servants in the house and occasionally to women in the
country. This continued after the alcohol had been abandoned and
lasted for several years, though the attention of the police was
never attracted to the matter, and so far as possible he was
quietly supervised by his friends. Nine months after, the acts of
exhibitionism ceased, apparently in a spontaneous manner, and
there has so far been no relapse.

Exhibitionism is an act which, on the face of it, seems nonsensical and
meaningless, and as such, as an inexplicable act of madness, it has
frequently been treated both by writers on insanity and on sexual
perversion. "These acts are so lacking in common sense and intelligent
reflection that no other reason than insanity can be offered for the
patient," Ball concluded.[55] Moll, also, who defines exhibitionism
somewhat too narrowly as a condition in which "the charm of the exhibition
lies for the subject in the display itself," not sufficiently taking into
consideration the imagined effect on the spectator, concludes that "the
psychological basis of exhibitionism is at present by no means cleared
up."[56]

We may probably best approach exhibitionism by regarding it as
fundamentally a symbolic act based on a perversion of courtship. The
exhibitionist displays the organ of sex to a feminine witness, and in the
shock of modest sexual shame by which she reacts to that spectacle, he
finds a gratifying similitude of the normal emotions of coitus.[57] He
feels that he has effected a psychic defloration.

Exhibitionism is thus analogous, and, indeed, related, to the
impulse felt by many persons to perform indecorous acts or tell
indecent stories before young and innocent persons of the
opposite sex. This is a kind of psychic exhibitionism, the
gratification it causes lying exactly, as in physical
exhibitionism, in the emotional confusion which it is felt to
arouse. The t