ere
bitten and bruised from sucking, and sometimes her pinafore was
covered with blood. "Defendant admitted he had bitten the child
because he loved it."

It is not surprising that such phenomena as these should
sometimes be the stimulant and accompaniment to the sexual act.
Ferriani thus reports such a case in the words of the young man's
mistress: "Certainly he is a strange, maddish youth, though he is
fond of me and spends money on me when he has any. He likes much
sexual intercourse, but, to tell the truth, he has worn out my
patience, for before our embraces there are always struggles
which become assaults. He tells me he has no pleasure except when
he sees me crying on account of his bites and vigorous pinching.
Lately, just before going with me, when I was groaning with
pleasure, he threw himself on me and at the moment of emission
furiously bit my right cheek till the blood came. Then he kissed
me and begged my pardon, but would do it again if the wish took
him." (L. Ferriani, _Archivio di Psicopatie Sessuale_, vol. i,
fasc. 7 and 8, 1896, p. 107.)

In morbid cases biting may even become a substitute for coitus.
Thus, Moll (_Die Kontraere Sexualempfindung_, second edition, p.
323) records the case of a hysterical woman who was sexually
anesthetic, though she greatly loved her husband. It was her
chief delight to bite him till the blood flowed, and she was
content if, instead of coitus, he bit her and she him, though she
was grieved if she inflicted much pain. In other still more
morbid cases the fear of inflicting pain is more or less
abolished.

An idealized view of the impulse of love to bite and devour is
presented in the following passage from a letter by a lady who
associates this impulse with the idea of the Last Supper: "Your
remarks about the Lord's Supper in 'Whitman' make it natural to
me to tell you my thoughts about that 'central sacrament of
Christianity.' I cannot tell many people because they
misunderstand, and a clergyman, a very great friend of mine, when
I once told what I thought and felt, said I was carnal. He did
not understand the divinity and intensity of human love as I
understand it. Well, when one loves anyone very much,--a child, a
woman, or a man,--one loves everything belonging to him: the
things he wears, still more his hand