Exhibitionism and Exhibitionists1

In this paper I really intended to give some account of the typical element common to all cases of male genital exhibitionism; perhaps, however, it is premature to attempt such a study. But, it may be asked, is not the typical element the exhibitionism itself? This question cannot be answered in the negative, but perhaps the affirmative answer is not so self-evident as it appears to certain authors. For it is not correct to say that that which we commonly call exhibitionism is immediately obvious in childhood and that, consequently, the adult exhibitionist is a man who has failed to relegate to its true place, and to modify, an exhibitionistic component of his whole sexuality and has suffered it, in defiance of law and order, to assert its separate existence. It is true that we might gather some such simple impression as this from Sadger's2 case-histories. Even these, however, shew that constitutional factors are by no means the only fundamental ones in the question—if that were so, how could we imagine that exhibitionism could be treated by psychotherapeutic methods at all?—but that the environmental factors may be of great importance. In the last few years I have had the opportunity of observing two groups of exhibitionists with three individuals in each. Of these only one in each group failed to come into conflict with our penal laws! I must, however, admit that even here I am at present incapable of distinguishing between heredity and pseudo-heredity.

There is a second reservation which must be made in answering our question about the typical element in exhibitionism. It may seem almost superfluous to mention this point to those versed in psycho-analysis. But when we reflect how often the concept of 'transference' is used in a one-sidedly positive sense, we feel bound to remark that genital exhibitionism is by no means exhibitionism par excellence: it is merely one form of the activity. Lasèue, in 1877, was the first to describe and name the phenomeno