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Bergman describes a boy whose sexual life was almost completely experienced in a fetishistic fascination for exhaust pipes of cars. These pipes had to be of perfect shape and had to emit softly blowing gases. During a long period in his childhood he enjoyed cruelly torturing animals. At puberty in attempting to combat masturbation he became an arsonist. It was during this period that his fetishism began.
The author agrees that his material confirms Freud's hypothesis that the fetish represents the mother's penis and is a defense against castration anxiety. He then discusses the genesis of this patient's strong pregenital sadistic strivings and has difficulty in correlating these findings with what he terms 'Freud's phallic theory'. Apparently Bergman was unable to find the connection between castration anxiety, the precipitating factor, and pregenitality, the consequence. It is characteristic for all the perversions that their symptoms are simultaneously a denial of castration anxiety and a gratification of some infantile partial instinct. These severe regressive features on all levels make the perverse patient extremely difficult to handle.