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Arousal From Sado-Masochistic Stories
Some persons are aroused sexually when they think of situations that involve cruelty, whipping, flagellation, torture, or other means deliberately adopted for the infliction of pain. More individuals are emotionally disturbed when they contemplate such sado-masochistic situations, and they may not recognize such a disturbance as sexual; but at this stage in our knowledge, it is difficult to say how much of the emotional disturbance, or even the more specifically sado-masochistic reactions, may involve sexual elements.

A distinctly higher percentage of the males in the sample had responded to sado-masochistic situations in a way which they recognized as sexual.
That sado-masochism is less frequent among women is also noted by: [Jacolliot] Jacobus X 1900:347-348. Talmey 1910:136. Forel 1922:236. Krafft-Ebing 1922:129. Kronfeld in Marcuse 1923:314. Bilder-Lexikon 1930(2):538. Negri 1949:206. That sadism is more typical of males and masochism of females is asserted by: Wexberg 1931:182-183. Rosanoff 1938:156. Brown 1940:383. T. Reik 1941:216. Scheinfeld 1944:243. Thorpe and Katz 1948:326-327. Hamilton 1929:458, 461 (an equal number, 28-29 per cent, of males and females reported pleasure from pain being inflicted on them, but one-third of the females as against one-half of the males reported pleasant thrills at some time from inflicting pain on a person or animal).

The specific data are as follows:

Arousal from sado-masochistic stories
Erotic Response	by Females	by Males
	%	%
Definite and/or frequent	3	10
Some response	9	12
Never	88	78
Number of cases	2880	1016

That fewer of the females and more of the males had responded, appears again to have depended on the fact that reactions to sadomasochistic stories rely on fantasy. As many females as males seem to react erotically when they are bitten or when they engage in more specifically sado-masochistic contacts, and this further emphasizes the differences in the psychologic reactions of the two sexes.

It is quite probable that many more males and some more females would respond to such sado-masochistic stimuli if they were to find themselves in sexual situations which were associated with sadism. The development of sado-masochistic responses in a number of our histories had begun in that way.

Responses to Being Bitten
It is difficult to know how much of the response of an individual who is being hurt is the product of the physical stimulation, and how much is the product of the stimulation provided by psychologic conditioning, the association of sexual and sado-masochistic phenomena, and the psychologic satisfactions which are to be found in submitting to a sexual partner. It is also very difficult to determine how many of the physical and emotional responses which are manifest in a sado-masochistic situation are sexual and how many are more properly identified as some other sort of emotional response.

During heterosexual petting and coitus, and in homosexual relations, the most frequent manifestation of sado-masochistic responses is to be found in the nibbling and biting which many persons inflict on various parts of the body of a sexual partner. Such behavior is widespread among all of the mammals, and much more widespread in human sexual patterns than most persons comprehend. Definitely sexual responses consequent on such biting were recognized by about equal numbers of the males and females in our sample.
We have records of biting (usually by the male) as a part of sexual activity in a number of mammalian species, including the baboon, various monkeys, mink, marten, sable, ferret, skunk, horse, zebra, pig, sheep, rat, dog, guinea pig, chimpanzee, lion, cat, tiger, leopard, rabbit, raccoon, sea lion, shrew, opossum, and bat. Such biting is particularly violent, and even savage, among the Mustelidae (ferret, mink, sable, skunk).

The specific data are as follows:

Responses to being bitten
Erotic Response	by Females	by Males
	%	%
Definite and/or frequent	26	26
Some response	29	24
Never	45	50
Number of cases	2200	567

Twice as many males had responded erotically to being bitten as had responded to sado-masochistic stories. There were more than four times as many females who had responded erotically when they were bitten as had ever responded to sado-masochistic stories. This provides one more body of data to show that males may be aroused by both physical and psychologic stimuli, while a larger number of the females, although not all of them, may be aroused only by physical stimuli.

Fetishism
Practically all heterosexual males, as we have already noted, are aroused erotically when they observe the female body or particular parts of it. When the part of the partner’s body which brings the erotic response is farther removed from the genital area, as the hair of the head, the feet, and the fingers are, such responses have commonly been identified as fetishes. But the definitions are obviously nebulous, for all of these reactions depend on nothing more than associative conditioning, and it is difficult to draw the line between the sexual responses of the average male when he sees the genitalia or the breasts or some other portion of the partner’s body, and his responses to objects which are more remote but still associated with his previous sexual experience.

When an individual responds to objects which are entirely removed from the partner’s body, as clothing (especially underclothing), stockings, garters, shoes, furniture, particular types of drapery, or objects which are still more remote from the particular female with whom the sexual relations were originally had, the fetishistic nature of the response seems more pronounced. But in any event, it still depends upon the sort of psychologic conditioning which is involved in most erotic responses.

Persons who respond only or primarily to objects which are remote from the sexual partner, or remote from the overt sexual activities with a partner, are not rare in the population. This is particularly true of individuals who are erotically aroused by high heels, by boots, by corsets, by tight clothing, by long gloves, by whips, or by other objects which suggest sado-masochistic relationships, and which may have been associated with the individual’s previous sexual activity.

It has been known for some time, and our own data confirm it, that fetishism is an almost exclusively male phenomenon. 29 We have seen only two or three cases of females who were regularly and distinctly aroused by objects that were not directly connected with sexual activity. Our data on the limited number of females who respond to seeing male genitalia or any other portion of the nude or clothed male body, would lead one to expect that females would not be aroused by objects which are still more remote from the sexual partner himself. There seems no question that the differences in the incidences of fetishes among males and females depend upon the fact that the male is more easily conditioned by his sexual experience and by objects that were associated with those experiences.
The infrequent occurrence of fetishism among females has also been recognized by: Talmey 1910:136. Hirschfeld 1920(3):1-79 (many case histories, including a few female cases). Krafft-Ebing 1922:24. Forel 1922:240. Hamilton 1929:463 (13 per cent of females, 33 per cent of males). Stekel 1930(2):341. Walker and Strauss 1939:175. Brown 1940:381. Scheinfeld 1944:243. Fenichel 1945:344. It is notable that fetish magazines currently found on the newsstands are all slanted toward male purchasers.

Transvestism
An individual who prefers to wear the clothing of the opposite sex, and who desires to be accepted in the social organization as an individual of the opposite sex, is a transvestite (from trans, a transference, and vesta, the clothing). But it should be emphasized that transvestism involves not only a change of clothing. The occasional adoption at a masked ball, or in a stage production, of clothing characteristic of the opposite sex is not transvestism in any strict sense, for true transvestism also involves a desire to assume the role of the opposite sex in the social organization.

True transvestism is a phenomenon which involves many different situations and has many different origins. 30 There are persons who are permanent transvestites, who try to identify with the opposite sex in their work as well as in their homes, at all times of the day and through all of the days of the year. There are persons who are partial transvestites, who adopt their changed roles only on occasion, as at home in the evening, or occasionally on week ends, or on other special occasions.
Transvestism in various pre-literate societies is recorded, for example, for the Navajo, Kwakiutl, Crow, Eskimo (North America); Tanala, Lango, Mbundu (Africa); Uripev, Dyak (Oceania); Chukchee, Yakut, Yukaghir (Siberia); Lushais (India). In many instances the transvestites are respected and thought to possess magical powers; in other instances they are merely tolerated. The great majority of transvestites are anatomic males. Ford 1945:32 points out that “Cases of women adopting the dress and habits of men are much more rare.” For further anthropologic data, see: Parsons 1916:521-528 (Zuni). Hill 1935:273-279 (Navajo). Devereux 1937:498-527 (Mohave). Dragoo 1950 ms. (in more than twenty societies in North America). Ford and Beach 1951:130-131 (general, brief discussion).

Psychologically the phenomenon sometimes depends upon an individual’s erotic attraction for the opposite sex. A male, for instance, may be so attracted to females that he wishes to be permanently identified with them. He wants to have sexual relationships with them, and he wishes to live permanently with them, as another female might live with them. The neighbors may believe it to be two females who are living together, although it is sexually a heterosexual relationship which is involved.

Sometimes transvestism depends upon an individual’s violent reactions against his or her own sex. In such a case, he may or may not be erotically attracted to the opposite sex. If he is attracted, he may have heterosexual relationships. But he may so idealize females that he is offended by the idea of having sexual relationships with them, and then he may be left without any opportunity for socio-sexual contacts, because his dislike for individuals of his own sex will prevent him from having sexual relationships with them.

There are some psychiatrists who consider all transvestism homosexual, but this is incorrect. 31 Transvestism and homosexuality are totally independent phenomena, and it is only a small portion of the transvestites who are homosexual in their physical relationships. A misinterpretation on this point may generate tragedy when psychiatrists insist, as we have known them to do in several cases, that all transvestites, including those who are basically opposed to everything connected with their own sex, must frankly accept their “homosexuality” and accept overt homosexual relationships if they wish to resolve their psychologic conflicts.
The assumption that transvestism is always associated with or an expression of homosexuality may be noted, for example, in: Krafft-Ebing 1922:398. Forel 1922:251. Thorpe and Katz 1948:314. Allen 1949:146-147.

On the other hand, some males are transvestites and wish to be identified with the opposite sex because they are homosexual and because they hope to attract the type of male who would hesitate to engage in homosexual relationships if the other individual were not identifiable, to at least some degree, with femininity.

In not a few instances transvestism develops out of a fetishistic interest in the clothing or some part of the clothing of the opposite sex. The adoption of the clothing of the opposite sex may not modify the original sexual history of the individual, whether it was heterosexual or homosexual.

There are many cases of transvestism which are associated with sado-masochism. Then the masochistic male wishes to be identified as a female in order to be subjugated as males might, conceivably, subjugate a female.

It is clear that transvestism depends very largely upon the individual’s capacity to be conditioned psychologically. There are few phenomena which more strikingly illustrate the force of psychologic conditioning. It is, therefore, highly significant to find that an exceedingly large proportion of the transvestites are anatomically males who wish to assume the role of the female in the social organization. At this point we cannot give percentages, although we are attempting to secure a sample which will ultimately allow us to estimate the number of transvestites in the United States; but it is our present understanding that there may be a hundred anatomic males who wish to be identified as females, for every two or three or half dozen anatomic females who wish to be identified as males. This last is particularly interesting because females often assume some of the clothing of males in working around their homes, on farms, in factories, and elsewhere; but we find no evidence that such females are interested in being identified socially with the opposite sex, and such an adoption of male attire has little or nothing to do with transvestism. Males, of course, do not usually wear any part of the female costume unless they are true transvestites.
An example of the sort of unwarranted statement that gets into and is perpetuated in the professional literature, although it is unsubstantiated by any specific data, is the estimate in Allen 1949:145 that transvestism is as common among females as among males.

Transvestism provides one of the striking illustrations of the fact that males are more liable to be conditioned by psychologic stimuli, and females less liable to be so conditioned. The males who wish to be identified as females are in reality very masculine in their psychologic capacities to be conditioned.

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