A man selects a mate because he finds in her fetishes the assurance of safety which those fetishes portended when observed in the appearance of his affectionate, devoted, self-sacrificing mother, whose intelligence and wisdom he never doubted when he was, let us say, ten or fifteen and she was thirty or thirty-five. And likewise, a woman expects, consciously or unconsciously, that certain physical characteristics which once indicated, when observed in her father's appearance, power, protection, a gainful occupation, sympathy and understanding, etc., will mean exactly the same thing when she finds them reproduced totally or in part in a male human being of the marriageable age.
The Parent-Child Relationship, involving at first boundless devotion on the part of the strong[Pg 224] parent to the helpless nursling, infant and child, and later, complete submission of the growing child and adolescent to the older and, supposedly world-wiser, parent, has very little, if anything, in common with the relationship of mate to mate.
Sex plays no conscious part in the parent-child relationship.
It does not tinge every action and every thought of the two parties concerned. The secret cravings or the secret repulsion it may awaken never distort consciously the judgments passed by parents on their children, children on their parents. Of neurotic unconscious distortions of judgment there is a plenty. Never, however, does the strife narrow down to this: "He or she does not satisfy me sexually," "he or she humiliates me sexually by being attracted to others," "he or she is an obstacle to my complete sexual gratification with another," etc., sources of open hostility of the most painfully conscious kind between mates.
The mother who satisfied our egotism became to us beautiful and perfect. The female who employs the same means our mother did, to win us, but who cannot arouse us sexually, never appears to us very attractive physically or mentally.
On the other hand we are apt to disregard, tem[Pg 225]porarily at least, the mental deficiencies of the man or woman who gives us the most complete sexual gratification.
From this it will be easily understood that choosing a mate solely on the strength of his or her fetishes, is likely, unless the union be of the most ephemeral kind, to lead to profound disappointment.
It behooves us then to determine accurately what every fetish means and what sort of personality is actually to be found associated with a certain set of physical characteristics.
For I repeat, a man's or woman's personality is to be studied, not in their attitude to their offspring, (for the most savage beast is transformed by the paternal or maternal instinct into a marvel of tenderness, kindness and patience), but in their relation to the social herd and to their sexual mate.
Until the study of the ductless glands was given the importance we attach to it today, the word personality denoted a set of attitudes which many psychologists considered as mainly voluntary and amenable to "moral suasion" and other forms of pedagogical approach of the individual. When we read the works of Freud, Jung, Adler, Ferenczi and their disciples, we never receive an intimation of[Pg 226] the r?le which the endocrines may play in moulding the human personality.
Modern Endocrinologists on the other hand, seem as indifferent to psychology as the psychoanalysts of yesterday were to neurology and endocrinology. Some of them assume that the personality IS the glands and that our glands alone shape our thinking and our actions.
Both views are narrow and unsatisfactory. The personality is made up primarily of an organism which outward influences can or cannot influence easily. Pleasure and pain then shape that organism thru the memories which they leave in it in the form of infinitely small modifications of our autonomic nervous system. That system, in its turn, develops, thru constant stimulation, certain glands or allows them to remain undeveloped thru lack of stimulation or thru negative stimulation.
Some of those glands may, thru mere accident of growth, have been already overdeveloped or stunted at birth. Individuals free from complexes, however, may easily reestablish the balance of cravings and social inhibitions which threatens at times to be upset by an overdeveloped or underdeveloped gland. Complex-ridden individuals on the other hand, use their glandular inferiority unconsciously[Pg 227] as a scapegoat for absurd or morbid behavior.
Reciprocal Influence. We cannot say, therefore, that our behavior is dictated by our glands, but it is influenced by them and reciprocally, our behavior influences our glands. As I said in a previous chapter, hyperthyroidism creates fear, but fear may also create hyperthyroidism. Overdevelopment of the sexual apparatus creates a predisposition to sexual overactivity, but sexual thoughts also have a tendency to provoke unusual sexual activity.
There is one thing, however, for which the secretions of our ductless glands are mainly responsible, and which is most important to consider in a study of fetishes. They determine the shape, color and consistency of many parts of our body, such as complexion, hair, teeth, skeletal frame and growth.
A glance at a human body enables one to determine as accurately as an autopsy would, the size of a person's thyroid, adrenals, etc.
As the development of those glands corresponds to the social and sexual behavior of the individual, a review of the various bodily fetishes from............