continuing in our series of transcribed case studies from the window into humanities underpants which is psychopathia sexualis, we bring you case study 88: a story full of pathos, sweaty gymnasiums, fetishistic desire, odd naiveté, brash artistic license, chance encounters, arrests, and ultimately, as with so many human dramas, failure. and all encapsulated in one very dry, very short, clinical paragraph.

x., aged thirty four, teacher in the gymnasium. in childhood he suffered from convulsions. at age ten he began to masturbate, with lustful feelings, which were connected with very strange ideas. he was particularly partial to women’s eyes; but because he wished to imagine some form of coitus, and was absolutely innocent in sexual matters, he evolved the idea of making the nostrils the seat of the female sexual organs in order to avoid too great a separation from the eyes. his vivid sexual desires then revolved around this idea. he sketched drawings representing correct greek profiles of female heads, but the nostrils were so large that insertion of the penis would have been possible. one day, in an omnibus, he saw a girl in whom he thought he recognized his ideal. he followed her to her home and immediately proposed to her. shown the door, he returned again and again, until arrested. x never had sexual intercourse.

so tragic. nose craving, eye adoring virgin man. we feel your pain… as an afterward to this case the author of psycopathia sexualis, richard von krafft-ebing m.d. offers this:

nose fetishism is seldom encountered. the following rare bit of poetry comes to me from england-

o sweet and pretty little nose, so charming unto me;
o were i but the sweetest rose, i’d give my scent to thee.
o make it full with honey sweet, that i may suck it all;
t’would be for me the greatest treat, a real festival.
how sweet and how nutritious your darling nose does seem.
it would be more delicious, than strawberries and cream.

...tee hee.