§ 3. On Bestiality.

44. Nature. a. Bestiality is the intercourse of a human being with a beast. It makes no difference in what manner the intercourse occurred, whether in the natural vessel or in another part of the body, whether with effusion of semen or without it, provided intercourse has had place; for the specific malice of bestiality consists in affection toward another species.

b. If the sin of bestiality is reserved, bestiality which is committed in the natural vessel with effusion of semen is to be understood, therefore consummated bestiality, unless the one reserving declares otherwise.¹

¹ Cf. Salmanticenses, ibid., n. 140.

45. Principles. 1. Bestiality is the gravest among sins of lust, more horrible than sodomy itself. Its special malice consists in access to a diverse species, which is still more repugnant to right reason than access to an undue sex or to an undue vessel.

2. Bestiality does not differ in species, whether it was committed with a beast of this or that species; and since now it has been explored that generation cannot follow from intercourse of this kind, it makes no difference of what sex the beast was, whether male or female. For the specific malice consists in access to a species diverse from man; the specific diversity and the sex of beasts are related to this only materially.

3. Immodest touches with a beast are not the sin of bestiality unless the base affection of the one touching is borne precisely toward the beast, which rarely occurs, since the sinner ordinarily intends only to satisfy libido. Wherefore this circumstance does not have to be declared necessarily in confession if someone, by means of the tongue of a beast of burden or of another beast, has excited venereal pleasure or pollution in himself.

To complete the treatment concerning sins of lust, and specifically concerning sins of lust against nature, a few things must be treated concerning abnormal sexual appetite.

Sexual appetite deflects from the common norm in a twofold way: a. in that it is increased beyond measure, hypersexuality; b. in that it puts itself forth in another way, sexual perversion.

46. On hypersexuality. 1. Sexual affection in diverse human beings, as regards vehemence, is diverse; in men it is more vehement than in women, but even among persons of the same sex some have been allotted a more vehement affection than others; sometimes it reaches an extraordinarily great vehemence. A sexual appetite of this kind, more vehement, is found both in those who labor under a psychic defect and in those who are not psychopathic.

2. The cause of this matter is partly a disposition acquired by heredity, partly an illness of the nerves, partly abuse of alcoholic drink. Sexual excesses are added, which increase both the illness of the soul and the sexual affection: for repeated excesses generate a depraved habit, which sometimes grows so enormously that libido is excited from any even very slight cause and then almost mechanically, by physical necessity, impels toward pollution.

3. The signs from which it is discerned that the sexual appetite has been increased beyond measure, pathologically, are these: if libido, scarcely satisfied, is soon excited again; if libido is excited from the sight of things indifferent in the genus of lust; if sexual affection so occupies a human being that he thinks and speaks almost only about this matter and seeks means of satisfying the affection.

4. Imputability. Those who are sound of mind can and must repress and moderate sexual affection, even the more vehement, nor do they suffer any detriment of health from not satisfying even a most vehement sexual appetite. Therefore sins committed against chastity must be fully imputed to them. Indeed even those who labor under a psychic defect sin voluntarily and culpably, unless the defect is of a greater degree. Sexual excesses will be so much the less voluntary and culpable as the illness of the soul is greater and more intense; they are fully involuntary in those who are mentally ill or fully psychopathic.

It must be noted that physicians addicted to materialism, by the worst counsel, exhort those, especially youths, who suffer frequent pollutions and vehement sexual excitations, to go to women in order to lessen the evil: for they say that abstinence brings grave detriments to the health of body and mind. Means and medicines are not lacking by which the vehemence of sexual libido may be lessened; therefore those for whom this is necessary should be directed to a physician, but to a Catholic physician, who uses licit means for repelling the evil, and who is persuaded that chastity commanded by the law of nature, even perpetual chastity, harms neither the health of the body nor of the soul.

47. On sexual perversion.¹ 1. Sexual perversion consists in this, that sexual appetite and sexual actions are abnormal in this respect, that libido is excited not by internal and external acts pertaining to venereal matters, as ordinarily happens, but by other things altogether alien to sexual life.

2. It can indeed happen that the sexual disposition, initially not alien from the common norm, has become abnormal through sins of lust against nature committed for a long time; nevertheless ordinarily the abnormal disposition has been transmitted by heredity from parents, with a morbid affection of the nervous system.

3. Four diverse forms of perverse sexual disposition are distinguished: Sadism, Masochism, Fetishism, Contrary Sexuality.

a. Sadism² is so called if venereal delectation is excited by imaginations or actions which contain cruelty and violence, such as: to strangle, to stab with a knife, to strike, to whip, to slaughter (Lustmord).

a. These actions are not performed in order to obtain intercourse from the person to whom force is applied, but in order through them to excite, quiet, and satisfy libido.

b. This perversion is found frequently in men, scarcely ever in women; for since man in sexual life is the active principle and, if it is permitted to speak thus, the aggressive principle, it seems to have arisen from the degeneration of the office which in sexual functions naturally belongs to the man.

b. Masochism³ is so called if venereal delectation is excited by the fact that one suffers violences and torments, such as being struck, being attacked with the heel, being beaten, being whipped, being stabbed even to the effusion of blood, etc.

This perversion is especially found in women, which is easily understood from the things said above, since the woman has herself more passively in sexual functions. Indeed they are not without the sense of pain while they suffer force, but by the sense of venereal pleasure the pain is abundantly compensated.

c. Fetishism is so called if libido is excited by imaginations or actions which do not pertain to venereal things, and therefore otherwise are not apt to excite pleasure.

The things or parts of the body whose imagination or handling excite venereal sense are the hand, foot, eye, hair, undergarment, shoes, feathers, cloths, etc. For the most part these things or parts of the body have a relation to a determinate person loved by an inordinate affection; but it can happen that even of themselves, independently of relation to a certain person, they provoke venereal delectation and pollution.

d. Contrary sexuality is so called if sexual appetite tends toward a person of the same sex. Therefore the venereal sense is provoked not from the imagination, sight, or touch of a person of diverse sex, but of the same sex.

a. The sins which are committed by those who labor under this perversion are mutual pollutions and sodomitical intercourses. If the perverse inclination is borne toward boys, it is called pederasty; nevertheless ordinarily it tends toward men.

b. This perversion is also found in women, in whom it is called lesbian or sapphic love, and it induces mutual pollutions and sodomitical sins which women commit among themselves.

4. Imputability. a. Sexual perversion is not a sign of a diseased mind: perversions are found even in those who labor under no psychic defect; nevertheless this seems capable of being affirmed, that perversions are had more frequently in persons of diseased mind than of sound mind.

b. Not only those who are of sound mind, but also those who labor under a psychic defect, can repress perverse sexual appetites; accordingly the sins, or perversities, committed must be imputed to them, unless the psychic defect has reached a greater degree. It then becomes ineluctable when to the psychic defect there is added great vehemence of the sexual appetite, whether ordinary or perverse.

5. They ask whether sins with a person of the same sex committed by those in whom contrary sexuality is innate are specific sins of sodomy, since the perverse affection toward the same sex in them is without their own will and therefore inculpable. But in truth, since the specific nature of sodomy consists in affection toward the same sex, there can be no doubt concerning the nature of sodomy, even if by nature they are borne toward the same sex and suffer aversion from the diverse sex. Therefore just as others must repress an inborn fornicatory affection, so they must repress an inborn sodomitical affection.

Note. The confessor should know that certain traces of a perverse sexual disposition are sometimes found even in those whose sexual life otherwise does not depart from the common norm: for not a few are met with who are basely excited by imaginations or actions which scarcely refer in any way to venereal things, as by a chastisement of boys represented through imagination, by reading about the torments which the martyrs suffered, by imagination or touch of hair gathered into a knot, etc. Against temptations arising from images or actions of this kind, they must fight just as against other temptations attacking chastity. Those whose sexual perversion is perfect are excited only by abnormal means; by base means, however, they are excited not at all or only a little.

¹ Capellmann-Bergmann, Past.-Mediz.^14 (Aachen: Barth, 1904), p. 87 ff.

² The name is drawn from the Marquis de Sade, who was affected by this perversity and presents, as it were, its prototype.

³ The name is taken from Sacher Masoch, who especially describes this perversion in his fictional narratives (Romane).