Why are exhibitionists caught so often? Of competent intelligence, not psychotic, aware of the possibility of arrest, and in many instances having already suffered severe social consequences, why do they persist in their dangerous behavior? t The explanations come
•I do not believe, however, that the libido theory of perversions as fixations, or regressions to points of fixation, at zonal stages of development-oral, anal, phallic—is of much help for our understanding. First, in perverse people there are fixations at all stages. Second, why perversion rather than another form of neurosis occurs is not explained, and the acknowledged failure to do so has thrown theoreticians back upon such speculations as organ vulnerability to account for the specificity of perverse acts, or nonmeaning, ponderous phrases like "hypercathexis of anal libido” as pseudoscientific explanations.
tThe Kinsey group reports, regarding exhibitionists:
Of all the sex offenders, the largestproportion (72 per cent) of their convictions were for sex offenses, and conversely the smallest proportion (28 per cent) were for nonsex offenses.
... In terms of per capita convictions they are again outstanding . . . and rank first in the number of misdemeanours resulting
when one looks at the structure of the perversion.
To do so, however, we must attend to part of our earlier definition that in sexual perversion one expresses preferred, habitual erotic techniques. Without this understood, the multiple uses of the term “exhibitionism” will confuse us, for it has other meanings: (1) the nongenital, nonsexually exciting desire to show off, in children or adults, male or female; (2) women’s pleasure in showing parts of their bodies, including (less frequently than other parts) their genitals, in order to be sexually exciting to another, such exhibitionism not being an end in itself; (3) homosexual men’s display of their penises for advertisement. Thus restricted by our definition, we find that exhibitionism as a perversion—the need to show one’s genitals to another in order to get excited— exists only in males.
This man, married, overtly heterosexual throughout his life, unremarkably masculine in demeanor, with a masculine profession, has been thrice convicted for exhibitionism. Although he has been imprisoned before and is now on parole, he risks his marriage, profession, and reputation by still performing his perverse act once or twice a fortnight. This usually occurs following a humiliation, most often at work or from his wife. He is then driven into the street by a tension he does not sense
in imprisonment. ... No other group approaches them in the per capita number of sex-offense convictions (3.1a). With regard to what we term “specific” sex offenses—i.e., exhibition offenses for exhibitionists, rape of minors for aggressors vs. minors, etc.—the exhibitionists had by far the largest per capita number of specific sex offenses: a. 13. . . . In brief, the exhibitionists had committed more sex offenses (as measured by conviction) than any other group. . . . The exhibitionists are quite recidivistic. Relatively few (13 per cent) have only one conviction; about one third, the second largest proportion recorded, had four to six convictions; and they display the third largest percentage of those convicted seven or more times (16 per cent). A group that can boast more seven-time than one-time losers can be justly labeled recidivistic. (41, pp. 393-394)
as erotic, to search an unfamiliar neighborhood for a woman or girl to whom he displays his penis. He chooses strangers; he has never done this with a familiar woman. In fact, he is shy about being seen nude by his wife, who takes him and his penis for granted. (He says she does not respect him; she agrees.) He expects to shock the stranger and does not show his penis as a precursor to intercourse; he does not know why he does so, only that he is compelled to. On occasions when women are not upset but joke with him, pretending they are interested, he flees. But when the woman is angry and calls the police—when he seems to be running the great risk—he finds himself reluctant to get away fast. Although his fear mounts, it becomes mixed with a sense of confusion that slides into immobility.. And when this excited lethargy persists too long, he is caught.
The nonexhibitionist, unable to comprehend, thinks this man is stupid. How much more odd then must seem the arrested man’s mood while he is being booked: at the center of his feelings of disaster is a crazy, peaceful, pleasant quietness. I think we can understand this: risk has been run and surmounted; trauma has been converted to triumph. That he is being defeated by the police means less than that he has been victorious over the unknown woman.
Our mistake would be to think the police were the risk; they are not. They are, rather, agents of the triumph. The real risk, from the viewpoint of the perversion, arises from the humiliation earlier in the day, a repeat of childhood humiliation that has left in him a fracture line, a fear that he is not a free-standing, potent, formidable male.
And so the risk—the lifelong risk—is not that he will be arrested but rather that the humiliation will persist. Displaying his penis, he shows in the most concrete way that he has not been humiliated, that he is not castrated, that he has not been defeated by women; and it is his way of protesting—insisting—that he is still a man. We understand his behavior when we realize he is concerned with exhibiting his manliness (ideal self) rather than his maleness (anatomy). Therefore, the woman who is shocked, who becomes angry and, best of all, frightened, who creates a fuss, and who brings on the police proves that he has reversed the childhood situation. She is complying with a necessary part of his perversion; now she is the attacked one and he the attacker. Even if he is arrested, he is peculiarly tranquil because the arrest indicates—briefly—that in fact he does have a fine penis, powerful enough to create such a disturbance in society. We are not surprised to learn, then, that the rate of arrest in exhibitionism is higher than in any other perversion.
We should not be puzzled that the exhibitionist arranges the odds so that he is more likely to be caught than is any other perverse person. He aspires, not to safety from the police, but to safety from the inner dread of being an inadequate man. Arrest proves one is important; it is a victory over the fear of being insignificant just as is the hoped-for shocked reaction in the females to whom he exposes himself.
I repeat again: when we examine every last detail in the sexual fantasy, we will probably find that none is fortuitous. All have their place in reassuring the perverse person that now he is safe. This time, the attack on him, which is re-enacted in the fantasy, will turn into an offensive against his old vanquisher; this time, exact revenge will be meted out: the former assailant will have to suffer precisely those sensations that afflicted the child-victim. But the story must not go off the track, or, like a comedian whose hostility has escaped and is destroying his humor, the excitement of perversion turns into anxiety or anger with loss of pleasure and potency.
Splitting, Dehumanization, Fetishization, Idealization: Undoing
As Bak (1) has suggested, fetishism is the model for all perversions.* One who cannot bear another's totality will fragment—split (35) and dehumanize (67)—that object in keeping with past traumas and escapes; he may then isolate a neutral fragment—aspect—of that person and displace his potential sexual response from the whole person to the part that more safely represents that person (fetishization). When the process of fetishization is benign, as it is in foreplay or the variations of sexual fashions from place to place and time to time, the whole object is finally restored pretty much intact. This means minimal revenge and minimal risk-taking; unhappily, full sexual satisfaction without much recourse to mechanisms of perversion seems a difficult achievement for most.