Moustache Monday: Oh, Cruel Fake

Psychopathia Sexualis, by Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing M.D., first printed in 1886, was the reference book for the spectrum of sexual deviance in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Krafft-Ebing, like many at the time, believed that the purpose of sexual desire was procreation, and any form of desire that didn’t go towards that ultimate goal was a perversion. Unsurprisingly, there are few case studies of women to be found here, the idea of a woman who engaged in sex for pleasure being a truly unwholesome one to the Victorian Gentleman. In the English translation, which one can read, in its entirety here, it reads: “Woman, however, if physically and mentally normal, and properly educated, has but little sensual desire. If it were otherwise, marriage and family life would be empty words.”

It’s a fascinating read, and many of the “perversions” will seem tame to anyone who has spent two or three minutes on the internet, but there are some gems. Consider, if you will, the plight of “X” in Case 99:

“X., aged twenty, inverted sexually. Only loved men with large bushy mustaches. One day he met a man who was his ideal. He invited him to his home, but was unspeakably disappointed when the man removed an artificial mustache. Only when the visitor returned the ornament to his upper lip did he exercise his charm over X. once more and restored X. to complete virility.”

Unspeakably disappointed indeed. For those of you who parade about with your artificial moustaches, for shame. How can you live with yourselves knowing, as you must, that your filthy, follicular lies are harming the gay moustache fetishist community? Know that one day, you shall receive your comeuppance. There is only so much abuse they will take.

Psychopathia Sexualis [the nonist]