That passion may be induced, however, by castigation or whipping is so well established that parents and nurses would do well to avoid the practice generally. Many boys, particularly, have been led into masturbation, during the first excitation of the sexual instinct, by spanking, Krafft-Ebing states; and the case of Maria Magdalena, the Carmelite nun, who was initiated into the sexual delights by the whippings of the prioress; and of Elizabeth of Genton, who passed into a condition of bacchanalian frenzy under the same punishment; as well as the statement of Taxil that rakes have sometimes flagellated themselves just before the sexual act, to stimulate their diminished powers, all bear witness to the connection, in some cases at least, of corporal punishment with the sexual activities.8

The Persians and Russians regard beating as a peculiar sign of love. Russian women are never more pleased than when receiving a drubbing at the hands of their husbands; and Peter Petrius relates the story of a lazy fellow who was practically impotent until he had induced the female to beat him well with a whip he carried for that purpose.1 There are many other such cases recorded; and not only have men been thus excited to passion and lasciviousness, but women also have, by the same means, had their sexual pleasures greatly intensified. It was for this that Roman women were whipped by the lupercis; and it is a well-known physiological fact that erection and orgasm, even ejaculation itself, may be induced by irritation of various portions of the body, far removed from the sexual system.