Dear Sir, - As an old an faithful reader of your most interesting paper, I follow with much interest the discussion between Miss Joan Roper and Mr. Wallace Stort about the question of the attractiveness of monopedes. In my opinion both are in the possession of half the truth.
Miss Joan Roper is right in her opinion that the admiration of monopedes is a kind of psychological phenomenon known as "fetishism". As you know, the great man in this field had been the late Professor Dr. Krafft Ebbing. This particular one he placed under the head: "Body Defects as Fetish".
Some people are attracted by lame, blind, misformed. etc., girls. The liking for "amputees" is rather general among this kind of fetishist. Other kind of fetishist are attracted by the hair, by corsets, by shoes with high heels, etc. Every part of the body and everything belonging to the clothing etc., can become a fetish according to Dr. Krafft. It is interesting that the liking for rubber clothes, etc., so often a topic in "London Life," is nor described by Dr. Krafft Ebbing. This kind of fetish is a discovery of your readers.
Now, Krafft Ebbing esteems - and rightly, it seems to me - that fetishism becomes truly abnormal as soon as the fetish is something not being a part of the remaining body itself. So shoe fetishism, for instance, should be considered as truly "abnormal;" hair fetishism is still "normal;" amputee fetishism as being exactly at the limit between "normal" and "abnormal," because it bears upon some part of the feminine body, but upon some part that normally does not exist. This distinction seems right since the most normal lover is attracted by one or more parts of the feminine body, but not by dead things as clothes, shoes, etc.
According to Krafft Ebbing, there is also no such thing as the "anti-fetish." So may some people be repelled by monopedes, high heeled shoes, etc. Those things play a part in what may be called "taste" of a given individual.
Even without any interference of an anti-fetish, it is clear that a quite normal man will not be very inclined to marry a monopede, or a lame or blind girl. For obvious reasons they will fear the complications of life with an invalid. Other things being equal, the quite normal man will prefer marriage with a partner who is not suffering under a bodily handicap.
A monopede will repel every man for whom an amputation is an anti-fetish. She will have difficulty to overcome the mental objections from every man for whom her condition is neither a fetish nor an anti-fetish, for she would have to be very attractive in other respects to make him accept the burden of an invalid wife. The only kind of man really willing to share life with a monopede are those for whom her condition is a fetish. And here we come to the point where, in my belief, Mr. Wallace Stort is right. Given the quasi-impossibility far a monopede to find a normal man, or a man who finds amputation as an anti-fetish, willing to marry her, she should, if she wants matrimony, direct her efforts to the men who feel amputation as a fetish. Therefore, she should follow Mr. Wallace Stort's counsels, and not those of Miss Joan Roper.
Hiding her amputation is no use for a monopede, because it will be discovered, sooner or later. Had it be really hidden - a dubious thing - she will run the risk of her lover getting a mental shock at what he feels perhaps is a defect. And it is very questionable if an artificial leg is able to hide effectively the defect. Mostly they transform the real amputation in an apparent lame leg, lagging behind at every step and producing a rather hideous walk. This is true for even the best ones.
So, in my opinion, the only right thing to do for a monopede wishing to marry, is displaying frankly her an amputee status. In this way she will repel, once for all, the kind of men who dislike - for whatever reason - monopedes, and so she will avoid bitter deceptions. On the other hand she will attract the kind of men liking amputees, but disliking lame legs.
I know from experience that those people are much more numerous than is generally supposed. I know some who complain bitterly of the wearing of artificial legs by monopede girls, just because of the difficulty of distinguishing them, with such an apparatus, from lame girls. An artificial leg is a "cosmetic" contraption that has, in this way, often as a result the contrary of that intended.
Miss Joan Roper is decidedly wrong in her supposition that the percentage of monopede fetishists is too small to be worth reckoning with.
Besides, there are many male monopedes who prefer a sufferer of the opposite sex, not by fetishism, but by the rational consideration that a two-legged wife will always despise, more or less, a one-legged husband. Then there seems to be no preference for male monopedes among the ladies.
So I belief monopede girls should, as is Mr. Wallace Stort's opinion, in no way try to hide their condition, but on the contrary, display it frankly and make the best of it in accepting facts as they are and liking them for their special advantages. Of course these advantages cannot balance the disadvantages, but there is no use in crying over spilt milk. And it is for the female monopedes a kind of consolation that some - rather many men are attracted by their misfortune.
Male monopedes and other invalids have, unfortunately, no such consolation.
This letter is already very long, but I will not send it without giving expression to my admiration for "London Life" and for Mr. Wallace Stort. Comparing "London Life" with other illustrated papers of the same kind in other countries, I must say it is the only one treating topics of psychological nature in a serious and interesting way. As to Mr. Wallace Stort, I am able, by experience, to state that many of the details he tells about night life in Paris during the interval between the late war and the present one absolutely conform to fact.
Wishing you, Mr. Wallace Stort and your other contributors ever more success with "London Life."
Yours truly,
Psychologist
Holland.