THE LUST FOR SEDUCING THE INNOCENT

The lust for seducing the innocent is not the same as that for deflowering or for rape, but is a separate and peculiar lust on its own. It is especially to be found among the deceitful. The women whom these regard as innocent are those who look upon the evil of promiscuity as a major sin, so that they are devoted to chastity and at the same time to religion. It is these they lust for. In kingdoms of the Catholic faith there are convents of nuns; and since they believe these to excel all others in piety and innocence, they look upon them as choice delicacies for their lust. In order to seduce women of either of these types they first, being deceitful, think up tricks, and when they have made these a part of their characters, they can put them into effect without being held back by shame, as if they were natural.

The tricks are principally the pretence of innocence, love, chastity and religious feeling. They use these and other devices to gain admittance to intimate friendship with these women, and so to their love; and by various means of persuasion and insinuation they turn this from spiritual into natural love, and later by excitement on the level of the body into carnal love. Thus they can possess them at will; once they have achieved this, they are heartily pleased and scorn those they have violated.