Studies in the Psychology of Sex Volume Iii Part 15

I am inclined to believe that the experiences of the foregoing group are fairly typical of the social cla.s.s to which they belong. I may, however, bring forward another series of 35 women, varying in age from 18 to 40 (with 2 exceptions all over 25), and in every respect comparable with the smaller group, but concerning whom my knowledge, though reliable, is usually less precise and detailed. In this group 5 state that they have never experienced s.e.xual emotion, these being all unmarried and leading strictly chaste lives; in 18 cases the s.e.xual impulse may be described as strong, or is so considered by the subject herself; in 9 cases it is only moderate; in 3 it is very slight when evoked, and with difficulty evoked, in 1 of these only appearing two years after marriage, in another the exhaustion and worry of household cares being a.s.signed for its comparative absence. It is noteworthy that all the more highly intelligent, energetic women in the series appear in the group of those with strong s.e.xual emotions, and also that severe mental and physical labor, even when cultivated for this purpose, has usually had little or no influence in relieving s.e.xual emotion.

An American physician in the State of Connecticut sends me the following notes concerning a series of 13 married women, taken, as they occurred, in obstetric practice. They are in every way respectable and moral women:-

"Mrs. A. says that her husband does not give her sufficient s.e.xual attention, as he fears they will have more children than he can properly care for. Mrs. B. always enjoys intercourse; so does Mrs. C. Mrs. D. is easily excited and very fond of s.e.xual attention. Mrs. E. likes intercourse if her husband is careful not to hurt her. Mrs. F. never had any s.e.xual desire until after second marriage, but it is now very urgent at times. Mrs. G. is not easily excited, but has never objected to her husband's attention. Mrs. H. would prefer to have her husband exhibit more attention. Mrs. I. never refused her husband, but he does not trouble her much. Mrs. J. thinks that three or four times a week is satisfactory, but would not object to nightly intercourse. Mrs. K. does not think that her husband could give her more than she would like. Mrs. L. would prefer to live with a woman if it were not for s.e.xual intercourse. Mrs. M., aged 40, says that her husband, aged 65, insists upon intercourse three times every night, and that he keeps her tired and disgusted. She each time has at least one o.r.g.a.s.m, and would not object to reasonable attention."

It may be remarked that, while these results in English women of the middle cla.s.s are in fair agreement with the German and Austrian observations I have quoted, they differ from Campbell's results among women of the working cla.s.s in London. This discrepancy is, perhaps, not difficult to explain. While the conditions of upper-cla.s.s life may possibly be peculiarly favorable to the development of the s.e.xual emotions, among the working cla.s.ses in London, where the stress of the struggle for existence under bad hygienic conditions is so severe, they may be peculiarly unfavorable. It is thus possible that there really are a smaller number of women experiencing s.e.xual emotion among the cla.s.s dealt with by Campbell than among the cla.s.s to which my series belong.[168]

A more serious consideration is the method of investigation. A working man, who is perhaps unintelligent outside his own work, and in many cases married to a woman who is superior in refinement, may possibly be able to arouse his wife's s.e.xual emotions, and also able to ascertain what those emotions are, and be willing to answer questions truthfully on this point, to the best of his ability, but he is by no means a witness whose evidence is final. While, however, Campbell's facts may not be quite unquestionable, I am inclined to agree with his conclusion, and Mantegazza's, that there is a very great range of variation in this matter, and that there is no age at which the s.e.xual impulse in women may not appear. A lady who has received the confidence of very many women tells me that she has never found a woman who was without s.e.xual feeling. I should myself be inclined to say that it is extremely difficult to find a woman who is without the apt.i.tude for s.e.xual emotion, although a great variety of circ.u.mstances may hinder, temporarily or permanently, the development of this latent apt.i.tude. In other words, while the latent s.e.xual apt.i.tude may always be present, the s.e.xual impulse is liable to be defective and the apt.i.tude to remain latent, with consequent deficiency of s.e.xual emotion, and absence of s.e.xual satisfaction.

This is not only indicated by the considerable proportion of my cases in which there is only moderate or slight s.e.xual feeling. I have ample evidence that in many cases the element of pain, which may almost be said to be normal in the establishment of the s.e.xual function, is never merged, as it normally is, in pleasurable sensations on the full establishment of s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps. Sometimes, no doubt, this may be due to dyspareunia. Sometimes there may be an absolute s.e.xual anesthesia, whether of congenital or hysterical origin. I have been told of the case of a married lady who has never been able to obtain s.e.xual pleasure, although she has had relations with several men, partly to try if she could obtain the experience, and partly to please them; the very fact that the motives for s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps arose from no stronger impulse itself indicates a congenital defect on the psychic as well as on the physical side. But, as a rule, the s.e.xual anesthesia involved is not absolute, but lies in a disinclination to the s.e.xual act due to various causes, in a defect of strong s.e.xual impulse, and an inapt.i.tude for the s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m.

I am indebted to a lady who has written largely on the woman question, and is herself the mother of a numerous family, for several letters in regard to the prevalence among women of s.e.xual coldness, a condition which she regards as by no means to be regretted. She considers that in all her own children the s.e.xual impulse is very slightly developed, the boys being indifferent to women, the girls cold toward men and with no desire to marry, though all are intelligent and affectionate, the girls showing a very delicate and refined kind of beauty. (A large selection of photographs accompanied this communication.) Something of the same tendency is said to mark the stocks from which this family springs, and they are said to be notable for their longevity, healthiness, and disinclination for excesses of all kinds. It is scarcely necessary to remark that a mother, however highly intelligent, is by no means an infallible judge as to the presence or absence in her children of so shy, subtle, and elusive an impulse as that of s.e.x. At the same time I am by no means disposed to question the existence in individuals, and even in families or stocks, of a relatively weak s.e.xual impulse, which, while still enabling procreation to take place, is accompanied by no strong attraction to the opposite s.e.x and no marked inclination for marriage. (Adler, op. cit., p. 168, found such a condition transmitted from mother to daughter.) Such persons often possess a delicate type of beauty. Even, however, when the health is good there seems usually to be a certain lack of vitality.

It seems to me that a state of s.e.xual anesthesia, relative or absolute, cannot be considered as anything but abnormal. To take even the lowest ground, the satisfaction of the reproductive function ought to be at least as gratifying as the evacuation of the bowels or bladder; while, if we take, as we certainly must, higher ground than this, an act which is at once the supreme fact and symbol of love and the supreme creative act cannot under normal conditions be other than the most pleasurable of all acts, or it would stand in violent opposition to all that we find in nature.

How natural the s.e.xual impulse is in women, whatever difficulties may arise in regard to its complete gratification, is clearly seen when we come to consider the frequency with which in young women we witness its more or less instinctive manifestations. Such manifestations are liable to occur in a specially marked manner in the years immediately following the establishment of p.u.b.erty, and are the more impressive when we remember the comparatively pa.s.sive part played by the female generally in the game of courts.h.i.+p, and the immense social force working on women to compel them to even an unnatural extension of that pa.s.sive part. The manifestations to which I allude not only occur with most frequency in young girls, but, contrary to the common belief, they seem to occur chiefly in innocent and unperverted girls. The more vicious are skillful enough to avoid the necessity for any such open manifestations. We have to bear this in mind when confronted by flagrant s.e.xual phenomena in young girls.

"A young girl," says Hammer ("Ueber die Sinnlichkeit gesunder Jungfrauen," Die Neue Generation, Aug., 1911), "who has not previously adopted any method of self-gratification experiences at the beginning of p.u.b.erty, about the time of the first menstruation and the sprouting of the pubic hair, in the absence of all stimulation by a man, spontaneous s.e.xual tendencies of both local and psychic nature. On the psychic side there is a feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction, a need of subjection and of serving, and, if the opportunity has so far been absent, the craving to see masculine nudity and to learn the facts of procreation. Side by side with these wishes, there are at the same time inhibitory desires, such as the wish to keep herself pure, either for a man whom she represents to herself as the 'ideal,' or for her parents, who must not be worried, or as a member of a chosen people in whose spirit she must live and die, or out of love to Jesus or to some saint. On the physical side, there is the feeling of fresh power and energy, of enterprise; the agreeable tension of the genital regions, which easily become moist. Then there is the feeling of overirritability and excess of tension, and the need of relieving the tension through pinches, blows, tight lacing, and so forth. If the girl remains innocent of s.e.x satisfaction, there takes place during sleep, at regular intervals of about three days, more or less the relief and emission of the tense glands, not corresponding to the menstrual period, but to intercourse, and serving better than s.e.xual instruction to represent to her the phenomena of intercourse. If at this period actual intercourse takes place, it is, as a rule, free from pain, as also is the introduction of the speculum. Without any seduction from without, the chaste girl now frequently finds a way to relieve the excessive tension without the aid of a man. It is self-abuse that leads gradually to the production of pain in defloration. The menstrual phenomena correspond to birth; self-gratification or relief during sleep to intercourse." This statement of the matter is somewhat too absolute and unqualified. Under the artificial conditions of civilization the inhibitory influences of training speedily work powerfully, and more or less successfully, in banis.h.i.+ng s.e.xual phenomena into the subconscious, sometimes to work all the mischief there which Freud attributes to them. It must also be said (as I have pointed out in the discussion of Auto-erotism in another volume) that s.e.xual dreams seem to be the exception rather than the rule in innocent girls. It remains true that s.e.xual phenomena in girls at p.u.b.erty must not be regarded as morbid or unnatural. There is also very good reason for believing (even apart from the testimony of so experienced a gynecologist as Hammer) that on the physical side s.e.xual processes tend to be accomplished with a facility that is often lost in later years with prolonged chast.i.ty. This is true alike of intercourse and of childbirth. (See vol. vi of these Studies, ch. xii.)

Even, however, in the case of adults the active part played by women in real life in matters of love by no means corresponds to the conventional ideas on these subjects. No doubt nearly every woman receives her s.e.xual initiation from an older and more experienced man. But, on the other hand, nearly every man receives his first initiation through the active and designed steps taken by an older and more experienced woman. It is too often forgotten by those who write on these subjects that the man who seduces a woman has usually himself in the first place been "seduced" by a woman.

A well-known physician in Chicago tells me that on making inquiry of 25 middle-cla.s.s married men in succession be found that 16 had been first seduced by a woman. An officer in the Indian Medical Service writes to me as follows: "Once at a club in Burma we were some 25 at table and the subject of first intercourse came up. All had been led astray by servants save 2, whom their sisters' governesses had initiated. We were all men in the 'service,' so the facts may be taken to be typical of what occurs in our stratum of society. All had had s.e.xual relations with respectable unmarried girls, and most with the wives of men known to their fathers, in some instances these being old enough to be their lovers' mothers. Apparently up to the age of 17 none had dared to make the first advances, yet from the age of 13 onward all had had ample opportunity for gratifying their s.e.xual instincts with women. Though all had been to public schools where h.o.m.os.e.xuality was known to occur, yet (as I can a.s.sert from intimate knowledge) none had given signs of inversion or perversion in Burma."

In Russia, Tchlenoff, investigating the s.e.xual life of over 2000 Moscow students of upper and middle cla.s.s (Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, Oct.-Nov., 1908), found that in half of them the first coitus took place between 14 and 17 years of age; in 41 per cent, with prost.i.tutes, in 39 per cent, with servants, and in 10 per cent, with married women. In 41 per cent, the young man declared that he had taken the initiative, in 25 per cent, the women took it, and in 23 per cent, the incitement came from a comrade.

The histories I have recorded in Appendix B (as well as in the two following volumes of these Studies) very well ill.u.s.trate the tendency of young girls to manifest s.e.xual impulses when freed from the constraint which they feel in the presence of adult men and from the fear of consequences. These histories show especially how very frequently nurse-maids and servant-girls effect the s.e.xual initiation of the young boys intrusted to them. How common this impulse is among adolescent girls of low social cla.s.s is indicated by the fact that certainly the majority of middle-cla.s.s men can recall instances from their own childhood. (I here leave out of account the widespread practice among nurses of soothing very young children in their charge by manipulating the s.e.xual organs.)

A medical correspondent, in emphasizing this point, writes that "many boys will tell you that, if a nurse-girl is allowed to sleep in the same room with them, she will attempt s.e.xual manipulations. Either the girl gets into bed with the boy and pulling him on to her tickles the p.e.n.i.s and inserts it into the v.u.l.v.a, making the boy imitate s.e.xual movements, or she simply m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es the child, to get him excited and interested, often showing him the female s.e.xual opening in herself or in his sisters, teaching him to finger it. In fact, a nurse-girl may ruin a boy, chiefly, I think, because she has been brought up to regard the s.e.xual organs as a mystery, and is in utter ignorance about them. She thus takes the opportunity of investigating the boy's p.e.n.i.s to find out how it works, etc., in order to satisfy her curiosity. I know of a case in which a nurse in a fas.h.i.+onable London Square garden used to collect all the boys and girls (gentlemen's children) in a summer-house when it grew dark, and, turning up her petticoats, invite all the boys to look at and feel her v.u.l.v.a, and also incite the older boys of 12 or 14 to have coitus with her. Girls are afraid of pregnancy, so do not allow an adult p.e.n.i.s to operate. I think people should take on a far higher cla.s.s of nurses, than they do."

"Children ought never to be allowed, under any circ.u.mstances whatever," wrote Lawson Tait (Diseases of Women, 1889, p. 62), "to sleep with servants. In every instance where I have found a number of children affected [by masturbation] the contagion has been traced to a servant." Freud has found (Neurologisches Centralblatt, No. 10, 1896) that in cases of severe youthful hysteria the starting point may frequently be traced to s.e.xual manipulations by servants, nurse-girls, and governesses.

"When I was about 8 or 9," a friend writes, "a servant-maid of our family, who used to carry the candle out of my bedroom, often drew down the bedclothes and inspected my organs. One night she put the p.e.n.i.s in her mouth. When I asked her why she did it her answer was that 'sucking a boy's little dangle' cured her of pains in her stomach. She said that she had done it to other little boys, and declared that she liked doing it. This girl was about 16; she had lately been 'converted.' Another maid in our family used to kiss me warmly on the naked abdomen when I was a small boy. But she never did more than that. I have heard of various instances of servant-girls tampering with boys before p.u.b.erty, exciting the p.e.n.i.s to premature erection by manipulation, suction, and contact with their own parts." Such overstimulation must necessarily in some cases have an injurious influence on the boy's immature nervous system. Thus, Hutchinson (Archives of Surgery, vol. iv, p. 200) describes a case of amblyopia in a boy, developing after he had been placed to sleep in a servant-girl's room.

Moll (Kontrare s.e.xualempfindung, third edition, 1899, p. 325) refers to the frequency with which servant-girls (between the ages of 18 and 30) carry on s.e.xual practices with young boys (between 5 and 13) committed to their care. More than a century earlier Tissot, in his famous work on onanism, referred to the frequency with which servant-girls corrupt boys by teaching them to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e; and still earlier, in England, the author of Onania gave many such cases. We may, indeed, go back to the time of Rabelais, who (as Dr. Kiernan reminds me) represents the governesses of Gargantua, when he was a child, as taking pleasure in playing with his p.e.n.i.s till it became wet, and joking with each other about it. (Gargantua, book i, chapter ix.)

The prevalence of such manifestations among servant-girls witnesses to their prevalence among lower-cla.s.s girls generally. In judging such acts, even when they seem to be very deliberate, it is important to remember that at this age unreasoning instinct plays a very large part in the manifestations of the s.e.xual impulse. This is clearly indicated by the phenomena observed in the insane. Thus, as we have seen (page 214), Schroter has found that, among girls of low social cla.s.s under 20 years of age, spontaneous periodical s.e.xual manifestations at menstrual epochs occurred in as large a proportion as 72 per cent. Among girls of better social position these impulses are inhibited, or at all events modified, by good taste or good feeling, the influences of tradition or education; it is only to the latter that children should be intrusted.

Hoche mentions a case in which a man was accused of repeatedly exhibiting his s.e.xual organs to the servant-girl at a house; she enjoyed the spectacle (Neurologisches Centralblatt, 1896, No. 2). It may well be that in some cases of self-exhibition the offender has good reason, on the ground of previous experience, for thinking that he is giving pleasure. "When we used to go to bathe while I was at school," writes a correspondent, "girls from a poor quarter of the lower town (some quite 16) often followed us and stood to watch about a hundred yards from the river. They used to 'giggle' and 'pa.s.s remarks.' I have seen girls of this cla.s.s peeping through c.h.i.n.ks of a palisade around a bathing-place on the Thames." A correspondent who has given special attention to the point tells me of the great interest displayed by young girls of the people in Italy in the s.e.xual organs of men.

Curiosity-whether in the form of the desire for knowledge or the desire for sensation-is, of course, not confined to young girls and women of lower social strata, though in them it is less often restrained by motives of self-respect and good feeling. "At the age of 8," writes a correspondent, "I was one day playing in a spare room with a girl of about 12 or 13. She gave me a penholder, and, crouching upon her hands and knees, with her posterior toward me, invited me to introduce the instrument into the v.u.l.v.a. This was the first time I had seen the female parts, and, as I appeared to be somewhat repelled, she coaxed me to comply with her desire. I did as she directed, and she said that it gave her pleasure. Several times after I repeated the same act at her request. A friend tells me that when he was 10 a girl of 16 asked him to lace up her boots. While he was kneeling at her feet his hand touched her ankle. She asked him to put his hand higher, and repeated 'Higher, higher,' till he touched the pudenda, and finally, at her request, put his finger into the vestibule. This girl was very handsome and amiable, and a favorite of the boy's mother. No one suspected this propensity." Again, a correspondent (a man of science) tells me of a friend who lately, when dining out, met a girl, the daughter of a country vicar; he was not specially attracted to her and paid her no special attention. "A few days afterward he was astonished to receive a call from her one afternoon (though his address is not discoverable from any recognized source). She sat down as near to him as she could, and rested her hand on his thigh, etc., while talking on different subjects and drinking tea. Then without any verbal prelude she asked him to have connection with her. Though not exactly a Puritan, he is not the man to jump at such an offer from a woman he is not in love with, so, after ascertaining that the girl was virgo intacta, he declined and she went away. A fortnight or so later he received a letter from her in the country, making no reference to what had pa.s.sed, but giving an account of her work with her Sunday-school cla.s.s. He did not reply, and then came a curt note asking him to return her letter. My friend feels sure she was devoted to auto-erotic performances, but, having become attracted to him, came to the conclusion she would like to try normal intercourse."

Wolbarst, studying the prevalence of gonorrhea among boys in New York (especially, it would appear, in quarters where the foreign-born elements-mainly Russian Jew and south Italian-are large), states: "In my study of this subject there have been observed 3 cases of gonorrheal urethritis, in boys aged, respectively, 4, 10, and 12 years, which were acquired in the usual manner, from girls ranging between 10 and 12 years of age. In each case, according to the story told by the victim, the girl made the first advances, and in I case, that of the 4-year-old boy, the act was consummated in the form of an a.s.sault, by a girl 12 years old, in which the child was threatened with injury unless he performed his part." (A. L. Wolbarst, Journal of the American Medical a.s.sociation, Sept. 28, 1901.) In a further series of cases (Medical Record, Oct. 29, 1910) Wolbarst obtained similar results, though he recognizes also the frequency of precocious s.e.xuality in the young boys themselves.

Gibb states, concerning a.s.saults on children by women: "It is undeniably true that they occur much more frequently than is generally supposed, although but few of the cases are brought to public notice, owing to the difficulty of proving the charge." (W. T. Gibb, article "Indecent a.s.saults upon Children," in A. McLane Hamilton's System of Legal Medicine, vol. i, p. 651.) Gibb's opinion carries weight, since he is medical adviser for the New York Society for the Protection of Children, and compelled to sift the evidence carefully in such cases.

It should be mentioned that, while a s.e.xual curiosity exercised on younger children is, in girls about the age of p.u.b.erty, an ill-regulated, but scarcely morbid, manifestation, in older women it may be of pathological origin. Thus, Kisch records the case of a refined and educated lady of 30 who had been married for nine years, but had never experienced s.e.xual pleasure in coitus. For a long time past, however, she had felt a strong desire to play with the genital organs of children of either s.e.x, a proceeding which gave her s.e.xual pleasure. She sought to resist this impulse as much as possible, but during menstruation it was often irresistible. Examination showed an enlarged and retroflexed uterus and anesthesia of v.a.g.i.n.a. (Kisch, Die Sterilitat des Weibes, 1886, p. 103.) The psychological mechanism by which an anesthetic v.a.g.i.n.a leads to a feeling of repulsion for normal coitus and normal s.e.xual organs, and directs the s.e.xual feelings toward more infantile forms of s.e.xuality, is here not difficult to trace.

It is not often that the s.e.xual attempts of girls and young women on boys-notwithstanding their undoubted frequency-become of medico-legal interest. In France in the course of ten years (1874 to 1884) only 181 women, who were mostly between 20 and 30 years of age, were actually convicted of s.e.xual attempts on children below 15. (Paul Bernard, "Viols et attentats a la Pudeur," Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1887.) Lop ("Attentats a la Pudeur commis par des Femmes sur des Pet.i.ts Enfants," id., Aug., 1896) brings together a number of cases chiefly committed by girls between the ages of 18 and 20. In England such accusations against a young woman or girl may easily be circ.u.mvented. If she is under 16 she is protected by the Criminal Law Amendment Act and cannot be punished. In any case, when found out, she can always easily bring the sympathy to her side by declaring that she is not the aggressor, but the victim. Cases of violent s.e.xual a.s.sault upon girls, Lawson Tait remarks, while they undoubtedly do occur, are very much rarer than the frequency with which the charge is made would lead us to suspect. At one time, by arrangement with the authority, 70 such charges at Birmingham were consecutively brought before Lawson Tait. These charges were all made under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. In only 6 of these cases was he able to advise prosecution, in all of which cases conviction was obtained. In 7 other cases in which the police decided to prosecute there was either no conviction or a very light sentence. In at least 26 cases the charge was clearly trumped up. The average age of these girls was 12. "There is not a piece of s.e.xual argot that ever had before reached my ears," remarks Mr. Tait, "but was used by these children in the descriptions given by them of what had been done to them; and they introduced, in addition, quite a new vocabulary on the subject. The minute and detailed descriptions of the s.e.xual act given by chits of 10 and 11 would do credit to the pages of Mirabeau. At first sight it is a puzzle to see how children so young obtained their information." "About the use of the word 'seduced,'" the same writer remarks, "I wish to say that the cla.s.s of women from amongst whom the great bulk of these cases are drawn seem to use it in a sense altogether different from that generally employed. It is not with them a process in which male villainy succeeds by various arts in overcoming female virtue and reluctance, but simply a date at which an incident in their lives occurs for the first time; and, according to their use of the phrase, the ancient legend of the Sacred Scriptures, had it ended in the more ordinary and usual way by the virtue of Joseph yielding to the temptation offered, would have to read as a record of the seduction of Mrs. Potiphar."

With reference to Lawson Tait's observation that violent a.s.saults on women, while they do occur, are very much rarer than the frequency with which such charges are made would lead us to believe, it may be remarked that many medico-legal authorities are of the same opinion. (See, e.g., G. Vivian Poore's Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence, 1901, p. 325. This writer also remarks: "I hold very strongly that a woman may rape a man as much as a man may rape a woman.") There can be little doubt that the plea of force is very frequently seized on by women as the easiest available weapon of defense when her connection with a man has been revealed. She has been so permeated by the current notion that no "respectable" woman can possibly have any s.e.xual impulses of her own to gratify that, in order to screen what she feels to be regarded as an utterly shameful and wicked, as well as foolish, act, she declares it never took place by her own will at all. "Now, I ask you, gentlemen," I once heard an experienced counsel address the jury in a criminal case, "as men of the world, have you ever known or heard of a woman, a single woman, confess that she had had s.e.xual connection and not declare that force had been used to compel her to such connection?" The statement is a little sweeping, but in this matter there is some element of truth in the "man of the world's" opinion. One may refer to the story (told by Etienne de Bourbon, by Francisco de Osuna in a religious work, and by Cervantes in Don Quixote, part ii, ch. xlv) concerning a magistrate who, when a girl came before him to complain of rape, ordered the accused young man either to marry her or pay her a sum of money. The fine was paid, and the magistrate then told the man to follow the girl and take the money from her by force; the man obeyed, but the girl defended herself so energetically that he could not secure the money. Then the judge, calling the parties before him again, ordered the fine to be returned: "Had you defended your chast.i.ty as well as you have defended your money it could not have been taken away from you." In most cases of "rape," in the case of adults, there has probably been some degree of consent, though that partial a.s.sent may have been basely secured by an appeal to the lower nervous centers alone, with no partic.i.p.ation of the intelligence and will. Freud (Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, p. 87) considers that on this ground the judge's decision in Don Quixote is "psychologically unjust," because in such a case the woman's strength is paralyzed by the fact that an unconscious instinct in herself takes her a.s.sailant's part against her own conscious resistance. But it must be remembered that the factor of instinct plays a large part even when no violence is attempted.

Such facts and considerations as these tend to show that the s.e.xual impulse is by no means so weak in women as many would lead us to think. It would appear that, whereas in earlier ages there was generally a tendency to credit women with an unduly large share of the s.e.xual impulse, there is now a tendency to unduly minimize the s.e.xual impulse in women.

[156]

I have had occasion to refer to the historic evolution of male opinion regarding women in previous volumes, as, e.g., Man and Woman, chapter i, and the appendix on "The Influence of Menstruation on the Position of Women" in the first volume of these Studies.

[157]

The terminology proposed by Ziehen ("Zur Lehre von den psychopathischen Konst.i.tutionen," Charite Annalen, vol. x.x.xxiii, 1909) is as follows: For absence of s.e.xual feeling, anhedonia; for diminution of the same, hyphedonia; for excess of s.e.xual feeling, hyperhedonia; for qualitative s.e.xual perversions, parhedonia. "Erotic blindness" was suggested by Nardelli.

[158]

O. Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, 1904, p. 146.

[159]

A correspondent tells me that he knows a woman who has been a prost.i.tute since the age of 15, but never experienced s.e.xual pleasure and a real, non-simulated o.r.g.a.s.m till she was 23; since then she has become very sensual. In other similar cases the hitherto indifferent prost.i.tute, having found the man who suits her, abandons her profession, even though she is thereby compelled to live in extreme poverty. "An insensible woman," as La Bruyere long ago remarked in his chapter "Des Femmes," "is merely one who has not yet seen the man she must love."

[160]

Guttceit (Dreissig Jahre Praxis, vol. i, p. 416) pointed out that the presence or absence of the o.r.g.a.s.m is the only factor in "s.e.xual anesthesia" of which we can speak at all definitely; and he believed that anaphrodism, in the sense of absence of the s.e.xual impulse, never occurs at all, many women having confided to him that they had s.e.xual desires, although those desires were not gratified by coitus.

[161]

Op. cit., p. 164.

[162]

Havelock Ellis, "Madame de Warens," The Venture, 1903.

[163]

It is interesting to observe that finally even Adler admits (op. cit., p. 155) that there is no such thing as congenital lack of apt.i.tude for s.e.xual sensibility.

[164]

"I am not entirely satisfied with the testimony as to the alleged s.e.xual anesthesia," a medical correspondent writes. "The same principle which makes the young harlot an old saint makes the repentant rake a believer in s.e.xual anesthesia. Most of the medical men who believe, or claim to believe, that s.e.xual anesthesia is so prevalent do so either to flatter their hysterical patients or because they have the mentality of the Hyacinthe of Zola's Paris."

[165]

Differences in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman, 1891; chapter xiii, "s.e.xual Instinct in Men and Women Compared."

[166]

Matthews Duncan considered that "the healthy performance of the functions of child-bearing is surely connected with a well-regulated condition of desire and pleasure." "Desire and pleasure," he adds, "may be excessive, furious, overpowering, without bringing the female into the cla.s.s of maniacs; they may be temporary, healthy, and moderate; they may be absent or dull." (Matthews Duncan, Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility in Woman, pp. 91, 121.)

[167]

Geoffrey Mortimer, Chapters on Human Love, 1898, ch. xvi.

[168]

I do not, however, attach much weight to this possibility. The s.e.xual instinct among the lower social cla.s.ses everywhere is subject to comparatively weak inhibition, and Lowenfeld is probably right in believing the women of the lower cla.s.s do not suffer from s.e.xual anesthesia to anything like the same extent as upper-cla.s.s women. In England most women of the working cla.s.s appear to have had s.e.xual intercourse at some time in their lives, notwithstanding the risks of pregnancy, and if pregnancy occurs they refer to it calmly as an "accident," for which they cannot be held responsible; "Well, I couldn't help that," I have heard a young widow remark when mildly reproached for the existence of her illegitimate child. Again, among American negresses there seems to be no defect of s.e.xual pa.s.sion, and it is said that the majority of negresses in the Southern States support not only their children, but their lovers and husbands.

II.

Special Characters of the s.e.xual Impulse in Women-The More Pa.s.sive Part Played by Women in Courts.h.i.+p-This Pa.s.sivity only Apparent-The Physical Mechanism of the s.e.xual Process in Women More Complex-The Slower Development of o.r.g.a.s.m in Women-The s.e.xual Impulse in Women More Frequently Needs to be Actively Aroused-The Climax of s.e.xual Energy Falls Later in Women's Lives than in Men's-s.e.xual Ardor in Women Increased After the Establishment of s.e.xual Relations.h.i.+ps-Women bear s.e.xual Excesses better than Men-The s.e.xual Sphere Larger and More Diffused in Women-The s.e.xual Impulse in Women Shows a Greater Tendency to Periodicity and a Wider Range of Variation.

So far I have been discussing the question of the s.e.xual impulse in women on the ground upon which previous writers have usually placed it. The question, that is, has usually presented itself to them as one concerning the relative strength of the impulse in men and women. When so considered, not hastily and with prepossession, as is too often the case, but with a genuine desire to get at the real facts in all their aspects, there is no reason, as we have seen, to conclude that, on the whole, the s.e.xual impulse in women is lacking in strength.