By the term _sexual impulse_, we understand the impulse shared by women
and by men towards intimate physical contact and sexual intercourse with
individuals of the opposite sex. In the child this impulse slumbers, to
awaken at the menarche with the onset of puberty, to increase slowly at
first, and then more rapidly, after the manner of an avalanche, until it
becomes a powerful passion, dominant throughout the active sexual life
of the woman, and it may even continue far beyond this period. The
proper aim for whose attainment the sexual impulse in woman strives is
by no means (as is asserted in some quarters) the fulfilment of “the
impulse toward motherhood,” but is merely the complete satisfaction of
sensual passion by intercourse with the male. Still, the sexual impulse
is often satisfied by the minor degrees of sexual gratification in the
form of the mutual contact, so agreeable to the sense of touch, of
portions of the body, and even by the play of imagination and illusion
under the dominion of love. Finally, also, love amounts to what
_Buffon_, the celebrated naturalist, expressed with coarse incisiveness
in the phrase, “L’amour c’est le frôlement de deux intestins.”
In the sexually mature woman, the sexual impulse always exists, though
its strength varies in accordance with individual inheritance, with
physical and mental condition, and with external circumstances, and
though its manifestation may be repressed by force of will. The
sensation of the sexual impulse in a maiden during the years of
development is described by _Goethe_ in a masterly manner in the
verses.[33]
“Meine Ruh ist hin
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
Und nimmermehr.
Mein Busen drängt
Sich nach ihm hin,
Ach, dürft ich ihn fassen
Und halten ihn
Und küssen ihn,
So wie ich wollt,
An seinen Küssen
Vergehen sollt.”
A resemblance to heat or rut in animals, who exhibit the sexual impulse
only at definite periods, those at which the ovules ripen, is manifested
in females of the human species only in so far as there is during
menstruation a more intense sexual sensibility; but the limitation of
the sexual impulse to definite periods, and its close association with
reproduction, are not found in women. Education and morality impose
artificial limitations on the sexual impulse in women, whilst nature
endows this impulse with a coercive power, a fact recognized by thinkers
of all times and all peoples. Thus, _Buddha_ wrote: “The sexual impulse
is stronger than the ankus with which the wild elephant is controlled,
it is hotter than flame, it is like unto an arrow driven into the spirit
of man.” In a similar sense _Luther_ writes: “He who wishes to restrain
the impulse of nature and not to allow it free play, as nature will and
must, what does he do but this, to insist that nature shall not be
nature, that fire shall not burn, that water shall not wet, that man
shall neither eat, drink, nor sleep.” _Schopenhaur_ describes the sexual
impulse as “the completest outward manifestation of the will to live,
the concentration, that is to say, of all wills. * * * The affirmation
of the will to live concentrates itself in the act of generation, and
this act is its most determined expression.” _Mainländer_ in his
_Philosophy of Deliverance_ makes the following statement: “In the
sexual impulse lies the centre of gravity of human life. To nothing does
man devote a more earnest attention than to the business of generation,
and in the pursuit of no other aim does he concentrate the intensity of
his will in so striking a manner as in the performance of the act of
generation.” _Debay_ similarly insists on the strength of the sexual
impulse, saying: “The union of the sexes is one of the great laws of
nature; to that law men and women are subordinated as completely as all
other creatures, they cannot escape its operation.”
According to the general opinion, the sexual impulse is not so strongly
developed in women as it is in men. _Hegar_, _Litzmann_, _Lombroso_, _P.
Müller_, and many others, assume that the sexual sensibility of women is
less than that of men; _Fürbringer_ is inclined to attribute the
characteristic of sexual frigidity to the great majority of German
wives. I do not believe that this view, of the slight intensity of the
sexual impulse in women in general, is well grounded, and can admit only
this much, that in adolescent girls who are inexperienced in sexual
matters, the sexual impulse is less powerful than in youths of the same
age who have undergone sexual enlightenment. From the moment when the
woman also has been fully enlightened as to sexual affairs, and has
actually experienced sexual excitement, her impulse toward intimate
physical contact and toward copulation is just as powerful as that of
men. According, however, to the dominant artificial conditions, man
assumes it as his right to give free rein to his sexual desires and to
gratify them without regard to consequences, whereas woman, narrowly
confined within the boundaries imposed by law and convention, cannot so
readily yield to her inclination in the direction of physical love, and
must forcibly control that inclination. Moreover, a powerful check on
the free indulgence of the sexual impulse is imposed on woman by the
consequences of such indulgence, consequences which exist for woman
only.
I may further indicate as differential characteristics, that in woman
the sexual impulse is more accessible to voluntary control than it is in
man, the ardor of female sexual passion is more readily diminished than
that of the male; and again that in the female the gratification of the
sexual impulse is less narrowly restricted than in the male. Excessive
sexual gratification on the one hand and suppression of sexual desire on
the other are, generally speaking, less harmful to the female organism
than to the male. In these differentiæ is to be found, in my opinion,
the influence which determines the type of sexuality in the respective
sexes.
The following account is given by _Havelock Ellis_ of the differential
characters of the sexual impulse in the female: “In courtship, woman
plays a more passive part than man; in woman the physiological mechanism
of the sexual processes is more complicated, and the orgasm develops
more deliberately; the sexual impulse in woman needs more frequently to
be actively stimulated; the culmination of sexual activity is attained
later in the life of woman than in the life of man, the strength of
sexual desire in woman becomes greater after she has entered upon
regular sexual intercourse, women bear sexual excesses better than men;
the sexual sphere is larger and more widely diffused in women than it is
in men; finally, in woman the sexual impulse exhibits a distinct
tendency to periodic exacerbations, and it is in any case much more
variable than in man.” The same author, who has published several
notable biological studies on subjects connected with sex, maintains
that the source of erotic pleasure in the case of the male lies in
activity, but in the female in the passive state, in the experience of
compulsion, and he holds that sexual subordination is a necessary
element in the sexual enjoyment of women.
_Hegar_ maintains that under the term _sexual impulse_ two distinct
conceptions are confounded: First, the impulse toward copulation, the
desire of carnal union with a member of the opposite sex; secondly, the
impulse toward reproduction, the desire for children. At the same time,
this author admits that it is questionable if we can properly speak of
an impulse toward reproduction, when reproduction is merely a
consequence of copulation; in the case of civilized man, at any rate, so
much reflection is connected with the idea of reproduction that it can
hardly be proper to speak of anything of the nature of an impulse. In
the case of woman, the expression is less unsuitable, since in woman
special organs exist for the maintenance of the ovum after
fertilization, and these organs may perhaps lead to the production of
this peculiar form of mental activity.
According to _Darwin_, a comparatively less intensity of sexual desire
is common to the females of all species of the animal kingdom. The
female demands a prolonged courtship, and often endeavors for a
considerable time to elude the male. In the lowest classes of the animal
kingdom the female leads a separate existence as soon as she has been
fertilized by the male, the sexual functions being thus subordinated to
the maternal. Among birds at the pairing season the male is always the
more passionate and active of the two, whilst the female commonly
remains passive and occupies herself in building the nest. Among
mammals, it is difficult to determine whether sexual feeling is stronger
in the female or in the male; but it is certain that sexual relations
are seldom long lasting, they continue in most cases only during the
period of heat or rut, and at most only till the birth of the young.
From these phenomena witnessed in the animal kingdom, many naturalists
have concluded that in females of the human species also, sexual
sensibility and the intensity of the sexual impulse are less than in the
males, and even that the sexual sense in general is but little developed
in the female sex, or sometimes entirely wanting. The complicated
apparatus which the primary and secondary sexual characters of the
female combine to make up, exists, according to this view, not for the
gratification of the sexual impulse, but for the fulfilment of the
function of motherhood. “Love in women,” says _Lombroso_, “is in its
fundamental nature no more than a secondary character of motherhood, and
all the feelings of affection that bind woman to man arise, not from
sexual impulses, but from the instincts, acquired by adaptation, of
subordination and self-surrender.”
_Mantegazza_ lays stress on the fact that in the female, sexual desire
is very rarely accompanied by pains analogous to those which occur in
man, in whom sexual excitement manifests itself in painful tension of
the testicle and the seminal vesicles, or in spasmodic, long-continued
priapism.
_Sergi_ writes to _Lombroso_: “The normal woman loves to be flattered
and wooed by man, but yields herself to his sexual desires only like an
animal at the sacrifice. It is well known how much pains must be taken,
how many caresses must be expended, before a woman will yield with
pleasure to a man’s desires, and will share his sexual passion. Without
the employment of these means, a woman remains cold and gives as little
satisfaction as she feels. There are girls who are quite obtuse to the
joys of love, and either resist energetically a man’s approaches, or
yield to him passively, without ardor and without enthusiasm. It is well
known, also, that among the lower races of mankind, means are employed
to stimulate the sexual sensibility in women, means that seem to us to
amount to torture; and that the male, with the same end in view,
undergoes the most painful operations, from which it is apparent that
the slight sexual sensibility of women in these lower grades of
civilization is fully recognized.” And again: “If a normal woman marries
for love, she hides that love deep in her heart, and even on the
wedding-day exhibits no great sexual excitement; she often complains
later that in her husband the love-fervor of the first days still
continues; the very moderate sexual needs of the wife form a natural and
most valuable check to the much more powerful passion of the male.”
_Saint Prospêre_ expresses himself to a similar effect: “Women do not
fall in consequence of the excessive power of the senses—in this domain
they are overlords, in striking contrast to men, whose weakest side is
here. It is not by means of the senses that a woman is to be overcome;
her weakness lies elsewhere—in her heart, in her vanity.” And _de
Lambert_ wrote the epigram, “Women play with love, and yield themselves
to love, but they do not abandon themselves to love.”
Well known also is the saying of _Dante_:
“We know how speedily in women the fire of love is consumed
Unless eye and hand continually supply it with fresh fuel.”
On the other hand, it is asserted in the laws of the Hindus that sexual
desire in women can as little be satisfied or fed full as a devouring
fire can be fed full of combustible materials, or as the ocean can be
overfilled by the rivers that pour their waters into it.
_Lombroso_ finds a proof of the sexual indifference of women and of the
greater sexual needs of man, in the existence of prostitution, with
which can be contrasted the existence only among the degenerate classes
(both rich and poor) of a small group of male prostitutes (alfons,
souteneurs). This author also refers to the rarity and uniformity in
women of the sexual psychoses so frequent in men, as indications of the
minor intensity of sexual desire in the former; and he refers also to a
series of facts, as for instance, to the occurrence of platonic love,
which, though indeed often hypocritical, has a real existence more often
in the female sex than in the male; to the long-enduring chastity of
girls, and to vows of chastity, which are rarely made except by females;
moreover, the ready adaptation of women to polygamy, as well as their
scrupulous observance of monogamy, which latter for the male is nominal
rather than actual. If in general the opposite view concerning women
prevails, this is ascribed by _Lombroso_ to the fact, that love is the
most important circumstance in a woman’s life. The reason therefore,
however, is to be found, not in the erotic sphere, but in the desire for
the satisfaction of the maternal instinct, and in a woman’s need for
protection. A celebrated accoucheur, _Giordano_, has remarked: “Man
loves woman for the sake of the vulva; what woman loves in man is the
husband and the father. Comprehensively we may express the matter by
saying that woman has less eroticism and more sexuality.”
As a rule, remarks _Erb_, it is believed that the sexual impulse is less
intense in women than in men. This is true enough, he writes, as regards
youthful and virgin individuals, who have not yet come into intimate
contact with men, and in whom sexual desire and sensibility have not yet
been directly excited; later, however, when sexual intercourse has been
begun, a change usually takes place, and the sexual needs become active
in women also, and demand satisfaction. It is well known that not a few
women experience powerful and uncontrolled sensual inclinations, just
like those of men. On the other hand, we must insist that quite a large
number of women possess the so-called _naturae frigidae_, and have no
sensual inclination to sexual intercourse, to which they are either
indifferent, or in some cases strongly averse, even regarding it with
horror. This lack of the sexual sense in women, is especially common in
hysterical subjects, and _Erb_ reports that he has encountered quite a
large number of cases of this character. Whether in quite healthy women
with normal sexual impulse, complete abstinence from sexual intercourse,
too often compulsory but sometimes voluntarily undertaken, is harmful in
its consequences—this, says _Erb_, is a question very difficult to
answer. Many such unfortunate women have assured him that they suffered
severely in consequence of their enforced continence; the majority of
these became neurasthenic or hysterical. The complication of purely
physical influences with mental influences, increases the difficulty of
the problem. Neurologists have observed women on whom continence was
forced either during marriage or after its dissolution, who thereupon
fell into a state of severe nervous exhaustion or nervous excitement, or
suffered from threatening or even actually developed psychoses. That
sexual abstinence is “absolutely harmless,” as moralists and many
physicians would so gladly believe, appears to _Erb_ a quite
unwarrantable assumption.
“In the processes of reproduction,” continues Erb in his discussion of
this subject, “woman is the principal sufferer. With inhuman cruelty,
nature has condemned woman to a far more difficult rôle than man in the
intercourse of the sexes and in the preservation of the species; she is
overpowered and forced by man, she is compelled to make the most severe
sacrifices for the sake of the new generation, first when it is
germinating within her womb, and later when it is entrusted to her care;
and only too frequently she fails to find the respect and protection due
to her for the performance of these functions! Compared with the
sacrifices made by woman, the temporary continence which is all that is
demanded from man will be admitted to be a small matter! It is fortunate
that as a rule the young woman who has never come into intimate contact
with the male, appears to be endowed by nature with a relatively weak
sexual impulse! This unequal and unjust distribution of the male and
female rôles on the part of nature may be regretted, but it cannot be
altered.”
The modern advocates of the rights of women, who demand that in the
sexual sphere also, woman should receive emancipation, oppose the view
that in the male the sexual impulse is stronger than in the female, and
also the view that whilst in the male the impulse is simply one toward
sexual congress, in the female the determining motive to intercourse is
furnished by the desire for motherhood. They complain of “the perverse
repression in woman of the sexual impulse and its physiological
gratification,” since sexual energy and sexual sensibility are equal in
intensity and identical in quality in the female and in the male. Thus,
_Johanna Elberskirchen_ writes (_Die Sexualempfindung bei Weib und
Mann_—Sexual Sensation in Woman and Man): “Body and soul, the whole
being is subordinated to a single powerful feeling and impulse, a single
will flows through nerves and blood, forcing and driving the female
toward the male with irresistible power; the yearning, the longing for
the relief of sexual tension, the craving for the euphoria and fleshly
delight that dominate the whole personality. And this elementary sexual
longing it is that clouds the woman’s brain, that drives her into the
man’s arms, that leads her to forget all the shame threatening her and
her child, that brings her to sexual union—not the longing for a child,
not the so-called impulse to motherhood.” And again: “Woman yearns for
love, all her love-organs cry out for love, soul and body * * *. We do
not long only for the rude sexual act. We spiritualise it—at least some
of us do so; at any rate we individualize it. It is one particular man
whom we desire, he alone can still our longing, our bodily and mental
hunger for love. He satisfies us with all his love-affinities.”
Naturally, also, the consequence is deduced, “a free course must be
given to sexual sensation in women, and to the satisfaction of sexual
desire, within physiological limits, within the bounds of physiological
necessity.”
_Löwenfeld_ asserts that in the life of woman the sexual functions play
a comparatively much greater part than in the life of man, woman’s
thoughts and feelings are, that is to say, much more powerfully
influenced by sexual matters than those of men; but none the less he is
of opinion that in the normal woman the desire for sexual satisfaction
is on the average less keen than in the normal man. Distinctly greater
in woman is the erotic element only, the need to love and to be loved
after an ideal manner, which is excited by the reproductive glands just
as much as is the simple sensual desire. Very frequently, manifestations
of this ideal need are erroneously attributed to the sensual impulse,
yet this latter may be entirely absent in cases in which the erotic
element is strongly developed. According to _Löwenfeld_, the sexual
impulse is altogether wanting in young girls before the time of puberty,
and in elderly women (in the case of the latter we consider this
assertion most questionable); this lack of the sexual impulse persists
in girls for an indeterminate time even after puberty, as long as they
remain free from all experience of sexual stimulation. In this respect
they offer a notable contrast to males of the same age. In normal girls,
according to the same author, erotic dreams and similar occurrences are
entirely wanting, and specific sexual sensations therefore remain
absolutely unknown to them; hence it follows that the sexual impulse
cannot, properly speaking, arise in such individuals, and in so far as
they experience any desire for sexual intercourse it can only take the
form of a craving for some enjoyment, the nature of which is entirely
unknown. The absolute lack of the sexual impulse (complete frigidity)
persists, according to _Löwenfeld_, in a not inconsiderable proportion
of women even after their introduction to sexual intercourse—_Effertz_
estimates that such complete frigidity is permanent in 10 per cent. of
all women—and in a still greater proportion of women the sensual impulse
never exceeds a certain minimal intensity (partial frigidity). It is
probable that in the higher classes of society, inherited
predisposition, education, and perhaps also higher intelligence, combine
to diminish the intensity of the sexual impulse. In contrast with these
women of frigid temperament, however, we meet with women, certainly in
very limited numbers, whose sexual passions are extremely powerful, and
whose needs no man can satisfy.
_Hegar_, who considers that the sexual impulse in women is seldom very
powerful, draws the following conclusions in respect of the influence of
sexual gratification, on the one hand, or of continence, on the other,
on the duration of life and on physical and mental health: “As far as
comparisons between married women and women vowed to celibacy (nuns and
members of other celibate religious orders) justify any conclusion,
sexual activity and inactivity, respectively, would appear to have
little influence on the duration of life. Comparisons between married
and single women show, indeed, that the gratification of the sexual
impulse and the processes of reproduction are distinctly injurious when
experienced before the attainment of complete sexual maturity. In
married women up to the age of thirty, in some countries even up to the
age of forty, the mortality is greater than in unmarried women. The
notably smaller mortality of married women, as compared with unmarried,
after the age of forty, is usually explained as the result of the
complete fulfilment of the genital functions. It may, however, find a
truer explanation in the selection effected by marriage, especially when
we take into consideration that from the women thus selected the weaker
individuals have been previously weeded out by the processes of
reproduction:
“The lesser mortality of married men from the age of twenty upwards is
to be explained by the selection of the fit which occurs in marriage, by
the smaller proportion of marriages among men engaged in hazardous
occupations, and by the deterioration in the quality of the unmarried
which results from emigration. Still the directly favorable influence of
marriage is undeniable, and, no doubt, the ethical factors of this
institution have a beneficial effect, whereas the gratification of the
sexual impulse hardly enters into the account.
“Suicide is certainly very little dependent upon repression of the
sexual impulse, since all the motives arising out of the affairs of love
play together but a small part among the causes of suicide.
“The beneficial influence of marriage in the prevention of insanity is
in part apparent merely, since, in the selection exercised by marriage,
those predisposed to mental disorder, and those in whom such disorder
has already manifested itself, are, for the most part, already excluded.
Still, as regards the male sex at any rate, the beneficial influence of
marriage is undeniable, and consists principally in the favorable
ethical factors of this state. In women, on the other hand, the
advantage of marriage is doubtful, since the nerve centres and the
nervous system as a whole are strongly affected by the processes of
reproduction.
“Satyriasis, nymphomania, and hysteria are in no way dependent upon the
repression of the sexual impulse.
“Criminality in the married is comparatively less common than in the
unmarried. In criminal assaults on young persons, repressed sexual
impulse plays a part.
“Chlorosis is not in any way dependent on repression of the sexual
impulse. A disease apparently analogous to chlorosis, occurring in
unmarried women from twenty to thirty years of age, is dependent rather
on mental causes, and is relieved by other means than marriage,
especially by suitable occupation. Marriage and gestation are distinctly
injurious in cases of true chlorosis.
“The satisfaction of the sexual impulse, and still more gestation, favor
in women the origin and growth of tumors, give rise often to mechanical
disturbances, and open the way for the invasion of toxic pathogenic
germs.
“Osteomalacia occurs only in parous women.”
_Moll_ divides the sexual impulse into two components: The impulse
toward intimate contact (in a sense both physical and mental) with a
person of the opposite sex, which he calls the contrectation-impulse
(_Kontrektationstrieb_); and the impulse to bring about a change in
the genital organs, which he calls the detumescence-impulse
(_Detumeszenztrieb_). The former impulse induces intimate physical and
mental contact between the two persons concerned, the latter impulse
induces the local processes of copulation. In women, detumescence
results from the passing off of local swelling and the release of
nervous tension in the genital organs, with the discharge of
indifferent glandular secretions, notably the secretion of Bartholin’s
glands, and perhaps also the secretion of the uterine glands. The
intensity of the detumescence-impulse in women varies greatly in
different individuals, these variations being more extensive than
those occurring in the male. In some women the impulse toward intimate
contact, the contrectation-impulse, is normal, though the
detumescence-impulse is wholly wanting (_vide_ Dyspareunia).
_Runge_ defines the sexual impulse as the impulse which brings the sexes
together. This impulse is subservient to an instinct, namely the
instinct of reproduction; that is to say, the sexual impulse induces the
individual to perform actions which subserve the purpose of reproduction
without the agent’s being directly or chiefly concerned with this
purpose.
The sexual impulse, as sensation, perception, and impulse, is,
according to _von Krafft-Ebing_, a function of the cerebral cortex; a
centre for the sexual sense has not as yet, however, been localized.
The close relations which obtain between the sexual life and the sense
of smell lead to the supposition that the sexual and the olfactory
spheres of the cerebral cortex are in close proximity one with the
other. The development of the sexual life has its beginnings in the
organic sensations of the developing reproductive glands. A mutual
dependence now arises between the cerebral cortex as place of origin
of sensations and perceptions, and the organs of generation. By
anatomico-physiological processes these now give rise to sexual
perceptions, representations, and impulses. The cerebral cortex, by
apperceived or reproduced sensuous perceptions, influences the organs
of generation. This influence is effected by the intermediation of the
centres of vascular innervation and ejaculation, which are situated in
the lumbar enlargement of the spinal cord, and are certainly in close
proximity one with the other. Both are reflex centres.
The psycho-physiological process embraced in the conception of the
sexual impulse is according to _von Krafft-Ebing_ constituted in the
following manner: