I.

The Primitive View of Women--As a Supernatural Element in Life--As

Peculiarly Embodying the Sexual Instinct--The Modern Tendency to

Underestimate the Sexual Impulse in Women--This Tendency Confined to

Recent Times--Sexual Anæsthesia--Its Prevalence--Difficulties in

Investigating the Subject--Some Attempts to Investigate it--Sexual

Anesthesia must be Regarded as Abnormal--The Tendency to Spontaneous

Manifestations of the Sexual Impulse in Young Girls at Puberty.

From very early times it seems possible to trace two streams of opinion

regarding women: on the one hand, a tendency to regard women as a

supernatural element in life, more or less superior to men, and, on the

other hand, a tendency to regard women as especially embodying the sexual

instinct and as peculiarly prone to exhibit its manifestations.

In the most primitive societies, indeed, the two views seem to be to some

extent amalgamated; or, it should rather be said, they have not yet been

differentiated; and, as in such societies it is usual to venerate the

generative principle of nature and its embodiments in the human body and

in human functions, such a co-ordination of ideas is entirely rational.

But with the development of culture the tendency is for this homogeneous

conception to be split up into two inharmonious tendencies. Even apart

from Christianity and before its advent this may be noted. It was,

however, to Christianity and the Christian ascetic spirit that we owe the

complete differentiation and extreme development which these opposing

views have reached. The condemnation of sexuality involved the

glorification of the virgin; and indifference, even contempt, was felt for

the woman who exercised sexual functions. It remained open to anyone,

according to his own temperament, to identify the typical average woman

with the one or with the other type; all the fund of latent sexual emotion

which no ascetic rule can crush out of the human heart assured the

picturesque idealization alike of the angelic and the diabolic types of

woman. We may trace the same influence subtly lurking even in the most

would-be scientific statements of anthropologists and physicians

today.[156]

It may not be out of place to recall at this point, once more,

the fact, fairly obvious indeed, that the judgments of men

concerning women are very rarely matters of cold scientific

observation, but are colored both by their own sexual emotions

and by their own moral attitude toward the sexual impulse. The

ascetic who is unsuccessfully warring with his own carnal

impulses may (like the voluptuary) see nothing in women but

incarnations of sexual impulse; the ascetic who has subdued his

own carnal impulses may see no elements of sex in women at all.

Thus the opinions regarding this matter are not only tinged by

elements of primitive culture, but by elements of individual

disposition. Statements about the sexual impulses of women often

tell us less about women than about the persons who make them.

The curious manner in which for men women become incarnations of

the sexual impulse is shown by the tendency of both general and

personal names for women to become applicable to prostitutes

only. This is the case with the words "garce" and "fille" in

French, "Mädchen" and "Dirne" in German, as well as with the

French "catin" (Catherine) and the German "Metze" (Mathilde).

(See, e.g., R. Kleinpaul, _Die Räthsel der Sprache_, 1890, pp.

197-198.)

At the same time, though we have to recognize the presence of

elements which color and distort in various ways the judgments of

men regarding women, it must not be hastily assumed that these

elements render discussion of the question altogether

unprofitable. In most cases such prejudices lead chiefly to a

one-sided solution of facts, against which we can guard.

While, however, these two opposing currents of opinion are of very ancient

origin, it is only within quite recent times, and only in two or three

countries, that they have led to any marked difference of opinion

regarding the sexual aptitude of women. In ancient times men blamed women

for concupiscence or praised them for chastity, but it seems to have been

reserved for the nineteenth century to state that women are apt to be

congenitally incapable of experiencing complete sexual satisfaction, and

peculiarly liable to sexual anesthesia. This idea appears to have been

almost unknown to the eighteenth century. During the last century,

however, and more especially in England, Germany, and Italy, this opinion

has been frequently set down, sometimes even as a matter of course, with a

tincture of contempt or pity for any woman afflicted with sexual emotions.

In the treatise _On Generation_ (chapter v), which until recent

times was commonly ascribed to Hippocrates, it is stated that men

have greater pleasure in coitus than women, though the pleasure

of women lasts longer, and this opinion, though not usually

accepted, was treated with great respect by medical authors down

to the end of the seventeenth century. Thus A. Laurentius (Du

Laurens), after a long discussion, decides that men have stronger

sexual desire and greater pleasure in coitus than women.

(_Historia Anatomica Humani Corporis_, 1599, lib. viii, quest, ii

and vii.)

About half a century ago a book entitled _Functions and Disorders

of the Reproductive Organs_, by W. Acton, a surgeon, passed

through many editions and was popularly regarded as a standard

authority on the subjects with which it deals. This extraordinary

book is almost solely concerned with men; the author evidently

regards the function of reproduction as almost exclusively

appertaining to men. Women, if "well brought up," are, and should

be, he states, in England, absolutely ignorant of all matters

concerning it. "I should say," this author again remarks, "that

the majority of women (happily for society) are not very much

troubled with sexual feeling of any kind." The supposition that

women do possess sexual feelings he considers "a vile aspersion."

In the article "Generation," contained in another medical work

belonging to the middle of the nineteenth century,--Rees's

_Cyclopedia_,--we find the following statement: "That a mucous

fluid is sometimes found in coition from the internal organs and

vagina is undoubted; but this only happens in lascivious women,

or such as live luxuriously."

Gall had stated decisively that the sexual desires of men are

stronger and more imperious than those of women. (_Fonctions du

Cerveau_, 1825, vol. iii, pp. 241-271.)

Raciborski declared that three-fourths of women merely endure the

approaches of men. (_De la Puberté chez la Femme_, 1844, p. 486.)

"When the question is carefully inquired into and without

prejudice," said Lawson Tait, "it is found that women have their

sexual appetites far less developed than men." (Lawson Tait,

"Remote Effects of Removal of the Uterine Appendages,"

_Provincial Medical Journal_, May, 1891.) "The sexual instinct is

very powerful in man and comparatively weak in women," he stated

elsewhere (_Diseases of Women_, 1889, p. 60).

Hammond stated that, leaving prostitutes out of consideration, it

is doubtful if in one-tenth of the instances of intercourse they

[women] experience the slightest pleasurable sensation from first

to last (Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 300), and he considered

(p. 281) that this condition was sometimes congenital.

Lombroso and Ferrero consider that sexual sensibility, as well as

all other forms of sensibility, is less pronounced in women, and

they bring forward various facts and opinions which seem to them

to point in the same direction. "Woman is naturally and

organically frigid." At the same time they consider that, while

erethism is less, sexuality is greater than in men. (Lombroso and

Ferrero, _La Donna Delinquente, la Prostituta, e la Donna

Normale_, 1893, pp. 54-58.)

"It is an altogether false idea," Fehling declared, in his

rectorial address at the University of Basel in 1891, "that a

young woman has just as strong an impulse to the opposite sex as

a young man.... The appearance of the sexual side in the love of

a young girl is pathological." (H. Fehling, _Die Bestimmung der

Frau_, 1892, p. 18.) In his _Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten_ the

same gynecological authority states his belief that half of all

women are not sexually excitable.

Krafft-Ebing was of opinion that women require less sexual

satisfaction than men, being less sensual. (Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber

Neurosen und Psychosen durch sexuelle Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für

Psychiatrie_, 1888, Bd. viii, ht. I and 2.)

"In the normal woman, especially of the higher social classes,"

states Windscheid, "the sexual instinct is acquired, not inborn;

when it is inborn, or awakes by itself, there is abnormality.

Since women do not know this instinct before marriage, they do

not miss it when they have no occasion in life to learn it." (F.

Windscheid, "Die Beziehungen zwischen Gynäkologie und

Neurologie," _Zentralblatt für Gynäkologie_, 1896, No. 22; quoted

by. Moll, _Libido Sexualis_, Bd. i, p. 271.)

"The sensuality of men," Moll states, "is in my opinion very much

greater than that of women." (A. Moll, _Die Konträre

Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p. 592.)

"Women are, in general, less sensual than men," remarks Näcke,

"notwithstanding the alleged greater nervous supply of their

sexual organs." (P. Näcke, "Kritisches zum Kapitel der

Sexualität," _Archiv für Psychiatrie_, 1899, p. 341.)

Löwenfeld states that in normal young girls the specifically

sexual feelings are absolutely unknown; so that desire cannot

exist in them. Putting aside the not inconsiderable proportion of

women in whom this absence of desire may persist and be

permanent, even after sexual relationships have begun, thus

constituting absolute frigidity, in a still larger number desire

remains extremely moderate, constituting a state of relative

frigidity. He adds that he cannot unconditionally support the

view of Fürbringer, who is inclined to ascribe sexual coldness to

the majority of German married women. (L. Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben

und Nervenleiden_, 1899, second edition, p. 11.)

Adler, who discusses the question at some length, decides that

the sexual needs of women are less than those of men, though in

some cases the orgasm in quantity and quality greatly exceeds

that of men. He believes, not only that the sexual impulse in

women is absolutely less than in men, and requires stronger

stimulation to arouse it, but that also it suffers from a latency

due to inhibition, which acts like a foreign body in the brain

(analogous to the psychic trauma of Breuer and Freud in

hysteria), and demands great skill in the man who is to awaken

the woman to love. (O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte

Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904, pp. 47, 126 et seq.;

also enlarged second edition, 1911; id., "Die Frigide Frau,"

_Sexual-Probleme_, Jan., 1912.)

It must not, however, be supposed that this view of the natural tendency

of women to frigidity has everywhere found acceptance. It is not only an

opinion of very recent growth, but is confined, on the whole, to a few

countries.

"Turn to history," wrote Brierre de Boismont, "and on every page

you will be able to recognize the predominance of erotic ideas in

women." It is the same today, he adds, and he attributes it to

the fact that men are more easily able to gratify their sexual

impulses. (_Des Hallucinations_, 1862, p. 431.)

The laws of Manu attribute to women concupiscence and anger, the

love of bed and of adornment.

The Jews attributed to women greater sexual desire than to men.

This is illustrated, according to Knobel (as quoted by Dillmann),

by _Genesis_, chapter iii, v. 16.

In Greek antiquity the romance and sentiment of love were mainly

felt toward persons of the same sex, and were divorced from the

more purely sexual feelings felt for persons of opposite sex.

Theognis compared marriage to cattle-breeding. In love between

men and women the latter were nearly always regarded as taking

the more active part. In all Greek love-stories of early date the

woman falls in love with the man, and never the reverse. Æschylus

makes even a father assume that his daughters will misbehave if

left to themselves. Euripides emphasized the importance of women;

"The Euripidean woman who 'falls in love' thinks first of all:

'How can I seduce the man I love?"' (E.F.M. Benecke, _Antimachus

of Colophon and the Position of Women in Greek Poetry_, 1896, pp.

34, 54.)

The most famous passage in Latin literature as to the question of

whether men or women obtain greater pleasure from sexual

intercourse is that in which Ovid narrates the legend of Tiresias

(_Metamorphoses_, iii, 317-333). Tiresias, having been both a man

and a woman, decided in favor of women. This passage was

frequently quoted down to the eighteenth century.

In a passage quoted from a lost work of Galen by the Arabian

biographer, Abu-l-Faraj, that great physician says of the

Christians "that they practice celibacy, that even many of their

women do so." So that in Galen's opinion it was more difficult

for a woman than for a man to be continent.

The same view is widely prevalent among Arabic authors, and there

is an Arabic saying that "The longing of the woman for the penis

is greater than that of the man for the vulva."

In China, remarks Dr. Coltman, "when an old gentleman of my

acquaintance was visiting me my little daughter, 5 years old, ran

into the room, and, climbing upon my knee, kissed me. My visitor

expressed his surprise, and remarked: 'We never kiss our

daughters when they are so large; we may when they are very

small, but not after they are 3 years old,' said he, 'because it

is apt to excite in them bad emotions.'" (Coltman, _The Chinese_,

1900, p. 99.)

The early Christian Fathers clearly show that they regard women

as more inclined to sexual enjoyment than men. That was, for

instance, the opinion of Tertullian (_De Virginibus Velandis_,

chapter x), and it is clearly implied in some of St. Jerome's

epistles.

Notwithstanding the influence of Christianity, among the vigorous

barbarian races of medieval Europe, the existence of sexual

appetite in women was not considered to be, as it later became, a

matter to be concealed or denied. Thus in 1068 the ecclesiastical

historian, Ordericus Vitalis (himself half Norman and half

English), narrates that the wives of the Norman knights who had

accompanied William the Conqueror to England two years earlier

sent over to their husbands to say that they were consumed by the

fierce names of desire ("sæva libidinis face urebantur"), and

that if their husbands failed to return very shortly they

proposed to take other husbands. It is added that this threat

brought a few husbands back to their wanton ladies ("lascivis

dominabus suis").

During the medieval period in Europe, largely in consequence, no

doubt, of the predominance of ascetic ideals set up by men who

naturally regarded woman as the symbol of sex, the doctrine of

the incontinence of woman became firmly fixed, and it is

unnecessary and unprofitable to quote examples. It is sufficient

to mention the very comprehensive statement of Jean de Meung (in

the _Roman de la Rose_, 9903):--

"Toutes estes, serés, ou fûtes

De fait ou de volunté putes."

The satirical Jean de Meung was, however, a somewhat extreme and

untypical representative of his age, and the fourteenth century

Johannes de Sancto Amando (Jean de St. Amand) gives a somewhat

more scientifically based opinion (quoted by Pagel, _Neue

litterarische Beiträge zur Mittelalterlichen Medicin_, 1896, p.

30) that sexual desire is stronger in women than in men.

Humanism and the spread of the Renaissance movement brought in a

spirit more sympathetic to women. Soon after, especially in Italy

and France, we begin to find attempts at analyzing the sexual

emotions, which are not always without a certain subtlety. In the

seventeenth century a book of this kind was written by Venette.

In matters of love, Venette declared, "men are but children

compared to women. In these matters women have a more lively

imagination, and they usually have more leisure to think of love.

Women are much more lascivious and amorous than men." This is the

conclusion reached in a chapter devoted to the question whether

men or women are the more amorous. In a subsequent chapter,

dealing with the question whether men or women receive more

pleasure from the sexual embrace, Venette concludes, after

admitting the great difficulty of the question, that man's

pleasure is greater, but woman's lasts longer. (N. Venette, _De

la Génération de l'Homme ou Tableau de l'Amour Conjugal_,

Amsterdam, 1688.)

At a much earlier date, however, Montaigne had discussed this

matter with his usual wisdom, and, while pointing out that men

have imposed their own rule of life on women and their own

ideals, and have demanded from them opposite and contradictory

virtues,--a statement not yet antiquated,--he argues that women

are incomparably more apt and more ardent in love than men are,

and that in this matter they always know far more than men can

teach them, for "it is a discipline that is born in their veins."

(Montaigne, _Essais_, book iii, chapter v.)

The old physiologists generally mentioned the appearance of

sexual desire in girls as one of the normal signs of puberty.

This may be seen in the numerous quotations brought together by

Schurig, in his _Parthenologia_, cap. ii.

A long succession of distinguished physicians throughout the

seventeenth century discussed at more or less length the relative

amount of sexual desire in men and women, and the relative degree

of their pleasure in coitus. It is remarkable that, although they

usually attach great weight to the supposed opinion of

Hippocrates in the opposite sense, most of them decide that both

desire and pleasure are greater in women.

Plazzonus decides that women have more sources of pleasure in

coitus than men because of the larger extent of surface excited;

and if it were not so, he adds, women would not be induced to

incur the pains and risks of pregnancy and childbirth.

(Plazzonus, _De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus_, 1621, lib.

ii, cap. xiii.)

"Without doubt," says Ferrand, "woman is more passionate than

man, and more often torn by the evils of love." (Ferrand, _De la

Maladie d'Amour_, 1623, chapter ii.)

Zacchia, mainly on _a priori_ grounds, concludes that women have

more pleasure in coitus than men. (Zacchia, _Quæstiones

Medico-legales_, 1630, lib. iii, quest, vii.)

Sinibaldus, discussing whether men or women have more salacity,

decides in favor of women. (J.B. Sinibaldus, _Geneanthropeia_,

1642, lib. ii, tract. ii, cap. v.)

Hornius believed that women have greater sexual pleasure than

men, though he mainly supported his opinion by the authority of

classical poets. (Hornius, _Historic Naturalis_, 1670, lib. iii,

cap. i.)

Nenter describes what we may now call women's affectability, and

considers that it makes them more prone than men to the sexual

emotions, as is shown by the fact that, notwithstanding their

modesty, they sometimes make sexual advances. This greater

proneness of women to the sexual impulse is, he remarks, entirely

natural and right, for the work of generation is mainly carried

on by women, and love is its basis: "generationis fundamentum est

amor." (G.P. Nenter, _Theoria Hominis Sani_, 1714, cap. v, memb.

ii.)

The above opinions of seventeenth-century physicians are quoted

from the original sources. Schurig, in his _Gynæcologia_, (pp.

46-50 and 71-81), quotes a number of passages on this subject

from medical authorities of the same period, on which I have not

drawn.

Sénancour, in his fine and suggestive book on love, first

published in 1806, asks: "Has sexual pleasure the same power on

the sex which less loudly demands it? It has more, at all events

in some respects. The very vigor and laboriousness of men may

lead them to neglect love, but the constant cares of maternity

make women feel how important it must ever be to them. We must

remember also that in men the special emotions of love only have

a single focus, while in women the organs of lactation are united

to those of conception. Our feelings are all determined by these

material causes." (Sénancour, _De l'Amour_, fourth edition, 1834,

vol. i, p. 68.) A later psychologist of love, this time a woman,

Ellen Key, states that woman's erotic demands, though more

silent than man's, are stronger. (Ellen Key, _Ueber Liebe und

Ehe_, p. 138.)

Michael Ryan considered that sexual enjoyment "is more delicious

and protracted" in women, and ascribed this to a more sensitive

nervous system, a finer and more delicate skin, more acute

feelings, and the fact that in women the mammæ are the seat of a

vivid sensibility in sympathy with the uterus. (M. Ryan,

_Philosophy of Marriage_, 1837, p. 153.)

Busch was inclined to think women have greater sexual pleasure

than men. (D.W.H. Busch, _Das Geschlechtsleben des Weibes_, 1839,

vol. i, p. 69.) Kobelt held that the anatomical conformation of

the sexual organs in women led to the conclusion that this must

be the case.

Guttceit, speaking of his thirty years' medical experience in

Russia, says: "In Russia at all events, a girl, as very many have

acknowledged to me, cannot resist the ever stronger impulses of

sex beyond the twenty-second or twenty-third year. And if she

cannot do so in natural ways she adopts artificial ways. The

belief that the feminine sex feels the stimulus of sex less than

the male is quite false." (Guttceit, _Dreissig Jahre Praxis_,

1873, theil i, p. 313.)

In Scandinavia, according to Vedeler, the sexual emotions are at

least as strong in women as in men (Vedeler, "De Impotentia

Feminarum," _Norsk Magazin for Laegevidenskaben_, March, 1894).

In Sweden, Dr. Eklund, of Stockholm, remarking that from 25 to 33

per cent. of the births are illegitimate, adds: "We hardly ever

hear anyone talk of a woman having been seduced, simply because

the lust is at the worst in the woman, who, as a rule, is the

seducing party." (Eklund, _Transactions of the American

Association of Obstetricians_, Philadelphia, 1892, p. 307.)

On the opposite side of the Baltic, in the Königsberg district,

the same observation has been made. Intercourse before marriage

is the rule in most villages of this agricultural district, among

the working classes, with or without intention of subsequent

marriage; "the girls are often the seducing parties, or at least

very willing; they seek to bind their lovers to them and compel

them to marriage." In the Köslin district of Pomerania, where

intercourse between the girls and youths is common, the girls

come to the youths' rooms even more frequently than the youths to

the girls'. In some of the Dantzig districts the girls give

themselves to the youths, and even seduce them, sometimes, but

not always, with a view of marriage. (Wittenberg, _Die

geschlechtsittlichen Verhalten der Landbewohner im Deutschen

Reiche_, 1895, Bd. i, pp. 47, 61, 83.)

Mantegazza devoted great attention to this point in several of

the works he published during fifty years, and was decidedly of

the opinion that the sexual emotions are much stronger in women

than in men, and that women have much more enjoyment in sexual

intercourse. In his _Fisiologia del Piacere_ he supports this

view, and refers to the greater complexity of the genital

apparatus in women (as well as its larger surface and more

protected position), to what he considers to be the keener

sensibility of women generally, to the passivity of women, etc.;

and he considers that sexual pleasure is rendered more seductive

to women by the mystery in which it is veiled for them by modesty

and our social habits. In a more recent work (_Fisiologia della

Donna_, cap. viii) Mantegazza returns to this subject, and

remarks that long experience, while confirming his early opinion,

has modified it to the extent that he now believes that, as

compared with men, the sexual emotions of women vary within far

wider limits. Among men few are quite insensitive to the physical

pleasures of love, while, on the other hand, few are thrown by

the violence of its emotional manifestations into a state of

syncope or convulsions. Among women, while some are absolutely

insensitive, others (as in cases with which he was acquainted)

are so violently excited by the paradise of physical love that,

after the sexual embrace, they faint or fall into a cataleptic

condition for several hours.

"Physical sex is a larger factor in the life of the woman.... If

this be true of the physical element, it is equally true of the

mental element." (Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, _The Human Element in

Sex_, fifth edition, 1894, p. 47.)

"In the female sex," remarks Clouston, "reproduction is a more

dominant function of the organism than in the male, and has far

larger, if not more intense, relationships to feeling, judgment,

and volition." (Clouston, _Neuroses of Development_, 1891.)

"It may be said," Marro states, "that in woman the visceral

system reacts, if not with greater intensity, certainly in a more

general manner, to all the impressions, having a sexual basis,

which dominate the life of woman, if not as sexual emotions

properly so called, as related emotions closely dependent on the

reproductive instinct." (A. Marro, _La Pubertà_, 1898, p. 233.)

Forel also believed (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, p. 274) that women are

more erotic than men.

The gynecologist Kisch states his belief that "The sexual impulse

is so powerful in women that at certain periods of life its

primitive force dominates her whole nature, and there can be no

room left for reason to argue concerning reproduction; on the

contrary, union is desired even in the presence of the fear of

reproduction or when there can be no question of it." He regards

absence of sexual feeling in women as pathological. (Kisch,

_Sterilität des Weibes_, second edition, pp. 205-206.) In his

later work (_The Sexual Life of Woman_) Kisch again asserts that

sexual impulse always exists in mature women (in the absence of

organic sexual defect and cerebral disease), though it varies in

strength and may be repressed. In adolescent girls, however, it

is weaker than in youths of the same age. After she has had

sexual experiences, Kisch maintains, a woman's sexual emotions

are just as powerful as a man's, though she has more motives than

a man for controlling them.

Eulenburg is of the same opinion as Kisch, and sharply criticises

the loose assertion of some authorities who have expressed

themselves in an opposite sense. (A. Eulenburg, _Sexuale

Neuropathie_, pp. 88-90; the same author has dealt with the point

in the _Zukunft_, December 2, 1893.)

Kossmann states that the opinion as to the widespread existence

of frigidity among women is a fable. (Kossmann, _Allgemeine

Gynæcologie_, 1903, p. 362.)

Bloch concludes that "in most cases the sexual coldness of women

is in fact only apparent, either due to the concealment of

glowing sexuality beneath the veil of outward reticence

prescribed by conventional morality, or else to the husband who

has not succeeded in arousing erotic sensations which are

complicated and with difficulty awakened.... The sexual

sensibility of women is certainly different from that of men, but

in strength it is at least as great." (Iwan Bloch, _Das

Sexualleben unserer Zeit_ 1907, ch. v.)

Nyström, also, after devoting a chapter to the discussion of the

causes of sexual coldness in women, concludes: "My conviction,

founded on experience, is, that only a small number of women

would be without sexual feeling if sound views and teaching

prevailed in respect to the sexual life, if due weight were given

to inner devotion and tender caresses as the preliminaries of

love in marriage, and if couples who wish to avoid pregnancy

would adopt sensible preventive methods instead of _coitus

interruptus_." (A. Nyström, _Das Geschlichtsleben und seine

Gesetze_, eighth edition, 1907, p. 177.)

We thus find two opinions widely current: one, of world-wide existence and

almost universally accepted in those ages and centers in which life is

lived most nakedly, according to which the sexual impulse is stronger in

women than in men; another, now widely prevalent in many countries,

according to which the sexual instinct is distinctly weaker in women, if,

indeed, it may not be regarded as normally absent altogether. A third view

is possible: it may be held that there is no difference at all. This

view, formerly not very widely held, is that of the French physiologist,

Beaunis, as it is of Winckel; while Rohleder, who formerly held that

sexual feeling tends to be defective in women, now believes that men and

women are equal in sexual impulse.

At an earlier period, however, Donatus (_De Medica Historia

Mirabili_, 1613, lib. iv, cap. xvii) held the same view, and

remarked that sometimes men and sometimes women are the more

salacious, varying with the individual. Roubaud (_De

l'Impuissance_, 1855, p. 38) stated that the question is so

difficult as to be insoluble.

In dealing with the characteristics of the sexual impulse in women, it

will be seen, we have to consider the prevalence in them of what is

commonly termed (in its slightest forms) frigidity or hyphedonia, and (in

more complete form) sexual anesthesia or anaphrodism, or erotic blindness,

or anhedonia.[157]

Many modern writers have referred to the prevalence of frigidity

among women. Shufeldt believes (_Pacific Medical Journal_, Nov.,

1907) that 75 per cent, of married women in New York are

afflicted with sexual frigidity, and that it is on the increase;

it is rare, however, he adds, among Jewish women. Hegar gives 50

per cent, as the proportion of sexually anesthetic women;

Fürbringer says the majority of women are so. Effertz (quoted by

Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 11, apparently with

approval) regards 10 per cent, among women generally as sexually

anesthetic, but only 1 per cent, men. Moll states (Eulenburg's

_Encyclopädie_, fourth edition, art. "Geschlechtstrieb") that the

prevalence of sexual anesthesia among German women varies,

according to different authorities, from 10 to 66 per cent.

Elsewhere Moll (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890,

p. 510) emphasizes the statement that "sexual anesthesia in women

is much more frequent than is generally supposed." He explains

that he is referring to the physical element of pleasure and

satisfaction in intercourse, and of desire for intercourse. He

adds that the psychic side of love is often more conspicuous in

women than in men. He cannot agree with Sollier that this kind of

sexual frigidity is a symptom of hysteria. Féré (_L'Instinct

Sexuel_, second edition, p. 112), in referring to the greater

frequency of sexual anesthesia in women, remarks that it is often

associated with neuropathic states, as well as with anomalies of

the genital organs, or general troubles of nutrition, and is

usually acquired. Some authors attribute great importance to

amenorrhea in this connection; one investigator has found that in

4 out of 14 cases of absolute amenorrhea sexual feeling was

absent. Löwenfeld, again (_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_),

referring to the common misconception that nervous disorder is

associated with increased sexual desire, points out that

nervously degenerate women far more often display frigidity than

increased sexual desire. Elsewhere (_Ueber die Sexuelle

Konstitution_) Löwenfeld says it is only among the upper classes

that sexual anesthesia is common. Campbell Clark, also, showed

some years ago that, in young women with a tendency to chlorosis

and a predisposition to insanity, defects of pelvic and mammary

development are very prevalent. (_Journal of Mental Science_,

October, 1888.)

As regards the older medical authors, Schurig (_Spermatologia_,

1720, p. 243, and _Gynæcologia_, 1730, p. 81) brought together

from the literature and from his own knowledge cases of women who

felt no pleasure in coitus, as well as of some men who had

erections without pleasure.

There is, however, much uncertainty as to what precisely is meant by

sexual frigidity or anesthesia. All the old medical authors carefully

distinguish between the heat of sexual desire and the actual presence of

pleasure in coitus; many modern writers also properly separate _libido_

from _voluptas_, since it is quite possible to experience sexual desires

and not to be able to obtain their gratification during sexual

intercourse, and it is possible to hold, with Mantegazza, that women

naturally have stronger sexual impulses than men, but are more liable than

men to experience sexual anesthesia. But it is very much more difficult

than most people seem to suppose, to obtain quite precise and definite

data concerning the absence of either _voluptas_ or _libido_ in a woman.

Even if we accept the statement of the woman who asserts that she has

either or both, the statement of their absence is by no means equally

conclusive and final. As even Adler--who discusses this question fully and

has very pronounced opinions about it--admits, there are women who stoutly

deny the existence of any sexual feelings until such feelings are

actually discovered.[158] Some of the most marked characteristics of the

sexual impulse in women, moreover,--its association with modesty, its

comparatively late development, its seeming passivity, its need of

stimulation,--all combine to render difficult the final pronouncement that

a woman is sexually frigid. Most significant of all in this connection is

the complexity of the sexual apparatus in women and the corresponding

psychic difficulty--based on the fundamental principle of sexual

selection--of finding a fitting mate. The fact that a woman is cold with

one man or even with a succession of men by no means shows that she is not

apt to experience sexual emotions; it merely shows that these men have not

been able to arouse them. "I recall two very striking cases," a

distinguished gynecologist, the late Dr. Engelmann, of Boston, wrote to

me, "of very attractive young married women--one having had a child, the

other a miscarriage--who were both absolutely cold to their husbands, as

told me by both husband and wife. They could not understand desire or

passion, and would not even believe that it existed. Yet, both these women

with other men developed ardent passion, all the stronger perhaps because

it had been so long latent." In such cases it is scarcely necessary to

invoke Adler's theory of a morbid inhibition, or "foreign body in

consciousness," which has to be overcome. We are simply in the presence of

the natural fact that the female throughout nature not only requires much

loving, but is usually fastidious in the choice of a lover. In the human

species this natural fact is often disguised and perverted. Women are not

always free to choose the man whom they would prefer as a lover, nor even

free to find out whether the man they prefer sexually fits them; they are,

moreover, very often extremely ignorant of the whole question of sex, and

the victims of the prejudice and false conventions they have been taught.

On the one hand, they are driven into an unnatural primness and austerity;

on the other hand, they rebound to an equally unnatural facility or even

promiscuity. Thus it happens that the men who find that a large number of

women are not so facile as they themselves are, and as they have found a

large number of women to be, rush to the conclusion that women tend to be

"sexually anesthetic." If we wish to be accurate, it is very doubtful

whether we can assert that a woman is ever absolutely without the aptitude

for sexual satisfaction.[159] She may unquestionably be without any

conscious desire for actual coitus. But if we realize to how large an

extent woman is a sexual organism, and how diffused and even unconscious

the sexual impulses may be, it becomes very difficult to assert that she

has never shown any manifestation of the sexual impulse. All we can assert

with some degree of positiveness in some cases is that she has not

manifested sexual gratification, more particularly as shown by the

occurrence of the orgasm, but that is very far indeed from warranting us

to assert that she never will experience such gratification or still less

that she is organically incapable of experiencing it.[160] It is therefore

quite impossible to follow Adler when he asks us to accept the existence

of a condition which he solemnly terms _anæsthesia sexualis completa

idiopathica_, in which there is no mechanical difficulty in the way or

psychic inhibition, but an "absolute" lack of sexual sensibility and a

complete absence of sexual inclination.[161]

It is instructive to observe that Adler himself knows no "pure" case of

this condition. To find such a case he has to go back nearly two centuries

to Madame de Warens, to whom he devotes a whole chapter. He has,

moreover, had the courage in writing this chapter to rely entirely on

Rousseau's _Confessions_, which were written nearly half a century later

than the episodes they narrated, and are therefore full of inaccuracies,

besides being founded on an imperfect and false knowledge of Madame de

Warens's earlier life, and written by a man who was, there can be no

doubt, not able to arouse women's passions. Adler shows himself completely

ignorant of the historical investigations of De Montet, Mugnier, Ritter,

and others which, during recent years, have thrown a flood of light on the

life and character of Madame de Warens, and not even acquainted with the

highly significant fact that she was hysterical.[162] This is the basis of

"fact" on which we are asked to accept _anæsthesia sexualis completa

idiopathica!_[163]

"In dealing with the alleged absence of the sexual impulse," a

well-informed medical correspondent writes from America, "much

caution has to be used in accepting statements as to its absence,

from the fact that most women fear by the admission to place

themselves in an impure category. I am also satisfied that influx

of women into universities, etc., is often due to the sexual

impulse causing restlessness, and that this factor finds

expression in the prurient prudishness so often presenting itself

in such women, which interferes with coeducation. This is

becoming especially noticeable at the University of Chicago,

where prudishness interferes with classical, biological,

sociological, and physiological discussion in the classroom.

There have been complaints by such women that a given professor

has not left out embryological facts not in themselves in any way

implying indelicacy. I have even been informed that the opinion

is often expressed in college dormitories that embryological

facts and discussions should be left out of a course intended for

both sexes." Such prudishness, it is scarcely necessary to

remark, whether found in women or men, indicates a mind that has

become morbidly sensitive to sexual impressions. For the healthy

mind embryological and allied facts have no emotionally sexual

significance, and there is, therefore, no need to shun them.

Kolischer, of Chicago ("Sexual Frigidity in Women," _American

Journal of Obstetrics_, Sept., 1905), points out that it is often

the failure of the husband to produce sexual excitement in the

wife which leads to voluntary repression of sexual sensation on

her part, or an acquired sexual anesthesia. "Sexual excitement,"

he remarks, "not brought to its natural climax, the reaction

leaves the woman in a very disagreeable condition, and repeated

occurrences of this kind may even lead to general nervous

disturbances. Some of these unfortunate women learn to suppress

their sexual sensation so as to avoid all these disagreeable

sequelæ. Such a state of affairs is not only unfortunate, because

it deprives the female partner of her natural rights, but it is

also to be deplored because it practically brings down such a

married woman to the level of the prostitute."

In illustration of the prevalence of inhibitions of various

kinds, from without and from within, in suppressing or disguising

sexual feeling in women, I may quote the following observations

by an American lady concerning a series of women of her

acquaintance:--

"Mrs. A. This woman is handsome and healthy. She has never had

children, much to the grief of herself and her husband. The man

is also handsome and attractive. Mrs. A. once asked me if

love-making between me and my husband ever originated with me. I

replied it was as often so as not, and she said that in that

event she could not see how passion between husband and wife

could be regulated. When I seemed not to be ashamed of the

matter, but rather to be positive in my views that it should be

so, she at once tried to impress me with the fact that she did

not wish me to think she 'could not be aroused.' This woman

several times hinted that she had learned a great amount that was

not edifying at boarding school, and I always felt that, with

proper encouragement, she would have retailed suggestive stories.

"Mrs. B. This woman lives to please her husband, who is a spoiled

man. She gave birth to a child soon after marriage, but was left

an invalid for some years. She told me coition always hurt her,

and she said it made her sick to see her husband nude. I was

therefore surprised, years afterward, to hear her say, in reply

to a remark of another person, 'Yes; women are not only as

passionate as men, I am sure they are more so.' I therefore

questioned the lack of passion she had on former occasions

avowed, or else felt convinced her improvement in health had made

intercourse pleasant.

"Miss C. A teacher. She is emotional and easily becomes

hysterical. Her life has been one of self-sacrifice and her

rearing most Puritanical. She told me she thought women did not

crave sexual satisfaction unless it had been aroused in them. I

consider her one who physically is injured by not having it.

"Mrs. D. After being married a few years this person told me she

thought intercourse 'horrid.' Some years after this, however, she

fell in love with a man not her husband, which caused their

separation. She always fancied men in love with her, and she told

me that she and her husband tried to live without intercourse,

fearing more children, but they could not do it; she also told of

trying to refrain, for the same purpose, until safe parts of the

menstrual month, but that 'was just the time she cared least for

it.' These remarks made me doubt the sincerity of the first.

"Mrs. E. said she enjoyed intercourse as well as her husband, and

she 'didn't see why she should not say so.' This same woman,

whether using a current phrase or not, afterward said her husband

'did not bother her very often.'

"Mrs. F., the mother of several children, was married to a man

she neither loved nor respected, but she said that when a strange

man touched her it made her tremble all over.

"Mrs. G., the mother of many children, divorced on account of the

dissipation, drinking and otherwise, of her husband. She is of

the creole type, but large and almost repulsive. She is a

brilliant talker and she supports herself by writing. She has

fallen in love with a number of young men, 'wildly, madly,

passionately,' as one of them told me, and I am sure she suffers

greatly from the lack of satisfaction. She would no doubt procure

it if it were possible.

"I believe," the writer concludes, "women are as passionate as

men, but the enforced restraint of years possibly smothers it.

The fear of having children and the methods to prevent conception

are, I am sure, potent factors in the injury to the emotions of

married women. Perhaps the lack of intercourse acts less

disastrously upon a woman because of the renewed feeling which

comes after each menstrual period."

As bearing on the causes which have led to the disguise and

misinterpretation of the sexual impulse in women I may quote the

following communication from another lady:--

"I do think the coldness of women has been greatly exaggerated.

Men's theoretically ideal woman (though they don't care so much

about it in practice) is passionless, and women are afraid to

admit that they have any desire for sexual pleasure. Rousseau,

who was not very straight-laced, excuses the conduct of Madame de

Warens on the ground that it was not the result of passion: an

aggravation rather than a palliation of the offense, if society

viewed it from the point of view of any other fault. Even in the

modern novels written by the 'new woman' the longing for

maternity, always an honorable sentiment, is dragged in to veil

the so-called 'lower' desire. That some women, at any rate, have

very strong passions and that great suffering is entailed by

their repression is not, I am sure, sufficiently recognized, even

by women themselves.

"Besides the 'passionless ideal' which checks their sincerity,

there are many causes which serve to disguise a woman's feelings

to herself and make her seem to herself colder than she really

is. Briefly these are:--

"1. Unrecognized disease of the reproductive organs, especially

after the birth of children. A friend of mine lamented to me her

inability to feel pleasure, though she had done so before the

birth of her child, then 3 years old. With considerable

difficulty I persuaded her to see a doctor, who told her all the

reproductive organs were seriously congested; so that for three

years she had lived in ignorance and regret for her husband's

sake and her own.

"2. The dread of recommencing, once having suffered them, all the

pains and discomforts of child-bearing.

"3. Even when precautions are taken, much bother and anxiety is

involved, which has a very dampening effect on excitement.

"4. The fact that men will never take any trouble to find out

what specially excites a woman. A woman, as a rule, is at some

pains to find out the little things which particularly affect the

man she loves,--it may be a trick of speech, a rose in her hair,

or what not,--and she makes use of her knowledge. But do you know

one man who will take the same trouble? (It is difficult to

specify, as what pleases one person may not another. I find that

the things that affect me personally are the following: [_a_]

Admiration for a man's mental capacity will translate itself

sometimes into direct physical excitement. [_b_] Scents of white

flowers, like tuberose or syringa. [_c_] The sight of fireflies.

[_d_] The idea or the reality of suspension. [_e_] Occasionally

absolute passivity.)

"5. The fact that many women satisfy their husbands when

themselves disinclined. This is like eating jam when one does not

fancy it, and has a similar effect. It is a great mistake, in my

opinion, to do so, except very rarely. A man, though perhaps

cross at the time, prefers, I believe, to gratify himself a few

times, when the woman also enjoys it, to many times when she does

not.

"6. The masochistic tendency of women, or their desire for

subjection to the man they love. I believe no point in the whole

question is more misunderstood than this. Nearly every man

imagines that to secure a woman's love and respect he must give

her her own way in small things, and compel her obedience in

great ones. Every man who desires success with a woman should

exactly reverse that theory."

When we are faced by these various and often conflicting statements of

opinion it seems necessary to obtain, if possible, a definite basis of

objective fact. It would be fairly obvious in any case, and it becomes

unquestionable in view of the statements I have brought together, that the

best-informed and most sagacious clinical observers, when giving an

opinion on a very difficult and elusive subject which they have not

studied with any attention and method, are liable to make unguarded

assertions; sometimes, also, they become the victims of ethical or

pseudoethical prejudices, so as to be most easily influenced by that class

of cases which happens to fit in best with their prepossessions.[164] In

order to reach any conclusions on a reasonable basis it is necessary to

take a series of unselected individuals and to ascertain carefully the

condition of the sexual impulse in each.

At present, however, this is extremely difficult to do at all

satisfactorily, and quite impossible, indeed, to do in a manner likely to

yield absolutely unimpeachable results. Nevertheless, a few series of

observations have been made. Thus, Dr. Harry Campbell[165] records the

result of an investigation, carried on in his hospital practice, of 52

married women of the poorer class; they were not patients, but ordinary,

healthy working-class women, and the inquiry was not made directly, but of

the husbands, who were patients. Sexual instinct was said to be present in

12 cases before marriage, and absent in 40; in 13 of the 40 it never

appeared at all; so that it altogether appeared in 39, or in the ratio of

something over 75 per cent. Among the 12 in whom it existed before

marriage it was said to have appeared in most with puberty; in 3, however,

a few years before puberty, and in 2 a few years later. In 2 of those in

whom it appeared before puberty, menstruation began late; in the third it

rose almost to nymphomania on the day preceding the first menstruation.

In nearly all the cases desire was said to be stronger in the husband than

in the wife; when it was stronger in the wife, the husband was

exceptionally indifferent. Of the 13 in whom desire was absent after

marriage, 5 had been married for a period under two years, and Campbell

remarks that it would be wrong to conclude that it would never develop in

these cases, for in this group of cases the appearance of sexual instinct

was sometimes a matter of days, sometimes of years, after the date of

marriage. In two-thirds of the cases there was a diminution of desire,

usually gradual, at the climacteric; in the remaining third there was

either no change or exaltation of desire. The most important general

result, Campbell concludes, is that "the sexual instinct is very much less

intense in woman than in man," and to this he elsewhere adds a corollary

that "the sexual instinct in the civilized woman is, I believe, tending to

atrophy."

An eminent gynecologist, the late Dr. Matthews Duncan, has (in his work on

_Sterility in Women_) presented a table which, although foreign to this

subject, has a certain bearing on the matter. Matthews Duncan, believing

that the absence of sexual desire and of sexual pleasure in coitus are

powerful influences working for sterility, noted their presence or absence

in a number of cases, and found that, among 191 sterile women between the

ages of 15 and 45, 152, or 79 per cent., acknowledged the presence of

sexual desire; and among 196 sterile women (mostly the same cases), 134,

or 68 per cent., acknowledged the presence of sexual pleasure in coitus.

Omitting the cases over 35 years of age, which were comparatively few, the

largest proportion of affirmative answers, both as regards sexual pleasure

and sexual desire, was from between 30 and 34 years of age. Matthews

Duncan assumes that the absence of sexual desire and sexual pleasure in

women is thoroughly abnormal.[166]

An English non-medical author, in the course of a thoughtful discussion of

sexual phenomena, revealing considerable knowledge and observation,[167]

has devoted a chapter to this subject in another of its aspects. Without

attempting to ascertain the normal strength of the sexual instinct in

women, he briefly describes 11 cases of "sexual anesthesia" in Women (in 2

or 3 of which there appears, however, to be an element of latent

homosexuality) from among the circle of his own friends. This author

concludes that sexual coldness is very common among English women, and

that it involves questions of great social and ethical importance.

I have not met with any series of observations made among

seemingly healthy and normal women in other countries; there are,

however, various series of somewhat abnormal cases in which the

point was noted, and the results are not uninstructive. Thus, in

Vienna at Krafft-Ebing's psychiatric clinic, Gattel (_Ueber die

sexuellen Ursachen der Neurasthenie und Angstneurose_, 1898)

carefully investigated the cases of 42 women, mostly at the

height of sexual life,--i.e., between 20 and 35,--who were

suffering from slight nervous disorders, especially neurasthenia

and mild hysteria, but none of them from grave nervous or other

disease. Of these 42, at least 17 had masturbated, at one time or

another, either before or after marriage, in order to obtain

relief of sexual feelings. In the case of 4 it is stated that

they do not obtain sexual satisfaction in marriage, but in these

cases only _coitus interruptus_ is practised, and the fact that

the absence of sexual satisfaction was complained of seems to

indicate an aptitude for experiencing it. These 4 cases can

therefore scarcely be regarded as exceptions. In all the other

cases sexual desire, sexual excitement, or sexual satisfaction is

always clearly indicated, and in a considerable proportion of

cases it is noted that the sexual impulse is very strongly

developed. This series is valuable, since the facts of the sexual

life are, as far as possible, recorded with much precision. The

significance of the facts varies, however, according to the view

taken as to the causation of neurasthenia and allied conditions

of slight nervous disorder. Gattel argues that sexual

irregularities are a peculiarly fruitful, if not invariable,

source of such disorders; according to the more commonly accepted

view this is not so. If we accept the more usual view, these

women fairly correspond to average women of lower class; if,

however, we accept Gattel's view, they may possess the sexual

instinct in a more marked degree than average women.

In a series of 116 German women in whom the operation of removing

the ovaries was performed, Pfister usually noted briefly in what

way the sexual impulse was affected by the operation ("Die

Wirkung der Castration auf den Weiblichen Organismus," _Archiv

für Gynäkologie_, 1898, p. 583). In 13 cases (all but 3

unmarried) the presence of sexual desire at any time was denied,

and 2 of these expressed disgust of sexual matters. In 12 cases

the point is left doubtful. In all the other cases sexual desire

had once been present, and in 2 or 3 cases it was acknowledged to

be so strong as to approach nymphomania. In about 30 of these

(not including any in which it was previously very strong) it was

extinguished by castration, in a few others it was diminished,

and in the rest unaffected. Thus, when we exclude the 12 cases in

which the point was not apparently investigated, and the 10

unmarried women, in whom it may have been latent or unavowed, we

find that, of 94 married women, 91 women acknowledged the

existence of sexual desire and only 3 denied it.

Schröter, again in Germany, has investigated the manifestations

of the sexual impulse among 402 insane women in the asylum at

Eichberg in Rheingau. ("Wird bei jungen Unverheiratheten zur Zeit

der Menstruation stärkere sexuelle Erregheit beobaehtet?"

_Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, vol. lvi, 1899, pp.

321-333.) There is no reason to suppose that the insane represent

a class of the community specially liable to sexual emotion,

although its manifestations may become unrestrained and

conspicuous under the influence of insanity; and at the same

time, while the appearance of such manifestations is evidence of

the aptitude for sexual emotions, their absence may be only due

to disease, seclusion, or to an intact power of self-control.

Of the 402 women, 166 were married and 236 unmarried. Schröter

divided them into four groups: (1) those below 20; (2) those

between 20 and 30; (3) those between 30 and 40; (4) those from 40

to the menopause. The patients included persons from the lowest

class of the population, and only about a quarter of them could

fairly be regarded as curable. Thus the manifestations of

sexuality were diminished, for with advance of mental disease

sexual manifestations cease to appear. Schröter only counted

those cases in which the sexual manifestations were decided and

fairly constant at the menstrual epoch; if not visibly

manifested, sexual feeling was not taken into account. Sexual

phenomena accompanied the entry of the menstrual epoch in 141

cases: i.e., in 20 (or in the proportion of 72 per cent.) of the

first group, consisting entirely of unmarried women; in 33 (or 28

per cent.) of the second group; in 55 (or 35 per cent.) of the

third group; and in 33 (or 33 per cent.) of the fourth group. It

was found that 181 patients showed no sexual phenomena at any

time, while 80 showed sexual phenomena frequently between the

menstrual epochs, but only in a slight degree, and not at all

during the period. At all ages sexual manifestations were more

prevalent among the unmarried than among the married, though this

difference became regularly and progressively less with increase

in age.

Schröter inclines to think that sexual excitement is commoner

among insane women belonging to the lower social classes than in

those belonging to the better classes. Among 184 women in a

private asylum, only 13 (6.13 per cent.) showed very marked and

constant excitement at menstrual periods. He points out, however,

that this may be due to a greater ability to restrain the

manifestations of feeling.

There is some interest in Schröter's results, though they cannot

be put on a line with inquiries made among the sane; they only

represent the prevalence of the grossest and strongest sexual

manifestations when freed from the restraints of sanity.

As a slight contribution toward the question, I have selected a series of

12 cases of women of whose sexual development I possess precise

information, with the following results: In 2 cases distinct sexual

feeling was experienced spontaneously at the age of 7 and 8, but the

complete orgasm only occurred some years after puberty; in 5 cases sexual

feeling appeared spontaneously for a few months to a year after the

appearance of menstruation, which began between 12 and 14 years of age,

usually at 13; in another case sexual feeling first appeared shortly after

menstruation began, but not spontaneously, being called out by a lover's

advances; in the remaining 4 cases sexual emotion never became definite

and conscious until adult life (the ages being 26, 27, 34, 35), in 2 cases

through being made love to, and in 2 cases through self-manipulation out

of accident or curiosity. It is noteworthy that the sexual feelings first

developed in adult life were usually as strong as those arising at

puberty. It may be added that, of these 12 women, 9 had at some time or

another masturbated (4 shortly after puberty, 5 in adult life), but,

except in 1 case, rarely and at intervals. All belong to the middle class,

2 or 3 leading easy, though not idle, lives, while all the others are

engaged in professional or other avocations often involving severe labor.

They differ widely in character and mental ability; but, while 2 or 3

might be regarded as slightly abnormal, they are all fairly healthy.

I am inclined to believe that the experiences of the foregoing group are

fairly typical of the social class 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 sexual emotion, these being all unmarried and leading

strictly chaste lives; in 18 cases the sexual 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 assigned 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 sexual

emotions, and also that severe mental and physical labor, even when

cultivated for this purpose, has usually had little or no influence in

relieving sexual 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

sexual 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 sexual

attention. Mrs. E. likes intercourse if her husband is careful

not to hurt her. Mrs. F. never had any sexual 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 sexual 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 orgasm, and would not object to reasonable

attention."

It may be remarked that, while these results in English women of the

middle class are in fair agreement with the German and Austrian

observations I have quoted, they differ from Campbell's results among

women of the working class in London. This discrepancy is, perhaps, not

difficult to explain. While the conditions of upper-class life may

possibly be peculiarly favorable to the development of the sexual

emotions, among the working classes 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 sexual emotion among the class dealt

with by Campbell than among the class 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 sexual feeling.

I should myself be inclined to say that it is extremely difficult to find

a woman who is without the aptitude for sexual emotion, although a great

variety of circumstances may hinder, temporarily or permanently, the

development of this latent aptitude. In other words, while the latent

sexual aptitude may always be present, the sexual impulse is liable to be

defective and the aptitude to remain latent, with consequent deficiency of

sexual emotion, and absence of sexual satisfaction.

This is not only indicated by the considerable proportion of my

cases in which there is only moderate or slight sexual 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

sexual function, is never merged, as it normally is, in

pleasurable sensations on the full establishment of sexual

relationships. Sometimes, no doubt, this may be due to

dyspareunia. Sometimes there may be an absolute sexual

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 sexual 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

sexual relationships 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 sexual anesthesia involved is

not absolute, but lies in a disinclination to the sexual act due

to various causes, in a defect of strong sexual impulse, and an

inaptitude for the sexual orgasm.

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 sexual

coldness, a condition which she regards as by no means to be

regretted. She considers that in all her own children the sexual

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 sex. 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 sexual impulse,

which, while still enabling procreation to take place, is

accompanied by no strong attraction to the opposite sex 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 sexual 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 sexual 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 puberty, and are the more impressive when we remember the

comparatively passive part played by the female generally in the game of

courtship, and the immense social force working on women to compel them to

even an unnatural extension of that passive 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 sexual 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 puberty, about the time of the first

menstruation and the sprouting of the pubic hair, in the absence

of all stimulation by a man, spontaneous sexual 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 sex 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

sexual 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 banishing sexual

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 sexual dreams seem to be the exception

rather than the rule in innocent girls. It remains true that

sexual phenomena in girls at puberty 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 sexual processes tend to be

accomplished with a facility that is often lost in later years

with prolonged chastity. 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 sexual

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-class 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 sexual 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 sexual instincts with

women. Though all had been to public schools where homosexuality

was known to occur, yet (as I can assert from intimate knowledge)

none had given signs of inversion or perversion in Burma."

In Russia, Tchlenoff, investigating the sexual life of over 2000

Moscow students of upper and middle class (_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 prostitutes, 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 illustrate

the tendency of young girls to manifest sexual 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 sexual initiation of the young boys intrusted to them.

How common this impulse is among adolescent girls of low social

class is indicated by the fact that certainly the majority of

middle-class 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 sexual 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 sexual

manipulations. Either the girl gets into bed with the boy and

pulling him on to her tickles the penis and inserts it into the

vulva, making the boy imitate sexual movements, or she simply

masturbates the child, to get him excited and interested, often

showing him the female sexual 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 sexual organs as a mystery, and is in utter ignorance

about them. She thus takes the opportunity of investigating the

boy's penis to find out how it works, etc., in order to satisfy

her curiosity. I know of a case in which a nurse in a fashionable

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 vulva, 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 penis to operate. I think people should take on a

far higher class of nurses, than they do."

"Children ought never to be allowed, under any circumstances

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 sexual

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 penis 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

puberty, exciting the penis 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 (_Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1899, p. 325)

refers to the frequency with which servant-girls (between the

ages of 18 and 30) carry on sexual 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 masturbate; 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 penis 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-class 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 sexual

impulse. This is clearly indicated by the phenomena observed in

the insane. Thus, as we have seen (page 214), Schröter has found

that, among girls of low social class under 20 years of age,

spontaneous periodical sexual 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 sexual 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 'pass remarks.' I have seen girls of this

class peeping through chinks 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 sexual 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 vulva. 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 passed, but giving an

account of her work with her Sunday-school class. 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 assault, 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 Association_, 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 sexuality in the young boys themselves.

Gibb states, concerning assaults 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 Assaults 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 sexual curiosity exercised

on younger children is, in girls about the age of puberty, 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 sexual 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 sex, a proceeding

which gave her sexual 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 vagina. (Kisch, _Die Sterilität des

Weibes_, 1886, p. 103.) The psychological mechanism by which an

anesthetic vagina leads to a feeling of repulsion for normal

coitus and normal sexual organs, and directs the sexual feelings

toward more infantile forms of sexuality, is here not difficult

to trace.

It is not often that the sexual 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 sexual attempts on children

below 15. (Paul Bernard, "Viols et attentats a la Pudeur,"

_Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1887.) Lop ("Attentats

à la Pudeur commis par des Femmes sur des Petits 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

circumvented. 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 sexual assault 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 sexual 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 sexual 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

class 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 assaults

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 sexual

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 sexual 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 chastity

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 assent may have been basely secured by an appeal to

the lower nervous centers alone, with no participation 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 assailant'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 sexual

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 sexual impulse, there is

now a tendency to unduly minimize the sexual impulse in women.