[156] I have had occasion to refer to the historic evolution of male
opinion regarding women in previous volumes, as, e.g., _Man and Woman_,
chapter i, and the appendix on "The Influence of Menstruation on the
Position of Women" in the first volume of these _Studies_.
[157] The terminology proposed by Ziehen ("Zur Lehre von den
psychopathischen Konstitutionen," _Charité Annalen_, vol. xxxxiii, 1909)
is as follows: For absence of sexual feeling, _anhedonia_; for diminution
of the same, _hyphedonia_; for excess of sexual feeling, _hyperhedonia_;
for qualitative sexual perversions, _parhedonia_. "Erotic blindness" was
suggested by Nardelli.
[158] O. Adler, _Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes_, 1904,
p. 146.
[159] A correspondent tells me that he knows a woman who has been a
prostitute since the age of 15, but never experienced sexual pleasure and
a real, non-simulated orgasm till she was 23; since then she has become
very sensual. In other similar cases the hitherto indifferent prostitute,
having found the man who suits her, abandons her profession, even though
she is thereby compelled to live in extreme poverty. "An insensible
woman," as La Bruyère long ago remarked in his chapter "Des Femmes," "is
merely one who has not yet seen the man she must love."
[160] Guttceit (_Dreissig Jahre Praxis_, vol. i, p. 416) pointed out that
the presence or absence of the orgasm is the only factor in "sexual
anesthesia" of which we can speak at all definitely; and he believed that
anaphrodism, in the sense of absence of the sexual impulse, never occurs
at all, many women having confided to him that they had sexual desires,
although those desires were not gratified by coitus.
[161] _Op. cit._, p. 164.
[162] Havelock Ellis, "Madame de Warens," _The Venture_, 1903.
[163] It is interesting to observe that finally even Adler admits (op.
cit., p. 155) that there is no such thing as _congenital_ lack of aptitude
for sexual sensibility.
[164] "I am not entirely satisfied with the testimony as to the alleged
sexual anesthesia," a medical correspondent writes. "The same principle
which makes the young harlot an old saint makes the repentant rake a
believer in sexual anesthesia. Most of the medical men who believe, or
claim to believe, that sexual anesthesia is so prevalent do so either to
flatter their hysterical patients or because they have the mentality of
the Hyacinthe of Zola's _Paris_."
[165] _Differences in the Nervous Organization of Man and Woman_, 1891;
chapter xiii, "Sexual Instinct in Men and Women Compared."
[166] Matthews Duncan considered that "the healthy performance of the
functions of child-bearing is surely connected with a well-regulated
condition of desire and pleasure." "Desire and pleasure," he adds, "may be
excessive, furious, overpowering, without bringing the female into the
class of maniacs; they may be temporary, healthy, and moderate; they may
be absent or dull." (Matthews Duncan, _Goulstonian Lectures on Sterility
in Woman_, pp. 91, 121.)
[167] Geoffrey Mortimer, _Chapters on Human Love_, 1898, ch. xvi.
[168] I do not, however, attach much weight to this possibility. The
sexual instinct among the lower social classes everywhere is subject to
comparatively weak inhibition, and Löwenfeld is probably right in
believing the women of the lower class do not suffer from sexual
anesthesia to anything like the same extent as upper-class women. In
England most women of the working class appear to have had sexual
intercourse at some time in their lives, notwithstanding the risks of
pregnancy, and if pregnancy occurs they refer to it calmly as an
"accident," for which they cannot be held responsible; "Well, I couldn't
help that," I have heard a young widow remark when mildly reproached for
the existence of her illegitimate child. Again, among American negresses
there seems to be no defect of sexual passion, and it is said that the
majority of negresses in the Southern States support not only their
children, but their lovers and husbands.