Special Characters of the Sexual Impulse in Women--The More Passive Part
Played by Women in Courtship--This Passivity only Apparent--The Physical
Mechanism of the Sexual Process in Women More Complex--The Slower
Development of Orgasm in Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women More
Frequently Needs to be Actively Aroused--The Climax of Sexual Energy Falls
Later in Women's Lives than in Men's--Sexual Ardor in Women Increased
After the Establishment of Sexual Relationships--Women bear Sexual
Excesses better than Men--The Sexual Sphere Larger and More Diffused in
Women--The Sexual Impulse in Women Shows a Greater Tendency to Periodicity
and a Wider Range of Variation.
So far I have been discussing the question of the sexual impulse in women
on the ground upon which previous writers have usually placed it. The
question, that is, has usually presented itself to them as one concerning
the relative strength of the impulse in men and women. When so considered,
not hastily and with prepossession, as is too often the case, but with a
genuine desire to get at the real facts in all their aspects, there is no
reason, as we have seen, to conclude that, on the whole, the sexual
impulse in women is lacking in strength.
But we have to push our investigation of the matter further. In reality,
the question as to whether the sexual impulse is or is not stronger in one
sex than in the other is a somewhat crude one. To put the question in that
form is to reveal ignorance of the real facts of the matter. And in that
form, moreover, no really definite and satisfactory answer can be given.
It is necessary to put the matter on different ground. Instead of taking
more or less insolvable questions as to the strength of the sexual impulse
in the two sexes, it is more profitable to consider its differences. What
are the special characters of the sexual impulse in women?
There is certainly one purely natural sexual difference of a fundamental
character, which lies at the basis of whatever truth may be in the
assertion that women are not susceptible of sexual emotion. As may he
seen when considering the phenomena of modesty, the part played by the
female in courtship throughout nature is usually different from that
played by the male, and is, in some respects, a more difficult and complex
part. Except when the male fails to play his part properly, she is usually
comparatively passive; in the proper playing of her part she has to appear
to shun the male, to flee from his approaches--even actually to repel
them.[169]
Courtship resembles very closely, indeed, a drama or game; and the
aggressiveness of the male, the coyness of the female, are alike
unconsciously assumed in order to bring about in the most effectual manner
the ultimate union of the sexes. The seeming reluctance of the female is
not intended to inhibit sexual activity either in the male or in herself,
but to increase it in both. The passivity of the female, therefore, is not
a real, but only an apparent, passivity, and this holds true of our own
species as much as of the lower animals. "Women are like delicately
adjusted alembics," said a seventeenth-century author. "No fire can be
seen outside, but if you look underneath the alembic, if you place your
hand on the hearts of women, in both places you will find a great
furnace."[170] Or, as Marro has finely put it, the passivity of women in
love is the passivity of the magnet, which in its apparent immobility is
drawing the iron toward it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity,
an absorbed preoccupation in the end to be attained.
Tarde, when exercising magistrate's functions, once had to inquire into a
case in which a young man was accused of murder. In questioning a girl of
18, a shepherdess, who appeared before him as a witness, she told him that
on the morning following the crime she had seen the footmarks of the
accused up to a certain point. He asked how she recognized them, and she
replied, ingenuously but with assurance, that she could recognize the
footprints of every young man in the neighborhood, even in a plowed
field.[171] No better illustration could be given of the real significance
of the sexual passivity of women, even at its most negative point.
"The women I have known," a correspondent writes, "do not express
their sensations and feelings as much as I do. Nor have I found
women usually anxious to practise 'luxuries.' They seldom care to
practice _fellatio_; I have only known one woman who offered to
do _fellatio_ because she liked it. Nor do they generally care to
masturbate a man; that is, they do not care greatly to enjoy the
contemplation of the other person's excitement. (To me, to see
the woman excited means almost more than my own pleasure.) They
usually resist _cunnilinctus_, although they enjoy it. They do
not seem to care to touch or look at a man's parts so much as he
does at theirs. And they seem to dislike the tongue-kiss unless
they feel very sexual or really love a man." My correspondent
admits that his relationships have been numerous and facile,
while his erotic demands tend also to deviate from the normal
path. Under such circumstances, which not uncommonly occur, the
woman's passions fail to be deeply stirred, and she retains her
normal attitude of relative passivity.
It is owing to the fact that the sexual passivity of women is
only an apparent, and not a real, passivity that women are apt to
suffer, as men are, from prolonged sexual abstinence. This,
indeed, has been denied, but can scarcely be said to admit of
doubt. The only question is as to the relative amount of such
suffering, necessarily a very difficult question. As far back as
the fourteenth century Johannes de Sancto Amando stated that
women are more injured than men by sexual abstinence. In modern
times Maudsley considers that women "suffer more than men do from
the entire deprivation of sexual intercourse" ("Relations between
Body and Mind," _Lancet_, May 28, 1870). By some it has been held
that this cause may produce actual disease. Thus, Tilt, an
eminent gynecologist of the middle of the nineteenth century, in
discussing this question, wrote: "When we consider how much of
the lifetime of woman is occupied by the various phases of the
generative process, and how terrible is often the conflict within
her between the impulse of passion and the dictates of duty, it
may be well understood how such a conflict reacts on the organs
of the sexual economy in the unimpregnated female, and
principally on the ovaria, causing an orgasm, which, if often
repeated, may _possibly_ be productive of subacute ovaritis."
(Tilt, _On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, 1862, pp. 309-310.)
Long before Tilt, Haller, it seems, had said that women are
especially liable to suffer from privation of sexual intercourse
to which they have been accustomed, and referred to chlorosis,
hysteria, nymphomania, and simple mania curable by intercourse.
Hegar considers that in women an injurious result follows the
nonsatisfaction of the sexual impulse and of the "ideal
feelings," and that symptoms thus arise (pallor, loss of flesh,
cardialgia, malaise, sleeplessness, disturbances of menstruation)
which are diagnosed as "chlorosis." (Hegar, _Zusammenhang der
Geschlechtskrankheiten mit nervösen Leiden_, 1885, p. 45.) Freud,
as well as Gattel, has found that states of anxiety
(_Angstzustände_) are caused by sexual abstinence. Löwenfeld, on
careful examination of his own cases, is able to confirm this
connection in both sexes. He has specially noticed it in young
women who marry elderly husbands. Löwenfeld believes, however,
that, on the whole, healthy unmarried women bear sexual
abstinence better than men. If, however, they are of at all
neuropathic disposition, ungratified sexual emotions may easily
lead to various morbid conditions, especially of a
hysteroneurasthenic character. (Löwenfeld, _Sexualleben und
Nervenleiden_, second edition, 1899, pp. 44, 47, 54-60.)
Balls-Headley considers that unsatisfied sexual desires in women
may lead to the following conditions: general atrophy, anemia,
neuralgia and hysteria, irregular menstruation, leucorrhea,
atrophy of sexual organs. He also refers to the frequency of
myoma of the uterus among those who have not become pregnant or
who have long ceased to bear children. (Balls-Headley, art.
"Etiology of Diseases of Female Genital Organs," Allbutt and
Playfair, _System of Gynæcology_, 1896, p. 141.) It cannot,
however, be said that he brings forward substantial evidence in
favor of these beliefs. It may be added that in America, during
recent years, leading gynecologists have recorded a number of
cases in which widows on remarriage have shown marked improvement
in uterine and pelvic conditions.
The question as to whether men or women suffer most from sexual
abstinence, as well as the question whether definite morbid
conditions are produced by such abstinence, remains, however, an
obscure and debated problem. The available data do not enable us
to answer it decisively. It is one of those subtle and complex
questions which can only be investigated properly by a
gynecologist who is also a psychologist. Incidentally, however,
we have met and shall have occasion to meet with evidence bearing
on this question. It is sufficient to say here, briefly, that it
is impossible to believe, even if no evidence were forthcoming,
that the exercise or non-exercise of so vastly important a
function can make no difference to the organism generally. So
far as the evidence goes, it may be said to indicate that the
results of the abeyance of the sexual functions in healthy women
in whom the sexual emotions have never been definitely aroused
tend to be diffused and unconscious, as the sexual impulse itself
often is, but that, in women in whom the sexual emotions have
been definitely aroused and gratified, the results of sexual
abstinence tend to be acute and conscious.
These acute results are at the present day very often due to
premature ejaculation by nervous or neurasthenic husbands, the
rapidity with which detumescence is reached in the husband
allowing insufficient time for tumescence in the wife, who
consequently fails to reach the orgasm. This has of late been
frequently pointed out. Thus Kafemann (_Sexual-Probleme_, March,
1910, p. 194 et seq.) emphasizes the prevalence of sexual
incompetence in men. Ferenczi, of Budapest (_Zentralblatt für
Psychoanalyse_, 1910, ht. 1 and 2, p. 75), believes that the
combination of neurasthenic husbands with resultantly nervous
wives is extraordinarily common; even putting aside the
neurasthenic, he considers it may be said that the whole male sex
in relation to women suffer from precocious ejaculation. He adds
that it is often difficult to say whether the lack of harmony may
not be due to retarded orgasm in the woman. He regards the
influence of masturbation in early life as tending to quicken
orgasm in man, while when practised by the other sex it tends to
slow orgasm, and thus increases the disharmony. He holds,
however, that the chief cause lies in the education of women with
its emphasis on sexual repression; this works too well and the
result is that when the external impediments to the sexual
impulse are removed the impulse has become incapable of normal
action. Porosz (_British Medical Journal_, April 1, 1911) has
brought forward cases of serious nervous trouble in women which
have been dispersed when the sexual weakness and premature
ejaculation of the husband have been cured.
The true nature of the passivity of the female is revealed by the ease
with which it is thrown off, more especially when the male refuses to
accept his cue. Or, if we prefer to accept the analogy of a game, we may
say that in the play of courtship the first move belongs to the male, but
that, if he fails to play, it is then the female's turn to play.
Among many birds the males at mating time fall into a state of
sexual frenzy, but not the females. "I cannot call to mind a
single case," states an authority on birds (H.E. Howard,
_Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 146), "where I have seen anything
approaching frenzy in the female of any species while mating."
Another great authority on birds, a very patient and skillful
observer, Mr. Edmund Selous, remarks, however, in describing the
courting habits of the ruffs and reeves (_Machetes pugnax_) that,
notwithstanding the passivity of the females beforehand, their
movements during and after coitus show that they derive at least
as much pleasure as the males. (E. Selous, "Selection in Birds,"
_Zoölogist_, Feb. and May, 1907.)
The same observer, after speaking of the great beauty of the male
eider duck, continues: "These glorified males--there were a dozen
of these, perhaps, to some six or seven females--swam closely
about the latter, but more in attendance upon them than as
actively pursuing them, for the females seemed themselves almost
as active agents in the sport of being wooed as were their lovers
in wooing them. The male bird first dipped down his head till his
beak just touched the water, then raised it again in a
constrained and tense manner,--the curious rigid action so
frequent in the nuptial antics of birds,--at the same time
uttering his strange haunting note. The air became filled with
it; every moment one or other of the birds--sometimes several
together--with upturned bill would softly laugh or exclaim, and
while the males did this, the females, turning excitedly, and
with little eager demonstrations from one to another of them,
kept lowering and extending forward the head and neck in the
direction of each in turn.... I noticed that a female would often
approach a male bird with her head and neck laid flat along the
water as though in a very 'coming on' disposition, and that the
male bird declined her advances. This, taken in conjunction with
the actions of the female when courted by the male, appears to me
to raise a doubt as to the universal application of the law that
throughout nature the male, in courtship, is eager, and the
female coy. Here, to all appearances, courtship was proceeding,
and the birds had not yet mated. The female eider ducks,
however,--at any rate, some of them,--appeared to be anything but
coy." (_Bird Watching_, pp. 144-146.)
Among moor-hens and great-crested grebes sometimes what Selous
terms "functional hermaphroditism" occurs and the females play
the part of the male toward their male companions, and then
repeat the sexual act with a reversion to the normal order, the
whole to the satisfaction of both parties. (E. Selous,
_Zoölogist_, 1902, p. 196.)
It is not only among birds that the female sometimes takes the
active part, but also among mammals. Among white rats, for
instance, the males are exceptionally eager. Steinach, who has
made many valuable experiments on these animals (_Archiv für die
Gesammte Physiologie_, Bd. lvi, 1894, p. 319), tells us that,
when a female white rat is introduced into the cage of a male, he
at once leaves off eating, or whatever else he may be doing,
becomes indifferent to noises or any other source of
distraction, and devotes himself entirely to her. If, however, he
is introduced into her cage the new environment renders him
nervous and suspicious, and then it is she who takes the active
part, trying to attract him in every way. The impetuosity during
heat of female animals of various species, when at length
admitted to the male, is indeed well known to all who are
familiar with animals.
I have referred to the frequency with which, in the human
species,--and very markedly in early adolescence, when the sexual
impulse is in a high degree unconscious and unrestrainedly
instinctive,--similar manifestations may often be noted. We have
to recognize that they are not necessarily abnormal and still
less pathological. They merely represent the unseasonable
apparition of a tendency which in due subordination is implied in
the phases of courtship throughout the animal world. Among some
peoples and in some stages of culture, tending to withdraw the
men from women and the thought of women, this phase of courtship
and this attitude assume a prominence which is absolutely normal.
The literature of the Middle Ages presents a state of society in
which men were devoted to war and to warlike sports, while the
women took the more active part in love-making. The medieval
poets represent women as actively encouraging backward lovers,
and as delighting to offer to great heroes the chastity they had
preserved, sometimes entering their bed-chambers at night.
Schultz (_Das Höfische Leben_, Bd. i, pp. 594-598) considers that
these representations are not exaggerated. Cf. Krabbes, _Die Frau
im Altfranzösischen Karls-Epos_, 1884, p. 20 et seq.; and M.A.
Potter, _Sohrab and Rustem_, 1902, pp. 152-163.
Among savages and barbarous races in various parts of the world
it is the recognized custom, reversing the more usual method, for
the girl to take the initiative in courtship. This is especially
so in New Guinea. Here the girls almost invariably take the
initiative, and in consequence hold a very independent position.
Women are always regarded as the seducers: "Women steal men." A
youth who proposed to a girl would be making himself ridiculous,
would be called a woman, and be laughed at by the girls. The
usual method by which a girl proposes is to send a present to the
youth by a third party, following this up by repeated gifts of
food; the young man sometimes waits a month or two, receiving
presents all the time, in order to assure himself of the girl's
constancy before decisively accepting her advances. (A.C. Haddon,
_Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits_, vol. v, ch. viii; id.,
"Western Tribes of Torres Straits," _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, vol. xix, February, 1890, pp. 314,
356, 394, 395, 411, 413; id., _Head Hunters_, pp. 158-164; R.E.
Guise, "Tribes of the Wanigela River," _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, new series, vol. i, February-May,
1899, p. 209.) Westermarck gives instances of races among whom
the women take the initiative in courtship. (_History of
Marriage_, p. 158; so also Finck, _Primitive Love and
Love-stories_, 1899, p. 109 et seq.; and as regards Celtic women,
see Rhys and Brynmor Jones, _The Welsh People_.)
There is another characteristic of great significance by which the sexual
impulse in women differs from that in men: the widely unlike character of
the physical mechanism involved in the process of coitus. Considering how
obvious this difference is, it is strange that its fundamental importance
should so often be underrated. In man the process of tumescence and
detumescence is simple. In women it is complex. In man we have the more or
less spontaneously erectile penis, which needs but very simple conditions
to secure the ejaculation which brings relief. In women we have in the
clitoris a corresponding apparatus on a small scale, but behind this has
developed a much more extensive mechanism, which also demands
satisfaction, and requires for that satisfaction the presence of various
conditions that are almost antagonistic. Naturally the more complex
mechanism is the more easily disturbed. It is the difference, roughly
speaking, between a lock and a key. This analogy is far from indicating
all the difficulties involved. We have to imagine a lock that not only
requires a key to fit it, but should only be entered at the right moment,
and, under the best conditions, may only become adjusted to the key by
considerable use. The fact that the man takes the more active part in
coitus has increased these difficulties; the woman is too often taught to
believe that the whole function is low and impure, only to be submitted to
at her husband's will and for his sake, and the man has no proper
knowledge of the mechanism involved and the best way of dealing with it.
The grossest brutality thus may be, and not infrequently is, exercised in
all innocence by an ignorant husband who simply believes that he is
performing his "marital duties." For a woman to exercise this physical
brutality on a man is with difficulty possible; a man's pleasurable
excitement is usually the necessary condition of the woman's sexual
gratification. But the reverse is not the case, and, if the man is
sufficiently ignorant or sufficiently coarse-grained to be satisfied with
the woman's submission, he may easily become to her, in all innocence, a
cause of torture.
To the man coitus must be in some slight degree pleasurable or it cannot
take place at all. To the woman the same act which, under some
circumstances, in the desire it arouses and the satisfaction it imparts,
will cause the whole universe to shrivel into nothingness, under other
circumstances will be a source of anguish, physical and mental. This is so
to some extent even in the presence of the right and fit man. There can be
no doubt whatever that the mucus which is so profusely poured out over the
external sexual organs in woman during the excitement of sexual desire has
for its end the lubrication of the parts and the facilitation of the
passage of the intromittent organ. The most casual inspection of the cold,
contracted, dry vulva in its usual aspect and the same when distended,
hot, and moist suffices to show which condition is and which is not that
ready for intercourse, and until the proper condition is reached it is
certain that coitus should not be attempted.
The varying sensitiveness of the female parts again offers difficulties.
Sexual relations in women are, at the onset, almost inevitably painful;
and to some extent the same experience may be repeated at every act of
coitus. Ordinary tactile sensibility in the female genitourinary region is
notably obtuse, but at the beginning of the sexual act there is normally a
hyperesthesia which may be painful or pleasurable as excitement
culminates, passing into a seeming anesthesia, which even craves for rough
contact; so that in sexual excitement a woman normally displays in quick
succession that same quality of sensibility to superficial pressure and
insensibility to deep pressure which the hysterical woman exhibits
simultaneously.
Thus we see that a highly important practical result follows from the
greater complexity of the sexual apparatus in women and the greater
difficulty with which it is aroused. In coitus the orgasm tends to occur
more slowly in women than in men. It may easily happen that the whole
process of detumescence is completed in the man before it has begun in
his partner, who is left either cold or unsatisfied. This is one of the
respects in which women remain nearer than men to the primitive stage of
humanity.
In the Hippocratic treatise, _Of Generation_, it is stated that,
while woman has less pleasure in coitus than man, her pleasure
lasts longer. (_Oeuvres d'Hippocrate_, edition Littré, vol. vii,
p. 477.)
Beaunis considers that the slower development of the orgasm in
women is the only essential difference in the sexual process in
men and women. (Beaunis, _Les Sensations Internes_, 1889, p.
151.) This characteristic of the sexual impulse in women, though
recognized for so long a period, is still far too often ignored
or unknown. There is even a superstition that injurious results
may follow if the male orgasm is not effected as rapidly as
possible. That this is not so is shown by the experiences of the
Oneida community in America, who in their system of sexual
relationship carried prolonged intercourse without ejaculation to
an extreme degree. There can be no doubt whatever that very
prolonged intercourse gives the maximum amount of pleasure and
relief to the woman. Not only is this the very decided opinion of
women who have experienced it, but it is also indicated by the
well-recognized fact that a woman who repeats the sexual act
several times in succession often experiences more intense orgasm
and pleasure with each repetition.
This point is much better understood in the East than in the
West. The prolongation of the man's excitement, in order to give
the woman time for orgasm, is, remarks Sir Richard Burton
(_Arabian Nights_, vol. v, p. 76), much studied by Moslems, as
also by Hindoos, who, on this account, during the orgasm seek to
avoid overtension of muscles and to preoccupy the brain. During
coitus they will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut, and even smoke.
Europeans devote no care to this matter, and Hindoo women, who
require about twenty minutes to complete the act, contemptuously
call them "village cocks." I have received confirmation of
Burton's statements on this point from medical correspondents in
India.
While the European desires to perform as many acts of coitus in
one night as possible, Breitenstein remarks, the Malay, as still
more the Javanese, wishes, not to repeat the act many times, but
to prolong it. His aim is to remain in the vagina for about a
quarter of an hour. Unlike the European, also, he boasts of the
pleasure he has given his partner far more than of his own
pleasure. (Breitenstein, _21 Jahre in India_, theil i, "Borneo,"
p. 228.)
Jäger (_Entdeckung der Seele_, second edition, vol. i, 1884, p.
203), as quoted by Moll, explains the preference of some women
for castrated men as due, not merely to the absence of risk of
impregnation, but to the prolonged erections that take place in
the castrated. Aly-Belfàdel remarks (_Archivio di Psichiatria_,
1903, p. 117) that he knows women who prefer old men in coitus
simply because of their delay in ejaculation which allows more
time to the women to become excited.
A Russian correspondent living in Italy informs me that a
Neapolitan girl of 17, who had only recently ceased to be a
virgin, explained to him that she preferred _coitus in ore vulvæ_
to real intercourse because the latter was over before she had
time to obtain the orgasm (or, as she put it, "the big bird has
fled from the cage and I am left in the lurch"), while in the
other way she was able to experience the orgasm twice before her
partner reached the climax. "This reminds me," my correspondent
continues, "that a Milanese cocotte once told me that she much
liked intercourse with Jews because, on account of the
circumcised penis being less sensitive to contact, they ejaculate
more slowly then Christians. 'With Christians,' she said, 'it
constantly happens that I am left unsatisfied because they
ejaculate before me, while in coitus with Jews I sometimes
ejaculate twice before the orgasm occurs in my partner, or,
rather, I hold back the second orgasm until he is ready.' This is
confirmed," my correspondent continues, "by what I was told by a
Russian Jew, a student at the Zürich Polytechnic, who had a
Russian comrade living with a mistress, also a Russian student,
or pseudostudent. One day the Jew, going early to see his friend,
was told to enter by a woman's voice and found his friend's
mistress alone and in her chemise beside the bed. He was about to
retire, but the young woman bade him stay and in a few minutes he
was in bed with her. She told him that her lover had just gone
away and that she never had sexual relief with him because he
always ejaculated too soon. That morning he had left her so
excited and so unrelieved that she was just about to
masturbate--which she rarely did because it gave her
headache--when she heard the Jew's voice, and, knowing that Jews
are slower in coitus than Christians, she had suddenly resolved
to give herself to him."
I am informed that the sexual power of negroes and slower
ejaculation (see Appendix A) are the cause of the favor with
which they are viewed by some white women of strong sexual
passions in America, and by many prostitutes. At one time there
was a special house in New York City to which white women
resorted for these "buck lovers"; the women came heavily veiled
and would inspect the penises of the men before making their
selection.
It is thus a result of the complexity of the sexual mechanism in women
that the whole attitude of a woman toward the sexual relationship is
liable to be affected disastrously by the husband's lack of skill or
consideration in initiating her into this intimate mystery. Normally the
stage of apparent repulsion and passivity, often associated with great
sensitiveness, physical and moral, passes into one of active participation
and aid in the consummation of the sexual act. But if, from whatever
cause, there is partial arrest on the woman's side of this evolution in
the process of courtship, if her submission is merely a mental and
deliberate act of will, and not an instinctive and impulsive
participation, there is a necessary failure of sexual relief and
gratification. When we find that a woman displays a certain degree of
indifference in sexual relationships, and a failure of complete
gratification, we have to recognize that the fault may possibly lie, not
in her, but in the defective skill of a lover who has not known how to
play successfully the complex and subtle game of courtship. Sexual
coldness due to the shock and suffering of the wedding-night is a
phenomenon that is far too frequent.[172] Hence it is that many women may
never experience sexual gratification and relief, through no defect on
their part, but through the failure of the husband to understand the
lover's part. We make a false analogy when we compare the courtship of
animals exclusively with our own courtships before marriage. Courtship,
properly understood, is the process whereby both the male and the female
are brought into that state of sexual tumescence which is a more or less
necessary condition for sexual intercourse. The play of courtship cannot,
therefore, be considered to be definitely brought to an end by the
ceremony of marriage; it may more properly be regarded as the natural
preliminary to every act of coitus.
Tumescence is not merely a more or less essential condition for
proper sexual intercourse. It is probably of more fundamental
significance as one of the favoring conditions of impregnation.
This has, indeed, been long recognized. Van Swieten, when
consulted by the childless Maria Theresa, gave the opinion "Ego
vero censeo, vulvam Sacratissimæ Majestatis ante coitum diutius
esse titillandam," and thereafter she had many children. "I think
it very nearly certain," Matthews Duncan wrote (_Goulstonian
Lectures on Sterility in Woman_, 1884, p. 96), "that desire and
pleasure in due or moderate degree are very important aids to, or
predisposing causes of, fecundity," as bringing into action the
complicated processes of fecundation. Hirst (_Text-book of
Obstetrics_, 1899, p. 67) mentions the case of a childless
married woman who for six years had had no orgasm during
intercourse; then it occurred at the same time as coitus, and
pregnancy resulted.
Kisch is very decidedly of the same opinion, and considers that
the popular belief on this point is fully justified. It is a
fact, he states, that an unfaithful wife is more likely to
conceive with her lover than with her husband, and he concludes
that, whatever the precise mechanism may be, "sexual excitement
on the woman's part is a necessary link in the chain of
conditions producing impregnation." (E.H. Kisch, _Die Sterilität
des Weibes_, 1886, p. 99.) Kisch believes (p. 103) that in the
majority of women sexual pleasure only appears gradually, after
the first cohabitation, and then develops progressively, and that
the first conception usually coincides with its complete
awakening. In 556 cases of his own the most frequent epoch of
first impregnation was found to be between ten and fifteen months
after marriage.
The removal of sexual frigidity thus becomes a matter of some
importance. This removal may in some cases be effected by
treatment through the husband, but that course is not always
practicable. Dr. Douglas Bryan, of Leicester, informs me that in
several cases he has succeeded in removing sexual coldness and
physical aversion in the wife by hypnotic suggestion. The
suggestions given to the patient are "that all her womanly
natural feelings would be quickly and satisfactorily developed
during coitus; that she would experience no feeling of disgust
and nausea, would have no fear of the orgasm not developing; that
there would be no involuntary resistance on her part." The fact
that such suggestions can be permanently effective tends to show
how superficial the sexual "anesthesia" of women usually is.
Not only, therefore, is the apparatus of sexual excitement in women more
complex than in men, but--in part, possibly as a result of this greater
complexity--it much more frequently requires to be actively aroused. In
men tumescence tends to occur almost spontaneously, or under the simple
influence of accumulated semen. In women, also, especially in those who
live a natural and healthy life, sexual excitement also tends to occur
spontaneously, but by no means so frequently as in men. The comparative
rarity of sexual dreams in women who have not had sexual relationships
alone serves to indicate this sexual difference. In a very large number of
women the sexual impulse remains latent until aroused by a lover's
caresses. The youth spontaneously becomes a man; but the maiden--as it has
been said--"must be kissed into a woman."
One result of this characteristic is that, more especially when love is
unduly delayed beyond the first youth, this complex apparatus has
difficulty in responding to the unfamiliar demands of sexual excitement.
Moreover, delayed normal sexual relations, when the sexual impulse is not
absolutely latent, tend to induce all degrees of perverted or abnormal
sexual gratification, and the physical mechanism when trained to respond
in other ways often fails to respond normally when, at last, the normal
conditions of response are presented. In all these ways passivity and even
aversion may be produced in the conjugal relationship. The fact that it is
almost normally the function of the male to arouse the female, and that
the greater complexity of the sexual mechanism in women leads to more
frequent disturbance of that mechanism, produces a simulation of organic
sexual coldness which has deceived many.
An instructive study of cases in which the sexual impulse has
been thus perverted has been presented by Smith Baker ("The
Neuropsychical Element in Conjugal Aversion," _Journal of Nervous
and Mental Disease_, vol. xvii, September, 1892). Raymond and
Janet, who believes that sexual coldness is extremely frequent in
marriage, and that it plays an important part in the causation of
physical and moral troubles, find that it is most often due to
masturbation. (_Les Obsessions_, vol. ii, p. 307.) Adler, after
discussing the complexity of the feminine sexual mechanism, and
the difficulty which women find in obtaining sexual gratification
in normal coitus, concludes that "masturbation is a frequent,
perhaps the most frequent, cause of defective sexual sensibility
in women." (_Op. cit._, p. 119.) He remarks that in women
masturbation usually has less resemblance to normal coitus than
in men and involves very frequently the special excitation of
parts which are not the chief focus of excitement in coitus, so
that coitus fails to supply the excitation which has become
habitual (pp. 113-116). In the discussion of "Auto-erotism" in
the first volume of these _Studies_, I had already referred to
the divorce between the physical and the ideal sides of love
which may, especially in women, be induced by masturbation.
Another cause of inhibited sexual feeling has been brought
forward. A married lady with normal sexual impulse states
(_Sexual-Probleme_, April, 1912, p. 290) that she cannot
experience orgasm and sexual satisfaction when the intercourse is
not for conception. This is a psychic inhibition independent of
any disturbance due to the process of prevention. She knows other
women who are similarly affected. Such an inhibition must be
regarded as artificial and abnormal, since the final result of
sexual intercourse, under natural and normal conditions, forms no
essential constituent of the psychic process of intercourse.
As a result of the fact that in women the sexual emotions tend not to
develop great intensity until submitted to powerful stimulation, we find
that the maximum climax of sexual emotion tends to fall somewhat later in
a woman's life than in a man's. Among animals generally there appears to
be frequently traceable a tendency for the sexual activities of the male
to develop at a somewhat earlier age than those of the female. In the
human, species we may certainly trace the same tendency. As the great
physiologist, Burdach, pointed out, throughout nature, with the
accomplishment of the sexual act the part of the male in the work of
generation comes to an end; but that act represents only the beginning of
a woman's generative activity.
A youth of 20 may often display a passionate ardor in love which is very
seldom indeed found in women who are under 25. It is rare for a woman,
even though her sexual emotions may awaken at puberty or earlier, to
experience the great passion of her life until after the age of 25 has
been passed. In confirmation of this statement, which is supported by
daily observation, it may be pointed out that nearly all the most
passionate love-letters of women, as well as their most passionate
devotions, have come from women who had passed, sometimes long passed,
their first youth. When Heloise wrote to Abelard the first of the letters
which have come down to us she was at least 32. Mademoiselle Aissé's
relation with the Chevalier began when she was 32, and when she died, six
years later, the passion of each was at its height. Mary Wollstonecraft
was 34 when her love-letters to Imlay began, and her child was born in the
following year. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was 43 when she began to write
her letters to M. de Guibert. In some cases the sexual impulse may not
even appear until after the period of the menopause has been passed.[173]
In Roman times Ovid remarked (_Ars Amatoria_, lib. ii) that a
woman fails to understand the art of love until she has reached
the age of 35. "A girl of 18," said Stendhal (_De l'Amour_, ch.
viii), "has not the power to crystallize her emotions; she forms
desires that are too limited by her lack of experience in the
things of life, to be able to love with such passion as a woman
of 28." "Sexual needs," said Restif de la Bretonne (_Monsieur
Nicolas_, vol. xi, p. 221), "often only appears in young women
when they are between 26 and 27 years of age; at least, that is
what I have observed."
Erb states that it is about the middle of the twenties that women
begin to suffer physically, morally, and intellectually from
their sexual needs. Nyström (_Das Geschlechtsleben_, p. 163)
considers that it is about the age of 30 that a woman first
begins to feel conscious of sex needs. In a case of Adler's (_op.
cit._, p. 141), sexual feelings first appeared after the birth of
the third child, at the age of 30. Forel (_Die Sexuelle Frage_,
1906, p. 219) considers that sexual desire in woman is often
strongest between the ages of 30 and 40. Leith Napier
(_Menopause_, p. 94) remarks that from 28 to 30 is often an
important age in woman who have retained their virginity, erotism
then appearing with the full maturity of the nervous system.
Yellowlees (art. "Masturbation," _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_), again, states that at about the age of 33 some women
experience great sexual irritability, often resulting in
masturbation. Audiffrent (_Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_,
Jan. 15, 1902, p. 3) considers that it is toward the age of 30
that a woman reaches her full moral and physical development, and
that at this period her emotional and idealizing impulses reach a
degree of intensity which is sometimes irresistible. It has
already been mentioned that Matthews Duncan's careful inquiries
showed that it is between the ages of 30 and 34 that the largest
proportion of women experience sexual desire and sexual pleasure.
It may be remarked, also, that while the typical English
novelists, who have generally sought to avoid touching the deeper
and more complex aspects of passion, often choose very youthful
heroines, French novelists, who have frequently had a
predilection for the problems of passion, often choose heroines
who are approaching the age of 30.
Hirschfeld (_Von Wesen der Liebe_, p. 26) was consulted by a lady
who, being without any sexual desires or feelings, married an
inverted man in order to live with him a life of simple
comradeship. Within six months, however, she fell violently in
love with her husband, with the full manifestation of sexual
feelings and accompanying emotions of jealousy. Under all the
circumstances, however, she would not enter into sexual
relationship with her husband, and the torture she endured became
so acute that she desired to be castrated. In this connection,
also, I may mention a case, which has been communicated to me
from Glasgow, of a girl--strong and healthy and menstruating
regularly since the age of 17--who was seduced at the age of 20
without any sexual desire on her part, giving birth to a child
nine months later. Subsequently she became a prostitute for three
years, and during this period had not the slightest sexual desire
or any pleasure in sexual connection. Thereafter she met a poor
lad with whom she has full sexual desire and sexual pleasure, the
result being that she refuses to go with any other man, and
consequently is almost without food for several days every week.
The late appearance of the great climax of sexual emotion in
women is indicated by a tendency to nervous and psychic
disturbances between the ages of 25 and about 33, which has been
independently noted by various alienists (though it may be noted
that 25 to 30 is not an unusual age for first attacks of insanity
in men also). Thus, Krafft-Ebing states that adult unmarried
women between the ages of 25 and 30 often show nervous symptoms
and peculiarities. (Krafft-Ebing, "Ueber Neurosen und Psychosen
durch Sexuelle Abstinenz," _Jahrbücher für Psychiatrie_, Bd.
viii, ht. 1-4, 1888.) Pitres and Régis find also (_Comptes-rendus
XIIe Congrès International de Médecine_, Moscow, 1897, vol. iv,
p. 45) that obsessions, which are commoner in women than in men
and are commonly connected in their causation with strong moral
emotion, occur in women chiefly between the ages of 26 and 30,
though in men much earlier. The average age at which in England
women inebriates begin drinking in excess is 26. (_British
Medical Journal_, Sept. 2, 1911, p. 518.)
A case recorded by Sérieux is instructive as regards the
development of the sexual impulse, although it comes within the
sphere of mental disorder. A woman of 32 with bad heredity had in
childhood had weak health and become shy, silent, and fond of
solitude, teased by her companions and finding consolation in
hard work. Though very emotional, she never, even in the vaguest
form, experienced any of those feelings and aspirations which
reveal the presence of the sexual impulse. She had no love of
dancing and was indifferent to any embraces she might chance to
receive from young men. She never masturbated or showed inverted
feelings. At the age of 23 she married. She still, however,
experienced no sexual feelings; twice only she felt a faint
sensation of pleasure. A child was born, but her home was unhappy
on account of her husband's drunken habits. He died and she
worked hard for her own living and the support of her mother.
Then at the age of 31 a new phase occurs in her life: she falls
in love with the master of her workshop. It was at first a purely
psychic affection, without any mixture of physical elements; it
was enough to see him, and she trembled when she touched anything
that belonged to him. She was constantly thinking about him; she
loved him for his eyes, which seemed to her those of her own
child, and especially for his intelligence. Gradually, however,
the lower nervous centers began to take part in these emotions;
one day in passing her the master chanced to touch her shoulder;
this contact was sufficient to produce sexual turgescence. She
began to masturbate daily, thinking of her master, and for the
first time in her life she desired coitus. She evoked the image
of her master so constantly and vividly that at last
hallucinations of sight, touch, and hearing appeared, and it
seemed to her that he was present. These hallucinations were only
with difficulty dissipated. (P. Sérieux, _Les Anomalies de
L'Instinct Sexuel_, 1888, p. 50.) This case presents in an insane
form a phenomenon which is certainly by no means uncommon and is
very significant. Up to the age of 31 we should certainly have
been forced to conclude that this woman was sexually anesthetic
to an almost absolute degree. In reality, we see this was by no
means the case. Weak health, hard work, and a brutal husband had
prolonged the latency of the sexual emotions; but they were
there, ready to explode with even insane intensity (this being
due to the unsound heredity) in the presence of a man who
appealed to these emotions.
In connection with the late evolution of the sexual emotions in
women reference may be made to what is usually termed "old maid's
insanity," a condition not met with in men. In these cases, which
are not, indeed, common, single women who have led severely
strict and virtuous lives, devoting themselves to religious or
intellectual work, and carefully repressing the animal side of
their natures, at last, just before the climacteric, experience
an awakening of the erotic impulse; they fall in love with some
unfortunate man, often a clergyman, persecute him with their
attentions, and frequently suffer from the delusion that he
reciprocates their affections.
When once duly aroused, there cannot usually be any doubt concerning the
strength of the sexual impulse in normal and healthy women. There would,
however, appear to be a distinct difference between the sexes at this
point also. Before sexual union the male tends to be more ardent; after
sexual union it is the female who tends to be more ardent. The sexual
energy of women, under these circumstances, would seem to be the greater
on account of the long period during which it has been dormant.
Sinibaldus in the seventeenth century, in his _Geneanthropeia_,
argued that, though women are cold at first, and aroused with
more difficulty and greater slowness than men, the flame of
passion spreads in them the more afterward, just as iron is by
nature cold, but when heated gives a great degree of heat.
Similarly Mandeville said of women that "their passions are not
so easily raised nor so suddenly fixed upon any particular
object; but when this passion is once rooted in women it is much
stronger and more durable than in men, and rather increases than
diminishes by enjoying the person of the beloved." (_A Modest
Defence of Public Stews_, 1724, p. 34.) Burdach considered that
women only acquire the full enjoyment of their general strength
after marriage and pregnancy, while it is before marriage that
men have most vigor. Schopenhauer also said that a man's love
decreases with enjoyment, and a woman's increases. And Ellen Key
has remarked (_Love and Marriage_) that "where there is no
mixture of Southern blood it is a long time, sometimes indeed not
till years after marriage, that the senses of the Northern women
awake to consciousness."
Even among animals this tendency seems to be manifested. Edmund
Selous (_Bird Watching_, p. 112) remarks, concerning sea-gulls:
"Always, or almost always, one of the birds--and this I take to
be the female--is more eager, has a more soliciting manner and
tender begging look than the other. It is she who, as a rule,
draws the male bird on. She looks fondly up at him, and, raising
her bill to his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with
it, in raising, the feathers of the throat--an action light, but
full of endearment. And in every way she shows herself the most
desirous, and, in fact, so worries and pesters the poor male gull
that often, to avoid her importunities, he flies away. This may
seem odd, but I have seen other instances of it. No doubt, in
actual courting, before the sexes are paired, the male bird is
usually the most eager, but after marriage the female often
becomes the wooer. Of this I have seen some marked instances."
Selous mentions especially the plover, kestrel hawk, and rook.
In association with the fact that women tend to show an increase of sexual
ardor after sexual relationships have been set up may be noted the
probably related fact that sexual intercourse is undoubtedly less
injurious to women than to men. Other things being equal, that is to say,
the threshold of excess is passed very much sooner by the man than by the
woman. This was long ago pointed out by Montaigne. The ancient saying,
"_Omne animal post coitum triste_," is of limited application at the best,
but certainly has little reference to women.[174] Alacrity, rather than
languor, as Robin has truly observed,[175] marks a woman after coitus, or,
as a medical friend of my own has said, a woman then goes about the house
singing.[176] It is, indeed, only after intercourse with a woman for whom,
in reality, he feels contempt that a man experiences that revulsion of
feeling described by Shakespeare (sonnet cxxix). Such a passage should not
be quoted, as it sometimes has been quoted, as the representation of a
normal phenomenon. But, with equal gratification on both sides, it remains
true that, while after a single coitus the man may experience a not
unpleasant lassitude and readiness for sleep, this is rarely the case with
his partner, for whom a single coitus is often but a pleasant stimulus,
the climax of satisfaction not being reached until a second or subsequent
act of intercourse. "Excess in venery," which, rightly or wrongly, is set
down as the cause of so many evils in men, seldom, indeed, appears in
connection with women, although in every act of venery the woman has taken
part.[177]
That women bear sexual excesses better than men was noted by
Cabanis and other early writers. Alienists frequently refer to
the fact that women are less liable to be affected by insanity
following such excesses. (See, e.g., Maudsley, "Relations between
Body and Mind," _Lancet_, May 28, 1870; and G. Savage, art.
"Marriage and Insanity" in _Dictionary of Psychological
Medicine_.) Trousseau remarked on the fact that women are not
exhausted by repeated acts of coitus within a short period,
notwithstanding that the nervous excitement in their case is as
great, if not greater, and he considered that this showed that
the loss of semen is a cause of exhaustion in men. Löwenfeld
(_Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, pp. 74, 153) states that there
cannot be question that the nervous system in women is less
influenced by the after-effects of coitus than in men. Not only,
he remarks, are prostitutes very little liable to suffer from
nervous overstimulation, and neurasthenia and hysteria when
occurring in them be easily traceable to other causes, but
"healthy women who are not given to prostitution, when they
indulge in very frequent sexual intercourse, provided it is
practised normally, do not experience the slightest injurious
effect. I have seen many young married couples where the husband
had been reduced to a pitiable condition of nervous prostration
and general discomfort by the zeal with which he had exercised
his marital duties, while the wife had been benefited and was in
the uninterrupted enjoyment of the best health." This experience
is by no means uncommon.
A correspondent writes: "It is quite true that the threshold of
excess is less easily reached by women than by men. I have found
that women can reach the orgasm much more frequently than men.
Take an ordinary case. I spend two hours with ----. I have the
orgasm 3 times, with difficulty; she has it 6 or 8, or even 10 or
12, times. Women can also experience it a second or third time in
succession, with no interval between. Sometimes the mere fact of
realizing that the man is having the orgasm causes the woman to
have it also, though it is true that a woman usually requires as
many minutes to develop the orgasm as a man does seconds." I may
also refer to the case recorded in another part of this volume in
which a wife had the orgasm 26 times to her husband's twice.
Hutchinson, under the name of post-marital amblyopia (_Archives
of Surgery_, vol. iv, p. 200), has described a condition
occurring in men in good health who soon after marriage become
nearly blind, but recover as soon as the cause is removed. He
mentions no cases in women due to coitus, but finds that in
women some failure of sight may occur after parturition.
Näcke states that, in his experience, while masturbation is,
apparently, commoner in insane men than in insane women,
masturbation repeated several times a day is much commoner in the
women. (P. Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der
Irrenanstalt," _Psychiatrische Bladen_, 1899, No. 2.)
Great excesses in masturbation seem also to be commoner among
women who may be said to be sane than among men. Thus, Bloch
(_New Orleans Medical Journal_, 1896) records the case of a young
married woman of 25, of bad heredity, who had suffered from
almost life-long sexual hyperesthesia, and would masturbate
fourteen times daily during the menstrual periods.
With regard to excesses in coitus the case may be mentioned of a
country girl of 17, living in a rural district in North Carolina
where prostitution was unknown, who would cohabit with men almost
openly. On one Sunday she went to a secluded school-house and let
three or four men wear themselves out cohabiting with her. On
another occasion, at night, in a field, she allowed anyone who
would to perform the sexual act, and 25 men and boys then had
intercourse with her. When seen she was much prostrated and with
a tendency to spasm, but quite rational. Subsequently she married
and attacks of this nature became rare.
Mr. Lawson made an "attested statement" of what he had observed
among the Marquesan women. "He mentions one case in which he
heard a parcel of boys next morning count over and _name_ 103 men
who during the night had intercourse with _one_ woman."
(_Medico-Chirurgical Review_, 1871, vol. ii, p. 360, apparently
quoting Chevers.) This statement seems open to question, but, if
reliable, would furnish a case which must be unique.
There is a further important difference, though intimately related to some
of the differences already mentioned, between the sexual impulse in women
and in men. In women it is at once larger and more diffused. As Sinibaldus
long ago said, the sexual pleasure of men is intensive, of women
extensive. In men the sexual impulse is, as it were, focused to a single
point. This is necessarily so, for the whole of the essentially necessary
part of the male in the process of human procreation is confined to the
ejaculation of semen into the vagina. But in women, mainly owing to the
fact that women are the child-bearers, in place of one primary sexual
center and one primary erogenous region, there are at least three such
sexual centers and erogenous regions: the clitoris (corresponding to the
penis), the vaginal passage up to the womb, and the nipple. In both sexes
there are other secondary and reflex centers, but there is good reason for
believing that these are more numerous and more widespread in women than
in men.[178] How numerous the secondary sexual centers in women may be is
indicated by the case of a woman mentioned by Moraglia, who boasted that
she knew fourteen different ways of masturbating herself.
This great diffusion of the sexual impulse and emotions in women is as
visible on the psychic as on the physical side. A woman can find sexual
satisfaction in a great number of ways that do not include the sexual act
proper, and in a great number of ways that apparently are not physical at
all, simply because their physical basis is diffused or is to be found in
one of the outlying sexual zones.
It is, moreover, owing to the diffused character of the sexual emotions in
women that it so often happens that emotion really having a sexual origin
is not recognized as such even by the woman herself. It is possible that
the great prevalence in women of the religious emotional state of "storm
and stress," noted by Professor Starbuck,[179] is largely due to
unemployed sexual impulse. In this and similar ways it happens that the
magnitude of the sexual sphere in woman is unrealized by the careless
observer.
A number of converging facts tend to indicate that the sexual
sphere is larger, and more potent in its influence on the
organism, in women than in men. It would appear that among the
males and females of lower animals the same difference may be
found. It is stated that in birds there is a greater flow of
blood to the ovaries than to the testes.
In women the system generally is more affected by disturbances in
the sexual sphere than in men. This appears to be the case as
regards the eye. "The influence of the sexual system upon the eye
in man," Power states, "is far less potent, and the connection,
in consequence, far less easy to trace than in woman." (H. Power,
"Relation of Ophthalmic Disease to the Sexual Organs," _Lancet_,
November 26, 1887.)
The greater predominance of the sexual system in women on the
psychic side is clearly brought out in insane conditions. It is
well known that, while satyriasis is rare, nymphomania is
comparatively common. These conditions are probably often forms
of mania, and in mania, while sexual symptoms are common in men,
they are often stated to be the rule in women (see, e.g.,
Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia Sexualis_, tenth edition, English
translation, p. 465). Bouchereau, in noting this difference in
the prevalence of sexual manifestations during insanity, remarks
that it is partly due to the naturally greater dependence of
women on the organs of generation, and partly to the more active,
independent, and laborious lives of men; in his opinion,
satyriasis is specially apt to develop in men who lead lives
resembling those of women. (Bouchereau, art. "Satyriasis,"
_Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences Médicales_.) Again,
postconnubial insanity is very much commoner in women than in
men, a fact which may indicate the more predominant part played
by the sexual sphere in women. (Savage, art. "Marriage and
Insanity," _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_.)
Insanity tends to remove the artificial inhibitory influences
that rule in ordinary life, and there is therefore significance
in such a fact as that the sexual appetite is often increased in
general paralysis and to a notable extent in women. (Pactet and
Colin, _Les Aliénés devant la Justice_, 1902, p. 122.)
Näcke, from his experiences among the insane, makes an
interesting and possibly sound distinction regarding the
character of the sexual manifestations in the two sexes. Among
men he finds these manifestations to be more of a reflex and
purely spinal nature and chiefly manifested in masturbation; in
women he finds them to be of a more cerebral character, and
chiefly manifested in erotic gestures, lascivious conversation,
etc. The sexual impulse would thus tend to involve to a greater
extent the higher psychic region in women than in men.
Forel likewise (_Die Sexuelle Frage_, 1906, p. 276), remarking on
the much greater prevalence of erotic manifestations among insane
women than insane men (and pointing out that it is by no means
due merely to the presence of a male doctor, for it remains the
same when the doctor is a woman), considers that it proves that
in women the sexual impulse resides more prominently in the
higher nervous centers and in men in the lower centers. (As
regards the great prevalence of erotic manifestations among the
female insane, I may also refer to Claye Shaw's interesting
observations, "The Sexes in Lunacy," _St. Bartholomew's Hospital
Reports_, vol. xxiv, 1888; also quoted in Havelock Ellis, _Man
and Woman_, p. 370 et seq.) Whether or not we may accept Näcke's
and Forel's interpretation of the facts, which is at least
doubtful, there can be little doubt that the sexual impulse is
more fundamental in women. This is indicated by Näcke's
observation that among idiots sexual manifestations are commoner
in females than in males. Of 16 idiot girls, of the age of 16 and
under, 15 certainly masturbated, sometimes as often as fourteen
times a day, while the remaining girl probably masturbated; but
of 25 youthful male idiots only 1 played with his penis. (P.
Näcke, "Die Sexuellen Perversitäten in der Irrenanstalt,"
_Psychiatrische Bladen_, 1899, No. 2, pp. 9, 12.) On the physical
side Bourneville and Sollier found (_Progrès médical_, 1888) that
puberty is much retarded in idiot and imbecile boys, while J.
Voisin (_Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, June, 1894) found that in
idiot and imbecile girls, on the contrary, there is no lack of
full sexual development or retardation of puberty, while
masturbation is common. In women, it may be added, as Ball
pointed out (_Folie érotique_, p. 40), sexual hallucinations are
especially common, while under the influence of anesthetics
erotic manifestations and feelings are frequent in women, but
rare in men. (Havelock Ellis, _Man and Woman_, p. 256.)
The fact that the first coitus has a much more profound moral and
psychic influence on a woman than on a man would also seem to
indicate how much more fundamental the sexual region is in women.
The fact may be considered as undoubted. (It is referred to by
Marro, _La Pubertà_, p. 460.) The mere physical fact that, while
in men coitus remains a merely exterior contact, in women it
involves penetration into the sensitive and virginal interior of
the body would alone indicate this difference.
We are told that in the East there was once a woman named Moârbeda who was
a philosopher and considered to be the wisest woman of her time. When
Moârbeda was once asked: "In what part of a woman's body does her mind
reside?" she replied: "Between her thighs." To many women,--perhaps,
indeed, we might even say to most women,--to a certain extent may be
applied--and in no offensive sense--the dictum of the wise woman of the
East; in a certain sense their brains are in their wombs. Their mental
activity may sometimes seem to be limited; they may appear to be passing
through life always in a rather inert or dreamy state; but, when their
sexual emotions are touched, then at once they spring into life; they
become alert, resourceful, courageous, indefatigable. "But when I am not
in love I am nothing!" exclaimed a woman when reproached by a French
magistrate for living with a thief. There are many women who could truly
make the same statement, not many men. That emotion, which, one is tempted
to say, often unmans the man, makes the woman for the first time truly
herself.
"Women are more occupied with love than men," wrote De Sénancour
(_De l'Amour_, vol. ii, p. 59); "it shows itself in all their
movements, animates their looks, gives to their gestures a grace
that is always new, to their smiles and voices an inexpressible
charm; they live for love, while many men in obeying love feel
that they are forgetting themselves."
Restif de la Bretonne (_Monsieur Nicolas_, vol. vi, p. 223)
quotes a young girl who well describes the difference which love
makes to a woman: "Before I vegetated; now all my actions have a
motive, an end; they have become important. When I wake my first
thought is 'Someone is occupied with me and desires me.' I am no
longer alone, as I was before; another feels my existence and
cherishes it," etc.
"One is surprised to see in the south," remarks Bonstetten, in
his suggestive book, _L'Homme du Midi et l'Homme du Nord_
(1824),--and the remark by no means applies only to the
south,--"how love imparts intelligence even to those who are most
deficient in ideas. An Italian woman in love is inexhaustible in
the variety of her feelings, all subordinated to the supreme
emotion which dominates her. Her ideas follow one another with
prodigious rapidity, and produce a lambent play which is fed by
her heart alone. If she ceases to love, her mind becomes merely
the scoria of the lava which yesterday had been so bright."
Cabanis had already made some observations to much the same
effect. Referring to the years of nubility following puberty, he
remarks: "I have very often seen the greatest fecundity of ideas,
the most brilliant imagination, a singular aptitude for the arts,
suddenly develop in girls of this age, only to give place soon
afterward to the most absolute mental mediocrity." (Cabanis, "De
l'Influence des Sexes," etc., _Rapports du Physique et du Morale
de l'Homme_.)
This phenomenon seems to be one of the indications of the immense organic
significance of the sexual relations. Woman's part in the world is less
obtrusively active than man's, but there is a moment when nature cannot
dispense with energy and mental vigor in women, and that is during the
reproductive period. The languidest woman must needs be alive when her
sexual emotions are profoundly stirred. People often marvel at the
infatuation which men display for women who, in the eyes of all the world,
seem commonplace and dull. This is not, as we usually suppose, always
entirely due to the proverbial blindness of love. For the man whom she
loves, such a woman is often alive and transformed. He sees a woman who is
hidden from all the world. He experiences something of that surprise and
awe which Dostoieffsky felt when the seemingly dull and brutish criminals
of Siberia suddenly exhibited gleams of exquisite sensibility.
In women, it must further be said, the sexual impulse shows a much more
marked tendency to periodicity than in men; not only is it less apt to
appear spontaneously, but its spontaneous manifestations are in a very
pronounced manner correlated with menstruation. A woman who may experience
almost overmastering sexual desire just before, during, or after the
monthly period may remain perfectly calm and self-possessed during the
rest of the month. In men such irregularities of the sexual impulse are
far less marked. Thus it is that a woman may often appear capricious,
unaccountable, or cold, merely because her moments of strong emotion have
been physiologically confined within a limited period. She may be one day
capable of audacities of which on another the very memory might seem to
have left her.
Not only is the intensity of the sexual impulse in women, as compared to
men, more liable to vary from day to day, or from week to week, but the
same greater variability is marked when we compare the whole cycle of life
in women to that of men. The stress of early womanhood, when the
reproductive functions are in fullest activity, and of late womanhood,
when they are ceasing, produces a profound organic fermentation, psychic
as much as physical, which is not paralleled in the lives of men. This
greater variability in the cycle of a woman's life as compared with a
man's is indicated very delicately and precisely by the varying incidence
of insanity, and is made clearly visible in a diagram prepared by Marro
showing the relative liability to mental diseases in the two sexes
according to age.[180] At the age of 20 the incidence of insanity in both
sexes is equal; from that age onward the curve in men proceeds in a
gradual and equable manner, with only the slightest oscillation, on to old
age. But in women the curve is extremely irregular; it remains high during
all the years from 20 to 30, instead of falling like the masculine curve;
then it falls rapidly to considerably below the masculine curve, rising
again considerably above the masculine level during the climacteric years
from 40 to 50, after which age the two sexes remain fairly close together
to the end of life. Thus, as measured by the test of insanity, the curve
of woman's life, in the sudden rise and sudden fall of its sexual crisis,
differs from the curve of man's life and closely resembles the minor curve
of her menstrual cycle.
The general tendency of this difference in sexual life and impulse is to
show a greater range of variation in women than in men. Fairly uniform, on
the whole, in men generally and in the same man throughout mature life,
sexual impulse varies widely between woman and woman, and even in the same
woman at different periods.