I.

The Psychological Significance of Detumescence--The Testis and the

Ovary--Sperm Cell and Germ Cell--Development of the Embryo--The External

Sexual Organs--Their Wide Range of Variation--Their Nervous Supply--The

Penis--Its Racial Variations--The Influence of Exercise--The Scrotum and

Testicles--The Mons Veneris--The Vulva--The Labia Majora and their

Varieties--The Pubic Hair and Its Characters--The Clitoris and Its

Functions--The Anus as an Erogenous Zone--The Nymphæ and their

Function--The Vagina--The Hymen--Virginity--The Biological Significance of

the Hymen.

In analyzing the sexual impulse we have seen that the process whereby the

conjunction of the sexes is achieved falls naturally into two phases: the

first phase, of tumescence, during which force is generated in the

organism, and the second phase, of detumescence, in which that force is

discharged during conjugation.[72] Hitherto we have been occupied mainly

with the first phase, that of tumescence, and with its associated psychic

phenomena. It was inevitable that this should be so, for it is during the

slow process of tumescence that sexual selection is decided, the

crystallizations of love elaborated, and, to a large extent, the

individual erotic symbols determined. But we can by no means altogether

pass over the final phase of detumescence. Its consideration, it is true,

brings us directly into the field of anatomy and physiology; while

tumescence is largely under control of the will, when the moment of

detumescence arrives the reins slip from the control of the will; the more

fundamental and uncontrollable impulses of the organism gallop on

unchecked; the chariot of Phaëthon dashes blindly down into a sea of

emotion.

Yet detumescence is the end and climax of the whole drama; it is an

anatomico-physiological process, certainly, but one that inevitably

touches psychology at every point.[73] It is, indeed, the very key to the

process of tumescence, and unless we understand and realize very precisely

what it is that happens during detumescence, our psychological analysis of

the sexual impulse must remain vague and inadequate.

From the point of view we now occupy, a man and a woman are no longer two

highly sensitive organisms vibrating, voluptuously it may indeed be, but

vaguely and indefinitely, to all kinds of influences and with fluctuating

impulses capable of being directed into any channel, even in the highest

degree divergent from the proper ends of procreation. They are now two

genital organisms who exist to propagate the race, and whatever else they

may be, they must be adequately constituted to effect the act by which the

future of the race is ensured. We have to consider what are the material

conditions which ensure the most satisfactory and complete fulfillment of

this act, and how those conditions may be correlated with other

circumstances in the organism. In thus approaching the subject we shall

find that we have not really abandoned the study of the psychic aspects of

sex.

The two most primary sexual organs are the testis and the ovary; it is the

object of conjugation to bring into contact the sperm from the testis with

the germ from the ovary. There is no reason to suppose that the germ-cell

and the sperm-cell are essentially different from each other. Sexual

conjugation thus remains a process which is radically the same as the

non-sexual mode of propagation which preceded it. The fusion of the nuclei

of the two cells was regarded by Van Beneden, who in 1875 first accurately

described it, as a process of conjugation comparable to that of the

protozoa and the protophyta. Boveri, who has further extended our

knowledge of the process, considers that the spermatozoon removes an

inhibitory influence preventing the commencement of development in the

ovum; the spermatozoon replaces a portion of the ovum which has already

undergone degeneration, so that the object of conjugation is chiefly to

effect the union of the properties of two cells in one, sexual

fertilization achieving a division of labor with reciprocal inhibition;

the two cells have renounced their original faculty of separate

development in order to attain a fusion of qualities and thus render

possible that production of new forms and qualities which has involved the

progress of the organized world.[74]

While in fishes this conjugation of the male and female elements is

usually ensured by the female casting her spawn into an artificial nest

outside the body, on to which the male sheds his milt, in all animals

(and, to some extent, birds, who occupy an intermediate position) there is

an organic nest, or incubation chamber as Bland Sutton terms it, the womb,

in the female body, wherein the fertilized egg may develop to a high

degree of maturity sheltered from those manifold risks of the external

world which make it necessary for the spawn of fishes to be so enormous in

amount. Since, however, men and women have descended from remote ancestors

who, in the manner of aquatic creatures, exercised functions of

sperm-extrusion and germ-extrusion that were exactly analogous in the two

sexes, without any specialized female uterine organization, the early

stages of human male and female foetal development still display the

comparatively undifferentiated sexual organization of those remote

ancestors, and during the first months of foetal life it is practically

impossible to tell by the inspection of the genital regions whether the

embryo would have developed into a man or into a woman. If we examine the

embryo at an early stage of development we see that the hind end is the

body stalk, this stalk in later stages becoming part of the umbilical

cord. The urogenital region, formed by the rapid extension of the hind

end beyond its original limit, which corresponds to what is later the

umbilicus, develops mainly by the gradual differentiation of structures

(the Wolffian and Müllerian bodies) which originally exist identically in

both sexes. This process of sexual differentiation is highly complex, so

that it cannot yet be said that there is complete agreement among

investigators as to its details. When some irregularity or arrest of

development occurs in the process we have one or other of the numerous

malformations which may affect this region. If the arrest occurs at a very

early stage we may even find a condition of things which seems to

approximate to that which normally exists in the adult reptilia.[75] Owing

to the fact that both male and female organs develop from more primitive

structures which were sexually undifferentiated, a fundamental analogy in

the sexual organs of the sexes always remains; the developed organs of one

sex exist as rudiments in the other sex; the testicles correspond to the

ovaries; the female clitoris is the homologue of the male penis; the

scrotum of one sex is the labia majora in the other sex, and so

throughout, although it is not always possible at present to be quite

certain in regard to these homologics.

Since the object to be attained by the sexual organs in the human species

is identical with that which they subserve in their pre-human ancestors,

it is not surprising to find that these structures have a clear

resemblance to the corresponding structures in the apes, although on the

whole there would appear to be in man a higher degree of sexual

differentiation. Thus the uterus of various species of _semnopithecus_

seems to show a noteworthy correspondence with the same organ in

woman.[76] The somewhat less degree of sexual differentiation is well

shown in the gorilla; in the male the external organs are in the passive

state covered by the wrinkled skin of the abdomen, while in the female,

on the contrary, they are very apparent, and in sexual excitement the

large clitoris and nymphæ become markedly prominent. The penis of the

gorilla, however, more nearly resembles that of man, according to

Hartmann, than does that of the other anthropoid apes, which diverge from

the human type in this respect more than do the cynocephalic apes and some

species of baboon.

From the psychological point of view we are less interested in the

internal sexual organs, which are most fundamentally concerned with the

production and reception of the sexual elements, than with the more

external parts of the genital apparatus which serve as the instruments of

sexual excitation, and the channels for the intromission and passage of

the seminal fluid. It is these only which can play any part at all in

sexual selection; they are the only part of the sexual apparatus which can

enter into the formation of either normal or abnormal erotic conceptions;

they are the organs most prominently concerned with detumescence; they

alone enter normally into the conscious process of sex at any time. It

seems desirable, therefore, to discuss them briefly at this point.

Our knowledge of the individual and racial variations of the

external sexual organs is still extremely imperfect. A few

monographs and collections of data on isolated points may be

found in more or less inaccessible publications. As regards

women, Ploss and Bartels have devoted a chapter to the sexual

organs of women which extends to a hundred pages, but remains

scanty and fragmentary. (_Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI.) The

most systematic series of observations have been made in the case

of the various kinds of degenerates--idiots, the insane,

criminals, etc.--but it would be obviously unsafe to rely too

absolutely on such investigations for our knowledge of the sexual

organs of the ordinary population.

There can be no doubt, however, that the external sexual organs

in normal men and women exhibit a peculiarly wide range of

variation. This is indicated not only by the unsystematic results

attained by experienced observers, but also by more systematic

studies. Thus Herman has shown by detailed measurements that

there are great normal variations in the conformation of the

parts that form the floor of the female pelvis. He found that the

projection of the pelvic floor varied from nothing to as much as

two inches, and that in healthy women who had borne no children

the distance between the coccyx and anus, the length of the

perineum, the distance between the fourchette and the symphysis

pubis, and the length of the vagina are subject to wide

variations. (_Lancet_, October 12, 1889.) Even the female

urethral opening varies very greatly, as has been shown by Bergh,

who investigated it in nearly 700 women and reproduces the

various shapes found; while most usually (in about a third of the

cases observed), a longitudinal slit, it may be cross-shaped,

star-shaped, crescentic, etc.; and while sometimes very small, in

about 6 per cent. of the cases it admitted the tip of the little

finger. (Bergh, _Monatsheft für Praktische Dermatologie_, 15

Sept., 1897.)

As regards both sexes, Stanley Hall states that "Dr. F.N.

Seerley, who has examined over 2000 normal young men as well as

many young women, tells me that in his opinion individual

variations in these parts are much greater even than those of

face and form, and that the range of adult and apparently normal

size and proportion, as well as function, and of both the age and

order of development, not only of each of the several parts

themselves, but of all their immediate annexes, and in females as

well as males, is far greater than has been recognized by any

writer. This fact is the basis of the anxieties and fears of

morphological abnormality so frequent during adolescence." (G.S.

Hall, _Adolescence_, vol. i, p. 414).

In accordance with the supreme importance of the part they play, and the

intimately psychic nature of that part, the sexual organs, both internal

and external, are very richly supplied with nerves. While the internal

organs are very abundantly furnished with sympathetic nerves and ganglia,

the external organs show the highest possible degree of specialization of

the various peripheral nervous devices which the organism has developed

for receiving, accumulating, and transmitting stimuli to the brain.[77]

"The number of conducting cords which attach the genitals to the

nervous centers is simply enormous," writes Bryan Robinson; "the

pudic nerve is composed of nearly all the third sacral and

branches from the second and fourth sacral. As one examines this

nerve he is forced to the conclusion that it is an enormous

supply for a small organ. The periphery of the pudic nerve

spreads itself like a fan over the genitals." The lesser sciatic

nerve supplies only one muscle--the gluteus maximus--and then

sends the large pudendal branch to the side of the penis, and

hence the friction of coitus induces active contraction of the

gluteus maximus, "the main muscle of coition." The large pudic

and the pudendal constitute the main supply of the external

genitals. In women the pudic nerve is equally large, but the

pudendal much smaller, possibly, Bryan Robinson suggests, because

women take a less active part in coitus. The nerve supply of the

clitoris, however, is three or four times as large as that of the

penis in proportion to size. (F.B. Robinson, "The Intimate

Nervous Connection of the Genito-Urinary Organs With the

Cerebro-Spinal and Sympathetic Systems," _New York Medical

Journal_, March 11, 1893; id., _The Abdominal Brain_, 1899.)

Of all the sexual organs the penis is without doubt that which has most

powerfully impressed the human imagination. It is the very emblem of

generation, and everywhere men have contemplated it with a mixture of

reverence and shuddering awe that has sometimes, even among civilized

peoples, amounted to horror and disgust. Its image is worn as an amulet to

ward off evil and invoked as a charm to call forth blessing. The sexual

organs were once the most sacred object on which a man could place his

hands to swear an inviolate oath, just as now he takes up the Testament.

Even in the traditions of the great classic civilization which we inherit

the penis is _fascinus_, the symbol of all fascination. In the history of

human culture it has had far more than a merely human significance; it has

been the symbol of all the generative force of Nature, the embodiment of

creative energy in the animal and vegetable worlds alike, an image to be

held aloft for worship, the sign of all unconscious ecstasy. As a symbol,

the sacred phallus, it has been woven in and out of all the highest and

deepest human conceptions, so intimately that it is possible to see it

everywhere, that it is possible to fail to see it anywhere.

In correspondence with the importance of the penis is the large number of

names which men have everywhere bestowed upon it. In French literature

many hundred synonyms may be found. They were also numerous in Latin. In

English the literary terms for the penis seem to be comparatively few, but

a large number of non-literary synonyms exist in colloquial and perhaps

merely local usage. The Latin term penis, which has established itself

among us as the most correct designation, is generally considered to be

associated with _pendere_ and to be connected therefore with the usually

pendent position of the organ. In the middle ages the general literary

term throughout Europe was _coles_ (or _colis_) from _caulis_, a stalk,

and _virga_, a rod. The only serious English literary term, yard (exactly

equivalent to _virga_), as used by Chaucer--almost the last great English

writer whose vocabulary was adequate to the central facts of life--has now

fallen out of literary and even colloquial usage.

Pierer and Chaulant, in their anatomical and physiological

_Real-Lexicon_ (vol. vi, p. 134), give nearly a hundred synonyms

for the penis. Hyrtl (_Topographisches Anatomie_, seventh

edition, vol. ii, pp. 67-69), adds others. Schurig, in his

_Spermatologia_ (1720, pp. 89-91), also presents a number of

names for the penis; in Chapter III (pp. 189-192) of the same

book he discusses the penis generally with more fullness than

most authors. Louis de Landes, in his _Glossaire Erotique_ of the

French language (pp. 239-242), enumerates several hundred

literary synonyms for the penis, though many of them probably

only occur once.

There is no thorough and comprehensive modern study of the penis

on an anthropological basis (though I should mention a valuable

and fully illustrated study of anthropological and pathological

variations of the penis in a series of articles by Marandon de

Montyel, "Des Anomalies des Organs Génitaux Externes Chez les

Aliénées," etc., _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, 1895),

and it would be out of place here to attempt to collect the

scattered notices regarding racial and other variations. It may

suffice to note some of the evidence showing that such variations

seem to be numerous and important. The Arab penis (according to

Kocher) is slender and long (a third longer than the average

European penis) and with a club-shaped glans. It undergoes little

change when it enters the erect state. The clothes leaves it

quite free, and the Arab practices manual excitement at an early

age to favor its development.

Among the Fuegians, also, according to Hyades and Deniker (_Cap

Horn_, vol. vii, p. 153), the average length of the penis is 77

millimeters, which is longer than in Europeans.

In men of black race, also, the penis is decidedly large. Thus

Sir H.H. Johnston (_British Central Africa_, p. 399) states this

to be a universal rule. Among the Wankenda of Northern Nyassa,

for instance, he remarks that, while the body is of medium size,

the penis is generally large. He gives the usual length as about

six inches, reaching nine or ten in erection. The prepuce, it is

added, is often very long, and circumcision is practiced by many

tribes.

Among the American negroes Hrdlicka has found, also (_Proceedings

American Association for the Advancement of Science_, vol. xlvii,

p. 475), that the penis in black boys is larger than in white

boys.

The passages cited above suggest the question whether the penis

becomes larger by exercise of its generative functions. Most old

authors assert that frequent erection makes the penis large and

long (Schurig, _Spermatologia_, p. 107). Galen noted that in

singers and athletes, who were chaste in order to preserve their

strength, the sexual parts were small and rugrose, like those of

old men, and that exercise of the organs from youth develops

them; Roubaud, quoting this observation (_Traité de

l'Impuissance_, p. 373), agrees with the statement. It seems

probable that there is an element of truth in this ancient

belief. At the same time it must be remembered that the penis is

only to small extent a muscular organ, and that the increase of

size produced by frequent congestion of erectile tissues cannot

be either rapid or pronounced. Variations in the size of the

sexual organs are probably on the whole mainly inherited, though

it is impossible to speak decisively on this point until more

systematic observations become customary.

The scrotum has usually, in the human imagination, been regarded merely as

an appendage of the penis, of secondary importance, although it is the

garment of the primary and essential organs of sex, and the fact that it

is not the seat of any voluptuous sensation has doubtless helped to

confirm this position. Even the name is merely a mediæval perversion of

_scortum_, skin or hide. In classic times it was usually called the pouch

or purse. The importance of the testicles has not, however, been

altogether ignored, as the very word _testis_ itself shows, for the

_testis_ is simply the _witness_ of virility.[78]

It is easy to understand why the penis should occupy this special place in

man's thoughts as the supreme sexual organ. It is the one conspicuous and

prominent portion of the sexual apparatus, while its aptitude for swelling

and erecting itself involuntarily, under the influence of sexual emotion,

gives it a peculiar and almost unique position in the body. At the same

time it is the point at which, in the male body, all voluptuous sensation

is concentrated, the only normal masculine center of sex.[79]

It is not easy to find any correspondingly conspicuous symbol of sex in

the sexual region of women. In the normal position nothing is visible but

the peculiarly human cushion of fat picturesquely termed the Mons Veneris

(because, as Palfyn said, all those who enroll themselves under the banner

of Venus must necessarily scale it), and even that is veiled from view in

the adult by the more or less bushy plantation of hair which grows upon

it. A triangle of varyingly precise definition is thus formed at the lower

apex of the trunk, and this would sometimes appear to have been regarded

as a feminine symbol.[80] But the more usual and typical symbol of

femininity is the idealized ring (by some savages drawn as a lozenge) of

the vulvar opening--the _yoni_ corresponding to the masculine

_lingam_--which is normally closed from view by the larger lips arising

from beneath the shadow of the _mons_. It is a symbol that, like the

masculine phallus, has a double meaning among primitive peoples and is

sometimes used to call down a blessing and sometimes to invoke a

curse.[81]

This external opening of the feminine genital passage with its two

enclosing lips is now generally called the vulva. It would appear that

originally (as by Celsus and Pliny) this term included the womb, also, but

when the term "uterus" came into use "vulva" was confined (as its sense of

folding doors suggests that it should be) to the external entrance. The

classic term _cunnus_ for the external genitals was chiefly used by the

poets; it has been the etymological source of various European names for

this region, such as the old French _con_, which has now, however,

disappeared from literature while even in popular usage it has given place

to _lapin_ and similar terms. But there is always a tendency, marked in

most parts of the world, for the names of the external female parts to

become indecorous. Even in classic antiquity this part was the _pudendum_,

the part to be ashamed of, and among ourselves the mass of the

population, still preserving the traditions of primitive times, continue

to cherish the same notion.

The anatomy, anthropology, folk-lore, and terminology of the

external and to some extent the internal feminine sexual region

may be studied in the following publications, among others:

Ploss, _Das Weib_, vol. i, Chapter VI; Hyrtl, _Topographisches

Anatomie_, vol. ii, and other publications by the same scholarly

anatomist; W.J. Stewart Mackay, _History of Ancient Gynæcology_,

especially pp. 244-250; R. Bergh, "Symbolæ ad Cognitionem

Genitalium Externorum Foeminearum" (in Danish),

_Hospitalstidende_, August, 1894; and also in _Monatshefte für

Praktische Dermatologie_, 1897. D.S. Lamb, "The Female External

Genital Organs," _New York Journal of Gynæcology_, August, 1894;

R.L. Dickinson, "Hypertrophies of the Labia Minora and Their

Significance," _American Gynecology_, September, 1902; Kryptadia

(in various languages), vol. viii, pp. 3-11, 11-13, and many

other passages. Several of Schurig's works (especially

_Gynæcologia_, _Muliebria_, and _Parthenologia_) contain full

summaries of the statements of the early writers.

The external or larger lips, like the mons veneris, are specifically human

in their full development, for in the anthropoid apes they are small as is

the mons, and in the lower apes absent altogether; they are, moreover,

larger in the white than in the other human races. Thus in the negro, and

to a less degree in the Japanese (Wernich) and the Javanese (Scherzer)

they are less developed than in women of white race. The greater lips

develop in the foetus later than the lesser lips, which are thus at first

uncovered; this condition thus constitutes an infantile state which

occasionally (in less than 2 per cent. of cases, according to Bergh)

persists in the adult. Their generally accepted name, labia majora, is

comparatively modern.[82]

The outer sides of the labia majora are covered with hair, and on

the inner sides, which are smooth and moist, but are not true

mucous membrane, there are a few sweat glands and numerous large

sebaceous glands. Bergh considers that there is little or no hair

on the inner sides of the labia majora, but Lamb states that

careful examination shows that from one- to two-thirds of the

inner surface in adult women show hairs like those of the

external surface. In brunettes and women of dark races this

surface is pigmented; in dark races it is usually a slate gray.

From an examination of 2200 young Danish prostitutes Bergh has

found that there are two main varieties in the shape of the labia

majora, with transitional forms. In the first and most frequent

form the labia tend to be less marked and more effaced and

separated at the upper and anterior part, often being lost in the

sides of the mons and presenting a fissure which is broader in

its upper part and showing the inner lips more or less bare. In

the second form the labia are thicker and more outstanding and

the inner edges lie in contact throughout their whole length,

showing the _rima pudendi_ as a long narrow fissure. Whatever the

form, the labia close more tightly together in virgins and in

young individuals generally than in the deflowered and the

elderly. In children, as Martineau pointed out, the vulva appears

to look directly forward and the clitoris and urinary meatus

easily appear, while in adult women, and especially after

attempts at coitus have been made, the vulva appears directed

more below and behind, and the clitoris and meatus more covered

by the labia majora; so that the child urinates forward, while

the adult woman is usually able to urinate almost directly

downwards in the erect position, though in some cases (as may

occasionally be observed in the street) she can only do so when

bending slightly forwards. This difference in the direction of

the stream formerly furnished one of the methods of diagnosing

virginity, an uncertain one, since the difference is largely due

to age and individual variation. The main factor in the position

and aspect of the vulva is pelvic inclination. (See Havelock

Ellis, _Man and Woman_, fourth edition, p. 64; Stratz, _Die

Schönheit des Weiblichen Körpers_, Chapter XII.) In the European

woman, according to Stratz, a considerable degree of pelvic

inclination is essential to beauty, concealing all but the

anterior third of the vulva. In negresses and other women of

lower race the vulva, however, usually lies further back, being

more conspicuous from behind than in European women; in this

respect lower races resemble the apes. Those women of dark race,

therefore, whose modesty is focused behind rather than in front

thus have sound anatomical considerations on their side.

As Ploss and Bartels remark, a very common variation among

European women consists in an unusually posterior position of the

vulva and vaginal entrance, so that unless a cushion is placed

under the buttocks it is difficult for the man to effect coitus

in the usual position without giving much pain to the woman. They

add that another anomaly, less easy to remedy, consists in an

abnormally anterior position of the vaginal entrance close

beneath the pelvic bone, so that, although intromission is easy,

the spasmodic contraction of the vagina at the culmination of

orgasm presses the penis against the bone and causes intolerable

pain to the man.

The mons veneris and the labia majora are, after the age of puberty,

always normally covered by a more or less profuse growth of hair. It is

notable that the apes, notwithstanding their general tendency to

hairiness, show no such special development of hair in this region. We

thus see that all the external and more conspicuous portions of the sexual

sphere in woman--the mons veneris, the labia majora, and the

hair--represent not so much an animal inheritance, such as we commonly

misrepresent them to be, but a higher and genuinely human development. As

none of these structures subserve any clear practical use, it would appear

that they must have developed by sexual selection to satisfy the æsthetic

demands of the eye.[83]

The character and arrangement of the pubic hair, investigated by

Eschricht and Voigt more than half a century ago, have been more

recently studied by Bergh. As these observers have pointed out,

there are various converging hair streams from above and below,

the clitoris seeming to be the center towards which they are

directed. The hair-covering thus formed is usually ample and, as

a rule, is more so in brunettes than in blondes. It is nearly

always bent, curly and more or less spirally twisted.[84] There

are frequently one or two curls at the commencement of the

fissure, rolled outwards, and occasionally a well marked tuft in

the middle line. In abundance the pubic hair corresponds with the

axillary hair; when one region is defective in hair the other is

usually so also. Strong eyebrows also usually indicate a strong

development of pubic hair. But the hair of the head usually

varies independently, and Bergh found that of 154 women with

spare pubic hair 72 had good and often profuse hair on the head.

Complete or almost complete absence of pubic hair is in Bergh's

experience only found in about 3 per cent. of women; these were

all young and blonde.

Rothe, in his investigation of the pubic hair of 1000 Berlin women, found

that no two women were really alike in this respect, but there was a

tendency to two main types of arrangement, with minor subdivisions,

according as the hair tended to grow chiefly in the middle line extending

laterally from that line, or to grow equally over the whole extent of the

pubic region; these two groups included half the cases investigated.

In men the pubic hair normally ascends anteriorly in a faint line

up to the navel, with tendency to form a triangle with the apex

above, and posteriorly extends backwards to the anus. In women

these anterior and posterior extensions are comparatively rare,

or at all events are only represented by a few stray hairs. Rothe

found this variation in 4 per cent. of North German women, though

a triangle of hair was only found in 2 per cent.; Lombroso found

it in 5 per cent, of Italian women; Bergh found it in only 1.6

per cent. among 1000 Danish prostitutes, all sixteen of whom with

three exceptions were brunettes. In Vienna, among 600 women, Coe

found only 1 per cent, with this distribution of hair, and states

that they were women of decidedly masculine type, though Ploss

and Bartels, as well as Rothe, find, however, that heterogeny, as

they term the masculine distribution, is more common in blondes.

The anterior extension of hair is usually accompanied by the

posterior extension around the anus, usually very slight, but

occasionally as pronounce as in men. (According to Rothe,

however, anterior heterogeny comparatively rare.) These masculine

variations in the extension of the pubic hair appear to be not

uncommonly associated with other physical and psychic anomalies;

it is on this account that they have sometimes been regarded as

indications of a vicious or a criminal temperament; they are,

however, found in quite normal women.

The pubic hair of women is usually shorter than that of men, but

thick, and the individual hairs stronger and larger in diameter

than those of men, as Pfaff first showed; dark hair is usually

stronger than light. In both length and size the individual

variations are considerable. The usual length is about 2 inches,

or 3-5 centimeters, occasionally reaching about 4 inches, or 9-10

centimeters, in the larger curls. In a series of 100 women

attended during confinement in London and the north of England I

have only once (in a rather blonde Lancashire woman) found the

hair on labia reaching a conspicuous length of several inches and

forming an obstruction to the manipulations involved in delivery.

But Jahn delivered a woman whose pubic hair was longer than that

of her head, reaching below her knee; Paulini also knew a woman

whose pubic hair nearly reached her knees and was sold to make

wigs; Bartholin mentions a soldier's wife who plaited her pubic

hair behind her back; while Brantôme has several references to

abnormally long hair in ladies of the French court during the

sixteenth century. In 8 cases out of 2200 Bergh found the pubic

hair forming a large curly wig extending to the iliac spines. The

individual hairs have occasionally been found so stiff and

brush-like as to render coitus difficult.

In color the pubic hair, while generally approximating to that of

the head, is sometimes (according to Rothe, in Germany, in

one-third cases) lighter, and sometimes somewhat darker, as is

found to be the case by Coe, especially in brunettes, and also by

Bergh, in Denmark. Bergh remarks that it is generally

intermediate in color between the eyebrows and the axillary hair,

the latter being more or less decolorized by sweat, and that,

owing to the influence of the urine and vaginal discharges, the

labial hair is paler than that on the mons; blondes with dark

eyebrows usually have dark hair on the mons. The hair on this

spot, as Aristotle observed, is usually the last to turn gray.

The key to the genital apparatus in women from the psychic point of view,

and, indeed, to some extent, its anatomical center, is to be found in the

clitoris. Anatomically and developmentally the clitoris is the rudimentary

analogue of the masculine penis. Functionally, however, its scope is very

much smaller. While the penis both receives and imparts specific

voluptuous sensations, and is at the same time both the intromittent organ

for the semen and the conduit for the urine, the sole function of the

clitoris is to enter into erection under the stress of sexual emotion and

receive and transmit the stimulatory voluptuous sensations imparted to it

by friction with the masculine genital apparatus. It is so insignificant

an organ that it is only within recent times that its homology with the

penis has been realized. In 1844 Kobelt wrote in his important book, _Die

Mannlichen und Weiblichen Wollust-Organe_, that in his attempt to show

that the female organs are exactly analogous to the male the reader will

probably be unable to follow him, while even Johannes Müller, the father

of scientific physiology, declared at about the same period that the

clitoris is essentially different from the penis. It is indeed but three

centuries since the clitoris was so little known that (in 1593) Realdus

Columbus actually claimed the honor of discovering it. Columbus was not

its discoverer, for Fallopius speedily showed that Avicenna and Albucasis

had referred to it.[85] The Arabs appear to have been very familiar with

it, and, from the various names they gave it, clearly understood the

important part it plays in generating voluptuous emotion.[86] But it was

known in classic antiquity; the Greeks called it myrton, the myrtle-berry;

Galen and Soranus called it nymphê because it is covered as a bride is

veiled, while the old Latin name was _tentigo_, from its power of entering

into erection, and _columella_, the little pillar, from its shape. The

modern term, which is Greek and refers to the sensitiveness of the part to

voluptuous titillation, is said to have originated with Suidas and

Pollux.[87] It was mentioned, though not adopted, by Rufus.

"The clitoris," declared Haller, "is a part extremely sensible and

wonderfully prurient." It is certainly the chief though by no means the

only point through which the immediate call to detumescence is conveyed to

the female organism. It is, indeed, as Bryan Robinson remarks, "a

veritable electrical bell button which, being pressed or irritated, rings

up the whole nervous system."

The nervous supply of this little organ is very large, and the

dorsal nerve of the clitoris is relatively three or four times

larger than that of the penis. Yet the sensitive point of this

organ is only 5 to 7 millimeters in extent. The length of the

clitoris is usually rather over 2 centimeters (or about an inch)

and 3 centimeters when erect; a length of 4 centimeters or more

was regarded by Martineau as within the normal range of

variation. It is not usual to find the clitoris longer than this

in Europe (for among some races like the negro the clitoris is

generally large), but all degrees of magnitude may be found as

rare exceptions. (See, e.g., Sir J.Y. Simpson, "Hermaphrodites,"

_Obstetric Memoirs and Contributions_, vol. ii, pp. 217-226; also

Dickinson, loc. cit.) It was formerly thought that the clitoris

is easily enlarged by masturbation, and Martineau believed that

in this way it might be doubled in length. It is probable that

slight enlargement of the clitoris may be caused by very

frequent masturbation, but only to an insignificant extent, and

it is impossible to diagnose masturbation from the size of the

clitoris. Among the women of Lake Nyassa, as well as in the

Caroline Islands, special methods are practiced for elongating

the clitoris, but in Europe, at all events, it is probable that

the variations in the size of the organ are mainly congenital. It

may well be that a congenitally large clitoris is associated with

an abnormally developed excitability of the sexual apparatus.

Tilt stated (_On Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation_, p. 37) that

in his experience there was a frequent though not invariable

connection between a large clitoris and sexual proclivity.

(Schurig referred to a case of intense and life-long sexual

obsession associated with an extremely large clitoris,

_Gynæcologia_, pp. 16-17.) Of recent years considerable

importance has been attached by some gynecologists (e.g., R.T.

Morris, "Is Evolution Trying to Do Away With the Clitoris?"

_Transactions American Association of Obstetricians and

Gynecologists_, vol. v, 1893) to preputial adhesions around the

clitoris as a source of nervous disturbance and invalidism in

young women.

While the clitoris is anatomically analogous to the penis, its actual

mechanism under the stress of sexual excitement is somewhat different. As

Liétaud long since pointed out, it cannot rise freely in erection as the

penis can; it is apparently bound down by its prepuce and its frenulum.

Waldeyer, in his book on the pelvis, states more precisely that, unlike

the penis, when erect it retains its angle, only this becomes somewhat

rounded so that the organ is to some slight extent lifted and protruded.

Waldeyer considered that the clitoris was thus perfectly fitted to fulfill

its part as the recipient of erotic stimulation from friction by the

penis. Adler, however, has pointed out with considerable justice, that

this is not altogether the case. The clitoris was developed in mammals who

practiced the posterior mode of coitus; in this position the clitoris was

beneath the penis, which was thus easily able in coitus to press it

against the pubic bone close beneath which it is situated, and thus impart

the compression and friction which the feminine organ craves. But in the

human anterior mode of coitus it is not necessarily brought into close

contact with the penis during the act of coitus, and thus fails to receive

powerful stimulation. Its restricted position, which is an advantage in

posterior coitus, is a disadvantage in anterior coitus. Adler observes

that it thus comes about that the human method of coitus, while by

bringing breast to breast and face to face it has added a new dignity and

refinement, a fresh source of enjoyment, to the embrace of the sexes, has

not been an unmixed advantage to woman, for while man has lost nothing by

the change, woman has now to contend with an increased difficulty in

attaining an adequate amount of pressure on that "electric button" which

normally sets the whole mechanism in operation.[88]

We may well bring into connection with the changed conditions brought

about by anterior coitus the interesting fact that while the clitoris

remains the most exquisitely sensitive of the sexual centers in woman,

voluptuous sensitivity is much more widely diffused in woman than in man.

Over the whole body, indeed, it is apt to be more distinctly marked than

is usually the case in man. But even if we confine ourselves to the

genital region, while in man that portion of the penis which enters the

vagina, and especially the glans, is normally the only portion which, even

during turgescence, is sensitive to voluptuous contacts, in woman the

whole of the region comprised within the larger lips, including even the

anus and internally the vagina and the vaginal portion of the womb,[89]

become sensitive to voluptuous contacts. Deprived of the penis the ability

of a man to experience specifically sexual sensations becomes very limited

indeed. But the loss of the clitoris or of any other structure involves no

correspondingly serious disability on women. Ablation of the clitoris for

sexual hyperæsthesia has for this reason been abandoned, except under

special circumstances. The members of the Russian Skoptzy sect habitually

amputate the clitoris, nymphæ, and breasts, yet many young Skoptzy women

told the Russian physician, Guttceit, that they were perfectly well able

to enjoy coitus.

Freud believes that in very young girls the clitoris is the

exclusive seat of sexual sensation, masturbation at this age

being directed to the clitoris alone, and spontaneous sexual

excitement being confined to twitchings and erection of this

organ, so that young girls are able, from their own experience,

to recognize without instruction the signs of sexual excitement

in boys. At a later age sexual excitability spreads from the

clitoris to other regions--just as the easy inflammability of

wood sets light to coal--though in the male the penis remains

from first to last normally the almost exclusive seat of specific

excitability. (S. Freud, _Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie_,

p. 62.)

The anus would, however, seem to be sometimes an erogenous zone

even at an early age. Titillation of the anus appears to be

frequently pleasurable in women; and this is not surprising

considering the high degree of erotic sensitivity which is easily

developed at the body orifices where skin meets mucous membrane.

(Thus the meatus of the urethra is a highly erogenous zone, as is

sufficiently shown by the frequency with which hair-pins and

other articles used in masturbation find their way into the

bladder.) It is in this germinal sensitivity, undoubtedly, that

we find a chief key to the practice of _pedicatio_. Freud

attaches great importance to the anus as a sexually erogenous

zone at a very early age, and considers that it very frequently

makes its influence felt in this respect. He believes that

intestinal catarrhs in very early life and hæmorrhoids later tend

to develop sensibility in the anus. He finds an indication that

the anus has become a sexually erogenous zone when children wish

to allow the contents of the rectum to accumulate so that

defecation may by its increased difficulty involve voluptuous

sensations, and adds that masturbatory excitation of the anus

with the fingers is by no means rare in older children. (S.

Freud, _Op. cit._, pp. 40-42.) A medical correspondent in India

tells me of a European lady who derived, she said, "quite as

much, indeed more," pleasure from digitally titillating her

rectum as from vulvo-vaginal titillation; she had several times

submitted to _pedicatio_ and enjoyed it, though it was painful

during penetration. The anus may retain this erogenous

irritability even in old age, and Routh mentions the case of a

lady of over 70, the reverse of lustful, who was so excited by

the act of defecation that she was invariably compelled to

masturbate, although this state of things was a source of great

mental misery to her. (C.H.F. Routh, _British Gynæcological

Journal_, February, 1887, p. 48.)

Bölsche has sought the explanation of the erogenous nature of the

anus, and the key to _pedicatio_, in an atavistic return to the

very remote amphibian days when the anus was combined with the

sexual parts in a common cloaca. But it is unnecessary to invoke

any vestigial inheritance from a vastly remote past when we bear

in mind that the innervation of these two adjoining regions is

inevitably very closely related. The presence of a body exit with

its marked and special sensitivity at a point where it can

scarcely fail to receive the nervous overflow from an immensely

active center of nervous energy quite adequately accounts for the

phenomenon in question.

The inner lips, the nymphæ or labia minora, running parallel with the

greater lips which enclose them, embrace the clitoris anteriorly and

extend backward, enclosing the urethral exit between them as well as the

vaginal entrance. They form little wings whence their old Latin name,

_alæ_, and from their resemblance to the cock's comb were by Spigelius

termed crista galli. The red and (especially in brunettes) dark appearance

of the nymphæ suggests that they are mucous membrane and not

integumentary; it is, however, now considered that even on the inner

surface they are covered by skin and separated from the mucous membrane by

a line.[90] In structure, as described by Waldeyer, they consist of fine

connective tissue rich in elastic fibers as well as some muscular tissue,

and full of large veins, so that they are capable of a considerable degree

of turgescence resembling erection during sexual excitement, while

Ballantyne finds that the nymphæ are supplied to a notable extent with

nervous end-organs.

More than any other part of the sexual apparatus in either sex, the lesser

lips, on account of their shape, their position, and their structure, are

capable of acquired modifications, more especially hypertrophy and

elongation. By stretching, it is stated, a labium can be doubled in its

dimensions. The "Hottentot apron," or elongated nymphæ, commonly found

among some peoples in South Africa, has long been a familiar phenomenon.

In such cases a length or transverse diameter of 3 to 5 centimeters is

commonly found. But such elongated nymphæ are by no means confined to one

part of the world or to one race; they are quite common among women of

European race, and reach a size equal to most of the more reliably

recorded Hottentot cases. Dickinson, who has very carefully studied this

question in New York, finds that in 1000 consecutive gynæcological cases

the labia showed some form of hypertrophy in 36 per cent., or more than 1

in 3; while among 150 of these cases who were neurasthenic, the proportion

reached 56 per cent., even when minor or doubtful enlargements were

disregarded. Bergh, in about 16 per cent. cases, found very enlarged

nymphæ, the height reached in about 5 per cent. of the cases of

enlargement being nearly six centimeters. Ploss and Bartels, in a full

discussion: of the "Hottentot apron," come to the conclusion that this

condition is perhaps in most cases artificially produced. It is known that

among the Basutos it is the custom for the elder girls to manipulate the

nymphæ of younger children, when alone with them, almost from birth, and

on account of the elastic nature of these structures such manipulation

quite adequately accounts for the elongation. It is not necessary to

suppose that the custom is practiced for the sake of producing sexual

stimulation--though this may frequently occur--since there are numerous

similar primitive customs involving deformation of the sexual organs

without the production of sexual excitement. Dickinson has come to a

similar conclusion as regards the corresponding elongation of the nymphæ

in civilized European women. In 361 out of 1000 women of good social class

he found elongation or thickening, often with a notable degree of

wrinkling and pigmentation, and believes that this is always the result of

frequently repeated masturbation practiced with the separation of the

nymphæ; in 30 per cent. of the cases admission of masturbation was

made.[91] While this conclusion is probably correct in the main, it

requires some qualification. To assert that whenever in women who have

not been pregnant the marked protrusion of the inner lips beyond the outer

lips means that at some period manipulation has been practiced with or

without the production of sexual excitement is to make too absolute a

statement. It is highly probable that the nymphæ, like the clitoris, are

congenitally more prominent in some of the lower human races, as they are

also in the apes; among the Fuegians, for instance, according to Hyades

and Deniker, the labia minora descend lower than in Europeans, although

there is not the slightest reason to suppose that these women practice any

manipulations. Among European women, again, the nymphæ sometimes protrude

very prominently beyond the labia majora in women who are organically of

somewhat infantile type; this occurs in cases in which we may be convinced

that no manipulations have ever been practiced.[92]

It is difficult to speak very decisively as to the function of the labia

minora. They doubtless exert some amount of protective influence over the

entrance to the vagina, and in this way correspond to the lips of the

mouth after which they are called. They fulfill, however, one very

definite though not obviously important function which is indicated by the

mythologic name they have received. There is, indeed, some obscurity in

the origin of this term, nymphæ, which has not, I believe, been

satisfactorily cleared up. It has been stated that the Greek name nymphê

has been transferred from the clitoris to the labia minora. Any such

transfer could only have taken place when the meaning of the word had been

forgotten, and nymphê had become the totally different word _nymphæ_, the

goddesses who presided over streams. The old anatomists were much

exercised in their minds as to the meaning of the name, but on the whole

were inclined to believe that it referred to the action of the labia

minora in directing the urinary stream. The term nymphæ was first applied

in the modern sense, according to Bergh, in 1599, by Pinæus, mainly from

the influence of these structures on the urinary stream, and he dilated in

his _De Virginitate_ on the suitability of the term to designate so poetic

a spot.[93] In more modern times Luschka and Sir Charles Bell considered

that it is one of the uses of the nymphæ to direct the stream of urine,

and Lamb from his own observation thinks the same conclusion probable. In

reality there cannot be the slightest doubt about the function of the

nymphæ, as, in Hyrtl's phrase, "the naiads of the urinary source," and it

can be demonstrated by the simplest experiment.[94]

The nymphæ form the intermediate portal of the vagina, as the canal which

conducts to the womb was in anatomy first termed (according to Hyrtl) by

De Graaf.[95] It is a secreting, erectile, more or less sensitive canal

lined by what is usually considered mucous membrane, though some have

regarded it as integument of the same character as that of the external

genitals; it certainly resembles such integument more than, for instance,

the mucous membrane of the rectum. In the woman who has never had sexual

intercourse and has been subjected to no manipulations or accidents

affecting this region, the vagina is closed by a last and final gate of

delicate membrane--scarcely admitting more than a slender finger--called

the hymen.

The poets called the hymen "fios virginitatis," the flower of

virginity, whence the medico-legal term _defloratio_.

Notwithstanding the great significance which has long been

attached to the phenomena connected with it, the hymen was not

accurately known until Vesalius, Fallopius, and Spigelius

described and named it. It was, however, recognized by the Arab

authors, Avicenna and Averroes. The early literature concerning

it is summarized by Schurig, _Muliebria_, 1729, Section II, cap.

V. The same author's _Parthenologia_ is devoted to the various

ancient problems connected with the question of virginity.

To say that this delicate piece of membrane is from the non-physical point

of view a more important structure than any other part of the body is to

convey but a feeble idea of the immense importance of the hymen in the

eyes of the men of many past ages and even of our own times and among our

own people.[96] For the uses of the feminine body, or for its beauty,

there is no part which is more absolutely insignificant. But in human

estimation it has acquired a spiritual value which has made it far more

than a part of the body. It has taken the place of the soul, that whose

presence gives all her worth and dignity, even her name, to the unmarried

woman, her purity, her sexual desirability, her market value. Without

it--though in all physical and mental respects she might remain the same

person--she has sometimes been a mark for contempt, a worthless

outcast.[97]

So fragile a membrane scarcely possesses the reliability which

should be possessed by a structure whose presence or absence has

often meant so much. Its absence by no means necessarily

signifies that a woman has had intercourse with a man. Its

presence by no means signifies that she has never had such

intercourse.

There are many ways in which the hymen may be destroyed apart

from coitus. Among the Chinese (and also, it would appear, in

India and some other parts of the East) the female parts are from

infancy kept so scrupulously clean by daily washing, the finger

being introduced into the vagina, that the hymen rapidly

disappears, and its existence is unknown even to Chinese doctors.

Among some Brazilian Indians a similar practice exists among

mothers as regards their young children, less, however, for the

sake of cleanliness than in order to facilitate sexual

intercourse in future years. (Ploss and Bartels, _Das Weib_, vol.

i, Chapter VI.) The manipulations of vaginal masturbation will,

of course, similarly destroy the hymen. It is also quite possible

for the hymen to be ruptured by falls and other accidents. (See,

e.g., a lengthy study by Nina-Rodrigues, "Des Ruptures de l'Hymen

dans les Chutes," _Annales d'Hygiène Publique_, September, 1903.)

On the other hand, integrity of the hymen is no proof of

virginity, apart from the obvious fact that there may be

intercourse without penetration. (The case has even been recorded

of a prostitute with syphilitic condylomata, a somewhat masculine

type of pubic arch, and vulva rather posteriorly placed, whose

hymen had never been penetrated.) The hymen may be of a yielding

or folding type, so that complete penetration may take place and

yet the hymen be afterwards found unruptured. It occasionally

happens that the hymen is found intact at the end of pregnancy.

In some, though not all, of these cases there has been conception

without intromission of the penis. This has occurred even when

the entrance was very minute. The possibility of such conception

has long been recognized, and Schurig (_Syllepsilogia_, 1731,

Section I, cap. VIII, p. 2) quotes ancient authors who have

recorded cases. For some typical modern cases see Guérard

(_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 15, 1895), in one of whose

cases the hymen of the pregnant woman scarcely admitted a hair;

also Braun (ib., No. 23, 1895).

The hymen has played a very definite and pronounced part in the social and

moral life of humanity. Until recently it has been more difficult to

decide what precise biological function it has exercised to ensure its

development and preservation. Sexual selection, no doubt, has worked in

its favor, but that influence has been very limited and comparatively very

recent. Virginity is not usually of any value among peoples who are

entirely primitive. Indeed, even in the classic civilization which we

inherit, it is easy to show that the virgin and the admiration for

virginity are of late growth; the virgin goddesses were not originally

virgins in our modern sense. Diana was the many-breasted patroness of

childbirth before she became the chaste and solitary huntress, for the

earliest distinction would appear to have been simply between the woman

who was attached to a man and the woman who followed an earlier rule of

freedom and independence; it was a later notion to suppose that the latter

woman was debarred from sexual intercourse. We certainly must not seek the

origin of the hymen in sexual selection; we must find it in natural

selection. And here it might seem at first sight that we come upon a

contradiction in Nature, for Nature is always devising contrivances to

secure the maximum amount of fertilization. "Increase and multiply" is so

obviously the command of Nature that the Hebrews, with their usual

insight, unhesitatingly dared to place it in the mouth of Jehovah. But the

hymen is a barrier to fertilization. It has, however, always to be

remembered that as we rise in the zoölogical scale, and as the period of

gestation lengthens and the possible number of offspring is fewer, it

becomes constantly more essential that fertilization shall be effective

rather than easy; the fewer the progeny the more necessary it is that they

shall be vigorous enough to survive. There can be little doubt that, as

one or two writers have already suggested, the hymen owes its development

to the fact that its influence is on the side of effective fertilization.

It is an obstacle to the impregnation of the young female by immature,

aged, or feeble males. The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that

admiration of force which marks the female in her choice of a mate. So

regarded, it is an interesting example of the intimate manner in which

sexual selection is really based on natural selection. Sexual selection is

but the translation into psychic terms of a process which has already

found expression in the physical texture of the body.

It may be added that this interpretation of the biological

function of the hymen is supported by the facts of its evolution.

It is unknown among the lower mammals, with whom fertilization is

easy, gestation short and offspring numerous. It only begins to

appear among the higher mammals in whom reproduction is already

beginning to take on the characters which become fully developed

in man. Various authors have found traces of a rudimentary hymen,

not only in apes, but in elephants, horses, donkeys, bitches,

bears, pigs, hyenas, and giraffes. (Hyrtl, _Op. cit._, vol. ii,

p. 189; G. Gellhoen, "Anatomy and Development of the Hymen,"

_American Journal Obstetrics_, August, 1904.) It is in the human

species that the tendency to limitation of offspring is most

marked, combined at the same time with a greater aptitude for

impregnation than exists among any lower mammals. It is here,

therefore, that a physical check is of most value, and

accordingly we find that in woman alone, of all animals, is the

hymen fully developed.